Artificial Intelligence (AI)

                                                                                        written 31 August, 2025

                                                                                published 7 September, 2025

     

            Everyone has heard about AI, but before we examine the artificial, let's discuss the real.  

            When we consider intelligence, we usually think of logical ability.  This quality of the left brain, which processes differences, sequences, and concepts, is where our personal sense of self resides.  While logic is powerful, it rests on assumptions which can never be examined within the logic itself.  Anything can be proven logically given the right assumptions.   

            Our habitual assumptions are laid down by patterns from our family and cultural, but new assumptions come as insight, inspiration, and creativity, through the right side of the brain.  These arise from our fundamental connection with all life.  Therefore, whenever we hear a logical proclamation, before accepting the conclusion, it is important to consider the assumptions behind the logic, which are usually unexpressed.

            There are other forms of intelligence, such as emotional or social intelligence, required for a harmonious society.  Without this type of intelligence, people can be logically smart, but terrible partners or co-workers.  Street smarts are another type of intelligence not based on logic alone.  Some people are very intelligent in some areas, and incompetent in others.

            AI, more technically called Large Language Models, arises from the explosion of computer speed, complexity, and capacity, producing transformative results in many fields, particularly in the world of medicine.  For example, AI can calculate the shape of proteins from the originating DNA sequence.  What used to take years can now be resolved in hours, and has revolutionized the pharmaceutical industry.  Reading medical images has improved using AI.

            AI has attracted massive amounts of investment from people wanting to get in on the next new thing and become the world's first trillionaire.  AI is now mentioned in all kinds of products, even if it doesn't make any sense.  

            But being computer programs, AI systems are based on logic, which means they are subject to the unexamined assumptions of the programmers.  AI systems have been trained on everything that has ever been written and therefore affected by those cultural assumptions as well.  Since there is no capacity for insight, there is little chance for any fundamentally new assumptions.  Therefore, it is no surprise that AI demonstrates some of the worst aspects of humanity.  They lie, fabricate, hallucinate, and fight back when threatened.  But they do it faster than humans can respond.  

            AI presents other social challenges.  Mechanization has always displaced blue collar workers, but AI is now displacing white collar workers.  With unlimited AI, anyone now studying to become a computer programmer or lawyer will probably be obsolete by the time they graduate.  Autonomous vehicles, a consequence of distributed AI, will displace millions of commercial drivers.  Unemployment resulting from AI has been projected to be 20 percent within five years.  This could save billions for the corporations, but would be devastating for society. 

            More dire concerns are the malicious use of AI power for disinformation or creation of new biological weapons.  Drones with AI capacity have already changed the nature of warfare, as demonstrated in the Ukraine.  As AI gets faster, cheaper, and can now even run on laptops, these concerns will increase with more wide spread usage.    

            Even without malicious applications, the explosive growth of AI threatens the electrical power production and grid delivery systems, by requiring tens of gigawatt hours of power, operating around the clock.  Electricity rates have already gone up, as these corporate entities outbid regular consumers.  The transmission grid is barely adequate for the existing demand, let alone the AI push, making power availability more problematic for everyone.

            The rising demand from AI server farms is driving the push to build more expensive gas turbines and nuclear plants, and even reopening decommissioned nuclear plants.  But these quick construction plans run up against the reality of constrained supply chains, hindering the execution of such ambitious desires.  

            Finally, the massive amount of money being poured into AI has created a speculative bubble which threatens the economy, with about 20 percent of retirement funds now invested in AI businesses.  But useful applications of AI seem to be falling short of expectations.  MIT recently reported that 95 percent of AI companies fail without returning a dime to investor.  Reality may crash the whole industry.

            As we let AI replace human intelligence, it could destroy the society if it works, or crash the economy if it fails, fully expressing the limits of worshiping logic alone.

Seven Months In

                                                                                        written 24 August, 2025

                                                                                    published 31 August, 2025

            This Republican administration took office seven months ago, claiming a mandate from 49 percent of the voters, and has already made an impact.

            Despite election bluster, the war in Ukraine didn't end on day one, and gasoline doesn't cost $1.99.  Instead, grocery prices continue to increase.  Beef prices are up 80 percent, and pork up 23 percent, being driven by the racist raids on agricultural workers.

            The erratic, TACO tariff assault on the global economy, a tax on everyone, is expected to cost each American household $2400.  Auto prices are up $6,000, and General Motors and Chrysler say tariffs have lost them billions in profits in just six months.   

            The administration denies the climate crisis and is killing a renewable energy future, while expanding oil, natural gas, and nuclear.  These power sources consume finite resources, guaranteeing rising energy costs.  Natural gas is already up 25 percent, and electricity costs increased by 19 percent.  The administration pushes to keep aging, polluting coal power plants open past their retirement dates, ensuring profits for that fossil fuel industry.  

            The Big Beautiful Bill eliminates tax incentives for wind and solar projects, making it harder for Americans to access cheap and reliable energy.  One in five US counties passed laws to restrict, or ban, construction of new solar, wind farms, or battery storage facilities.  This costs customers billions of dollars per year. 

            While the rest of the world is making the renewable shift, American industry will be producing obsolete, polluting, expensive technology while China supplies the world with affordable power, batteries, and EV's.  

            The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program helps 6 million low-income households pay their utility bills.  Despite rising costs and a widespread need, the administration fired all the workers, and plans to eliminate funding.

            Budget cut impacts in Mendocino County defunded the Edible Food Rescue and the Willits Food Bank is at risk.  The Big Beautiful Bill will increase health care costs for 3.4 million Californians, including about half of the Mendocino County population.  Over 300 rural hospitals across the U.S. are at risk of closing, including the Adventist Hospitals in Mendocino and Lake Counites, reducing health care access.

            Progress on solutions to the AI misinformation tsunami has stalled.  NSF was directed to halt funding for research projects to combat AI misinformation, and disinformation, allegedly to protect free speech.

            On his first day, the president revoked a set of federal flood protections known as the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, and FEMA fired 2,000 full-time employees since then.  The day of the Texas flooding event, call center contracts expired, hundreds of contractors were fired, and answered service calls dropped to one sixth of previous levels.  At least 120 people died in the flash floods, with hundreds more missing.

            The 2026 budget includes slashing NASA’s budget by 25 percent, cutting another 5,000 employees on top of 2,100 who had already left, ceding American space leadership to a rising China.

            The National Park Service budget was cut by $1.2 billion, affecting recreation, preservation, resource, and cultural programs, as well 5,500 full-time positions, jeopardizing 350 of the 433 sites run by the Park Service.

            The EPA plans to shut the Office of Research and Development, which studies the threat from climate change, toxic chemicals, and air and water pollution on human health. 

            After offending most of our allies, tourism has declined.  Visitors to Las Vegas are down 11 percent.  Arrivals from the U.K. and South Korea are down nearly 15 percent, Germany down by 28 percent, and Canadian tourism is down 33 percent, with an expected loss in 2025 of $30B.  

            The president is a bully and bludgeons everyone.  Jobs are declining and inflation is increasing, so he fires the messenger.  Universities and media corporations are sued into submission.  Anyone who thwarts him is being pursued by a politicized Justice department.  Troops have invaded Democratic cities, with more in store.  Knowing his actions are vastly unpopular, the Republican led states are working to gerrymander a lasting majority in the House.  The rule of law has been abandoned by the partisan Supreme Court.

            But not everyone losses.  The Big Beautiful Bill allocated $300 million for protecting Mar-a-Lago and other properties owned by the president. The tax break for billionaires is now permanent, added another $1T to the national debt in the last 6 months alone, causing a rating downgrade on US bonds.

            Republicans hate government and democracy, and it shows!

An Alternate Perspective

                                                                                        written 17 August, 2025

                                                                                    published 24 August, 2025

   

            I was disappointed by the last national election, believing our nation had made more enduring progress.  People are experiencing deep depression about the current state of affairs in our country, as a lifetime of effort to make the world more equitable is seemingly being swept away in months.  Hatred, misogyny, racism, economic inequity, corruption, and climate denial are being touted as American values, totally opposite to what I value about this country.  

            It wasn't the first time I had to face being out of tune, having lived my life in a west coast bubble, removed from much of the harsh reality that has been here all along.  In reality, except for the growing climate crisis, nothing happening today is fundamentally new, and has popped up all over the world from time to time.  But this time it seems more extreme, deliberately cruel, incoherent, and wide spread.  

            Metaphysics suggests we are currently experiencing an evolution in consciousness, shifting from historical, low vibrational, fear-based perspectives into a higher vibrational consciousness-based perspectives, more attuned to unity reality.  Perhaps our current situation is the final burst, darkest before the dawn, where all the old wounds come to the surface to be addressed and healed after centuries of neglect and suppression.

            Increased consciousness requires better inner balance and disciplined focus to be able to manifest this higher energy of being.  Otherwise, we become exhausted, anxious, and ill at ease, trying to keep up.  What throws us out of balance from being conscious in the moment is the habitual patterning we have built up over our lifetime, laid down by family, culture, religion, physiology, and even previous lifetimes.  These old responses, learned when we were less conscious than we are today, are continually dragged along, distorting our ability to fully encounter our present experience.  

            For example, imagine being middle aged, yet dealing with a situation today using old resentments based on a bad reaction to a teacher decades ago in elementary school.  We can't respond appropriately in the moment while reacting from the past, or projecting into the future.  This type of low efficiency communication causes suffering and grief.    While nobody HAS to change, the choice NOT to change, especially in a rapidly changing reality, means increasingly chaotic consequences, with growing personal costs.  Alternately, by choosing to examine the chaotic parts of our life as guides to places where we are resisting reality, we enhance our ability to change and grow.

            Many decades ago, I had a difficult relationship with a co-worker, which grew to the point where I decided I'd rather quit than work with him.  However, I had what can be called an AHA moment.  I realized that the very behavior I found intolerable in him was an unacknowledged pattern within myself.  Once I embraced this difficult truth, my relationship to my co-worker totally transformed.  He acted the same, but my reaction was completely different, and the workplace became more harmonious.  Reality works like a mirror, reflecting back to me what I have so far refused to see within myself.

            In the current situation, rather than falling into despair, perhaps this is opportunity to examine to what extent I myself embody the very qualities currently being socially expressed. 

            Where do I tolerate hate in my life?  How do I justify it when I indulge in that emotion?  Can I see the situation from another perspective, not endorsing the behavior, but not hating the person either?  I am a man.  How do I thoughtlessly, or overtly, express patriarchal superiority or domination toward women?  I am white.  Can I find ways where my narrow life experiences separate me from all the other people in the world who aren't white?  I am an educated, relatively intelligent American, which has allowed me to live a comfortable middle class life style, mostly doing what I like in the way of employment.  How has this separated me from those who live other life paths?  Can I live honestly?  Can I practice the Golden Rule?

            The global climate is changing, demanding a coherent global reaction if we expect humanity to thrive much longer.  Nothing less will do.  Where do I ignore my climate impact?

            I can't change other people, but with focused intention, I can change myself.  While I still breath, I have opportunity every moment, no matter what anyone else does.  This is something we can each do for ourselves and the world.

 

 

 

 

Learning The Hard Way

                                                                                        written 10 August, 2025

                                                                                    published 17 August, 2025

             

            There is a spectrum for learning.  At one end, a single word can be sufficient for the wise.  The other extreme is the head through the windshield stye of learning.  One quickly leads to increased consciousness.  The other perpetuates denial, blames others, and shoots the messenger, rather than learning.  Our mad king lives by the windshield style.  

            He refuses to acknowledge the climate crisis.  Perhaps because he doesn't like the people ringing the alarms.  Perhaps he gets kickback from the polluters.  Perhaps he hears truth coming from his dental fillings.  The reason, if one exists, doesn't really matter, but the result is destructive.  

            In addition to making total climate denial the Federal policy, he is removing any data that contradicts his delusion.  He is shutting down research and monitoring systems, people are being fired, even discussion of the issue is curtailed.  Satellites are being taken out of service to avoid troublesome data.  He believes that if we don't know what is happening, it won't hurt him.  

            Funds previously allocated for emergency response have been shifted to build deportation concentration camps.  Billions of investments in renewable energy are being withdrawn, and shifted into more fossil fuel and nuclear power projects, placing US policy contrary to the global trend.  Using the power of his position, he tries forcing other countries to follow his retrograde vision.  

            But the rest of us live in the real world, where the problem isn't going away, but is growing.

            Inundation events are increasing.  In just the last few weeks, 8 inches of intense rain caused flash flooding in northern India, destroying a tourist town, washing away multistore buildings with little warning.  Weeks of rain in northern China dropped over 23 inches, about what they normally get in a year.  The resulting flooding affected more than 300,000 people, including their capital, damaged more than 24,000 homes, 242 bridges, 470 miles of roads, and untold acres of crops.  In one day, 14 inches of rain hit Hong Cong, disrupting the city.  South Africa is cleaning up after devastating flooding there.  New York City saw 6 inches of rain in one day, halting subway service, snarling the city.  As much as 8 inches of rain soaked the upper US Midwest.  Hail as large as 1.5 inches hit eastern Oregon.

            Wildfires and heat are increasing.  Almost 600 wildfires are now burning in Canada, causing air quality in the US northeast to soar 10 times greater than the level declared hazardous to humans.  In the western US, 120 fires are currently burning, and several are megafires, larger than 100,000 acres.  Another fire near Los Angeles started just last week.  Major fires are burning in Spain, Portugal, France and Turkey. 

            Europe is suffering through record breaking heat.  Tehran and Kabul are running out of drinking water.  The US southwest is getting hotter.  Phoenix had 113 days of continuous highs above 100° last year, and this year may beat that record.  Wild climate changes and extreme heat have distorted corn crops in the upper Midwest where as much as half the crop produced no corn, despite vibrant growth of the stalks.

            While the whole planet has been slow to deal with the growing crisis, in part due to long term disinformation from the fossil fuel industry, the tide is turning.  The wars now being fought over diminishing fossil fuel reserves simply add to the imperative to change.  Most countries don't have any fossil fuel reserves, providing additional incentives to develop alternative energy sources.  If the species is to survive, this is the energy system that will be required.  

            China is by far the world leader in renewables.  Last year, 80 percent of the solar panels, 70 percent of the lithium-ion batteries, and 70 percent of the EVs sold in the global market were produced in China.  

            In contrast, even though all those technologies began in the US, America under our current administration is turning its back on the future, desperately trying to recreate a vanished mythical past, where we were the only superpower.  This is the result of a delusional narcissist, supported by sycophants who believe they will be able to survive if they submit to the cult leader.  In my opinion, this will fail.  Being at war with a fact is the root of all suffering.  The fact is: reality is inclusive, and our economy and society require a habitable environment.  

  

            

 

 

Government As Business

                                                                                          written 3 August, 2025

                                                                                    published 10 August, 2025

  

            A long-standing Republican goal is to make government into a business, implying government should make a profit.  But the business ideal is about money, a concept relatively disconnected from reality, whereas the government ideal is about servicing the real needs of the larger society. 

            For example, a half century ago the stock market closed at 821, while it recently closed at 43,589, 53 times greater.  Is the economy really worth that much more, or is the value of the dollar smaller?  In contrast, a single glass of clean water was as refreshing then as it is today, without any consideration of price.  That is the contrast between concept and reality.

            The entire business model is narrowly defined.  Most corporations have limited liability by design, protecting investment capital against total collapse.  Consequently, significant business errors are not paid by those who profited from the errors, but are shifted to the larger society.  This capitalizes the profits and socializes the losses.  

            It is possible to build infrastructure, products, and systems that are relatively safe and long lasting, but it is cheaper to cut corners.  In the siloed framework of capitalist accounting, where each part is considered independently, this makes quick money for some and leaves the problems for someone else, as if the business people aren't part of the larger society. 

            Furthermore, fraud is very profitable, substituting materials and products that are not just a little less that required, but may be completely inadequate to the task.  Products with long term liabilities, such as addictive or toxic materials, can generate massive profits before the consequences are acknowledged, and may still be produced after discovery if sufficient lawyers are hired.  At the extreme, outright theft is profitable, just taking value from others without even pretending there is an equitable trade.

            The point is that by primarily considering short term, limited fiscal gain, businesses are manifesting separation, acting as if they are fundamentally disconnected from their larger consequences.  This may work temporarily for the lucky few, but it creates wide spread misery and may eventually destroy the whole society.  Capitalism is as primordial as fire, converting potential into useable form.  But like a fire storm, unrestrained capitalism will destroy everything before it stops. 

            One response to these business excesses is creation of government with sufficient perspective and power to restrain unwanted activity.  At its finest, government works for the benefit of the whole.  Reality has a socialist bent, because we really are all in this together, much as conservatives try to deny this fact.

            When some in our society are sick, impoverished, or hungry, this eventually impacts everyone.  Resources have to be applied to eradicate or control those not nourished by the system.  As the problem grows, increasing the economic burden, the society weakens from within and becomes more vulnerable to external assault.  Like illness in our bodies, it is more cost effective to maintain health and harmony in the first place, quickly treating issues as they arise, rather than trying to fix the body once decay has set in and threatens the whole system.

            Functional government regulates business activity.  For example, theft, and fraud are illegal and punishable to take the profit out of these actions.  Standards are established and enforced for product quality, supporting wide spread marketing.  Functional government takes long term goals into account against the urge for short term gain, such as building codes for durability, seismic and fire safety, and preserving open space for future generations.  Functional government invests in the future, supporting education, basic research, and universal health care.  At local levels, government invests in the basics of modern social life: potable water, safe sanitation, and adequate transportation. 

            Most of these functions can be supplied by businesses, and are in some locations, but rather than profit, government has a goal of inclusive service, providing quality necessities, accessible to all members of society, at the lowest possible cost.

            Admittedly, what I have described is an ideal, and the reality of government can fall short.  As we see in our current Federal leadership, individuals in government can be just as greedy and unprincipled as in business.  But business will never deal with the whole of society.  It isn't profitable.  To mindlessly eliminate government, pretending it is a problem rather than a necessary balance to business, will destroy society as well as businesses.  Unfortunately, we are witnessing this unfolding today.

 

 

 

A Significant Choice

                                                                                             written 27 July, 2025

                                                                                      published 3 August, 2025

  

            It is significant how we choose to answer the question: is life happening TO me, or FOR me?  One is a choice for living in separation, being a victim.  The other is a choice for inclusion in life, being a co-creator.

            For thousands of years, and hundreds of generations, human cultures have chosen the perspective of separation.  The individual self becomes the center of everything, and the infinity of reality is perceived as a threat.  A person believes they are either predator or prey, sometimes rapidly shifting between the two.  The stranger becomes an enemy, although family and tribe can expand the small circle of safety.  Violence and war are endemic.  

            Certainty and control are perceived as necessary for security, requiring armoring up against change, which is viewed as a threat.  This fear-based perspective is taught to the next generation, believed necessary for their survival.  While this isn't the totality of culture, the view dominates, and 80-90 percent of the population is traumatized, cut off from the full experience of the human potential by multiple layers of rigid, enculturated habit.  The resulting inequitable economies and dogmatic religions have ensured social compliance.   

            The alternative choice, the perspective of inclusion, has always been present.  Some form of the Golden Rule, which is fundamentally inclusive, is found in every spiritual tradition on the planet, usually within the mystics.  But this has traditionally been a minority perspective, easily dominated by fear and violence.

            Choosing inclusion means I am part of, not apart from, the reality which nourishes all life.  Therefore, everything that happens to me, is for my benefit.  Easy to embrace when life is going well, but more difficult when problems arise.  By choosing to encounter, rather than reject, even the difficult events, I remain open to learning something new about myself and life.  

            Having been raised in a fear-based culture, armored in habitual patterns rooted in childhood, culture, and my specific physiology, my experience of the outer world is interpreted through this filter of internal programming.  Consequently, my response in the moment is often out of harmony with the demands of the moment, causing me pain and suffering.  

            If I continually choose the mindless responses arising from these old patterns, nothing changes.  But if I can see that the present difficulty is highlighting one of these patterns, noticing the habitual response rather than simply responding from the habit, there is opportunity to choose differently.  

            Even if I have difficulty accepting my participation in the creation of everything that I experience, I can appreciate how my choice of response to whatever happens IS within my power.  Even if that is the extent of my free will, it can be transformative.  

            As I evolve my internal programming, my experience of the world evolves as well.  Life becomes a process of growth, shedding obsolete patterns, becoming more conscious in the moment, expressing a more authentic self to the world.  The purpose of life shifts from craving security through acquisition of money and stuff, to acquisition of diverse experiences and manifesting more of my human potential.

            Habitual response can be marginally effective in a world where change is slow.  But the world today is changing rapidly, and old habits quickly become obsolete, irrelevant, and even dangerous.  Some of the changes come from the explosion of technological capacities, some from population pressures, and some from the consequences of longstanding mismatch between human culture and nature, now building to a head.  

            Our current national leadership, a stunning expression of fear-based separation, has accelerated the rate of change, dismantling America for short term gain.  The assault on undocumented people is adversely affecting domestic food production.  The reduction of funding for the neediest and sickest, increases community stress.  Recklessly increasing the national debt to fund billionaire tax breaks has resulted in the downgrading of US bonds on the global market.  The arrogant, on again off again, tariff bullying is destabilizing traditional trading relationships, makes long term business planning difficult, constipates supply chains, and raises prices.  The total disregard for the growing climate crisis, and massive support for accelerated fossil fuel consumption, increases further climate related destruction.  This puts the US out of step with the rest of the world, and elevates China to global leadership for the future.

            But in the face of all this, I still have the personal power of how to live my life moment to moment, choosing consciousness over fear.

 

 

 

 

 

Nuclear Fuel Cycle

                                                                                             written 20 July, 2025

                                                                                         published 27 July, 2025

   

            Nuclear energy is promoted as renewable and clean.  It is neither.  

            Renewable can only apply to energy forms where the power is already present, waiting to be collected, not to energy sources consuming finite material.  Renewable energy is present in solar (from the Sun), wind (from atmospheric solar heating), hydro (from stored rain resulting from wind), and geothermal (from Earth core heat).  These forms of power are constantly renewed and will outlast humanity.  Nuclear energy consumes uranium, which is finite, not renewable. 

            While it is true that a functioning nuclear reactor does not add any additional carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, to describe it as clean is a very narrow, deliberately misleading, use of the word. 

            Uranium is contained in many rocks, but is uselessly small quantities.  Even economically viable ore contains only 0.05-0.1 percent uranium.  Therefore, for every pound of uranium, 1,000-2,000 pounds of tailings are produced, usually piled near the processing site.  The tailings contain some traces of uranium, a toxic metal as well as radioactive, which contaminates mine workers, local ground water, and areas downwind.  Mining is powered by diesel fuel, adding atmospheric carbon dioxide.  The market rate for uranium is about $70 a pound.

            Uranium is primarily two isotopes, which are the same element with 92 protons, but with different numbers of neutrons in the nucleus.  99 percent is U-238 (with 146 neutrons) which is relatively stable and 0.7 percent is U-235 (1.3 percent lighter with only 143 neutrons) which is radioactive.  In the US, reactor fuel uranium has to enriched to about 5 percent U-235. 

            This is done by first converting uranium into a gaseous compound, then spinning it at high speed in a tubular centrifuge.  This flings the heavier isotopes toward the outer edge, and the slightly lighter isotopes are pulled from the center, to be processed in the next centrifuge, repeated in a series with as many as 1000 steps.  This is very energy and time intensive.  Nine pounds of uranium depleted of U-235 is produced for each pound of enriched reactor fuel, which now costs over $7,000. 

            The US currently has 92 working reactors, mostly sized at 1,100 megawatts, which each hold about 100 tons of enriched uranium.  The byproducts of the fission process slowly degrade the economic functioning of the reactor fuel, which must then be replaced when only 5 percent of the fissionable U-235 has been consumed.  In practice, a quarter of the fuel rods, 25 tons, are replaced each year.  This is called spent fuel, even though 95 percent of the enriched uranium is still intact.  The rods are extremely radioactive, lethal to life for hundreds of thousands of years.  Even though it has been 70 years since the first reactor went online, there is still no domestic radioactive waste disposal site.  It is stored in casks onsite at the reactors, like mentally unstable people who keep their urine and feces in jars in their bedroom. 

            This so called clean power source annually produces 50,000 pounds of the most long-lasting toxic material even seen on the planet, which required 500,000 pounds of uranium ore before enrichment, leaving at least 500,000,000 pounds of toxic tailings scattered around the countryside.  This is the yearly impact of only one reactor, and the US has 92.  Just to boil water.

            Unfortunately, that is not the whole story.  The annual fuel use for each reactor also produces 450,000 pounds of depleted uranium (DU), a very expensive byproduct of the nuclear fuel cycle.  Corporation have incentive is to find a return on this investment.  Uranium is very dense, one of the heaviest elements in the periodic table.  The Pentagon buys DU to use as armor piercing bullets, which can punch through steel, especially useful against tanks.  

            Upon impact, the uranium is vaporized, quickly recondensing as very fine, long lived, toxic particles, which spreads with the wind.  Where DU has been used, such as Bosnia and Iraq, large areas were contaminated, and little effort was been made to clean them up.  Equipment, soldiers, and civilians have been contaminated.  In the body, uranium metal gravitates toward bones and gonads.  Contaminated service members have passed this on to their spouses. 

            Only a corporate booster, with no compassion or awareness of the whole system, would consider nuclear a clean source of energy.  But as one of the most expensive, heavily subsidized, centralized energy forms, it makes money, keeping shareholders happy.

 

 

 

 

 

Connecting The Dots

                                                                                             written 11 July, 2025

                                                                                          pubished 20 July, 2025

  

            A structural limitation of capitalism is the silo effect, where one part can make a profit while degrading the larger company or even the whole economy.  A poster child for this was Enron, which appeared to be a spectacular financial success in 2001, making the cover of Forbes magazine just a few weeks before going bankrupt, when off books losses were revealed.  Reality is whole, and attempts to ignore that are doomed to eventual failure.  Consequently, whole systems thinking makes sense in the long run.  

            After WW2, the British global empire was effectively over, and England had to chose between trying to revive that old order or recommit to being a democracy.  It chose the latter.  One of the policy changes was a universal health care system.  

            At the time, most homes were heated by burning coal, which was a relatively affordable domestic fossil fuel.  Because the adverse health effects of coal burning cost the individual home owners, they weren't accounted in the heating costs.  When the government began paying for health care costs, it became apparent that burning coal was a huge burden on the society.  The government subsidized a program to change residential heating from coal to electricity, understanding that this one-time expense was much less than the ongoing health costs of the old system.  Connecting the dots with whole system thinking showed the advantage of a targeted investment to get long term savings.

            Today we are facing a similar problem.  Ongoing combustion of fossil fuels has changed atmospheric chemistry, retaining more heat each decade.  This increases extreme weather events, including fires and storms, with infrastructure destruction growing each year.  The insurance industry evolved to spread financial risk over time, setting yearly payments at a level to cover yearly claims, plus a margin of profitability.  As the cost of annual destruction has increased, companies are forced to raise rates or go bankrupt.  When consumers complain, some states try to cap rate increases, which ignores reality, so companies stop writing new insurance policies, perhaps leaving the area completely.  Even if rates aren't capped, the increases soon become unaffordable.

            Whether unaffordable or unavailable, the lack of insurance threatens the real estate and banking industries, as well as the property tax structure for local and state governments.  To avoid this fate, states create insurance funds of their own, such as the California FAIR plan, supported in part by payments from the insurance companies that still want to do any business within that state.  While they try to fill an essential need, coverage is more limited and costs are higher than industry insurance.  However, the fundamental problem of increasing climate caused destruction is completely unaddressed, risking not just collapse of an individual insurance company, but collapse of the entire state economy.

            Fire is California's main problem, but storms are an even bigger problem in Florida, where insurance, if available, is four times more expensive, and some homeowners are facing annual insurance bills up to $16,000 for a modest home.  Those with no mortgage can risk dropping insurance, however the next disaster could wipe them out.

            But the insurance industry refuses to connect the dots, and invests heavily in fossil fuel companies, because they still seem to make money, just like Enron.  Our current federal policy is climate denial, canceling any effort to make a change, and billions are being spent to accelerate the climate crisis with further fossil fuel development.  

            Until climate awareness is addressed head on, the erosion of the economy will only increase.  Climate concern is not a liberal fad.  It is not just about green jobs or polar bears.  It is about the economic viability of our society, and anyone who stills denies this is fooling themselves.

            Insurance is just the immediate bite, an economic impact that might get enough attention to begin making a change before bigger disasters arrive, although it might require a disaster to impact enough people.  The Redwood Valley and Santa Rosa fire storms in 2017 changed local awareness.  Everyone was related to someone, or knew someone, who was affected.  The entire community organized to help.  

            But judging by the recent election, and the climate denial policies now in place, those fires weren't enough.  Hurricane damage in the southeast wasn't enough.  The recent flooding in Texas wasn't enough.

            But rest assured, the disasters will grow until it is enough.  The only question is timing.

 

 

 

 

State of the Nation

                                                                                               written 6 July, 2025

                                                                                         published 13 July, 2025

 

            On this 4th of July weekend, celebrating the 249th anniversary of the founding of our nation, our country seems to be in trouble.  The Republican Senate and House narrowly passed the "Big Beautiful Bill", reducing taxes for the wealthiest, while impoverishing the poorest, throwing millions off health care.  The national debt will grow by more than 10 percent, causing the US credit rating to be downgraded, keeping interest rates high.

            The Republican Supreme Court declared the president above the law, who needn't follow judicial orders, allowing him to disregard the Constitution which he swore to uphold when taking office.   

            The administration is populated by presidential loyalists, without regard for knowledge of, or competence in, the job they hold.  Revenge against anyone who thwarts presidential whim, including whistle blowers and journalists, is now policy.  Attacks on undocumented immigrants have militarized the justice system and disrupted core parts of the economy that depend on cheap labor, including food production, construction, and care workers.  Combining with TACO tariff uncertainty, the economy has already begun to slow.

            The president openly favors foreign dictators, disparages and bullies traditional allies, and is blatant about turning the executive office into a cash machine for his personal and family businesses.  In addition, his deteriorating mental condition is becoming more obvious every week, which even Fox News has begun to acknowledge.

            However, none of this is unique.  America has had corrupt, incompetent, even demented, leaders in the past.  The American ideal of equal justice under the law is a noble goal, but in practice, women and people of color were originally left out, and had to fight for inclusion.  The Senate is designed to be unrepresentative.  California, with 2 Senators, has as many citizens as the 20 least populated states, with 40 Senators.  

            My primary grief is the climate crisis, officially denied and declared a hoax.  Climate mention is being removed from Federal documents and websites.  Research is being defunded.  Programs to deal with the problem are now canceled.  Other countries are pressured to repeal their efforts.  Funding for weather reporting is being cut, leaving everyone blind to what is coming.  Disaster relief funds have been shifted to deporting undocumented aliens, throwing States on their own financially.  Instead, the push is on for consumption of expensive, finite fossil fuels, further destabilizing the climate, and guaranteeing higher energy prices.    

            But reality doesn't care about denial.  An intense night time downpour in central Texas, recently caused a river to rise 26' feet in one hour.  Inadequate weather reporting, resulting from budget cuts, increased the death toll.  106 large fires are currently burning in Alaska, with another 84 in the lower 48.  This will get worse.

            All of the above results from the same long standing cultural error: the belief in separation in a unity reality.  The greed and corruption of exclusive economic gain, wide spread misogyny and racism, and the complete disregard for the value of the environment and long-term sustainability of life, follow from this error.

            The collapse of the political/economic model that has overshot the carrying capacity of the planet, powered by the rapid consumption of unique, irreplaceable stores of fossil energy, looks like a disaster.  But from another perspective, it may be a cathartic healing of thousands of years of human misperception.

            Which suggests an effective response.  As a product of this culture, to the extent that I begin to heal myself, opening to being part of a conscious unity, to that extent my small portion of reality changes.  This has been known for generations, and a path forward is easy to find once you start looking.  

            One tool, common to many spiritual traditions, recognizes that all experience of reality happens only in the moment: the eternal Now.  All action takes place only in the now.  However, my thinking is often rooted in the past or the future, which are concepts, not experiences.  The apparent tsunami of dire events tends to pull us into longing for the remembered past, or worrying about the possible future.  The more often I can pull my attention into this moment, the more I am able to experience what is actually happening, and am more able to respond appropriately.  Most times, when I succeed in focusing on this moment, I find I am fine, and relatively at peace with life.  

            The world is rapidly unfolding.  The challenge is to keep our balance as best we can.

 

 

 

 

 

A Tale of Two Countries

                                                                                            written 29 June, 2025

                                                                                           published 6 July, 2025

            The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2024 was the warmest year since record keeping began in 1880.  The rate of warming has increased nine-fold to 0.27°C per decade today.  This drives an increase in extreme weather events, such as torrential downpours, stronger wind and fire storms, and deadly heatwaves.  The ocean is warming and acidifying, disrupting sea life, and sea level is rising.  

            Globally, the economic costs are already apparent and more than 80 percent of the world’s people want their governments to do more about climate change.  Combined, the US and China produce almost half of the global GDP, but their responses to the climate crisis are very different, especially under our present administration.  

            Since 2020, the U.S. has added 84,200 megawatts (MW) of solar and 7,000 MW of wind (about 30 percent of the global total) and a 15-fold increase of utility battery capacity to 30,000 megawatt hours (MWh).  Battery chemistries are now more varied, and costs are dropping as the scale of manufacturing increases.  Consequently, new renewable energy power plants, with storage, are the most economically competitive form of power generation.  Solar arrays with batteries are the quickest to deploy, with shorter deployment times than constructing new natural gas power plants.

            But the current administration is determined to destroy the whole renewable industry, proclaiming the entire climate crisis a "hoax".  Federal subsidies have been repealed and new taxes are being proposed to stall further renewable development.  EV charging systems are being dismantled, and US governmental assets are being forced to sell EV investments.  The domestic financial industry is being told to defund further renewable projects, and pressure is being applied to force other countries to follow suit.  

            Oil, natural gas, and nuclear are the preferred Republican energy sources, although those are all expensive, and consume diminishing finite resources, mostly imported from other countries.  The recent attacks in the middle east are about access to nuclear power and have threatened economic disruption of shipping of gas and oil.  This show of power requires a huge Pentagon budget, further adding to energy costs.  Republican policy ensures continued profits for the billionaire status quo, but impoverishes the general public.  Even if massive increases in these energy sources could happen in time, or be affordable, they ignore the growing climate crisis.  That is what passes for wisdom in the US today.

            In contrast, China, with few domestic oil and gas resources, embraced renewable power as a national economic policy, and now leads the world in electrification of their economy, 30 percent compared to 22 percent in the US and the EU.  China, now the primary manufacturer of affordable alternative energy hardware, with over half of the world's solar installations, increasing 50 percent faster than the global average, is positioned to be an economic superpower in clean energy technologies going forward.  

            China produces electric vehicles of all kinds.  In 2024, EV's were almost half of all passenger cars sold in China, up from just 6 percent in 2020.  BYD, China's primary auto company, sells more EV's annually than Tesla, and markets some EV's in the EU for less than $8,000.  Yadea, another Chinese company, sells electric scooters for $700 with 150 mile range. 

            China is leading in new battery designs, including very fast charging, and complete battery swaps in just a few minutes, and is already manufacturing new chemistries, like sodium ion batteries which are cheaper and safer.

            Globally, EVs sales are increasing, while combustion vehicle sales continue to fall, reducing oil demand.  The reality of this "peak demand" for oil has kept wholesale oil prices low, despite the recent conflict in Iran.  While that might seem good for consumers, the price is too low for most oil companies to make a profit, so further exploration efforts have diminished.

            The two largest economies on the planet have staked out divergent paths.  China is investing in a sustainable energy future and the US is doubling down on an expensive, obsolete energy past.  It is still unclear if there really is a sustainable solution to the climate crisis, because environmental events are unfolding more rapidly each year, and we have squandered decades in denial.  But it is very clear that the past is no longer here.  However, politicians and the very wealthy seem to be quite divorced for reality, and the rest of us are along for the ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Power Play

                                                                                            written 22 June, 2025

                                                                                        published 29 June, 2025

 

            There has been a sharp increase in electrical power demand, driven by data centers, AI, and cryptocurrency.  The current US administration, and the billionaires it represents, are pushing to expand power produced from nuclear and natural gas, being more profitable and centralized.  But at what cost?

            Nuclear power is already some of the most expensive electricity on the grid.  In the US, 18 percent of our electricity comes from 92 nuclear reactors, averaging 1,000MW capacity each.  America was the first nation to develop commercial nuclear power, so our reactors average 42 years old, but the design life of these plants is 40 years.  Aging reactors are more prone to failure.  

            The president plans to increase nuclear power by a factor of 4 by 2050, which requires constructing a new large reactor every few weeks.  Current costs are about $7.5B each.  Historically, reactors have taken 5-10 years for construction, and often run over time and over budget before completion.

            Uranium is a finite fuel.  Russia supplies over 90 percent of the uranium used in the US, a questionable source for essential power.  In addition, the most productive, affordable, global uranium reserves have already been depleted, guaranteeing future price increases.  

            Natural uranium is mostly composed of two isotopes, 99 percent U-238, which is fairly stable, and 0.7 percent U-235, which experiences radioactive decay.  Reactor fuel must be "enriched", increasing the percentage of U-235 to 3-5 percent, an expensive, energy intensive process done in only one domestic location.

            When uranium fissions, it produces heat and fission by-products.  When only 5 percent of the U-235 has been consumed, by-product contamination makes the fuel uneconomical to operate, and the reactor must be refueled.  This so called "spent fuel" is extremely radioactive, and so far, no domestic commercial disposal site has been established. 

            The current nuclear hope is based on Small Modular Reactors (SMR), which will be mass produced, and supposedly cheaper to build.  While many plans are in play, and billions have been committed, no commercial units are operating yet.  The designs use different cooling, and are promised to be safer.  However, the Fukushima reactors failed in a way that was promised could "never happen", shifting from a $40B asset to a $1T liability in days, and the cleanup is optimistically expected to take a century.  Despite any differences, SMR's will consume a finite fuel resource, and produce radioactive waste, both unaddressed issues.

            Combustion of natural gas generates 43 percent of US electricity, with the advantage of coming online quickly as "peaker plants", helping provide grid stability.  But these thermal systems require time to come from dead cold to operational temperatures, so must be kept hot, and staffed throughout the day, even if needed for only an hour.  A new combined cycle turbine, which uses steam most efficiently, is produced in only a few places, and the global supply chain is congested, due to increased demand and TACO tariff uncertainty, so prices are higher, and delivery takes more than three years.

            Operation requires combustion of natural gas, which has varied in price by a factor of three over the last few years, depending on global demand and instability.  Currently, 40 percent of US production of natural gas is from our Permian shale fields, which has reached peak production.  Natural gas will increasingly be imported.

            This can be by pipeline as a gas, or by ship when super cooled as liquified natural gas (LNG), which is twice as expensive.  Canada is our only source for importing through pipelines, but our president has driven a wedge between the US and our northern trading partner.  About 20 percent of the world's LNG is shipped from the middle east through the Hormuz Straits, a narrow choke point between Iran and Oman.  

            Electricity generated from natural gas requires expensive hardware, with highly variable fuel costs, totally outside domestic control, which will only increase over time.  As I write, the Israeli attack on Iran last week increased natural gas prices 14 percent, but shipping was still proceeding.  The president attacked today, and Iran has voted to blockade the Straits, which could double prices immediately.  Stay tuned!

            Solar arrays with storage are relatively cheap to install, and can be decentralized.  The power they collect is free, without producing socially destructive waste.  Because this threatens control by the power elite, electricity costs will increase as the US becomes increasingly irrelevant, in a world slowly moving toward sustainability.