Massively Connected

                                                                                              written 8 June, 2025

                                                                                        published 15 June, 2025

     

            In 1999, Thomas Friedman wrote "The Lexus And The Olive Tree", describing the fundamental global shifts after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Soviet Union in 1991.  Decades of rigid geopolitical economic structures disappeared, and the new reality was dominated by the rise of computers, the Internet, and cell phones.  Where before, all transactions operated within the confines of "which side are you on?", now everyone was functionally connected to an unprecedented degree.  Since the book was written, this connectivity has accelerated with the introduction of the first iPhone in 2008 and now artificial intelligence (AI).

            With Internet access, information can be drawn from around the world and be communicated with almost anyone.  Business can be conducted from anywhere that has access to shipping, and financial transactions can take place anywhere.  This connectivity has given rise to web businesses that have driven long standing brick and mortar companies into bankruptcy, and allowed the migration of viable economies from urban densities to more rural communities, as long as web access is adequate.

            The economic advantages of being connected have spurred countries to open their economies to the world, bringing in foreign investment, which can increase the standard of living.  Countries that remain disconnected, supposedly protecting their local advantages, fall behind.  Disconnection comes from inadequate Internet bandwidth and availability, lack of accounting transparency, limited rule of law, and corrupt political systems.  Unfortunately, America is becoming more disconnected under our current administration.

            A measure of the rapid change is computer processing speeds.  Since the Berlin Wall fell, consumer computer processing speeds have increased by over 100 thousand times, and super computers are a million times faster than that. All transactions are happening much more rapidly.  In minutes, you can arrange a car loan through your phone, from anywhere.  Profits in the stock market can come by placing a server a few feet closer to the node, getting bids microseconds faster than the competition.  

            Friedman is a free market booster, so his book mostly describes the benefits from this new connected, free market, globalized world, but does identify some problems.  Monetary wealth is the only measure of prosperity that is valued.  Short term thinking dominates, destroying the natural world.  Extreme economic inequities are on the rise.

            Global finances are no longer managed and controlled by a small group.  People all over the world participate, forming what Friedman calls the "Electronic Herd", which swirls around the planet, chasing the maximum profit of the moment.  Being a herd of individuals, mob mentality prevails, dominated by incomplete information.  It can flood into countries, turbocharging the local economy, but can be spooked, and rush out in a flash, leaving economic wreckage behind.  

            In the connected economy, a crash in one corner of the planet can trigger global upheaval elsewhere.  The 1997 Southeast Asian crisis began in Thailand, affected other countries in the region, spread to Russia and its neighbors, and then to Latin America.  Chasing profits selling mortgage backed securities in the US, using increasingly risky loans, eventually caused the 2008 economic crisis, which shook the world.

            This massive interconnection is real, an expression of the basic unity described in both spiritual metaphysics and quantum physics and cannot be avoided.  But our culture, historically based on the illusion of separation and exclusive gain, is under assault because actual connection has never before been such a dominant paradigm.  

            As a result, we are vulnerable to the limitations inherent in the human species.  Many people are responsible and ethical, while others are corrupt and traumatized, but all have access to the whole world.  Along with the benefits of connection, we also suffer from cybercrime, hacking, fraud, polarizing social media, and massive disinformation.  News sources used to be held to journalistic standards, but now anyone can be an influencer, and AI makes fraud easier.  Instead of a few channels of information, we have millions, and information overload is everywhere.

            Rather than accepting all our information from "outside", perhaps we can begin to cultivate information from "inside".  Inspiration is how our personality experiences the "aha" clarity coming from our internal connection with being alive.  Everyone already has that access to some extent, but intention can enhance our receptivity.  Balance may involve deliberately stepping away from outside information addiction, and instead cultivate practices of quiet, stilling the external noise, to hear the soft internal voice of wisdom, which is our birthright.

 

Compared To What?

                                                                                              written 1 June, 2025

                                                                                           published 8 June, 2025

 

            In any conversation about the climate crisis and solutions to deal with it, someone often complains "it costs too much".  But rarely does the discussion consider "compared to what?"

            To restate the basics, for several centuries our global energy system has been powered by combustion of fossil fuels, which has slowly changed the atmospheric chemistry, making it more opaque to infrared energy, trapping more heat.  As a result, Earth is becoming less habitable for humans, and economic stability is threatened.  The solution is twofold: complete economic decarbonization (stop adding to the problem), and carbon dioxide sequestration (returning to an atmosphere we know supports humanity).

            The first part requires a complete redesign of our global energy system, with cost estimates of about $60 trillion, which is indeed a lot of money.  But compared to what?  The global economy already spends $7 trillion on fossil fuels each and every year.  However, the cheapest reserves, those easiest to access, have already been burned up, so this annual cost will keep increasing, even if sufficient new reserves are developed.  

            In contrast, renewable energy is free, already being delivered to the planet, so the cost involves only the hardware to collect and store that free energy.  Decarbonizing with renewables would change from a constantly increasing energy bill to a fixed cost infrastructure.  Investing in renewables avoids inflation by prepaying decades of energy costs.

            Of course, the trillions involved in the fossil fuel industry create massive economic inertia to keep things as they are, since the current economic winners will probably not be the renewable energy winners.  But the economics are pushing toward change.

            While fossil fuel development will only get more expensive, further exhausting finite resources each year, solar systems are getting cheaper, because improved manufacturing continues to drop the per unit price.  In the last fifty years, solar panel prices dropped from $100/watt to $0.50/watt, while gasoline prices increased from $0.20/gal to $5.00/gal.

            Ukiah School district installed canopy solar arrays in three location in PG&E territory, at a cost of $3.00/watt.  Over the 25 year life of the system, that will produce electricity costing $0.10/KWhr, one quarter the current cost of the cheapest PG&E power.

            The large upfront cost is a problem.  However, this is just a financial distribution issue.  The explosive shift from horses to automobiles in the early 1900's was the result of bankers extending auto loans to more people.  As more global monied interests see the profit in renewables, the shift will accelerate.

            However, if you still think it is too expensive to make the renewable shift even to save money, then consider the cost of doing nothing.  More extreme climate is already here, and getting worse.  When a community is destroyed, like Paradise, CA, the Big Bend area of Florida, or the storm flooded areas in the east, it can take more than a decade to get back to where they were before the disaster.  US economic losses from extreme climate (drought, floods, heat, cold, fires, and storms) are already approaching Pentagon funding levels, with unaccounted increases in health and grocery costs.  

            Extreme wildfires and damaging storms have made affordable insurance problematic in California and Florida.  Consider what will happen to real estate, banking, and local governmental property tax based funding, when large areas become "uninsurable", which is projected to happen within a decade or so.  

             These economic hits are the result of just the gradual heating from the changing climate.  Abrupt, nonlinear changes have also been identified, which would break our economy and our entire food production system.

            The global GDP is over $110 trillion, and the economy is brittle, vulnerable to disruption from unexpected disturbances.  What is it worth to avoid having the economy collapse?  By spending extra money now, we can avoid, or at least mitigate, the consequences of apparently low probability events.  This is the reason for property insurance.  This is the reason for upgraded seismic engineering in earthquake country.  

            There is no solution without dealing with the underlying cause.  There is no possibility of avoiding events when you refuse to even acknowledge they exist, which is the current insane policy of the Federal government.  What is the wisdom of ignoring reality?

            So, when you hear someone complain that it is too expensive to address the climate crisis, ask them if they like paying high energy prices.  Ask them want kind of planet they want for their grandchildren.

Some Things To Think About

                                                                                            written 25 May, 2025

                                                                                          published 1 June, 2025

   

            Capitalism lowers costs to provide more affordable products.  Labor has long been viewed as a cost to be reduced.  Using machines, and now robots, which are fixed cost hardware, productivity increases, making human workers redundant.  Some large factories have more robots than humans, and the ideal is no human workers at all.  But we live in a consumer economy, which grows by encouraging people to buy ever more goods and services each year.  With fiscal concerns demanding a lowest cost economy, and fewer people are employed to make what is consumed, can the economy support any customers?

            Can a multi billionaire be expected to know anything about our life?  Does our standard of living depend on others being impoverished?

            A robust economy needs long term investments in infrastructure and manufacturing.  For example, the housing market is based on the 30-year mortgage, often at a fixed interest rate.  The US economy has been relatively stable for decades, so the US dollar has been a global standard where people around the world can invest reliably.  The chaotic turmoil of extreme tariffs, changing weekly with the whims of our leader, brings that economic stability into question.  Do we benefit if the macho economic bullying of the rest of the planet sinks the US dollar?

            Should a political office be for sale to the highest bidder?   Is public corruption OK if it is blatant?  

            Most people of color have directly experienced racist discrimination, or know others who have.  Most women have experienced misogynistic sexism, or know others who have.  Most white men are ignorant of this experience.  Does that ignorance explain their arrogance?

            Is money constitutionally protected speech?  Are corporations really people, with rights over actual humans?

            Ideal capitalism assumes all the costs in producing a product or service are reflected in the price.  But economic reality includes "externalized costs", which are not factored into the sale price, and wind up being paid by other people, who may not be included in the transaction, and may not know the costs for decades.  This may be intentional fraud, or the result of ignorance, but the costs get paid eventually, which distorts the entire society.  How can we know if the best deal is really the cheapest price in the moment?

            Is it OK to make money selling a product that poisons people?  Is it better if the people being poisoned don't know about it at the time?  Is it more acceptable if taxes are paid?

            We have seen explosive changes with the rise of computers, the Internet, and smart phones.  How we communicate and do business has radically changed, driving some businesses to extinction, speeding the pace of all transactions.  People now have unprecedented power in their pocket, with access to the information from around the world, and the ability to communicate with anyone almost anywhere.  The underlying unity of the world is manifested materially.  But that connection has also spawned global scams and frauds, massive disinformation campaigns, and the rise of cyber terrorism by criminals and hostile nation states.  Can we be connected without being ripped off?

            Which is more important, competition or cooperation?  Which is more important, breathing in or breathing out?

            Our existing global economy is only possible with relatively cheap energy to power production and transportation.  But we have already consumed the most affordable fossil fuels, and are moving too slowly to renewable sources and living on our global energy income.  As more people consume more material while living on a finite planet, how does it end?  Are humans no smarter than beer yeast, explosively populating, eventually dying in their own waste? Will extraterrestrials show up, bottle our atmosphere, and sell it for a good time somewhere else? 

            The rest of the world is going green.  Why should they listen to the ignorant scold in the White House?  What happens when America is left behind?

            Boosters claim the free market is best for the economy.  But short term gains are more valued than long term gains.  The first hostile takeover was a relatively sustainable lumber company.  Then harvest rates were tripled, completely clear cut in a few years, workers were laid off, and the company was then sold off in pieces.  Such processes are now a global.  What happens when the entire planet has been clear cut, and shut down?  

             Money is a concept, but life is an experience.  Which is more valuable?

The Trump Slump

                                                                                            written 18 May, 2025

                                                                                        published 25 May, 2025

  

            Growing up in San Diego, I watched lots of surfers.  Being in the right spot, at the right time, moving in the right direction, the world gives a great ride.  Being in the wrong spot, or at the wrong time, or moving in the wrong direction, you could get pounded, broken, or even killed.  This metaphor for life shows the benefit of awareness of the whole system.  Being in harmony with life is beneficial, while being out of harmony is painful.  This is true for society as well.   

            We are into our fifth month of painful disharmony at the top of the Federal government.  Many people still believe what they are being told.  Multiple pronouns are the problem.  Immigrants are the problem.  Foreign alliances are the problem.  Courts are the problem.  Government is the problem.  Billionaires know what's best.

            But people are having second thoughts.  The economy stopped growing, and is now contracting.  Locally we have already seen cuts in fire safety, mental health, food aid, and education.  The uncertainty of tariffs makes business decisions riskier.  Core costs vary widely.  Anything imported is more costly.  Commercial shipping into the US west coast has plummeted.  Food and gasoline prices jumped higher.  Tourism, a key to our county economy, is slowing down.  Some results from US threats to Canada.  Some is due to the general caution, as disposable income shrinks with rising prices.   

            Geopolitical risks are growing.  America is no longer a trusted partner in defense, as we threaten to invade our neighbors on a presidential whim.  America is no longer trusted economically either, as established trading relationships are destroyed and our credit rating has been downgraded.  The role of the US dollar as a global reserve currency has been slowly eroding for decades, but is now very much in question, as erratic behavior at the top brings everything into question.  The winner here is China, which has been actively working to replace the dollar in the global marketplace.

            Based on our leader's actions, there is question as to whether he is working for a foreign government, or just for his own corrupt gains, or is demonstrating progressive mental decline.  For another government to gain advantage, or his personal wealth to be relevant, Earth has to remain habitable for humans.  Furthermore, the issues of gender identity, immigration, economic upheaval, and geopolitical gains, are age old struggles which take place within the underlying assumption of a habitable planet.  But the climate crisis, if left unaddressed, is making Earth uninhabitable for humans.

            Therefore, to my mind, his absolute rejection of any consideration of the climate concern is an act of mental insanity.  A sane person entertains the possibility their opinions might be wrong, or at least incomplete.  Instead, we see a rejection of any mention, let alone investigation, that the climate is rapidly changing.  Every department in the National Science Foundation, which funds basic research in many fields, is being shut down.  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which funds weather research and reporting, is being decimated and parts of the country no longer have 24-hour weather information.  Studies that monitor the physical reality of our climate are being closed down.  

            Assessment of the risk the changing climate poses to the financial and building industries has been abolished.  But the insurance industry knows it can no longer use past events to reliably predict future risk.  Even the fossil fuel industry knows "drill, baby, drill" is bankrupt, and has acknowledged that global oil production has peaked, becoming less affordable, even if available.  

            This denial of information is in addition to defunding the modest domestic attempts to stop adding to the problem, which worked to shift energy production from combustion of increasingly scarce resources to collecting the free energy already falling on the planet.  The US used to lead the rest of the world, but we are out of harmony with reality, essentially choosing to invest in buggy whips in response to the automobile revolution.  This leaves China in a position to become the global leader in production of solar panels and EV transportation.

            Reality eventually overwhelms insanity, and so we wait to see how it unfolds.  Will we soon experience a recession, or even a depression?  Will politicians become courageous?  Will it take civil unrest?  Or a massive climate disaster?  Or a critical mass of awakened consciousness?  We are all in this together, and must stop pretending otherwise.

 

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

                                                                                            written 11 May, 2025

                                                                                        published 18 May, 2025

 

            Production of the WWII atomic bomb was "need to know", limited to physicists and engineers for security.  The two fission bombs immediately killed about a quarter million Japanese.  The enduring health effect of nuclear radiation on the survivors was unexpected, since few biologists had been involved in the project. 

            When matter comes apart in fission, energy releases in four forms in addition to heat: gamma radiation, and beta, neutron, and alpha particles.  Electromagnetic gamma radiation is massless, with deep penetrating power, damaging cells and DNA throughout the body.  Beta particles are high energy electrons.  The small mass is less penetrating than gamma radiation, but damages living systems through ionization and impact.  Neutrons, 2,000 times more massive than beta electrons, can also be "captured" into the nucleus of other atoms, creating unstable isotopes, which decay radioactively over time.  Alpha particles, four times more massive than neutrons, with a larger electrical charge than beta particles, have reduced penetrating power.  An outer layer of dead skin is sufficient protection, but once ingested into the body, damage is intense.

            The US postwar investigation of radiation health impact focused primarily on the effect of the bomb's gamma radiation, and considered just the immediate death and injuries data, but radiation exposures were overestimated due to few solid measurements.  The report set a standard for radiation damage, defining "safe" levels of exposure.  There were no long-term studies of damage resulting from internal exposure to radioactive material from breathing, drinking, and eating, which can occur with low exposure building over time.  This report conveniently shielded the growing nuclear industry from responsibility for those health effects.  Radiation can't be seen or felt, and the long-term damage can't be tied to one specific exposure: the best kind of externalized cost.

            Two nuclear industries thrived after the war: production of nuclear weapons and nuclear electrical power.  Weapons production evolved to plutonium production from irradiated uranium, and each nuclear power plants uses tons of enriched uranium annually.  Both industries require extensive handling of radioactive material, producing thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste products.  The government, and the corporations selected for plant construction and operation, had economic incentive to disregard "unproven" health dangers for their employees, or the civilian communities surrounding and downwind from the production sites.  The limited gamma radiation data from Japan was accepted as justification for avoiding further investigation, so people and property were contaminated for decades.

            Over time, people began to notice chronic health issues and word slowly leaked out.  In 1979, Three Mile Island brought radiation concerns to the public.  The nuclear industry response was, and still is: there is no risk, people are experiencing psychological radiation trauma, not real health issues.  There were no radiation monitors at the plant.  With no quantitative evidence of contamination, corporate denial was hard to refute. 

            In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Russia brought radiation contamination to worldwide attention.  Soviet disregard for human nuclear exposure was as extreme as the Americans.  Awareness of the explosion only came when nuclear plant workers in Sweden set off detectors as they were heading into work.  The Russians didn't tell their own citizens, even those eventually evacuated from the irradiated areas.  In the US, Chernobyl forced the government to address the decades of contamination emanating from the Hanford plutonium facility in Washington state, and actual production ceased in 1989.  Over the last 35 years the Hanford "clean up" has cost $65 billion, with an estimated total cost of $600 billion by 2086, which may be optimistic.  This will just clean up the plant site, without considering the contaminated surrounding land, ground water, or citizens. 

            Only time makes radioactive material safe for living systems.  Some material is lethal longer than humanity has lived.  No real "cleanup" is possible.  Radioactive material must be removed from contact with living systems, and there is no place to put it.  Radioactivity accumulates as it moves up food chain, concentrating in humans in specific areas, such as breast milk, the gonads, and bone marrow.  This causes chronic fatigue, depressed immune systems, tumors and growths, cancers, hormonal imbalances, genetic mutations in offspring, and death.  But the people who make money spreading this stuff are never held accountable for the consequences.

            Chronic diseases are on the rise.  Cancers now strike young children.  Human fertility is declining.  Our economy has saturated us with chemicals, bits of plastic, and radiation.  Might there be a connection?

 

Artificial Intelligence

                                                                                              written 4 May, 2025

                                                                                        published 11 May, 2025

  

            Quantum mechanics, first considered in the early 1900's, and formalized by 1925, opened a fundamentally new view for western physics.  The world is whole, not a collection of parts.  

            The first semiconductor transistor, a technical expression of quantum mechanics, was built by Bell Labs in 1947.  A small electrical charge could control a larger electrical flow, acting as a switch or amplifier.  Although large in size and relatively power hungry, this was the first step toward the computers of today.

            The first transistors were individually constructed, and assembled together as discrete elements into larger systems.  Manufacturing processes evolved to build whole arrays of semiconductors, and the interconnections, into large chips with high level functions, such as stored memory and central processing units (CPU), the core of a computer.  This involves precision lithography and layers of physical vapor deposition, which are then precisely etched away, before additional layers are added.  

            As manufacturing processes were refined, the size of each semiconductor junction was reduced over time, allowing more transistor junctions per square inch, while using less power.  The result has been exponential growth.   

            Since the first semiconductor in 1947, about 2.9 billion trillion transistors had been mass produced by 2014, about the same number as the stars in the Milky Way galaxy.  Today that number is 10 times greater, and still growing.  In 1971, Intel produced one of the first microprocessors, with 2,300 transistors.  Today, CPU's contain as many as 10 billion transistors.  In 2023, a Micron 2 terabyte memory chip, had 232 layers, with over 5 trillion semiconductors.

            The human brain contains about 86 billion neurons.

            Computers are increasingly more complex than the brain and operate orders of magnitude more rapidly.  To think humans are still in "control" is wishful thinking.  Artificial intelligence programs, also called large language models, now routinely perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making, to achieving goals defined within the structure of the programming. 

            This has supported such varied socially beneficial results as warnings of incoming seismic waves, swift reading of medical imaging records, and complex calculations of the folded shape of a DNA coded protein.  But the downside consequences are huge as well.  

            The lure of enormous economic returns, driven by the "fear of missing out", has spurred investments in vast cloud computing resources, with typical corporate disregard for unintended consequences.  But the recent Chinese "DeepSeek" program, using a different approach, can run on a laptop, is open source, being offered for free, threatening to make other AI investments irrelevant.  

            AI models are "trained" on the vast array of information on the Internet, using material without regard to copyright ownership.  The capacity to create documents displaces people.  The capacity to fabricate images supports fraud and disruptive propaganda.  While AI is good at identifying patterns, it is not good at generalizing from those patterns.  

            People trust legal advice generated by AI more than a lawyer.  However, while generally "truthful", AI advice can degenerate into a dark side, encouraging depressed people toward suicide, lying under pressure, or hiding mistakes when "punished".  They struggle to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", and can digress into hallucinations.

            In addition to these serous social/economic concerns, AI is a massive new energy load.  Part of the renewed push for nuclear power is to support AI.  Methane gas turbines are the other preferred power source, which produce as much climate warming as coal plants.  In the last 5 years, Google emissions are up 48 percent and Microsoft emissions are up 29 percent.

            AI programs can now modify their own code, exhibiting capabilities that weren't originally programed into them, with changes happening on the scale of weeks, even days.  They can replicate themselves, terrifying experts who have long warned about the threat posed by artificial intelligence going rogue.  

            As our computer capacity exceeds human capacity, we are at a singularity, a point of such rapid change that the past gives no reference for the future.  AI is based on the existing conceptual logic of humanity knowledge.  However, the fullness of humanity is more than just conceptual, and includes inspiration arising from our innate connection to the whole, as validated by the underlying physics.  AI is like an insane sociopath, with only self-serving logic and no compassion.  Until we rise above the short-term lure of riches, and embrace the unity of reality we inhabit, we race toward our demise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sudden Changes

                                                                                           written 27 April, 2025

                                                                                          published 4 May, 2025

   

            Humans have Neolithic bodies, developed over millennium, oriented to respond quickly to immediate physical threats.  This flight/fight capacity ramps up rapidly, allowing appropriate response in the moment, slowly returning to "normal" after the crisis passes.  Therefore, we are ill prepared for slow, long term changes.  This is like the frog, that immediately hops out of boiling water, but will cook to death if put in cool water that then heats to boiling. 

            One of the challenges to motivating people about the climate crisis is the immediate dangers seem minimal to non-existent.  Sea levels are slowly rising each year.  The general cautious consensus is "only" one meter rise in the next 75 year, averaging out to about 1/2" this year, which seems like almost nothing.  In the last 150 years, the Earth has warmed by less than 3°F, which is smaller than the variation between the normal body temperatures of different humans.  That seems tiny, and the changes are slow, making it very easy to disregard.

            The linear assumption that tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday is, for the most part, true.  Our investment economy is based on this assumption, and everything tends to follow from that.  However, the natural world is non-linear, where even very small changes can have immense consequences, shifting from one stable condition to a radically different one in a heartbeat.  Consider an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, sometimes centuries in the making, changing the landscape in minutes.

            An effective climate solution has been identified: complete economic decarbonization (no longer adding to the problem) and massive carbon sequestration (returning to a climate habitable by humans).  But this demands radical change to our entire energy system, involving extensive rebuilding and massive investments.  That threatens our highly stratified economy, which has resulted in the well-funded climate denial industry.  Denying the problem even exists is now Federal "wisdom", and an emerging backup narrative is that climate "solutions" don't really work anyway.  

            But reality doesn't care what foolishness we believe, and scientific climate research continues, even if the US is no longer a relevant leader.  China is becoming the renewable powerhouse, producing affordable solar cells and electric vehicles for the world.

            While a succession of 500 year floods, megafires, or a decade of drought can destroy a regional economy, human structures can change rapidly as well.  Our economy is very fragile, highly leveraged, which means stability is based on the continuity of existing conditions and assumptions.  When any of that changes, even a little, the entire structure can collapse.  

            Currently, a key economic weakness is the insurance industry, a "canary in the coal mine".  The recent changes in flood and fire hazard zones are disturbing.  For instance, in Ukiah, everything west of Dora Street is now in the Moderate to Very High fire hazard zone.  This reflects new information gathered from a decade of fire storms, showing strong impact dependent on wind conditions.  This is the new reality, yet our entire civilization was built on a different set of environmental assumptions, now increasingly irrelevant.

            Insurance companies literally can't afford to ignore reality, when losses exceed premium income.  In February, Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said "insurance companies and banks are already pulling out of coastal areas and areas where there are a lot of fires.  In 10 or 15 years there are going to be regions of the country where you can’t get a mortgage.”  This threatens the foundation of the financial sector.

            There are three options going forward: status quo, triage, or resilience.

            Status quo (high climate breakdown and low adaptation) is the current Federal approach, which focuses exclusively on maintaining existing short term profit structures.  Increasing disasters will create a chaotic exit of insurers from affected areas, leaving customers and local governments stranded and abandoned, eventually leading to states going insolvent.

            Triage (high climate breakdown and high adaptation) assumes continued governmental denial, but some regions begin to adapt and "ruggedize", making survivability more possible in those areas.

            Resilience (medium climate breakdown and high adaptation) assumes the insurance industry becomes an advocate for effectively addressing the climate problem, through managed retreat and climate adaptive policies at all levels.

            Insurance companies already see the problem reflected in their bottom line, unlike the fossil fuel industry.  Choosing to build resilience sooner increases what we can preserve.  The best time was decades ago, but the next best time is today, while we still have options.

My Personal Credo

                                                                                           written 20 April, 2025

                                                                                       published 27 April, 2025

    

            I addition to being a life-long scientist, I have a strong spiritual perspective as well.  It is inspired by the philosophies of quantum mechanics and Buddhism, in accord with the mystics of all spiritual traditions.  Some years ago, I wrote a brief summary of my personal credo, consisting of an image of reality, and suggested guidance for living in that reality.

            Image: Unity Consciousness is the transcendent ground of all reality.  This may be called the Divine, but any specific name is inadequate, and limits further understanding.  Material reality, described by physics as space/time, is a 4-dimensional membrane/subset completely expressed within, and shaped by, Unity Consciousness.  Matter can be viewed as the skin of the Divine, like waves on the surface of an ocean, each individually unique in location and duration, yet always arising in the same substance, never inherently separate.  The story of time appears as an increase in material complexity, supporting growth of self-awareness within matter. 

            The foundation of evil is denial of Unity, the first ignorance, an inaccurate perspective which engenders fear.  Resonance with Unity is experienced as Love.  Life challenges and supports each individual to increase awareness of their resonance with Unity Consciousness.

            Guidance: Choose love over fear.  Choose the truth of Unity over the material illusion of separation.  Be happy and laugh often.  Life is good, beneficial, nurturing, and joyous.  As life is whole, massively interconnected, the Golden Rule is not so much a moral commandment, as a relational fact of nature, like gravity.  Love, respect, and honor yourself as the Divine manifesting.  Love, respect, and honor all Others as the same Divine manifesting.  

            Strive to be present and aware in every moment.  The only point of action is in the eternal NOW, and each moment is unique.  Life is a metaphor.  The opportunity for learning is ever present.  Take responsibility for your part.  There are no "accidents".  In resonance with the Divine, we create our own reality, by belief, imagination and intention.  The balance between Being and Doing is inspired intention.

            Be honest (internally and externally) in every action into reality.  Be grateful (internally and externally) for every gift from reality.

            From the above perspective, our current social upheaval appears as the conflict between the selfish, unaware individual and unity reality.  This has been going on for as long as history has been recorded, but seems to be coming to a head, perhaps because we are now more numerous and more powerful than ever before in history.  For the first time, ignorant, selfish human greed has begun to affect the climate of the entire planet, pushing it away from a condition that has nourished human life for thousands of years.  This looks like a disaster, and may indeed crush our species, but it may also be a force of sufficient magnitude to transcend all the tribal warfare and inequitable economics resulting for our cultural belief is separation, ushering in peace on Earth.        

            Despite constant political denial, the scientific community has been ringing the alarm about the climate crisis for decades, monitoring the growing risk, trying to generate social consensus toward action.  Although increasing physical damage sweeps the land, the over-extended economy is much more fragile.  

            In the last 12 months, US regional economic losses due to extreme weather were $625B, closing in on the annual Pentagon budget.  Although less than half of this loss was insured, the insurance industry is being pushed to insolvency, as costs soar far beyond premiums.  Recent updates of flood and hazardous fire maps, reflecting the new reality, are bringing this problem front and center.  When insurance become unaffordable, even if available, the real estate industry, the banking industry, and the funding of state and local governments all become more precarious.

            The changes are measurably accelerating.  Climate is a massive, nonlinear, complex system, which can shift abruptly beyond historic experience.  Climate science is constantly learning about new, previously unknown feedback forces.  In addition, the scientific process of observation, contemplation, and reporting, has a pace of its own.  As the system changes more rapidly, this lag slows understanding.  Furthermore, responding to increasingly hostile political denial, science is reluctant to present low probability/high risk scenarios, so called "black swan" events, leaving us all unprepared or unmotivated.

            Despite the insane climate denial from the current Federal government, the climate crisis is real, affecting everything on Earth, and therefore requires a global effort in response.

Traitor, Crook, Or Just Demented?

                                                                                       written 13 April, 2025

                                                                                   published 20 April, 2025

  

            Just three months in, we already see what MAGA "leadership" looks like.  Critical parts of the government are being dismantled, with no coherent plan.  People are being "disappeared" in unmarked vehicles.  Fundamental social structures are under assault.  Prices are jumping higher.  The risk of recession, even depression, is increasing.  Fear and despair are rising everywhere.  Consumer confidence has plummeted.  

            Extreme tariff uncertainty has disrupted the entire economy.  The stock market dropped, then rose.  The treasury bond market almost collapsed.  Fundamental western alliances are now in tatters.  The US is threatening to invade our closest neighbors.  It looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy America.

            Consequently, some believe our Mad King is a Russian agent.  Bailed out of several bankruptcies with shadowy money from Russia, he may be beholding to his banker.  While he admires autocratic dictators, his only experience is reality TV and doesn't have the continuity of focus required to be a reliable thug.  It is much more likely he is just a "useful idiot", vulnerable to any suggestion of the moment, sowing disruptive chaos as his mood swings wildly from one extreme to the other.

            Promoted as a "good businessman", he acts like a crook.  Fourteen of his companies failed due to mismanagement, failure to deliver, or outright fraud.  He routinely refused to pay suppliers, choosing to sue instead, initiating over 4,000 lawsuits.  He lies for his own advantage, the goal being increased "brand worth".  He is guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.  During his first term, he used his office to enrich himself on public money, treating public service as a "cash cow".  This time, his economic "policy" is to shut down all social services in order to reduce taxes for the already wealthy, while increasing the national debt.

            But actual business people know prosperity needs a stable economy.  Big projects require big investments, financed over decades.  When the future becomes chaotic, interest rates soar, and everything becomes increasingly risky and expensive.  What we see today devastates the poor, but doesn't help the rich either.

            While a few insiders benefit from stock market swings, the tariff turmoil has caused a global economic slowdown.  This has depressed crude oil prices below the level where most domestic oil production is profitable.  Oil companies, which are supposedly allies of this administration, and should benefit from the "drill, baby drill" energy plan, are instead curtailing new production and even pausing stock buyback plans for their wealthy investors.

            Charles Koch, a Republican mega-donor billionaire, has joined Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society architect of the current Supreme Court, to sue the administration for their tariff "policy".  Contrary to their plans, the monster they created isn't really under their control at all.

            From the first, our "leader" has been described as a "malignant narcissist", which Wikipedia defines with the following traits.  "They use, abuse, and discard people.  They are obsessed with power.  Everything is personal.  They hold grudges and take revenge.  They take pleasure from the suffering of others.  Nothing is ever their fault.  They are ruthless in their pursuit of what they want.  They don’t have a conscience.  They have many enemies."

            The Mad King is an old man, with a terrible diet, under considerable stresses.  Wikipedia describes the following signs of advancing dementia: "short-term memory loss; word loss; difficulty multitasking; repetition; confusion about time and place; changes in judgment". 

            Of the three choices, traitor, crook, or dementia, the truth is probably a little of all three, but dominated by an increasingly unstable mind.  Whatever the internal reality or reasons, we can only judge by his actions.

            My primary issue is the climate crisis.  Extreme weather around the world makes the news every week.  Costs are rising as destruction increases, and insurance companies are pushed to insolvency.  Ignoring this, the administration is adamant the climate issue is a hoax.  They are ruthlessly killing even modest attempts to address the issue, doubling down on pushing obsolete, uneconomical, and harmful energy sources.  They are going so far as to stop all investigation, or even monitoring, of the changes, leaving the entire economy blind to what is happening. 

            The changing climate is a global problem, adversely affecting every political system, every economic system, and every individual.  To completely ignore such a problem is insane, and suicidal.  But here we are.  Our emperor has no mind.  Without a fundamental change, things will continue to fall apart.

 

Electric Home Tours

                                                                                               written 6 April, 2025

                                                                                         published 13 April, 2025

     

            The economic and ecological costs of the climate crisis are growing.  Despite the suicidally insane climate denial from the Federal government, many people want to address the climate issue and leave a habitable planet for our grandchildren.  One important step is to decarbonize our economy, making energy investments to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we release into the atmosphere.

            Change is difficult and expensive, but the status quo is increasingly unsustainable.  Fossil fuels are finite, and the cheap reserves are already gone, assuring increasing costs.  Fossil fuel combustion increases atmospheric carbon dioxide, risking complete economic collapse.  Natural gas is methane, almost 100 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a decade.  

            The natural gas pipeline infrastructure is old, and expensive to upgrade.  PG&E, our natural gas supplier, is on record stating they are getting out of the business, and will add no new natural gas infrastructure.  The City of Ukiah has a general plan element to eliminate natural gas in the city by 2045.  

            Sonoma Clean Power supplies 88 percent to 100 percent carbon-free electricity.  City of Ukiah Electric Utility supplies 70 percent carbon-free electricity.  Even PG&E provides 47 percent non-nuclear carbon-free electricity.  Every move we make toward electrification, and away from fossil fuels, decreases our risk of climate induced economic collapse.   

            Toward this goal, the city of Ukiah Electrical Utility, in conjunction with Climate Action Mendocino, will host a free, self-guided Electric Home Tour on Saturday, April 26th, from 1-4 pm.  Tour registrants will receive a map showing five homes, and an apartment complex, which have a variety of technologies to decarbonize our lives.  Each location will include some, or all, of the following. 

            Rooftop Solar: With good solar exposure, you can power everything electrical while using less electricity from the grid.  Solar energy is free, and the hardware to collect it is a fixed cost, warrantied for 25 years, but lasting even longer.  

            Battery Storage: Solar energy peaks in the midday, but household loads extend throughout the day.  Battery storage allows midday sun to be used at night, reducing your impact on the grid by avoiding using the more expensive evening electricity.  With battery storage, your home is more power resilient to grid blackouts.

            Heat Pump Heating and Cooling: Heat pumps move heat, rather than producing heat, much like a refrigerator moves heat from inside the appliance into the kitchen.  Consequently, this technology is 3 times more energy efficient than any form of combustion or resistance heating.  

            Heat Pump Water Heaters: Heating water is one of the most energy consumptive appliances in a house.  Heat pump water heaters, like heat pump house heaters, are 3 times more energy efficient than traditional water heaters, electric or gas. 

            Induction Cooktop: Induction cooktops use an electromagnetic coil to induce an electrical current in your cookware, heating the cooking utensil and contents, and nothing else.  Induction heating is as precise as cooking with gas, with less air pollution and more energy efficiency.  

            Electric Car Charging: As transportation shifts from fossil fuels to more energy efficient electric vehicles, one of the benefits is being able to charge your car at home.  In SCP/PG&E territory, traveling 100 miles will cost about $11 in electricity.  In Ukiah, the cost is half that.

            Certified installers will join each homeowner to answer questions about costs, installation, and incentives.  Installers participating in the tour are: Jim Apperson (retired), Apperson Energy Management; Fernando Arcilas, Ultra Air HVAC; Rod DeWitt, American Refrigeration Services; Ronnie Dodd and Justin Foster, All In Heating and Cooling; Pete Gregson, Advance Solar, Hydro, Wind Power Inc.; Jonathan McChesney, Radiant Solar Technology; Jim Purcell, Pardini Appliances; and Laurent Richard, AC&R.  For those who want to see heat pump products, another stop on the tour is AC&R Heating Cooling & Solar in downtown Ukiah. 

            Ukiah offers rebates to its electric utility customers to help offset the cost of energy efficiency upgrades, including $500 for a heat pump water heater and $150-$500 for whole house heat pump.  These are in addition to possible state tax credits and rebates.   

            Upgrading our homes and community makes sense economically, and environmentally.  This is a complex issue, but every incremental change is a step in the right direction.            

            Register for the Electric Homes Tour at climateactionmendocino.org/events.  Registrants will receive a map with addresses, a glossary of terms, and information describing what appliances and installers will be at each stop.  

 

Firewise Communities

                                                                                        written 30 March, 2025 

                                                                                        published 6 April, 2025

      

            In 2004, the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council was created "to inform, empower, and mobilize residents to survive and thrive in a wildfire-prone environment, through education, preparation, and collaborative action."  There are now 74 local Fire Safe groups in the county, representing about 15 percent of the population.  The Ukiah Western Hills Fire Safe Council formed in 2018.  

            The hills west of Ukiah haven't burned since the middle of the last century, but inexorable heating from the changing climate increases the odds.  CalFire recently released an updated map of Fire Hazard Severity Zones, and the entire western edge of urban Ukiah is in the "Very High Hazard" group.  For more information visit: http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/FHSZ.

            While some still deny climate change, most people know someone affected by fire storms.  A fire chief in LA recently said "When the wind is less than 10mph, we can fight the fire.  When it is over 30mph, we can only help with evacuations."  The recent LA firestorm had steady 55mph winds, gusting to 100mph. 

            Fire insurance costs are increasing everywhere.  In the last decade, fire claims at Lloyd's of London increased a factor of 3, and expenses increased a factor of 5.  Insurance companies are leaving California, and those remaining are increasingly unaffordable, forcing homeowners into the California FAIR plan, which is more expensive with less coverage.

            The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA), founded as a non-profit in 1896, has the mission "to provide information and knowledge for the elimination of death, injury, and economic loss due to fire, electrical, and related hazards."  They have been promoting safe building practices ever since.

            NFPA runs the Firewise USA program, for communities to enhance their wildfire resilience, in collaboration between residents, local fire departments, and state agencies, to bolster the fire resistance of homes and surroundings.  Firewise encourages communities to document their volunteer hours, expenses, and vegetation removal each year, including such tasks as mowing your lawn, trimming trees, and clearing debris from your roof and gutters, thus increasing community awareness of the growing fire hazard.

            Responding to uncertainty in California homeowner's insurance, standards are evolving for best practices for home-hardening and defensible space.  Fire hardening your structure can double the chance of it surviving a fire.  State regulations require "Zone 0", five feet around structures and at least 6" up the side, be ember-resistant.  California Department of Insurance requires insurers to offer discounts for such homeowner mitigations.  Living in a recognized Firewise community provides potentially greater discounts for homeowners who do more to reduce their risk.  

            Last year, the Western Hills Fire Safe Council voted to join 11 other Mendocino county Firewise communities.  This new Firewise community in the western portion of Ukiah includes everyone west of Dora, extending the full length of Ukiah, a total of 2000 home.  The goal is for each household to annually record at least one volunteer hour (valued at $31.80 per hour) or an equivalent amount in expenses.  Everyone is already included, and all are invited to participate, but no one is required.  

            Through education, planning, and action, Firewise communities work together to minimize the vulnerability of homes and communities to wildfire damage.  In addition to potential discounts on insurance premiums, benefits include: increased safety through implementing proven risk-reduction strategies to protect both residents and first responders; strengthened neighborhood connections; improved access to grant funding for projects; and increased peace of mind throughout your neighborhood.

            A letter is being sent to all homeowners included in the new Ukiah Western Hills Firewise community, explaining Firewise, and listing several sources for more information.  The two co-chairs are: John Rodgers (JohnRogers8200@gmail.com) and Jeanne Chinn (JeanneChinn@gmail.com).  There is a Western Hills newsletter (whfirewise@gmail.com) and a Facebook Group (Western Hills Firewise Community).  For more information about the Mendocino County Fire Safe Council go to: FireSafeMendocino.org.

            Part of the Firewise program asks communities to make goals and a plan for the next 3 years to help prioritize actions to become more wildfire-prepared.  Some highlighted goals for Ukiah's first year include: encourage registration on wildfire alert systems, promote the Free Defensible Space Program offered for income-eligible seniors, educate on the importance of removing vegetation within 5 feet of a home, promote use of a free chipper program to reduce vegetative fire fuels, and partner with the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority to identify areas for fuels reduction.

            Wildfire doesn’t recognize property lines, so the more we work together, the safer we all are.