Corporations Violate Reality

                                                                                           written 15 September 2019

                                                                                       published 22 September 2019

                                                                                                

            Unity perspective sees the world as whole.  Any apparent division is a relative perspective, not an absolute truth. For example, ocean wave peaks are easily distinguished but the division between waves is arbitrary.  In a connected world, every action has consequences everywhere, no matter what the original intention.  

            Unity is a metaphysical truth, which expresses on the physical level as ubiquitous interconnection.  Weather patterns sweep around the globe, binding everyone in their path.  Whatever goes down my sink winds up in the ocean, which has global circulation patterns, touching every continent.  We live in a global economy, where food travels an average of 1500 miles.  Despite racist dogma, all humans are the same under the skin, vulnerable to the same diseases and nutritional needs.  A sick farm worker in Central American can infect a Washington DC lobbyist.  The legal fiction of limited liability corporations intentionally denies this connection, institutionalizing irresponsibility.  This passes for good business practice.  

            The limited liability corporation began in England in 1855.  It was justified to promote investment by risk averse investors.  From the beginning, there was concern it would encourage unsound business practices, called "moral hazard" today.  Edward William Cox, a critic at the time, wrote: "He who acts through an agent should be responsible for his agent's acts, and that he who shares the profits of an enterprise ought also to be subject to its losses; that there is a moral obligation, which it is the duty of the laws of a civilized nation to enforce, to pay debts, perform contracts and make reparation for wrongs.  Limited liability is founded on the opposite principle and permits a man to avail himself of acts if advantageous to him, and not to be responsible for them if they should be disadvantageous." 

            We live in a world far from those moral obligations.  For almost a century, the Harvard Business School has taught future managers of the world that the only obligation of a corporation is maximization of fiscal return to shareholders and executives.  In a radical change, the Business Round Table, a collection of corporate CEOs, announced last month that corporations should now deliver value to customers, employees, suppliers, and the larger community, in addition to shareholders.  While this is a move in the right direction, it will be difficult to shift established business practices.

            Avoiding moral and fiscal responsibility through bankruptcy has a long history in business. Around the world, mining companies take the profitable ore, then declare bankruptcy, leave toxic tailings and runoff. Coal extraction by mountain top removal devastates whole regions with impunity.  An exhausted oil field is a lethal swamp, devoid of most life.  In recent news, PG&E is striving to limit their responsibility for the destructive fires started by their equipment, after years of prioritizing shareholders and executives over maintenance and equipment upgrades.  Perdue Pharma is planning to declare bankruptcy to avoid paying the expenses caused by the massive opioid epidemic they created, and the Sackler family, who made billions, have shifted wealth overseas to avoid liability. 

            When corporations take actions to maximize profit for a few, without being liable for the consequences of those actions, the burden shifts to the public, who neither profit nor direct the business.  The fiction of limited liability doesn't eliminate costs, it distributes them, degrading the performance of the entire economy.  Remediating some problems, like Superfund sites or reclamation of the former mill site in Fort Bragg, fall to governments using tax dollars.  When problems are more widely dispersed, such as contaminated air, food, or water, the general public pays through higher health costs.  There are global degradations which are barely acknowledged, let alone remediated, such as the growing plastic trash in our oceans, loss of species due to the anthropogenic sixth extinction, the obesity epidemic, the homeless epidemic, and, of course, climate change.  

            Our corporate dominated economy capitalizes profits, but socializes losses: a systematic grand theft from the entire society.  Such kleptocracy is a cancerous form of socialism, taking from everyone and nourishing only a few. This irresponsible business activity should not be praised, but must instead be healed, before it sacrifices the entire planet on the altar of short term profit.  A healthy economy, like a healthy body, nourishes all participants.

Are We Doomed?

                                                                                              written 9 September 2019

                                                                                        published 15 September 2019

                                                                                                

                        

            My normal routine is to have a new article ready to submit on the day the previous one is published.  I had one ready, but was moved by a letter to the editor "We are all doomed", from Angus Young, in today's (8 Sep 19) Journal.

            Many people deny that climate change is real, or manmade, or relevant, even now. There are numerous reasons for these perspectives, all of which fall short for me.  Others believes there is some action that can be taken, a shift in technology, economy, or lifestyle, that can turn this ship of state away from the disaster that looms.  A part of me is in this camp.  

            A smaller group has taken a very close look at the science and data, considered the social, political, and economic inertia, and concluded that we have crossed too many irreversible non-linear tipping points.  We are already dead, but too ignorant or distracted to notice. Some of the most educated of the climate science community are in this camp.  They have looked closely at the facts on the ground, and have abandoned wishful thinking.  A few have published their conclusions, and their work is available for those who look, but the fossil fuel funded news machine, and rabid social media, makes life miserable for investigators who dare present worst-case scenarios, rather than more comforting consensus opinions.  I know this landscape as well.

            Angus Young's letter speaks to those folks who suspect we have run out of time and are trying to come to peace with this difficult perspective.  This can be compared to a personal end of life situation, where the diagnosis has been made, there are no reasonable procedures left, and the focus of life shifts to the quality of time remaining.

            Young's list, excerpted from Lolly Daskal, supports an enhanced experience of the vitality of life.  Spend more time with the people you love.  Worry less.  Forgive more. Stand up for yourself.  Live your own life.  Be more honest with yourself and others.  Work less, unless your work is your passion.  Care less about what other people think.  Live up to your full potential.  Face your fears head-on.  Stop chasing the wrong things.  Live in the moment.

            To this I would add, practice gratitude.  Prayer is for what we desire that have not yet arrived.  Gratitude is awareness of what we already have.  If we focus on what we have right now and intensely investigate all that is good in our lives, when we get around to problems and deficiencies, we have some balance in our awareness, a fuller context within which to evaluate our situation.

            The elements on the list above appear in other teachings on improving the quality of life experience, rather than the quantity of stuff.  This is a radical life change, shaking the foundation of our consumptive, extractive, planet killing economy.  But what is the risk in making these personal changes?  That economy is already teetering, serving fewer people every year, funded by unsustainable debt, fueled by the last puddles of affordable fossil fuel, in an increasingly erratic climate.  

            But are we "doomed", even if the worst is true?  Despair is an arrogant ego trip, rooted in the belief that I see everything that is happening, and it is all terrible.  While it might be true that everything I see is terrible, it is arrogant to think that I see everything relevant.  We are finite beings, contemplating an infinite universe, so everything I "know" is wrong, or incomplete at best.  For thousands of years human culture has been seduced by four-dimensional materiality, with ossified religious structures subordinate to that materiality.  But the best of humanity in all cultures has demonstrated a human potential that transcends materiality, with unity consciousness and the connected fate of the Golden Rule.  

            Gratitude and living in the moment are gateways to a whole new experience of reality. This evolution of consciousness is the alternative to the doom resulting from continued "business as usual". We each have the power and responsibility to make this personal transformation.  Imagine the whole world reaching a resonant critical mass.  The pressure is on, the time is now.  What else have we got to do at the end of civilization?

  

Economics And Politics Distort Science

                                                                                              written 1 September 2019

                                                                                          published 8 September 2019

                                                                                                

                        

            Religion and science each present descriptions of reality.  In religion, the description is fixed and dogmatic. In science, the description evolves as further investigation reveals new information.  Because scientists have egos and prejudices, scientific descriptions can become as intransigent as religious dogma.  Sometimes you can tell the eminence of a scientist by how long they hold up progress in their field.  But science eventually transcends the most rigid biases, due to an inherent commitment to a quest for knowledge.  

            The scientific quest can become compromised when science intersects with society's economics and politics.  Science is a logical extension of assumptions, tested against the real world.  When the assumptions are flawed, so are the results. Politics and economics predetermine the assumptions, distorting the science, until the political or economic system crashes, sometimes with lethal consequences.

            The atomic bomb was a classified project during the war, involving only physicist.  The human devastation of the initial blast of the nuclear attack was shocking, but radiation damage killed people long after the attack, demanded investigation.  Biologists and health professionals interviewed survivors beginning in 1950.  The bombs were air blasts, exposing people to a large external gamma ray event. Individual exposure was calculated by distance from the blast center, and symptoms correlated to that exposure level.  The initial conclusions suggested a linear relationship between exposure and health impact, implying a "safe" level, with an absence of short-term effects.  These exposure standards are still used today.  

            The distortion in this case is equating impact from a single exposure of high level external gamma rays with long term exposure to low levels of ingested energetic alpha and beta emitters.  These exposures come from soil, air, water, or food contaminated by nuclear testing, nuclear processing facilities, poor handling of nuclear material, uranium mining, or reactor accidents.  Governments and corporations aggressively defend against being held liable for adverse health impacts from nuclear contamination because the costs are high. Believing that "science" says there are no impacts, reported health problems are dismissed as "radiation hysteria", and never investigated in depth.

            Cell phones emit radiated energy which most people use next to their brain, and many carry them next to their heart or gonads.  Since the first cell phone, there has been discussion about their health impact, with many studies concluding they are "safe". The power is on the order of 1 watt, so thermal heating effect seems minimal when distributed over the whole body, but might be significant in the immediate vicinity of the phone.  There are other effects that are barely understood.  Radiated energy may interfere with biochemistry or the nervous system.  The world has been rapidly and profoundly transformed by cell phones, and more recently, smart phones, and there is social and economic incentive to keep finding them "safe" as we move toward a more wired world.  This economic bias makes rigorous scientific investigation difficult and unpopular.

            Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, was originally used to clean boilers, because it bonds to minerals like magnesium.  It was accidently discovered to kill plants, which use magnesium during protein synthesis.  Since animals don't use magnesium in the same way, it was considered "safe" for humans.  Roundup use is so wide spread that it is now found in our food, most people's blood, and rainwater.  

            We are learning that human health is radically affected by the population distribution within the trillions of bacteria that co-exist in our bodies. Bacteria have magnesium biochemistry similar to plants, and are affected by glyphosate.  Despite court cases which determined that Roundup causes cancer, Monsanto has spent billions denying that glyphosate is toxic, using their economic clout to distort the science.

            The concern that carbon dioxide emissions might disrupt climate was raised a century ago.  Chevron research scientists verified this to be true in the 70's.  Prioritizing profits, fossil fuel corporations invested heavily to deny the problem.  People still believe them, or think that any possible impact is far in the future. However, climate scientists are quite concerned, seeing short odds for near term human extinction, requiring immediate, coordinated global action.  The political environment created by climate deniers distorts the picture.  Not wanting to appear hysterical, climate scientists wait for consensus, while our "leaders" accelerate us toward the all-too-near cliff.

            

Heat

                                                                                                 written 26 August 2019

                                                                                         published 1 September 2019

                                                                                                

            Some people deny that climate change is real, and others poke fun at efforts to deal with it.  But a lot of people are becoming alarmed.  This July the Earth was the hottest on record, and Europe in now experiencing it's third heat wave this summer.  The last one set records, caused deaths, and disrupted the economy.  It then moved over Greenland, causing a rate of melting not predicted for another half century.  

            The Napa Valley is concerned about the effect climate warming on their primary crop, Chardonnay grapes.  In the last few decades the valley has moved to the high end of the range of optimum growing temperatures, and extensive planting is being done to explore which grapes can handle the heat.  Northern California wine counties might have to replant completely or begin marketing varietal raisins.

            People are also affected by heat.  Humans are exothermic, giving off heat.  Biochemical reactions in warm blooded organisms are most efficient, facilitating increased mobility and endurance.  The human body core temperature is maintained in a range from 97°-99°F.  When the core hits 99.5°-101°F, heat exhaustion sets in, which can disrupt the body's temperature regulation and lead to fatal consequences.  At 104°F critical enzymes and biochemistry begin to fail.  Cells start to die at 106°F and brain damage starts at 108°F.

            To prevent these extremes, the body controls temperature by removing heat through radiation, exhalation, and surface cooling by evaporation of sweat.  "Heat of vaporization" is the energy required to change water from liquid to vapor.  The strong hydrogen bonds between water molecules give water a high heat of vaporization, 540 calories per gram.  That is five times the energy required to change the temperature of the water from freezing to boiling.  When sweat evaporates, it pulls energy from your skin and the air touching your body, giving a cooling effect.  That is why it is important to keep your body hydrated, saturated with enough water that there is excess to sweat.  Sweat contains dissolved salts to make it a better thermal conductor, which is why ingesting electrolytes while sweating is important.

            Air at a given temperature can only hold a finite quantity of water vapor, and the humidity percentage defines how much of that total capacity is filled.  Air with lower humidity can absorb more water vapor.  Another measure is "wet bulb temperature", which indicates the lowest possible evaporative cooling temperature, based on the existing humidity and temperature.  

            When air is warm enough and humid enough, the body can no longer cool itself, and the core temperature begins to rise.  The body begins to struggle when wet bulb temperature hits 90°F, making it hard to work outside.  To put that in terms we already experience, that equates to 100°F with 67% humidity, 110°F with 49% humidity, or 120°F with 29% humidity.  When the wet bulb temperature reaches 95°F, death occurs within 6 hours.  

            These levels are still rare, but warmer air holds more moisture, and these events will become more frequent.  In 1995, a heat wave in Chicago hit a wet bulb level of 86°F.  Saudi Arabia experienced 95°F wet bulb in 2003.  In 2015 India hit 86°F wet bulb, while Iraq and Iran suffered through 92°F wet bulb.  Within 50 years this will affect over 4% of the global population, including the American southwest.  

            Heat related wildlife and domestic animal deaths have increased in the last few years.  This summer the US military has experienced heat related deaths during training, and the triple digit heat a few weeks ago affected construction and agricultural workers. In developed countries, increased heat means increased air conditioning usage, which adds to the grid load, usually increasing production of greenhouse gases, which accelerates temperature rise. 

            Gradual increase in heat is not the only concern.  Within the last two decades, flash droughts have been identified. These are periods of extreme heat and low humidity that develop in a matter of weeks and can last for months, devastating agricultural production.  As the planet heats, and climate becomes more turbulent, these events will happen more often. 

            The climate we grew up with has become unstable, and civilization as we know it is at risk.  It will be expensive to respond, but lethal to ignore.

Trump: Spiritual Teacher in Disguise

                                                                                                 written 18 August 2019

                                                                                                  posted 25 August 2019

                                                                                                

            

            The challenge of unity perspective is the totality of inclusion: it's all in, no exceptions.  So how do I deal with Donald Trump as president?  In unity, we are one, and he and I arise out of the same creative, loving potential.  In the world, he seems the antithesis of everything I believe: working to destroy what I feel is the best part of our country.  A shift in perspective is required.  I recently discovered the writing of Patricia Pearce, excerpted here. 

            "With this presidency you may feel you are in the midst of a nightmare.  All dreams come in the interest of health and wholeness, including nightmares, which bring information so crucial and urgent that they scare us to get our attention. This nightmare offers us exactly what we need at this precise moment to grow and evolve as a species.  But first we have to be willing to look at what is happening beneath the contentious headlines to discover the deeper wisdom being offered us."

            "On center stage stands the character of Donald Trump.  If you take him at the literal level you may see him as an arch villain bringing out the worst in us.  But dreams don’t operate at the literal level.  They operate at the symbolic and metaphorical level.   They pretty much always turn the tables on what we assume to be true."

            "How is Donald Trump playing the role of a spiritual teacher?  First and foremost, spiritual teachers help us see and transcend ego, enabling us to shed the ego’s illusions so that we can awaken to the truth of oneness and our infinite nature."

            "The character of Donald Trump is showing me in unmistakable terms what ego looks like.  Although Reality is the complete oneness of Love, the ego is constantly bombarding me with fake news: separateness is real. This fake news creates an illusory world of fear, division, domination, and death.  To witness ego in such a caricatured form, my spiritual teacher is helping me see how ego seeks attention, believes that greatness rests on wealth, fame, and the ability to dominate, and perceives itself to be greater than others.  This gives me the tools I need to detect these same tendencies within myself so that I can begin to free myself from them, and shows me where it will inevitably lead me: into animosity, division, blame, exploitation, violence, suffering." 

            "Do I want ego sitting in the Oval Office of my own executive function? Only ego attacks.  If I allow myself to be duped into attacking my spiritual teacher and his followers with anger, ridicule, hatred, or blame, I have installed ego in my own Oval Office.  I am choosing to keep alive the fallacy of separateness and ensuring that the nightmare continues.  But if I can see through my teacher’s theatrical ego-charade to see the divine radiant Being within, concealed even from himself, then I will have learned what this nightmare has come to show me.  The fallacy of separateness fades away and the nightmare dissolves."

            "This nightmare isn’t just your personal dream, nor mine.  This is a national nightmare, a global nightmare, a collective dream.  The United States has long been the Donald Trump of nations, believing we are exceptional, and that give us the right to call the shots in all world affairs.  Is it any wonder that such bravado would evoke attack from others who are caught up in the ego’s illusory world of hatred, division, and violence?"

            "But what might happen if we were suddenly to realize that we are collectively under an egoic spell?  What if it suddenly dawned on us that only in dreams does greatness reside in riches and military might?  What if we suddenly woke up to the truth that our greatness lies in our inherent capacity to embody and express the Reality of Love?  Our collective dream would change in the twinkling of an eye.  We would understand that we are on this planet as an interdependent community of equals."

            Read the full article at: https://www.patriciapearce.com/donald-trump-spiritual-teacher-disguise/.

            As we eliminate the egoic tyrant within ourselves, we reduce the support for the egoic tyrant currently in the White House.  That is the power of unity.

Investing In Solar Backup

                                                                                                 written 11 August 2019

                                                                                             published 18 August 2019

                                                

            

            We are currently killing the planet to create a few more billionaires.  If human civilization is to survive, we will have to change directions, and prioritize a livable planet above all else. Among other things, we must restructure our power system.  

            Since commercial electricity began, our civilization has grown to expect unlimited power at all times.  PG&E's proposed power shut downs, as many as 80 days a fire season, are a major disruption.   Almost all businesses will be closed, costing $1.7M per day, $136M annually in the worst-case scenario.  A power shut down will put most people out of work, risk the medically fragile, disrupt communications, and challenge our ability to feed ourselves.  Some people have bought portable generators for their homes, which are cost effective in the short run, but a noisy, polluting, and potentially hazardous step backwards as a community.  

            The 21st century habitable planet power grid will use renewable power, with distributed collection and distributed storage.  The grid will allow communities to import power from out of the area, without requiring every house or business to be totally self-sufficient. But, each house will have a small micro-grid, with the ability to collect and store enough ambient energy to power critical needs in an emergency.  The minimum basics needs are an energy efficient refrigerator, some LED lights, internet and phone communication, and essential medical hardware.  

            A system with 900 watts of collection, 2 kilowatt hours (Kwhrs) of storage, and a 2 kilowatt (Kw) inverter able to keep the batteries charged when the grid is functioning, would power all the above plus a small appliance and a washing machine, and cost about $10K for parts and labor (information and cost estimates come from conversation with a Real Goods solar technician).

            If the City were to install such a system in all 6,500 homes in Ukiah, it would cost $65M, less than the business losses PG&E are creating.  But these 6,500 systems, each with 900 watts of collectors, would produce an average of 30 megawatt hours (Mwhrs) a day of renewable power for the lifetime of the equipment.  Ukiah currently imports about 300 Mwhrs every day, of which 70% is green. That means that 90 Mwhrs a day are produced by brown power.  By state law, Ukiah has to use 100% green energy by 2045.  By installing these small battery backup renewable systems in every house, we accomplish 1/3 of that goal while becoming power resilient.

            This is expensive power compared to what we use right now.  30 Mwhrs a day at the residential rate of $0.13/Kwhr generates $1.45M/yr, which would take decades to pay back the original investment.  But this ignores the added value that everyone would be able to survive unlimited power outages without distress, while avoiding toasting off the planet.  Further, this power investment would generate numerous good paying local jobs.  These significant values are hard to fiscally quantify, but worth considering.

            If we installed larger systems in every home, the number are better.  Online, you can buy a system for $16K, with 4 Kw of collectors, and 19 Kwhrs of storage.  This $104M investment would generate 133 Mwhrs a day, accomplishing the mandated shift to 100% renewable, and pay back the principle in 16 years.

            Another option is small collective systems, where each house has a minimal battery backup, but the power comes from larger neighborhood collective arrays. This would deal with the issue that not every house has good solar exposure. 

            There are several mobile home parks in Ukiah, many occupied by seniors.  Each park has a common building, which could have a micro-grid to supply cooling, recharging capacity, and even cooking facilities for the park residents.

            All businesses should have micro-grids installed to allow most normal functions during a power down, without depending on fossil fuel generators. Currently only 10 businesses are prepared to be open in Ukiah, and none of them are gas stations.  Costco may be able to pump gas, but they only sell to members.

            Intermittent grid power is going to become more common as the climate continues to deteriorate.  Money is not the problem.  If our intention is to create a healthy planet for our kids, the issue is how we choose to invest our wealth.

When The Ignorant Hold Power

                                                                                                 written 4 August 2019

                                                                                           published 11 August 2019

                                                                

            

            Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever virus, was first identified in 1976 in Central African. The current outbreak began in rural Democratic Republic of Congo last year, and is now the largest ever, with more than 2,500 infected, and 1,700 dead.  Though the outbreak grew slowly while in the rural areas, it reached the city of Goma last month, population one million, with international air connections.  

            Ebola is transmitted through contact with contaminated body fluids, but infected people can be symptom free for weeks before becoming contagious.  Ebola can be contained by isolating infected individuals and all their contacts.  Trial vaccines seem effective when given in a timely manner.  Disposal of the dead must insure no further contact with healthy individuals.  Unfortunately, these measures are compromised by ongoing regional wars and widespread criminal activity displacing large populations in an area with limited access and high poverty.  Systems for monitoring and housing sick people are underfunded and understaffed, thus easily overwhelmed.  The outbreak in 2016 ended because of massive international aid.  The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the current outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern".

            Myths about Ebola, based on ignorance and superstition, are spread for local political and cultural advantage.  "Ebola is not real, but fake news made up by the government to keep people from voting".  "Ebola is spread by NGO's and health workers for financial gain".  "Governments made up Ebola to deflect attention from scandals or to depopulate regions". None of these anti-science myths are true, but people believe them, making treatment harder, increasing the likelihood the disease will expand. Ebola doesn't care what you believe.

            It is easy to discount the Ebola outbreak.  It's happening a long way from here, the impact seems fairly small, and the myths and superstitions sound foolish.  But we have the same dynamic happening with the growing climate crisis. 

            It seems far away, decades in the future, if anything happens at all.  Sea level rise and temperature increases are pretty small so far, a matter of a few inches, and a little over 1°C.  Even the myths are the same.  "Climate change is a hoax, fake news".  "It is the product of scientists looking to keep their grant money flowing".  "Climate change is used to destroy working class jobs".  "Renewable energy is un-American and will kill the economy".   This anti-science ignorance dominates the Republican party, delaying efforts to respond, increasing the cost of response, and risking near term human extinction. The climate doesn't care what you believe.  

            As the WHO declared a health emergency, the IPCC and scientists around the world are declaring a climate emergency.  Last week Professor José Javier Hernández Ayala, Director of the Climate Research Center at Sonoma State University wrote an open letter to state and local leaders, excerpted here.

            "If we don’t want to witness the end of organized civilization as we know it, we must act now.  I urge local, state and federal/national policymakers to accept the scientific consensus and the empirical reality that climate change is impacting us now.  I ask policymakers at all levels to issue official climate disaster state of emergency executive orders to make all resources available to deal with the climate change crisis."

            "I urge our governments to develop emergency measures that would allow us to prepare all of the infrastructure and essential sustaining systems in our communities for the impacts of climate change.  If we take bold action now, we can employ every able person in our communities in the 100% renewable energy transformation, infrastructure resiliency efforts and environmental restoration measures that would allow us to be better prepared to cope with climate change impacts."

            "In order for all of this to happen, policymakers need to accept one very important fact, we cannot continue with our current unsustainable economic activities that view the Earth as merely a collection of resources to be exploited in eternity for the sake of never-ending economic growth and wealth accumulation.  If we want to avoid the worst of the very likely climate apocalypse on our horizon, we must act now."

            Just because those in power are ignorant doesn't mean we have to be ignorant.  If our leaders refuse to lead, we must replace them.  We owe this to our grandchildren.