The Straw That Broke The Planet's Back

Julia Whitty's phrase 'the truth is, humans can change, and change fast', expresses concisely, through human historical experience, that this period of evolution is now almost entirely under the control of conscious human intent and will, and far less influenced by unconscious instinct, genetic mutation and natural selection as the evolutionary driver.

The Straw That Broke The Planet's Back
CBS Dec. 8, 2006
(Mother Jones) This column was written by Julia Whitty.

What if 12 asteroids were on collision courses with earth? What if we could alter their trajectories and save our planet by the cumulative effect of our individual efforts? What if science and history proved that we were fully capable of such heroism? What would it take to get us started?

John Schellnhuber, distinguished science advisor at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the United Kingdom, has identified 12 global warming tipping points, such as the deforestation of the Amazon rain foret or the melting of the west Antarctic ice sheet. Any of these, if triggered, will likely initiate sudden changes across the planet, as cataclysmic as any asteroid strike.

A section of the ice sheet covering much of Greenland is seen in this Aug. 17, 2005, file photo. Scientists say the ice is thinning and blame global warming, predicting a 3-foot rise in ocean levels by the end of the century through a combination of thermal expansion of the water and melting of polar ice.

(AP)Quote: Many secretly perceive global warming to be an insoluble problem and respond by circling the family wagons and turning inward. Yet science shows that human beings are born with powerful tools for solving this quandary.

So what will it take to trigger what we might call the 13th tipping point, the shift from personal denial to personal responsibility? What will tip us toward addressing global warming with the urgency it deserves, as the mother of all threats to homeland security?

A 2005 study on Americans’ perceptions of global warming found that most are moderately concerned, but 68% believe the greatest threats are to people far away or to nonhuman nature — a dangerous and delusional misperception. Only 13% perceive risk to themselves, their families or their communities. Many secretly perceive global warming to be an insoluble problem and respond by circling the family wagons and turning inward.

Yet science shows that human beings are born with powerful tools for solving this quandary. We have the genetic smarts and the cultural smarts. We have the technological know-how. We even have the inclination. The truth is we can change ourselves with breathtaking speed, sculpting even "immutable" human nature.

Forty years ago many believed human nature mandated that blacks and whites live in segregation; 30 years ago human nature divided men and women into separate economies; 20 years ago human nature prevented us from defusing a global nuclear standoff, but in 1987 the U.S. and Soviet Union singed the INF agreement.

Nowadays we blame human nature for the insolvable hazards of global warming. Research out of the Max Planck Institute in Germany suggests how we might help ourselves evolve. We behave as better environmental citizens when educated about the science of global warming, and when our individual actions are visible to those around us — a phenomenon known as "social facilitation."

Perhaps if we're vigorously informed of how global warming endangers our neighborhoods, we'll individually forego the McMansions and the Hummers and make other sustainable choices.

Anything less compromises our children's future. Until then, our denial facilitates "social loafing" — the tendency of individuals to slack when work is shared and individual performance is not assessed. There's no better example than the U.S. Congress, where members cloak their lethargy regarding global warming behind the stultifying inactivity of their fellows. And why not? After all, who's watching? Not the media, which habitually squelch new science stories on global warming by rationalizing that we've heard that before — though they would never ignore another round of Middle East bloodletting.

The growing body of scientific knowledge on climate change gains heft and power as it accumulates, but the public rarely hears about it, reinforcing our loafing. Scientists don't help when they react to the terrifying dimensions of public ignorance by sheltering inside hallowed halls.

At a recent meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, 70% of members argued in favor of advocating real solutions to environmental problems directly to lethargic policymakers and the press. Yet most researchers remain sequestered at a time when we need their knowledge and expertise like never before. The nature of tipping points is that they happen dizzyingly fast.

The good news is that history proves we're capable of keeping up. Social scientists once believed it would take decades of government pressure and education for Americans to choose smaller families, since the desire to procreate is an absolute part of the human animal, or so they thought. Yet population growth radically declined over only three years in the 1970s — one woman at a time, without an ounce of government involvement.

Political leaders can help. But even without them we can help ourselves. Whether or not Marie Antoinette actually said "Let them eat cake," she inspired change that reverberated far beyond Europe. Likewise, when George W. Bush says we can't act on global warming until we "fully understand the nature of the problem," we can use his callous disregard as a rallying cry.

The truth is, humans can change, and change fast. Our hallmark is adaptability. Long ago, we looked out from the trees and saw the savannas. Beyond the savannas we glimpsed further frontiers. History proves that when we behold a better world, we move toward it — one person at a time — leaving behind what no longer works. We know what to do. We know how to do it. We know the timeline. We are our own tipping point. This piece is adapted from a longer article in the current issue of Mother Jones, where Julia Whitty is a contributing writer. She is also author of the forthcoming book "The Fragile Edge: Diving and Other Adventures in the South Pacific." By Julia Whitty© 2006 The Foundation for National Progress

As current events continually remind us, with global warming trends, resource wars topped with nuclear dessert potential, transportation speeds competing with snails/belly crawling, and "extreme workers" at both ends of the Great Divide, the question of evolutionary criteria would seem to have profound implications to our survival.

If evolution, indeed, is in in our hands, from whence will we get the answers? The government? The news media shows "daddy" AKA Corporate Masters, control the government and decide our whole lifestyle, scientific direction and future. Thier only motive, corporate mandate, is profit, and they have all our money.

This bears repeating: Science and Technology, Humanity's extended senses, are at the Steering Wheel today. Blind Science and Technology with Corporate secrecy, power, greed and lies, and Humanity can kiss it's x#s goodbye.

The Trouble with Physics cannot be allowed to continue
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Non-Lethal Weapon Makes Targets Feel Like They're on Fire

Crowd Control

Non-Lethal Weapon Makes Targets Feel Like They're on Fire
Active Denial System Called 'Holy Grail' of Crowd Control But Raises Questions of Ethics
By JONATHAN SILVERSTEIN
Dec. 8, 2006 — - A military convoy is making its way through a crowded Baghdad street. Without warning, a blast rings out and the Bradley Fighting Vehicle leading the convoy is destroyed, along with the men and women it contained.
A crowd of what appear to be civilians rush the decimated vehicle, surrounding it, and units are called in to calm the situation and secure the Bradley. The crowd grows unruly and units on the scene fear that insurgents or sympathizers may have mixed in and are attempting to loot the vehicle of ammunition and parts.
Today, those units have two choices -- and both of them are bad. They can attempt to disperse the crowd by ordering them to get away from the vehicle and leave -- which would likely have little effect -- or they can fire into the crowd, possible injuring or even killing innocent civilians in the process.
"If you're a soldier dealing with an unruly mob you don't have a lot of options," says Noah Shachtman, editor-in-chief of Defensetech.org. "You have the M-16 option, the bullhorn option and there's not that much in between."
That is, until now. A new non-lethal weapon developed by the Department of Defense intends to give soldiers a third option in these kinds of situations.
The ADS, or Active Denial System, fires off an invisible beam that penetrates the top 1/64th of an inch of a target's skin, hitting those sensitive pain receptors and causing a burning sensation that some have likened to being dipped in molten lava.
When the target steps out of the beam's path, the pain goes away instantaneously, causing no permanent damage and leaving no marks, bruises or burns.
Some military experts are calling it the Holy Grail of crowd control. But critics fear that after incidents like the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, the potential for the technology to be abused or for more sinister means is simply too great.
"The big concern is exactly what it's going to be used for and do we want a weapon that simply causes pain because there are all sorts of ways that this could be misused," says David Hambling who's has monitored the ADS and other non-lethal technologies and authored the book "Weapons Grade: How Modern Warfare Gave Birth to Our High-Tech World."
A Non-Lethal Alternative to Deadly Force?
The ADS looks like a flat radar dish mounted on a military Hummer. Engineers are also developing an airborne, shipboard and handheld version as well. Operators use a focused camera that shows exactly where the beam will hit and fire on targets from afar, keeping the device and the soldiers around it out of range of small arms fire.
"If you've ever used a blow dryer on your hair, and if you leave the blow dryer in one place for too long, you have to move it away -- it's very similar to that affect," says Susan LeVine, principle deputy for policy and strategy at the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program.
The device uses millimeter waves that are much easier to control than microwaves but have a similar effect -- they heat things up.
LeVine insists that millimeter waves are not nearly as harmful as microwaves, both of which can cause cancer. She says extensive testing has proven that the device isn't dangerous beyond the pain it generates.
"It does not penetrate or reach deep into the body, so it's not going to affect your internal organs or pacemaker -- it's only going to touch the outermost surface of the skin," she says. "This is by far the most research non-lethal weapon in the history of the Department of Defense."
According to LeVine, there are no know long-term side effects and it doesn't cause cancer. She also added that due to the instinctive reaction to close one's eyes and turn away from the heat the beam generates, it has shown no negative affect on a target's eyesight
Enter the 'Hall of Justice'
According to experts, the device is the darling of the non-lethal weapons program, which is working on devices that sound more like they come out of the world of science fiction than military science.
"The world of less lethal weapons sometimes feels like you're stepping into the 'Hall of Justice,'" says Shachtman. "There are slippery foams, hardening foams, there's wireless Tasers where the electrical energy just leaps out at you, there are vortex rings of compressed air."
Though Shachtman says the military's non-lethal weapons research only accounts for a tiny portion of the military research budget as a whole, it has almost doubled in the last year. He believes this is a sign of increased confidence in -- and the necessity for -- the technologies being developed.
LeVine says that testing the ADS on more than 600 volunteers over the last 12 years showed that it makes people run away, leading to David Hambling nicknaming it the "Good Bye Gun."
"When you feel that millimeter wave energy you get a heating sensation, a clear distinct sensation that you know somebody's telling you to stop your actions and get out of the area," says LeVine.
But what if you're stuck in a crowd? Trapped on the ground or simply unable to get out of the weapon's path?
LeVine says that's not possible due to the operator's training and the camera he uses to target the device. She claims he's see what is happening.
But LeVine also argues that the ADS is not meant to replace all of the other lethal and non-lethal weaponry and options at soldiers' disposal.
"They're going to make a choice on how to deal with the situation. And if they were to engage and employ the Active Denial System, and they're not getting the desired response, then they may use other force options," LeVine says. "We're not saying this is the end-all weapon and will solve all problems. It's just another tool for our troops."
Those troops will have to wait for the ADS. It wraps up the final phase of testing -- the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration -- with the 820th Security Forces Group at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in 2007.
Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

Suburban Poverty Rising In U.S.

The illegal immigrant, "street coined Mexican starvation wages" migrated into the US?

Suburban Poverty Rising In U.S.
CBS WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2006
(AP) As Americans flee the cities for the suburbs, many are failing to leave poverty behind. The suburban poor outnumbered their inner-city counterparts for the first time last year, with more than 12 million suburban residents living in poverty, according to a study of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas released Thursday. "Economies are regional now," said Alan Berube, who co-wrote the report for the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "Where you see increases in city poverty, in almost every metropolitan area, you also see increases in suburban poverty." Nationally, the poverty rate leveled off last year at 12.6 percent after increasing every year since the decade began. It was a period when the country went through a recession and an uneven recovery that is still sputtering in parts of the Northeast and Midwest. "Looking back at the 1970s, you would have seen cities suffering and suburbs staying the same," said Berube, research director at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program. "But the story is different today." Berube said several factors are contributing to an increase in suburban poverty:
· Suburbs are adding people much faster than cities, making it inevitable that the number of poor people living in suburbs would eventually surpass those living in cities.
· The poverty rate in large cities (18.8 percent) is still higher than it is in the suburbs (9.4 percent). But the overall number of people living in poverty is higher in the suburbs in part because of population growth.
· America's suburbs are becoming more diverse, racially and economically. "There's poverty really everywhere in metropolitan areas because there are low-wage jobs everywhere," Berube said.
· Recent immigrants are increasingly bypassing cities and moving directly to suburbs, especially in the South and West. Those immigrants, on average, have lower incomes than people born in the United States. Berube and research analyst Elizabeth Kneebone studied poverty figures for the 100 largest metropolitan areas, measuring changes from 1999 to 2005, the most recent data available. In 1999, the number of poor people living in cities and suburbs was roughly even, at about 10.3 million apiece, according to the report. Last year, the suburban poor outnumbered their urban counterparts by about 1.2 million. The federal government defined the poverty level as $15,577 for a family of three in 2005. "Traditionally, cities have been viewed as home to poor populations, surrounded by middle- and upper-income suburbs," the report said. "This 'tipping' of poor populations to the suburbs represents a signal development that upends historical notions about who lives in cities and suburbs." Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, said many of the same social and economic problems that have plagued cities for years are now affecting suburbs: struggling schools, rising crime and low-paying jobs. "I call it the urbanization of the suburbs," Morial said. "I hope this says to people that the way to confront poverty is not to wall it off and concentrate it," Morial said. "You really need policies to eliminate it." Cleveland was the city with the highest poverty rate last year, at 32.4 percent, while San Jose had the lowest, at 9.7 percent. Suburban McAllen, Texas, at the southern tip of the state, was the suburb with the highest poverty rate last year, at 43.9 percent, while suburban Des Moines, Iowa, had the lowest, at 3.7 percent.
©MMVI, The Associated Press

Richest 2 Percent Own Half the World, Study Says

Something utterly obscene about a non-human economic model that leaves governments and individuals incapacitated to aid Tsunami and Katrina victims, solve transportation nightmares, and totally blocks funding capacity in fundamental energy science to solve the deadly threats forthcoming with global warming and resource wars

Richest 2 Percent Own Half the World, Study Says
ABC - By Tarmo Virki

HELSINKI, Dec. 5, 2006 — - Two percent of adults command more than half of the world's wealth, while the bottom 50 percent possesses just 1 percent, according to a U.N. development institute study released on Tuesday.

While income is distributed unequally across the globe, the geographical spread of wealth -- which includes property and financial assets -- is even more skewed, the study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the UN University showed.

"Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia-Pacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 percent of total world wealth," the survey said.

The Helsinki-based institute said this was the first global research on the topic, for which there are only limited data. The study is based on figures from 2000.

Institute director Anthony Shorrocks said if the world's population was reduced to a group of 10 people, one person would hold $99 and the remaining nine would share $1.

"The super-rich are even more grotesquely rich than 50 years ago," he said.

According to the study, a couple in 2000 needed $1 million in capital to number among the richest 37 million people in the world, the top 1 percent. More than half of that group lives in the United States or Japan.

"The USA and Japan stand out because they have large populations and high average wealth. Although Switzerland and Luxembourg have high average wealth, their populations are small," Shorrocks said.

Average per capita net assets in Japan were $181,000, while in the United States the average was $144,000. The study found that net assets of $2,200 per adult would put a household in the top half of the wealth distribution.

At the bottom of the list came nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia, with capital of less than $200 per head.

Still, many in the wealthy West are house-poor, with assets well below this number due to mortgages and other debt.

"Many people in high-income countries have negative net worth and -- somewhat paradoxically -- are among the poorest people in the world in terms of household wealth," the report said.
ABC News Internet Ventures

'Extreme' Jobs on the Rise

So as not to skew and twist your view of reality with this tiny segment of well paid workaholics, we will remind you that extreme jobs go all the way down to the bottom of the pay scale. Just ask anyone involved with downsizing, mergers, productivity increases with pay cuts. With everyone involved in 'extreme' culture, who is handling the deadly self made threats coming our way? (the inconvenient truths of global warming, resources wars, dead science on energy, and living our whole lives in a parking lot SUPERHIGHWAY)

'Extreme' Jobs on the Rise
ABC: Workers Who Choose 80-Hour Work Weeks and no Vacations Put Life Balance at Risk, Experts Warn
By MARILYN GARDNER
Dec. 5, 2006 — - Eleven hours a day, seven days a week, Cynthia McKay maintains a clockwork schedule. From 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., she is in her office as CEO of LeGourmet Gift Basket in Castle Rock, Colo. That adds up to a 77-hour workweek, not counting her time at home on 24-hour call for clients around the world.
But don't feel sorry for McKay. Her long hours are "absolutely my choice," she says, adding, "I love being at work. It becomes a lifestyle as opposed to a job."
That kind of schedule puts McKay in the rarefied company of a growing group of highly paid professionals who hold "extreme" jobs. One-fifth of high earners surveyed in the United States have such jobs, according to new research. In addition to logging 60 or more hours a week, many travel regularly, maintain fast-paced, unpredictable schedules, and respond to clients' demands around the clock.
Although workaholics have always existed, their image has been glamorized. Today's overachievers are cast as "road warriors and masters of the universe," says Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York. Yet despite their impressive financial rewards, those burning this midnight oil face challenges. Warning that their pace is not sustainable, Dr. Hewlett says, "There's a lot of risk attached. The fallout in private lives is huge." In addition, women are being left behind because many cannot put in 70-hour weeks.
Hewlett's report, "Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Workweek," is published today in the Harvard Business Review.
The Passion, Pay, Come at a Heavy Price
What distinguishes these overachievers is their passion for their work. Two-thirds of high earners in a range of professions in the U.S. and three-quarters of top managers in multinational corporations say they love their jobs.
"The big surprise of the data was just how much these extreme professionals love their work," Hewlett says. "It is a knowledge economy. Millions of people are amazingly challenged and stimulated by their work. That is good news."
Extreme jobs exist everywhere -- in large manufacturing companies and small firms; in law, medicine, entertainment, media, technology; and on Wall Street.
Beyond extreme workers' personal ambitions, several cultural factors are helping to drive the trend, Hewlett says. One is globalization, which requires professionals to work across multiple time zones. Communication technology also plays a role, allowing workers to stay in constant contact. Increased competition for high-level positions and declining job security also encourage excessive work.
"There's something deep in our culture right now which really admires over-the-top pressure, over-the-top performance, over-the-top pay packages," Hewlett says.
Extreme jobs do not exist in a vacuum. "We're not just in an age of extreme work, we're in an age of extreme culture," says Catherine Orenstein, a cultural critic in New York. She points to the popularity of extreme sports, extreme parenting, and extreme reality shows.
In the beginning, Orenstein says, extreme sports offered "high risk for the fast and the few." Now they also appeal to those with ordinary skills. "We have reality TV shows like 'Fear Factor,' where average people do death-defying stunts. Even at the gym you can see sort of a trickle-down of this."
Today the extreme metaphor has spread to work and popular ideas of success, Orenstein says. " 'American Idol,' 'Project Runway,' and 'The Apprentice' are all shows about how you make it in America. Anyone with hard work, determination, risk, individualism, and bravado will be rewarded. But there's only one winner, so it's a jackpot idea."
Extra Hours Affect Physical, Mental and Family Health
In the 1950s, the popular cultural ideal of work and success was far different. "We had a notion of moderation," Orenstein says. "You can see it in 'Ozzie and Harriet.' For a reasonable amount of work over a reasonable amount of time, you have a reasonable amount of security and a reasonable amount of success. Now we have a more extreme notion of success and the amount of work that should go into it."
But these nonstop schedules require sacrifices that intrude on personal and family life. More than one-third of high-earning individuals work more than 60 hours a week, and most report that they are putting in an average of 16.5 hours per week more now than they did five years ago.
"There's a big undermining of personal health, whether it's addiction to sleep medications or crazy diets because you're traveling all over the world," Hewlett says. More than two-thirds of professionals surveyed do not get enough sleep. A significant number overeat.
Michael Bernstein, a physician in New York, sometimes works 80 hours a week. During those periods, he says, "There's no time for cooking and preparing food in a healthy way. We eat out or order in."
Extreme jobs can hurt relationships, Hewlett finds. Laura Stack, author of "Leave the Office Earlier," notes that the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers identifies a preoccupation with work as one of the top four causes of divorce.
McKay appreciates the flexibility of her husband, Paul Gomez, who is the assistant attorney general for Colorado. Calling him "a saint who tolerates the schedule well," she notes that they talk often during the day and spend time together in the evening.
For those with extreme jobs like hers, other activities must go. "I used to play golf, but I've given that up to do the work," she says. "We never go out, so we splurged and built a movie theater in our house." And vacations? Not a chance.
What Happened to Vacations?
McKay has plenty of company. Among extreme job holders, 42 percent take 10 or fewer vacation days a year. More than half say they regularly cancel vacations.
Although Susan Cunningham works long hours as a vice president at an interior architecture firm in New York, she takes vacations. "It is imperative to find time outside of work to de-stress," she says.
Alexander Southwell, a federal prosecutor for the US Attorney's Office in New York, typically logs 70-hour weeks. "When I'm on trial, it can be 80, 90, 100 hours a week," he says. "It can be 8 a.m. to midnight every day, often seven days a week."
It is a pace he has kept up for about five years, the typical length of time people stay in his office. "It's very intense. It's very hard to keep up with things in your personal life. I don't go to the gym. I often skip meals. It's hard. It's very draining."
But the professional tug remains strong. "Part of the reason I stay and part of the reason I do it is it's an amazing job. I feel very passionate about it," says Southwell.
He and his wife have two young children. "I try to get them dressed and fed in the morning to let my wife relax," he says. "It's important to spend that time with them. Sometimes I will take my older child to nursery school."
Tougher to Make Time for Kids
For some children, parents' all- consuming careers pose problems. "Kids are very conscious that many of their parents are stressed and tired," says Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute in New York, who interviewed children of working parents for her book "Ask the Children."
When family problems do arise, women are much more likely to notice the problems than men are.
"Both men and women see that children are underperforming at school, eating junk food, and watching too much TV," Hewlett says. "Men don't take this personally. But maternal guilt is alive and well. Women draw a straight line between problems in their own lives and their jobs." That makes them more likely to leave their careers. Fifty-seven percent of women holding extreme jobs do not want to continue the pace for more than a year.
"A business model that requires top people to put in 70-hour workweeks for decades at a time seriously excludes women," Hewlett says. "It kind of explains why progress has stalled for women."
Noting the need to rethink careers, Galinsky says, "We need to create more flexibility in careers so you can step sideways or go full steam ahead for a while."
Hewlett describes a program at American Express called Project Embrace. "An individual who needs a breather or needs to step back from one of these intense jobs for two years can do a project that is not full time."
Stack argues for attitudinal shifts as well. "We overindulge in work to the exclusion of life. What will happen to these people if they get a pink slip? They have gotten to the point that they don't know what life is, because work is their life.
"Overwork has become a competition. I don't think it's a competition worth winning."


www.csmonitor.com The Christian Science Monitor.
ABC News Internet Ventures

Clinton warns on tsunami progress

BBC 12/2/06 Clinton warns on tsunami progress

Tsunami aid 'went to the richest' a leading international charity says the poorest victims have benefited the least from the massive relief effort - 'Scant help' for tsunami victims Aid agencies have accused governments in five countries hit by the Asian tsunami of failing to provide housing, relief or work to all the victims.

Former US President Bill Clinton has voiced concern at slow progress in rehousing those left homeless by the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Mr Clinton said that only about a third of those affected by the disaster were back in permanent housing. He said more action was needed.
The former president is on a tour of tsunami-hit nations in his capacity as UN special envoy for tsunami aid.
He has visited Thailand and India and is now in Indonesia's Aceh province.
More than 200,000 people died in the 26 December 2004 tsunami, which was triggered by an undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean.
'Speed up rebuilding'
Mr Clinton received a warm welcome in Banda Aceh, the capital of the province in northern Sumatra that was devastated by the waves.
He visited those left homeless by the disaster, meeting refugees at a camp near Banda Aceh.
"I hope Clinton's visit can speed up rebuilding of our house," one refugee, Syarifuddin, told the Associated Press news agency.
"We cannot stand living in this unhealthy camp any longer," mother-of-three Hamidah told the agency.
Mr Clinton will also visit rows of bare temporary housing built as an emergency measure after the tsunami, but which charities estimate still house some 70,000 people, the BBC's Lucy Williamson reports from Jakarta.
Other stops will include a transitional housing project and a recently completed school.
He is also expected to hold meetings with representatives from the Indonesian government and the former separatist group, GAM, our correspondent adds.
The two sides signed a peace deal last year that was widely attributed to the impact of the tsunami.
On Friday, work began on placing the first of a planned network of tsunami early warning buoys in the Indian Ocean.
The buoy, to be placed between Thailand and Sri Lanka, is able to detect sudden increases in pressure deep under the sea and give coastal communities early warning of a tsunami.
It is hoped that eventually a network of 24 buoys will extend to Indonesia and Australia, along the deep and unstable fault-line that caused the 2004 earthquake.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6201350.stmPublished: 2006/12/02 10:59:34 GMT© BBC MMVI

Plan for South American Pipeline Has Ambitions Beyond Gas

“You don’t build a pipeline for political reasons,” said Robert E. Ebel, energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It should be a financially viable operation.” ..............How about Human Reasons? ....."Biz is biz, family is family.....don't mix the two ....... reminds me of other families' philosophy

NYT December 2, 2006
Plan for South American Pipeline Has Ambitions Beyond Gas
By JENS ERIK GOULD

GÜIRIA, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez is not modest about his energy plans. He wants to build a 5,000-mile natural gas pipeline that stretches from this remote northern tip of South America to the bottom end of the continent.
Erecting possibly the longest pipeline in the world is the centerpiece of a broader effort by Mr. Chávez to strengthen ties among Latin America’s economies and shrink their dependence on the United States.
But from the outset, the $20 billion “great gas pipeline of the south,” planned to be more than twice as long as the United States border with Mexico, has generated political and environmental controversy at home and abroad.
Mr. Chávez, who deeply distrusts the United States and has raised the prospect that it may invade Venezuela to seize its oil, is seeking to diversify his country’s energy exports away from its biggest client and toward countries as far away as China and as close as Brazil.
Mr. Chávez has strengthened political ties with Brazil and Argentina in recent years. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, accompanied him to inaugurate a new bridge in Venezuela in November as Mr. Chávez was campaigning for re-election.
[The voting is on Dec. 3, with most polls showing Mr. Chávez ahead by a wide margin.]
And these days, he is dangling Venezuela’s significant reserves as an incentive as he asks his neighbors for a long-term natural gas commitment.
During a recent visit to the pipeline’s projected starting point, as oil workers and local residents crowded just outside this fishing town in Venezuela’s northeast, Mr. Chávez proclaimed, as he stood next to a row of national flags: “Here in this South America, from the Caribbean to Patagonia, we’ll build a great bloc of political, economic and social power to seek world equilibrium this century, where we don’t have one policeman who wants to be the owner of the world.”
That geopolitical aim is, in fact, the project’s biggest hurdle, energy analysts maintain. They say that the decision by Mr. Chávez to give his ideological goals priority over profit jeopardizes the success of the project.
“You don’t build a pipeline for political reasons,” said Robert E. Ebel, energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It should be a financially viable operation.”
Though Venezuela could reap higher profit margins by exporting liquefied natural gas to higher-price markets like the United States, Venezuelan officials acknowledge that is not their goal.
“It’s not that the economic part doesn’t matter,” said Ángel González, general director of exploration and production at the Energy Ministry, “but it’s really not the most important part of this project.”
Venezuela is not the only country to use gas pipelines for political influence. Critics in the United States accused Russia of using energy politics after its giant company Gazprom stopped supplying Ukraine in an effort to raise prices at the start of the year.
Still, it is not clear that Mr. Chávez can muster long-term support in South America for a huge pipeline that would take at least a decade to complete. There is already skepticism and bickering over other energy deals, analysts say.
“Does political will last that long?” asked Michelle Billig of the PIRA Energy Group in New York, a consulting firm.
Brazil, for instance, may be wary of committing itself to a pipeline with Venezuela after Mr. Chávez applauded Bolivia’s nationalization of energy industries in 2006. That move jeopardized the natural gas investments of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, in Bolivia, said Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington.
Argentina and Brazil, expected to be the project’s largest users, would find themselves dependent for supplies of gas on Venezuela and Bolivia, nations that have shown themselves to be politically volatile. Venezuela halted oil exports during a two-month national strike starting late in 2002, and tensions in Bolivia over how to manage energy resources have helped topple two recent presidents. Paraguay and Uruguay would also take part in the pipeline.
“In South America there is no project more challenging than this one in its history,” said Ricardo Savini, a business development manager for Petrobras. He said his company could take part in the pipeline if feasibility studies turned out favorable.
Venezuela’s natural gas reserves are largely undeveloped, and over the years, gas has taken a back seat to petroleum in Venezuela, one of the world’s leading oil exporters.
The Chávez government has made laws more attractive for investors in gas. That contrasts sharply with the blunt measures that have wrested control from foreign companies producing oil. Chevron has already found enough gas in the Plataforma Deltana area in the east for Venezuela to begin processing liquefied natural gas. Chevron expects to export liquefied gas to the United States and European markets through a $5.6 billion complex that the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, plans to build outside Güiria.
Now, the state company also wants the complex to feed the transcontinental pipeline and says those plans are a higher priority than exporting liquefied gas.
Energy analysts say it will be a tall order for Venezuela’s budding gas industry to produce enough for both the L.N.G. plant and the pipeline, especially when current output does not even satisfy domestic demand for natural gas.
The pipeline also faces resistance from environmental groups because it would cut through the Brazilian Amazon and cross several large rivers to reach its destinations. Watchdog groups, like Greenpeace, say it could devastate some of the least-developed and least-studied areas in the dense rainforest and that the influx of laborers could bring diseases to remote indigenous communities.
“It will be terrible,” said Paulo Adario, Amazon campaign coordinator for Greenpeace. “The environmental impact seems very high.”
There is concern in Güiria, too, a city of 35,000 people. A month after Mr. Chavez broke ground for the gas complex on the environmentally sensitive Paria peninsula in September, the monument built for his nationally televised speech was still littered with the empty water bottles and soda cans of those who attended. “You manage a project that you supposedly consider won’t create any environmental impact on an international level — and then you do this,” said Rodolfo Foucault, a Güiria resident, when he saw the trash on an otherwise unspoiled coastline.
Still, many locals welcome Petróleos de Venezuela’s promise to spend more than $1 billion on infrastructure and local industries in Sucre, the northeastern state where Güiria is situated. “We want the development for our community,” said Antonio Calazán, who fishes mackerel and shark in the waters off Güiria.
While even critics are optimistic that the state oil company will keep its promise to build the liquefied natural gas plant, many say that the pipeline will be the latest in a long line of Venezuelan energy plans that never got off the ground or have been significantly delayed. For example, Mariscal Sucre, a promising offshore natural gas project, has been stalled for more than a decade.
Government officials have yet to disclose details on its routes or costs, saying that technical teams are performing preliminary studies. A model of the complex in Güiria’s airport does not offer any clues either, nor does it illustrate what part of the plant’s terminal will feed the transcontinental line.
There was no actual construction to be seen along the main road cutting through the plant site in Güiria other than the monument that Mr. Chávez opened — and even that appeared abandoned. The wind had torn down the young coconut trees that provided the president’s television backdrop.
Yet Mr. Chávez and his energy officials continue to champion the proposal. They have even devised a slogan for Güiria on the plaque, which Carlos Figueredo, Petróleos de Venezuela’s general manager for offshore natural gas, repeated at an industry conference in October in Sucre state.
“We have called Güiria the place where the gas is born that unites the people,” he said. “That gives you an idea of the magnitude that we’re looking at.”