Earth (and other) Matters

The Right Way to Tax Capital Gains

2012-01-13T17:36:00.000-08:00

If I buy something, and sell it later for more than I paid, I have made a capital gain. If I waited less than a year before I sold it, my profit is taxed like any other income. The capital gain is added to my other sources of income. But if I wait a year or more before I sell, then our current tax code treats it differently. It's considered a "long term" capital gain, and the tax will be 15%.

So what's wrong with that system? The most common complaint that one hears is that people who earn their living via long term capital gains are getting a tax break that is unfair to regular people. Those who think this way say that all capital gains should be taxed the same as ordinary income. But there is another issue that is talked about much less often, and that is the effect of inflation. Inflation can produce long term capital gains that are totally illusory. Suppose, for an example, that I bought a house in 1991 for $100,000. then in 2011 I sold it for $200,000. It seems like I earned $100,000, right? But I didn't really, because the 2011 dollars are each worth less than the 1991 dollars. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the $100,000 that I paid in 1991 has the same purchasing power as $166,100 in 2011. If I had sold the house for $166,100 I would have broken even, or exactly gotten my money back. Since I sold it for $200,00, my true profit is $33,900. But I will have to pay tax as if the profit were $100,000. My tax will be $15,000, which is almost 50% of my true profit.

So it seems that the current system is capable of taxing both too little and too much depending on the circumstances. My proposal to remedy this is to take inflation into account when computing capital gains. The government already considers inflation for other purposes. For example, social security checks are adjusted upward annually to compensate for inflation. And the government sells a type of bond, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, whose value is adjusted for inflation. Hence there is already a precedent for considering inflation in government financial matters. So what I suggest is that capital gains be inflation adjusted by the change in the CPI from the time of purchase to the time of sale. The distinction between long and short term capital gains is no longer necessary; it could be eliminated. All capital gains could be taxed as ordinary income, but they would be computed differently. The effect of this difference in computation would be to reduce the tax on long term capital gains, but the amount of reduction would depend on how much inflation occurred during the interval between purchase and sale.

My main point here is that capital gains should be adjusted for inflation. Whether to tax them at the same rate as ordinary income, or to treat them differently, is another issue. Since new business formation is aided by readily available capital, there is justification for giving favorable tax treatment to long term capital gains. If this is done I think the waiting period should be something like 3 to 5 years, not 1 as is currently the case. The latter encourages "flipping", which is not something to be encouraged. 5 years is a reasonable time to wait when you invest in a new business.

Full Employment: Let Me Count the Ways.

2011-12-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

Some people think that the free market economy will create jobs for everyone if it is just left alone. We will never know if that theory is correct because no government will let the economy alone. However there are many nations in the world with minimal, ineffective, governments that have very little effect on their own economies. To my knowledge, all such nations are characterized by having mostly very poor people, and a handful of wealthy families owning almost everything. So, by inference, that supports another theory that says that a true free market economy leads to stagnation and great inequality of wealth. (But more about that another time.)

So, given the type of government that we have, what policy alternatives could lead to full employment, and maintain full employment? I think we have to start with the fact of today's very high productivity, which means that it only takes a fraction of the population to produce the goods and services that people need. That leads us to our first alternative, reducing the work week. If we could get most people to work no more than about 30 hours per week, that ought to keep almost everyone employed, fulfilling our basic needs. It would also be a boon to the recreation segment of the economy, because people would have a lot more time for sports, hobbies, and travel.

A second alternative is to put more money into the pockets of the common people. This will enable them to buy a lot of stuff that they don't really need, but would like to have. This causes businesses to produce more and hence hire more. With sufficient monetary stimulus of this type we should be able to keep the economy humming along at full capacity. With more people working and more income to businesses, tax revenue would increase, and this would, at least partially, pay for the monetary stimulus. If further revenues are required they can come from increasing taxes on those with very high incomes. If this approach is taken then America can continue to have lots of giant TV sets, smart phones, luxurious cars, muscular trucks, and full closets.

A third alternative is for the government to be much more aggressive on infrastructure maintenance and construction. This means letting contracts to build or repair bridges, roads, dams, railways, communication lines, hospitals, clinics, job training centers, and so on. The U.S. Postal Service is part of our present infrastructure, so if this policy were adopted we would certainly maintain Saturday delivery, and not close any existing post offices. On the contrary, new post offices would be built so that everyone has one close by.

A fourth alternative is to imitate the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, who employed large number of people to build pyramids. Nowadays, we would build space vehicles instead of pyramids. In addition to expanding the space program, we would increase support for scientific and industrial research, and for the arts.

The fifth alternative is to expand the military establishment. Of course we are already spending a large proportion of the government's revenue on defense. This goes not only to paying the salaries of the million and a half service personnel, but also to funding 100's of corporations, large and small, to develop and produce their equipment. (Think tanks, aircraft, ships, missiles, rifles, uniforms, and 100's of other things.) However, we have had a lot more men under arms in the past, so it would be possible to greatly increase the size of the military.

Those five methods are not mutually exclusive; any of them might be combined with any of the others. As a matter of fact, the nation is currently doing ALL of them, to some extent. To achieve full employment it would be necessary increase one or more of these approaches.

Personally, I would prefer more of the first approach mentioned, reducing the length of the work week. This would be in line with the historical trend. Our great-great-grandfathers used to work 70 hours per week; popular demand, along with increasing productivity, gradually reduced the workweek until it reached it's current 40 hours. But since the 1950's the trend to reduce the workweek has not been evident. Why not resurrect this trend?

Employment, Debt, Deficit & Austerity

2011-09-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

Before we get into the details, let me point out that when a government reduces spending, it has to fire people. If there is already high unemployment, this makes it worse. Furthermore, these fired people now stop paying taxes, and collect unemployment benefits instead, making the government's financial problems worse. And finally, these newly unemployed people don't have much money for shopping, so the retail industry suffers a hit, and they order less stuff from manufacturers, and so on. A policy like this, sometimes called austerity, just makes matters worse.

Just to be clear, the debt I'll be talking about is the total amount of money that the U.S. government owes, and that it pays interest on. The deficit is the difference between total government spending and total government income, in one year. It should be clear that the debt is the result of having a deficit, year after year. In order to reduce the debt we need to have an annual surplus instead of a deficit.

Deficit and debt are bad over the long haul. It's quite important to reduce the deficit, and reduce it a lot. But it does not have to be done immediately. It's a long term problem. The main reason to pay off the debt is because of the interest payments that have to be made. Those are a significant part of the government's total expenses, but in 2011 they are still manageable, still less than what we spend on the military, for example. But if the deficit remains high, the debt will rise, and the interest payment will eventually become unmanageable. As we approach that point, interest rates will rise, because lenders will worry about the safety of their investments. Fortunately, that point is still a few years away, but the danger must be taken seriously.

Having 20% of the population under or un-employed is a very serious immediate problem. That is the principal cause of our large deficit, because unemployed people don't pay taxes! There is no doubt that stimulus works if it's the right kind. Giving money to wealthy people doesn't do it. Same for giving money to large corporations. What does work is either the government hiring people directly, like Roosevelt did, or letting contracts to private companies for goods or services that require workers immediately. Since the nation has thousands of roads and bridges that are in serious disrepair, this one is a no-brainer. Do you remember the bridge that collapsed in the midwest a couple of years ago? That's pretty serious. That should have been a wake-up call, but it was not heeded by our dysfunctional congress.

But hiring people, or letting contracts, requires money. If the deficit is already a problem, how can the government spend more money, and where will it come from? The answer is that you have to go where the idle money is, and that location is well known today. It is in the financial accounts of large corporations and very wealthy individuals. If we were to simply return to the taxation policies of 1960's and 70's there would be plenty of money for hiring people and letting contracts. Our financial problems today are in large part due to a steady reduction of the tax rates on high incomes that began in the 1980's and continue today.

What I'm saying is: Increase taxes on the rich and use the money to fix and build roads, bridges, railways, airports, high speed internet lines and hospitals. Also use it to train medical workers and technicians in industries with shortages of skilled labor.

When you hire unemployed people you not only remove them from the unemployment lists, but they then have money to spend, which they do. This spending increases demand for goods and services, resulting in more hiring, to produce those goods and services. It's a positive feedback process. OTOH, if you give tax breaks to wealthy people, they invest most of that money, and so the economy is not stimulated very much. (This would be different if the nation had a shortage of capital, but that is not the case.) The newly employed people also begin paying taxes again.

There are false myths being repeated endlessly by some in public life. One is that if you tax the "job creators" you will hurt the economy. Well, the evidence is clear: those job creators have been sitting on huge piles of cash for several years now, and they are not creating jobs. 30 years ago, when they WERE creating lots of jobs, they were paying MUCH HIGHER taxes than they are today.

It's when the economy is strong, and growing, that governments can, and should, reduce spending.

I just watched Obama's Speech about restoring a strong economy.

2011-09-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

Did you catch it? I'd be curious to hear your impression.

My impressions of course are those of a progressive, a formerly
enthusiastic supporter of Obama, lately a disappointed, un-enthusiastic supporter.

The speech was GREAT! Rooseveltian! He described a serious,
comprehensive plan to rescue the nation from the current economic
crisis, a plan that made very good sense to me. Furthermore, he threw down the gauntlet to the Republicans, kind of daring them not to pass it. (my words, not his.) If the Republicans continue with their attitude of the past several months they will not pass his bill. The only thing that might get them to pass it, IMO, is fear, fear of serious disapproval by the voting public. This speech, and the public's reaction to it MIGHT have that effect. Only time will tell.

There is one serious flaw. Obama said everything would be paid for,
but to do that he is relying on congress to pass serious tax reform.
I don't believe they are capable of that, even if they wanted to.

But I'll bet that this speech increases his approval rating, and I'll
bet that a strong majority of the public would want the plan to be
enacted.

For those who did not see the speech, it was unusual for Obama. For
example, he said about ten times throughout the speech: "You should
pass this bill, now!" It was a ballsy and challenging speech.

m

--
Tax the rich - build roads, bridges, railways, solar energy plants,
space vehicles, ...................

Earthchurch Again Looking for a Leader

2011-09-02T10:07:00.000-07:00

Many months ago we thought we had found a new leader in Jon McLane, but that has not worked out, so we are again looking for a new leader.

I should have made that announcement several months ago. :(

My earlier post about Earthchurch needing a leader can be found here, dated December 2008.

Fantasy Foreign Policy

2011-05-15T21:13:00.000-07:00

Some people think my ideas about foreign policy are too hawkish, so I thought I should explain myself. This little essay is not about every aspect of foreign policy, it's just about the question of intervention in small dysfunctional nations, or nations with oppressive regimes. Current examples would be Libya, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Syria, Burma, Uganda and many others around the world.

I would like to see regime change in those countries, but I realize that this is very difficult to accomplish successfully, and at reasonable cost in blood and treasure. What I would like to see is a general policy adopted by the U.N. or NATO or some association of modern and democratic countries. Following are the general outlines of such a policy, as I envision it:

First, I don't want to see the U.S. attempt to do this on it's own. I want to see a genuine coalition of several nations, with no one of them shouldering more than about 40% of the burden.

Secondly, the choice of the nation targeted for regime change should be considered and debated very carefully, based on various criteria, including:

a) How difficult will it be? We want to start with the easiest projects.
b) How serious is the situation? We want to intervene only in the most serious situations, where many people are suffering, or the international community is being harmed.
c) Are we already busy with such a project? I think these projects should be handled serially rather than two or more at a time. Exceptions could be made for emergency cases.
d) Do we have a feasible plan for nation building after the present regime is overthrown? As part of this, I would like to see an international team of appropriate experts draft a model constitution which could be used as a starting point.
e) The nations which agree to this intervention must negotiate a treaty among themselves spelling out what each of them will do, and what happens if they don't.
f) The regime to be overthrown must be given a reasonable, but not lengthy, period of time to step down voluntarily.

The policy that I advocate would have a long term goal of reducing the number of despotic regimes, one at a time. The same policy would apply to countries, such as Somalia, which currently have no effective government.

Some will say “Why should I care what happens over there?” One thing I can say to them is that it bothers me to hear about people suffering, either suffering from extreme poverty, lack of freedom or cruel treatment. Human society has improved quite a bit since the time of the Roman empire, although this is not true everywhere. A typical citizen of Zimbabwe, for example, may have a worse life than a typical citizen of the Roman empire. Furthermore, they have little hope of improvement as long as their present dictator is in power, and he is determined to hold onto power for the rest of his life. He is old, but he is likely to be replaced by a person or group that will continue the same totalitarian policies. The only hope for improvement in the lives of those people is a forcible intervention by an outside power. There are several dozen nations around the world for which this statement is true.

In addition to oppressing and/or impoverishing their people, these nations often harm the international community. In the case of Somalia, for example, serious international piracy is able to flourish by having safe bases there. In other cases, rogue nations sometimes either support or engage in international terrorism. The Lockerbie airliner bombing is one example of that.

Taxation is not Theft.

2011-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this in response to those who look upon taxation as theft, or who want their taxes minimized by eliminating most government programs and services. They want the smallest possible government, usually meaning that they want only police and national defense services. They don't want the government attempting to improve society or make it more fair. Their attitude is that they have their wealth legitimately, and no one has the right to forcibly take it from them.

The people with wealth have it for a variety of reasons; it was not

given to them by god because they are virtuous. The most common way is to have the luck of the right parents. I'm not speaking of genetics here; I'm referring to wealth, knowledge & culture. Most

wealthy people got a good start by having some inherited wealth, plus the knowledge and attitude to make good use of it. A child of a blue-collar family typically enters adulthood with no money, and little knowledge about how to get it legally except by getting a job.

Then there are those who get their money illegally or immorally. This may have happened several generations ago. Originally, our ancestors came over here and drove the original inhabitants away, by force. They then had a very productive land to farm, fish, hunt and mine in. They thereby created a lot of wealth, the original source of which was robbery, extortion and murder.

Throughout the 20th century the Mafia accumulated a great deal of

wealth, using murder and brutality as tools. A few of them went to

jail, but thousands of their descendants became legitimate business

people, using proceeds from their ancestor's crimes.

Then there are today's CEO's and banksters. A lot has been written in recent years about today's corporate culture. How many of those wealthy people deserve their millions? Many have been stealing from the common people for centuries, using government as one of their tools.

Of course there are also many people, or their ancestors, who earned their wealth through hard work, good ideas and smart planning. They are not in any way criminals. But, they did not make their money in a vacuum. They were within a society, and depended on the infrastructure, and customers, provided by that society. For example, they needed roads, communication lines, advertising media, workers & customers, to name a few essentials. Society as a whole is therefore partially responsible for their success, and is entitled to share in the profits.

In the light of the above, how can one take seriously the complaint

that taxation is theft?

Civilization is inherently unfair in the sense that there are always the few ruling the many, and having most of the wealth. Man is a social being. It is natural for him to have a government. Fairness is a desirable goal. It is fair for the government to reduce the inherent unfairness of civilization by helping the disadvantaged, and that requires taxing the advantaged.

New Leader Found! (for Earthchurch)

2011-02-02T17:03:00.000-08:00

Two years ago I announced, here, that I was looking for someone to take over Earthchurch. He has finally been found! His name is Jon McClayne. He's a young, environmentally conscious, businessman. We met at a Greendrinks event in Tucson.

You can see a picture of him, and hear his radio show, here:
http://greenrevolutionradio.com/

Earthchurch will be resurrected! :)

Welcome, Jon!

Why Dictatorship is Often Better Than Democracy

2011-01-17T16:18:00.000-08:00

I thought about this after hearing about Duvalier's return to Haiti,
to the cheers of many supporters.

The idea is that in a really complete, secure, dictatorship, where the
head guy is at the top for a long time, and has his position really
solidified, he may begin to think of the nation as his, literally. We
all say "my country", but we don't mean that we own it, like we own
our car. Saddam Hussein could have said it, and really felt that it
was literally his. It does not matter if the title is King or Emperor
or President or whatever. What matters is that his word is law, and
he feels totally secure in that position. Such a person then may take care of his country the way an ordinary man takes care of his car, his house, his dog, etc. Now not every man takes good care of his car, house, and dog, but many do. If such a man is in possession of a country, he will take good care of it.

In contrast, in many, if not most, democratic nations, the leaders are
very insecure, and have only a short time to enjoy their power. Hence it should not be surprising if most of their mental energies go toward stashing away as much wealth as possible in Swiss banks. In such a case no one will be trying very hard to run the country well. Perhaps we should be surprised that democracy works as well as it does in some countries.

Nutrition

2010-05-06T07:17:00.000-07:00

I feel like reminding you all that your body is the result of a million years of evolution, during which period your ancestors ate only organic fruits, leaves, roots, nuts, berries, birds, fish & other animals. We had no donuts nor bread nor pasta nor processed nor refined foods. Hence your body is not prepared to handle the latter, and cannot get adequate nourishment from such "food".

m

Thoughts on the Recession

2009-12-11T15:30:00.000-08:00

From the standpoint of production, the low point was right near the beginning of 2009, as illustrated by the above graphs. (Click on them to enlarge.) So production has been generally increasing during 2009, but total production is well below pre-recession values. This of course means that U.S. industry is working well below capacity, and of course this means that large numbers of people are not working at all.

One way to correct that would be to share the work, i.e., to have large numbers of people working part time, or to simply reduce the typical work week to something well below 40 hours. This would also correspond with a transition to a sustainable economy, rather than a growth economy. Of course I am strongly in favor of such a transition, but at present this represents a minority viewpoint, and a very small minority at that.

What is actually going to happen is a slow return to excess production so that Americans can have lots of junk that they don't need and most people will again work 40 hours or more. But that is not sustainable, so there will be another recession, likely worse than this one, and I would guess this will happen about 2014, where it will coincide with large numbers of baby boomers reducing their consumption levels.

That recession could be postponed for many years if green industries boom in a big way.

Arizona Mismanagement

2009-12-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

My state seems to have the worst government in the nation, at least where handling money is concerned. I heard on NPR this morning that the per capita budget deficit is number one in the nation, and that
bankruptcy is a possibility. State income is at 2003 levels, whereas state spending last month was at a record high, as was the previous month. Another relevant factoid, not mentioned in today's news, is
that state spending on public schools, per student, is close to the nation's lowest, competing with Mississippi.

Now John McCain is not the only multi-millionaire in Arizona. We have our share of very rich people. As you might guess, I suspect that the wealthy people of AZ are not paying much in the way of taxes, as I think they should be. But I have not researched this so I don't know how the tax collections compare with other states. I also don't know how the state's expenditures compare with other states, except for the public school system. We have both a sales and an income tax, and we spend a minimal amount on the schools, yet we don't collect as much as we spend!

The legislature has been arguing about this for a year or more. All they talk about is cutting spending. I never hear about any proposed tax hikes other than a sales tax hike, which was proposed and rejected.

Oh, yeah, they have put the Capitol Building up for sale! They plan to sell it and then pay rent, using the proceeds to forestall bankruptcy for a year or two. What a dumb idea, but if you cannot raise taxes, maybe it's better than bankruptcy. It's only a short term fix, and it raises the states expenses, because of the rent they will have to pay. Also, this is not the time sell real estate. If they wait two or three years they can probably get more money for it. Of course, if they wait, they might not have to sell it, assuming they do something serious about their deficit problem.

Of course the majority of the legislators are republican, as is the governor.

m

A Conspiracy Theory - October 2009

2009-10-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

The captains of industry have the power to bring Obama down. I just realized that recently. It's due to a confluence of events. Although business is improving for most of the major corporations, and most are making profits, they are not hiring. The media pundits keep saying it's because they are cautiously waiting for the recovery to be definite. But the economists have been saying for a couple of months that the recovery has started. What if they are holding back hiring because they want to bring Obama (and the democratic party) down? They have never done this in the past; why now?

Well, some things are different. For starters, there are fewer major players due to 40 years of mergers and acquisitions. Fewer players make it easier to form a conspiracy. Secondly, there is greater polarization between the right and left than ever before. I'm assuming that most of the captains of industry are republicans. My thinking is that, in the past, profitability would come first in their thinking, and maybe civic duty would play some role. Today's CEO's are not big on civic duty, or maybe they just define it differently. Trying to bring down the other party by not hiring workers would not occur to them, in the past. The third thing is that employment is the key to the present recession. If it goes up, the recession is over, and the democrats probably win the next election. If it stays low the republicans are likely to unseat the dems.

So I'm thinking, suppose the CEO of Proctor & Gamble is chatting with the CEO of Heinz during a cruise on one of their yachts. One of them says that business is not bad, but I hate to hire more people; it will help Obama look good. The other agrees, and one of them realizes that they don't have to hire anyone! They are in charge, and the media have given them a rationale. Sure, the company could earn more money by boosting production with additional workers, since sales are good and inventories are low. But who cares? That would only benefit the stockholders. You and I have plenty of money, they agree, more than we can spend. We run our companies, not the stockholders! Let's not hire anyone and help stick it to Obama. Well, of course they casually mention this to their CEO buddies, and, little by little, the word spreads.

Could this be happening? Yes, it's paranoia, but is it justifiable paranoia? Yes, this is a conspiracy theory. I have never been involved with conspiracy theories in the past, but I suppose I'm partial to my own creation. :)

m

The Elephant in the Room

2009-10-15T10:12:00.001-07:00

When media pundits or politicians talk about world hunger, climate
change, or pollution, there is something that they almost never mention. And yet, this forbidden topic is the root cause of these global problems! If this elephant cannot be effectively dealt with, there is no chance of reducing pollution, nor alleviating hunger, nor keeping global warming under control.

By now you may have guessed that I'm talking about the size of the human population: 6 1/2 BILLION and growing! Presently, not all of them are even getting enough to eat, let alone having the kind of life to which they aspire. At least half of the planet hopes to have a car at some point during their life. Is this possible? Could our planet sustain SEVERAL BILLION automobiles? I think not. Much more likely is that, as the human population grows, the material standard of living will decrease for all but the very wealthy.

There are many who deny the population problem. They say that
technological innovation will allow us to feed more & more people,
without limit. They point to the "green revolution" of the mid-20th
century, when the widespread use of chemical fertilizers greatly
increased the yield per acre for those farmers adapting the new methods. This in turn allowed a great increase in the human population, which has doubled since that time.

There are at least two rebuttals to the deniers. The first is that
there are physical limits to how much food can be produced worldwide. Plants create food by the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy. The earth receives a certain amount of solar energy each day, and that is not going to change. We can increase the fraction of the earth's surface devoted to farming, and we can increase the efficiency of the solar-to-chemical conversion process, but there is an ultimate limit. By extreme measures we may be able to eventually support 20 billion people on this planet, a tripling of the present population.

But what kind of life will they be living? This question leads us to
the second rebuttal, which is that we all pay a price in reduced quality
of life. A world with twenty billion people will be quite different
from today's world. Most of the planet's surface will be taken up by
farms, habitations, factories, and energy production facilities. The
latter will be largely solar and wind, which require extensive land
area. There will be little room left for the natural world of plants
and animals; those will mostly be confined to parks. Where there are
now extensive forests, there will instead be the aforementioned farms, habitations, factories, and energy producers. So the natural world will be sacrificed in order to have 20 billion humans. However, most of these humans will be living in very small dwelling units, perhaps 40 sq m for families, and half of that for single people. Most people will live in large cities with very high population densities. Most will not own automobiles. The wealthy will have a different lifestyle, of course. They will be able to eat meat, which the ordinary people won't be able to afford. And they can live outside of the cities if they choose, and use automobiles. The world that I'm describing is roughly 100 years from now, so it's not just around the corner. If you have any grandchildren during your life, they will see it, as will their children (if they are able to have any).

If humans can learn to be content with one or two children per typical
family, this bleak vision of the future does not have to come to pass.
There is hope, because this has occurred in much of Europe, without
coercion. In China it has occurred due to coercion. But the majority
of the world's families are still producing several children.

This article was written as my participation in Blog Action Day.

m

Corporate Control of America

2009-09-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of things put me in a pessimistic mood about our future. This time I'm not talking about the Biosphere, but about our democracy. It started with Bill Maher's interview with Bill Moyers. Moyers reminded me about the corporate control of America, and went into some detail. This is an issue that I was somewhat fired up about, a decade ago. But since then I had gotten used to it. (not happy about it, but not thinking about it.)

Then later that same day I went to the movies to see District 9. It's
quite a good Sci-Fi film, and quite unusual. But it's depressing. It
involves human & alien interaction in quite an unusual way. The humans turn out mostly to be the bad guys, and the ending is not a happy one, although not totally so. The movie left me in an unhappy mood, and corporate control of the world was part of the theme.

I first got upset about the topic due to seeing the movie: Bulworth.
This is a very entertaining film by Warren Beatty. (He produced,
directed, and starred in it.) It's mostly a comedy, but it has a
serious underlying message about corporate control of America. That was over ten years ago, and for a year or three I was concerned about it, but then, as people do, I gradually got used to the idea.

The basic problem is this: Election campaigns are very expensive nowadays, due mainly to the importance of television, and the high cost of airtime. Most senators and congressmen get most of their funding from large corporations and wealthy individuals. Hence, they must pass only legislation that favors these donors, or they won't get the needed funds, and are likely to lose their job. (and it's a very cushy job, with excellent perqs, including health care.)

"Hey", you might ask: "The airwaves are public property. The TV broadcasters require government licenses. Why are they not required to support political campaigns without profit?". Good question. Could it be because half a dozen giant corporations own almost all of the media? Corporations that the elected officials don't want to offend?

I'm not an expert in this subject. I googled on the phrase "Corporate
control of America" and got many thousands of hits. Here are a few
quotes, without their sources. You can find them with google if you are interested. I just want to provide some sense of what's going on.

"Rapid consolidation of network and cable television ownership in the
hands of a few corporate conglomerates has significantly harmed free
expression, quality, and creativity in television, the Center for the
Creative Community (CCC) told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today in Comments filed with the FCC."

"Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not
revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds its
expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. It purports to
cherish democracy, patriotism and the Constitution while cynically
manipulating internal levers to subvert and thwart democratic
institutions. Political candidates are elected in popular votes by
citizens, but they must raise staggering amounts of corporate funds to compete. They are beholden to armies of corporate lobbyists in Washington or state capitals who write the legislation. A corporate media controls nearly everything we read, watch or hear and imposes a bland uniformity of opinion or diverts us with trivia and celebrity gossip. In classical totalitarian regimes, such as Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. “Under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” Wolin writes. “Economics dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness."

"Perhaps big-corporate control of America has gotten so out of hand over the last 30 years ... that it's now irreversible."

"Jefferson was as motivated to prevent economic tyranny as he was to prevent political oppression. Even prior to the industrialization, he saw in embryo the monstrosity of the impending corporate control of America as early as 1816."

"The world’s food has been fundamentally transformed in a way that these agribusinesses want to keep you from seeing. And that was the most shocking thing for me in making Food, Inc. I knew there were big factory farms out there, but I didn’t know agribusiness was essentially keeping us from really talking about it."

"Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln were the four Presidents of the United States who fought hardest against the corporate control of America."

Can anything be done to change this, to put control of America back in the hands of the people? Well, yes, in theory. We could vote out most of the present senators and representatives, and replace them with new ones who are committed to reducing the role of giant corporations and the super-rich in our government. The new lawmakers might even return to the old American practice of curtailing the size of giant corporations, and preventing the growth of cartels, trusts & monopolies.

Could this happen? Well, it's possible, but that ain't the way to bet.

m

The Myth That Malthus was Wrong

2009-06-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

There is a widely accepted idea that we are NOT subject to Malthus'
notion that populations, including human populations, always
increase until reaching some limit where the available resources
won't sustain them. When that time comes there will be famine, or
other disaster, and the population will be greatly reduced.

But the truth is that it has happened many times in human history,
in many parts of the world. I was reminded of this recently when
watching a History Channel show about Europe's "Little Ice Age".
This occurred in the 14th century. Prior to that there had been 300
years of generally good weather in Europe. This led to excellent
crop yields, and also to expanding agriculture northward. This
greater food production had allowed the population to expand to
numbers never seen before in Europe. In the 14th century, when the
weather turned colder, and with long periods of heavy rain, food
production declined. This led, as was inevitable, to malnutrition
among a large fraction of the population, and that in turn led to
epidemics of diseases, which killed large numbers of people.
Europe's population was significantly reduced.

There is an excellent book, "Collapse", by Jared Diamond, which
describes similar events in many different parts of the world, and
at different times in history. So it is something the human race is
quite familiar with, although those living today in the World's most
powerful countries are not.

There is every reason to think that this will happen again. There is
a difference, though, when compared with past Malthusian
catastrophes, and that is the scale of globalization and
international interdependence. All of these events in the past were
local in nature, although some of them affected large regions.
Today, the world is functioning as an entity, at least in economic
matters. Very few, if any, nations are self-sufficient. The U.S. for
example, needs oil from abroad in order to grow the food which
sustains us. We need the energy in oil both for production of
chemical fertilizer and for transporting the food throughout the
country.

Our technology has allowed us to expand yields by the use of
chemical fertilizer, and the development of new strains of plants
which can exploit that better than older varieties. But our
technology is useless against floods, droughts, storms, changes in
cloud cover, and temperature changes.

There will be disaster. The only way it can be avoided is to stop
the growth of the human population. But humans like making babies,
so we are not likely to do it on our own. It will take disaster to
do it for us.

I didn't say anything about WHEN there would be disaster. The good
news is that it won't be this year, or next, or any time very soon. The
bad news is that it will probably be in your lifetime, if you're under 50
years of age.

m

I'm Expanding My Subject Matter.

2009-03-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

And the revised blog title is meant to show that. I don't have much more to say about the environment, and saving the biosphere. I still hope that it will be preserved, at least to some extent, but I'm not optimistic. As a blog writer, there are lots of topics that I'm likely to write about. I have opinions on the current political situation, on the nature of reality, on economics and investing, and various other topics. I can't predict when I'll be moved to actually write an article.

Poking around in my hard drive, I found this list of stuff I think I know something about:

health & fitness
computer science fundamentals
investments
evolution
The Natural World
meditation
alternate zeitgests (philosophy)
Science & technology
Go (the board game)
Age of Empires (PC game)
effective living (does your life function well?)
History of the world, including humans
Alternate lifestyles
Zen

That list is in no particular order. I might write about any of those topics, but there are plenty of others also. In my long life I've done a lot of things, been to a lot of places. Mostly, I paid attention, and learned stuff. I have also sought out people who seemed to know something I didn't, and tried to learn from them. And I've read quite a few books along the way. There's been formal education also; I have a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from UCSD.

Clearly, I don't always feel bound by that old rule that says: a writer should not keep saying "I"! (But you won't find so much of that in the rest of the articles that I've written, or will write in the future.)

If you, dear reader, would like me to write about a particular topic, by all means please let me know! You can either post a comment to this article, below, or send me an email, to ze_zenguy@yahoo.com. I really prefer to write a message TO someone, rather than simply write for an unknown audience.

m

Earthchurch Needs a New Leader

2008-12-29T15:55:00.000-08:00

Earthchurch is dormant, and has been for about a year. It still
exists, in the form of the website and the email list. There are still
27 people subscribed to the discussion list, but no discussions are
happening. There is also a small announcement list, but it's been a
long time since the last announcement. There are also archives of the
discussions that we had in the past. These are here:
http://lists.earthchurch.net/pipermail/discuss-earthchurch.net/

Of course I could simply abandon it, but everytime I read the
introduction on the website, about our fantastic planet, I always feel
this organization is needed. I think it's too potentially important to
abandon.

But I'm not the person for the job. Someone is needed who has more
energy than me, and who is more naturally sociable and charismatic.
Mainly, someone who will keep pushing and not give up. The truth is
that I'm old and tired and dispirited. I'm not optimistic about our
planet's future. (Of course I mean the biosphere; I'm not worried
about the rock and sand.)

So my plan is simply to be a caretaker until our new leader appears.

Nominations are welcome.

m

It's so hard to form new habits!

2008-12-07T07:21:00.000-08:00

I don't know if any of you guys ever deliberately form new habits. I
have done it many times. The latest one that I've been working on for
over a year (!) is to take my canvas shopping bags from my car into
the grocery store. A cupla years ago, before I realized that the
natural world was doomed, I bought a couple of canvas grocery bags.
My initial motivation was to help reduce the plastic bag count on our
planet's surface. After using them a cupla times I found that they
are much better bags than the plastic ones. They have better handles
that are easier to find and don't hurt your hands. Plus, when loaded,
you can set them down and they stay upright. That even works when you are also loaded!

But after you get home and put away the stuff, you have to get the
bags back to the car for the next trip. That has not been a serious
problem because I hang the empty bags on the doorknob. That way, I
can't leave the house without seeing them, so I take them out to the
car with me. But, they tend to stay in the car! :(

One must develop the habit of taking them from the car into the
grocery store. I forget to do this about half the time. Sometimes
I don't realize it until I'm in the checkout line; then it's too late
to do anything. But often I will realize it when I'm in the middle of
shopping. Many times I have quickly left the store, gone quickly to
my car, and brought the bags into the store. I do this in an effort
to train myself. I'm amazed at how long it has taken, and I'm still
not trained! Perhaps this particular habit is difficult to form
because I only shop about twice a week. Also, exiting the car is
something one does frequently for various reasons, not just to go
grocery shopping. Besides, I have been buying groceries for fifty
years, using the store bags.

Hopefully, writing this may increase my awareness of this issue, and
lead me to finally have this new habit!

m

Denial and Motivation and the Future of the Planet

2008-02-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

As you probably know, denial is a common human phenomenon. People commonly avoid thinking about behavior that they repeat to their own disadvantage. Sometimes individuals grow enough to overcome the denial and change the behavior. A key to this is motivation. The source of the motivation is the hope that confronting the behavior will lead to some improvements in one's life. It is commonly accepted that without motivation there will be no change in the behavior, nor in the denial.

Now, zooming out to the big picture, we see that the behavior of most humans is causing the slow destruction of the biological earth. Furthermore, denial is in full bloom. Most humans avoid the awareness of this. Now, what's their motivation to become aware? Unfortunately, if an individual becomes aware of the phenomenon, it
does not make his life any better. If anything, it may make him/her
less happy, or more depressed, as the case may be. It does not help
the planet to any significant degree either; that would take
collective action by billions, or at least by their thousands of
leaders.

This is not a new phenomenon; it was given a name long ago: "The
Tragedy of the Commons". Originally, it applied to a local situation,
such as a common area used for grazing. But now it applies to the
biological earth.

m

Click for Earthchurch website.

Making Electric Cars Practical, by Jim Hasper, Guest Blogger

2007-11-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

I feel that the only way to significantly reduce CO 2 emissions is to completely stop burning fossil fuels. The way to do this is to move to a total electric and hydrogen fuel economy. As a registered professional engineer who has worked extensively with industrial furnaces, I can tell you that there are very, very, few industrial processes that absolutely require the burning of fossil fuel. Most could be served by electric heating. Those that absolutely require combustion could use hydrogen as a fuel. The hydrogen, in turn, could be produced through the electrolysis of water. Facilities for doing this could be located in proximity to major users, so long distance transportation of the hydrogen would not be necessary. That leaves only the industries that use fossil fuels as a feed stock for producing materials such as plastics and lubricants. Even here, the actual processing could be done with electricity or hydrogen, so that the fossil fuels would not have to be burned.

Of course, generating this much electricity would be a problem. Even now, coal fired plants produce most of the electricity and also produce a large portion, if not most, of the CO 2. Converting to wind, water, or solar power are the ultimate answers, but these will require a long time to develop sufficient capacity to entirely replace coal. As an interim measure, I support using nuclear power. These plants could be built relatively rapidly and would greatly reduce the CO 2 emissions. Air pollution from these is far, far, less than from coal fired plants. As far as the hazardous waste, the physical amounts are relatively small and I'm sure that means could be developed, given the will, to safely handle them.

Automobiles are another major source of CO 2 emissions. Even hybrid vehicles still emit sizeable amounts of CO 2. Again the answer is the use of all-electric vehicles. Motor and battery designs have improved to the point that an all-electric vehicle is or soon will be feasible. One of the drawbacks, however, is the time needed to recharge the battery.

I have an idea that would eliminate this problem. My idea is very simple - design the vehicle with an easy-to-remove battery pack and encourage all manufacturers to use a common design for this component. Different sizes would be needed for the various types of vehicles, but all vehicles of the same type should use a common design. When the battery needs to be recharged, the user will drive into (or land at) a filling station, where his discharged battery will be removed and replaced with a freshly charged one. The design would permit this to be done in less than a minute - open the access door, release the clamping mechanism, and slide the discharged battery out. Repeat the procedure to install the freshly charged battery. The handling mechanism for the batteries would permit this to be done with a minimum of manual labor.

The user would pay only for the electricity stored in the freshly charged battery, not for the battery itself. He would also receive credit for any electricity remaining in a partially-discharged battery. The program would work similar to that used for the sale of propane for grills. - you initially buy just one tank, then just drop it off at the suppliers store when empty and pick up a filled one, paying only for the propane in the tank.

The vending company would stock a supply of the various sizes (probably only a few needed) of batteries. Batteries would eventually become un-rechargeable, but the replacement cost would be born by the vendor and would be recouped over time as a small portion of the cost for a freshly-charged battery, again similar to the cost of eventually replacing a propane tank. Batteries that were obviously damaged, as in a collision, would not be accepted for trade.

How would the needed network of such stations be developed? Either by some ambitious entrepreneur or in the same way that the network of gasoline stations was developed after the invention of the automobile. General stores first carried small quantities of gasoline for the few cars in existence. As the cars become more common, specialized filling stations developed. As entrepreneurs discovered that filling stations were profitable, more and more stations were developed. Eventually, the oil companies discovered that there was additional money to be made in retailing the fuel that they formerly only wholesaled, and began building their own stations and buying up the privately owned ones. The rest is history, as they say.

I began writing about this in April of this year. Just a week ago, I heard that Shai Agassi, the former head of the product and technology group at SAP, the business software developer, is planning to do exactly this. Not that I'm claiming any credit for his idea, but I am very pleased to see that someone is getting serious about this.

Click for Earthchurch website.

Diversity Within Earthchurch

2007-10-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

I'm only talking about diversity of ecological footprints. Let's call them EF's for short. A person's EF is the total of all of his impacts on the biosphere. For example, when you sit in your warm home in the winter, there is some fuel being burned to generate the heat. The burning of the fuel puts some contaminants into the air. And so on. Our EF is a composite of many things. Automobile and aircraft use are important components, but so are many things that we don't even see, such as the diesel powered ships that transport the goods from China. When you buy a nice shirt that was made in China or Indonesia, some pollution was enabled, since a diesel ship and then a truck was used to bring it to you. Of course there was energy used to manufacture the shirt, and the cloth from which it was made. Laundry, especially the drying, also uses a lot of energy.

Within our Earthchurch group we have a wide diversity of ecological footprints. In my opinion we need to welcome them all. We have two people who have a very low EF. They have a lifestyle based on walking and bicycling, and a minimum of purchasing new things. Jay wrote about that when we were discussing saving money and helping the planet. At the other end we have some members who have a high EF lifestyle, living in large homes, putting lots of miles on large vehicles, taking a couple of plane trips each year, and buying lots of stuff. The rest of us are spread across the EF spectrum. My own EF is in the middle, perhaps a little less than the north American average. That's mostly because I'm retired and don't drive to work every day. I own a small car, but I also walk and bicycle quite a bit. I don't buy a lot of stuff. I haven't flown since April of 2001, but that's because it's become such a hassle. I hate waiting in lines. Also, I like it where I am.

We need members all across the EF spectrum. Our long term goal is to help change the mind set of many millions of people, worldwide. That's what it will take to rescue the biosphere. If we were to restrict our membership to those who are already living a low EF life, we would fail in that endeavor. The high EF people represent the mainstream, at least in north America. Furthermore, the high EF people typically are more influential than the low EF people. Our
community leaders, of all kinds, are almost always very high EF people. This is true worldwide. An extreme example is Al Gore. He has brought his ecological message to more people than perhaps anyone, and he also lives a very high EF lifestyle.

There is no possible way that we can convince millions of people to quickly shift from a high to a low EF lifestyle. They LIKE their high EF lifestyle. So we need to take a long term approach, and hope to change things over the next decade or two, or three. The low EF people serve as an example, perhaps a model, for the direction that human beings need to move. Our members who are currently high EF can also take a long term view, and look toward lowering their
EF gradually, over the coming decades. Perhaps they will buy a small car next time. Perhaps they will install a solar water heating system. Given a long term viewpoint, there are many things they can do.

m

Click for Earthchurch website.

Save Money & Help the Biosphere

2007-10-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

Things you can do that save you money while also reducing pollution and other planet harming activities:

Indoors, in the winter when you are heating the house, wear a sweater and other warm clothing, and turn the thermostat a few degrees cooler. You will save money on your heating costs. You will still be comfortable. You just have to wear more clothes in your house. That's not much of a sacrifice, is it? And a dollar saved is a dollar earned. Another advantage, not often thought about, is that when you go outside there is less of a sudden change, so you may be less likely to catch cold or other illness.

Use less gasoline. You can do that by putting on fewer miles each year. Don't make unecessary trips, combine errands, choose closer destinations when there is a choice, etc. When it comes time to get a different car, get a smaller one, or a more fuel efficient one. When it comes time to move, move closer to where you work. Or maybe you can get a job nearer to where you live.

I asked for suggestions on this topic on our Earthchurch discussion list, and I got dozens! There are too many to list here, but here's a selection:

Take the bus instead of driving. (also, walk or bike)

If you drive, set up a rideshare system so several people can leave their cars at home.

Have an automatic thermostat that lowers temperature at night and raises it during the time you are at home.

Get up earlier and go to bed earlier, to save using electricity for light;
also get fluorescent bulbs.

Use solar barbecue instead of coal, gas, or electric.

Take shorter showers to use less hot water hence less energy cost.

Wash your clothes with cold water, using a cold-water detergent.

have fewer or no children

live in an apartment

buy services instead of things

repair things instead of trashing them

Get some canvas grocery bags and take them with you to the grocery store.

tell others about the things on this list

m

Click for Earthchurch website.

What if it was another species?

2007-10-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

What if it was another species?

Let's just take raccoons as an example. I know this is bizarre, but
suppose we were to discover that those cute raccoons were digging up coal and oil and burning it, and were also running various industrial processes that dumped mercury and lead and hundreds of chemicals into the air, soil and water. And in addition they were cutting down huge tracts of forest, using some of the wood, burning some of it, and letting some of it rot. Furthermore, they had increased their population to over 6 billion, and were inhabiting almost every region of the globe. And finally, both their population and these activities were predicted to steadily increase. Measurements showed that the composition of the atmosphere had changed markedly. Even the seas were slightly more acid, and poisonous chemicals could be detected in them. Raccoon trash could be found on the shores of the most distant pacific isle.

How would the human race react? How would YOU react to that news?

It seems pretty clear that the raccoons would be treated as worse than rats, and we would make war on them, trying to kill as many as possible.

But, as you know, the human race is doing all of those things. Because it's us, our attitude is different. Few people will advocate killing large numbers of humans in order to protect the biosphere. Although I love the earth and its plants and animals, I also love my children and friends and myself. I want the humans and the biosphere to both survive and be healthy.

That will not be easy to achieve. The present day habits and attitudes of the dominant human cultures are leading us slowly toward catastrophe. There are potential solutions, but they are complex, and require sustained effort by all major nations. The fundamental requirement is to change peoples attitudes and expectations, even aspirations. If most people in the world struggle to acquire a large vehicle and a large home we cannot avoid the catastrophe. Although science and technology played a major role in creating the problem, they are essential ingredients for solution.

I'm hoping that Earthchurch will help to change peoples attitudes, and to support the required technological innovations.

m

Visit Earthchurch.net!

Mystery & Spirit

2007-09-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Since we use the word "church", people will expect us to have some ideas about spirituality. Well, we don't have an official position about this subject. Each individual member is free to have whatever point of view they choose.

My personal point of view is that yes, something exists outside of what is studied by science, and you may use the word "spiritual" to describe it, but no one really knows anything about it, other than their own personal experience. I think these personal experiences should be respected, without forgetting that they are personal experiences. But that's just my personal viewpoint.

If our church needs a point of view, I recommend the acceptance of
mystery. As I see it, each of us is surrounded by mystery, we are
immersed in it, swimming in it. Most of the time we don't think about it, but we don't really know or understand why the world is the way it is, or what causes it, what lies behind it. Science provides us with a great deal of information about the physical world, but it cannot answer these fundamental questions. It's important to point out that traditional religion is also unable to provide satisfactory answers. When you say: "God made the universe.", it immediately suggests the question: "How did God come to be?". Whatever answer you give to that question could simply be applied to the first question, without bringing in the God hypothesis.

We might also recommend certain practices that are often associated with spirituality, such as meditation. I meditate fairly regularly. I do it because it seems to help me to function better, and also as an attempt to be in direct contact with the mystery.

m

Visit Earthchurch.net!

What's in a name?

2007-09-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare's Juliet said: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet". Thus our organization could be the same irrespective of it's name. However, in practice, most people are not as wise as Juliet, and names do have an influence, especially when a new organization is being built from scratch from the ground up. A few of our members have objected to the word "church". I sympathize with them; I'm not a fan of churches in general, but we have not found a better word. We need an organization that can grow very large if we want to influence governments and corporation to take good care of our biosphere. And we probably need to impact people's world view, because materialism and the dedication to economic growth is a key part of the problem.

There are problems with any name. I googled on Earth Fellowship
and found several organizations using those words in various
combinations. The ones I looked at were all associated with pagan
and/or Wiccan beliefs, which is somewhat different than what we are into.

Some of our members are Humanists, and many humanists are atheists, with a strong anti-religious bias. But "humanist" does not automatically imply a strong anti-religious attitude. I consider myself a humanist, but I'm not opposed to all religious beliefs. I'm opposed to any kind of fundamentalism, including dogmatic, devout atheism. The truth is that there is a lot that we don't know, and probably a lot that we are incapable of knowing. I like the quote from J.B.S Haldane: he said something like "The universe is not only stranger than we know, it is stranger than we CAN know."

Einstein was a humanist, yet he had a religious view, in the broad or
general sense. He was in awe of the universe. He often used the word
"god". He seems to have believed in god as a mysterious unknowable
permeating the the universe. I suppose you could say he was a
pantheist. I would have no trouble calling myself a pantheist. Many
famous scientists have had views similar to this. And of course many
were Christians, or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists or Hindus.

m

P.S.: On Oct 10 we changed our name to "Earthchurch". (From "Church of Earth")

Visit Earthchurch.net!

Confession & Brief Book Review

2007-09-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. Excellent and very unusual book! It's about the human race and the biosphere, but not a detailed prescription of what to do or not do. It's about the story that the human race is enacting. This story is explained to a human student by a genius gorilla!

The confession is that, in my previous blog article, I took credit for the idea that mankind is waging war on the biosphere. Well, I actually got that idea from the book, Ishmael. It's the war analogy that's new. Prior to reading Ishmael I would have said that man is fouling his own nest, or something similar.

Anyway, I found the book inspiring, entertaining, and consciousness
raising. I don't want to say more for fear of being a spoiler. I suggest
you read the book first without reading more about it. But if you want to read reviews there are lots of them already on the internet. Just google "reviews of ishmael".

m

Visit Earthchurch.net!

At War with the Biosphere

2007-09-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

The biosphere, AKA Gaia, is the blanket of living things that covers the planet earth. It consists of trillions of organisms, of millions of
species of plants, animals, fungi and microbes that permeate the soil, the air, the water and the land surface.

It occurred to me recently that humankind is at war with the biosphere. This is a really dumb thing for us to be doing, because we are part of the biosphere, and we depend on it for survival. It MIGHT be possible for us to survive after eliminating most of the biosphere, but that's not at all certain. At present, green plants supply the oxygen that we breath, and that we use to burn our fossil fuels. We eat living things, plants and animals, although not many wild ones, except for seafood. But we need bees to spread pollen for many of our crops. We need earthworms to loosen and aerate the soil for them. And there are many other interdependencies, not all of which are even known.

Even if we can manage to survive without an intact biosphere, our lives will be much poorer without it. Imagine a planet where the only place to see the plants and animals that were formerly wild is in parks and zoos. These places of course will be extremely crowded with people, so you might have to wait an hour to see a deer in a pen. Except for the parks and zoos the land surface of the planet will be covered over with farms, solar collectors, windmill generators, and cities.

The waters will be worse. Forget about fishing, you won't be able to catch anything besides jellyfish and ugly sea creatures. The fish that we eat will all come from tanks. The worlds oceans will be full of algae.

We are waging this war primarily with 3 types of weapons of mass destruction. Fire is one, used deliberately to clear forests for planting. This is not done in the advanced countries, but is still widely practiced in the 3rd world. The second is chemical warfare. Farm runoff, mine effluent, pesticides, herbicides, smokestack emissions, and industrial chemicals are steadily polluting the air, soil and water of the planet. The third weapon is earth moving machinery, used for logging, forest clearing, mining, road building, etc.

If we want a good future for our children and grandchildren, mankind needs to change our ways.

m

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The Global Warming Controversy

2007-08-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that global warming is occurring. Melting polar sea
ice and glaciers worldwide proves that. There is controversy as to
how big a role human activities play in that. The IPCC report is the
most believable and authoritative assessment available; also the most credible by any objective standards. It concludes that human activities almost certainly are the major factor behind the warming.

It is a serious issue for at least two billion people worldwide, but not
this year, or next. The really serious effects are 20 years away.
These effects will be flooding of low lying regions, more hurricane
damage, more floods and droughts, and much suffering due to heat
waves.

For people who live in north America and not on the west coast,
the shit will really hit the fan when you can no longer afford your
air conditioning bills. The rising costs of energy meets the larger
need for energy, for air conditioning.

Although I regard global warming as a serious problem, I think that other environmental problems are more serious and immediate. I'm referring to deforestation, and pollution of our waters, air, and soils. These have already greatly impacted the natural world, and will be more serious in the future. Many species of plants and animals are on their way to extinction. Of course humans would also benefit from cleaner air and water.

However, the things that could be done to reduce global warming are, in many cases, the same things that could be done to reduce pollution and deforestation.

m

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Hijacking a Word

2007-08-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

I would like to hijack a word, like the gays have done. The word "gay" has pretty much lost the former meaning, and is almost exclusively used to mean homosexual. There are other words that have been given new alternate meanings in our time, such as "special" and "black".

The word I want is "church". I don't want to take it over completely, just to reduce the strong ties to Christianity.

Here are the 3 meanings that Webster's Online gives for "church":

1. A group of Christians; any group professing Christian doctrine or belief; "the church is debating the issue of women priests".

2. A place for public (especially Christian) worship; "the church was empty".

3. A service conducted in a church; "don't be late for church".

The MSN online dictionary gives 6 definitions. The one that is most appropriate for us is: "2. religion's followers as group: all the followers of a religion, especially the Christian religion, considered collectively". (You can see the other definitions here: http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/church.html) Notice that they say "especially the Christian religion", implying that the word church could apply to us if we are a religion.

The Church of Earth is supposed to be like a religion or church in several ways, but not in all ways. We are not Christian, and we don't have fixed beliefs except for a reliance on experience and science. But we want to provide most of the benefits that churches have provided in the past, especially before there was much science. So I want to bring the word and concept of Church into the scientific age.

Also, we are not exclusive. A person may retain their religion, and still be one of us. We are a social and political organization.

I don't really know how to do this except to keep stubbornly pushing. If a few thousand people would join us we might have a shot. I'm not in a big hurry.

The Unitarian church has done this, but we can't use their method. They started out as a Protestant Christian church, and then very gradually gave up the Christian part. It took them a very long time. I may not be in a hurry, but I don't want to wait as long as it took them! However, they can be an example to us. If we create an organization that works, and lasts, we can emulate them in respect to the word "church".

m

Visit Earthchurch.net!

New Cards

2007-08-03T17:09:00.000-07:00

Input from several people led to this redesign of the card. The artwork is by Danny Cain. Beverley suggested that we reverse the slogans, and several people agreed with her, so we did that.

So far, I'm the only one using these cards. I carry them with me most of the time, and if I find myself in a conversation with someone who is concerned about the future of the biosphere, I will give them one. I expect in the future that many people will use them, with different titles. My hope is that they will use the cards in a similar way as I do. This will be a way of recruiting new local members.

I think we can be quite flexible about titles. Some possibilities are: organizer, recruiter, speaker, .....

m

The Basic Idea

2007-07-27T11:01:00.000-07:00

Although our website has this information, its spread around a bit, mostly in the FAQ. It ought to be collected in one place, and be easy to find on the website. So here is my first attempt at gathering the basic ideas together. It won't go on the website until it's been discussed for a few days on the mail list. Then I will modify it, and send it to webmaster Maurice.
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The basic idea is to have an organization that fills the role of a church in peoples lives, but adapted to the 21st century.

adapting to the 21st century means:

- acceptance of what we don't know for sure. (God, afterlife, etc.)
- confidence in experience and science for what we can know.
- admiration and protection of the living earth. (the biosphere)

Filling the role of a church means:

- organization based on local groups of people who know one another.
- regular meetings that are a positive experience for the people who attend.
- education, to supplement the standard sources of education.
- environmental activism via local projects and petitioning governments
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m

http://earthchurch.net

Bowling Alone

2007-07-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

That's the title of a book I'm reading. "Bowling Alone" was recommended to me by Peter, one of our mail list members. A surprising thing I learned there was that none of the famous environmental organizations is driven by local groups. All of them are professional fund-raising organizations whose members merely send checks. Whether its Greenpeace, or the Environmental Defense Fund, or Friends of the Earth, or any of a dozen others, the general style and pattern is the same. These groups are professional lobbying organizations, with headquarters in Washington, DC. (Some of them use a different city.) They get their members by means of bulk mail! In fact they mostly use the same mailing lists, which they buy from companies that sell mailing lists. The majority of the "members" do not even know who the other "members" are.

This is not what I want for the Church of Earth. I'm hoping for an organization built upon local groups of people who know each other. It may not be easy to achieve, since this is going against the trend of the times, but such an organization will be much more durable and effective. This is an old-fashioned idea. It was the normal way of doing things 40 years ago. That was when the U.S. could put men on the moon, and bring them back safely. Rescuing the earth from deforestation, pollution and global warming will be a larger challenge than that.

m

http://earthchurch.net

The Living Planet

2007-07-19T21:50:00.000-07:00

"The Living Planet" is a video documentary series by David Attenborough, who is justly famous for this sort of thing. I've been watching it over the past several weeks. There are 12 one-hour episodes.

An Australian website had this to say about it:

David Attenborough presents his epic portrait of the earth's environments and how plants and animals have been adapted to their physical surroundings. Filmed on 5 continents, the Living Planet begins with the discovery of how huge forces formed the earth, how continents move and how the planet has become so varied.

The next ten episodes then concentrate on different environments of the Earth: the frozen Poles, the northern forests, jungle, grassland, deserts, the sky, rivers and lakes, tidal shores, islands and oceans.

The final episode then ties in the human angle looking at how humans have changed the Earth's habitats, destroying but creating new ones. It also investigates what future may hold for the whole community on our amazing living planet.

It occurs to me this could be something like scripture for the Church of Earth.
Not Scripture - "The Living Planet" :)

It's available on 4 DVD disks.

This was filmed almost 30 years ago! I wonder how many of the creatures that he filmed are now in danger of extinction, and which of the regions that he filmed are still in a similar condition.

m

http://earthchurch.net

How the Church of Earth Began

2007-07-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

I had this idea early in 2007, but it just stewed in the back of my
brain until late April. It seemed that the idea would not let go of me,
do I decided to take it seriously, and see if a little flame could be
kindled.

The motivation is to help save the planet, which I think is in
serious long term danger from pollution and deforestation. A church
seems necessary, rather than a club or society, because only a church
can grow to a very large membership. Only a very large membership can influence public policy.

The basic idea is to create something that plays the role of a church in peoples lives. The focus of attention is the biological earth. So you
could think of it as an environmental lobbying group, but with a social
dimension. I want to have a building and regular meetings. I want the
meetings to be enjoyable, with humor and music a regular occurrence.

There will also be an educational dimension. I want people to learn
more about the biological earth.

I made a bunch of cards. An early version is shown here. The slogans
on the card briefly explain the core principles. Although we are a
church, we differ in these important ways from most established
churches. Although we use the word "church", our orientation is toward science rather than traditional lore.

The general plan is to start on the internet, with a mailing list and
website. As soon as possible I hope to see local groups form, and
eventually to have local congregations, and church buildings. A key
part of the plan is that I don't plan to be in charge. I expect many
other people to assume key leadership responsibilities.

m

(See the FAQ at the website for more details.)

http://earthchurch.net

Do I want to write stuff in a blog?

2007-01-25T12:16:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I want to use a blog or not. I'm not fond of writing except for short items; what you might call mini-essays. Some of those are already online at http://annevolve.sf.net . I also write a lot of email, and some of those are also mini-essays. I suppose I could put the best of those in this blog.

I'm into science and unconventional philosophy.

I'll post a photo so you will have some idea of what I look like.

m