Renew the Earth

Indonesia, Bali, part one, Water

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:00:41 GMT

Like an exotic jewel set in the archipelago of Indonesia, Bali glitters and enchants. The Balinese have retained their unique community through intense social/religious bonds, hard work, exceptional talent and great sacrifice through the centuries to become a beautiful, gentle and inspirational community. Now, because of these unique qualities and accomplishments, finally and fatally they have become a primary tourist attraction that presently dominates 80% of their economy. The irony is that this may be the thing that destroys an incredible place and its people that hundreds of years of oppression and wars did not. If they don't soon diversify and return to the trusted systems that meant survival for their society over more than a thousand years Bali will no longer be a wonder of the World.

Their unique form of Hinduism understood the root of survival when their irrigation system, subak, was first built. It was defined as a religious object to be venerated and protected with prayer, with temples and maintained by priests. Rooted in the Balinese philosophy, Tri Hita Karana, the principle of achieving harmony between humans, nature and the divine. It was the source of the staple food, rice. Water came from lake Batur, in the crater of the extinct volcano Kintamani, irrigated the hand cleared and formed terraces of rice paddies that descend in beauty and function to the sea. Seedlings hand planted by the women, sheaves of rice attached to the ends of poles carried across the shoulders of the men to the storage huts simple activities, carried out over more than one thousand years, that meant survival for a society. And the ancient kings of Bali also came together to sanction the subak. Agreement between religion and state. A rare thing in history and in the present.

So what is happening now? How is tourism threatening the survival of the Bali we have come to know and admire? Aren't people coming to praise and enjoy? Isn't that a good thing? It is not the intentions of the visitors, it is the structures built around tourism that make tourism possible, they have become destructive. Why are they destructive? The answer is water. Because of the demands of hotels and resorts for fresh water, the water table has dropped by around 60%. Into the void presses the salt water of the sea. Not only is the amount of fresh water that feeds the subak compromised it is threatened by salination and made unusable for rice growing. This situation is sometimes referred to as being caught between a rock and a hard place. The government needs to step in and limit or freeze new construction of resorts till a sustainable balance is found. Also, water use needs to be prioritized and rationed for essential use, the subak system as a primary user. Finally, the income from tourism must be distributed back to the Balinese people for their dignified survival and flourishing. The dependency on tourism has created an imbalance. Men can be seen sleeping rough in the parks. There is desperation in the eyes of the women who sell clothing and souvenirs in the outside stalls. The main profession encouraged for children is hospitality work.

The majority of profit from tourism needs to be returned to the people. They have earned it, they have built what we admire, they have carried in their hands and hearts the unique social compromise that has survived to this day against impossible odds and now it is being challenged by economic forces, more subtle but no less aggressive and destructive than war.

Susan Caumont

Fremantle; searching for authenticity and fuel

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 13:39:30 GMT

Sea days pass differently than land days. At sea the ocean and the ship's passengers are the changing features. Land life has extra distractions, vehicles, shops, museums, temples, churches, gardens, bird song, dogs barking, taxi drivers, venders, airplanes, the full extent of human activity.

During sea days I prefer to observe the ocean. I am aware of the passengers; like being part of an extended family or small village where you know most of the people a little and a few well. But the opportunity to be on the water for long periods is special. Sometimes, when the ocean is calm, a criss-crossing pattern may be seen on the surface, a delicate weave of vibration. I wonder if marine life is creating it, communicating. Other times the water heaves and agitates like an angry crowd is running here and there under a silk sheet. We sail six days from Adelaide to Fremantle, for the most part we encounter easy swells on this trip. The ocean lets us pass with tranquil, breathing heaves up and down.

When we arrive there is an art festival in progress downtown. Crowds of people have traveled by train from the suburbs. We walk in. Some streets are blocked, making way for displays of crafts, performers, food venders and pedestrians. People are all around, eating, talking, buying stuff and watching the performers. Clowns, singers and acrobats compete for attention and overhead huge soap bubbles float, generated by the children nearby. It is a perfect day and everyone is out to have a good time.

On our second day in Fremantle we decided we wanted to see the unique animals and birds of Australia. This is our last chance. We leave Australia in the morning. We joined three other passengers to go to the zoo. Our research revealed a zoo that has collected them all in one place and many of them can be petted and fed! Perfect, personal interaction and convenience. No hiking for miles to spot a bird or a fleeing kangaroo. We rented an Uber. The trip took us a little more than an hour and became a tour of Fremantle past and present, which, like Hobart, got its start as a penal colony.

As we leave the port area we pass the structures the prisoners built from tan stone blocks. They have mostly been repurposed. One, which looks like a castle, is now a performing arts building. Part of the original prison is a tourist attraction. Other buildings, all identified by the stone work, may have been housing for the wardens, guards and government officials. Some of these look privately owned. Driving on we are soon into new construction; neighborhoods with their support structures of stores. Many are recognizable names; Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Hungry Jacks, McDonalds, Aldi's and Seven Eleven. Everywhere nature is pushed aside, left as clumps of trees here and there or a strip along the sidewalks and roads, squeezed. A lone koala has climbed a eucalyptus that grows on one of the “tree islands.”

We proceed past new suburban developments for miles and miles and into and through the city of Cockburn, beyond which the housing slowly gets sparser, developments farther apart, by still there are a few new suburbs being built, many with solar panels on their roofs, looking alike and pressing into the rural land, trees burned down in advance, new roads being laid. We pass small ranches with a few horses each. This looks like Central Florida in the US, along the Caloosahatchee River.

One of our company wants to hug a koala and this influenced our choice of zoo. As we approach our destination things are building up again. In the middle of a new suburb, a dirt parking lot and a small sign on the chain link fence announce our arrival at the Cohuna Koala Park, aka, the Cuddle-a-Koala Park. A life’s work of one Australian couple.

We learn that they have, over 50 years, developed housing and collected animals for this park designed for children and their parents to enjoy and learn about the bazaar animals of their homeland. And as if that was not enough, they have strategically placed life-sized dinosaur sculptures throughout. You can ride a narrow gauge railroad to tour the park. It includes two tunnels!

And there is a partially finished observatory at the center. This is a magical place. The inventors are both very elderly and we met them as they were coming home and we were leaving. Their house is inside the park enclosure, 30 acres of chain linked sanctuary for a select group of kangaroos, koalas, parrots, ducks, geese, emus, dingos, wallabies, echidna and weird two ended lizards, that is keeping back the press of suburban development, for now. Colonel Sanders, Michael Jackson and John Denver all hugged koalas here as photos of them proudly announce. Unfortunately there are signs of deterioration. The zoo may not outlast its creators, but their son is ‘thinking’ about continuing it and not selling out to the crush of commercialism.

Fremantle is our last stop in Australia. Our itinerary has changed because of the economic shift the war in Iran has caused. Several ports have been cancelled because fuel is unavailable.

The equation that neo liberal economics (capitalism) follows, (let the markets control all the outcome), the war has now made its defects glare, and its inability to fix what it has broken. Extreme damage is occurring. People are getting less food, fertilizer and fuel. This is affecting every country. Prices are going up. Businesses closing or laying off workers. Fuel is being rationed in some countries and already in the ones we are in and will be visiting; Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia. Fuel is the blood of the economy, and money is essential for each person's survival. Money is perceived value. Emphasis on profit over sustainability = the destruction of life on our planet. The shift that this war has accelerated is taking us even deeper into a cavity of airless indifference and the care takers of that realm are even more obvious.

How do we get out of this? Can we influence the trajectory of the economy, influence history? Yes, if we insist on basic human needs being provided by every government world wide as its primary responsibility. This is not simplistic, it is absolutely necessary. A path that includes a designated, infrastructure for providing basic needs worldwide to every person from birth to death is the direction that is now unavoidable. For about 15 years Renew the Earth has been advocating a Parallel Currency structure that provides humanity, sustainably and efficiently, with their basic needs; food, shelter, education and healthcare. These things are the most obvious and cheapest things a government can do for its population. Many countries already do this for their military. Once humanity is stabilized, tensions lessen, migrations lessen, people can recover, think, create and innovate. More than half the World population that struggles with basic survival is lost to society. Without basic needs they cannot realize their potential and contribute. When they begin to have free time, new intellectual and work related skills will unfold. Ambitions that had been set aside proceed. The stabilization of Nature that has begun with renewable energies and electric vehicles can continue. Like the instructions in an airplane when the oxygen masks drop down, ”secure your own mask first before assisting others.”

We took a tour of our ship's engine room. The chief engineer assured us that our travels have been redesigned to make sure we can get enough fuel to continue. Even Biodiesel is being purchased. Its price is lower now than regular diesel and all the countries we will visit make it. The owners appeared to us on a video link to answer questions and reassure us. But they have no idea when the war will end and when its effects will end. Nobody knows. There appears to be a stalemate. We are told that Singapore will be our most reliable fuel hub, so we will return there several times. They can hold out longer because of their wealth. But that is referring to the wealthy and their activities. The rest of the population, which is the majority, is already suffering. Poor and elderly citizens are at risk. They cannot hold out for any long period. There is food scarcity and people are sleeping rough.

Maybe there is something positive that can emerge from this war, an opportunity opening for a surge of renewable energies and electric cars, (using fossil fuels as a condiment to build these industries), less willingness to allow governments to wage war and an understanding that every person has the right to access basic needs, and that this will bring about the best outcomes for society. If we remember how vulnerable we are now, (how dependent on fossil fuels, their sale and manipulation), and work towards these possibilities in our countries, we can influence history's course. We won't doom another generation to the horrors of war.

Humanity has survived many “slings and arrows” of misfortune over many thousands of years but at this point we cannot understand how we will get out of this mess. Nobody knows how it will end.

Tasmania, Hobart

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 16:49:48 GMT

Our stop in Melbourne was only for a day. There are plans to return after we visit Tasmania, which is just south of Melbourne. When you look at a map you can see where the island broke from Australia, a ragged triangle torn from the continent. England brought their convicts here to establish a penal colony in 1803, (convict transport ended in 1851, 50 years later) the colony eventually became Hobart, the capital city. Convicts were brought by sail. All the way from England around the southernmost tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas. A cape historically known to clipper ship sailors as a significant hazard, notorious for mammoth rogue waves of up to 30 meters (100 feet). What could these unlucky people have done to be banished on such a dangerous trip and so far away to an “uncivilized” island? Turns out prostitution and unwed pregnancy was enough to get sent there if you were a woman. And being an orphan, if you were a child.

Certainly there were real convicts too, murderers and the like. But being poor and stealing to survive were also, at that time, crimes in England. When the male convicts got there they were put to work building a prison.

One of the convict ships that departed England for the three month trip to Tasmania, was the Rajah. It left England in April, 1841 with a cargo of 180 female prisoners.

During the voyage they produced a quilt, known as the Rajah Quilt, to demonstrate to the Ladies of the British Ladies Society for Promoting the Reformation of Female Prisoners, that they were industrious. The resulting quilt is now valued as a work of art and a cherished historical artifact. The Rajah arrived in Hobart, Van Diemens Land, July 19,1841. During the 25 years that the Ladies organized these voyages, 12,000 women were transported on 106 ships. It was documented that many quilts were made during these journeys, but the Rajah Quilt is the only one known to survive.

Let's go back a few thousand years, before the British arrived on the coast of Tasmania, and listen to some of the voices of the Aboriginal People. “Country holds the knowledge of the Old People… They are still here - in the trees, in the wind, in the Earth and in our hearts. They will always be here - as will we.” “ The government does not, nor do we wish them to, keep us or our children. Whatever land they have reserved for our use is token… It has been given in lieu of that grand island (Tasmania) which they have taken from our ancestors.” A description at the Hobart Aboriginal Museum asserts that, “They knew their Country intimately, adapted to the environment and sustainably managed the land for thousands of years. Families shared their fire, food and shelter. Clan groups of extended families came together to hunt and hold ceremonies. Tribes comprising several clans had collective rights and responsibilities over a large home territory.” Then I read the reaction from an Aboriginal spokesperson to the arrival of the British, “... this country was fresh, clean Earth and Moihernee the Great Spirit made the first black man… then raytji, (white man), came. They took our land, killed our men, and stole our women and children - it was an invasion…It became a war for survival. We never were defeated - but we could not win.”

The reply from the British to the distress of the Aboriginal People was, “We make no pompous display of Philanthropy. The Government must remove the natives… If not, they will be hunted down like wild beasts and destroyed.” Traditional practices were forbidden. Children were removed from their parents. This formed the template for Aboriginal reserves and missions throughout greater Australia.

Proclamation Boards depicted equality under law, but the justice was one-sided. No white man was charged or hanged for crimes against the Aboriginal People.

A common thread in the history of Australia is the exclusion of non British and non European migrants. This was called the “White Australia Policy”. In the 19th century large numbers of migrants came from Asia, in particular China, to make their fortune in the gold rush. And they stayed and with their labor contributed to the transition from penal colonies to family settlements, neighborhoods and cities. But they were regularly subjected to racist attitudes and poor treatment, anti-foreigner riots were not uncommon. After WW2 there was Jewish migration and anti Semitic sentiment rose that Australia tried to counter with pamphlets. Not until the Vietnam war did Australia allow legal access to non-European migrants and refugees. In the 70s immigration began to focus on employability and personal attributes.

Two days at sea and we have returned to Melbourne. We don't take the train into the city; if there is a town within walking distance it is more interesting to us. As we walk out we see cars are commuting in the distance, flowing down the curve of a bridge. The sun flashes off their windshields, creating a river of light. I am startled by a movement to my left. But it is just a breeze lifting the ears of a plastic bag under a eucalyptus tree. Awareness is different after being at sea for several days. It feels like things are new, brighter, more intense. Trees are greener, the smell of flowers stronger, sounds of traffic louder and ambient movements more noticeable.

It is the weekend and families are out walking and biking. We find a trail next to the trolley line that bisects a large neighborhood.

It proves to be an excellent walk with native trees and shrubs on both sides and occasional small parks. Jeff wants to find a hardware store. So I look up the nearest one to the port and find it's only a mile and a half away. He wants to buy an electric drill and some socket wrenches. We were not allowed to bring tools onboard and this is a constant source of frustration for Jeff because there are improvements he wants to make in our cabin. He recently got permission to bring tools aboard. We found the store and it is just like the large home improvement stores at home. Jeff finds everything he needs and we walk back to the ship. A day's adventure. Finding anything is a huge accomplishment. Every port is new and has to be researched. On another day we took the same trail into South Melbourne, a long walking mall of shops and restaurants. We found several thrift shops and were both able to increase our wardrobes.

Unfortunately, when we left Melbourne we encountered rough weather and the beginning of the fuel scarcity that has resulted from the war in Iran. Most of our trip around the Southern part of Australia will be compromised by avoiding two cyclones and searching for fuel. Several ports have already been cancelled. We spend extra days taking refuge from the cyclone at a port an hour from Adelaide by train. One day we braved the train ride and arrived in the big city.

Lots of shops and restaurants, a walking mall, an art museum, a natural history museum, botanical gardens and a chocolate shop where a young woman was giving customers pieces of a huge chocolate Easter egg. It was very good chocolate. But on the way back on the train we both agreed that it was basically another large city like any others we have seen that got their start as British colonies and now operate under the International Economy. They have been homogenized.

We leave port and hope to dodge another cyclone coming from the North. The Captain announced that he will hug the coastline. That will be the safest course. The city buildings are receding into the distance, grey stalagmites rising from the sea.

Australia

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 12:58:53 GMT

The yellow pilot boat is approaching. A pilot will be brought onboard to guide our ship through the harbor. As we progress, a stretch of islands pass us on the left then, the coastline, on both sides. Sailboats, white triangles against the dark blue water, shine in the distance. Cliffs drop sheer from the pastureland to the tan beaches. Dark green groves fill the crevasses. We cruise along under the dome of the sky. Soon we will be docked at Port Melbourne, Hobson's Bay, Australia.

Living life onboard, traveling around the world, I feel like a spirit watching the living as they go about their activities. I am a temporary exhalation, undetected then gone. But their doings remain in my mind. Humans are so very busy, especially the young adults. It takes significant aging to bring on stillness and reflection. My obscurity can make me sentimental. I feel a general affection for anyone who passes. I saw a baby watching sea gulls eat the French fries that someone had tossed to them. I imagined her forming her own impressions of everything around and not yet named. I wished her well and hoped that the war would end soon.

I want lives to continue, plans and hopes to be realized. I want her to be spared the knowledge of war. People are just starting to get used to their new connectivity in our Worldwide Web. (Or is it even called that anymore?) They are learning quickly from each other and can amuse and educate each other from great distances. All the economies are linked now. A string plucked in Australia can be heard in Canada. We wear, use and eat things that come from thousands of miles away. We are just getting to know each other, to be interested and adjusted to other solutions, other ways of living. We know we don't want wars. Even the nation's leaders, so far, are refusing, at this time, to get involved. “This is not our war.”

The ones who want to break things are very loud. They jump onto the Internet using anger and insults to get attention, temporarily disorienting society. The expression of interesting thought, occasions for useful discussion that can enforce agreed upon law, these are more scarce, take time and frustratingly they follow in the rubble of destruction. It is easy to break things, putting them back together takes a long time.

There is a lot going on. For the most part the profound structuring that International Economics has accomplished, over the past 100 or so years, is not understood by most of the population, but its results are clear to everyone. Approximately 20% of oil flow, stopped at the Strait of Hormuz, raises oil prices worldwide. It is a fair trade item. The companies that control the price per barrel are not humanitarians. They are opportunists and not expected to behave compassionately. The subject of oil is discussed in all the news. The Strait of Hormuz is controlled by Iran. Oil is the blood of the Economy. Everything that is manufactured, transported and traded country to country has been disrupted. “What can we do?”, “When will this end?”, “How will it end?” These are the questions asked, over and over. Is this war building to a third world war? Are nuclear weapons being considered? How unhinged has this all become? No one was consulted. The decision to go to war was made by a handful of people. We are stopped in our tracks, hesitating, looking around nervously, like a silent herd of deer. But one important thing that we all can see is that the International Economy is stronger than any country or leader. The final result, that no one can predict, is quietly resolving itself, alignments are moving into place, responding to the demands of the market, the demands of economics, and meanwhile we are adjusting. A pattern has not yet been finalized, but nothing will look like it did before. At this point in history society is starting to understand that the Economy is our World Government.

Money works as an organizer. If distributed equally, it can result in a shorter work week, less production for profit only, more renewable energy, an emphasis on efficient basic needs production and distribution. Humanity would benefit, Nature would benefit. AI can help, robots can do menial work. Job sharing, and remote work would be the norm. But presently money is elusive, running like water, out of your wallet, out of your bank, always being called back to its source. And no one can predict the timing of these movements. It is constantly mutating toward where it finds profit.

I see the effects of 16th to 18th century colonialism wherever we go, in the design of the governments, the architecture, the religious options, education, healthcare, what is for sale, what you can buy, their commercials, their food and their shelters. International economics has continued this trend by enforcing a kind of Worldwide Colonialism. Its for profit emphasis encourages homogenization and enslavement that encompasses anywhere and everyone. Any dictator, colonialist, president, prime minister, king, emperor, etc, who thinks he or she can control this is mistaken.

I can't help seeing that people suffer. I have watched the freedom and grace of young skateboarders under a bridge in the knowledge of how short this exhilaration will last.

Making a living is our powerful necessity and distraction. It occupies us through most of our lives. The suffering is more obvious in the poorer countries, less hidden. People sense that they are rushing past something; something valuable, fleeting, maybe wonderful. This is a silent loss, and takes a toll. Most people can't stop making a living, instead of living, until they are too weak to work. Very few have the free time a monetary legacy at birth would bring. Free time should be everyone's birthright. It is where innovation, creativity and philosophy are developed. Things that help society mature and survive.

We were invited as a small group to visit the ship's bridge. That place where all points are taken into account, the depth under the hulls, the satellites above, our speed, our course, other ships out there, distance to land on port and starboard, the effects of weather, the balance of the ballast, the leap of our bow and the disappearance of our wake. A brilliant young woman described the functions of the instruments that record and announce these things and we all felt well taken care of and safe afterward. All is well on our good ship Odyssey, for now.

We generally stay 2 or 3 days at each port. Just long enough to get an impression. Like the joke about the blind men trying to decide what an elephant is by touching only one place on the animal's body, I try to form an impression of each place. What is surprising is how similar they are! I can extrapolate from my experiences and observations during my own long life. I recognize familiar things and begin to understand the human behaviors and evolutions of the environments that I am seeing. My gut feeling is that we will make it. We will go beyond war, we will not need so much oil in the future. We will have shorter work weeks and more free time. And I'm not even an idealist!

The lines are being thrown to the hands on the dock. We have arrived in Melbourne.

Sydney Australia to New Zealand

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 21:17:13 GMT

The most important thing we have to do, now that we have re boarded our ship in downtown Sydney, is to increase the number of pages in our passports. Most countries will stamp a whole page and sometimes two. Our passports, though new, only had twenty eight pages. This will not be enough to get us around the world! So we made an appointment with the US Embassy, along with 50 other passengers, to address this issue by purchasing larger passport books which have 52 pages. The Embassy was new and modern, the employees good natured and efficient, considering that we descended on them all at once. We conducted our business in an orderly manner under the watchful eyes of the US President, Vice President and Secretary of State, whose framed photographs dominated the far wall.

Sydney is a Big City. All Big Cities are alike. It is the smaller more rural cities that have unique character. Big city people are there to make money and they put up with, or don't notice, the tall buildings that block the sky, the noise of vehicles, the smell of exhaust, the overabundance of expensive shops and restaurants, the aggressive pace, meals on the go and the scarcity of privacy. Even the presence of excellent performance venues and museums do not compensate. To go to the Sydney Opera House is expensive and unaffordable for most residents. Museums have entrance fees. These places are visited mostly by the tourists, who have free time and extra cash.

Free time is in short supply in a Big City. Of course there are exceptions but nowadays Big Cities are not like those of the past where you didn't need a trust fund to live there and the foment and the stimulation of hopeful migrants stimulated invention and the arts. Today, there is an emotional haze over everything, that won't allow clarity. The scent of desperation is in the air and a feeling of dulling sameness. People are distracted by shinny stuff and thoughts and some are on display, to no purpose. A visitor yearns for something to be surprised by, something real going on that isn't for sale.

I find that I am observing the behavior of the city birds, as a relief.

These are mostly sea gulls, sparrows and pidgins. They have adapted to the city knowing that there is always a human, somewhere, eating. Bits of food are dropped from an outdoor meal, or when a knuckle of bread is thrown to them, the sharp-eyed gulls call, then gracefully stoop their perfect curve of flight to scoop them up. The accuracy and beauty of these movements are repeated over and over as more and more birds call out and arrive, their wings overlapping, they argue and peck a crust to bits. Sparrows, modest explorers of the ground; dart and peck, brave and tireless, while peeping encouragement to each other. At the end of the day they gather in a shrub to gossip about the day, then fall asleep. Pidgins are philosophers. They have seen it all, know better than to expect permanence, they coo soothingly, move unhurriedly, fly like they invented it and it's no big deal and they don't have to show off. They do not depend on your generosity, but accept it, forming soft gatherings, sharing unhurriedly, their iridescent feathers sparking in the sun.

World events don't pass unnoticed, even though we are traveling and changing destinations regularly. The news is with us. A few days ago, in the night, Israel and the United States began bombing Iran. This resulted in the death of their religious leader and hundreds of children and adults. The bombing and Iran's response continue as I write. Though we are more than 9,000 miles from Iran the impact of these tragedies wash over us, pressing our common fragility into higher relief. More death and the stresses of oil and food shortages loom.

Our ship leaves tonight for New Zealand, five days at sea. The crossing is not rough and passengers relax into the many ship activities for the duration. Our first port will be Tauranga. But the captain is warning us that there will be rough weather ahead as we progress.

We arrived at the port of Tauranga. This is a small, easy-access city. We can walk off the boat, out of the shipping port and into the city in about 15 minutes. The business area is one long main street of several blocks. Most of the shops and restaurants are catering to tourists offering souvenirs and high prices. But if you walk far enough in one direction you find a salvation army thrift shop, a grocery store and pharmacy. There is also an excellent park with mature trees and a small pond with a waterfall and a group of ducks. But most of the local life is going on at the waterfront. A beach gives families with children access to the waves and beyond are moored sailboats pitching forward and back, impatient to fly out into the harbor.

We leave the next morning. Our progress along the eastern coast of New Zealand meets a fierce wind storm. The waves reach 14 feet causing a rhythmic up, down, elastic ride. The wind grumbles constantly. Waves come in series and the largest dramatically sucks the boat down into its trough. You feel the ship gather like a horse preparing to take a jump then the bow slowly rises and breaks through the top of the wave. Spray flies over the bow and to both sides. This is repeated over and over. Inside the ship many passengers are sea sick and stay in their cabins. When you walk from place to place you are pressed into a weaving pattern, like a drunk Charlie Chaplin. All around are small rainstorms, columns of grey joining the sea and sky. When we break out of them the sun glares down on the water making it shine and creep like molten steel. Wherever you try to settle you are pulled this way then that. We expect this weather to continue through the night. Sleeping is a challenge. A wave can pound the hull when the timing of the bow doesn't slice through it. This shocks the ship and sounds it like a gong. Immediately you are awake. Finally we get relief in the morning when we enter the magnificent harbor to Wellington.

It is almost a perfect circle cut into the rock with a narrow entrance from the ocean.

We come alongside the dock, the lines are thrown and secured. There is a shuttle provided to take us downtown. We step off the shuttle into the vertical world of another Big City. This is a shock after 5 days on the water with nothing in sight. The buildings of Wellington are a mix of historic and modern. An interesting study for an architect. Again, the avenues of expensive restaurants and high end clothing stores, reaching in every direction. Here and there are sculptures, some contemporary and others, horses and riders of the past, on tall pinnacles.

People are walking purposefully all around us as we slowly progress, like a stream around an obstacle.

Unfortunately we are only allowed to stay at the dock for one day. We have to leave in the morning because New Zealand decided upon inspection that our hull carries too many barnacles and other forms of life they don't want contaminating their waters. Tomorrow, offshore about 20 miles, a work boat will come alongside with scuba divers who will scrape the hull for the next 3 days.

After the scraping there is still bad news, the hulls are not clean enough. We are only allowed to stay 24 hours in the remaining ports and several had to be cancelled because of the cleaning delay. This is a disappointment to passengers who have made plans for tours and have paid for them up front.

We make our way, in calmer seas, to our next port, Littleton. Its harbor waters are a soft celadon color. Probably the result of limestone in the cliffs that parted to form it. As the name suggests it is a small city/town. The kind of place to raise children. The primary school looks charming. It is also catering to the cruise ship tourist trade with souvenirs and cafes, but there are genuine signs of life, a library, a book store (the best one I have ever seen) and a local art and performance scene. It would have been nice to spend another day. But we have to leave in the morning.

Our final port is Port Chalmers. The harbor is long, beautiful and edged with the supine, undulating flesh of the grey greenish hills.

Here and there, a herd of sheep are grazing. At the narrow entrance was an albatross rehabilitation center. The huge birds float proudly in the sky. The tug, Taiaroa, has come alongside to escort us to the dock. Nudging and insisting like a mare with its foal. We walk into town and find that Port Chalmers is charming, like its name suggests. I would live here. An emerging art scene, which indicates it is still affordable, a book store, easy walking to the grocery and pharmacy, good coffee, beautiful views everywhere and kind, friendly people. More than enough.

In the morning we leave for Australia, five days at sea.

Hospital, Sydney, Australia

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:21:59 GMT

After all our planning for Jeff's next operation and waiting out the days till we arrived in Cairns, Australia, we finally flew to the Sydney airport. It was evening when we got there and both of us were exhausted. We both thought why call an Uber, there are a bunch of taxis hanging around, just take one of them to the motel. That was a mistake. We ended up paying $100 for a 20 minute trip in no traffic. Uber would have been half, I found out later. Since then we have taken several Uber rides in electric cars. And they have been excellent experiences. Australia has been importing Chinese made electric cars. We got to ride in a BYD and Uber drivers like to talk. We conversed with a Japanese driver and an Indian driver, both men. Both had been in Australia about 15 years. They seemed to like being in the big city. Both agreed it is generally too expensive. The driver from Japan, his wife works in the hospital and they have children, he likes the flexibility of the job so he can be involved with school and activities. The Indian driver has a son and would like to return to India so his son can experience his homeland. We are resting at our motel and I am outside watching the wild cockatiels.

They are always in pairs. They perch in the trees and feed on the berries and new leaves. They show light yellow under their wings when they fly. Their crests are also yellow. They raise them when they greet each other or are startled and make a rough croak when they take flight. There are many exotic birds flying around here. Lorikeets, crested pigeons, ibis, ravens, whistling ducks, magpies, kukabara, and many more. They fill the air with their calls. We find out later that we are not far from a National forest. The birds are coming from there into the city.

After preparing ourselves mentally for the best and worst outcomes of Jeff's surgery, I left him at the hospital in the care of the anesthesiologist and waiting for the arrival of his doctor. From past experience I didn't expect to hear anything for several hours and this I thought would be no different. When a nurse called not too long after, she said Jeff was in recovery. So I went to the floor where he would be delivered and waited. Finally I got a call from Jeff! He sounded normal and not like he had just gone through surgery. Turns out he hadn't. The doctor had just received the sonogram that showed the size of his prostate. It was the largest she had ever seen! She said she could not operate, it might be fatal for him at his age. She advised he just go on with what he has. She changed the catheter in a flash and he was on his way. A lot of stress and waiting but I am glad he didn't have another surgery and subsequent recovery. We can get on with our lives. Any visit to a hospital where you come out alive is a good visit.

We have walked to the enormous Mall several times. The size and spiral design make it hard to figure out. We are told it is the second largest in Australia. Jeff and I have gotten lost there a lot.

We discovered a nice place to get breakfast and have located the Aldi's grocery. We concluded that there would be no practical reason to go to the Mall, if there were no grocery store. There are goods available, anything you can think of, but extremely expensive and more than 100 fast food restaurants, representing every kind of food you can imagine and more.

There is an ice rink and movie theaters. Everything is there for you, clothes, food, shoes, bedding, entertainment, jewelry, etc, etc. The message is, “If you have the money, we have whatever you want. Unless you want something practical, like hinges.

We have several days before the ship comes to Sydney so we are exploring. This area of Sydney, called Mcquarie, is a university town, with suburbs and all the wealthy trappings and prices of any major city. The Hospital and University are within walking distance of our motel and also the huge mall I mentioned. This is a massive culture shock after wandering around the island nations of the South Pacific for the last 3 months. We notice most of the local population appears to be mostly Asian, the doctors and business owners in particular. The nurses and students are a more egalitarian mix of native Australian, naturalized Indian population, Asian and Islanders. We spend several hours walking through the campus and take the opportunity to speak to the students.

What degree are you studying for?” “cyber security, medical doctor, lawyer, actuarian, environmental law, engineering…” Many are just returning from a break or beginning their tenure so there is a lot of activity and many clubs advertising for students to join. One of these is the socialists club. They had posters displayed with Marx’s portrait.

We attended their short lecture with an audience of about 50 interested students. (There are about 30,000 students at this university.)

A young, intense woman lectured for about half an hour.. The club defines itself as the “largest revolutionary socialist organization in Australia. We have branches in every major city and 21 campus clubs.” Some comments after the lecture when students spoke were:

"Capitalism is barbaric, from poverty to oppression to genocide and war. But another world is possible if we fight for it. It is only by building a mass socialist movement that we can hope to get there.”

“ Money "purifies" bad behavior. Money allows any behavior and power over other more talented people.”

“What will make the most money is the basis of decisions.

Food, housing, clothing, if people had these then people are not held hostage by “pay to live.” Life is not a human right.

Economic terrorism.”

“Brutality is the point, the US… People that cross them will be treated brutally."

Ice raids in the US. bring up the question of; " how do you want to live?"

“People came out to strike, Impressive!" (audience claps).

"Profit above human life."

"Restart in a new way. Sharing the wealth."

"Not impossible but inevitable." "Capitalism is pushing us that way."

" Pushing past the human breaking point."

“Breaking point will make people act…”

"Everything that is wrong in this life can be traced back to Capitalism."

"Destructive nature of Capitalism."

"Parasitic force in society...the working class has the ability to strike and challenge the profit making economy."

"Socialism and Communism I use interchangeably. Society without hierarchy. Non exploitative... "

"Revolution empowers ordinary people. Ordinary people must be the ones to rebuild."

While we were still in the area the Australian government “spilled” their Liberal leadership (which means conservative) of their first female Leader of the Liberal Party, Sussan Lea. She was replaced by Angus Taylor, a man who doesn't have a plan. He ran on, “I will do what is good for Australia.” The Labor party is the liberal party. Ms Lea is quitting politics. She may have been the scapegoat for the fallout from the horrible massacre of Jewish citizens on Hunakkuh, December 2025, on Bondi Beach. She sided with a call for gun control. People love their guns in Australia as much as people in the US. Antisemitism has been part of the social prejudices since the end of WW2. Only British or white European migrants were welcomed; the “White Australia Policy.”

We are back on the boat, on our way to New Zealand. This will take five sea days.

Sea days

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:15:48 GMT

We have several sea days before we arrive again in Cairns, Australia. This means we will not see land for a while. The rhythm of sea days is very different from shore days. There are a variety of activities you can participate in. Almost anything you can imagine is being invented as a result of the variety of people onboard, some of whom want to duplicate the entertainments they enjoyed where they used to live.

This is a residential cruise ship so a lot of the passengers are onboard long-term, meaning many months or years or the rest of their lives. The longest stay, if you “buy” your cabin, is 15 years. When Jeff and I bought our cabin that was all that was offered. Now you can buy a cabin for 5 years. Each circumnavigation takes about three and one half years. We are going to try to stay onboard for at least one circumnavigation.

Before the sea days began, we visited two of the islands of Tonga. At the first stop, people scuba dived over a reef right next to our ship

When we walked into the village we didn't go further than the excellent farmers market where we bought local bananas and limes, two items the ship often runs out of. At the second island, a large city was accessible by foot. We spent the first day observing people, many of their garments were adorned with traditional belts of woven grass and the ‘man skirt’ was popular.

The next day we walked to the government building. Because it was right there as we entered the city. Jeff thought maybe we could float our idea of the Parallel Currency to the Finance Minister, and get some feedback. This almost became an international incident. Our first challenge was to find where in the huge complex was the finance minister’s office. Every guard we encountered sent us in a different direction. Finally we came back to the first place we were directed to and asked again. This time the guard indicated the 3rd floor and he let us into the elevator. When we stepped out we found we were at the Prime Minister's office! An elderly receptionist greeted us kindly and Jeff said, “This is even better!” We were ushered into an elegant reception room and someone went off to find an official to speak with us. We introduced ourselves as an NGO. We were joined by a pleasant, slightly suspicious lady, who took a few notes and accepted our website card for further reading. Jeff gave her a summary of how the Parallel Currency could help the local population, (which is mostly poor and depends on the Catholic Church for schools and curriculum). She listened politely, then asserted that everyone is already provided food, shelter, education and healthcare in Tonga. But the students do pay a fee to the Church to attend the schools. “Very affordable,” we are told. Previously we observed some of the young girls dressed for school in uniforms with blue or yellow ribbons in their hair to differentiate the schools. They were lovely with long black hair and talking excitedly. One girl asked me if we were going to the reggae concert happening that evening at an outdoor venue nearby. I said “No, but you should go. It is for young people.” She answered, “We can't go, we are poor.” Turns out 100 passengers from our ship were planning to attend. Our conversation with the representative of the prime minister wound down and we were given bottles of water to take (it was a very hot day) and as we turned to go a young agitated woman appeared (also beautifully dressed in traditional garb) and said to Jeff and I that we were disrespecting them with our unannounced presence. We had not made an appointment! And to leave immediately! Which we were already in the process of doing. The nice elderly receptionist led us to the elevator and pushed the down button.

When we reached the ground floor the agitated lady was already there berating the guard that let us into the elevator. “He had nothing to do with it.” Jeff said, “We were looking for the Finance Minister's office.” She turned abruptly toward Jeff and said, “I’m not talking to you!”

At the end of these five sea days we will be in Cairns, Australia. Where Jeff and I catch a flight to Sydney and meet his doctor. Then an operation on Jeff and his recovery for 10 days and we reboard the ship if all goes well. We both have anxiety about this and try to not think too far ahead.

Meanwhile I have been amusing myself by sitting on the deck watching and listening to the ocean. I wrote down this observation.

The sound of our ship cutting through the ocean, parting swells, pushing them aside from the bow, reminds me of my Cocoa Beach childhood, the hollow rustling of waves coming in and flattening on the sand. This experience, began my consciousness of a larger world.

Now I sit on this ship traveling across the Pacific on our way to Australia. I am not a child sitting on the beach with my arms around my knees, listening to a wave withdraw, watching the periwinkles dig into the wet sand. I am an adult in the last quarter of my life.

I am circumnavigating the world. That larger place I sensed as a child. And I find it too large. I think I had a better idea of it then. When I first understood vastness and content. Now it exceeds my grasp. But hearing the sound of our ship parting the ocean comforts me and I let go.

French Polynesia, the islands

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:18:09 GMT

The float of cloud drifts and encircles a mountain leaving just the very top, a pointed witches cap poking through. These islands have the most magnificent mountains. They brood around the harbors, snagging the clouds that pass. No doubt they have inspired fantastic stories. The cloud shadows create chameleon-like changes on mountain surfaces, making them even more expressive than oceans that amuse themselves by hiding what they contain; mountains are hysterical by contrast. Always looking for attention. “Look. Look again!, what about this?” They may hold a pose for a while seeming docile, then you look up and they have disappeared. White mist covers just a grey suggestion, then suddenly black silhouettes like broken giant teeth rise defiantly. So much animation, millions of years after volcanic upheavals shook these mountains from the sea depths.

We are in Papeete now, at the urologist. This is the first change of Jeff's catheter since his operation. It is supposed to be routine but, we are advised, should be done by a doctor the first time. The first attempt was unsuccessful. He was unable to enter the bladder. Jeff is drinking water to inflate his bladder. The Doctor thinks this may help. So we wait. Papeete is a big city. The port where we are docked is one of the largest we have seen.

There is a marina with lots of catamarans and a lovely waterfront park, which I walk through to get to

the hospital several times. People lounge, children play, flowers booming all around, feral chickens, wild birds commenting from the palms and grazing on the grass. Right next to the park is the main road, traffic, noise, business and office buildings and then private homes block

after block climb the mountain slides.

Most of the local people speak French. A few speak English. Our urologist was French. He spoke reasonably good English, but this became a problem when subtle description was necessary. In the end I think we understood each other well enough. The doctor tried again to insert the new catheter. This time he was successful but the tube had a very small diameter and we told him it would clog up because Jeff has been passing blood

clots. This created an emergency and the necessity to go to the hospital, where Jeff was operated on for 2 hours and stayed overnight for observation and flushing of his bladder, 20 bags of water through the night. In the morning the doctor informs us, “If it runs clear or pink I can discharge you. But you must walk around and see how that goes.” We are able to return to the boat in the early evening. A nurse from the hospital, Solange, kindly drives us back. The moment we exit her car, rain comes down heavily. We walk through it carrying all our stuff, getting soaked, and arrive at last to climb the ramp into the ship. We both are exhausted and Jeff has begun to bleed again.

Three days later Jeff's urine is only a little pink. He has more energy and is able to walk the ship to meals. He has been advised that he needs prostate surgery. A sonogram had shown that he has a very large prostate. And this is probably his main problem. I began researching urologists in Australia.

We traveled overnight and anchored near the French Polynesian atoll, Fakarva, south of Papeete. A low crescent shaped island, sparsely populated with coral reefs all around and abundant varied sea life. Again, passengers rush to observe the underwater world.

Snorkeling and diving are something of a phenomenon, like birding. It attracts similar enthusiasm and fanaticism. It demands expensive equipment and extensive travel. “Birders”have a “life list” of what birds they have seen and photographed and where. Fish and underwater animal enthusiasts make photographic records but don't keep lists as far as I know. They talk excitedly about what they have seen and this enthusiasm is not dampened by seeing generally the same creatures in successive locations, island after island. This is why I compare them to “birders,” they seem to get an emotional rush from the combined anticipation and sightings. We are cruising the South Pacific Islands almost exclusively so that passengers can snorkel and dive.

Fortunately there are many other things to be interested in on each island. The breathtaking mountains, the kind, generous local people, the smell of flowers blooming everywhere and the clear turquoise water where its shy inhabitants are visible even to those of us just looking from the shore. A young girl rides her horse bare back along the beach while we wait for the shuttle

back to the ship.

We traveled overnight and are now anchored in a harbor with about forty sailing catamarans and a few mono hulls. This is one of the islands of the Marquesas, Hiva Oa, part of the most remote island group in the South Pacific and French Polynesia.

There is a significant number of the population here that feel left out and under subsidized by the government and talk about becoming part of France. Hiva Oa is divided into 6 communes that have their own representatives. The total population, which is concentrated mostly at the capital, Atuona, amounts to around 6,000 people. The surroundings are breathtaking. Volcanic mountains rising to great heights all around with massive rock formations balanced incongruously on their tops, deep valleys dive into shadow. There will be a dance performance in the early evening on shore. Jacque Breil died and was buried here. Also, Paul Gauguin.

Now we are on our way to the Cook Islands, two sea days. We are still waiting to hear when our appointment with the urologist in Brisbane will be for Jeff's surgery. The ship has cancelled an arrival there for environmental reasons. But we can still fly there from Cairns. We have been advised that this is the best place for the operation. Jeff is still weak and occasionally bleeding. I am tired and it is hard to sleep. I try to keep focused and do some writing.

We hear from the urologist and the dates they offer are beyond the window of our stay in Australia. So we pivot and look to Sydney for a urologist and I pick out a lady this time. Her office immediately came up with a convenient date. So we are now planning to fly to Sydney

when we arrive in Cairns, find a motel and proceed from there. I write in such detail about our medical experiences because it may be useful for long-term travelers to know. You have to be flexible and ready to change tack. Give plenty of time, if possible, to make arrangements.

The Cook Islands were cancelled from our itinerary because cyclone Cody is in the area. So we are back in Papeete and spending an extra day. This is fine with me because I enjoy their waterfront park and everything is easy access. Walking through the park this time I noticed a memorial. It remembers the nuclear bomb tests the French did on these islands in the 1960’s and the suffering of the native people.

Notes from Fiji hospital, Oceana Hospital system and Denareau private hospital

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:57:26 GMT

Medical emergencies all have a similar feeling. Intensity, urgency, a changed perception of time; only events and human encounters progress, time seems warped, unimportant.

After several sleepless nights because Jeff was having difficulty peeing and he was beginning to have pain, he went to the onboard clinic to get catheterized. There were three attempts with successively larger catheters. This was painful and distressing for him, though he kept joking

about it, “this is not good sex!” The attempts were unsuccessful. He was given pain killers and an ambulance met us at the dock for a 10 minute ambulance ride to the hospital. Jeff is an 80 year old man with an enlarged prostate so he normally has trouble peeing. But this time it

stopped altogether and there was blood.

We are waiting at the hospital for the urologist. Nurses and a general practitioner have spoken to us in English. Very kind, polite, casual and patient. The urologist arrives and talks with Jeff. He is going to get the operating room ready and put Jeff out. Then he can do the operation.

We wait in our curtained off cubicle Jeff is lying on a bed. A woman who came with her husband, who has high blood pressure, is behind the curtain to the left of us. He had collapsed. She is reciting the Lord's Prayer and Hail Marys over and over in an emotional whisper. She is crying. A young man is in the cubicle to our right. He seems to have broken his arm. It is all wrapped up in white gauze. Earlier a man had been stung by something and ointment was applied. A pregnant woman has come in.

This is a modest hospital, very basic, two floors. They have what they need. A few flies buzz lazily around, but most are killed by the electric device on the wall. A very slight smell of urine is in the air. We arrived here about 8:30. It is now 2:00. Jeff has had an ultrasound, blood pressure checks and an EKG. Now he is in a wheelchair waiting for the nurse to take him to an operating room.

The waiting room has about 10 people waiting. About 50 chairs in all. Not terribly busy for a Saturday. Light and darker coffee colored skin, attractive, rounded features and large expressive eyes set apart the native population. They are only a little curious about us. There is no rushing here.

Jeff is not the first passenger from a cruise ship to have this kind of difficulty, we are told by a nurse. It happens now and then.

They can't locate the doctor. Jeff is waiting in the wheelchair and his anxiety level is going up. He wants to be able to get back onboard before 6:00, when the ship is leaving. Finally he is wheeled to the elevator and taken to an operating venue. The anesthesiologist arrives with a pink hair cover, and black scrubs. A nurse in a pink hair cover also arrives.

“I will put the drops in and the urologist should be able to steer through.” He explains what the options are and says the urologist will too. Jeff is giving the anesthesiologist the Parallel Currency summary. He has lived in Fiji all his life. He appears interested. I give him a card. He

gave me some Fiji dollars to buy hot tea. Jeff and I haven't eaten all day. The public health sector in Fiji is collapsing. “There is money, but I don't know where it goes.” says the anesthesiologist.

The urologist has not turned up yet. Very, very, slow, slow, here in Fiji. “You won't feel pain, you will be out.” the anesthesiologist reassures Jeff.

The doctor has arrived, it is 3:00. He will take a look in and get the urine out of the bladder. Jeff has started peeing spontaneously. “Not enough”, the doctor says. According to what he sees with his scope, he will do what he can today. We may have to stay an extra day. The next port,

Lautoka, Fiji, is about 3 hours away by car.

I am not allowed into the operating room so I wander around, buy a cup of tea and sit outside to warm up. When I returned the nurse gave me a thumbs up. The surgeon found a blockage in the urethra, it is the enlarged prostate pressing against the urethra, we find out later. The urine

has been drained by a catheter that he left inserted, and the bladder was flushed. He told Jeff that a few more hours he would have gone septic and died. Kind of a strange thing to say. We had been there waiting for him since 8:00 in the morning. No rushing here.

Health emergencies are to be expected on a long trip like this. And outcomes are not always good, sometimes tragic. A young woman onboard died of a stroke not too long ago. Pneumonia, flu, COVID, dysentery, jelly fish stings, spider bites, falls that sprain muscles or break bones,

cuts from coral that need stitches, chronic conditions that force passengers to leave the ship and go home. Recently, two passengers died who had been on an 11 day cruise on a ship that anchored near us. They were snorkeling with full face masks and died of carbon dioxide poisoning. This can happen if the mask does not vent sufficiently. The doctor and nurses on board have a lot to do. But there are things they are not equipped for. And that is when you hope you are near a hospital. In the end, we were lucky. We return to the ship in the evening. Our doctor onboard is saying that Jeff should get a permanent fix for the urine situation. He would like Jeff to go to another hospital while we are in Fiji since we will be here for at least 10

more days. We arrived at the next dock and took an ambulance to the private hospital in Denareau. It is on a separate island, about an hour drive, that is accessed with a small bridge. The very wealthy live here. Reminds me of Boca Raton, Florida. Shops, restaurants, fancy homes, resorts. People vacation here from New Zealand and Australia.

The petite Indian GP is able to understand what is wanted, a subpubic catheterization. She got instruction from the ship doctor and the urologist from Suba hospital and none of it was making sense to her. Doctors don't communicate well with each other it seems. So we try to straighten this out. We are waiting now to see what they will do with us. The contrast between this resort area with its private hospital and the previous places and hospital we experienced is extreme. They have all the modern equipment, and even a helicopter at their disposal. The bright young Indian/Fijisava GP is arranging things, she is efficient and charming. We killed some time by sharing a breakfast at one of the restaurants, an interesting interpretation of eggs Benedict. Neither of us had the energy or curiosity to browse the expensive gift shops. Jeff buys a fruit pop that we share, then we go back to the hospital and Jeff lies down.

Eventually we are informed the operation cannot be performed till tomorrow so we have to stay overnight and be taken back to the Suvu hospital in the morning. A three hour trip by ambulance. There is only one urologist in Fiji. And we have already met him. We are taken to stay at a fancy modern house owned by the private hospital, located in the suburbs among others like it. Each with a dock on connecting canals that go out to the ocean.

Small tastefully landscaped yards separate the homes by about 20 feet. The backyards are dominated by swimming pools. A couple and their two year old are living there, but are leaving just as we arrive. The wife injured her hand getting off a sailboat ladder. A doctor recommended surgery. But they want to have it done in New Zealand and will fly there. The private hospital that is better equipped than any other in Fiji is not good enough. They are friends of one of the fancy hospital's investors and are guests of his in the house. This must be the reason it feels sterile and not like a home. It is rather new, very modern with three bedrooms and baths, a high ceilinged living room/ dining room, granite kitchen counters and a breakfast island. It feels empty even though the family had been here quite awhile and the husband runs a waterfront restaurant nearby. No cooking has been going on, only reheating in the microwave. There are several boxes of granola bars in the cabinet and canned spaghetti, nothing worthwhile in the

refrigerator. Even the child's toys scattered about seem sad. The closets are empty, it feels like no one lives here or they have been gone for a long time. We will be picked up at 4:00 am to drive 3 hours to Suva hospital where Jeff was catheterized three days ago.

Now on our way, it is dark. Our driver, “Captain Reggie” says, “The night is getting smaller.” His ambulance interior is decorated with fake flowers, ivy and other unexplainable textures and objects. He is an Indian National. He narrates as he drives. He explains to us that milk comes from New Zealand, juice and beef from Australia, almost everything, 80 percent of what the island needs, is imported. Very expensive for the population. Even though Fiji has the best fruit it has no factories to make juice. Jeff gives the Captain the Parallel Currency summary. “I will do it! I am part of the Parliament here. I can get to the prime minister.” The ride was very interesting and not only because of the entertaining driver but also because we passed through beautiful countryside. It reminded me of central Florida, the trees and plants were familiar, except there are mountains. The mountains are strange shapes and make recognizable forms like you can see in clouds. One they call the sleeping giant. You see his head, his body and toes, a recumbent silhouette in black volcanic rock. All the mountains are dark, sharp and craggy, with deep valleys, covered with green vegetation. They grow sugar cane here and brew their own beer. Homes vary a lot. There are poor areas, but not as extreme as other places we have

been, and they transition to suburbs around the local general hospital and shopping areas then to extreme wealth in the resort areas. The country people who live on small farms and in little villages also work in the hotels and resorts in the wealthy areas. We see them, mostly women, waiting for the bus, which they pay for, on the side of the road in the dawn light. It is around 5:00.

“ If you need something you will see it, if you don't need something you will not see it.” our driver opines. The day is opening. Islanders are Fijian, Indian, Filipino and some Chinese. There is interesting history attached to all these groups, the order and reasons for their immigration. We are waiting for the doctor, it is 7:00 am. Jeff is finally being operated on, it is 12:00 pm. There was no need to get here at 7:00. But we have learned by now that time doesn't exist in Fiji. In the operating waiting room the TV is showing medical soap operas. Nurses and doctors flirting and emergencies happening. Men in charge. Everyone is white. After Jeff's operation we stayed overnight. The doctor wanted to see the drainage run clear or pink.

We left in the morning around 7:00 with a taxi we found outside the hospital. A nice guy, Indian, not talkative. Three and one half hours to where our ship was anchored. We pass again through beautiful countryside, mountains, valleys, and people riding horses. We make it back to the

tender and then to the ship. We are both exhausted. The ship will travel overnight to Savusavu.

Ch 17, South Pacific Countries, islands

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 22:56:24 GMT

Papua, New Guinea.

Papua

Rumors of cannibalism in the jungle villages are not confirmable. That there are rumors seems incredible in this day and age. But we still are killing people in wars, so maybe not so surprising. These remote villages seldom are in contact because of the natural isolation created by the high mountains of the interior. When villagers did meet there was tension, not only because they were strangers to each other but they spoke different languages. There are more than 700 different languages spoken. These villages are shielded from modern influence by geography. Most of the population lives in the mountainous interior and their autonomy is protected by law.

We are advised to stay in groups while walking in the coastal town, to discourage opportunists, pick pockets and assault. Most of the small boats here are homemade canoes that are paddled. As many people as the boat will float are piled into it. The gunnels may be just a few inches above the waterline. The few motorized boats are filled to capacity too. They hurry back and forth intent on something.

We will walk into town and try to meet some people. This is not the poorest town we have visited so far but it feels poorer because of the atmosphere of despair. These are not happy poor people. They are struggling and I sense they are confused by us and some may resent our collective presence. Our clothes, phones, shoes and jewelry, obvious signs of wealth and health are shocking to this population where everyone is walking around in clip clips or barefoot and washing is done in the fresh water streams at the side of the road. Most of this coastal population is addicted to betel. Even the very young children (less than 12 years old), their teeth stained orange, are already chewing it. The adults are aware it causes cancer, but don't understand that it is addictive.

An eight year old girl is playing with her siblings and their pet dogs, using the bottom of an overturned boat as a slide (the rain had just stopped), her hair is long and bright white. Her skin is dark brown like her siblings.

The original settlers of these islands came from one of the first human migrations out of Africa, 40,000 years ago. Black African women carry every possible gene for human variation. This child was the result of two parents with the same recessive gene, or possibly a mutation made this striking result. She gambled about like any 8 year old girl, without self consciousness, in the embrace of her family.

Betel/nut quid, peanut bunches and loose leaf homemade cigarettes are sold at dozens of small stands on the street all along the several blocks we walked. Little else is for sale on the streets. Many people are out walking. Some enter the deteriorating shops, others stand around to talk. One larger building is a general store and a grocery. It is located across from the new construction of a huge shopping center, which will put the older one out of business. Maybe the same person owns both. Capitalism is well understood here by the individuals who own anything. One industry is selling varieties of sea slugs, another is selling shark fins and nautilus shells (an endangered sea animal that doesn't come to sexual maturity for about 20 years). A single gas station is open, with a line of trucks and cars waiting. There are very few vehicles, but still the air is choked with fumes. A few women carry loads on their heads. People are friendly. If greeted first with 'good morning' almost everyone, children, women and men, will smile and respond, 'good morning'. Some young men ask questions. They are curious about where we come from, the ship and Jeff's scooter. A group of men gather around the scooter. They are surprised that it is electric. Jeff explains the Parallel Currency to them and gives them a website card. We find a health official waiting in line for gas and give her a card and a summary.

Almost all the teeth are stained orange from chewing betel/nut quid. The red juice that is spit out stains the ground and the husks of the ‘nuts’, seeds of the areca palm, are everywhere under foot. But there is no garbage litter, on the ground or in the water. Tourism seems to bring this. Tourism and the excesses it brings with it have not yet taken hold here.

We saw very few elderly people. Lots of children, teens and 40/50 year olds. The almost unanimous desire for the euphoria produced through betel/nut chewing is an indicator of boredom and despair and does not bode well for individual aspirations in this coastal town. Papua New Guinea was once part of the British Empire, then England gave it to Australia. For more than 40 years hundreds of thousands of South Sea Islanders were pressed into slavery on the sugarcane and cotton plantations in Australia. This was called “black birding.” Papua is now an independent country.

Boredom is the main reason people chew betel quid. The second reason is social, doing it with friends. They understand that it is a carcinogen but don't understand how it can be addictive. It is often combined with local loose leaf tobacco and it is not presently understood if this enhances the addiction or if one or the other becomes dominant. Betel quid chewing has been around for thousands of years. Magellan reported it when he got to the S.Pacific Islands. It is also used throughout South East Asia and India. Betel quid use predates tobacco which has only come into common use in the last century. Like tobacco, the quid can cause mouth and throat cancers and makes contact with receptors in the brain that activate addiction.

On our way back to the ship we went over to a catamaran sail boat that was docked nearby. It was a marine research vessel sponsored by a New Guinea university. A young man came out to talk to us. He was raised in Papua and had been fascinated by the sea and its life since childhood. Somehow he had found a way to college education in New Guinea and got his bachelor degree. He is now working on a masters in micro biology. We gave him the Parallel Currency summary and our card. The sky was getting grey in the distance, a storm coming, so we said goodbye and made our way back to our ship. Rain started just as we were climbing the ramp.

Honiara: Solomon Islands

Two passengers had phones stolen. One, a man on a handicap scooter and the other, a lady. This happened on the first day of disembarking. So the next day only a few people went into town. Later in the day, a shuttle bus was announced that would take everyone to an evening celebration at a local yacht club, in honor of our ship. This helped ease the fear.

When we walk into the city we find the infrastructure is crumbling, the sidewalks broken and difficult to negotiate. Small shops line the main street. Most have variations of the same stuff. Some with more emphasis on groceries. Small solar panels are for sale in several places. Many adults and children walk and socialize up and down the sidewalks. They also relax outside the stores on benches, friendly but reserved. Not as much evidence of betel/nut use here as in New Guinea but well known for crime, theft and sexual assault. The Solomon Islands are one of the poorest island countries in the South Pacific. It was the site of the bloodiest battles of WW2, on and around Guadalcanal. Most passengers are interested in visiting the military memorial, snorkeling and diving on the wrecks. I saw a group of statues near the dock of four local people who represented the participation of locals as "scouts" for the Allies and honoring their sacrifice. Some were tortured, some murdered. The results of these horrible events that played out in what was then a tiny village, have significant repercussions to the present. The people are poor, halted in a nether world between their traditions and a tenuous transition to the lifestyles of the people that descended catastrophe upon them so long ago. A transition that will never benefit most them. They can only be distorted by the consumerism and outsider profit making at the expense of their beautiful islands. The blith, innocence of fun seeking tourists is a painful contrast to their present existence.

Two friends had walked to a distant war memorial. They took a wrong turn and came upon an encampment of people living in rough shelters that went on for many blocks. This city of Honiara was built after WW2 ended to be the capital. Tulagi had been the capital but was totally destroyed during the war. Where we are docked is a huge port. Massive container ships load and unload. Their contents destined who knows where. Not Honiara.

Several more passengers were attacked on our last day. One screamed and a local man gave chase and got her phone back. A gay couple was assaulted by two men, one went for a back pack and almost withdrew a wallet, the other went for a phone in his partner's hand. They were able to fight them off.

We took the shuttle to the party at the yacht club. It turned out to be a large bar selling local beer. No yachts. There were several motor boats and a beautiful traditionally made sailboat. It was constructed of bamboo with a woven natural fiber sail. It makes one 400 mile trip a year using prevailing winds. February winds favor the return to the island they came from. It will be about a six day sail.

Freedom by boat. This is what they can access if they need relief from land life.

Tulagi, Solomon Islands

We are anchored off and using our tenders to visit shore. It is raining. I have been watching a dugout canoe in the distance. There is one man in it.

The rain slowly approaches the boat and is raining on it now. The man does not paddle for shore, he remains in the same spot waiting it out. I can't see him anymore, a grey curtain has drawn between us. I'm sure he is bailing and I notice later that a cut off plastic bleach container is used for this purpose. He is enveloped by the warm rain on calm water. This temporary embrace creates a moment of intense existence. There is no garbage floating in the water, only leaves. His canoe is a homemade dugout and the paddle, leaf shaped. Off the coast of a nearby island shallow water begins to glow blue/green as the sun reappears.

Jeff was feeling sick, so we didn't go ashore. But everyone who did said it was delightful. The people were friendly and they felt safe. What a contrast to our previous stop in Honeria, Solomon Islands. Maybe someday we will return.

Loganville, Vanuatu

Two days at sea to our next port, Loganville, Vanuatu. Another county impacted by colonialism, Britain, France and Japan. Then the American military came during WW2 and stationed 50,000 people there. More than doubled the population at that time. After they left they dumped the stuff they didn't want into the ocean at what is now referred to as Million Dollar Point. Millions of dollars worth of military equipment, construction equipment , vehicles, bulldozers, trucks, tanks, etc. were dumped into the Pacific Ocean. It is now a coral reef where tourists snorkel and dive. The country has only had its independence for about 40 years. The government is a representative republic but turns over a lot.

When we walk around, children don't rush to us. Adults watch us pass and seldom make a greeting before we speak first or smile. Which we always do. Again, everyone is fascinated by Jeff's scooter. It activates spontaneous smiles and laughter. No obvious petty theft or threat. Similar assortments of stores and restaurants as we have encountered before, in the same processes of deterioration. It is a Saturday and children are swimming at a nearby beach. They have built a small wood fire on the shore to cook the tiny fish they are catching. An afternoon picnic. Several young boys dive and swim off a short concrete pier. I see them there all day long. They jump in and disappear then pop up again like seals. They seem in the midst of a metamorphosis from landlife to marinelife. Skinny, elastic youngsters, all around 6 to eight years old, cheering and calling to each other as dusk approaches. Confident and at home in the water, they don't mind the approaching dark. A gibbons moon watches with a Cheshire cat smile from behind the transparent grey clouds.

As night closes the light, moths and flies are drawn to the ship's deck lamps, silvery squids rise from the dark ,flick the surface of the water, then dive. We leave the dock, on our way to the next port, Fiji.

Palau

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 16:08:41 GMT

City of Koror, the rock islands

Palau is a country of about 340 islands. Many are uninhabited. They are all beautiful to look at, composed of black volcanic rock with deep caves and covered with lush tropical jungles. We are anchored out, so a tender takes us to shore. It docks at a resort where we can take a shuttle bus into the town of Koror. The resort is beautiful and relatively new. For forty dollars a person we could use their beach and swimming pool. Many passengers take advantage of this to go snorkeling from the beach. There is time before the shuttle bus comes, so I go for a walk. I had spied a shelter on top of a rock overlook as we approached shore and started to walk in that direction on a soft grass path. I can look down into the absolutely clear water on my right. There, a moving mass of pink, orange and blue corals wave, hide and reveal colorful multi patterned fish. I am charmed by their activities and would like to sit and watch for a while. But I know I have limited time before the bus arrives. So I walk on to the base of the small volcanic mountain with the tempting shelter at its top. There I discover stone steps that wind upward. Slowly I climb, pausing frequently because of the heat and steepness of the steps. They snake through a dense miniature jungle, every texture and shade of green, lit with an eerie blue white light broken by yellow sun rays and views out to the ocean. Finally I labor within sight of the shelter. It hovers invitingly just above me. But I am disappointed to see that it is already occupied by two stray dogs. After all my effort I may not attain my goal and see the view from the very top. I had been bitten by a stray dog many years ago and am still very wary. I stand for a while, resting. Then slowly I climbed the last few stairs, all the while talking casually to the dogs about the weather and that I hoped they wouldn't mind if I sat down inside the shelter. They seemed to understand and moved considerately out of the shelter to lie down a few feet away.

I accepted their polite departure and climbed the rest of the way up. My efforts were rewarded. Below I could see our ship in the distance and beyond a rainstorm on the horizon. All around were the rock islands of different sizes and shapes, dark green domes of vegetation supported by black volcanic rock rising from turquoise water. They developed where tectonic plates had met, subducted and erupted creating a spine of volcanic action. The limestone that had been forming from degrading coral reefs for millions of years had been pushed up to make a chain of islands. They have since been shaped by time, water, storms, vegetation and nibbling sea life into rounded mushroom like forms.

Palau has a compact of free association with the United States which gives them military protection in exchange for the US to establish military bases on some of the islands. There was a large US military presence during WW2. This resulted in a significant presence remaining. This boosts the economy but is described as a double edged sword. Everywhere the soldiers go, more bars pop up, tensions rise and there is human trafficking. The soldiers are only stationed on the islands for a short time and they have no stake in the country. They are not concerned about their behavior and what they leave behind.

Health insurance for the local people is said to be affordable and there is public school and free community college.

We took the shuttle bus into the city of Koror and walked around. Most of the shopping is in a two story building that is referred to as the Mall. A grocery store shares the main floor with a pharmacy, a shoe store and a department store. The second store has a sports shop and the Taiwan embassy. We decided to visit the embassy. A secretary greets us and informs us that the ambassador is not available. Jeff asks her if we can tell her what we would have said to the ambassador and if she would take notes and convey the information. She agreed.

Jeff gives her the summary about the Parallel Currency concept for basic needs and asks her to put it in her own words. Which she does with only some prompting. Then we leave.

Walking the deteriorating sidewalks of Koror reveals a few gift shops, bars, message parlors, small neighborhood markets and a large Chinese restaurant that offers a unique variety of sea food and coconut crab as meals. The crabs are in their own separate buckets with their own half shell of coconut to nibble on. They are surprisingly large, about a foot of glossy dark brown curved shell, with many pincered legs emerging. I imagine the trauma of encountering one in a palm tree. Fortunately they move slowly.

We notice that most of the local people live off the main street in homes and apartments without luxuries or resources to do repairs. Further out of town, overlooking the ocean, are a few nice homes with privacy.

We make our way to the museum. This is an eye opener in many ways. In particular the misunderstandings and mythology surrounding childbirth. Story boards, flat iron wood boards carved in low relief with legends and events, are promoted to tourists as souvenirs. But the carving of these small boards is a relatively new activity introduced by the Japanese artist Hijikata Hisakasu, in the 1930’s. Originally the stories were carved and painted onto the eves of the men's meeting houses, called bai. The beauty and interest of these painted images was recognized and the possibility of marketing them to tourists in a portable form arose. The carvings can be incredibly intricate and exceptionally beautiful. The stories are fascinating. Usually a mythical creature is involved or a fantastical event is depicted that brings the story to a satisfactory conclusion, trees can give birth to fish, a spider advises that natural childbirth is healthier for women than routine cesarean section and a little boy sinks an island because he got too fat.

Indonesia

Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:59:18 GMT

Bitung, Sorong, Ternate

There will be several sea days before our arrival at dock in Indonesia. Walking around the deck reveals a 360 degree view of the Pacific and we are the only boat as far as the eye can see. It is unusually calm. The silver/grey water encounters no resistance from the wind. It feels as if we are moving on nothing, like we are flying. Now and then the silky surface is broken by a fish. It leaves a tiny wake, as the water is zipped open. Sea birds linger, waiting to snatch it from flight Sometimes several fish burst from the surface at once and go in different directions. What urges them to fly? Away from safety? Are they born to seek adventure like children are born to be happy?

When we arrive at port there is a welcoming committee of enthusiastic dignitaries and dancers.

They don't get many cruise ships here. We are only the third one this year. Dancers entertain us by miming a fight between two warring factions. The chiefs separate the warriors before they do any damage with their machetes and knives. Chiefs fight too, bouncing their large bellies against each other. Their headdresses bristle with black feathers, skulls hang from their necks and bounce against their chests, toucan beaks project over their foreheads. There's a lot of shouting, threatening and posturing. Occasionally one warrior rushes toward another.

When we walk into the town beautiful excited children greet us everywhere. The very little girls touch my hands, kiss them, then press their tiny hands together in prayer. Some older children wear school uniforms and backpacks. They want us to sign their notebooks and write down where we come from.

Other children not in uniform are also very friendly and seem left to their own devices. They follow, watch us and with one or two words of English, ask questions then drift off. A very few will brush their fingertips together asking for money. Compared to other countries we have seen so far, there is very little begging though there are homeless adult men. Two young boys are fishing with hand lines, in a drainage ditch that runs beneath the sidewalk. Next to them a small outdoor grill is set up where a woman governs over her tiny open lunch spot, a table and several chairs. The boys are providing her with fish to cook. They are collected in a metal bowl of water on the ground by the grill.

Adults are friendly and extremely helpful. Jeff picked up a wire with his handicap scooter and immediately several men helped tip the scooter and remove the wire.

An amplified male voice is singing. The call to prayer vibrates the air, proclaiming, overwhelming, unavoidable. More male voices join from several directions, like a pack of wolves howling with their leader. "God is the most great, come to prayer, come to salvation, prayer is better than sleep, there is no God but Allah." This is sung in Arabic for about an hour. At the same time a festival is happening, pop music, singing and dancing, the songs blend.

Walking through the city of Bitung, we see poverty, crumbling houses and sidewalks. A Starbucks on one corner, is an out of place foreign oasis of air-conditioning and expensive coffee. No recent upgrading of infrastructure, shops or other buildings, only essential patching and trees are breaking through the sidewalks.

There is an open air repair shop for the gas powered scooters that rush back and forth on the crowded roads. Combustion fumes from the trucks and cars fill the air. Overall life expectancy in Indonesia is around 69 years. Little or no provisions for handicapped people. Tuna fishing, (skipjack), is the economic platform on which the people stand. Fishing is the inheritance and skill passed from generation to generation. The small boats are ingenious and designed for speed, and easy maintenance. A fisherman stands proudly in the raised prow and also can climb a narrow hand made ladder to gain more height for fish spotting.

Larger boats collect the catch of the smaller and sell to the local markets and fish processors. These people who live on the shores of their beautiful islands have built fragile raised wood homes and house boats into neighborhoods. They are reaching for survival into the depths and dangers of the Pacific Ocean. Young men live in groups on some of the larger fishing boats that dock together on a local pier. They hang a hammock in the stern for a nap between fishing trips and banter with each other to pass the time.

There is an attempt to lure tourists with snorkeling and diving and beautiful views from the mountains, but this is a new and faltering effort because their crumbling infrastructure cannot support it or offer enough convenience and safety. Several passengers paid more than 100 dollars for a day tour to hike and snorkel at a remote island. The boat broke down going and coming back during rain storms and rough water.

Indonesia is not yet able to provide basic needs and sanitation for its existing populations. Garbage is everywhere, some swept into piles and baskets. The dumpster is overflowing and heavy rains which are frequent, wash huge amounts of trash into the water creating a mosaic of color and texture made up of plastic bags, straws, plastic wrappers, lids, cardboard boxes, yogurt cups, styrofoam food boxes and the occasional tractor tire. The unfortunate effects of this pollution are locally understood, graffiti on a wall sounds a warning.

The damage to their marine environment, considered the most varied on earth, is already happening.

Men with cars and larger boats offer trips to the jungle interior and private island beaches and weep when a passenger pays more than they expect. The exchange rate here is the most extreme we have experienced yet. One dollar equals 16,600 rupiah. Still, the children run to you and smile, delighted when you take their picture. Adults with cameras want "selfies" with you, and with the cruise ship. Some local ladies bring their offerings of crafts and food to sell at the temporary stalls set up near the ship. It is obvious that most of the population here is challenged with various degrees of poverty.

But they haven't given up, there is dignity and curiosity and the children are happy, only repeated catastrophes will quiet their bright enthusiasm.

A boat motors by, it has the same melon slice shape we saw in Taiwan and the Philippines, but the preferred color here is royal blue, accented with red. A little boy sits on the upturned prow gripping it with his skinny legs as the boat leaps along over the waves. He couldn't be happier in this paradise of more than 17,000 islands that is coming up against the impossible demands and realities of World economics.

Yap Stone Money, CH 15

Thu, 11 Dec 2025 21:58:47 GMT

The value of condensed human meaning. Rai Stones.

Rai (raay) Stones are the stone money manufactured and treasured by the native inhabitants of the Yap islands, Micronesia. Most of the limestone for the money was quarried on the islands of Palau. Yap has no limestone. This practice lasted for about 2,000 years and stopped in 1931. About 6,000 Rai stones stand on the islands.

Initially, when the limestone was found by Yap fishermen, as the story goes, they were struck by its beauty; it can contain attractive crystals of calcium carbonate and fossils. They found it easy to carve, and brought back their hand carved forms of fish and turtles to the chiefs. The story also suggests that the carvings were given to the chief as an apology because they had not caught enough fish on their trip. Eventually, as the stone objects were more and more admired, the carving was refined and simplified to the shape of the full moon. These stone objects could reach three feet in diameter and were about a half foot thick. The hole in the middle was for easier transportation.

Traditionally there had been small round coins made of coral rock. The large round stones replaced these and evolved to stand for the value of human life(s) and significant human social interaction. There could be as many as 100 people working in the quarries of Palau over extended periods. The largest stones and one third of the smaller ones went to the chiefs. The rest went to the sailors and carvers. They came to represent relations among clans, marriages, disputes, communal projects like house building, road building and boat building. The value also increased with the age, size, beauty of the stone and the excellence of the carving. The new Rai were placed in front of homes and together in large open areas called “banks.” They were symbols of wealth, like gold.

The islands of Palau, where the limestone was quarried, are more than 300 miles from Yap. Stones were carved onsite using shells and coral rock, an incredibly tedious task, then the completed stone was placed on a raft and towed by canoe to the currents that would return it within the proximity of Yap. This return trip could take the stone on a 1000 km trip. The raft would be pursued by canoe then towed to Yap when it was within range. The Yapese were esteemed for their excellent navigation skills but many stones and lives were lost at sea during this process.

Because of the lives lost and the dangers of quarrying the stones, the initial value assigned was equated to human lives lost in their creation and transportation. Added to this were important events, sometimes inscribed on them. The history of each event the stone was used for was kept track of through oral tradition: a record of feuds, harms, compromises and forgiveness. Stones can be moved for a wedding, to settle a dispute, repay a robbery, a wrongful death or a divorce. But most of the time stones are not moved.

Presently Yap has three chiefs. There is a strict cast system similar to the Alaskan indigenous tribes. The chief, the witch doctor, soldiers and the labor class. The chief gives the labor class permission to work on projects for the community. There is a US influenced representative republic government as a result of WW2 when the US fought the Japanese from Yap and surrounding islands. The US dollar is used, but for important things that involve the villagers, the chiefs meet and decide. There are no women involved with the decision making. At the meeting ground there are about 20 or 30 flat rocks, permanently sunk into the soil, that stand about three or four feet above ground. These are chairs. Each person involved has an assigned chair. This is where they sit to discuss and decide. Betel nut quid is chewed. This increases the heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature creating feelings of well-being and alertness. It is the fruit of the areca palm and referred to as betel quid or paan.

These are beautiful undeveloped islands with a small population. It is a simple life. Everything is within walking distance of the port. In the town, there is a grocery, small everything stores, a hardware store, pharmacy, a bank, a motel, judicial and legislative buildings.

Because of the similarities between the stone currency and our Parallel Currency concept Jeff introduced himself to the Speaker of the House, who had casually walked out of the government building to talk to us. Jeff explained the parallel currency concept to him and how Yap was a country where it could easily be implemented for local buying of basic needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare. The Speaker showed interest. We left him our card so he could read more about it on the website. You never know where this may take hold.

Homes peek out from lush tropical jungles. Everyone has a boat. I recognize many flowers and trees because they grow in Florida where we lived for many years; papaya, banana, hibiscus, zousha grass, bamboo. Their traditional homes are made from bamboo and braided palm leaves like the cheekies in Mexico and Florida. Presently the local librarian is attempting to write down the oral history of the stones so it will not be lost. She was unavailable when we visited. It would have been interesting to talk to her. I did find a local woman who answered many of my questions and appeared to represent the women's liberation efforts in the community.

The stones can be as old as 600 years.

Stone money is a parallel currency and functions as one even today. The Yap people use the US dollar but stone money is used for anything significant. Of course this interests Jeff and I a lot. The Yap stone money is a form of symbolic transferable value that gets its initial value from human life and human social history and is used in negotiations that benefit the community. This kind of understanding has been lost to our modern money systems. Today, paper money value usually rises and falls according to profits made. Humanity and Nature are considered resources and products that are used by modern economics to make profit, without concern for societal or environmental consequences.

Many passengers want to snorkel with manta and exotic fish while they are here. They have learned from the Internet what each place we go to has to offer that is exotic, unique or fun. These locations can be accessed by taxis and tour vans. We prefer to walk. We met an old sailor at the dock where the locals gather to chew betel, their teeth stained yellow and orange. He was probably in his 90’s, as skinny as a rail, Canadian and very deaf. He was single handing a 42 foot sailboat.

He left the dock while we watched, not particularly interested in us, on his way to the next island. He had stopped for two days to get previsions. We have to leave also, our two days were not enough to learn everything we wanted. Maybe we can come back someday. Yap is a very interesting place.

Philippines, reflections

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 20:16:20 GMT

Boracay Island

I walk along the edge of the harbor. A concrete breakwater slopes down to the water. Sitting in a narrow boat, a man is chipping oysters off it with a hammer and chisel, to sell at the bars along the waterfront in the evening. The distinctive brightly colored boats are everywhere, long and narrow with a sharp uplifted prow. They resemble water beetles when they are moving. Their outriggers touch off disturbance on the surface, like the spidery legs of the beetle as it scoots here and there. Occasionally you see a longer boat paddled by several people on either side with one person standing on the bow counting the rhythm. Viewed from the stern, as the boat reseeds, the paddles give the effect of heaving in and out like an animal breathing hard. It is a dragon boat.

This was the indigenous form of transportation. It has been modified over time with sails and now two stroke engines. This transformation can be seen everywhere, some boats more homemade than others; small, large, green, turquoise or light blue with an awning draped across the poles that used to hold sails and now protect from the hot sun. These are their fishing boats and for many, their homes. The waters are lively with fish. An inviting, dark green, densely curled border of mangroves makes a protective nursery for the fish along the coastlines. It also filters the water and buffers the impact of typhoons. Tourism has become the official activity. But fishing is survival for most of the people. Trying to walk outside of designated tourist areas, beaches, resorts, tours; invites an assault by men with taxis,‘tuk tuks’, and three wheeled trikes. Wherever you want to go, they will take you there. A very small boy came up to me silently, his hand extended, palm up, tiny fingers curled to form a cup for coins. Old women and men follow for blocks holding out trinkets to sell, muttering, supplicating. Anything free is being ingeniously used. Discarded plastic bottles are used to float the bamboo docks. The bottles have been gleaned from the waters and are held in reserve in plastic bags attached to the docks.

Nets of rocks make anchors and used tires attached to the breakwater are stairs to climb up from the boats. A little girl sits on the bow of her boat munching contentedly from a bag of chips, her dad is in the shadow of the awning, resting. It is mid-day and very hot. They watch me walk by. They are witnessing a change they have no control over. Their white sand beaches, scuba diving and snorkeling have brought tourism they could never have imagined. Resorts have come, the environment is transforming into something they don't recognize. Promenades are being built along the waterfront, cruise ships arrive with strange looking people. She and her father will try to fit in, try to survive.

Two children emerge from the neighborhood of houseboats and shanties, a boy and a girl, in uniforms that indicate their parents can afford to send them to school. Other children form groups for like-minded play, all day. They are inventive. A ‘gun’ made of discarded soda cans and a plastic bottle produces a shot that can't be distinguished from the real thing. They understand about survival in a police state.

A little girl walks beside me for a while on her way to school, practicing some of her English on me, not begging. Imitating my use of a scarf as a cape to keep the sun off, she takes off her light jacket and does the same, flapping the sides like wings. As we part I realize I have a hair clip in my pocket that I had bought as a gift for my granddaughter; I hand it to her, she smiles and runs off.

Chapter Eighteen - Philippines

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 21:50:55 GMT

Philippines: Manila

On our bus ride to the city, I see a cannon on the side of the road in front of a building. A remnant of the Spanish presence that lasted 300 years and they still call their money pesos. We are offloaded at a huge mall, where I spot a “Truth Beaker,” a modern electronic gadget. It is a very large round bird whose plaque at its feet says, “tell a lie into my beak and it becomes the truth.”

A mime for our times.

Christmas never ends here. Lights and signs are left in place, on the street and in the mall. Christmas songs are on the loudspeaker interspersed with pop music. The population is being kept in a constant state of commercial excitement. Malls are very important. We are told the largest one in the World is here in Manila. We visited it trying to find a post office to mail a package and some postcards.

The immense Mall is a refuge in this huge city, surrounded by frantic activity, scooters, cars and poverty. A fantasy land where people can walk and look at the expensive clothes, shoes, jewelry, watches and handbags through tall glass windows and imagine, as they stroll. Imagine when they will be able to buy what they see and live like the people who can buy these things. Only to leave hours later with a sale item and an overpriced snack in their belly. They return another day with their children and teach them how to desire and imagine.

Manila is an armed city.

Everywhere there are armed guards and most of them have shot guns slung across their front. We ask our taxi driver who they are defending? He answers “Themselves.” They wear camouflage meant to hide them in a jungle environment. The people are kind, attractive and helpful, though confined by deteriorating infrastructure and poverty.

They go on with their lives in spite of the police state atmosphere. A man we spoke to said he has a gun at home and is ready to defend himself from the government if he has to. He hates what they are doing to his country.

Subic Bay was our first stop in the Philippines. We were fleeing typhoon Ragosa and took refuge in the lee of the island in order to dock at their protected port. It was raining heavily but the main forces of the storm had passed over and were headed to Hong Kong where it did major damage, having already crossed Taiwan leaving devastation. The Philippines were scraped and drowned also, its waters surfacing eddies of runoff and large debris. Ragosa was pronounced the worst on Earth so far this season.

Boracay Island.

Like a beautiful young woman who received too much attention too young for her looks, this once pristine island has been transformed to please a larger and larger audience. The result is exhaustion and depletion of the original. They are attempting to help the island recover some of its special qualities, white sand beaches, snorkeling; but the resorts are here, the tourists are here and the Seven Eleven has closed the small makeshift cafes and shops.

Income from the resorts does not significantly return to the local people. A local school has closed. Posters of the students who excelled are slowly peeling from the locked gates.

It feels like the tourist industry would rather not have a local population. We spoke to an elderly woman who has lived here all her life. She was selling cold orange aid to anyone who would buy it, from a wooden table. She was very proud that two of her 5 children are going to college to study hospitality. This is a way out, but can they come back to their home island and thrive?

Since we have been visiting Asian countries I have noticed that boats are of a similar design. Colored with variations of spring green and dark yellow or orange, their prows uplifted and sharp, outriggers attached for balance.

As a coconut passes in the turquoise water bobbing in its rings of silver, I suddenly notice a group of youngsters. In spite of poverty and their deteriorating environment children find fun and are irrepressible in their desire to play. I watch as a group of young boys swim out enthusiastically to an approaching tour boat, their skinny arms flailing in competition. They climb onto its outriggers even before it reaches shore, leap from them, shouting and laughing, over and over, delighting in their youth and energy.

One of the options for hospitality graduates is cruise ships. I drew portraits of two young women who worked on our ship. Heida was our steward, she cleaned our room and did our laundry twice a week. The other was Jeanella, she was a waitress in the dining rooms. Jeff interviewed them about what they are going to do when they go home. Both of them left the boat in Manilla and are citizens of the Philippines. Heidi, a beautiful, gentle person whose presence we will miss, is going home to help her family with their pig farm.

Both she and her husband were onboard working and have no children. She hopes to have some eventually. It is too expensive for them right now. Jeanella is sweet and lively, she wants to go home and catch up on her sleep.

After that she will reconnect with her relatives. She has a large family on her father's side. He has eight siblings. It is generally understood that anyone working hospitality onboard is helping to support extended family at home. Heidi Lisa and Jeanella have both been onboard for 9 months.

Chapter Seventeen - Taiwan

Thu, 16 Oct 2025 01:08:17 GMT

Taiwan September, 2025

We walked around downtown Keelung, Taiwan. Motor scooters were everywhere. This is the preferred form of transportation. Not electric motor scooters but gas powered, very noisy and fumes everywhere. We see children and babies riding with a parent, a child in the front and one on the back.

It is very hot and humid, so we try to walk on the shady side of the street. Closely packed shops under covered sidewalks are on both sides of the streets and under long covered avenues. Everything seems brown or grey even in the bright sunlight. Colors don't stand out. Most of the shops are selling street food to be eaten at small tables or benches. Clothing stores are numerous, and the ever present, 7 Eleven. Most of the city is clustered on the shore beneath massive brooding mountains.

At night more food stores open as the air cools and the work day is over. Scooters are zooming around in noisy gangs that outnumber the cars. The “night market” is open. This means that every kind of edible is offered and cooked on the street or in small cafes on stoves and grills. Everywhere people are eating. Not a leisurely feast, but a hurried one. All around is the noise of hundreds of people conversing as they walk the crowded sidewalks. Brightly colored lights illuminate the shadowy buildings, obscuring the confusion and deterioration. Forming a dream of festivity and feasting. In the midst of all this is a massive, gorgeously decorated temple.

Suddenly, I look up, distracted by a movement and see projected on a massive billboard the moving image of a cat being teased. Its form pounces toward the lure and appears to leap out of the sign right at the people below.

We see homeless people begging, for the first time since leaving Japan, where we saw none. Large cockroaches share the side walks. It's hard to imagine that Taiwan can withstand the ambitions of mainland China. They seem to be in a process of destroying themselves while China is developing massive efficient infrastructure and technologies. The exchange rate of the NTD, New Taiwan Dollar, is set so that you use the same amount of US dollars to buy something as you would in the States. Passengers say the restaurant food is less expensive.

In Huilian we visited the Stone Sculpture Museum. It is housed in an attractive modern building. Marble is quarried here, green and white. Many artists take advantage of the local varieties of rocks and minerals to make sculptures; some monumental, others delicate metal objects with gems inset. Artists are busy here and respected.

There is a large aboriginal population in Huilian. Surrounded by tall mountains and on a remote end of Taiwan they have tried to defend their culture and traditions from discrimination and time. Only recently have they welcomed new influences.

Ports are where the large cities develop, where jobs are, where most of the population lives. Where we dock most of the time. I watch as a yellow crane digs along the breakwater across from our dock with its backward beak. Nosing up buckets of gravel and mud, moving and smoothing them. After a while I realize where the fill is coming from that the crane is playing with. A building site is being excavated a little further along the breakwater. There an unmotorized flat bed is filled to the gunnels then towed on a long line by an absurdly small motor boat driven by a standing man. Very slowly he arrives at the side of the crane platform and pulls his flatbed parallel against it. Then a trapdoor is opened under the load and it dumps down into the water. He repeats this over and over, all day. This tedium is interrupted in the late afternoon when a massive cruise ship settles at the dock, making the anchored crane platform move off. There it lets thousands of passengers disembark to visit the night market and will leave only a few hours later.

I had imagined something different than the reality of Taiwan. I am surprised by the noise, fumes and deterioration of the capital, Taipei. Unfortunately in HuiIian it was the same, though on a smaller scale. I had an image in my mind of something like the cities of Japan, but in a different language. Here police are everywhere carrying shot guns across their front, there are gaudy displays of luxury next to deteriorating shack housing, undisguised poverty, herds of scooters carrying people to their jobs alongside massive trucks, makeshift buses and three wheeled “tuk tuk” taxies.

Taiwan feels like a democracy that is losing its grip. The stresses and magnetism of profit economics are drawing in the bits that try to retain their customs, draining vital energy from the people. Everywhere we can see this struggle to one degree or another. There is tension here and extreme commercialism promoted at every level. People are harried, nervous, rushing to something.

The history of Taiwan is complicated, for about 50 years it was run by Japan. After WW2 it was taken from Japan and given to the government of Taiwan, which consisted of the remnants of the exiled Chiang Kai- Shek government. Presently there is tension because mainland China has made clear that it wants to control Taiwan by 2028. One of my scouts reported back that she had a conversation with a Taiwanese lady, who spoke English. She asked her what the feeling was in Taiwan about China's ambitions. She said she was worried but did not think about it on a daily basis. Her mother does. She remembers the military rule of the KMT that lasted 72 years. It lost influence to the PRC which introduced Democratic reforms and lifted martial law. But it is still one of the two main political groups in Taiwan and regained power after the 2024 election. She thinks China will take over Taiwan by taking advantage of the political divisiveness. They will spread influence through propaganda, closing social media and using cyber attacks. China is not thinking about armed conflict. They plan to replace government officials with their loyalists little by little.

When I met Carmen she was onboard for a week with her son. She was my Aurora Borealis sighting, unexpected, exceptional, then gone. “You don't sound like an American,” was her opening remark to me. That was the beginning of our far-reaching conversation. She told me she is Taiwanese and has a British passport and a Chinese passport. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, her extended family was caught up in the government upheavals, dispersed and flung into other countries, most not reuniting till more than 20 years later. They had no way to find each other. Carmen ended up in Taiwan. Later she lived in the US and became a US citizen. Now she thinks she sees the horror of dictatorship coming for her again. She said she will seek refuge in Canada, where she has some relatives.

A Thread for Humanity

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:02:01 GMT

A Thread for Humanity

The world economic fabric can only work if there is a thread for humanity,

or we are:

justifying the unjustifiable.

We must find a way to make our human experiment on Earth a success.

With our combined intelligence we can figure out a solution that does not involve wars and poverty.

I had a conversation this morning at breakfast with an individual who just boarded the ship in Japan. He was offended by the English language account of the US involvement in Japan that he read at the Hiroshima memorial. He felt it was inaccurate and unflattering. This appeared to me to be the wrong thing to be reacting to so strongly. There is no way people are going to flatter a country that inflicted unprecedented violence and tragedy on them. Governments start wars and people suffer.

We have to stop trying to justify the unjustifiable.

There is a human part to war; it is not a virtual experience. No government has a right to maim and kill its citizens, or those of another country.

We have come to a point where no person or country is so remote that it is unaffected by whatever wars and economic oppressions are presently happening, either directly, indirectly, physically or emotionally. An agreement is necessary to make sure every individual has a road to self sufficiency. Like a seed placed in the ground. Agreement on a good course of action will grow a little at a time. One conversation at a time. Governments will not originate this kind of agreement, they need to be guided by us.

We may feel discouraged because there is so much disagreement at this time. But we have done and still do difficult and seemingly impossible things together every day. Adjustments that make life possible. People just get on with it, in spite of governments, in spite of politics or money. We have a cohesive, intelligent, subconscious agreement to cooperate so we can move on, survive and continue, not to Nirvana or Utopia but to the evening, to the next day, and through that. For instance, the double line between two directions of traffic. We agree not to cross it as we travel at high speeds past each other. We are making a survival decision. We know that if we cross that line it may result in our death, the death of another person or both. Even in a traffic jam when patience is strained, we wait. Few people will break from the line and try to drive on the shoulder. We wait not because we are mindless followers, but because this is what a frustrating situation demands. Our turn will probably come. When we get near to escaping the congestion we often exhibit generosity. No one is to blame, we are ‘in the same boat.’ “You go, I will go next,” you think in your mind as the lanes blend and you let a vehicle taper in ahead of you. You don't care about what sticker they have on their bumper and whether you agree with it. This is how we progress till finally we are free to go our separate ways. This is freedom. Not the freedom that is promised in constitutions and propaganda. This is a kind of freedom formed by agreement with fellow humans. And you know it is real as you drive away from the congestion, open your window and the fresh air blows past your face.

This is the subtle kind of freedom we have cultivated together through careful evolution as we encountered obstacles, major and minor, for thousands of years. The result is that we have built enough safety around our humanity that occasionally individuals can have a chance to express themselves, meaningfully. Time to think and imagine. This is the ultimate freedom that is sometimes possible. A gift we can occasionally give with cooperation that relieves tension and conversation that builds acquaintance and familiarity. Made possible through consensus and our common ability to compromise and connect.

An important conversation people need to have now, so that further agreement is possible; is understanding how they are being affected by World Economics. Are things getting better for most of us? Or just a few. Why? Ask yourself, what is money? Is there a way to use money so that it provides essential basic human needs to everyone, food, shelter, education and healthcare, at no cost to them? This is the tread for humanity that is missing from our economic fabric.

Today, World Economies do not significantly value humanity or nature. They are both used only as resources that can make profit for companies, governments and countries.

Consider a Parallel Currency. Leaving the existing currency patterns in place, and adding a separate currency dedicated to basic human needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare. This sounds very simple and you might ask,”why hasn't this been done before?” Because our modern economic systems' main focus is profit making and because we have not had instantaneous communication for very long. Also, the need for this has not been as intense as it is now with populations more than quadrupling in a generation. Today, ideas can be introduced quickly Worldwide and considered by billions of people.

Profit from the basic human needs can only be made by making these things artificially scarce and their prices high. This stops a huge percentage of people from even surviving. Economics has become a danger to us all as we move through our lives. We are being forced into competition with each other for basic needs. Money in exchange for human survival has the long-term effect of stifling social development.

Poverty has only been thought of as a natural human condition for possibly several hundred years. For thousands of years we cooperated and made sure that everyone in a community had basic needs. There was not a word, poverty. Our populations were small and every person was valued. Now our populations are huge and through profit economics, basic needs are monetized. If you can't afford them you and your family don't survive.

We can create and spend money for whatever we choose. With a Parallel Currency dedicated to basic needs that is destroyed after use, inflation is not an issue. Taxes for these needs and services are not necessary. The money can be printed as needed and cannot be saved or invested. A Parallel Currency will provide basic human needs to everyone, not charge people for them as we do today. This is vitally important because our survival is at stake.

Communicate with each other about how you would like to see our future evolve. What people agree upon becomes a direction. Imagine how a Parallel Currency for basic human needs would change the economic equation and its results.

With a common direction we can go forward and recognize the obstacles to avoid. As momentum builds and we approach closer and closer, we will know we have arrived when, some fine day and into the future we will never hear again, “If I can't work for money, my family will starve.”

Chapter Sixteen – Japan Part 4

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 20:53:45 GMT

Japan Chapter 16, part 4, Looking back

Everywhere we go are parks for people to sit and relax or enjoy a walk in nature. The Japanese reverence for nature is central to their common understanding, but like all countries, it is struggling with the demands of Capitalism which has become our dominant economic belief system Worldwide. I read an interesting passage in Donald Richie's 1970 book,“The Inland Sea”, about Japan. “The Japanese are the last people who stand in reverence of the natural world. Rather than attempting to eradicate it, they have successfully adapted themselves to it, they have offered themselves to it, have come to terms with it. There is something larger than man, though this the West denys. It is nature itself, the way things are, have been, and always will be. The white man's most daring and foolhardy feat is mere rapine. All of his glory is merely brutality. He doesn't know how to live in the world he was born into and so he will destroy it and build another that will destroy him.”

As Robert Frost once said, there is salvation in surrender.

It is a common thread, the Japanese humility in the face of nature and its overpowering forces. Typhoons, tsunami these are nature at its most extreme. But there are many subtler events just as persuasive. Extreme cold, heat, drought, the advance of personal aging. Richie writes eloquently about this also, “One sometimes finds … directness in old people. Old people have gone through all the polite shufflings and mute longings of youth, all the inarticulate and confused reasonings of middle age, all of the false politeness, the hanging back, that shyness creates and manners sanctify. Old women in Japan can do anything they please. They can be rude in a bus or train, can pry into any matter, no matter how private, can be outspoken and impolite if they like, can wear the brightest colors, and can be so bawdy as to make their children blush.”

Even more important than these observations is a more subtle understanding, born from thousands of years of living on their island, that binds Japanese society. They can hold contradictions in mind and are not paralyzed by them. In the Buddhist stories there is a bird called gumyouchou. This bird has one body and two heads. Even if two entities have differing ideologists or philosophies, their lives are bound together by a single form. This teaches that it is essential to dignify each other rather than get polarized over differences. Like Siamese twins we are joined and must find a way to move on together.

Nature seems to have conspired to allow a unique evolution of humanity on the Japanese islands, like the Galapagos where unique flora and fauna evolved nowhere else on earth. I looked out at the sea this afternoon. Its color was like animated sapphire. When we walked the trails along the mountain rivers to find waterfalls, gnarled elbows of tree trunks poke from the banks making grotesque faces.

At night rain flashes past the city lights, tinsel colored and silver. There is a dome of magic over these islands, where human imagination created the Shinto religion. A religion whose divine spirits, Kami, are inspired by nature and can make mistakes. Even the basic elements of air, water, rock and land that form every part of Earth seem different here. They have isolated and evolved the unique human characteristics of the Japanese people.

This societal agreement about how they will go on together is unique but not ideal. This is not about perfection. Their arts, music, their drumming and cartoons, their food, clothing, manner, beauty, their dance, their pace, neatness, kindness, curiosity, childlike enthusiasm and fierceness, conspire to form a special narrative. The physical beauty of the islands encourages pride. The views of the ocean from high mountains covered with a living, undulating coat of vegetation hide in some places diversity of natural life found nowhere else.

These things play on the nerves, senses and minds of the people. They will let what interests them in from the rest of us but they change it like an oyster covers a speck of irritant with its essence to create a pearl. I have noticed in mixed marriages the children are exceptionally beautiful. Even the genetics transform. You can't tell a boy's face from a girl's when they are young. The Japanese are survivors. They don't let grief over horrendous events distort their future. They are able to see past the injuries and continue to evolve, a people of dignity and joy.

When we are about to depart a group of dancers and musicians arrive to perform for us from the dock. Traditional three stringed instants are played, ladies in pink, yellow and white kimono dance in a circle, gesturing gracefully. A local audience has gathered and an elderly man joins the dance from the sideline, moving his arms side to side in wavelike motion. Now and then someone produces a shrill whistling accompaniment. Male dancers emerge to drum beats and perform a series of contorted poses over and over. A child, barely three feet high, dances with them, along with a lifesize inflated cartoon creature.

Our boat starts to pull away while they are still dancing. Everyone waves good by, enthusiasticly. But it feels rude, after all the effort they made to bring their performance to us. The captain has a schedule and he is the last word. He blows the horn three times as a salute. The dancing continues on shore. It has become a neighborhood party.

Before the dancers came out, a local high school band played. One of the pieces was the American tune, YMCA. I wonder how they will eventually transform that piece of music. Maybe, if I come back, l will hear it being played on the speakers in a Seven Eleven on a three stringed traditional instrument.

Chapter Fifteen – Japan & S. Korea (8/25)

Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:43:00 GMT

Japan Log, Part 3

General impressions, Japan and Jeju South Korea

The stylish young women stroll to and fro, tastefully dressed, or casually campy. The teen and young girls choose more frilly doll-like clothing with many combinations of soft color and fabric, even transparent garments over the whole. Composed and confident, their delicate features and flawless skin unselfconsciously displayed, they stroll, enjoying conversation, holding frilly umbrellas to protect them from the sun, unhurried, observing their surroundings. Sometimes you see young and old women wearing a long stocking-like garment that covers from their hands up their arms. The intention is again to protect their lovely skin from burning and wrinkling. Even some beautiful young men wear this. There is traditional acceptance of sexual ambiguity here, going back to Kabuki theater where men dress and perform as women or young girls. Homosexuality is accepted and unremarkable.

In the 6 story mall people are circulating, their perfect thin figures are everywhere, women and men, few elderly, lots of children and babies. Food everywhere. Is anyone eating this lovely artistically presented food, packaged invitingly, with pastel colors and cartoons? Meanwhile back outside, no sirens, no loud motorcycles, people walking, quietly talking. No litter anywhere. No garbage cans, you are expected to carry your wrappers and empty cups and bottles with you and dispose of them at home. In our case on the boat. Japanese adults don't point or stare and make the puzzled, disoriented foreigners feel unwelcome. Only very young children greet you with a surprised, unbelieving expression, reminding you that you are very different and not where you are supposed to be.

The buildings are concrete and modern. They crowd the shorelines. In the neighborhoods, a block further back, you find older homes with decorative tile roofs and intimate gardens, mixed with homes of recent construction, less decorative and many times using improvised available materials for repairs. The gardens are not vegetable gardens, they are flowers and small trees sometimes in many pots along a driveway. We were surprised to find very few electric cars and saw only one charger on Yokohama, that we didn't see used as we were visiting for several days. The bicycling and walking more than make up for this. Japanese people have built efficiency into their lives.

Royvon left the ship in Nagasaki. He has been a server here for 6 months and will return home for 3 months. His wife just had a baby and he wants to help care for it and take care of their home. We may not see him again. The income from his cruise work is essential to his family but his emotional life is better when he is at home. His next ship assignment might be on a different cruise. The long periods away from family are hard for the married employees, but they get better pay than they can get from jobs at home. This is the compromise they live with. The difficult decision they have to make. Some people who work aboard we get fond of and he was one of them. We used to tell him he is doing “a hell of a job!” Whenever we saw him he started saying that to us and on any occasion he felt like. A lively person and kind gentleman, we will miss.

A visit to Jeju Island, South Korea

We are on our way to Jeju Island for just a day and overnight. As we left Japan from the Straits, to enter the Sea of Japan. There is a significant array of solar panels and large wind generators to our left. These are anchored into the sea floor, as many as 30 of them, they wave us on our way.

When we arrived at Jeju Island it was still very hot, in the 90’s. It feels hotter than Japan because of the humidity. There is a different social atmosphere here. The people are kind and friendly but there is less of an ambition to make surroundings beautiful and organized, as we observed in Japan. This is a more workmanlike society. It has built itself around the practical necessities of life. Many, many plastic covered tunnel greenhouses, hundreds of feet long, lined up side by side everywhere you look. Various kinds of citrus dominate. They are grown inside the greenhouses and outside in acres of rows. The main street that we saw was well used, almost run down, with basic shops for grocery, auto repair and others that were hard to identify as they were in different states of repair and disrepair. We are told there are beautiful waterfalls nearby. Some local people use them as a kind of water message. They will sit under them and allow the water to pound their bodies. Curious statues carved from the local volcanic rock, representing a pudgy being with a bowler hat and pleasant expression, are here and there strategically placed. They are called dol hareubang, which translates to “stone grandfather.” They are placed in front of entryways to project power and protection against malevolent energies. They are also believed to enhance fertility. And there are the women divers of the island, Haenyeo. Traditionally they were the main breadwinners of their families, diving for abalone, seaweeds, sea urchin, conch, fish and other sea foods. They also tended crops. I am not sure what the men were up to. Probably wars. Historically and recently with the Korean War, men have been removed from their villages to serve and women are left with families to protect and care for. As far back as 1629 a group of ladies left the mainland and settled on Jeju Island probably for safety from violence and invaders. They developed the survival techniques that were necessary for the island environment. One of these was free diving that allowed them to hold their breath for minutes at a time. They dived more than 30 feet and harvested edible sea foods with a knife. Girls were trained as young as 8 years old. Today there are still women practicing these skills but most young women seek employment on the mainland.

Today I read about a Korean film director who has made a film about an extreme individual reaction to capitalism, “No Other Choice.” This kind of artistic effort shows that the collective unconscious is at work. It is interesting that this and other socially probing films are coming from South Korea. According to the director, Park Chan-wook, the film has been in the works in his mind for a long time and its moment seems to have arrived according to the reaction at the Vienna film festival. It was based on a script/movie called “The Ax”, as in the American saying goes, “getting the ax,” (which means getting fired from your job.) In Korea the same experience is referred to as getting your throat cut. The individual in the film has been fired from his job of 20 years and feels that his only “choice” is to kill off his competition or he will lose his opportunity to get another job and remain in the upper middle class.

If we could leave class behind and the snobbery and prejudice it inspires there would be a new type of social interaction and new agreements, based on real human qualities not their bank account and material possessions.

We visited a small street fair near the port. Many local people were there. A young child in a stroller stared at me in disbelief, like I was a fantastical creature from another world. We listened to K- pop sung on a small outdoor stage by two otherworldly performers, one a woman and the other a man, both beautiful.

We departed from the island in the early evening and watched the dark blue silhouette of Jeju Island shrink and into the night. Then slowly, bars of extremely bright light began to appear here and there around us until we were at the very center. The lights were so bright you couldn't look straight at them. Fishermen were out luring squid into their nets, with these lights.

We have returned to Japan. We are now visiting its smaller islands, the archipelago, that strings down from the big islands. I spent the morning outside drawing a volcanic mountain. A large and tranquil park was nearby with shady places to sit. I picked a spot and drew for a few hours. People walked by in the morning breeze that blew the heat away. Around lunchtime more people arrive to sit and eat. Like exotic birds landing near me, they settle on nearby benches, quietly talking. I was careful to continue drawing, not to get distracted. If I looked up, I thought they might startle, become alarmed, and fly away. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but that was OK, a kind of relief not having to make sense of things, just existing. They accepted my presence. An old man was walking a little dog and came up to me to see the drawing. He spoke to me in friendly, excited Japanese and I smiled a lot and bowed, then he walked away. The soothing talk continued around me, like listening to pigeons cooing. One young man was reading. I felt comfortable in this place that I had never been before. We will leave at 9:00 this evening and I will never see it again. But I have a drawing of their volcano, Sakurajima.

Chapter Fourteen – Japan Part 3 (8/25)

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 16:33:31 GMT

I went to the Nagasaki Museum of Art. There was a special exhibit there called War in the Eyes of Artists; from Goya to several Nagasaki artists. Though I had deliberately avoided visiting the epicenters of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for reasons I have already expressed, seeing this exhibit at the museum was just as intense. For this log I am going to highlight a display I found most moving. I am including the youtube address where it can be seen and heard. Place address here The display starts with a poem and an illustration. Both commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki. After viewing the illustration and reading the poem you enter a small theater to sit down and watch an animation of the illustration set to music. All the children, adults, animals and Shinto like creatures that are in the illustration (in a huge tree) come to life and move to the rhythm of the music. A male voice sings overall, lyrics that may have to do with the poem, written by singer/songwriter Masaharu Fujiyama and entitled, “Kusunoki; Blown by the 500-year Wind.” The illustration is the work of an artist named Junaida. The lyrics were inspired by the Kusunoki (camphor trees), which survived the atomic bomb.

I copied the poem while I was at the museum and hope I got it right, as follows.

My soul roots in this land

That will never be decayed and fallen down

I have lived on this hill

Over six hundred years, blown by the

wind of times

Along with one legged gate of Shinto

shrine broken by blast wave

I have seen human's life, joys and sorrows going through

My soul would never have been disrupted

Even my trunk were broken and burned

Blowing in the gentle wind and blast wave

Being exposed to the early summer rain and the black rain

I have reached up to the sky

My soul has rooted in this land that will never be decayed and fallen down

My soul would never have been disrupted even once my trunk were broken and burned

My soul has rooted in this land

The soul will keep singing in the wind.

Chapter Thirteen – Japan Part 2 (7/25)

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:55:41 GMT

Shizuoka

There are more “normal-shaped” people here, but still no homeless. With a little research I was able to find out why we see no homeless people. It is not because they are not here. The homeless rate in Japan is considered the lowest in the world, one person in 34,000. However, this count only includes those sleeping rough and excludes those who have no fixed abode but sleep in all night cafes, capsule hotels or cars. In 2002 “Special Act, in regards to supporting the autonomy of the homeless population,” was passed by the government. People without income, savings or prospects were able to receive livelihood protection but this was aimed mostly towards men. Traditionally, women are taken care of in their families. Women escaping domestic violence are able to receive support, refuges and shelters. Also minors are able to access child welfare institutions. Historically, men were the sole providers for their families and companies believe married men work better than unmarried men because the former feel more obligations and responsibilities. There is “ageism” prejudice not only toward old men but also unmarried men over 35 years old. They find it difficult to get jobs. The capsule hotels moderate this situation. For 1,500 to 2,000 yuan, 10 to 15 dollars per night, a homeless person can stay in one of these hotels with a shower, television, soft drinks and Internet. Capsule hotels started in Osaka in 1979. Since then they have spread to other cities in Japan and to other countries: Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Australia, just to name a few. An indicator of this important population dynamic taking place now, Worldwide.

Here in Shizuoka we saw pleasure boats and lots of sailboats for the first time. There is a festival going on with many food trucks next to a carnival on the water front. The permanent carnival seems to be a feature of most large Japanese cities and always has a favorite ride, the Ferris wheel. All the festival vendors seem to be competing to construct the most beautiful confections made of shaved ice, colored syrups and cream. This is made extremely popular by the present humidity and 90 degree temperatures. Japanese cooks make food into art that can be eaten. Artisans even make beautiful fake foods and meals that are used in restaurant windows as advertising displays. Somewhere these artists are making castings of real foods in plastic, silicone and resin then painstakingly hand painting them to achieve realism. This art used to be done in wax, but proved fragile for long-term use. When plastics became available they were preferred. Always perfect, never eaten, never rot. Many tourists come here just to eat. They try the exotic foods that come from the sea, octopus, squid, pufferfish, eel, sea urchin and monkfish. Many dishes involve live or recently deceased seafood. This practice is referred to as Odorrigui or Ikizukuri.

An area beside the carnival and festival where the water comes up to the sidewalk and a thin strip of gravelly beach is exposed, families with children and babies come to take off their shoes, roll-up their pants and wade into the shallow water. Some children have nets and try to catch the tiny fishes. Others peer intently into the composition of the beach, finding little shells and other things of interest to pocket. This tendency is a natural extension of the Japanese love of nature. The obvious monuments to this being their magnificent public gardens, everywhere.

Like their spoken language, with no emphasized syllables, Japanese people don't like anything jarring, loud or unsettled. The only regular sounds that interrupted the downtown streets of Shizuoka were a quiet beeping at street intersections to alert walkers that they could cross. There is not a lot of traffic, people walk or ride bicycles. Occasionally an emergency vehicle passes. We found a temple wedged between a restaurant and a private home, closed and quiet. A large stone with a carved out depression that was filled with water rested importantly by the stairs that led to the doors of the temple. A long bell rope hung invitingly over the landing. Maybe we were meant to pull it so that someone would appear. We did not. Open, but not open, inviting, but austere, exotic and peaceful. A cat lay on the landing and watched us. At the entrance gate concrete lions were on guard, and a sign said, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

Kobe. This port is large and spread out. Cranes, warehouses, docks for barges awaiting cargo, tugs, ferries, small “ Maru” moving or docked, awaiting purpose. This is the norm wherever we land because we are docking most of the time at ports. Sometimes, if a city is not within walking distance, shuttle buses are provided or other options are available like taxis and rental cars to get around.

Now that we are docked, I can see the schools of little fishes rise, the water is so calm, like the surface of cooling milk tea. They would blacken an area with their thousands of tiny fin thrusts then disappear and rise in a group to agitate elsewhere. Something felt very Japanese about this. A moment complete, like haiku. Kobe is in the distance, its grey rectangular structures rise like a graph. I have time to observe the port because I have the flu and am resting. Fish jump here and there. One jumps from the water in ever shortening intervals, again and again, like a rock being skipped. Later, in the evening I looked into the dark water outside our cabin and noticed a light shining up like someone was underwater with a flashlight. It turned out to be a bioluminescent jelly fish. It uses chemicals in its body to produce light in order to lure prey.

The Hiro Maru tug is our pilot into the port of Hiroshima. The suffix “ Maru” used after the name of Japanese boats means, a circle, wholeness, a microcosm. There is a sailboat passing in front of us with full sail as we approach the port. The tug must have felt the sailboat was too slow and raced to chase it off. Probably called up the skipper and yelled at him. Now the tug is back and keeping pace next to us. We won't take the shuttle bus into Hiroshima. Not just because we are recovering from colds but also because of the emotional impact. I will experience the city from a distance and try to gather the shards of emotion that began when I became aware at a young age that my country used an atomic bomb on this city, on these people.

Gazing out the window of the observatory, that gives a 180 degree view of the outdoors, I am amazed that the images of my childhood vision of Japan framed by exposure to a book of woodcut prints by Katsushika Hokusai my aunt gave me, was not far off. Here are the mountains he illustrated, here are the clouds, the atmosphere of the sky, the proud crouching trees, a single stone island in the sea. I would search those wonderfully colored and designed images for as much information as I could get. I walked with the tiny people over the arched bridge, through the villages, and scaled the mountains to breathe in the cold. The artist had sent an invitation and I visited, never imagining that I would see the real thing. Later, I understood that we bombed this special place. Beautiful children died, stopped in their unique momentum, people were terribly maimed and survived, then died slowly from radiation poisoning. The total death toll including long term effects of radiation sickness exceeded 200,000 people. I came to know the name of the airplane that carried and dropped the bomb, the Enola Gay. Named after the mother of the pilot. And the irony of that insensitivity was not lost on me. I was old enough to suffer the loss of innocence that speaks softly of the ultimate goodness of things. There was no religion for me after that. These mountains, that Hokusai intently gazed at 100’s of years ago, in order to map the design of an image which he cut into a block of wood, inked and printed onto rice paper. One of many images that inspired the French Impressionists. These mountains would vibrate with the deafening impact of that atomic bomb and store it in their stone where it would stay forever as witness and warning. The explosion echoed in the breasts of those mountains. They withstood the blast. But they encased the sound forever bouncing against their smooth stone insides like electrons inside an atom. The water around them still slightly vibrates. The water, at that moment, stopped its gentle rippling, it stiffened as if electrified. Blast wind took over and peeled it back from the harbor, exposing the sea floor. Afterward quiet, then the cries, as if startled birds flew up into the sky with the souls.

There was a drumming performance by a local Hiroshima group before we were scheduled to leave. They came onboard, all ages, men women and children drummers. “The heartbeat of the city,” our fellow traveler, Julianna called it. This evening the sun shines through a peep hole in a low grey cloud, making the windows glow below like a pocket of gold.

Chapter Twelve – Japan (8/25)

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:50:16 GMT

We dock at Hakodate, Japan on the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That stands as a singular horror among the many horrors humans commit on each other and Nature and continue to commit to this day. There is no apology possible and unfortunately nothing may have been learned. We still threaten each other with nuclear weapons. No treaty has stopped the building of nuclear bombs. I wonder how the Japanese people keep the memory of this tragedy so that living can continue with some normalcy. Maybe it can be equated to a typhoon or earthquake, like a natural disaster having no morality or intention. It has influenced their imaginations ever since though, revealed in movies like Godzilla and in their Manga. Threatening creatures, imagined power that cannot be controlled or resisted. People can be like a natural disaster to each other.

People can also be wonderful. We saw this as we left the city. A small group of dancers appeared on the dock to say goodbye. The dancing they did was so charming and touching. It was a traditional dance, maybe 15 dancers. About 8 people played instruments to accompany them, flutes, drums and other unique percussion. Watching from the top deck of the ship the dancers appear like exotical dolls. Three warriors pantomime their strength, emphasized with elegant gestures of their fans and their golden, brightly tasselled headdresses that bow and flash in opposition. Then the little children emerge, five of them. Their elders position them precisely and they wait for the music to begin. Their tiny movements are sweetly in time as they step then extend their fans to tap the air with it lightly, creating a feeling of certainty and control. Moving to one side with a gliding motion they unfurl their fan, flourish and close it, then glide to the other side and do the same. The dance continues with variations of these movements and some new ones punctuate occasionally. So intent and serious, each tiny performer dressed in elaborate traditional clothing, a magical, miniature display. The dance becomes hypnotic as it continues to the simple rhythms of the drums and flutes repeating and repeating an ancient significance remembered by a few. After they finish, our ship pulls away with several blasts from the horn. The tiny dancers wave goodbye, with their hands crossing again and again in front of their faces, for so long it seems as if they might continue until we are out of sight. Finally we are too far away to hear the children cry out. This experience was fleeting and very moving. A dancing gesture of dignity and friendship. People are not their military, they are not their government. They have to participate in their society but they are first of all human. They want to create understanding beyond language and country.

We are on our way to Yokohama and a storm is predicted ahead of us. We have been advised to secure heavy objects that are in our cabins and the upper decks are closed. 40 knot winds and 12 foot seas are anticipated. Some passengers are already sea sick and remain in their cabins.

We have arrived in Yokohama. The storm has passed. We have a plan to visit a thrift store. We have found in the past that is where the real people are. They are not on guard or trying to sell you something. We are all just looking for a deal. We took a taxi. Another couple joined us. This turned out to be a disaster and an unintentional taxi tour of Yokohama. Our driver had no English and no sympathy for our mistake. The distance to the destination was unclear on the Internet. So we had to turn around once we realized that we had traveled more than 5 miles already and the total on his meter was more than 50 dollars. This turned out to be difficult because we were on a beltway with no easy exit. It is the same everywhere, money first. It was not his fault that we misunderstood.

Our further adventures into the city were better. We stayed on foot and just wandered about. This turned out to be the best thing to do in a city of 3.7 million people. If I ever return I will come with some idea of the language. It is more essential here than in other places we have visited so far. The language barrier is still isolating Japan, as they were doing deliberately until the late 1800’s. Few people speak English. The result is that Japanese people pick what they want from other cultures, technology, entertainment, art/music and quietly transform it. They do not allow the creations of other countries to be forced on them. What they do allow is Japanified. They either make it better, more beautiful according to their own esthetic or entertaining in their unique way. Take the arrival of 7/11. Inside there is a recognizable environment but more organized with soft happy colors. Then you hear the main difference. The music is classical. Instrumentals by Bach, Mozart and other masters, that have a lilting, softly pop song quality added to the tune, playing soothingly over the speakers. Quiet and calm are much desired. Even in the malls packed with people you can easily talk with a companion and be heard, no shouting, no loud voices. And no eating while you walk. This is frowned upon because of the litter it creates. Litter outside is rare and picked up immediately. There is even a special tent in which to smoke. Where we witnessed a charming sight. A man arrives outside the tent with a baby carriage filled with his pet chickens. They are of every breed and color arranged like a bouquet in the buggy, with a turkey as an accent, who gobbles contentedly as people walk by.

People saunter about any time and any day. So many people are strolling everywhere. Even in the heat. They generally use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun. Tanning is not done here. Their beautiful skins are protected and the result is amazing. It has been around 90 degrees since we got here. Families with children roam about, many times with the husband wearing the infant on his chest. There is an amusement park just for children in the city, in the middle of everything. Provision is made everywhere for children to play while their parents shop or eat. But not for the handicapped. There are ramps but they do not seem to be for wheel chairs or handicapped scooters, because we have seen none. They are probably for baby buggies. We saw very few old people. No homeless people. Though our friends who went to Tokyo said they saw homeless people there. This is consistent with the Japanese aesthetic, everything beautiful, nothing ugly. Even the anime goddess, Michibiki, who looks down protectively from a brightly lit alcove at the top of one of the tallest hotels confirms this. She dislikes anything she deems ugly. She favors attractive heroes and will summon them from other worlds to protect humanity. Her fickle and unpredictable choices are based on her personal aesthetic of what is beautiful. The word Michibiki means “guidance or leading.” It is also the name of the Japanese satellite system, a regional navigation system that provides enhanced positioning services.

Our ride on the Cosmo Clock took us so high we saw all of Yokohama and cloud veiled mountains in the distance. At night this Ferris wheel clock puts on a light show. All colors are used to make kaleidoscope shapes, fan shapes, blinking eyes, boxes, spirals, always rotating. This goes on for about 15 minutes then it rests and starts again.

We are underway. We say goodbye to Yokohama and its graceful, determined people.

Chapter Eleven – Alaska Part 2 (7/25)

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 13:40:33 GMT

Alaska feels like a different country; not like one of the United States. Maybe its vastness and extreme climate have created this unique presence. People who adapt themselves to living half the year in darkness and half in light, in a lot of cold and rain with magnificent beauty all around, this has an impact. The unique environment of Alaska transforms people.

The Tlingit were one of the aboriginal Alaskan groups. They crossed the Bering Strait from Asia, approximately 9,000 years ago. There are also some theories about individuals island-hopping from Polynesia. Both scenarios may be true. Nonetheless, they formed a highly complex social, legal and political structure along with extraordinary creative arts and oral culture. Before European contact their population reached approximately 20,000. Status was based on birth and wealth, creating a hierarchical social structure. There was a noble class (determined through hereditary) followed by medicine men and women, warriors, traders, commoners and slaves. The Clan House was home to three resident classes; nobles, commoners and slaves. The construction of the Clan House was a sacred event involving rituals for the dead. The two ritual groups (moiety) were Raven or Eagle/Wolf, and they were expected to marry outside their group (exogamous). Tlingit followed a matrilineal clan system. Children inherited the clan side of the mother. All rights were through the mother; these include fishing, hunting and gathering places, the use of certain clan symbols, totem designs, house decoration and ceremonial clothing designs. The Clan had spiritual, psychological and medical protection from a medicine man or woman. They were also known to control weather, bring luck, predict the future, expose witches and speak to the dead. They did not cut their hair in order to keep their power strong. Their power would pass to a younger relative when they died.

“We all have to work together, help each other.” This statement by an elder expresses the profound necessity of cooperation amongst the clan members for their survival. “Stay inside the drum.” Is another expression of the philosophy of passing values to the next generation. “Ella” means awareness. They felt that everything on Earth has awareness. Hunters learn not to lock eyes with the animal they hunt. This would give it a chance to get away. It realizes your intent. But it might speak into your mind and allow you to kill it if you don't waste it.

The first person we talk to in Ketchikan Alaska remembers David Borton's electric boat. “ Anything unusual that comes up here we remember.” David designed and built the boat, powered entirely by solar panels. No plug-in option. The trip with his son from Bellingham to Juno was made to demonstrate the soundness of solar propulsion. They succeeded, and are remembered.

Now we are traveling overnight to Wrangell. We encountered another cruise ship. It is lit up in multi colors, a fantastical creature shimmering on its plane of dark water.

Wrangell Alaska would dispute the date 1896 as the start of the gold rush. They had been taking advantage of miners' “get rich quick” dreams for about 40 years already. Alexander Buck Choquette found gold in 1861 on Bucks Bar near Stikine, Alaska. Wrangell became the supply depo for hundreds of prospectors. Huge business opportunities opened in a lawless town. Supplying miners was a money maker. A list of essentials was presented and the items sold to each adventurer, man or woman. Imagined riches created a frenzy. A man could be tried at 9:00 in the morning, found guilty by the local miners by 11:30 and hanged by 2:00, according to local history. The naturalist and writer John Muir wrote about Wrangell, “No mining Hamlet in the placer gulch of California, not any backwoods village I ever saw, approached it in picturesque, devel may care abandon!”

We travel towards Anchorage. The ocean is undulating and calm; a gray cloth of velvet rolled out to the horizon. The sky is slowly spilling into the ocean as night comes on and fails to darken. When the brighter grey of morning arrives we see mountains covered in a shaggy fur of evergreens. Their high peaks display a pinto pattern of snow. Further on they are completely snow-covered and higher, their sharp peaks like an encampment of white tents. The blue ice in the vase of a valley glacier liquifies and wasps down to a thin rivulet, filling the lake below with cloudy blue water.

I feel regret now that we turn to cross the Pacific towards our next destination, Japan. I am not sure what it is, maybe homesickness. The jewel-like beauty of Alaska shines in my imagination, it is comforting. As we leave, the vast plane of the Pacific before us, eleven wind generators on a peninsula wave goodbye. Their presence is a wishful but doomed gesture in this land of oil exploitation. But maybe they are providing energy to a native reservation. That would not be enough but it would be something.

“What you do not see, do not hear, do not experience, you will never really know.”

Lore of St Lawrence, Island, Yupic

Chapter Ten – Alaska Part 1 (7/25)

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 18:38:29 GMT

Some context for this trip and log. The ship we are traveling on is the Villa Vie Odyssey. It is a small cruise ship with about 300 passengers and 300 crew. We have bought a cabin aboard. My plan is to document one circumnavigation. This will take about 3 and ½ years. So far this has been a record from when we boarded in Barbados, going through the Panama Canal, up the western coast of Mexico over to Hawaii then up the western coast of the United States to Alaska.The following is an account of Alaska. After this we will travel to Japan. Thank you for your interest.

I was unprepared for the profound beauty of Alaska. The more you see, the more it astounds.

How is it possible that people could hunt seals, foxes, wolves and beavers to extinction, log evergreen trees to bare brown ground - as if a massive electric shaver was used to mow the mountains- that grow back in patches and trails made for giants? Vastness is not endless. The harsh environment, remoteness and beauty did not protect them. Still, how was it possible? Only people caught in a frenzy of commerce could do this. The same frenzy that brought thousands of men with dreams of making fortunes in gold to remote outlands of Alaska. They became insane devourers.

Luminous white water rushes from a cleft at the top of the mountain sliding in and out of evergreens to the river below, pinched along the way by grey rocks. This was the land of the Tlingit for at least 10,000 years. Theirs was a highly developed social structure equal to those found in Europe. Spanish contact in 1775 dropped their population by about 80 percent, with typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and measles. The Russian fur trade changed their lives even more. It began after Vitus Bering’s 1747 expedition and “discovery” of the Bering strait. Sea otter pelts were the incentive. Other fur was also sought but sea otter pelts were the most coveted. It is the warmest fur. It has the most hairs per square inch of any animal fur. An adaptation that allows it to live in the extreme environments of Alaska. Unfortunately for the otters its fur can be made into the warmest of coats. By 1799 the fur trade was thriving. It involved the forced labor of the indigenous people. Their local knowledge of the animals and their hunting expertise were essential. This industry brought significant change to the native communities, disease, dependence on trade goods and inter-tribal conflict. Russia traded furs to China and Europe. When competition for pelts and political factors involving Russia affected their ability to continue the trade, Russia sold Alaska to the United States. The US had been pressing westward and getting involved with trapping, fishing, mining, logging and homesteading. In 1867 the US bought Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. In 1788 the US entered the maritime fur trade; sea otter furs for Oriental goods. By 1801 the US controlled the fur trade at its height and Boston was at its center. When a major discovery of gold was made in 1896, Alaska became the gateway to the Klondike gold fields.

Purple mountains are passing by my window as we glide to our next port. I can watch this ‘movie’ before I go to sleep. It stays light till around midnight and never becomes completely dark. The sun is up at 5:00. Locals describe the endless darkness of the winter months as depressing. “What do you do?” “Watch movies, watch TV.” Native people used the long dark Winters to create. The memories of summer beauty and important events, documented in beadwork, carved figures of animals from walrus bone, charms for hats and masks, hand made fur garments beautifully beaded with flowers, leaves and animals, scrimshaw pipes of bone, a crown for a baby beaded and decorated with carvings, two white pom poms hanging from thin leather strips on either side. The intensive summer hunting over, food dried and stored. Time for handwork, music, story telling and conversation. While the mountains and sky silently hover near in all their variety and beauty.

Our ship hums as we travel. A comforting sound. The engines produce a tone like the D string on a cello being drawn on and on. It is our ship's resonance. I wonder what the whales think of it. We see a lot of them, frolicking and breaching. Sometimes their presence is revealed only by a cloud of breath. Other times they are more generous and reveal a dark back or tail. Very leisurely, assured. They know where they are going, they belong wherever they are. They find what they need; tiny shrimp, little fishes, squid and bigger prey. Sperm whales sleep vertically. Living pillars suspended in their element, replaying the clicking sounds of their pod, like people thinking through the events of their day before sleep takes over. Our wake drapes outward and into the distance. The grey clouds condense and press down to the land, squeezing the last strips of orange and red from the sky.

Now we are cruising slowly through the straits to find a particular fiord. When we arrive at the mouth of it I see what I cannot describe. There are no words invented to express what was around us. A whale breached 5 times in front of our ship last night. Even that is not as extraordinary. We enter the fiord in order to find the Sawyer Glacier. Now I think I know what can inspire composers to express beyond speech, with music. The experience built like a symphony, slowly, the introductory theme, mountains on either side, then other themes, the mist, the cold air mixed with light sleet, then eerie glowing aqua shapes float by, icebergs, unimaginably blue like they had been cut with a knife from the sky then dropped into the freezing water to jell and float. The mountains are getting higher, above the treeline the granite, polished like grey leather, forces through stands of evergreen, rising, as we advance, into sharp snow covered peaks, drawn up by invisible threads. We round corners, the route getting more confined, the mountains higher, the walls sheer, the ship goes past small green islands, larger icebergs, then the final approach, the sun opens the sky, we are enfolded, the mountains even higher have pressed closer, we breathe drafts of colder air. Finally there is the source of the cold like a monumental wall of cracked blue glass, across the end of the fiord, the finale; the glacier. You can feel the rumbling birth of its “calves” in your stomach. And it is growling.

Chapter Nine – US & Canada (6/25)

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 17:18:25 GMT

Seattle, Victoria & Vancouver

Seattle, Washington US, June 25, 2025

The tide has come back in and the monstrous cruise ship that docked across from us last night has grandly departed. It was only here to off load passengers and on load passengers; 3,000 of them. Larger ships can carry twice that amount. From early in the morning to about 10 o'clock people were disembarking. Rolling suitcases, hefting backpacks, lining up for buses to the airport, catching a cab from an endless line of multi-colored cabs, single and in couples with children or without, a little weary, distracted, they are thinking about the trip home, the airports, as they leave their 7 to 10 day escape, everything included, a taste of the elite life. Here come the new passengers. Their steps are bouncy with anticipation, couples and singles, family groups, rolling suitcases, hefting backpacks, carrying totes, they are eager and excited. Expectations are high. Cruise ship tourism, a phenomenon of our times.

The low hanging fruits. That's what we went for in the beginning. Our numbers were small; we had to share knowledge and resources to survive. Gathering clams and kelp in the shallows, picking the ripe berries, the wild asparagus on land, testing herbs and mushrooms on ourselves, hunting. It took a very long time but when all that was running out, on to new territory, find ‘untouched’ lands, learn from the native people then push them aside, more elbow room to build homes, families, pastures for sheep and cattle, cities, fortunes. Natural resources get harder to find, people dig deeper, clear further, find the limits, exceed them. The best and easiest has been bought, sold and resold. We pay to live. Some can't afford it. They are just lazy, and should work harder! No excuses, we are all in competition now. Survival of the fittest. An elite economist's interpretation of Darwin's research. The richest, by extension, are the fittest. Money is the decider. The better you understand and operate within the economic system the more fit you are to survive. You are given permission to live. Leave compassion to the religions, and their super compassionate representatives; that small handful. Some religions are also generous. They don't just listen to your grief and comfort you. They give you an out. Just repent before you die and all the creepy, insensitive, immoral, illegal stuff you did during your life will be forgiven. You can progress to that Oasis above, that Utopia, where there is no need for money, no one starves or is homeless. Sounds like something people thought was possible to do on Earth. Something they sang about in folk songs.

Victoria, Canada. June 28, 2025

Approaching Victoria, the sky is breaking apart, pressing light through the grey remnants of night. From a distance homes, apartment houses and office buildings scale the landscape like mange. But, once you are on the ground, walking around in the bright sun, this city is pretty.

Some places are just very pleasant. Victoria is one of these. Temperate weather warmed by soft Hawaiian currents. Gardens everywhere. Everyone seems to be a gardener. Flowers of all kinds, evergreens tastefully arranged against each other, every texture and shade of green. No weeds. I think I saw three dandelions. Roses. Roses, every color of red, pink and yellow. I smelled the roses, literally. And each scent was different. Some sweet, some sweeter, some spicy sweet, some spicy, and some with no scent. The people are nice too. They very politely refrain from speaking about the serious events playing out in my country. They have pretty money. The older neighborhoods still have some older homes, made of wood. Even the gardens around abandoned homes or homes that the owners are too elderly to care for, these gardens are still beautiful in their disarray. They were tended so carefully for so long that the plants seem to remember how to arrange themselves attractively.

If I had known about Victoria when I was younger I would have thought seriously about living there.

“It would be wonderful if we could all just agree that we are all the same species.” Joe, a passenger on Odyssey.

Vancouver, Canada July 1, 2025

People don't believe in Mickey Mouse anymore. I just wanted to say that.

We are docked behind a Disney cruise ship. It has a gold emblem with Mickey painting the stern logo. It backed into the dock just before us, inching so slowly for such a long time I began to imagine that it was preparing to tip up and become a skyscraper alongside the many others that brood over the harbor.

Vancouver Is disappointingly large. In my imagination I saw it smaller. The reality is another big city. From the two cruise ships that preceded us to the docks, the Norwegian Something and the Disney Wonder, passengers poured out like ants into the city. Mickey Mouse headbands blending with the flow and being absorbed into the local throng as effortlessly as the Pied Piper vanished the children into his cave.

Canadian geese are flying over the city in V formation, six on one side, four on the other. There is a single wind generator at the very top of one of the mountains on the far side of the Fraser River. A path is cut through the evergreen trees leading up to it. It is alone up there, probably running something useful. Below is the busy harbor, lots of comings and goings, ferry boats, tugs dragging barges on long lines, seaplanes landing, taking off, pleasure boats race by, sail boats pass trailing their dinghy. Under a conveyor on the opposite shore, a pyramid has formed of a bright yellow sulfur, in the sunlight it glows as if lit from within. High cliffs in the background have snow in their valleys and hanging like a white bib from their peaks.

It is Canada Day. Planes speed on the water, lift and disappear into the sky. The theme is set. Things are done differently here. It is a comfort. Things need to be done differently, new solutions, more people thinking. They have constables, not police, they want to be helpful, they don't carry guns. It is nice to know there is a place where people want to help other people. And Canadians have a sense of humor. They shot off cannons to celebrate their day of independence. The sound reverberated off the walls of the city's tall office buildings.

Chapter Eight – US (6/25)

Mon, 14 Jul 2025 16:43:38 GMT

The United States, chapter 8

San Diego, June,17 - San Francisco, June, 22

We have just left San Diego. We are plowing through 12 foot swells to San Francisco. Rocking a bit. “Hobby horsing”, Jeff calls it. Great for sleeping. You plunge then rise, dream of riding the sea on a golden sea horse, its body streaming silver water past you, your arms around its neck, (which feels surprisingly soft, not scaley), it whinnys with joy, you are laughing, we cannot stop, it could make you insane. A seagull rises from nowhere, floating in the air. I am back inside the ship.

It is getting crowded in the observatory. Many passengers have come to watch our approach to the harbor of San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge is just visible, a smokey grey web between the coastal hills. People are talking, the quiet is gone. Approaching land from the sea holds every possibility, but only until you set foot there. Then memories, old experiences and habits kick in. This is where you were born, where you have lived most of your life. The water places and their mysteries are receding, pushed aside. Some passengers are reluctant to see it go, others are talking about going sightseeing, renting a sea plane or a tour. We will be under the bridge soon. There is mystery and sadness there. That is where trolls live and some people will take shelter, their possessions beside them as they sleep. “Are you going off the ship?” someone asks. “ No, I have seen it.” The sharp white tooth of a raised sail is visible ahead of us as we approach the bridge. It looks like the little sailboat will go under alongside us. Good sailing weather, 15 knots from the east. There is plenty of room under the bridge and many more sailboats on the other side. Our Captain announces “the famous Alcatraz”, to the starboard. It is the weekend, people are at play, many sailboats and windsurfers out, dodging the ferries, fishing boats and cruise ships. This is a huge harbor, a massive city, not as self conscious and on display as San Diego. This city has complexity, racial mixing, potential for change, more like NYC and other World cities.

We have left San Francisco and continue up the west coast. The sea is calm and the captain is proceeding very slowly as we pass through a huge pod of whales, maybe 30 of them. This has been going on for about two hours, the sightings of clusters and singletons over several miles. Sometimes the dark back and neat dorsal triangle appear, then maybe a tail strokes the sky gently, gracefully, or a hint of dark just below the surface precedes spouting and more spectacularly, rolling, which exposes the white sidewall of an orca. One passenger screams with delight. This is the first whale she has ever seen. Later I read that orca are considered part of the dolphin family and that all dolphins are whales but not all whales are dolphins.

Now that we have been visiting the United States I think about what I want to say about it. I am a US citizen. As I think, rain droplets slide down the window here in the observatory, like tears. I have been thinking about skipping the log about the US because I know the US too well, I don't think I can have perspective. Like a fantastical creature that is beautiful, friendly and naive, at the same time ruthless, my country flings jewels and knives with frightening, seductive abandon. Causing fleeting joy and deep, bleeding, persistent wounds. The result of more than 200 years toward the economic evolution of elite benefits in our country. The uneasy truce struck between the immigrant landowners and the immigrants without land, the Bill of Rights, (cleverly written to be vague, there were lawyers back then too), has been torn and pummeled to the point where it has become a quaint anecdote of history. How could they be so naive? Did they really think power and privilege would give or give up? The King didn't hand over thousands of acres of the “New World” to his friends for nothing. He just couldn't imagine they would want more, want it all. He thought he had bought them, bought their loyalty. Well, we know what happened to the English Empire. Now they are confined to their original Island, proud, overconfident, "brilliant", nervous and dangerous, their government making bad decisions, their population recovering between them. Meanwhile we the people cry, rage, cope, exalt, create and die. The results of that rhythm are unpredictable, as King George found out. Like the rhythm of the leviathan rising to the surface breaching then falling back.

Have we reached the end of this pattern?

I want to see humanity do what evolution has intended for it to do. Reach for our potential. Use our huge brain capacity to design abundance, solve scarcity, solve starvation, homelessness, disease, ignorance.

Or at least, try.

Chapter Seven – Hawaii Part 2 (6/25)

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 15:11:53 GMT

Hawaii, 6/1/25. CAW, ch 7

Part 2

Homelessness is an indicator of an unhealthy economy. Hawaii must import a lot of what it needs and has few exports. But massive wealth is on every island and wealthy individuals regularly buy up land on the islands and occasionally a whole islands. Expensive hotels host one of the main incomes, tourism. Every box store is represented, every chain store is here, wealth is everywhere, but it is not shared. Why care about a homeless person more than a pet animal? Because the stresses and anxiety of fellow humans in jeopardy don't go unnoticed. We can pass by but we cannot be unaffected.

An emotional response is triggered, like the gut flash of seeing someone stabbed. We absorb this and walk on; then it happens again and again. We think we are not sustaining damage. But we are. We are slowly being dehumanized. Prepared to accept more indignities suffered by our fellows, prepared for war; the worst crime we commit against each other. Economic inequality has become an equivalent, a silent war against ourselves.

There is recovery here in Hawaii. The tenacity of the surviving native Hawaiians has resulted in their population dramatically increasing in recent years. A large proportion of those being born today are part Hawaiian. As a result the Hawaiian census was modified to allow participants to claim more than one racial identity. Since then the number of people claiming Hawaiian identity has increased. The blending of native people and immigrants has created a huge experiment in multiracial harmony on these islands. The ratio of native input into the philosophy and lifestyles of the people may eventually turn Hawaii into a more compassionate economy.

Plants, animals and insects have immigrated too, over a span of millions of years colonizing the Hawaiian Islands. According to one scientific account, it happened at a rate of one insect every 68,000 years, one plant every 98,000 years and one bird every one million years. They had no competitors or predators. They evolved. They became nettleless nettles, mintless mint, stinkless stink bugs and flightless birds. Human immigration is now in progress and changing the population of Hawaii. Can it produce warless humans?

Once upon a time, “friends met at Kou”. Kou was the ancient name of Honolulu Harbor. Chiefs and friends met there to play games and people came from all over to watch. Konane was their favorite game. It has been compared to checkers because jumping is used for captures, but there the similarity ends. The more you play, deeper strategies are revealed. It is played on a flat stone tablet that has many shallow depressions for black and white pieces, made of stone or coral. The one to make the last jump is the winner. Betting is common with rewards as small as a kiss or large as one's life. Chiefs even settled wars and political disputes with Konane. These memories are the living legends of the native people and influence the thinking of the people in the present.

There have been high levels of immigration from the 1800’s on. Captain Cook arrived in 1778 and he was later killed during the resistance of the Islanders. After his arrival disease was a major factor in the reduction of the native population. Smallpox, measles, whooping cough, TB, gonorrhea, syphilis, mumps, cholera and leprosy decimated the population due to their lack of immunity to European diseases. These diseases rapidly ran through the population resulting in widespread death. By 1940 the native population had declined by 84 percent. War, famine and disruption of traditional ways also contributed to the decline in population. This is comparable to death rates of recognized genocides.

Today huge buildings on the most populated islands obscure the beauty of the mountains and the ocean. Still, even in the most built up cities mature trees are flowering and birds are abundant, giving relief to a casual visitor. Unusual birds peer and sing from the trees and a red headed one with the body of a cardinal lept from branch to branch with its mate. (Turned out it was a red headed cardinal) Here again, immigration has played a role in the flora and fauna since the 1800’s. The only native mammals were the monk seal and the hoary bat. Then the Spanish came and brought their domestic animals, cattle, horses, dogs, cats, goats, chickens, etc. The 32 million year development of the first migration, wind and sea born, carried on the feet of birds and floating logs has been changing with new migrations of animals and plants, arriving by boats and planes. The results are ongoing. Some resisted and some embraced.

We can hope that the resulting animals and plants will be as hardy, wise and creative as the descendants of the native Hawaiians.

Frantically, she wipes rain from the floor of her plastic nest.

She rises, speaking to the air.

He is slumped in a doorway, backpack by his side,

avoids my eyes.

S. Caumont

Chapter Six – Hawaii Part 1 (6/25)

Mon, 30 Jun 2025 19:12:46 GMT

Hawaii, 6/1/25.

Part 1

The Hawaiian Islands cannot be separated from the legends and beliefs of the original people who came to the islands from Polynesia, around 1,600 years ago. Even in the tourist areas, you feel the insistence that these not be forgotten. The descendants of the native Hawaiians are a tough and resilient people who, like the descendants of the Seminole Indian tribes in Florida or other survivors of genocide or religious and economic oppression, they not only survive but thrive.

Their legends are not just stories. They are a deep understanding of our place in Nature. They have survived more than a thousand years because they give comfort and understanding but also warnings. They even resisted the pressures of other cultures and religions. They simmer beneath the surface of church ritual and modern government.

Why? Because they speak about perspective, and reality.

Peli, goddess of volcanoes, is more powerful than you are, get out of her way; Mamala (shark woman) is a shape shifter or “kapua”, you must always be alert to the unpredictable ways of the sea. Papa (the female goddess) rescues her male consort, Wakea, because she is intuitive and can vanish them both into a breadfruit tree. Don't underestimate the powers of women. Puniaki, son in law of chief Kou, has a magic fishing hook. He can fill a canoe with fish anytime he wants. The fish actually jumped into his canoe! No normal fisherman has a magic hook. Keep your expectations reasonable, you will be happier that way.

Underlying these and other legends is the thread of respect for Nature.

The native Hawaiians came to the conclusion that whatever they did to encourage the health of the natural environment was beneficial to them and their survival.

“E ola no mai ka uka a ke Kai!”

Let there be life from the uplands to the sea!

They developed sophisticated ways of apportioning, utilizing and caring for natural resources. The islands were divided into “moku”(districts) and again into “ahupua’a”, (areas that ran from the mountains to the ocean.) Each ahupua’a had many of the resources needed to sustain a community; fresh water, fishing, fertile land and materials for making shelter. This partitioning organized the way people lived, worked and shared resources. The “pono”,(well-being of the people), was the foremost concern of the chief.

Honolulu Harbor was once a complex ecosystem that sustained huge native populations, (daily gathering was done for edible creatures and plants in the shallows, fish were abundant near the shores) since the 1800’s these places have been destroyed with dredging and filling. Natural wealth steadily declined as other kinds of wealth increased through commerce. The market/profit cycle became dominant and its good side and dark side that we live with began developing.

What is Hawaii today? What has Hawaii become? We take a walk to a Walmart for supplies.Turns out it is several miles from the port. Lots of opportunity to observe. It is immediately clear that native Hawaiians have not been eliminated from the Islands. And the Hawaiian language is very much alive. Everywhere you go you hear it spoken. The remarkable variety of nationalities on the islands is a modern testimony to humanity's ability to get along. Japanese, Korean, Spanish, African, European, (just to name a few), form a huge “melting pot”.

But there is something wrong, something not balanced.

Hawaii is the most expensive state in the US to live, and has the most unequal economy. The evidence of this is everywhere. Homeless people of all ages, men and women finding shelter in doorways of abandoned buildings and makeshift tents of plastic and blankets. A fine mist has begun and it becomes rain as we walk. The unsheltered try to keep their belongings dry, under tarps or in covered shopping carts, which they stand next to, miserably. An old woman who has made a tent with plastic over an umbrella and blankets for the floor, also covered with plastic, frantically she wipes water away with her hands from her sleeping enclosure. She wanders distressed around her nest, unable to keep the rain from soaking her belongings. We passed several dozen people living rough in Oahu in the two mile walk to Walmart. These were the most vulnerable and least able to find better shelter. They were just the tip of a much larger ‘iceberg’ of homeless people in Hawaii as we found when we visited the other islands.

The Parallel Currency

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 16:35:51 GMT

The Parallel Currency, June, 2025

A way it can work.

“We know how far we can go with war, it is time to see how far we can go with peace.” S.C.

Imagine if Governments have passed a law that a Parallel Currency, which provides food, shelter, education and healthcare, be universally instituted. One of the questions we are most often asked is, how can it work?

Consider this. An apple farmer has 10 apples. He is required, as a citizen under the new law, to invest two apples in the Parallel Currency. In return he is given two Parallel Currencies. He can then buy two apples with those two Parallel Currencies from another apple farmer, and sell those apples he has received into the existing general market for whatever he chooses to charge (making local currency profit on them) and the other farmer can do the same with another apple farmer, on and on. We can extend this formula to other basic needs. Shelter providers and builders donate a structure to the Parallel Currency system. They can receive income from another shelter provider with an equivalent rental and that provider then donates and receives in the same way. Rotating donation and income within the businesses involved. Education; all teachers will donate teaching time of a determined percentage, receive compensatory income with local currency in rotation from teachers in the same discipline and level. Health care providers operate in the same way within their areas of expertise and level of advancement. The percentage of individual participation is paid for initially with Parallel Currency, as each provider enters the system. This money will then rotate within the PC loop for each of the basic needs. The PC does not mix with other currency and can only be used for basic needs. Providers can receive local currency income for their services and can increase their percentage of participation above what is required, (to be determined), if they wish.

This is the same thing that happens with exchanges within Capitalist money markets but in the case of the Parallel Currency which is invested into something real (the survival and education of people) it is not making money on money, a cause of inflation.

Money is an accounting device.

Government debt is not the same as personal debt.

Government is the issuer of money and receives it back in taxes, which they then destroy.

Banks and stocks give interest on money they borrow from individuals, (they game the economy by encouraging people to invest in stocks and their bank so that a bank can invest that borrowed money in whatever makes them money), this interest money when spent by individuals into the economy can create inflation. Because there is more money available it becomes less valuable. More money than before has to be used to buy whatever people want. Businesses want to make the same profit so prices have gone up. The result is inflation.

This process has created an excess of money that was not intended and is not controlled by the government with its tax and destroy method.

We are all participating in the money sequence of events. We don't have a choice. The Parallel Currency presents an opportunity for people to make choices. And cut most taxes, (this aspect can be addressed in another blog.)

These ideas have been presented in order that they can be discussed and amended.

Human Rights

Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:11:04 GMT

The right to not starve, the right to have shelter, the right to be treated for curable illness, the right to not be ignorant.

Humanity, over many years of civilization, has created solutions for all these and can provide them, Worldwide.

Freedom of speech and freedom of religion (which is essentially freedom of speech) are not enough. To make the “pursuit of happiness” a real possibility a person must have the other four human rights, food, shelter, healthcare and education.

It does not take a “rocket scientist” to figure out how to pay for and distribute these rights. We can use our representation for value, money, any way we wish.

The way money flows now is the classic pattern that we all are born into and must use. Basically it is capitalism. The market is moved by profit. Only peripherally does preservation of humanity or limited natural resources come into view. Normally there has to be an emergency for this to happen; a war, weather disasters or a pandemic. When the workforce is reduced or resources made scarce.

This is not a sustainable situation. It can last for a long time, as it has, but it is always in the slow process of destroying itself. Like the nightmare cliff dropping away behind you as you run.

We have the solution in our hands: a Parallel Currency. It will not make everyone honest, kind or generous. But it will keep people from starvation, illness, ignorance and homelessness. Humanity will no longer be enslaved by the more destructive side effects of capitalism.

A Parallel Currency is used just for the four basic needs. It is available to everyone from birth until death. When the Parallel Currency arrives at banks it is destroyed so it cannot behave like regular currency and be invested or saved; which can cause inflation. Parallel Currency is only used to provide education, food, shelter and medical care, it is a closed loop. Other currencies will continue to function as usual. Individuals can make as much money as they wish for whatever they wish. The difference is that they will not be depriving other people of their ability to survive.

We have the communication, organizing and distribution tool already; the Internet. Locating, assembling, and distributing all the parts necessary for this objective is possible with our information technology. With the development of AI organizIng the Parallel Currency is even more easily done.

We will start by paying for these rights but as time passes it will become obvious that this is advantageous to everyone and to our planet's health and like freedom of speech, we won't have to pay for it anymore, with money or blood.

Susan Caumont June, 2025

At Sea – Mexico to Hawaii (5/25)

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 16:21:45 GMT

At Sea

Eight days crossing the Pacific Ocean from La Paz, Mexico to Hawaii.

Having lived most of my life on land, living on the water is hard to describe. My powers of description have been formed by my experiences of land life.

The Pacific Ocean is so persuasive that it can change you with its motion alone. Within the ship your body follows its lead. There is always a feeling of rocking, you are poured this way and that by the breathing ocean.

There is the water, its metallic shaken brightness, a corenet of clouds and sky. Land doesn't stop your line of sight. Your brain is not required to interpret objects. Water moves you and at the same time changes the way you think.

What is the color of the ocean? There are layers of different blues descending to the depths that brush the tops of the deepest canyons. Blended, they would be called ultramarine. But that is a word, not the moving reality.

Our ship has become a time machine. At the stern, you can see time move into the past for 7 miles and at the bow you can see time 7 miles into the future. But these are landlubber thoughts, time really is not here. You can see no end or beginning.

“... look to the sea, to the sky, to what is unintelligible and distantly near.” Henry Miller

Strangely, it is at sea that I feel connected to living.

I am not alone onboard. There are 250 passengers and 200 crew. Our ship is a microcosm of the socio/ economic order humans make. There is the government, the economic structure, general maintenance and the views and desires of the people onboard. Most of the wealthier passengers live on the upper decks. These are the most expensive cabins and have large windows and balconies. The prices of the cabins as you descend to the mid and lower decks decrease until you arrive at the level where the hospitality crew live. We maintain a socio/ economic structure even on a ship. But, this little society cannot exist without all its participants. Like Buckminster Fuller said of Earth, it is a spaceship with many rooms, traveling around the sun. If there is a fire in one of those rooms the whole spaceship is in danger. It is the same with our ship.

Starting with the Captain. He is the government and the decision maker. He has the safety of everyone on board and the ship in his hands. Then there are his crew, carrying out specific functions, engineering, healthcare, general maintenance, electronics, navigation, safety and managing the hospitality workers who are responsible for food preparation, cleaning, sanitation and garbage collection. Finally, the passengers are the bank that pays for all this, the salaries, the fuel, the food, and whatever has to be bought to keep the ship running and maintained.

Yet, there is something more powerful, something that wipes away the organizing of humans. As our ship glides along, rocking gently with the swells, suddenly there is a thump!! The Pacific Ocean is making us aware of her presence. When she pounds us gently with a wave our ship vibrates and sounds like a drum, (just a gentle pounding like a cat playing with a mouse.) She is around us and under us (14,000 feet), and she can crush us anytime. She is letting us pass at twelve and one half knots (12 mph), for now. She can summon waves of up to 30 feet and winds of over 100 mph. We are a toy, allowed to travel on her vastness, a curiosity, almost ignored. Only land can stop her, temporarily. She wears that down given time. She is larger than all the continents fitted together. We are in her realm. We don't have a say. There is no freedom of speech, choice of government or economic status here. The Ocean is the law and you float with her consent.

White peaks flashing like fireflies in the distance. Be aware of the gulls, silvery fish arrows flying over the tops of the waves.

S. Caumont

Chapter Five – Mexico (5/25)

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 16:07:42 GMT

Mexico, 5/5/25.

We take a shuttle into the town of Tapachula, $25.00 for 2 people.

A much longer trip than we expected. And the temperature is in the 90’s Fahrenheit. Along the way there is time to observe; houses made of concrete blocks with metal roofs, windows with no glass and entrances with no doors. Motorcycles improvised with seating arrangements to carry more than one person or an open structure to haul wood (for cooking?) and other necessities.

Bananas and mangoes are exported. Magnificent mango trees, 50 feet high, are visible from the road, disappearing into the distance in rows. When we get closer to town the traffic increases and suddenly we are behind an open police vehicle with two officers seated facing outward with assault rifles cradled in their arms. No expression on their faces. In the town we see more of the same. We are informed that they are keeping the people under control.

The town is very active with people moving in every direction. Like currents of blood in a circulatory system. We are in search of a hardware store. “La ferreteria.” I keep repeating this in my mind. Block after block of stores all around us, into the distance. We arrive where we were told to go, and don't see a hardware store. I asked a local man, “ La ferreteria?” He looks at me with a blank look. “Oh, You don't speak Spanish!” He gestures behind him.

We were standing right in front of it and didn't realize what it was. It is simply a long wall with all the hardware displayed on it and several men behind a shallow counter to take your order. Jeff found a salesman who spoke English.

“What are you doing here if you can't speak Spanish?” The salesman was from Long Island, NY.

He actually had what Jeff was looking for.

While we wait for the bus back to the ship we listen to men playing beautifully carved wooden xylophones.

The sounds of Tapachula's heartbeats.

At Sea

Acapulco, Mexico.

The anticipation of arrival. The experience of sighting land in the grey of early morning and watching it approach as light opens, is magical. Nothing there, then something then as distance shortens buildings are visible and the spell is broken. This fascination must be a throwback to the earliest sailing experiences. Sailors at sea for months with no land in sight, then there it is, shadowy grey on the horizon, a wild hope.

Acapulco has grown from a dozen dwellings, two or more churches and the beginnings of a fort to uncountable homes and buildings in little more than 400 years. The natural harbor that lured the Spanish here in the 1600’s is the main port of the city. There is a sense that building upon building has been constructed in order to climb as high as possible up the mountains. The dwellings are cubes of different sizes. Nothing, it seems, is ever removed just built on top of, climbing higher, and they seem to be attached to each other. Some places there are gaping dirt and concrete holes where buildings have collapsed. But the integrity remains. Like houses of cards held together with glue. (The devastation of hurricane Otis still remains after two years, contributing to the dismantled aspect of the city and distress of its people.)

A magnificent stone Spanish fort still stands, overlooking the harbor, cannons at the ready. It houses an excellent museum. Suddenly I realize that the present buildings have been arranged like the blocks of stone that form the old fort. One supporting the next and traveling organically around obstacles and existing boulders. Confining and supporting the land, it shelters an ever growing hive of humanity.

The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum visited Acapulco while our boat was docked there. She is much loved. “She is helping the people!”

A local man said.

Cries of “Presidanta Acapulco te ama.” “We love you!” Car horns echoed around the harbor as she passed with her motorcade. She is their wild hope.

A highly educated woman, President Sheinbaum has a PHD in physics with a special concentration in energy engineering. Her parents were politically active, they marched in demonstrations for human rights in their day. She has made progress with getting large solar arrays built in Mexico (the largest in the Americas opened in 2024).

At Sea

Manzanillo, Mexico 5/11/25

This is a well kept city. Very busy with lots of shops and restaurants. Colorful homes, worn out but maintained with pride. No garbage on the streets. It benefits from sport fishing for sailfish. There are tournaments every year. It has become an international tourist destination with fancy resorts, also a major shipping port.

At Sea

We are underway again, traveling at about 12 knots (approximately 12 mph) and we will arrive at Puerto Vallarta around 8:00 am.

I am sitting on the top deck waiting for the setting sun. I read that it is possible to see the ‘green flash’ when the sun disappears at the meeting of the sea and sky. And there it was. A green light flashed for just a second as the sun vanished! The lamplighter was on duty.

5/14/25, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, arrival

Its coastline looks like Miami, Florida. High rise condos everywhere, a Mall and Walmart. Jeff had to have prescriptions filled so we walked to the Walmart. The maze designed for people on cruise ships made a 10 minute walk an hour long. The object was to make everyone walk past the shops and restaurants etc. and buy something.

At the Walmart we are greeted by 4 men. One of them says, “You are tourists, do you need some help?” I replied, “ It doesn't matter that we are tourists, every Walmart is the same, Worldwide!” He laughed. The pharmacy did not have what Jeff needed.

One interesting thing was a wild bird rescue, cobbled together with cages and chain link housing about 30 Macaws, a few hawks and a barn owl. It was located at the edge of a huge parking lot and gave the impression that the city wanted them to give up and leave. $2 to visit.

At Sea, 5/17/25

Mazatlan, Mexico. 5/16/25

This city does not display military presence like the previous cities we have visited.

We walked into town and found pleasant neighborhoods with wash lines on the roofs and images of saints and the Virgin Mary painted on walls along with some angry graffiti and a mural of a pod of dolphins. The quiet and charm are interrupted by truck traffic from the shipping port. The wealthier people move to the other side of the harbor and build their homes.

“Let it be known that nobody crossed my path without sharing my being. I plunged up to the neck into adversities that were not mine, Into all the sufferings of others.”

Pablo Neruda

At Sea

Topolobampo, Mexico 5/20/25

The approach is magnificent, we pass a massive white cube of stone gleaming in the early light like an iceberg, then the soft brown textures of Mexican mountains on either side appear as we approach the port, and grey stone cliffs rise behind them.

We hire a taxi to drive us around. The city is near where we dock but we are not allowed to walk through the shipping port.

Topolobampos brightly colored houses climb in Mexican fashion up its hillsides. We were told that the city will paint your house for you. The government will pay for it. Just choose a color. And people do.

A man jumps out, runs in front of our taxi to talk to someone he knows in a car in the next lane. He has a rubber eagle mask covering his whole head. Our driver says that it represents a soccer team that just won a match. He is like an animation of the eagle on the Mexican flag, racing around searching for a snake to devour. Is Mexico changing? Is it in search of a new center around which to form?

Juvaer, our driver, speaks English. He spent some years in NY. He was born and raised in Topolobampo. He still lives on the hillside. “It is a good life,” he said. He had three sons and put them all through college. He is retired from working for a fishing company. He owns two taxis. All his son's are doing well and live elsewhere,”more opportunity.” They did not come back.

If beauty and serenity, “A good life” were the things that make people stay, Topolobampo would be the perfect place.

“Topolobampo, faintly sketched on the shores of sweet and naked maritime California, starry Mazatlan, night seaport, I hear the waves that pound your poverty and your constellations, the pulse of your passionate choirs, your somnambulistic heart that sings beneath the red nets of the moon.”

Pablo Neruda

At Sea

La Paz, 5/22/25

Another big city. Visitors are deposited from the bus in town like chum thrown into the water. The “sharks” surface immediately. “Where do you want to go? I will take you in my taxi.” “Tortillas are fresh, you want?” By now we have developed some evasion techniques, but it is impossible to be unaffected. You are a mark wherever you go, even if you speak Spanish and can compute the exchange rate in your head.

A refuge was the Museum of Art. Unlike most art museums this one shows the contemporary art of Mexican artists. It is not a dusty collection of “European” paintings. These are actual depictions of the dreams and nightmares of Mexico. The collective unconscious of a nation is on display. And the building that houses it is new, modern and clean. No fee.

At Sea

Cabo St Lucas, 5/23/25

We anchor out in the lee of a high wall of rock islands. Tenders meet our ship to take passengers ashore. I am not tempted. Another overcrowded resort city on beautiful beaches under magnificent mountains. Jeff went ashore to interview a local person and take their picture. I will draw the mountains.

The result of Jeff's interview was similar to one he did in Topolobampo. Both individuals were young women, one a recent college graduate and the other a highschool student bound for college. He asked them what they thought of their new president. They both felt that she was concentrating too much on the poor and elderly. “What about me?” An older woman he interviewed in La Paz said something similar, “She is a Communist!” Why are people who want to help humanity dismissed? Have we been too hardened by past behaviors and wars to imagine something different?

Pre-industrial quaintness and beauty have been almost completely irradiated from the small and large cities we visited along the coast of Mexico. Market economy stresses that force people into purchasing and consuming modes that are beyond their earning abilities are evident everywhere. Yet, the blind men trying to describe what an elephant looks like from one small part they encountered were not accurate, as we know. There must be wonderful places still to be found in Mexico. Our little town where we come from nobody knows about or cares. It has unspoiled beauty.

Fortunately nothing can obscure the magnificent geology of Mexico’s coastlines. Rock mountains jut from the sea like giant petrified hands, huge white boulders surrounded by water in the middle of nowhere, sharp crested islands peer down at your insignificance and the vast blue dome of sky over everything. Just like what the native people saw thousands of years ago. All our building and crawling about on these surfaces and our pursuits in these skies are just a temporary distraction of our time.

Making up for the sins of Capitalism

Tue, 27 May 2025 19:41:33 GMT

“It is soulless, exploitive, inequitable, unstable and destructive, yet also all- conquering and overwhelming.”

Capitalism and its Critics: A History from the Industrial Revolution to AI

By John Cassidy

This is one of the best descriptions of Capitalism I have read recently. The only thing it leaves out is that Capitalism regularly destroys itself and has to be rescued with huge infusions of human labor (money). But Capitalism is so appealing to humans that it is allowed to continually transform and conform to new demands and circumstances, even though it is inherently unstable and destructive.

Like the charming self destructive uncle who is so entertaining with his stories and wild money making schemes, no one wants him to stop. It is so much fun! For a few people. And all it takes is a few people to keep Capitalism going, approximately ten percent of the World population, the richest ten percent.

That Capitalism has lasted and spread is testimony to its ability to keep adapting and improving on its main strengths: soullessness and exploitation.

As a species we have become, over approximately 500 years, completely adapted to Capitalism. No matter what it distorts, destroys or lays waste to, it has captured our imaginations like a religion. We won't be saying goodbye to it anytime soon. But there is an antidote. We can make up for some of its most destructive symptoms with a Parallel Currency that is used only for basic human needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare, Worldwide. Some countries are already trying to do this with their tax structures and laws but a Parallel Currency would do this without taxation or inflation. It is a separate currency that can only be used to provide basic needs and is destroyed when it reaches a bank; it will not create inflation. It also will not inhibit the positive capabilities of existing currencies. They will continue to function as they usually do. The Parallel Currency is a closed loop created for the dignified survival of humanity.

Freedom of speech, freedom of religion are not enough. A government by the people and for the people must also guarantee freedom from starvation, ignorance and curable illness, all things as a human species, over thousands of years, we have developed remedies.

Chapter Four – Costa Rica (4/25)

Tue, 20 May 2025 17:41:47 GMT

Preface

Dear reader. These journals may feel critical and reveal too much of the underbelly of the countries I am visiting. My intention is not to write a travel journal that invites you to leave your lives behind and drift into other cultures finding and sampling their delights. I once heard “travelers' tales” described as seduction.

I am writing from personal experience of a small sample of these countries. The portion that accumulates at the ports and harbors. With an eye to the impacts on these countries of our global economy. Our ship is basically following the routes of containe MOr ships and oil tankers. We dock where they load and unload cargo. We, as passengers, are also defined as cargo in transit. Another kind of stimulation to the local economy. We buy diesel fuel, water, and food for the ship, and unload garbage. Passengers go to restaurants, buy gifts and tours.

I am viewing the life accumulated in these port towns and their vicinity as a microcosm of the country I am visiting. It is from this point of view that I write. I apologize for any omissions due to my shortcomings. I am trying to be true to what I see from where I am. I am only a visitor too.

CAW, chapter 4

Costa Rica, 4/27/25

We approach Quepos, Costa Rica on the largest and deepest ocean on the Earth, the Pacific. It averages around 14,000 feet.

We glide past four gulls who observe us as they ride the swells on a floating log. Costa Rica appears very rocky and mountainous. Waves halt at its rough edges, climbing bright white before they subside.

“We cannot play against Nature.” Captain Val has announced. The swells are too high to use the tenders from our anchored ship and go ashore. We will go and dock at the port of Puntarenas Costa Rica, an overnight trip.

4/28/25 We walk into town from the ship. It is very early, 6:30, because we have all been asked to disembark. There will be a US Coast Guard inspection of our ship today in anticipation of our entrance into the US in June. Around 2:00 we can get back onboard.

In town we are instructed by a local tour guide,

“Go to the left, to the left. More things to the left. Nothing to the right.”

So we go to the left. A man is sound asleep under one of the cannons that memorializes the past colonial dominance of Spain.

We sit for a while and watch the ocean. A bird laughs at us from a tree. The sand is grey/brown, tinted by the grinding action of the waves on black volcanic rock. The waves roll in with long heaving sighs, curl to shore then intake and withdraw. A young boy with shoulder length hair ( his skin the color of the sand under his feet) stands looking out at the ocean. He points then looks back at his family, smiling.

Costa Rican citizens pay into the system as workers, then get free health care. Education through college is free if you make the grade. If you fail twice, the student is thrown out of school. There are private schools, you can pay for, that are not as strict. There is 99.7 percent literacy, 87 percent have college degrees. They abolished their military in 1947. Clearly they don't plan to fight anyone. Jimmy, a tour guide, excitedly tells us all this. But what we see as we walk around is very different.

We visited the aquarium, which is, “To the right.” Built about 23 years ago and intended as a rescue facility. It was beautiful when first built but now everything is worn and some things are not working and some animal enclosures are empty. The fish, turtles and one crocodile are well taken care of but the infrastructure is falling apart. Workers are fixing the plumbing.

The situation is similar at the port city. Things worn out or out of use, a nice open theater is deteriorating. People sleeping rough on the beach. Individuals and families approach and ask for money. “ I am a single mother…” A lot of garbage has washed up from the ocean onto the beach and into town. About 20 local people have assembled to pick it up. But two blocks further into town huge bags of uncollected garbage and unbagged mounds rest on the sidewalks. Run down rows of houses, some advertising apartments for rent. A small grocery, pharmacy, and a hardware store are the rare commerce along with tiny breakfast/lunch & drinking places. Few locals speak English. The taxi drivers and tour guides are fluent in English. They want to take you into the interior (they carry a brochure of pictures to show you) where you can see the wild animals at several national parks, ride zip lines, walk boardwalks into the clouds, go on a scenic open boat tour and eat at a fancy restaurant. “See the crocodiles!” Other options are to rent a luxury bed and breakfast or Villa. But you must make online reservations ahead of time.

There is affluence here but not for the majority of the people. We are finding this to be the case in every country we have visited so far. A combination of the debilitating impacts of colonial slavery revealed in the present and modern Global Economics imposing its trade imperatives are seen everywhere.

At Sea

“We are trapped.” Anna Maria, local woman

El Salvador, 5/2/25

Presently, El Salvador is absorbing Venezuelan “illegal immigrants and criminals” from the US. ( A new revenue stream for the country). They were expelled by executive order of our US President, into the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador. Even legal immigrants are being “picked up” and deported without due process. The Alien Enemies Act is being invoked as the US did during WW2 when citizens of Japanese descent were ‘rounded up’ and placed in concentration camps in the US. The difference is that the US is not at war.

We are docked at the port of Acajutla where El Salvador’s oil refineries are located, 2 main ones, a Chevron lubricants plant and a diesel gas terminal. You can see the grey blue silhouettes of at least a dozen tanker ships waiting on the horizon to come in and get filled. Our ship is being filled with diesel.

We will disembark, walk around and talk to people.

We interview a young woman at the dock (Anna Maria). Gentrification is damaging the country, she says. It's too expensive for most people to buy a home or rent. Education is free through secondary school but college requires passage of a strict exam to get in and very few qualify. This is necessary because so many want to go to college but there are very few state colleges. There are private ones but too expensive for most of the population. No healthcare if you don't have a good job. Anna Maria works for the government and still can't afford to buy a home. She lives with her mother. She learned in grammar school that 16 families own the whole country. In recent years international investment has come to buy up attractive real estate from local families (making those families millionaires). The investors then build luxury villas and B&B’s to rent to tourists, driving housing prices too high for locals. No $500 a month rent anymore. Now 160 families own 87 percent of the country.

“We are trapped.” Anna Maria says.

In the evening a highschool band played for us on the dock below our ship. All boys except two girls on saxophone. Drums, trumpets, bassoons, a clarinet, and metal grater like tubes that are stroked with a stick making a metallic blend with the rest.

Some of our fellow passengers are dancing.

As we listen, the sun disappears. For a moment it is a perfect red ball held at the blue grey meeting of sea and sky.

At Sea

Guatemala, 5/3/25.

At the port, Amis Hero from Panama is unloading coal. Three tall cranes move independently up, down, over and down like they are controlling puppets below. From another view I see that huge buckets hang from their cables. They dip into the hold of the ship, grab the coal, bring it up and drop it into a huge hopper. The coal then works its way up a long rail to be dropped onto mountainous coal pyramids below.

Guatemala does not produce coal but imports it, mostly from Columbia and the United States, for its domestic electricity generation.

Containers are off loaded here too. Several acres of them are stacked 5 to 10 high and enclosed by a 10 foot concrete block fence that is topped with 10 feet of chain link fence and razor wire on top of that. This is the first time I have seen security like this for containers.

We spoke with Cesia Lopez, she learned English by listening to it spoken while she worked in a shop. She told us that there is free education. But the colleges are located in the city, where students must pay for food and rent (between $1,500 to $2,000 a month for rent) There are not enough jobs. So graduates leave to find jobs in other countries. Healthcare is expensive. It is cheaper to live in the country because they can provide their own food with gardening and agriculture.

Outside investors are buying land from locals like in El Salvador. They drive up the prices of housing with luxury rentals and expensive new homes. Young adults, with their own young children, live with their parents.

The local women make amazing weavings and intricately embroidered fabrics and offer them from multiple open markets. “You buy, you buy.”

“Come! you look.” Bargaining is an art form here. The vendor suggests an outrageously high price then, as you keep refusing, successively lowering it till, finally, it is less than half of the original price requested.

Bright colors are everywhere. An elderly woman sits on the ground weaving on a backstrap loom. A technology that was invented thousands of years ago by native women of the Americas.

A group of birds has formed a funnel in the sky. Round and round they spin. Not a murmuration like starlings make, this is different, more designed, not freeform. Similarly, we also get sucked into our own little coves, circulating.

Now we are on our way to Mexico. Our ship leaves a wake like a snail leaves its trail.

At Sea

Chapter Three – Columbia (4/25)

Tue, 13 May 2025 20:22:12 GMT

Columbia,

Cartegena, Columbia 4/21/25

The Pope died this morning. A voice that held us together. Such an individual is the most powerful alive. Now he has become a wise person, deceased. Like an excellent reference book in a library. He can no longer speak in the present. His eloquent plea for the health of our planet, the encyclical for “Our Common Home” was an extraordinary recognition of Climate Change damage Worldwide and a plea for people to work together for remedies. He will be missed.

We decided not to venture into the city. We were docked at a huge shipping hub. Containers stacked five high and covering acres. Cranes moved about with slow precision into the night, then the whole area became a festival of lights. The city appeared even from a distance like any big city. Its delights are hidden or difficult to find. ($100 taxi ride per person for a one hour tour) The zoo was close by and magical.

So we went to the zoo. Instead of a people world, you are in a small protected jungle where the animals are in charge and uncaged. Scarlet macaws fly overhead, peacocks spread their fans and flamingos move about with slow deliberation and shockingly pink. A friendly little green parrot sat on Jeff's shoulder and talked to him in Spanish.

Their environment has been created by people who rehabilitate wild animals and abandoned exotic pets. Occasionally there are monkeys and we saw a sloth making leisurely way through the upper canopy.

They have shelter, regular feedings and medical care. (They are self educated.) Humans do this for fellow creatures but hesitate to do it for fellow humans.

Remember, money is a belief system. The real value is humanity and natural resources. Survival needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare can be provided for every person on Earth with a parallel currency. Such a currency cannot be invested and is destroyed when it reaches a bank. The question is not, “How much will it cost?” The question is, ”What do you choose to pay for?”

San Blas Islands, Panama 4/22/25

The native people here are Panamanian citizens. They call themselves Kuna. They are completely self governing and fiercely protective of their pristine islands. There are 378 islands, amounting to about 100 square miles. Forty nine are inhabited. Traveling through them on our way to the Panamanian coast in the pre-dawn took more than an hour. Here and there in a cove an anchored sailboat rested. Most of the islands were deserted, small bunches of coconut palms and shrubs poking above the water.

We travel to the main island, Carti, by tender from our anchored ship. The shock of culture is profound. Every flat surface has small makeshift buildings and chickee huts without a break between, a warren of worn paths snakes throughout the settlement. The grass is a soft green velvet texture. A young child looks us over as we disembark, with the same shyness and disbelief that we are looking at him. Two widely separated times have collided. The impression from our side is that their time stopped 1000 years ago. From their side, we have probably dropped from space.

We start to walk gently through their midst, keeping to the paths, trying not to be offensively nosey. There is so much to see and everything worth photographing. Mostly women and children line our way, dressed in distinctive costumes with beads around their arms and ankles. A few men are floating nearby in their handmade dugout canoes.

Slowly the display of molas begins. These intensely colored intricately sewn appliques of birds, lizards, insects and symbols that repeat and repeat form a narrative the women must hear in their dreams. Every turn of the path displays more walls of one foot square fabric stories. On and on like a colorful maze until your eyes are overstimulated and you can't concentrate on the beauty of any one piece. The artists are ladies of all ages. Some appear to be quite elderly, maybe 100 years. Cataracts film eyes that once sewed tiny bits of fabric with almost imperceptible stitches. Their close up vision is exceptional. The younger women have babies and children with them. The children hold their pets, a puppy, a little green parrot.

Their colorful garments are accented with molas. Finally you have come to the center of the maze, dizzy from the kaleidoscope of colored patterns, and find you must retrace your steps through the gauntlet of pleading vaguely suspicious eyes;

“Five dollars, twenty dollars.”

“Very beautiful, ola, thank you, adios.”

We pass out dollars and buy a mola. Three boys play their flutes and dance.

You feel guilty that you are so privileged. But maybe privilege is not so important. A young man we talk to, Adrian Lopez, assures us that he is happy and likes living on the island. It's “quiet, peaceful.”

The Panamanian government had given them some solar panels 15 years ago so they could run lighting, TVs, and small appliances. Education is free, healthcare is free, ( but not very good. Cataract surgery has not been introduced) they do some agriculture and lots of fishing. When asked if men do any of the sewing they laugh at the thought. Some ecotourism has started on the pristine uninhabited islands.

When we got back to the ship we contacted a friend we still know in the solar business and asked him to arrange a shipment of solar panels to the islands. They are so much more efficient now.

Panama Canal, 4/25/25

I have been looking forward to this passage. We have been through many locks on our own boats but this one is by far the most massive. Our President has not mentioned for a while his desire to own the canal, since China got in the way of a deal that would put ownership of several ports in the hands of a US company. Panama was not enthusiastic either. They are very proud that they own and run it.

The canal is not as massive as I had imagined. The actual locks and mechanisms are simple and use the traditional physics: fill the lock, raise the boat, empty the lock, lower the boat. The impressive thing is the size of the boats. Huge tankers and container ships, but not as many as I had imagined. I thought the whole route would be very busy with comings and goings and ships waiting their turn. Aside from 3 or 4 other ships traveling we had the locks all to ourselves. It cost $300,000 for our ship to use the Panama Canal locks.

It was dark by the time we were halfway through. We didn't enter the Pacific until after midnight. In the morning, water was all around. And our ship was seaming its way through a different ocean.

At Sea

Chapter Two – Bonarais (4/25)

Tue, 06 May 2025 13:53:23 GMT

“The path of least resistance.” (The path of the most loot.)

Bonarais 4/13/25

“Island of the giants,” was the name the Spanish gave to Bonarais in the 1400’s because the native people were so tall. The prehistoric people of southwest Florida, the Calusas, were exceptionally tall also. Maybe the earliest sailing explorers?

We are watching as they are unloading a container ship on the finger dock near where we are tied on. Four people halt its sway as it dangles from a crane and approaches the ground. A flatbed truck is already there, the container is placed and driven away. Repeat, repeat, again, again. An island has to import most of its needs.

Bonarais is like a village of beautiful doll houses. The Dutch who were historically of colonial dominance, after they drove the Spanish out, and still maintain significant influence, designed the buildings with color and form that reminds them of their homeland. Pastel orange, yellow, and turquoise structures with contrasting gingerbread eves, cafe's where locals sit outside with coffee and converse in Dutch. The children eat ice cream. Very civilized, unhurried, no garbage.

While it is cold in the Netherlands many Dutch nationals stay here un till the weather improves. They accept dollars and the prices are the same as in the US. $800,000 to buy a 3 BR apartment, 3,000 to rent a vacation place for a week, and to buy a condo, (the Dutch are tastefully building them all along the coast), one million five hundred thousand dollars and they are selling them to Americans. Beautiful beaches, snorkeling, and perfect sailing conditions are the main attractions.

Suddenly while you gaze out at the turquoise water, red and yellow flippers poke from the surface and you realize there are people underneath there snorkeling. Peering into the water from above you can see blue and green parrot fish and other fantastically decorated fish.

When we return to our ship three hours later they are still unloading the containers. They have removed about half and there is another container ship in the distance waiting to approach.

In the interim we had hired a taxi with another couple. We saw the salt flats, the donkeys, the flamingos and the slave houses. The couple we were with are the only people who have shown sincere interest in the Parallel Currency. Jeff has spoken to maybe 15 people on the ship so far. Not an unusual percentage.

The slave houses, no longer in use, are a shockingly cruel structure. Two to four people in a 5 foot by 5 foot coral block structure with a roof. The door is only big enough to crawl through. Resembles a dog house. No trees to shelter from the heat. Only the relief of a sea breeze in the evening. In the day they would have been like ovens. This was where the slaves who worked the salt flats stayed during their 6 day work week. Saturday they walked into town to get their rations and see their families. They walked back to the salt flats Sunday morning to work the rest of the day.

The Dutch East India Company got into the slave trade in the 1600’s. Salt was in great demand as a preservative. The slaves who worked the salt flats named it the “white hell.” Slavery was not abolished by the Dutch until the late 1800’s. Then they brought 'indentured servants’ from India.

Huge flocks of flamingos share the salt flats with Cargil, Inc.? who now owns the salt industry and most of the south end of the island. The birds spend their entire lives walking about in the shallow pools, eating, nesting, socializing, and sleeping. We could see the dark mounds of their nests in the distance. They lay one egg and nurture that “only chick” to maturity.

The salt is harvested mechanically now. The shallow saltwater pools ripen in the heat for 6 months or more, until they turn a lovely pink, like the flamingos. Then the water is drained off, the chunks of salt are ground and flow from the machine like through an hourglass, to form a pure white pyramid of salt below. ( Pink salt turn white?

What can I say about the donkeys? So gentle and their sad brown eyes have seen everything. But they don't speak.

At sea.

Curacao 4/15/25

This Dutch colony acquired its independence but still maintains the feel of their presence. Historically it was the main Dutch slave transshipment center.

The current population is multilingual. They speak Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamento. A local man, Nathan, was very helpful with information.

Papiamento is the native language developed during the 17th and 18th centuries within the multi ethnic community dominated by Africans that had been imported as slaves. They maintained the structure and sound laws of their African dialects and borrowed words from all the other languages, including Amerindian and Portuguese. An incredible act of will and assimilation reflected in this language.

The locals refer to Curacao as “Hoya Presioso”, Precious Rock.

To get an idea of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade here are some numbers. Conducted from 1444 -1867, 35,000 voyages, 12.5 million enslaved Africans were shipped to Europe and the Americas. Almost 2 million died during the passage. The Spanish, Dutch, English, and French all participated. Slaves were the original “renewable energy” their labor used to build fortunes in sugar and salt.

An historic coral block fort dominates the port entrance. It has been converted to a mall with shops and restaurants. Mostly souvenir shops, and high-end shops dominate as far as you can easily walk. Toward the extreme of that the local life becomes more active and there is an open fruit and vegetable market along the canal with small houseboats where the vendors sleep. A thin fellow thrusts a small plastic bag under your nose. “Pot, you buy?”

The pontoon bridge was built in 1888. It allows container ships and other large boats into the deeper harbor. Built on 15 floating pontoons as a walking bridge to span the inlet it opens frequently, clearing the bridge of people with an alarm, closing gates at either end, uncoupling and motoring till the whole expanse is pressed against the side. The movement takes about 10 minutes. Some walkers stay on and ride to the other side.

It has its own government but the parliament is still Dutch. Children are in preschool as early as 2 yrs old, it is compulsory and also parents pay a small fee. Fees continue through the rest of schooling and uniforms are required, (paid for by the parents). College is available for about $1,000 a year. Medical care is covered. Housing is stressed at this point because investors have made many B&B’s and driven up the prices of housing. Locals can't afford to own so they stay with their parents. They have to go away if they plan to study medicine and usually don't come back. They make more money elsewhere.

As I watched the sun disappear, a white gull flew up, climbing, it became pink and climbing higher, grey. Finally, dark blue as it left the light of day.

How rich is too rich? If that is decided, a moment is opened. The wealthy can give their excess to whatever human basic needs they choose; food, shelter, education or healthcare. This is not a tax, taxes would not be necessary if a ceiling for wealth were agreed upon. The narrowing of the extremes of wealth would enhance communication between all sections of society. People would more readily socialize, form bonds and empathize. Creation of a Parallel Currency for basic human needs would not be out of reach. The habit of including everyone in national economic prosperity would make providing basic food, shelter, education and healthcare Worldwide a natural conclusion.

At sea

Chapter One – Barbados (4/25)

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 19:42:17 GMT

The question is not, “ How do you pay for it?”

The question is, “ What do you want to pay for?”

We finally boarded the ship in Barbados 4/7/25.

After 6 months of preparation we were pleased to see that the ship really existed! Who would ever think of providing an opportunity to buy a cabin and cruise around the World? And, do it every 3 and ½ years for 15 years?

I want to use this trip to get new insights into the World economy.

During our short time in Barbados there was a lot of waiting. Turns out Barbados Time is even slower than Southern Time in the US. Lots of sitting while warm breezes softly blow and shift the vegetation. A monkey walked along the ledge of the roof, peered into a window then strode off, its absurdly long tail swaying like a flagpole. Finally the taxi that would take us to the boat arrived.

Society here is less equal than when Jeff visited 30 years ago. Very rich then the majority much less so and then, very poor. Some developments to please tourists.

I took a walk along the dock before the boat disembarked and looked into the water. It washes light turquoise and grey over and back on the coral boulders. Bright blue fish swim in and out of the crevices, schools of minnows, yellow fish and zebra striped too.

“ This is your captain speaking, from the bridge, of course. Leaving Barbados in the morning. Have a good evening.” 4/8/25

At sea.

Tabago, 4/9/25

Walk into town. Frigate birds circle overhead. I read that they eat flying fish.

Seven local currencies to one dollar here. Barbados was two to one. The resulting total is the same as in the US. You just pay more of their currency.

We visited a drug store. The many young female employees are watching every move of the customers. On the sidewalk again, chickens with their chicks weave among the people.

We found a bench and sat near a park by the water. A taxi driver approaches us to offer a ride.

“ Why is the park closed? (chain link fence and barbed wire surround it).

“They were doing drugs there, had to close it.”

“Why are they doing drugs?”

“They want to be happy.”

“They are not happy?”

“They want to be happier.”

“ What are the rocks called out there?”

“ The red rocks. The coast used to curve all the way out there but over the last 40 years it has eroded back. They had to move the coast road in.”

Trinidad 4/10/25 This Island is larger, more mountainous and from a distance an emerald surrounded by bright turquoise water.

We take a taxi, our driver's name is Ambrose. He is full of information.

Again, 7 to one currency ratio. Economy is not thriving for the majority of people. Good for multinational companies, BP, ( there is oil and natural gas on the island) a Hilton, and a few wealthy. Many locals have set up small vending sheds everywhere. A young man tows a rolling garbage pail between the lanes of traffic filled with cold sodas to sell. Yet, Trinidad provides free education from 3 years old through 4 years of college, free medical and a pension at age 65. (Into which they have paid through compulsory insurance when they start work) Trinidad provides more social assistance than the US.

The question is; “What do you want to pay for?” Here, they have answered in favor of the people

Unfortunately the drug trade is too much for this island country. Trinidad is a conduit for drugs from S. America to the US and Worldwide. When we drive up a steep mountain we see nice homes then many more sagging metal and wood enclosures with garbage all around where people live. Back in town a man sleeps on the sidewalk in front of a store, his dirty grey clothing blending into the surface.

In colonial times they protested injustice with Calypso, the original rap music. Now they use drugs to forget. And their protests, Carnival, have become entertainment.

At sea

The Role of Women in the Economy and the Need for a Parallel Currency

Thu, 13 Mar 2025 16:19:06 GMT

Diminish the Negative Impact

Women are disproportionately impacted by the current economic systems worldwide . In many countries, there is a glaring lack of support structures for women, particularly in areas like food, shelter, education, and healthcare. This structural neglect not only affects women but hinders half of the population from contributing fully to society. Addressing these disparities through economic reforms, including the adoption of a parallel currency, could provide significant relief and promote equality.

One of the least discussed but most impactful issues facing women in the economy is the economic burden of pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing. For many women, this financial strain begins the moment they become pregnant and lasts a lifetime. Despite the significance of this issue, it remains a topic that few people or governments are willing to address directly. The economic disadvantages stemming from unplanned pregnancies and the lack of support for women during and after pregnancy can trap them in cycles of poverty and dependency , with long-term consequences not only for them but for their children as well.

The Economic Impact of Pregnancy and Child Rearing
In countries or states that limit or ban abortion while simultaneously failing to provide free childcare or adequate family support, the burden of child-rearing falls squarely on women . Without access to these vital services, many women face a future of economic hardship. Child-rearing demands time, energy, and financial resources, and without support, this responsibility can have a devastating impact on a woman’s ability to pursue education or build a career.

For many women, the only available options are dependency on their family or partner, even in difficult or unhealthy relationships, or reliance on government welfare programs. These options limit their personal autonomy and prevent them from realizing their full potential. Without financial support or affordable childcare options, women often have to sacrifice their ambitions, dreams, and the possibility of a fulfilling career. The myth that women can work full-time while raising children without substantial help is just that—a myth. Without access to childcare or family support, it is nearly impossible to balance work and motherhood effectively.

The Unique Economic Vulnerability of Women
Women are born into a unique situation in the economy simply because they are the ones who bear children. This biological reality places them in a vulnerable position, often making them dependent on others for support during and after pregnancy. Without access to adequate healthcare, food, shelter, or education, the economic consequences of bearing a child can be overwhelming and can last a lifetime . A woman who is forced to carry and raise a child without the necessary resources is left economically disadvantaged, and this disadvantage can be passed down to her children as well.

This reality calls into question the fairness and sustainability of the current economic system. Without significant reforms, particularly around how we value and support women’s labor, including child-rearing, women will continue to face barriers that men do not.

The Need for a Parallel Currency
A possible solution to the economic imbalance women face is the implementation of a parallel currency that addresses basic needs like food, shelter, education, and healthcare. A parallel currency would function alongside the current market-based system but would be specifically designated for essential needs. It would be used only for these basic human necessities, ensuring that no one, particularly women, is left without the means to support themselves or their children.

The beauty of a parallel currency system is that it could operate without creating inflation. When the currency is used and eventually reaches a bank, it would be destroyed, ensuring that it does not devalue the market currency. This system would allow society to guarantee a minimum standard of living for all individuals, without distorting the free market or causing inflationary pressures.

For women, this parallel currency would represent a way to navigate life with fewer obstacles. It would give them the financial security to make decisions about their lives, including whether to carry a pregnancy to term, without the fear of being economically disadvantaged. Women would no longer have to depend solely on the goodwill of their family, partner, or government assistance. With basic needs guaranteed, they could focus on pursuing education, career development, and other personal ambitions.

A Path Toward Equality
The introduction of a parallel currency system would mark a significant step toward gender equality. By ensuring that women have access to the resources they need to care for themselves and their families, we would be creating a world in which women have more autonomy and freedom to make choices about their lives. It would eliminate many of the economic barriers that prevent women from reaching their full potential and would allow them to contribute more fully to society.

The current economic system does not adequately address the unique challenges faced by women, particularly when it comes to child-rearing. By introducing a parallel currency system that ensures access to basic needs, we can create a more equitable society. This would allow women to live with dignity and the financial security to make decisions about their futures without being weighed down by the economic burdens of childbirth and childcare. Such a system would not only benefit women but would strengthen the economy and society as a whole.

A Government is not a Business

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 22:45:01 GMT

The purpose of government is not to make profit, it is to protect and defend its citizens.

Government is not a platform from which a business deal is made. It is carefully structured to sleuth out the most important needs of all its citizens and provide for them. When it operates as it is built to do, its citizens are generally content. When it is gamed, in bad faith, for personal power and wealth, things fall apart and the government and its citizens have to move to defend themselves. The necessity to do this should never have evolved. But a well functioning government depends on people working in good faith, who are honorable, who seek truth and have guiding morals. As we know, sometimes people get into positions of power who don't have these qualities.

The unfortunate development of political positions being won by individuals who have the most money to spend has placed a significant number of people in Congress and some Presidents in the White House who have no moral compass.

We see the influence of unimaginable amounts of money on campaigns. Made worse when corporations were found to be citizens. Let's dive down the rabbit hole of history.

In 2010, when Obama was president, the Supreme Court found in the case called Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations have 1st amendment rights to free speech and political spending. They named this “ corporate personhood” which holds that

corporations are associations of people and have certain constitutional rights. This allows, among many other things, corporations to make independent political expenditures and allows corporations to spend unlimited funds on elections. Also, a corporation is allowed to exist in

perpetuity. Even Voldemort would have envied this!

So, here we are. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have pushed more and more power and wealth into the hands of the few and in turn the recipients of this largesse have shown their gratitude by paying into more and more autocratic governments that will continue to

protect their economic and business advantages.

This is not hard to see. It is very hard to live through. And even harder to reverse. But this has been done before and can be done again. Good government is not a given. It has to be watched carefully (thank goodness for bureaucrats). But everyone needs to play a part and feel they can

be effective.

At Renew the Earth, renew the-earth.org, we have been developing over the past 20 years a concept that allows choice within our World Economic System. We call it a Parallel Currency.

This separate currency can only be used to provide basic human needs, food, shelter, education and health care. It cannot be invested or hoarded and will not cause inflation because it is destroyed when it reaches a bank.

Susan Caumont,

President, Renew the Earth

Making the World safe for Gangsters

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 20:26:10 GMT

David Brooks made this statement in reference to recent events that may threaten the existence of our democracy.

Is this where our country is going? Or are we going to stand up for our “inalienable rights”, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? “To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.” Governments guided by laws and run by Bureaucracies.

When we look at our “inalienable rights” one at a time, we understand the profound intention of our Constitution.

Life. All people are created equal and have the inalienable right to life. To have life, each person has to have the elements that sustain life; food, shelter, education and health care.

Liberty. Freedom of movement. “Free from oppressive restrictions imposed by any authority on one's way of life, behavior or political view.”

Pursuit of Happiness. Not just to try to be happy, but a guarantee of happiness. This is an “inalienable right” not just a quest or pass time. We negotiate the inevitable disappointments and tragedies of living but also experience the joys that keep us alive. And the resulting happiness, in its fullest reveal, is a good life. This good life also depends not just on the happiness of one person, but all citizens, including immigrants and refugees. We suffer and rejoice together.

Government must ultimately guarantee basic needs to all citizens; food, shelter, education and healthcare. Most World Constitutions include these guarantees, but cannot afford them.

There is a way to pay for all human basic needs without creating inflation and debt using a Worldwide Parallel Currency dedicated only to the basic human needs.

You may ask, “How do we provide basic human needs to 8 billion people Worldwide?” “Is it possible?” If a majority of people agree that this is something that needs to happen in order to preserve our survival on Earth, it can be done. We already have invented all the tools necessary.

We need more than a patchwork of aid that can be interrupted by a statement from the president. We must build a permanent infrastructure that conveys efficiently and consistently the human right to live in the form of basic food and shelter, education and healthcare.

Efficient systems that get needs where they have to go can be designed by already existing computer intelligence. How much, where it needs to go, what kind of transportation is available, how long it will take per shipment, all these things are calculable and apply to food and medicine

and building materials. Education needs shelter, and schools will be built where they are needed. We can do these things on a “small scale”. We know how to do it. We do this in our Military. Now, we must think Worldwide and ramp it up. This is where AI can become a hero!

Ultimately, we do live in a “Small World”. As Bucky Fuller once put it, we are living together on “Spaceship Earth.”

We glide through the dark in the company of stars, our orbit warmed by the sun and encouraging life.

We are connected by visible and invisible strands, tracks and roads. A thread is plucked somewhere and reverberates Worldwide. Our fates depend on each other.

Why a Parallel Currency?

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 17:53:42 GMT

Money is fluid, it has perceived value, and can be manipulated subjectively toward stupid stuff or toward important stuff.

With a separate parallel currency it would be possible to buy basic human needs, Worldwide. The closed loop of a parallel currency dedicated to providing basic human needs can produce whatever amount of money necessary to fulfill human needs, (food, shelter, education and healthcare). This money will circulate generally after its initial use but when it reaches a bank it is destroyed. It cannot be invested or saved. It will not create inflation. Savings will also be possible for taxpayers, because most social services will no longer need to be paid through taxes. The currency that is presently used in each country will continue to function as usual, toward profit making and investment. The result is two currencies functioning simultaneously, in parallel. The intent is to treat Human Needs as essential, as a Right. And to be able to afford them.

Why is this necessary?

Present economic functioning emphasizes profit making, competition and investment. This has served humanity by creating the industry and wealth that made nations prosperous. But now, the aggregation of value (money) in the hands of a very few has evolved creating a small middle class and large percentage of people living paycheck to paycheck or in poverty. This is the situation that we experience presently in the USA. It is also evident in most developed countries worldwide.

This evolution of unequal societies through the present functioning of the economy worldwide is putting pressure on the majority of Human populations, resulting in wars, migrations, stress, populist uprisings, anger and frustration.

It is important to realize that economics is a belief system like religion. Not everyone wants to be a Christian, or a Muslim or a Hindu or sometimes, be part of any religion. But they can, if they want, choose a religion from many different ones because not everyone is served emotionally and spiritually by the same religious philosophy. So religions have over many, many years split into various forms to accommodate most World populations. This process has not yet been accomplished with World Economics.

We all have to participate in the way economics has evolved from beginnings designed to benefit only royalty and bankers to the present economic inequality. As participants in the “Economic Belief System” we need to have alternatives. There are no other choices for people to make, like in religion, no different kind of economy available or a way of opting out. No other options than the formula of competition and profit making are available. The result of this economic formula over time is to send value into the hands of a few and make the rest of the population pay for their lifestyle. We are seeing this now all over the World. And we are experiencing the stresses that unequal societies bring, poverty, migrations, wars, political upheaval, confused populist movements, dictatorships, etc.

Our proposal of a Worldwide Parallel Currency is a way to offer choice within the World Economic System. A way out of poverty, a way toward more equal societies, a way for everyone to access basic food, shelter, education and healthcare as a birthright. A separate parallel currency can provide this option leaving existing currencies to their present functions but resulting in less harm to people and nature.

In other blogs I have addressed how the parallel currency can be organized to function efficiently.

Measuring Success Beyond Money: A New Way to Define Wealth

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 20:24:04 GMT

Introduction: Rethinking the Meaning of Wealth

In traditional economic systems, success is measured primarily by Gross Domestic Product ( GDP ), stock market performance, and financial wealth. These indicators focus on money flow and profit generation but often fail to reflect the true well-being of people and the environment. At Renew the Earth, we believe that an economy should not only be about financial transactions but also about human welfare, sustainability, and equitable resource distribution. This article explores why our current measurement of success is flawed and presents a new framework for defining wealth in a way that serves both people and the planet: a parallel currency, which is one currency that provides basic needs to all humanity and runs next to all other existing currencies.

The Problem with Traditional Economic Metrics

Most nations rely on GDP as the primary measure of economic success. While GDP accounts for the total value of goods and services produced, it does not consider the quality of life of citizens . A nation can have a high GDP but still struggle with poverty, environmental degradation, and inequality .

Additionally, stock market performance is often used as an indicator of economic health. However, rising stock values do not necessarily mean that everyday people are benefiting . Corporate profits can grow while wages stagnate, job security declines, and essential services become unaffordable.

Some key flaws in traditional economic measures include:

Ignoring Social Well-being – GDP does not account for income inequality, job satisfaction, or access to essential services like healthcare and education.
Environmental Damage is a Net Positive – Activities that harm the environment, like deforestation and pollution, can actually increase GDP because they generate financial transactions.
Does Not Reflect Economic Stability – A country can have a high GDP while its citizens experience financial insecurity and rising debt.

Clearly, measuring success solely through financial indicators is an incomplete and misleading approach.

A New Model: Human Renewable Energy Measurement (HREM)

At Renew the Earth, we propose a Human Renewable Energy Measurement ( HREM ) as an alternative way to assess economic success. This system evaluates the economy based on human well-being, sustainability, and resource equity rather than just financial transactions.

Some key components of HREM include:

Access to Basic Needs – Every economy should prioritize food, shelter, education, and healthcare as essential benchmarks for success.
Sustainability Metrics – Measuring environmental health by tracking carbon emissions, biodiversity, and renewable energy use instead of valuing industries that cause harm.
Wealth Distribution – Evaluating how evenly resources are distributed instead of just calculating total national income.
Time & Labor Value – Recognizing the importance of human effort, caregiving, and volunteer work in economic assessments.

This approach shifts the focus from monetary accumulation to human and environmental prosperity.

How a Parallel Currency Can Support a New Wealth Model

In order to implement HREM, the global economy must adopt alternative financial models that prioritize essential human needs. This is where a parallel currency, like Energy Currency, comes into play.

Unlike traditional money, Energy Currency is not hoarded or used for speculation. It is designed to fulfill real needs like housing, food, and medical care. Once it has been used for its purpose, it is removed from circulation to prevent inflation and ensure fair access.

Humanity and nature as a whole will benefit if basic needs are met worldwide, and the way to pay for it is with a worldwide parallel currency that is destroyed when it gets to a bank, unable to create inflation or be invested. It is one worldwide parallel currency running beside the many existing currencies that continue doing what they have always done.

By combining HREM with an alternative currency system, we can build an economic model that:

Ensures that no one is left behind in economic progress.
Reduces environmental destruction by discouraging excessive consumption.
Encourages local and community-based economic systems instead of global financial monopolies.

This type of system would redefine success as the ability of a society to sustain itself while improving quality of life for all people—not just those at the top.

The Future of Wealth: A People-First Economy

The future of economic measurement must focus on the well-being of individuals and the planet rather than just monetary transactions. Renew the Earth is committed to challenging outdated economic models and promoting a system that truly values human energy, resource sustainability, and social equity.

By moving away from GDP-centered economics and toward a parallel currency model, we can work to create a world where wealth is defined not by financial accumulation but by human prosperity and ecological balance.

Join us in rethinking the way we measure economic success. Together, we can build a more just, sustainable, and inclusive future.

Breaking the Cycle: Why Market Economics Alone Cannot Save Democracy

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 22:27:33 GMT

Balancing Markets to Protect Democracy

Market economies have driven progress and innovation for centuries, but they also have inherent flaws that, if left unchecked, can erode democratic values. At Renew the Earth, we advocate for a supplemental system—a parallel currency focused on fulfilling basic human needs like food, shelter, education, and healthcare. By addressing the shortcomings of market capitalism, this approach could safeguard democracy and ensure a more equitable future.

The Problem with Market Economics Alone

Market economies excel at moving money efficiently but fail to distribute quality of life equally. This imbalance creates a cycle where the wealthy accumulate resources while the majority struggle to meet basic needs. Over time, this disparity concentrates power in the hands of a few , enabling them to influence governments and policy to serve their own interests.

Inflation further exacerbates this issue. Wealthy individuals often invest their money in speculative markets or hold it in ways that do not benefit the larger economy, driving up costs for everyone else. The result? A system that prioritizes profits over people , undermining democratic principles of equality and fairness.

How Economic Disparity Undermines Democracy

When economic systems fail to meet the needs of the majority, social unrest and political instability follow . People lose trust in democratic institutions when they feel excluded from the benefits of economic growth. This erosion of trust paves the way for authoritarian regimes, which promise order but often deliver oppression.

Moreover, concentrated wealth allows a small minority to manipulate public discourse through propaganda and lobbying. This not only skews policy in their favor but also silences dissenting voices, further weakening democratic ideals.

The Case for a Parallel Currency

At Renew the Earth, we propose a solution: a parallel currency designed to meet basic human needs. Unlike traditional money, which often flows into speculative ventures, this currency would be tied directly to tangible goods and services essential for survival. By doing so, it would:

Reduce Economic Inequality: A parallel currency ensures that everyone has access to essentials like food and healthcare, leveling the playing field and fostering social stability.
Support Democratic Values: By prioritizing basic needs, this system reduces the economic anxiety that drives people toward authoritarian solutions.
Promote Sustainability: Linking currency to human energy and natural resources encourages environmentally conscious decisions, protecting the planet for future generations.

How It Works

This parallel currency, which we call Energy Currency, would operate alongside traditional monetary systems. It would be used exclusively for basic needs and would be destroyed upon reaching a bank, preventing inflation. By separating essential goods and services from the profit-driven marketplace, Energy Currency ensures that every individual has access to the resources they need to thrive.

A Path Forward

Implementing a parallel currency requires global cooperation and a shift in perspective. Governments, businesses, and individuals must recognize that market economics alone cannot guarantee a fair and just society. By embracing complementary systems like Energy Currency, we can create a more balanced economy that serves both people and the planet.

At Renew the Earth, we believe that change starts with conversation. By educating communities and fostering dialogue about the benefits of parallel currencies, we aim to build a coalition of change-makers committed to protecting democracy and ensuring a sustainable future.

Join the Movement

The time for action is now. As economic disparities grow, innovative solutions like Energy Currency offer a way to break the cycle of inequality and restore balance. Join Renew the Earth in our mission to create a fairer, more sustainable world. Together, we can redefine what it means to thrive as a global community.

Contact us today to learn more about our initiatives and how you can get involved. Let us work together to ensure that democracy and equality prevail.

Energy Currency: Bridging the Gap Between Economic Justice and Environmental Sustainability

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 01:17:09 GMT

Overcoming Inequality

Economic inequality and environmental degradation are two interconnected global crises. As wealth becomes increasingly concentrated among a small minority, millions of people struggle to access basic needs such as food, shelter, healthcare, and education. Simultaneously, the planet faces unprecedented challenges, from climate change to biodiversity loss, largely driven by the overexploitation of resources for profit. At Renew the Earth, we believe in a transformative solution: the introduction of an Energy Currency—a parallel economic system designed to prioritize human and environmental well-being.

The Limitations of Traditional Economic Systems

Modern market economies , while efficient in driving profits, often fail to distribute resources equitably . Wealth generated through financial speculation rarely circulates back into the real economy to benefit communities. Instead, it exacerbates inequality, leaving many without access to essential services.

Moreover, the focus on continuous growth comes at the expense of the planet’s health. Unsustainable practices—such as deforestation, pollution, and overuse of natural resources—accelerate climate change and threaten the survival of countless species, including our own. Without intervention, these dual crises will only worsen, pushing societies toward economic instability and environmental collapse.

What Is Energy Currency?

Energy Currency is a revolutionary concept designed to complement traditional money by addressing its inherent flaws. This parallel system derives its value from human labor and natural resources, ensuring that the focus remains on fulfilling basic human needs rather than generating profit.

Unlike conventional currencies, Energy Currency is:

Non-hoardable: It cannot be stockpiled or used for speculative investments .
Purpose-driven: Its sole function is to fund essentials such as food, housing, education, healthcare, and sustainable infrastructure.
Inflation-proof: Once the currency completes its purpose, it disappears, ensuring that it doesn’t inflate the economy or create financial bubbles.

By integrating Energy Currency into global systems, we can address inequalities while encouraging sustainable resource use.

Energy Currency as a Tool for Sustainability

The dual focus on economic and environmental well-being sets Energy Currency apart from traditional systems. Here’s how it promotes sustainability:

Aligning Economics with Ecology

Energy Currency ties economic value directly to tangible, renewable resources and human energy, fostering sustainable practices. For instance, communities could allocate currency to renewable energy projects, creating a cycle where ecological preservation directly benefits local economies.

Supporting Local Solutions

One of the most powerful aspects of Energy Currency is its ability to empower communities. By prioritizing funding for localized food systems, clean water initiatives, and green infrastructure, it ensures that every region can meet its unique needs sustainably.

Global Collaboration for a Resilient Future

Because Energy Currency is designed to address universal human needs, it creates opportunities for international cooperation. From mitigating climate change to reducing poverty, this parallel system can unite nations in their efforts to build a sustainable global economy.

Practical Applications and Benefits

Adopting Energy Currency could transform how we address today’s challenges:

1. Ending Economic Inequality

By guaranteeing access to essential services for all, Energy Currency ensures that no one is left behind. It directly addresses systemic poverty by redistributing value to where it is needed most.

2. Fostering Innovation

When communities no longer have to struggle for basic survival, they can focus on innovation, education, and long-term development. Energy Currency provides the resources necessary to unlock human potential.

3. Preserving Natural Resources

Because this currency is tied to ecological health, it incentivizes sustainable resource management. Communities and businesses are encouraged to invest in renewable energy, biodiversity conservation, and other initiatives that protect the planet for future generations.

How You Can Get Involved

At Renew the Earth, we are committed to raising awareness about the transformative potential of Energy Currency. Whether through our advocacy, educational programs, or documentary Finding the Money, we aim to inspire action at every level—individual, community, and governmental.

Here are a few ways to join our mission:

Watch and Share Our Documentary

The Finding the Money film is now available worldwide on Vimeo, with translations in 11 languages. Share it with your network to spread the word about the importance of sustainable economics.

Participate in Local Initiatives

From community gardens to renewable energy projects, small actions can lead to significant change. Use our resources to find or start a project in your area.

Advocate for Change

Engage with policymakers and organizations to support the adoption of parallel currencies and sustainable economic models. Your voice matters in creating a fairer and greener future.

Facilitate Change

Energy Currency represents a bold step toward addressing the systemic failures of traditional economic systems. By valuing human contributions and protecting natural resources, it has the potential to create a world where everyone can thrive. At Renew the Earth, we believe that this vision is not just possible—it’s necessary.

Join us in building a sustainable future. Together, we can redefine what it means to live in harmony with one another and the planet.

What Game Theory Teaches Us About Sustainability and Economics

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 18:47:55 GMT

Striving for a Balanced Economic System

Game Theory , developed in part by economist and mathematician John Nash , explores how individuals make decisions in strategic situations where their choices affect, and are affected by, the actions of others. Initially applied in economics, diplomacy, and competitive settings, Game Theory also offers profound insights into building balanced and sustainable economic systems. By promoting diversity, resource-sharing, and cooperation, Game Theory can reshape our approach to sustainability, creating economies that prioritize survival, resilience, and long-term well-being for all.

The Basics of Game Theory and Nash Equilibrium
At the heart of Game Theory is the Nash Equilibrium , a concept where no player can improve their outcome by unilaterally changing their strategy if others maintain theirs. In simpler terms, it’s a stable state where everyone makes the best decisions possible given the choices of others. However, in traditional economic systems, Nash Equilibria often leads to outcomes that favor competition over cooperation, with the primary focus on profit maximization rather than sustainability. This competitive focus fuels an imbalance in resource allocation, often disregarding the long-term needs of communities and ecosystems.

Shifting from Profit-Driven Choices to Survival-Driven Decisions
One of the key lessons Game Theory offers for sustainability is the idea of equilibrium, where multiple players cooperate to achieve shared benefits. Applying this principle to economic systems means moving from profit-driven choices to survival-focused strategies. In a profit-focused system, businesses, individuals, and nations often act in ways that ensure their own short-term gains, leading to overconsumption, resource depletion, and environmental degradation. In contrast, a survival-focused approach, such as physical economics , prioritizes the long-term viability of essential resources, fostering resilience and adaptability.

The concept of cooperative strategies within Game Theory suggests that players who share resources and support each other’s survival can achieve better outcomes in the long run. For example, when industries within an economy collaborate to share sustainable practices or exchange resources, they create a resilient system where all parties benefit. This approach challenges traditional zero-sum thinking and promotes positive-sum outcomes where each participant contributes to a stable, healthy environment that supports everyone’s long-term well-being.

Embracing Diverse Resources and Economic Choices for Resilience
One principle within Game Theory that applies well to sustainable economies is the emphasis on diverse strategies. In nature, diversity ensures resilience; ecosystems thrive when there is a balance among various species, each contributing uniquely to the whole. Similarly, in sustainable economics, diversity in resources, energy sources, and methods of meeting basic needs helps buffer societies against shocks, such as economic downturns or resource shortages.

Incorporating diversity into economic systems can prevent vulnerabilities that arise from monocultures or single-resource dependence. For instance, economies that rely on a single crop or fuel source are more susceptible to crises if that resource becomes scarce or if environmental conditions shift. By diversifying our resources—such as embracing renewable energy sources alongside traditional ones—we reduce dependency and increase the adaptability of our economy.

Cooperative Strategies to Combat Resource Scarcity and Climate Challenges
A common Game Theory model is the “ Prisoner’s Dilemma ,” where two players must decide between cooperation and self-interest. When applied to sustainability, this model highlights the tragedy of the commons, where individuals acting in their self-interest deplete shared resources to everyone’s detriment. Addressing climate change and resource scarcity requires us to adopt cooperative strategies, ensuring that all stakeholders work together to protect common resources.

For instance, by applying a cooperative approach to fisheries or forest conservation, industries and governments can jointly regulate resource usage. This cooperative strategy aligns with the HREM (Human Renewable Energy Measure) model developed by Jeff Beller and Susan Caumont, which emphasizes calculating economic value based on sustainable human needs. HREM promotes a unified measurement that values resources in terms of human energy and ecological impact, encouraging stakeholders to view resources as vital to collective survival rather than individual profit.

Toward a New Economic Equilibrium: Sustainable Growth Through HREM
The HREM model embodies many Game Theory concepts by advocating for an economy rooted in shared survival rather than unrestrained competition. This model presents an alternative form of equilibrium—one where sustainability is the foundation, and resources are allocated to support basic human needs and environmental health.

Through HREM, we can design an economic system that allocates energy resources based on sustainable living rather than excess. By measuring economic value in terms of human energy and ecological sustainability, HREM allows us to see the true costs of consumption and encourages decision-making that supports everyone’s survival. This shift creates an economy where cooperation replaces competition, and survival becomes a shared goal.

Building a Balanced Future with Game Theory
Game Theory and the HREM model inspire a new approach to economics, one where diverse strategies, shared resources, and cooperative action take precedence. When applied to sustainability, Game Theory reminds us that individual choices impact the collective and that cooperation is essential for achieving long-term stability.

By aligning economic systems with these principles, we can build a world where growth and sustainability coexist—an equilibrium that prioritizes resilience, human well-being, and environmental health.

Women and Economics

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 16:18:46 GMT

Women and Economics

If economics does not work for everybody, you end up in a dictatorship. Dignified survival of Humanity and Natural biodiversity needs protection from market economics. This does not mean the elimination of market economies, which have served us for centuries. But it does make necessary an addition. The addition of a parallel currency that fulfills basic human needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare. Human labor and natural resources combine to make the real value that is behind money value. Without human labor and natural resources there is no market place.

How does market economics end up ultimately “eating” Democracies?

Market economies do not transfer quality of life equally - and in most cases, not at all. Market

capitalism is very efficient at moving money, unevenly.

To understand this, you will need to understand what causes inflation. The main driver of inflation is; People making money from Money. “Their” money does not return to the

marketplace to be used to purchase schools, hospitals, housing, food or

anything useful to the rest of the population. It sits in a bank and collects

interest or is used to speculate (gamble) on stocks. The wealthy make fortunes

and the rest of us have nothing or very little to invest.

Individuals with great fortunes (a small minority) gain access to human minds and labor and natural resources for their own use. Using their money to make more money. Importantly, they can also buy propaganda and political power. The result is a handful of individuals

controlling World Governments. And for the most part, they are not

humanitarians, they are dictators protecting their power. They know that money

buys power and power can force their agenda and make more money for themselves.

A self-reinforcing cycle.

Protection for Humanity and Nature with a parallel currency that provides food, shelter, education and healthcare will make it possible for freedom of speech and Democracies to

survive

Understanding Physical Economics: A Path to Sustainability and Equity

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 07:10:58 GMT

Innovation Driving Transformation

In a world dominated by traditional economics, prioritizing profit and market-driven values often overlooks the essential human needs for survival and equity. Physical Economics , a forward-thinking alternative championed by organizations like Renew the Earth, proposes a transformative approach—one that aims to address these fundamental needs while aligning with sustainable and renewable resources. But what exactly is Physical Economics, and how can it foster a more balanced, equitable world?

What is Physical Economics?
Physical Economics is rooted in the concept that the value of an economy should not be based solely on currency and profits . Instead, it should begin with the quantification of energy units required for human survival. By understanding our energy needs—measured in units like calories, BTUs, or megajoules—Physical Economics creates a baseline from which the necessary resources for life can be allocated. This energy-based valuation model is proposed to form the Human Renewable Energy Measure ( HREM ), which Renew the Earth advocates as a starting point to ensure the well-being of every individual.

Shifting the Foundation of Value
In traditional economics, market value is largely subjective and influenced by fluctuating demands and profits, often benefiting the wealthy while leaving others in need. Physical Economics reimagines this system by creating a stable and universal foundation of value rooted in energy needs. With HREM as a central component, individuals can access basic life essentials such as food, shelter, education, and healthcare, ensuring that the economy itself supports human life rather than undermining it.

The Role of Renewable Energy
Central to Physical Economics is a reliance on renewable energy sources, which align with sustainability goals and lessen environmental harm. Utilizing renewable energy for human essentials reduces reliance on finite resources, fostering an economy that can support future generations without depleting the planet’s resources. This shift not only promotes a more stable economy but also supports the earth’s ecological balance by reducing carbon emissions and minimizing waste.

A Path Toward Global Equity

One of the most profound impacts Physical Economics could have is addressing global inequality. By providing a baseline of resources required for survival, the model can help reduce poverty, lessen dependence on exploitative labor, and empower marginalized communities. With a focus on basic human rights, Physical Economics envisions a world where each person has access to the essentials without the limitations imposed by traditional economic barriers.

Physical Economics and the Future

As the world faces critical challenges, from climate change to social inequality, Physical Economics provides a hopeful roadmap. By redefining value based on renewable energy and human essentials, this model encourages a sustainable future where economic systems protect and uplift everyone.

Physical Economics offers a vision of what the world could look like if equity, sustainability, and human well-being became the focal points of economic policy. Renew the Earth’s advocacy for this innovative approach underscores the importance of rethinking economics to serve humanity and the planet, creating a stable and hopeful future for generations to come.

A New Way Forward: The Human Renewable Energy Measure

Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:45:11 GMT

A Novel Approach

As we move through an era where economics dictates much of our world’s functioning, we are increasingly faced with the challenges posed by its current framework. Traditional economics, which measures value primarily in terms of profit, has become a driving force behind many of the social and environmental issues we see today. It is time for a change—one that prioritizes human life, well-being, and the health of our planet. Renew The Earth, a non-profit organization led by renewable energy experts, advocates for a solution to these problems: Physical Economics , anchored by the Human Renewable Energy Measure (HREM).

Understanding the Problem
The global economic system is deeply flawed. As the great folk musician Woody Guthrie once said, “The gamblin’ man is rich, and the working man is poor.” His words reflect a system that is designed to reward wealth and power, often leaving the majority of people struggling to meet their basic needs. In its current form, economics converts human energy and natural resources into profit, often at the expense of human life and the environment. It fails to take responsibility for the damage it creates.

Renew The Earth proposes that we rethink the way we measure value, starting with human survival itself. Instead of valuing work and resources solely through fluctuating currencies and profit-driven motives, Physical Economics introduces the idea of measuring value in terms of energy units. This is the basis of the Human Renewable Energy Measure (HREM)—an objective, unmanipulated standard that represents the energy required to meet basic human physical needs.

What Is the HREM?
At its core, the HREM seeks to ensure that every person on Earth has access to the basic necessities of life—food, shelter, and education—by using energy as a measurable unit. These energy units would then form the starting point of value, or “0,” within the economic system, providing a more stable and humane way of addressing human needs.

The HREM represents a shift in how we understand work and survival. Under this system, basic needs could be met with as little as one hour a day or one day a week of work. After fulfilling these needs, people would be free to pursue other activities in the marketplace or participate in non-monetary activities that enhance their lives.

How Does It Work?
The concept of measuring survival in energy units is supported by scientific research. Physicist Dr. David Borton, a collaborator on the HREM concept, estimates that five hours of human work energy is equivalent to 2 megajoules. These energy units can then be converted into other expressions, such as calories or BTUs , making it possible to calculate how much energy is needed to sustain human life. By applying this measurement system, we can determine how much work is necessary to meet basic human needs and distribute resources accordingly.

This shift in perspective allows for a new definition of work—one that more closely mirrors how Nature operates. As described by biologist E.O. Wilson, diversity in ecosystems is essential to maintaining equilibrium. Similarly, an expanded definition of work in the economic system would promote diversity, giving individuals more choices and freedom in how they contribute to society.

The Impact of Physical Economics
In its current form, economics often forces individuals into limited choices, creating vulnerable populations with fewer skills to cope with change. This is akin to the dangers of monocropping in agriculture , where a lack of diversity leaves crops more susceptible to disease and pests. The same holds true for people within the economic system. By reducing the emphasis on profit and increasing focus on human survival, the HREM would foster a more resilient and adaptable society.

The concept of Game Theory , as developed by economist and physicist John Nash, recognizes that survival is the ultimate motivator. People will always strive to strike a bargain to secure their lives and the lives of their families. However, the current profit-driven system diminishes diversity and limits these choices. The HREM aims to restore a balance by giving individuals more control over their survival and well-being, freeing them from the pressures of purely profit-based economics.

A New Hope for the Future
The time has come for us to rethink the economic systems that govern our world. As we face challenges like climate change, poverty, and inequality, the need for a system that prioritizes human life and the health of the planet has never been greater. The HREM, as proposed by Renew The Earth, offers a visionary path forward—one where energy, not profit, is the basis for value.

By measuring human survival needs in energy units, the HREM provides a fair and transparent way to distribute resources, meet basic needs, and create a more equitable society. With the support of experts like Jeff Beller, Susan Caumont, and Dr. David Borton, Renew The Earth is paving the way for a new understanding of economics—one that protects life and ensures a sustainable future for generations to come.

If you are passionate about creating a world where economics serves humanity rather than harms it, we invite you to explore the HREM and learn more about how you can get involved. Together, we can build a brighter future for all.

The End of Language?

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 15:53:42 GMT

(A new word for an old prejudice)

We have been approaching this moment for many years. Advertising, ( a gentle word for propaganda and now enhanced by Artificial Intelligence), has been a part of our lives from infancy and for the lives of generations. Starting with the innocence of radio, it's music, narrated stories and news, then television and film with ads interrupting regularly and maddeningly, finally the Internet with AI and infinite potential for influence. We have learned to tolerate lies and ignore misinformation in the form of someone trying to sell us something. But now there's a difference. Artificial technology is being applied to information that is crucial for us to understand, like economics, politics and science. We can't even believe what we see in photos and videos.

It has become accepted behavior among influential people and businesses to lie; to lie for advantage; and now a photo and a video can lie too. So well that the artist is the only person who can tell the difference. Companies, politicians, banks, doctors, news outlets, lawyers, on and on are conning us. We are being “sold” a storyline,(often a lot of money has been spent to create the story), a way of thinking to replace our own, to replace our own freedom of thought and speech.

This is not new, but the intensity is new. Spurred on by our aggressive marketplace and slicker less discernible techniques. Modern mass internet communication has made information manipulation the most powerful social control tool in history, except war and starvation. In the meantime language is loosing its meaning. Memes, false flags, conspiracy theories confuse and manipulate information. Sometimes these techniques are used to get attention, hits on a website, which can be turned into money. But most ominously and dangerously they are used to persuade. To persuade huge populations to “join with me “because “the sky is falling” and I am your oracle, your savior. All you have to do is leave your common sense behind along with science and your lived experience.

Economism

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 23:11:50 GMT

Examining, “Economism”.

( A new word for an old prejudice )

We all know what racism, sexism, nationalism, ageism, (to name a few) are, but what about “Economism”?

Prejudice based on income. Historically, it has been referred to as “the class system” and has been practiced in all nations of the World to varying degrees. We are assured, in our constitutions and religions, that we are created, born, equal. Anyone who has held a baby or watched very young children at play can witness our equality, vast potential and undiluted humanity. We are all equal at the opening of life and that feeling of equality and potential we never forget. We carry it through our lives, indelible.

What happens to this feeling? Why is it enhanced in some and suppressed in others as time passes?

The environmental and hereditary influences are complex and continue to be studied by experts. (I refer you to the YouTube video “Zeitgeist Moving Forward”, that is posted at the end of this website.) But one influence that everyone contends with and has an oversized and decisive impact, way before a child is aware of it, is economics. Their parents have either benefited or not from their economic status to various degrees. They have been able to provide basic substance or more or less. All these levels provide challenges and hardships but more economic advantage generally makes access to money and influential contacts and quick recovery possible. The more economically disadvantaged a person is, recovery from setbacks and hardships is more difficult and less complete. “Pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” is impossible, just try it, and was meant as a dismissive joke, (or at the very least, a form of magical thinking).

Equality is considered favorable by a country when it is young and training its population for skills that provide social necessities like food, roads, vehicles, homes, education, healthcare, etc. The American education system beginning in the 18th century with “common schools”, students of all ages with one teacher in one room, was responsible for 80 percent literacy in males and 50 percent literacy in females by the end of the Colonial era. By 1900 the United States had begun to educate for free at the secondary level with the effect of boosting income for most people and lowering inequality. Setting up the US to become the richest nation in the World. But another result of public education was that the small population with historic privilege who had sent their children overseas for education or hired tutors were not the only ones who could go to college. More college graduates meant that they were no longer an elite group. The wage premium they had earned was spread among a larger population.

A secure base. How do we create it?

With a secure economic base designed so that everyone can access basic needs, it becomes possible to build a more economically equal society. Progress towards economic equality is desirable because most indicators of social well-being and productivity are influenced greatly by economic standing. Also, this would result in fewer wars, less migration, less starvation, healthier populations, more educated and innovative populations, creating greater equality and happiness. A parallel currency, Energy Currency, dedicated to only basic needs; food, shelter, education and healthcare, is a secure economic base from which to pay for and distribute these needs, without creating inflation,

(a detailed description of the parallel, Energy Currency, can be found in previous blogs).

Energy Currency would function in harmony with and parallel to existing market economies, humanizing the “Economic Belief System” of Capitalism and market competition. Every person, from birth, could use the benefits of the parallel currency when needed, at any point in their lives, while simultaneously taking advantage of existing market currency to improve their material holdings and lifestyle through their own work efforts.

This is not a give away of a set sum of money, like UBI (Universal Basic Income), that only results in short term stimulation of the existing market economy. Energy Currency is lifetime access to basic human needs; every human's right.

Humanity began its journey cooperating; protecting and lifting each other. This resulted in survival, thousands of years ago, of small scattered and vulnerable human populations that has resulted in around 800 billion people living Worldwide today. During these many thousands of years the present debilitating symptoms of modern market economies have been in effect for a fraction. We know better and have done better. We now have the opportunity to make, together, an inspired leap into a future of human equality.

Economic Discrimination

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 19:21:21 GMT

When truth becomes the casualty, people need to stand up for what they want.

There is nothing wrong with our economic system, except that there is no defined and protected value placed on Humanity and Nature, making them easy targets for exploitation. What we are encouraged to identify as racial discrimination is simply economic discrimination, (made possible because human value and values assigned to nature are subjective and never constant). Economic discrimination is Worldwide, hiding like a wolf in sheep's clothing, limiting the conversation to them vs us, rich vs poor, my color vs yours, my lifestyle vs yours, my country vs yours. The real conversation should be much more insightful. We are all being influenced and formed by the economics that has evolved to this present age. A kind of bullying is taking advantage of the adverse effects of modern economic stresses, limiting our understanding. These bullys protect their elite status by asserting that social and economic stresses can all be traced to racism and nationalism. Making whole groups and countries into scapegoats for our frustrations and anger. We are all blended now and a part of the same conversations, thanks to the internet. There is no “them or us”. Division is enforced with lies, an old trick that distracts and confuses. It is important to keep in mind amidst all the talk, that the most powerful force affecting and influencing modern life is economics and economic discrimination keeps us apart.

What are we going to do about it? It doesn't take much convincing to persuade people that we are creatures of the money system and its advantages and disadvantages. Let's consider what money can buy: education, food, shelter, healthcare, power, influential jobs, etc. Then consider, lack of money: it causes starvation, no shelter, no healthcare, or educational opportunities, no living wage jobs. Economic discrimination is the most powerful kind of discrimination,(made possible through withholding the means to live), is much more effective than racial discrimination which comes after economic discrimination has done its work, weakening and enslaving whole masses of society.

How did we get here? What are we going to do about it? First, we need a general understanding about what money is. We are not meant to be its slaves, it is meant to be our slave, a way to efficiently exchange goods and services, not a tool for bullies to consolidate power and control populations. Racism and nationalism are the little brothers of economic discrimination. They are symptoms that arise from economic inequality.

A short history of money. Approx 1,173 years ago people were considering ideas of wealth and whether it should be held privately or shared… The refinement of those decisions, that we live with now, have evolved into a form of Worldwide Capitalism, which can be defined as industrial capitalism, (the development of the factory system of manufacturing and division of labor). This kind of money distribution system has created the very rich and the very poor and the middle class has slowly been eroding away. Multitudes are cut off from acquiring the most basic needs of survival.

What is money? It is a shared belief system that assigns value, subjectively.

It can be modified and added on to, as it has been historically. The strict division created by capitalism has been forming for more than 100 years. This is not a long time but it has influenced the lives of almost two generations. The institutional knowledge of times before has been lost to the general public and remains alive only for historians and in history books. The main thing to understand is that money systems evolve. There have been different systems before and there will be different systems in the future.

How do we want the money system of the future to function? What do we want its impact to look like? What is missing from the present economics? We can get answers by going back to what is not protected in the present dominant economic system, arguably the most important things, Humanity and Nature. A minority of countries that did include protections for people and nature in their societal/economic structure are still benefiting. But they cannot help being influenced and changed by the dominant economics.

How do we protect humanity and nature from economic exploitation? This can be done by making sure everyone has access to the basic needs that sustain life, from birth to death. The human possession of basic needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare must be the base equivalency of human value within economics. When the basic needs of dignified survival are met, nature benefits also. Exploitation of nature caused by human desperation will eventually end.

How do we proceed? We don't need to get rid of everything that we have already developed. We need to add to what we have and that addition will help the present system evolve. A parallel currency can be added to the existing currencies, Worldwide. A currency dedicated only to basic needs. It cannot be used for anything else and this currency cannot be saved or invested and is destroyed when it reaches a bank. I have described this parallel currency, (often referred to as Energy Currency), in detail in other blogs and will not go into it here. (Link to the blog, Why Energy Currency?)

We are a human collective and can be prophets of a future economic system. Governments will not propose a parallel currency for basic needs. They cannot innovate but they can respond. Each of us is an agent of change. Our conversations with each other can influence not only other individuals but governments. We are the ones that have the potential of applying our collective intelligence to creating a form of economics that makes possible new communities of living, preservation of human dignity and protection of nature.

Why Do We Work?

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 11:13:36 GMT

The easiest answer would be, we need to work so that we can make money to survive. But, this answer is the result of modern economics. We will do things, we will work, whether we are paid or not. Work is a result and extension of our necessity, curiosity and identity. It can be mental work or physical work. We know each other by what we do. " You will know them by their works."

Beyond " the pursuit of happiness."

In order to pursue happiness effectively a person must solve the necessity of basic needs: food, shelter, education and healthcare. To accomplish this within the societal agreements of our present involves a pact with "for profit" economics. Economics plays a most profound part in every person's life. We cannot make any move without considering, "how much will it cost?"

In the United States we have honed the functions of a Capitalist Economy to their finest edge, warts and all. We have all benefited from "free" markets, but the long term effect is that they enrich only a few; who for many years after the great depression voluntarily or involuntarily (because of an inspired tax structure) considered their workers and enhanced their lives with living wages and healthcare. That all ended with the Ronald Reagan administration. Breaking the Unions, introducing "trickle down economics" and changing the tax structure from very high taxes to the low 30's, stopped the faint motivation that companies had to consider the welfare of workers. Profit became the foremost concern. Consideration of the worker was labeled "socialism" defined as communist fascism, and as a result a very bad word.

So, what do we have now that everything has been swept aside as unimportant, except pursuit of profit at all costs? Worldwide, people are electing dictators. They are looking for change. Unfortunately they will not get the relief from pressures they are feeling in this way. For many, money has become the "root of all happiness," the only way to balance their aspirations. A closer look reveals that change in economic practices is the way to better living.

T here is an urgent need to define the value of Humanity. Individual Human works in cooperation make economics possible, make society possible. We are of intrinsic value. For that reason our Human value must be equivalent to the reception of Human Basic Needs Worldwide; food, shelter, education and healthcare. Only a healthy, educated World population can meet the challenges of the future. As has been described in previous letters, Energy Currency, a parallel currency, can pay for all basic needs without inflation or taxes. The result will be Human autonomy, which will propel us all into a future of enhanced stability, curiosity and peace.

Finally, I come to our initial concept, the Human Energy Renewable Measure, HREM. What is it? It is the energy measurement that has been left out of the economic system. It measures input of Human Energy. Energy that is just as important as fossil fuels or other renewable energies that propel economies and societies. Establishment of an HREM measurement will function as a way of understanding and calculating the financing of Energy Currency.

D irectors Letter, 11/5/23

Susan Caumont

" The laissez-faire market- centered approach confuses ends and means. Rather than being a source of dignity, work becomes merely a means of production; profit turns into a goal rather than a means of achieving greater goods. From here we can end up subscribing to the tragically mistaken belief that whatever is good for the market is good for society."

Pope Francis, "Let Us Dream, the path to a better future" 2020

The Value of Human Energy

Tue, 07 Nov 2023 21:16:13 GMT

The Value of Human Energy

Why is the value of Human Energy (mental and physical) left up to subjective economic measures?

A price can be put on anything, and values fluctuate constantly and subjectively. Why is the value of Human Energy (mental and physical), on which all economies depend, not fixed to things of real and constant necessity to us all? The price for Human Energy fluctuates; country to country, person to person. This has been the norm for thousands of years. And this norm has been the source of most of the hardships Humans suffered in the past and suffer presently.

Starting with slavery and continuing to our modern "minimum wage", Humanity has been conned by Subjective Economic Valuation, (the Worldwide economic belief system, with more believers than most popular religions.) Dignified Human survival and preservation of the natural living world and resources are not protected, they are brokered. The cruel hoax of "survival of the fittest" has been used to brainwash society since Darwin. (He did not intend this emphasis in his works. He observed, "survival through cooperation".) Our modern meme is, "those who don't make it economically, don't deserve to live." Today we are beginning to understand that evolution is much more complex than "survival of the fittest" and that it begins at a cellular/chemical level. And we understand the most important part of being alive is not, "making a living" within our World Economics.

By not equating Human Energy efforts (physical and mental) within society to the realities of survival; food, shelter, education and healthcare, our World Economic System is literally throwing us to the lions. To quote Richard Nixon, "We don't need a minimum wage, we need a living wage." And, we assert that a real "living wage" should be guaranteed basic human needs, from birth to death, made possible with Energy Currency.

Human Energy and Natural Energy are essential forces and resources that need to be protected and not sold to the highest or lowest bidder. These are building blocks from which everything else is extrapolated, and this includes economics. By not linking the value of Human Energy to the realities that guarantee dignified survival, we are told our lives are not valuable. Your value can be estimated any which way. For example, what if a crazy person asks, "How much will you pay me - to not shoot you?" Or, "How little are you willing to work for, in order to get or keep this job?" Both these questions put your life on the line. And what lack of compassion and life understanding made these questions possible

Is pitting person against person, state against state, country against country and religion against religion sustainable economics? Doesn't this create economic and social inequality and in turn cause negative and destructive societal tendencies? If a person is starving they might steal or sell illegal and protected items for money. If people have to leave their country (for various reasons like war, terrorism, scarcity and racism, all symptoms that are traceable to present economic practices), they may immigrate from their home countries and inadvertently create tensions where they go

Every person must have, from birth to death, the essential survival needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare, as a birthright. Without the healthy, educated participation of people Worldwide our World Economic System is destroying Humanity and Earth's Natural resources through opportunistic pricing

Can the fluctuating price on our heads be removed? Yes. A parallel currency that we call Energy Currency can secure Human Energy value to Human survival needs. This currency compliments, does not eliminate, existing for profit currencies. They will continue to serve society in important ways in the World market. But, once Energy Currency reaches a bank it will be destroyed, creating no inflation and no investment opportunity, and having provided all the basic needs for humanity, food, shelter, education and healthcare, bidding all people, Worldwide, to 'fare well'

You can be part of this change by simply talking with your friends and acquaintances about the possibility of Energy Currency and what it would mean for us all.

Tax Free Money

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 15:53:21 GMT

Tax Free Money

Wouldn't that be nice?

Where is this money that cannot be taxed, creates no inflation and cannot be invested? And what is it used for?

It is money that is used for a very special purpose, then destroyed when it gets to a bank and its use is over. Right now it is only a concept, but it is beginning to take form in many minds and countries.

We call it Energy Currency. It is a parallel currency. It does not replace existing currencies. It runs concurrent with them. It will make possible the elimination of welfare and warfare taxes.

Why do we need a parallel currency? Because presently the main emphasis of World currencies is on commerce and profitakeing. The emphasis of Energy Currency is Basic Human Needs and by extension the needs and health of our Natural World.

When we think about what is left out of our "for profit" economic belief systems of the World, it is obvious right away that Human life and life in the larger sense are not protected. What is important in present global economic governance is how much money is something worth and how to make money from that value. And we see these values change day to day, as they are reassessed by stock markets, central banks and the federal reserve.

Human value is not part of this calculation. Even though People are the energy engine that keeps everything going. Like Nature, we are looked upon as a natural resource to be exploited. When in truth, because we are essential, we should be valued as the standard for currency values. Not gold! The healthier, more educated, better quality of life that Humanity enjoys Worldwide would be the barometer that controls World currency value.

Modern commerce systems we use are not evil, they simply evolved through hundreds of years of competition. But during those hundreds of years an essential value was left behind. We were so preoccupied, entertained and seduced by the game of economics that we did not notice that our most important possession was slipping away; Life.

Very often the adverse symptoms of for profit economics would hint at disaster. But it has been profitable to ignore these signs, so far. Today, we are more and more aware that the damaging effects of for profit economics are taking us further and further away from more equal societies and sustainable practices and ever closer to irreparable damage. Warning signs are everywhere; suppression of better technologies and practices that challenge the existing ones, profit made on unhealthy foods and drugs through advertising lies, scapegoating of countries and groups of people to obscure the injustices committed in their regions so that "business as usual" can continue, competition for natural resources that result in wars, pollution of our land, air and water, climate change accelerated by human fossil fuels burning. Anything is allowed if profit is the goal.

We can begin to change this. The change happens first in our own minds. Our financial architecture, which is global government, cannot and will not change on its own. Once the necessity of a parallel currency dedicated to human needs makes general sense and a tipping point of humanity is in agreement that it is necessary, there is no way to stop it. "One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Fortune Cookie.

How will Energy Currency make things better? When a currency is dedicated to providing Human needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare, pitting people against each other for survival is finally over. Voluntary creativity is then possible. Slavery is impossible. 100 percent literacy is possible. Suppression of best practices is impossible. Universal healthcare is possible. Homelessness is impossible. Starvation is impossible. Climate Change can begin to heal. Reality control is over, because education is universally available for free. Only with an educated World population can we hope to approach real democracy.

But what if I want more? More stuff, more houses, more boats, cars, exotic foods, lots of expensive clothes? The for profit economy is still there and working the way it always has. And it is taxable. You can work for money and spend it however you want, invest or save. It will still be a useful and powerful system but it won't be killing Life.

Things can change when people want them to change. Someday the statement "cost of living" will no longer exist. Why are we paying to live from the moment we are born? Society should be paying itself to live well. We are the only reason it exists!

Energy Currency will initiate the transition to universal renewable energy, to universal healthcare, elimination of welfare, elimination of warfare, and elimination of taxes.

This simple concept points towards a direction that will eventually become inevitable. Energy is the amplifier. Human Energy is essential! Energy Currency for Humanity will protect and amplify all life.

Money – Our Shared Belief…It’s Time for Change

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 00:05:00 GMT

Money, our shared belief. We participate by mutual consent, like with other shared beliefs: religion, science, law, and government. All have affected humanity, providing order, guidance, hope or instruction. And have persisted because they work! Some work well for our benefit, others are a mixed bag, a little bit good and a little bit bad.

My objective here is to examine one shared belief, money. We think it functions the best way it can. This is an illusion and illusion is an element of most beliefs. This does not mean that money is not real and does not have a real impact on us all. The illusion is found within the artificial boundaries we accept as the ‘way it works’. We have invented an incredible method of value and commodity exchange but we have stopped short of its vast potential. We are stuck within the cul de sac of its profit making potential and have explored its possibilities of human enhancement and the preservation of nature very little.

Economics as it is accepted and used presently has taught us that anything can and should have a price; our time, our thoughts, our organs, education, food, shelter, healthcare, nature, justice, recreation, water… Are there some things money should not buy? Does everything have a price? Can there be moral limits to profit markets and an expansion of humanitarian and conservation ‘markets’?

“The reach of markets, and market-oriented thinking into aspects of life traditionally governed by non market norms is one of the most significant developments of our time.” Michael J. Sandel.

We have accepted the present functioning of money as the way things are and cannot be changed. But we should question this assumption. We can understand and have opinions about how money should be used without losing the momentum of for-profit competitive markets. And stop the universal necessity of money making to survive, from using up our lives and creativity.

A parallel currency, that does not eliminate the present currency and its uses, dedicated to nurturing life by providing food, shelter, education, healthcare and infrastructure, is a possibility. This currency can not be invested or taxed. It can be used only for basic human needs and circulated alongside all world currencies. It would not create inflation because it would be destroyed when it reached a bank.

We are capable of seeing this familiar structure, economics, in a new light. We can imagine money with added dimension and effect for good. But this is not easy. Humans like the familiar and are suspicious of change. These tendencies are hardwired into our brains. They have served us well over thousands of years. Kept us safe and increased our populations. But, innovation and change have also increased human survival and happiness. The use of electricity and vaccines for instance.

One of our most established belief systems, religion, has undergone many modifications over past years. Its core purpose of moral education has been protected and enhanced with various improvisations. Many intended to make clearer how we can better understand and protect each other and Nature.

Our economic belief system can also be modified. A Protestant money movement so to speak. Helping money to give more to humanity and humanity in return using the benefits of increased autonomy and free time developing the vast resources of our dormant creativity. Then our ideas of meeting life beyond the outer reaches of the Universe become more than a dream story, and other amazing possibilities we cannot begin to dream become reality.

Let’s decide that the moment has come to expand the uses and potential of money and humanize our shared economic experience.

It can only come from us.

Are We Working Too Many Hours?

Wed, 31 Aug 2022 06:03:00 GMT

Why does it cost so much in time and money to live? Have our markets made “staying alive” a commodity that is sold to each of us?

“Why am I the only one that sees a problem with working 8 to 9 hours a day then going home to have about four hours to yourself, which includes getting ready for the next day? This is not a life…” Shelby, Twitter.

Renew the Earth sees this also and we are proposing the creation of a parallel economic system that provides Worldwide the basic needs of living; food, shelter, education and healthcare.

Consider abandonment on a deserted island. Our first concern is food and shelter and the most efficient way to do this in energy, time and conservative impact on limited resources. These same dynamics are the most important on our earth/island, but the scale is so huge that this basic truth has been obscured from view by the multitude of distractions we face. Things that markets have persuaded us are more important. Our “wants”.

David Graeber addresses the time wasted by certain work in his book, “Bullshit Jobs”.

“37% of Britons said their job does not make a meaningful contribution to the World. 40% of Dutch workers believe their jobs have no reason to exist.” What are these jobs? “Most of them involve administrative, managerial, clerical service and sales functioning such as telemarketing: sectors of the job market that combined, ballooned from a quarter of total employment in 1910 to three quarters in 2000.”

If machines can do the job, let them. You are not displacing people, you are freeing them to use their time and intellect on other things. Quality of life will improve and that is the goal. Basic needs jobs will expand and the efficient, economical accomplishment and distribution of them will evolve continually. There will be no shortage of workers for these important, meaningful jobs because so many have been freed by automation from the BS jobs. Job sharing and the resulting fewer hours will be the norm. Money earned can be used for ‘wants’ because basic needs are met for each person as a right. Their right to life.

“In a more humane civilization, machines would be used to shorten the workday, increase the availability of goods and services and lengthen vacation time.” “Repetitive work activities that can be done by machines will free up the most important aspect of being human which sets us apart from other animals, our intellect.” Jacques Fresco “The Best that Money Can’t Buy”

A parallel currency dedicated to basic needs worldwide makes it possible for everyone to have the same benefits as our Senators, Congress people and Supreme Court Justices. These are our real human rights.

The Future of Work Hours

Mon, 15 Aug 2022 14:58:00 GMT

Many of us work from 9 to 5. But 5pm is not when our usual work ends. Some people work well past 5pm, often bringing their work home. Not to mention, there is plenty of unpaid work we do on a daily basis to take care of our homes and families. But is it always going to be this way? Not necessarily.

The Impact of COVID-19

Before the COVID-19 Pandemic, most Americans worked in an office. They couldn’t always bring their work home with them, so it was easy to disconnect until the next workday. However, when the pandemic forced us all to work from home, the boundary between work and home began to blur. Suddenly, workers were on-call 24/7, and it was harder to disconnect since all their work supplies were with them.

As workers became increasingly burnt out, they started to question the 24/7 work cycle. Did they always have to be available? And even if their boss respected the 9 to 5 schedule, was it realistic to work 40 hours per week? Turns out, there’s another way.

The 4-Day Work Week

Many employers and employees scoffed at the idea of a 4-day work week. How could they get all their work done in four days? And how could they work four days without a cut to their pay? But as recent experiments have shown, a 4-day work week can be extremely beneficial to ourselves and to the environment.

Turns out, workers can get the same amount of work done in 32 hours as they do in 40. Why? Because they’re not as overwhelmed or burnt out. The extra day off from work allows workers to recharge and take a break from their tasks. Not only that, but it gives them extra time for hobbies, chores, and more. All of this allows workers to feel better rested, and therefore more motivated and productive.

It can also help the environment. That extra day off can lower greenhouse gas emissions , since people will not be driving as much or using as much energy as they normally would.

Focusing on Basic Needs

A 4-day work week or three 10 hour work days are just some of the ways we can help workers be healthier and happier. Another way that quality of life can improve, Renew the Earth has suggested, is the creation of a parallel currency dedicated to providing basic needs worldwide for every living person. This would be a non investable, non taxable currency that runs concurrent with existing currencies. Its only purpose is to provide food, shelter, education and healthcare to everyone. Visit Renew the Earth to learn more!

Rewarding the “Invisible” Work

Mon, 25 Jul 2022 15:21:00 GMT

The dictionary defines work as an “activity involving mental or physical effort, done in order to achieve a purpose or result.” We all know not all work is work for pay , but it has to be accomplished every day anyway. As long as we live, we cannot stop working. Something breaks, it has to be fixed, laundry has to be done, food and supplies brought to the home, cooking and cleaning have to be done, a child is born it needs to be cared for, we get old and sick and need care, 24/7 care of a special needs child, weather destroys homes and property they need to be replaced, friends and relatives are in distress and need comfort, a good idea surfaces and needs attention, on and on. These are all essential works that are left out of GDP. (But make that GDP possible!) They function unrewarded by pay or compensations like healthcare and vacations.

Why not have a currency that is dedicated to all human needs, not wants? It would operate parallel to our existing for-profit currency. This human currency would be exchanged for food, shelter, education and healthcare. It is available from birth to death, and you can use it or not. It cannot be invested or taxed. It could be available on a debit card identified with your SS#. Each month a determined amount is available on the card and if it is not used, what is left is deleted at the end of the month. And the cycle begins again the next month.

The existence of this parallel social currency would reward the work that is essential and ongoing but remains invisible to our existing economic notice. Maybe then we can all have free time to imagine and build a better future for humanity and nature. Believe it or not we are already doing this in our military. You join and your food, shelter, education and healthcare are taken care of…

“If we are willing to spend that amount of money, resources and human lives in time of war, why don’t we commit equal resources to improving lives and anticipating the humane needs of the future? …to achieve and maintain the optimal symbiotic relationship between nature and humankind.” Jacques Fresco “The Best that Money Can’t Buy”

And please read more @SocialEconRTE and renew-the-earth.org

What Is Work?

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 17:38:00 GMT

When we think of work, we often think of the hours we spend from 9am to 5pm at the office (or, if you’re like many people after the pandemic, at home in front of a computer). But is that really the only “work” that we do? What about the hours we spend taking care of our kids, volunteering, and more? Work shouldn’t be solely defined as what you do to earn money. It can come in many different forms.

The Ghost Economy

We often think that our economy relies solely on what people do to earn money. And while it does rely heavily on the 9 to 5 workers, it also relies on a “ghost economy.” This is the work that we do on a daily basis for free. This could include volunteerism, housework, daycare, home schooling, errands, and more. No one pays us to clean the kitchen or pick our kids up from school, yet these are all tasks that we need to do and take time out of our day.

The Toll the Ghost Economy Takes on Us

In many cases, the work we do for the ghost economy is more stressful and time-consuming than the work we do in the office. Think about how many hours you spend taking care of your kids or cleaning up the house. Now, compare that to the hours you spend at work. Chances are you’re spending more time on these activities than you are on what actually pays your salary.

Now, we all love to take care of our kids or do some volunteer work. Nevertheless, many of these activities add a lot to our plate, both emotionally and financially. Raising kids or doing housework takes a lot of time and money to complete. As such, we not only become stressed over how much we have to do, but also how much money we have to spend.

What We Can Do

The work we do for our family or our home is obviously essential. So, what if we could be rewarded for doing these activities to help lessen the financial burden? A parallel currency such as Energy Currency could help to meet these basic needs. Not only that, but it could help our current economic system become less wasteful, less expensive, and more. Contact Renew the Earth today to learn more about our Energy Currency system.

How Climate Change Impacts Financial Stability

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 22:45:00 GMT

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller

With the stock market now in a bear market, we are all wondering about financial stability. But, it is good to keep in mind that the ‘market’ is not an indicator of quality of life, (a majority of people don’t own stocks). Many things can impact our economy, and our lives—wars, pandemics, famines, climate change. In fact, climate change may be one of the biggest factors, when it comes to our financial stability. Unfortunately, financial stability will still be a dream for approximately 30% of our population, even if we somehow start to repair our climate under present dynamics.

Climate change impacts resource availability

As we all know, weather has a direct impact on agriculture and fisheries. It can also impact the availability of other resources such as lumber, oil, and more. When forest fire sweeps through an area, it can destroy lumber supplies; when a hurricane wreaks havoc on the Southeast coast, it can destroy fisheries; when droughts descend upon the Midwest, it can wither away crops. These tragedies can be traced back to our for profit economic structure, which demands unlimited resources from a finite planet, using fossil energy to collect, process and transport these resources. Our economic practices are contributing to and excellerating the present climate change. As global temperatures continue to rise, and fossil fuel use continues, the likelihood of weather extremes will also rise. We will have fewer resources to depend on, and companies will raise their prices to maintain their profits and pass this increase on to the consumer. We see this with groceries and fuel prices at this time. (Presently, it costs more in energy to get fuel out of the ground, refine it and get it to market, than the energy we are getting out of it. If fuel were not heavily subsidized by our government, it would be unaffordable.) By the way, if our economics were structured differently we would not have a climate crisis.

It limits travel

Many cities and countries around the world depend on tourism and trade. Both rely on travel. However, in a world where weather extremes like hurricanes, floods, forest fires, tornadoes become increasingly common, travel becomes more dangerous and expensive. Again, this relates directly to the World economics. Countries won’t be able to pay for resources they need for their citizens, because the money that tourism and trade brings has dried up. And the value of money is subjective…

Climate change signals instability

The stock market is notoriously sensitive. (But it really doesn’t have any feelings. We do.) Any sign of instability or uncertainty can cause stocks to careen downwards. This causes adjustments by the Fed that protect wealthy investors by passing the burdens of financial recovery onto the rest of us. Not only is “economics as usual” destroying our climate and environment, it is also destroying itself, by slowly destroying the most important and valuable resource of any economy, people.

What can we do?

As Fuller had advised, build a new model that makes the old one obsolete. We must create a parallel economy that will protect humanity and environment worldwide from birth, with food security, shelter, education, healthcare and infrastructure; empowering our most valuable resource, people. We don’t have to go into a financially unstable future. Energy Currency will help our present economic system become less expensive, less wasteful, and more stable over time. To learn more about Energy Currency, a non taxable currency, visit renew-the-earth.org or @SocialEconRTE.

The Importance of Human Cooperation

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 21:49:00 GMT

Human Cooperation, human agreement…

Are we still trying, or, are we too distracted by misinformation and the quarreling that results? Propaganda and misinformation are the same things and have the same result, dividing us from each other. Has real conversation, that leads to understanding, become a lost art? Maybe we just need a good idea to rally around. An idea that can be refined by all of us. A concept that is designed to give each person what they need to survive and thrive. A new spirit of the times, a zeitgeist.

We have almost forgotten that our lives, literally, depend on each other. Astronauts living on the space station, who come from all parts of the world, from different traditions and speaking different languages, understand this very well. They treat each other with courtesy and respect because they know that a mistake made by any of them could easily kill all of them. The same is true on Earth, but not as obvious because of distance, numbers, and time. As Bucky Fuller said, we all live on “Spaceship Earth”. Each person is essential, and we all must find ways to cooperate so each of us has the opportunity to survive and developed to the best of our abilities.

When we refer to the other person in derisive and unflattering ways, we are not understanding who that person is. This kind of distancing is the beginning of racism and the massive voids of misunderstanding and violence that it creates. Someone who works a “menial job” is not a “monkey” or a slave, a person who does not deserve respect. And what is a menial job anyway? Is there any such thing? Can we do without garbage collectors, check out tellers, house cleaners, waitresses, cooks, etc.? How are they less essential than the doctors, congress people, judges, presidents, etc., that we tend to idolize? I assert that they are more essential. They are the individuals who work daily at the tasks that are necessary for the very basis and survival of social structure. Who built your house? Did the wiring? Built the roads, made your clothes, picked the fruits and vegetables that are trucked to your store, who are the truckers? Who raised the food animals that many depend upon, the grains? Who taught you language and how to read so that you could benefit from the accumulation of human knowledge we have available to us at this point? As Albert Einstein said, “Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in schools are the work of many generations… All this is put in your hands as your inheritance in order that you may receive it, honor it, add to it and one day faithfully hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the permanent things which we create in common.”

We are bound to each other with a thousand ties. We are social animals with the same basic needs and general lifespan. We are, at the same time, individuals, but what we become is the result of belonging to a human community. We all need each other, and we need the essential that will eventually lead to more equal societies Worldwide and relief from stresses that erupt into mass migrations, violence, and wars. This will start with respect for the other person you don’t know and an effort to know them better.

Are we essential for Nature to continue to keep us part of the living mix on Earth? This is constantly being decided. Life can easily “go on without us.” We can influence the decision by behaving with informed understanding and consideration for Humanity and Nature.

We are all capable of being futurists. We all contain untapped latent energy that can translate into momentum, collaboration, and creative invention. We just have to have access to good ideas and come to agreement about how to make them happen.

Renew the Earth has been designing a concept for the past 12 or more years that they are presenting for your consideration.

Consider this: Instead of just using an economy that mainly emphasizes profit making and competition we add to this a parallel economic system that emphasizes providing the basic needs, food, shelter, education, healthcare and infrastructure, worldwide. The same benefits as our Senators and Congress people. We are just as valuable. Profit cannot be made through exchanges in the parallel Energy Currency economy and money used cannot be taxed. Please think about this and if you want to know more visit renew-the-earth.org , or participate by going to @SocialEconRTE and you are invited to sign the petition you for d there along with recent blogs.

Thank you,

Susan Caumont, President, renew-the-earth.org

How We Are Divided

Tue, 10 May 2022 14:52:00 GMT

It was Abraham Lincoln who declared that, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” As true as these words are, to this day we still find ourselves deeply divided. Racism, class, income, and more have all led to a divided nation. Here, we discuss how our nation is divided, how that division hurts us, and what we can do about it.

Ways We Are Divided

Humans have a natural tendency towards cooperation. And yet, we find ourselves divided on various fronts. Racism is a social construct created to divide people into different races and then apply stereotypes to them. Those wrongful stereotypes are the main reason for discrimination in America. Yet, other seemingly innocuous things also cause division. Income, for instance, separates those with plenty of money and those who live paycheck-to-paycheck. Even how we are educated, and our religious views can shape the way we think, further dividing us on issues such as abortion, immigration, and more.

How Division Harms Us

You don’t have to look far to see how division harms us. Our government is the most polarized it’s been in years, causing gridlock and contention in the halls of Congress. Due to division, nothing gets done, and we simply dig further and further into our trenches. We increasingly refuse to listen to the other side, and by only exposing ourselves to people we agree with, we become more radicalized.

What to Do

Division is harmful to our society, but what can we do about it? Many people feel that they accomplish something by blaming each other and that voting is the only answer. But, we at Renew the Earth suggest a solution. Economics impacts everyone, encouraging excessive competition and creating the assumption that there is “not enough for everyone.” By adding a parallel currency system—Energy Currency—dedicated to our basic needs, food, shelter, education and health care, we can eliminate many of the things that cause division in our society.

To learn more about Energy Currency, contact Renew the Earth today.

How Will Life Change if Basic Human Needs Are Met?

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 17:00:00 GMT

Presently, most economies operate under a “not enough for all, you or me” survival theory. This has been going on for so long that it has become accepted as normal and inevitable. Our brains have been blocked by misleading information that keeps this illusion going. The reality is that all nations together have enough resources and technology to provide basic human needs as a birth right, worldwide.

Earth is alive because it is constantly receiving energy from the sun. Plants convert that energy into their food, insects and animals eat the plants, and we digest the stored sun energy for our own survival. Energy is not being destroyed, it is constantly being changed and reused. It is not “running down.” We are not running out of the essentials for life to survive on Earth, and humans will continue to survive here too, if we are wise.

The question is, can providing human needs as a right, renew our Earth, and our possibility of survival?

Yes, by breaking the cycles of poverty, war, racism, sexism, ignorance, student debt, unemployment, climate change, inefficient use of natural resources, inequality, and social unrest, which are destroying community and nature. How?

Meet basic human needs

When people are assured of survival needs, food, shelter, healthcare, education, from birth to the end of their lives, huge shifts occur in the way we interact with each other and with Nature. Most of the changes are obvious like, ending child starvation, (there is enough food for everyone, it is the distribution of food that is not efficient) increased preventative care, end of poverty, end of decisions based on ignorance and suspicion, empowerment of women, moderation of climate change through more efficient and less damaging use and practices and the end of wars worldwide. Also, more subtle changes like attitudes toward human differences and nature.

Why would these shifts occur?

Presently, most of our time and effort is dedicated to earning money to afford our survival needs and the special wants that we are convinced we must have. Most people work long hours at low wage, just for their survival needs. In the US, where I am writing from, we work some of the longest hours and most days without paid vacations or vacations of any kind or sick leave with pay or without, in the world. As a result, a highly unequal society has evolved, we have a few absurdly wealthy people, and the rest of the population are slaves to an economic system that banks control to the advantage of the rich.

Things can change

Many believe this cannot change, it has always been that way, people are greedy, born sinful, survival of the “fittest”. Let’s think for a moment that these are not our natural dominant tendencies. Isn’t it worth a try to believe that we can improve our social contracts and give humanity and nature a chance? Belief has played such a huge part in human development (religions, for example) maybe the time has come for belief in the positive potential of humanity.

“We don’t seem to be able to do peacefully the logical things we say we ought to be doing – by producing enough to satisfy all world needs. Under pressure we always find that we can afford to wage wars…” Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.

Wars make money for rich people, companies, politicians, and governments. Another destructive result of for-profit economies. Economies of the world are dependent on unequal consumption and distribution of wealth. Meanwhile, for the rest of us, there is disruption, forced migration, broken lives, starvation and premature death. Not to mention the massive damage to nature that wars inflict, with bombs, defoliants and demands on local resources to feed armies.

Freedom of time

Enough excellent technology exists for every person to work fewer hours and have a better quality of life. This would relieve the stresses that bring on wars and conflict. So far the freedom of time that advanced technology has brought has mostly been enjoyed by a small percentage of world population. Freedom of time is more valuable than money. And the wealthy have bought it by using human labor worldwide to amass vast wealth. But this does not mean it is time for revolution and the guillotine. We are smarter than that. Economics is the key. There must be a shift in the functioning of world economics.

We have already learned from the demands of the pandemic that the internet makes it possible for work and work hours to change for some people. Even an acronym has surfaced, YOLO, “you only live once”. People see that they want to commit more of their time to what they enjoy and what is important to them, not just making money. They are organizing their lives and work to make this possible in varied creative ways. Work and wealth are being redefined. Our lives are becoming less about what we do to make money so that we can survive and more about how we can innovate individually, positively. Our wealth is not in our wallets, possessions, and banks. Our wealth is our living time and what we choose to do with it.

Final thoughts

We all own the sunlight, the air and water. We are made possible because of these elements. Each of us is a unique product of Earth chemistry and we must accept higher standards of living for ourselves and others as a right. The first step is to entertain a new idea. Each human creativity is a potential gift to the survival of Humanity on this Planet.

“I have learned about public reaction to the unfamiliar and also about the ease and speed with which the transformed reality becomes so “natural” as to mis-seemingly to have been always obvious.” Buckminster Fuller

We are the dominant species on Earth at this time. Our impact is so transformative that a new geologic era has been proposed for our presence, the Anthropocene, the time of humans. With this dominance comes great responsibility. We know the damage that we can do and have already done. We also know we are capable of innovative change for good. One change must be redesigning the way economics is practiced.

Renew the Earth has been developing a concept that we hope will help begin to turn economic practices toward a more positive path. Energy Currency, used for food, shelter, education, healthcare and infrastructure. Run parallel to existing currencies, circulating then destroyed at the bank so there is no possibility of inflation and speculation. And it cannot be taxed. Think about it.

What Would You Do If Your Needs Were Taken Care Of?

Fri, 21 Jan 2022 16:06:00 GMT

Many of us work to survive. Our jobs are a means to an end that puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. This has been true for centuries, but what if it was different? What if your needs were automatically taken care of, and that necessities like food, shelter, water, and education were seen as a birthright, not a privilege?

In our view, the world would be a very different place. Here’s how.

You could follow your passions

When we’re growing up, we’re always told to “follow our passions.” But for too many of us, this is impossible. Passions such as writing, art, and others are not valued in the marketplace. As such, finding well-paying jobs is near impossible. People are then forced to take jobs they don’t like just to pay the bills. But if those needs are already taken care of, then people could follow their passions and do work that they actually enjoy. They wouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet.

You won’t deal with as much stress

Let’s face it, worrying about bills and rent takes a lot out of us. When we’re constantly worrying about money, we build up a lot of stress. That stress is not only uncomfortable, but it can also take a toll on our mental and physical health. However, if our necessities were not a concern for us, then we wouldn’t be holding in all that stress. We would be happier, healthier, and more able to follow our dreams.

You would live more comfortably

Many of us are unable to meet our most basic needs. As a result, we live in uncomfortable, even unhealthy conditions. We live with multiple people to pay rent, we make sacrifices when shopping for groceries, we stay in dangerous neighborhoods because that’s the only area we can afford. But when food and shelter are treated as a human right, rather than a privilege, we can all live in more comfortable accommodations.

You could get the education you deserve

Education is a right, not a privilege. For too many, however, it is treated as the latter. Many people don’t make it past high school due to the rising costs of college tuition. Even those who do make it to college often end up in a mountain of debt that they will never get out of. Worse, some people don’t make it through high school at all. By placing more resources towards education, though, more people can take advantage of it.

You would experience a more equitable world

When everyone’s needs are met, there are more opportunities to more people. This makes society as a whole more equitable and increases the chances of creative discovery and invention. Also, such a change would be monumental for individuals living in poverty and women. They would finally have the resources to ensure that they would not be held back by their sex, race or financial status. As Mother Teresa once said, ” Poverty is not a natural state.”

At Renew the Earth we believe that an Energy Currency that runs parallel to existing currencies and is used only for basic human needs, food, shelter, education, healthcare and cannot be invested or taxed, can help create a more equitable and just world. By ensuring that everyone’s needs are met, we would all live happier and more fulfilling lives. To learn more about our mission, contact us today .

Who Speaks for Earth?

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 20:38:00 GMT

“It costs too much.”

In survival terms, anything is affordable, if it is necessary.

However, when solutions to longstanding societal damage (e.g., poverty, food scarcity, homelessness, lack of healthcare, forced migration, failing infrastructure) are suggested, they are put aside with the statement, “It costs too much.”

Do they? What is money worth? What is Humanity worth? What is Life worth? If we cannot insist on defending life-sustaining solutions, then what is worth insisting upon?

Only we can save Earth

As one of the main perpetrators of climate change, we are also the only ones able to fix it. However, we drag our feet, claim it “costs too much,” and argue that it’s too complicated to save Earth. Yet, there is no other option.

Buckminster Fuller from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth stated, “But it costs too much. This too narrow treatment of the problem never faces the inexorably-evolving and solution-insistent problem of what it will cost when we don’t have air and water with which to survive.”

Instead of the present ‘fear of the other’ and ‘they don’t think like us’, which forces misunderstanding, conflict and wars, shouldn’t we be promoting and funding systems that deliver basic needs like, food, shelter, education, and healthcare? Do we want our legacy to be that we funded fear and war instead of life? Of course not.

We must speak for Earth. No one is coming to rescue us from the Dementors. As Carl Sagan said in Cosmos , “If we do not speak for Earth, who will? If we are not committed to our own survival, who will be?”

There is a way

There is a way to save our planet and roll back the impact of climate change. Plus, it doesn’t have to “cost too much.”

On a daily basis, we create humanitarian wealth, backed by our minds and labor. That wealth can help provide basic needs worldwide.

Renew the Earth suggests that a dedicated parallel currency stream can turn us on a better course. We call this Energy Currency – issued to every person at birth, (with specially printed currency, debit cards, bit coin, whatever is most efficient) used on a monthly basis by an individual for needs only and cannot be saved or speculated. Expiring at the end of the month and renewed every new month at the amount that affords basic needs where each person lives, this will not “cost too much.”

How much will it cost to construct and perpetuate indefinitely a system that alleviates social distress and protects nature? Just a fraction of what it is costing countries to maintain military defense structures that promise “mutually assured destruction,” if ever used in a moment of unclear thinking. Production and distribution of basic needs are inexpensive and use low tech methods by comparison to military technology and spending.

To quote Carl Sagan once again, “In our tenure on this planet we have accumulated dangerous evolutionary baggage, hereditary propensities for aggression and ritual, submission to leaders and hostility to outsiders, which place our survival in some question. But we have acquired compassion for others, love for our children and our children’s children, a desire to learn from history and a great soaring passionate intelligence – the clear tools for our continued survival and prosperity.”

To learn more about Energy Currency, contact Renew the Earth today.

How Consumerism is Driving Climate Change

Mon, 06 Dec 2021 19:31:00 GMT

With the holidays fast approaching, our consumerist culture is on display more now than ever. In fact, Americans produce 25 percent more waste than normal between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

But consumerism is not just a problem during the holidays. With every Amazon purchase, every new iPhone, and every grocery store trip, we are consuming more and more resources. And the more we consume, the worse off our planet becomes. Up to 60 percent of greenhouse gas emissions are a result of consumption. Our consumer culture is also what eats up between 50-80 percent of total land, material, and water use.

If we want to tackle the problem of climate change, then we have to first tackle excessive consumption.

What is consumerism?

Before we dive into consumerism’s impact on climate change, it’s important to define what exactly consumerism is. At its core, consumerism relies on consumer spending to drive the economy. The more goods and services we purchase, the better off our economy is. As a result, consumerism pushes individuals to buy more and more and more, all to strengthen the economy.

And with nearly 70% of the American economy depending on consumerism, the increasing consumption of those goods and services is more important now than ever before. The economy cannot grow if people do not buy more. However, this economic model has had disastrous effects on our environment and our society.

Pollution and Greenhouse Gases

Perhaps the biggest impact consumerism has on our planet is its production of pollution and greenhouse gases. As stated previously, 60 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions is due to the production and consumption of goods and services. This not only includes the fancy cars we drive or the large homes we cool and heat—it also includes the objects we use on a daily basis. Our phones, computers, clothes, food, and more all rely on a production model that further pollutes our environment. While we certainly need some of these items, we often buy more than what we need, which further fuels production and dumps more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Stressing Natural Resources

Many of us don’t think about where our everyday items come from. After all, we get our food from the grocery store, our clothes from online stores, and our cars from dealerships. We hardly ever go to the farms where our food is grown or the mines where the metal for our cars is extracted. As a result, we don’t truly understand how many natural resources our daily consumption relies upon. And the more we consume, the more stress we put on those natural resources.

For example, many of the items we use on a daily basis come from trees in the Amazon rainforest. However, with consumption rising, we need to cut down more and more trees. As a result, the Amazon rainforest is shrinking rapidly . This poses a huge problem to current and future generations. The Amazon rainforest absorbs much of our carbon, which keeps global temperatures in a normal range. Additionally, local flora and fauna are dying off, which unbalances our ecosystem.

Waste

When we start consuming items we don’t need, we become wasteful and inefficient. Many of the items we buy just end up in a landfill or in our oceans. Just think about all of the food you’ve let go to waste. In fact, high levels of food waste and spoilage is one of the major contributors to food insecurity around the globe. But it’s not just food. We throw away all sorts of items that we barely used, and those items end up polluting our land, rivers, streams, and more.

Propaganda and Culture

At the end of the day, what’s driving consumerism is our culture. Consumerism is baked deep into our culture, and marketing and propaganda from companies and governments further this trend. Modern capitalism works and survives off of consumer culture, and companies will do whatever it takes to ensure everything remains the status quo.

What Can We Do?

We cannot work on climate change while we still live in a consumerist culture. Thankfully, there is a solution. With a separate parallel economic system for basic needs, we will not be slaves for the needs of a for-profit economy. Energy Currency can help us become less wasteful and more efficient with the items we consume. We apply Energy Currency to basic human needs such as food, shelter, healthcare, and more in order to incentivize more efficient production and distribution practices.

To learn more about Energy Currency, read through our website or contact Renew the Earth today!

Why Do We Work So Much to Survive?

Mon, 29 Nov 2021 22:58:00 GMT

Recently, prices have been skyrocketing. Throughout 2021, Americans have paid more for dinner, fuel, and housing than at any time since the Great Recession. Meat prices have risen by nearly 13 percent, rent by 3 percent, and gasoline by nearly 42 percent. Meanwhile, wages have not kept up.

While the current inflation crisis is largely due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it is also a part of a larger trend. Namely, that living has become much more expensive than it has in our parents’ generation. So, why does it cost so much to live? Because, we are traveling on the, Economics Express.” It is self driving and setting our pace and direction. As president Clinton once said when asked what is in control, “It’s the economy, stupid!” ‘For profit’ economics forces ever increasing consumption and prices, in order for it to continue functioning.

Necessities are more expensive, why?

Because profit must be recovered after a shock to the economic status quo. Over the more than 200 years of accepted economic practice, we have been shedding symptoms along the way. Climate change, rising cost of living, inflation, low wages, slavery, poverty, racism, wars, mass migrations and pandemics, to name a few. While we were doing business as usual, did we forget to protect some things that are most important?

Humanity, Nature – make possible the incredible successes of world economics. But they are not invincible and not unlimited. And, they are unprotected. Is there a way to help modern economics evolve, beyond capitalism?

We Are Not Free if We Do Not Have Financial Security.

Energy Currency dedicated to providing basic needs can be a way to lessen the economic symptoms that destroy our human community and Nature.

Wages haven’t kept up

While there have been wage gains in certain sectors, those wage gains have only been seen by the wealthiest American s. Aristotle suggested that “we work to have more leisure, on which happiness depends.” Are more work hours producing more leisure, more happiness? They do produce more profit, most of which does not return to benefit individuals or communities. Rather, it enriches a minority creating unequal economic societies and the resulting stresses.

Climate change contributes to rising prices and pandemics

Powerful storms, droughts, and disease all impact the supply chain. If a drought wipes out this year’s crops or a storm destroys a key manufacturing plant, there will ultimately be a limited supply of products. This limited supply causes prices to rise. Because, as soon as possible the profit loss must be regained and people forced back to work in what may be unsafe conditions in order to achieve this.

What can we do?

To help tackle these economic and climate problems, we need to find ways to put less strain on Humanity and Nature. Energy Currency for basic human needs, food, shelter, healthcare, infrastructure, will help world economies evolve toward a healthier future. Energy Currency can help make our economic systems less expensive and less wasteful. By making necessities such as food security, shelter, and education our first priority, we can incentivize countries to make their production and distribution practices more efficient.

Please read more on our website: renew-the-earth.org.

Renew the Earth is 501c3 organization committed to improving our world through the implementation of Energy Currency. To support our cause, donate today or contact us for more information!

Energy Currency in Action

Sun, 07 Nov 2021 05:49:00 GMT

When discussing our Energy Currency, we often hear many questions.

Here are some answers and responses to these common questions.

We already run systems that provide basic needs in exchange for service/labor. For instance, our Military does this. A person who joins the Military Economic System, signs a contract and in return receives, food, shelter, education and healthcare, basic human needs. If you prove yourself to be more valuable through your education/skills and leadership qualities, you are promoted and receive extra money and privileges.

Energy Currency Economics does not require a contract that controls individual behavior, and you ‘join’ by being born.

The World social agreement would be that food, shelter, education and healthcare be provided to every living person as a birth right. With this guarantee every person has a chance to develop to their full potential. They can interact with the parallel “for profit” economics system if they choose, how much they choose and when they choose. It will still serve the purposes it was designed for; to foster competition, wealth accumulation and investment, but the practice of these activities won’t be deadly to fellow humans and to Nature.

Businesses and organizations and professionals that are involved in basic needs creation, distribution and activities (like food production, providing shelter, teaching, healthcare, etc) will be reimbursed with an established value of what they provide. Excessive profit cannot be made with Energy Currency and it cannot be invested or gamed. Some distribution of basic needs can be done through Federal contracts, some through organizations like hospitals and universities. We don’t need to tax the wealthy and corporations in order to balance the economy and provide basic needs. The value of the basic needs are a form of tax when profit cannot be made from them and it is provided through a separate currency stream.

Artificial, temporary stimulations of the economy through cash distributions to individuals and dumping money from the Federal Reserve, will not save the economy. It will give an appearance of recovery but it is only a charade. Like giving a stimulant to a dying person, when it wears off, the person is still dying

We don’t have to inflate the economy in order to save it! We don’t need to kill people and destroy Nature in order to have an economy!

Humanity has been made slaves to the profit makers. The only way this can continue is if human survival depends on money. There would be individual responsibility in the form of a work requirement when a person is of a certain age and state of health. Each person would contribute a minimum (to be determined) of maybe two hours a day or 10 hours a week of work effort. This would also require that the definition of work be expanded to include child rearing, elder care, home economics, and the many individual contributions to the common good that go unrewarded. All this would evolve over time. We are a diverse humanity but we are not different races. There is no such thing as “racial science”. We are genetically the same. Our needs are the same. ( see definition of HREM , Human Renewable Energy Measure).

Humanity is at a point of choice. We cannot leave this choice to our representatives in government (politics is a one dimensional pursuit – it cannot decipher or direct best practices) or the fluctuating “state of the economy and GDP”, (which is totally corrupted because of the world economic system.) We need to influence our representatives to advocate an Energy Currency system. This must be asserted before it becomes possible. And nothing seems possible until it is possible. (In fact this has been done before, Lincoln used “emergency currency” for the Civil War.) This is our choice and our task.

Susan Caumont November 5, 2021

The Link Between Capitalism and Climate Change (And a Possible Solution)

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 17:13:00 GMT

In 2016, leaders from around the world came together to sign the Paris Climate Accords —a declaration to mitigate climate change by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Five years later, world leaders are once again coming together for the United Nations climate summit COP26 in Glasgow to tackle the challenge of climate change.

However, many believe that these accords and summits will do little until we deal with the underlying problem—Capitalism.

How Capitalism and Climate Change Are Linked

For a long time, consumers and individuals were held responsible for climate change. We drove too much, wasted too much electricity, and bought products that ended up in landfills and oceans. There was truth in this—our individual actions did have an impact on climate change.

Recently, however, people have been reexamining which actors are most responsible for climate change. According to the Carbon Majors Report in 2017 , 100 companies around the world are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. The link between companies and climate change proves that capitalism is a driving force behind the climate crisis.

We already have technological means to decarbonize, solar and wind are just two examples. They are easily accepted into our present grid system and will promote expansion of that grid when demand increases. However, doing so would mean rebuilding the entire electrical grid .

What Can Be Done?

If capitalism is the problem, what can be done about it? Capitalism is so deeply entrenched across the world it would be near impossible to get rid of it completely and this is not necessary. There is a way to alter our for-profit economy; with a parallel currency system , Energy Currency (in fact, Lincoln used “emergency currency,” the greenback dollar for the Civil War). Energy Currency economics places value on elements needed for human survival, such as food security, shelter, education, healthcare, and more. This incentivizes countries to improve efficiency of production and distribution of basic needs, which will also take stress off of Nature and initiate climate recovery. Energy Currency can thus provide basic needs worldwide without having to upend our entire economic framework and help Nature help life.

Renew the Earth is 501c3 organization committed to improving our world through the implementation of Energy Currency. To support our cause, donate today or contact us for more information!

Social currency renews human energy

Mon, 02 Aug 2021 17:41:00 GMT

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it” Henry David Thoreau

We are not a job driven people, our lives are larger than that.

Yet, we use most of our adult lives working jobs for money. The result of social value structures based on wealth. The myth is; you are more valuable because you have more money. This structure has been evolving since humans learned to enslave animals and each other in order to accomplish more work and increase private holdings, property, resources and goods. Today, our economics that thrives on competition and selfishness, has created slavery for everyone, which I define as ‘no control over our time’. This phenomenon includes the wealthy. We are all treading in place trying to maintain our survival or our privilege. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Thoreau.

When stress rises in a population a significant percentage of the people affected will chose to find scape goats for their increased discomfort. Usually this simmers unexpressed below the surface. But when there is a leader, a President for example, who gives permission for misplaced hatred to be expressed aloud and acted upon, there is the danger of violence and the oppression that follows which can lead to totalitarian government. We are all capable of hatred and goodness. We are driven by selfishness and selflessness. Capitalism is based on competition and selfishness. It tips the population toward distrust and fantasy. Fantasy, because to have no empathy toward another person you plan to get the better of, you need to dehumanize them. To do this a person has to justify their feelings to themselves. We all do this to different degrees. This is where fantasy comes in the form of conspiracy theories, distortion of word meanings, and lies. The result is confusion which creates fear, and distrust which result in retreat into emotional and political comfort zones that polarize populations. Agreement becomes hard to find.

The dynamic of Capitalism is, competition that ultimately confines the wealth of a Nation into the hands of a minority. This is at odds with Democracy and Science. Traumatizing the majority of a population through anxiety about income and survival results in the dynamic described above. Democracy needs compromise and agreement to survive. Nature cannot thrive in the context of the endless growth demanded by profit economics. When a Nation is squeezed economically there will be a breaking point. When it will come or if it can be averted, no one knows.

The fundamental human drive that is manipulated and threatened by a Capitalist economy is survival. If basic human needs are met by a separate parallel economics we can change the socio/economic dynamic to “post scarcity”. No longer ‘not enough for everyone’, the treat and strangle hold of Capitalism. Food, shelter, education and healthcare become basic human rights; basic needs equal the real basic income. Every living human being is worthy of these things. From this start the expansion of humanity’s potential will flow exponentially. The destructive symptoms of ‘money before life’ begin to fade.

Already the experience of living through a pandemic has changed us. Some things have become less important, some more important. The scientific imperative of life threatening illness does not allow ‘economics as usual’. Our worldwide adjustments to the corona virus will change the way we conduct economics, permanently. Science and ‘for profit’ economics have always been at odds with each other. This has become glaringly obvious during the pandemic. The importance of science and the importance of humanity have proven to be the real value standard, not money. Nature must be protected, humanity must be protected. And we know how to do this. Basic needs are human rights.

Human energy is a kind of renewable energy. Our human energy propels society and economics. We need a dependable renewable currency to sustain Human energy needs. One that has no strings attached. One that cannot be gamed or invested. Social currency used for Basic Human Needs = Energy Currency.

We can moderate Climate Change. Change the climate…for humanity and nature

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:31:00 GMT

“ One true sentence,” E.Hemmingway

Our Economics allows fossil industries to sacrifice Humans and Nature for profit. This is slow suicide. The captains of fossil industries and other industries that have gradually become destructive of Humans and Nature over the centuries, have developed into the ultimate and perfect products of Capitalism. Asking Countries and investors to ”divest from fossil fuels”, as Greta Thunberg so movingly pleads, is like asking lions to stop eating meat or locust to stop devouring crops.

Within the confines of Capitalist economies there is no momentum toward preservation and diversity. There is only motive to compete for profit. The symptoms of this process are everywhere. We know them. We live with them from our point of awareness to death. We participate in them, to different degrees, throughout our lives, because it is our present survival system and we are trained from birth into the behaviors that sustain this economic system. To step away from this training is at the very least a kind of vanishing act and at the worst a form of suicide. You no longer exist to society. You are invisible.

I have mourned the decline of Nature since I was a child. My father and I used to watch nature programs on Sunday evening together. In the beginning, the narrator had a British accent and the animal stars were being hunted by predators and then somehow got away in the nick of time. Slowly, there was a subtle change. The narrator was not always British and the predator was not always a wolf, panther or bear. The threat to Nature was more shadowy, some far away influence that cut too much down, dug too deep.

I was young and did not understand the economic connection. I simply loved every living thing that I could see, touch or begin to understand. And I didn’t want them be harmed. As I aged, I still mourned, but I could see the shape of the danger. I could name it. Profit Economics. We are the products of our social agreements. More than any other agreement our societies and governments are formed and controlled by our economic agreement. Profit economics has developed over 100’s of years. Now, in its present form, we see the complete picture of its uses and dangers. We understand its uses very well, but are asked to ignore its dangers. Something vitally important is missing, it is not being protected or valued; Life. A balancing force needs to be introduced. A parallel economic system that protects and supports Humanity and Nature.

This is why Renew the Earth suggests Energy Currency. A parallel, renewable, value stream that is dedicated to providing food, shelter, education and healthcare to every living human.

Empowering a secure Humanity that can in turn, protect Nature, not exploit it. Energy Currency gets its value from our Human Energy. The Current of our interaction, work, play, invention, creativity, etc. Our anthropomorphic blend that is forming Earth to its needs and wants, is now a force of Nature. By providing for Human survival needs, Energy Currency is in turn sustained through our works and interactions and then reinvested in Humanity, creating a renewable cycle that empowers all people.

Needs are key.

They can only be provided by a value system that has no other objective. The survival of Humanity is inextricably connected to the survival of Nature, in its present form. Nature will be on Earth without us but settled into a different dynamic if we continue to deplete it. One that may not be hospitable to human life if we destroy this present balance and have to start all over again with a few hundred survivors.

We need places of agreement. It is not enough to be secure in your own beliefs anymore, left or right. Division of societies and countries into opposing factions creates stagnation and amplifies dangers and fears. By thinking about what we all can agree upon and conversing on these things, every individual can be part of a significant shift in social dynamics. Our representatives won’t depolarize until they sense that citizens are seeking agreement. They take their cue from what they perceive is the mood amongst their constituents. This is how they get reelected. We change the course of social development, world wide, through our agreements. We have all that we need to solve our present challenges. Computers that track world wide commerce and can easily be tailored to track human needs, which can then be distributed from the most efficient locations with the most efficient means and with the most efficient production.

All this efficiency can be guaranteed because the profit motive has been removed. Energy Currency cannot be used for profit making, cannot be invested or saved, and will not create inflation. It is destroyed at the banks. An Energy Currency debit card could be provided to every living individual that is loaded with the appropriate need values, (catered to the age and location of each person), and constantly reloaded, as services are used, at a predetermined dignified survival rate. This card can be presented and honored whenever a person requires basic needs. There is no stigma attached because everyone has access to EC and can use it or not use it. Providers will be reimbursed at the replacement value of what is provided. Meanwhile, profit economics continues in parallel doing business as usual.

These are new ways to think about human survival. Instead of “dog eat dog” and “not enough for everyone”, each person is protected and their lives valued over profit. We are already using systems that provide vital services, like health care through Medicare for the elderly and education through public schools roads, garbage collection… These systems can be used as templates for providing all basic human needs; food, shelter, education and healthcare. We need to enlarge our vision for the future. Profit economics has run its course and can serve us but not without a parallel moderating system that provides for basic human survival and the survival of Nature, Energy Currency.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality…To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller

Economics and the Establishment of an Energy Currency

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:52:00 GMT

In general, we find it difficult to agree with others. We fear committing ourselves to a specific viewpoint, because it might be wrong and have results that we don’t like. Agreement might be one of the most difficult activities in which humans participate.

During times of confusion, distrust and fear, agreements are even more important and more difficult to make. Urgency can muddle thinking and we make mistakes in our haste to get back to what we are used to and what feels most comfortable.

Clearing away chatter and misinformation, stripping down circumstance to the most fundamental base is the difficult task we are all asked to attempt, over and over during our lives. Not unlike throwing out stuff you will never use that has been stored in the attic or garage. This process helps organize the mind. Too many ideas can clutter, just like too much physical stuff in piles all around. Convictions that have served you in the past may no longer be useful. Or, they may be strengthened by reexamination, brought back into the light, put to use. This weeding process can increase our discernment and help us find what rings true. As you decide which ideas to keep and which to throw away, try to resist the comfort of returning to well worn paths, just in case there is something that was missed.

Part of what increases reluctance to agree is that many important problems we confront are presented as massive, world wide, and endlessly complex. The solutions to which, can only begin to be understood by experts. This excludes most of us. Those who hazard a ‘new’ solution are ignored if they have no “credentials” or, if they do, ridiculed if they depart from the status quo of their specialty.

Another influence that creates division as we consider what to agree upon is the deliberate use of lies to promote confusion and chaos. These are ancient tools of control. The “firehose of falsehoods” can become too much to resist and the alternative, amending the “American Dream” or other pleasant illusions, too horrible to imagine for some of us. There are many for whom belief is stronger than reality. These are the wells from which religions spring but also, creativity and inspiration. We need that capacity to dream but tempered with real observation. People who tip the scales mentally toward belief “magic” are not stupid or evil. They are exercising an area of the mind that we all have, but unrestrained by critical observation. Dreaming, in the United States, is encouraged to a fault. Our country, is known for and defined by The American Dream.

We are, from childhood encouraged to dream instead of reason. “Wish upon a star” and your dreams comes true. No other effort is necessary or encouraged. Even the “work hard and you will succeed” notion is a dream for most people, because for profit economics will not allow most people to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” And, the rare success stories that fit this definition are waved in front of us constantly through media, as if to say, “this could be you!, you can be a millionaire too!” Meanwhile, the reality is that a very small percentage of our population are very wealthy and that percentage gets smaller every decade.

In the end, each of us has to trust what we understand and improve our own education and sleuthing then broadcast the results as best we can for the consideration of others. This is not easy nor will it ever end.

For my own part, I present the beginning of a possible economic solution for your consideration. I was once convinced that everyone understood the benefits of renewable energies, sun, wind and biomass, that these energies would naturally overtake fossil fuel use and start to heal and protect human health and the natural world. It was just a matter of education. But as time passed and the % of renewable to fossil energy remained a very small amount of energy use even though good information was everywhere available, I realized that the massive influence pressed by the fossil industries, aided by their access to unlimited funds to influence information, was more than adequate to suppress renewable energies for another 100 years. These companies are not evil (but extremely short sighted), they are only completely committed to traveling the money value road . And this affects all of us through the choices available to us and the social/economic and natural impacts of the products these companies produce and promote.

Recently there has been an uptick in investments in renewables. Now money can be made with them. They can fit into profit economics. Interest rates are so low that investment in RE is producing more return than money in the bank. Along with improved batteries for solar and cheaper solar panels available from China, a small leap for solar has occurred. But this will only continue if these conditions for making profit continue. Even though, the increase in renewable to fossil ratio has not been exceptional. Market forces are conservative and not easily transformed. Energy sources that have built economies and Nations for 100’s of years have trained our minds and businesses into their inevitability. And our government has strengthened their influence through tax cuts which result in even more money available to reinforce their brand. Change can only be emboldened by a critical mass of agreement that clears the way for the life value road.

Money value road, Life value road?

Lucky for us these roads can parallel each other and be complimentary. One is like a super highway and the other a fine country road that invites us to get out of our car and take a refreshing stroll through beautiful woods and fields. We know the money value road very well. We are introduced to it as children through advertising. Products were promoted to us, then we would badger our parents to buy them. Soon a new product surfaced that we couldn’t resist and we learned to replace what we desired a short while ago with something new. This training takes place while we are so young that it feels normal and the way things have always been when we become adults. But this early routine was simply our dominant for profit economic system grooming human behavior to its own benefit. Profit can only be made if most of the population buys and replaces goods regularly and frequently. “Planned obsolescence”, infinite growth economics, social engineering, are terms that describe this activity.

But, we live on a finite planet with fragile and finite natural resources. Some of these resources and life forms that have evolved over millions of years and cannot be replaced, have already been destroyed. It is clear to most of us now as we watch the destruction of mountains, forests, oceans and arctic ice, in the name of profit, that there is no future in this. Human influenced Earth changes have made it necessary to name a new geological epoch after us. The Anthropocene. It acknowledges the, “significant human impact on Earths geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.”

It is time to bring a moderating force to the surface. A parallel economic force that locates, produces and distributes B asic Human Needs and protects the Natural World . A collaboration between profit economics and humane economics (Energy Currency) can become transformative. Agendas are often hidden in assumptions. And the results of these agendas create many destructive symptoms that we cope with and try to eliminate constantly. Our present dominant world economies challenge every living person and natural system. It could be described as an intellectual “Trojan Horse”. It has smuggled its agendas into our minds through the deception that it has something we simply can’t live without. Otherwise, why would endless resource depletion be accepted as reasonable? Why would we accept as reasonable, humans living in poverty, people relocating from their countries in desperation, children starving? Our present economic functioning has evolved from an engine of growth to a destructive distraction. Our economics desperately needs a life standard.

We know by heart the functions of profit economics but we know in our hearts that life is missing from its calculations. All life, not just human life. The goal of an Energy Currency Economy is to value and protect human life so that we can then be empowered to protect all life. As more stress (the corona virus), is placed on our present unequal socio/economic systems its weaknesses become even more apparent. It is clear that it cannot provide sufficient healthcare, food or education and shelter for our citizens and for most of World population. This is a disaster because it is human energy that is essential for economies to function, societies to thrive and people to survive. Reduction of population is not an answer. Our present human domination of Earth is much too complex and intertwined for the wealthy minority to do without the rest of us. Population is important, and will naturally balance and reduce when people feel secure and know their descendants can survive.

Human energy is essential and renewable. Survival needs can be measured and valued, not with money, because it fluctuates in value and can be manipulated, but in units of energy. Depending on what essential needs are being calculated. Let’s consider food and water, it can be calculated in calories, joules can be used for daylight hours needed for teaching and learning, BTUs for fuels needed for constructing shelter, schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Our true “right to life” is assurance from birth to birth that each person has food, shelter, education and healthcare. Basic needs equal the real basic income. The real, living wage.

What we have when human needs are measured then made into a parallel value system is Energy Currency . What is represented by this is not profit or accumulated wealth. EC represents the basic survival of each human being. What we need for a healthy and secure life. What feeds and sustains our human energy currents. And these, in return power our human systems, everywhere. Our energy contribution is expressed in our work, art, empathy, parenting, learning, educating, communicating, etc…it combines into a massive current of human energy, that contributes to the motion of society. This is the essential human energy that keeps socio/economic systems running and our species evolving. “All life is only a movement to which the same general laws of movement which govern throughout the physical universe must be applicable.” Nikola Tesla. We, humanity, are at this time, a Force of Nature.

Food security, shelter, education and health care are the elements that are needed for optimal human development, physically and emotionally. When general distribution of these needs is accomplished through Energy Currency with the help of computer systemization, our human current will flow from our best selves influencing our children, the future development of humanity and protecting all of Nature. Change environment and you change the people living in it.

Post script:

If we look carefully, we can see that for profit economics is strangling our hope for Democracy; our hope for human dignity world wide. It controls governments, encourages unnecessary competition and “survival of the fittest”. Resulting in survival of the opportunistic and often cruel among us. This situation has frightened and impoverished at least half of our population and a massive percentage of World population. Of course there are individuals taking advantage of the imbalance. They try to lure vulnerable, naïve people into their movements and use them to increase their own power and influence by promising them a better life. This situation can only be counteracted by a worldwide guarantee of food, shelter and education for every person, birth to birth. Creation of a dedicated, Energy Currency flow , that parallels our present economic systems and is providing these essentials will start to relieve the crippling symptoms that are driving human populations to desperation and destroying Nature Please consider reading more about this at renew-the-earth.org and helping us to better clarify and simplify this idea.Thank you. Susan Caumont, April 7, 2021

PRESS RELEASE: Renew the Earth suggests a way to balance the unequal impacts of economics on humanity, by using Energy Currency for basic human needs

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:42:00 GMT

Albany, New York, October 2020 – Renew the Earth ( renew-the-earth.org ) suggests an Energy Currency Credit Card be given to every individual for use in acquiring their basic needs of food, shelter, education and healthcare.

Renew the Earth, an Albany, New York based non-profit organization has been developing a way to calculate what is necessary to sustain basic human life, named the Human Renewable Energy Measure. This calculation is valuable for many reasons. One thing it makes clear is how much human energy effort is needed to keep our economies running. Another is, that all our basic needs are the same in definition and quantity, worldwide. The Corona virus pandemic has made it clear how valuable people are in keeping economies functioning. And, that all people are essential to this effort, no matter what their job or activity or status.

So, how much is a life worth?

How much is money worth?

These are questions that must be addressed if we are to create more economically equal societies. Why is this important? Economic inequality encourages racism. More equal societies have less racism, among other beneficial things like fewer wars, less migration, less depression, fewer debilitating diseases. These societies are more empathetic, more inventive, more content, less fearful, more inclined to preserve nature, and use natural resources efficiently. In order to have a heathy economy we need to have a healthy and informed population. Each person from birth to birth must have food, shelter, education and healthcare. These needs are the same and measurable, no matter where people live on Earth. They are equivalent to the base value of a human life. They make survival possible. These are not the individual intellects and talents that make each of us unique. These are the basics that keep us alive, they are the same for every person, and they can be calculated in objective energy units. This is a good thing and only possible now because computers have the ability to systematize. A chart showing where each human need will be distributed world wide, how much of each need is necessary in each population and how frequently deliveries must be made, can be developed. It is essential that needs not be calculated in money values because money does not have a consistent value. Its value is subjective, controlled by the fluctuations of economies country to country, year to year, day to day.

Human energy needs are consistent and must be met every day, no matter what. Human energy survival units can be calculated objectively and are constant and predictable, person to person, world wide. Speculation, interest rates, stocks, inflation, are all impacts on the exchange value of money/currency/wants, and would impact the cost and distribution of basic needs, making it impossible for economically unequal societies to provide basic needs for their citizens. Instead, the result would be inflation of money value. Through a separate but parallel currency stream we call Energy Currency, basic needs would be calculated and distributed. This currency cannot be invested or gamed and does not create inflation because it is destroyed at the banks.

As Senator John Lewis once said, “Make it simple, make it sing.” A new economic balance can emerge from what we have learned during the pandemic. Energy currency providing basic human needs and traditional currency for speculation, profit and investment. The result will promote innovation throughout humanity, not just a small percentage. We are all capable of creative leaps, if we have time to think and are not compelled to make more and more money to cover basic needs. Our future on Earth depends on the most diverse expansion of thought possible. Is it possible, within our present economic functioning, to protect life? All life? Can we agree that whatever system sustains life has created ‘real value’? Our human impact has done and continues to do damage around the world. We are all aware of this. With out wanting to, we commit crimes against each other and Nature. Profit economics, functioning unrestrained, without being balanced by considerations like the health and survival of humanity and life in general, as we now see clearly, creates a life blind value system. We are compelled to compete with each other and make wasteful use of natural resources. Profit depends on constant growth. but constant growth is not possible on our finite Earth. This is the unsustainable structural/economic violence within which we are presently functioning.

Anything is possible, if it is necessary. Let’s imagine two currency streams, functioning side by side, serving different purposes and complimenting each other. One, Energy Currency, is for objective Human survival needs, food, shelter, education and healthcare. The other, Traditional Currency, continues its useful functions in speculation and financial reward and for purchases of wants like, cars, investments, vacation homes, savings, fancy clothes, cruises, fun stuff, etc. This traditional currency carries on the way it always has, but the Energy Currency or credit, mitigates its damaging aspects and begins to create balance by stabilizing human labor through guaranteeing their basic needs.

How does Energy Currency/credit work? This ‘social credit’ is not used like present traditional currency. It cannot be invested or saved and is destroyed when it gets to a bank, so it won’t create inflation. It can be issued to each person in the form of a card that can be used only for basic food, shelter, education and healthcare. The credit can be ‘cashed in’ by the recipient at a fair market value that is monitored so that it cannot be used for speculation. No one is to blame for the damage being done to people and nature, but we all have had to participate. We have been formed by our economic systems from birth and behave within its constricts. It is almost impossible to imagine another way of living. Economics even controls governments. The task for all of us is to think our way out of constant competition and money making into a different economic structure. Then, make it a reality. Economics that enhances the well being of everyone and all life, making it possible for us to enter our brightest future.

Are you interested in learning more about Renew the Earth and their concepts of Human Renewable Energy Measure and Energy Currency? Please check out their website at www.renew-the-earth.org . “These are open source ideas and we welcome your input,” says Susan Caumont, president; Renew the Earth.

About Renew the Earth: Renew the Earth has been working since 1970 to educate the public about renewable energies, sun, wind and biomass and sustainable practices. Over the past 10 years, our focus has shifted to the HREM, Human Renewable Energy Measure, and Energy Currency. We feel that general acceptance of renewables has been reached and the present roadblock is how economics functions for-profit and not for humanity and best practices. “Time is not money, time is life.”

Jeff Beller, economist and vice president of Renew the Earth.

Contact Information:Name: Jeff Beller

Address: Renew the Earth, 8 Robin Ann Lane, Westerlo, NY 12193

Phone: 518-797-3377

A Solution to the Economic Problems We are Facing…

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 15:17:00 GMT

Keep economic systems going worldwide without creating inflation and putting our descendants into debt for generations to come. renew-the-earth.org has been working on a calculation called the Human Renewable Energy Measure, HREM.

This measure is the standard of value for what we call Energy Currency. The EC exchange functions within existing economic systems and parallels but does not eliminate traditional currency.

EC can only be used for human survival needs; food and shelter and social necessities like health care, education and infrastructure. When it enters a bank it is identified as Energy Currency and is destroyed so that it will not create inflation. Similar, in this way, to the Green Back Dollar.

HREM Manuscript…A Work In Progress

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:06:00 GMT

“And Raven tried to make People out of Rock, so they would not die and a Leaf, so they would change. Rock was too slow. So People were created from a Leaf. It was light, it was quick, it changed.” Alaskan Native American Tlingit legend, People of the Tides.

“The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know things can change.” Pope Francis, Care of Our Common Home, Encyclical

“You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller, “Critical Path”

Buried deep in our minds is the understanding that change is essential to life. Native peoples, who were keen observers saw Natures changes create possibilities. Possibilities offered choice. They understood that Nature pursued equilibrium through diversity. It uses change as the raw material to create balance moment to moment, balance in motion.

Choices formed by change open opportunities for discussion and possible agreement. We are a tiny reflection in the eye of Nature. We function with the same general guides. We can perceive truth, deep in our collective unconscious. When we are presented with choices and come to eventual agreement, we have an opportunity to choose a common truth that promotes human survival.

What is our most pressing common problem, worldwide? I suggest it is economic focus on profit and lack of its focus on human survival and life survival. This is where a new and truthful agreement needs to happen. Isn’t it time we agree to structure the dominant human system of our time, economics, so that it fulfills human needs?

Most of us labor under an economic system that pursues profit as its goal. The term “wage slavery” is accurately applied to our times. Constant promotion of notions that divide us like, scarcity of resources, fear of immigrants (they take our jobs), keeping up and competing with your neighbor, buying the ‘best’ education for your children so they can get jobs that offer the highest wages, defining making money as the most creative activity in which a person can participate, all ultimately distort human relations toward less diversity, less empathy, more racism, religious conflict and wars. At any point humanity is being sacrificed to the better profit not the better good.

What if we turn toward what we have in common instead of our differences? Basic human survival needs are a good place to start. We all have the need for food, shelter and education in common. Fulfilling these needs can be the priority of economics world wide. Liberating humanity from economic slavery in return for a fraction of individual work life time.

The commonality of our human survival needs is clear. None of us can live without food (water), shelter and education. The base amount of food and water is the same for everyone, one million calories, of each, per year. Basic shelter that protects from weather and provides moderation of temperature when needed, is comparable world wide. And education, from kindergarten to whatever higher education a person has the desire and intellect to absorb, is provided with out cost, because we know that an educated population is more tolerant of differences, more peaceful and creative. These results all bode well for the survival of our human community.

All these needs can be measured in terms of energy consumed or used. This is desirable because if we put a monetary value on them it is subjective value that cannot be kept constant overall. By measuring human needs in energy units, as accurately as science understands, we are closer to an objective valuation that cannot be manipulated by money markets, stocks, interest rates, etc.

Starting with food and water, they can be measured with energy calories. We already know that approximately 100 calories of food are recommended daily for a healthy diet from cradle to end of life and daily water calories are also known. Shelter can be measured by energy jules from the sun that are needed to grow the natural materials and the average calories absorbed by human work effort expended in building these structures can be added. Education is a special consideration. People acquire most of their education through what they observe and experience throughout their lives. We learn to communicate, become social, develop a moral philosophy, learn to understand our fellow humans and how to compromise for mutual benefit. then there is specialized knowledge that is available mostly through higher education in colleges and universities. This can be measured by calculating average teaching and study times for a student to learn a specialty, then equate that time with life energy spent by each individual during those activities. Maybe calories would be useful here also. This kind of human energy calculation was used by the US military to determine how many fighters would be enough for any violent encounter. In 1957, Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN, estimated that “Man’s muscle power is rated at 35 watts continuously, or one-twentieth horse power.” This statement both quantifies an energy basis for humans and also makes comparison with another quantified standard for energy measurement, horse power. Returning to energy expended for formal learning and teaching it is not difficult to equate these same estimates with a time/energy equation. Formal education can be expressed through energy units and provided in this way, at no cost.

No cost? How is that possible? Because every individual of working age and throughout their work life will work one hour per workday (approximately) for energy units that represent food, shelter and education. This is the Human Renewable Energy Measure that acts as a preamble to the for-profit economic system. The rest of the work life hours and how they are spent are the decision of everyone. They may use their time to earn money to buy things they want or use their time to for example, think and create. “Time is Money”, evolves to “Time is Life”. The results of such empowerment can only be imagined.

What kind of work will people do for their energy unit quota or HREM? Any work that is beneficial to society. Some examples would be, raising children, working on infrastructure, providing medical/dental care, etc. Once their quota for energy units are met, the extra hours and days and years of work life are paid in whatever currency is available in their country. The energy unit quota is ‘spent’ on food, shelter and education by converting it to a type of currency that cannot be hoarded or saved in stocks or savings accounts. When this currency reaches a bank it is destroyed, so it does not flood the economy and create inflation. But, before it goes to the bank, it can be spent the same as any local currency.

Once people don’t have to give up most of their working lifetime to “busy work for profit”, as Bucky Fuller called it, and can contribute a fraction of lifetime to working for basic needs, slavery for survival is over. Most of us must think about survival in terms of what job can we get that will pay enough money so that we can eat and pay rent and support our families. Our minds are focused on keeping the job and pleasing the person you are working for so that we don’t lose the job. You don’t have the time or energy left to consider “what you were thinking about before someone told you, you have to make a living”, Buckminster Fuller. And this gets worse as the subjective value of money fluctuates against the average wage earners and they must make more money and spend more lifetime to meet their needs.

Once people don’t have to give up most of their lifetime to work for survival needs, economic functioning changes dramatically. This will affect how each of us behaves. We won’t be working 8 hours 5 to 7 days a week to meet needs. We can choose to work longer hours to earn money for wants. But we can work approximately one hour a day or one day a week to meet our individual needs. This can ultimately reduce the work week in general to as little as 20 hours a week. for most people this would cover needs and wants. And this affects how people are thinking. A possible internal conversation may go like this, “do I work the minimum for my needs then pursue my interests, be creative and inventive, spend more time with family and cultivation of friends and relationships, read and observe, or do I use some of my extra time to make money in the profit economy so that I can buy things I want? As B.F put it, you get to go back to “what you were thinking about before someone told you, you have to make a living.”

The functions of the HREM do not eliminate ‘for profit economics’. It allows a whole new spectrum of possibilities and choices to be revealed to an individual, resulting in more diversity of human interaction and outcome. The stagnation and predictable outcomes of profit economics are challenged and made secondary to individual choice. By expanding our individual diversity we begin to imitate the processes of Nature. We are seeking equilibrium through diversity, moving and ever changing into the future.

Why should we bother to make it possible for economics to meet basic needs worldwide? Basic human needs are among the least expensive and least profit-making activities of modern economics. So, they are not a high priority in most economies. The emphasis on profit is forcing humanity to live with and die from the many damaging symptoms generated by for profit economics. Some examples of these symptoms are, wars over valuable natural resources, poverty, human slavery, gross financial inequality, debilitating stress when work is unavailable, scapegoating, drug an alcohol addiction, unrecoverable damage to environments, extinction of species and damage to our atmosphere, the air we breathe.

How will meeting the basic survival needs of everyone from birth to death moderate and sometimes eliminate most of the damaging symptoms of profit economics? Human behavior and motives are profoundly affected when the dignity and safety of individuals are protected by providing basic needs for basic work. People are not forced to leave their homes and countries in order to find work that pays enough for them to live and for their families to survive. We have enough food and resources to provide basic needs worldwide. We don’t distribute it effectively. Profit economics does not motivate this kind of behavior. So, it is mostly left to churches, NGO’s and billionaires. Another important change is in the relationship between employer and employee. They are on a more equal basis. An employee can bargain for better wages because their basic needs are met. No one can be forced into nonliving wage slavery because survival is no longer the ultimate threat that an employer has over an employee. Once the basic work requirement has been met, through the equivalent of one day a week of work, a person can choose to work more hours for money they can use to buy their wants. And they will work these extra hours at jobs that pay acceptable wages. The basic work will be related to activities that fulfill the production and distribution of basic needs, worldwide. Farming, teaching, constructing shelter, would be some of the basic work. Work for extra things people feel they want will be at all the variety of jobs that presently exist in the economies in which we live. The big question will be, “what do I want to spend my time on today? Do I want to work more hours for my wants or do I want to participate in activities that interest me but do not pay me anything? There is no way to determine at this time how people will answer these questions. A generation or more of basic needs being met may have to pass before the outcomes of survival security are revealed. The important thing is that choice and resulting diversity will have been introduced into human activities. We are trusting that humans, if aloud to, know how to move our species toward physical and mental health and survival. We know how to protect our Earth and the lives that share it with us, if we are not forced into exploitation for the sake of survival.

The goal is to create an economy whose purpose is to honor human energy and stop the collateral damage of profit economics. The Human Renewable Energy Measure, HREM, is suggested as a starting point for this purpose. It will act as a zero, a standard that protects humanity and eventually replaces the dominance of the profit standard which promotes dehumanization and elastic currency. “We are called to be the architects of the future – not its victims.” BF

The human species is a natural force. A new era is being named because of our domination, the Anthropocene, the age of man. Our present status/impact on Earth confers on us vast responsibility “Though free to think and act, we are held together, like stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable.” Nikola Tesla “…where ever there is life, there is mass moved by a force.” “does not the whole of human life attest it? Birth growth, old age, and death of an individual, family, race or nation, what is it all but a rhythm? All life-manifestation, then, even in its most intricate form, as exemplified in man, however involved and inscrutable, is only a movement, to which the same general laws of movement which govern throughout the physical universe must be applicable.” page 104, N.Tesla, “My Inventions and Other Writings” Penguin Classics. These statements by N.T. assert our human commonality and force of purpose even though we are individuals with free will. Our commonality allows us to come to agreements about the best ideas that can preserve the human life force into the future.

Like Admiral Rickover, Tesla felt that it was possible to measure human energy. Unlike Admiral Rickover’s evaluation that was useful for calculating the “human muscle power” needed for battle, Teslas equation is all encompassing. He represents the whole mass of humanity and the presence of its living force in the following equation. “Let,… M represent the mass of man. This mass is impelled in one direction (with) force f, which is resisted by another partly frictional and partly negative force R, acting in a direction exactly opposite, and retarding the movement of the mass. In accordance with the preceding, the human energy will then be given by the product 1/2MV squared = 1/2MV times V, in which M is the total mass of man in the ordinary interpretation of the term “mass”, and V is a certain hypothetical velocity.” pages 518-797-3377, My Inventions and Other Writings”, Penguin Classics.

“You never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” BF By introducing into economics a preamble to the “for profit economics” we are using, an agreement to measure and provide basic human survival needs in energy units in exchange for a minimal human work energy/life requirement, a new model is created. We “…shift our focus and resources from weaponry to livingry.” BF, “Critical Path” We begin the process of focusing human life force energy toward more time to think creatively, more individuality, more cooperation and innovation, less competition for resources that have been made artificially “scarce”, less warfare and wage slavery.

“We are on a spaceship; a beautiful one. It took billions of years to develop. We are not going to get another. Now, how do we make this spaceship work?” BF. Let’s examine some of the obstacles that our present economic social model presents. Then we can look at possible changes we can make for the better. How have we modeled and organized or present economic social agreement? What is our existing model? The amazing advances in technology, over less than 100 years, were predicted to replace tedious repetitious work and shorten work hours, create leisure time and make work activities more efficient. What happened? Where did the extra time go? More efficiency, fewer hours to have to pay laborers should have resulted in more profit. Where did the extra value go? Did we get more time to think, create, read or interact? Were the new technologies employed to meet basic needs world wide? No. In fact, the opposite happened. Most people are working longer hours and for less pay. Our economics, that values profit making above all, gives very little extra value from new tech and efficiency back to the general working population. Most of the profit goes into stocks and bank accounts of the owners of the businesses that are profiting from advanced technologies and fewer employees. Also, increasing the wealth of the already wealthy are rebates and gifts from government. This is aided by low tax rates for mega companies. These tax rates are justified with talk of “trickle down economics”, which is a fantasy. What businesses do with their extra cash is pay more into stocks, pay CEO’s and owners unimaginable wages, expand their companies into countries with weak laws to protect their valuable natural resources, set up shop there with low wages for workers and cheap land values so they can make even more money. This is the mindset that is praised and promoted under our current social model. Modern economics demands profit above all. The social agreement that needs changing is not governments, not human flaws and failings, it is within the most powerful and pervasive activity we all participate in, economics. We can see the damage that “successful” companies do when they leave countries where wages are living wages and go to countries that have no laws protecting labor from exploitation. “Wage Slaves” are created and a continuous loop of workers who have to work for subsistence or less is the result. Companies are enriched and they proceed to expand their operations in these countries giving as little benefit to the local people whose home it is, as they can get away with.

What is wrong with this picture? Aren’t they doing just what modern economics asks of them? Why shouldn’t they get what they worked for? Or, did they work for it? Were they the creators of all the new technologies. Were they the builders of the infrastructures that make things work? Were they the teachers who passed on the necessary tools to make use of our cumulated knowledge? Humanity builds on the achievements and knowledge of all humanity that came before us and we extend these ideas to the next generation. Our mass of humanity is propelled by the exchange of thought that can result in useful invention. And this process is mostly done without pay. It is one of the highest forms of creativity and work. But in order to do it humans need time. Aristotle said, “ The end of labor is to gain leisure.” He defined music, arts and teaching as “leisure work”. Work that is done for no pay. As BF would later assert, “free the creativity of all humanity to create and not compete.”

Let’s say we all have some time to think, what do we want a new economic social model to look like? One that would provide basic needs and “gain leisure” for everyone? That is my idea of a good start. We are, “local Universe information gatherers and problem solvers,” as BF said. This is our strongest survival activity. For thousands of years humans have learned from and benefited from the activities of Nature. We have learned to understand some of the ways it solves problems. And, when presented with a problem, Nature responds as efficiently as possible. We need Natural efficiency in our economics. And we all recognize efficiency when we see it. A Buddhist saying asserts that “ we are all students of reality – whatever it is….” Our present social economic contract is not based on reality. It is not efficient. It’s practice is based on an assumption of never ending resources and consumption, which is unsustainable and will ultimately result in our extinction and that of other living things, as it already has done. The other dominant thought is Social Darwinism or survival of the fittest. (A close reading of Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”, reveals that he was not promoting this concept as understood today. He felt that human cooperation was the trait that has brought us this far and could take us into the future.) We are encouraged to believe that we are inherently superior to all life on Earth – more fit to survive – and that it follows that some humans are more fit to survive than others. This suits profit economics perfectly. “Winner take all and the Devil take the hindmost.” Even the Bible suggests that man has “dominion over the Earth”. The concept of inherent superiority is blinding us to our common human potentials and the profound significance of other life forms around us. We are encouraged to destroy life in the name of profit. Wherever humanity settles, first it clears away what was there before. Vaclav Havel made a speech in Philadelphia, July 4, 1994, “ The Need for Transcendence inn the Post-Modern World”, in which he addressed this subject. “… the awareness of our being anchored in the Earth and the Universe, the awareness that we are not here alone nor for ourselves alone… This forgotten awareness is encoded in all religions.” Even Pope Francis who chose the name of St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals and the environment, states in his encyclical “ Care for Our Common Home”, “ We need to care for the Earth so that it may continue as God willed to be a source of life for the entire human family.” And it follows that no life form is more fit to survive than another – all forms are necessary to each other in ways we have only just begun to understand.

Let’s look at our present economic agreement. Is it economical? Ludwig von Mises asserted that whatever was technologically most efficient at your generations time in history is what should be dominant everywhere for everyone. He felt that the focus of economics should be “the physical reality of survival”. He called money, “our shared illusion”. In our time, what can be considered an efficient technology that has profound significance on our energy needs and has been viable for more than 60 years ( since the Space Race for which it was invented) but little used generally or spoken about until recent years? Renewable energies. Only recently have banks begun to back away from funding fossil fuel projects in favor of renewable energy projects. Yet, an advocacy group called Extinction Rebellion is questioning weather the Capitalist System can allow renewables to dominate and halt the progress of Climate Change. BBC News, Rodger Harrabin BBC environment analyst, December 30, 2019. Why have renewable energy technologies, wind, sun and biomass, taken so long to surface? They are clearly more efficient, cleaner and cheaper than the fossil fuel model. After all, we got to the moon in less than 12 years when we were motivated by the Cold War. The question has been, “How do we make money off renewable energy technologies?” And it has taken this long for fuel companies to find a way to make big money off renewable energies. This has never been the objective for these highly advanced technologies. The goal has been what Tesla asserted in his writings, cheaper and eventually free energy World Wide. This would be the most efficient use and eventually the most life sustaining. Tesla was a humanitarian and had this vision during his final projects when he experimented with transmitting energy through the air. (note, pages, book)

Our “shared illusion” money, as Mises referred to it, can be a tool for economies to use but it should not be the goal of economics. Simply making money for the sake of making money and profit and enriching an “elite” minority does not serve life survival. “You can make money or make sense.” BF We don’t want to lose sight of what is truly efficient and economical! This is what economics can do well when its purpose is life survival. If we want a sustainable economy it needs to have a objective physical basis, not a subjective currency basis. The physics that we presently understand about human survival needs, can act as an economic constant, starting point, a zero that is not vulnerable to manipulation, as is currency. These physical needs can be identified then calculated in energy units using our most current scientific knowledge and compiled by computers. The physical basis for human survival can be calculated/quantified with useful accuracy for the first time in human history!

We live in a time when many people walk around with a genius in their pocket, their ‘smart’ phone. This genius can access the internet anytime its owner wants. And there it will find humanity’s present fund of knowledge. We can benefit easily from this vast library, in an instant, by connecting with the internet through computers and smart phones. Because our present cumulated state of knowledge has become easier to use than a conventional library and more vast than a typical library collection, many more people worldwide are becoming more educated than ever before. The possibilities for diversity and change are increasing. The results are not predictable from our present vantage but, like Nature, we can move toward balance through uncertainty. Bucky Fuller called this ‘synergy’, when the results can have nothing to do with the character of it’s parts. And this is a situation that is desirable. The outcome can be unexpected but, at the same time, extremely creative and useful. The goal is to err on the side of diversity not domestication. The philosophy, “survival of the fittest”, can be be seen as a useful way to domesticate populations. Consider – we breed food animals for their “best traits’ and cull the ones that have less meat, lay fewer eggs, cannot tolerate certain conditions like weather extremes, and captivity. We breed and genetically manipulate food plants in similar ways. We need to be aware that these same efforts are at work domesticating humanity through constant advertising and propaganda. Only those individuals who ‘get with the program’, will be considered useful and allowed to thrive. Pope Francis states, in his encyclical on “Our Common Home”, that presently “economic interest prevails over common good… Let us not forget that we are carbon-based living things – we have that in common with all living things.” He refers to the threat to diversity that is posed by Climate Change. “Humanity is called to create awareness of the need to change styles of life, production and consumption, to combat this warming, or at least, the human causes that produce or accentuate it.” With Climate Change we encounter change that appears to be leading humanity to its destruction through contamination of our ‘Common Home’. Here is where a distinction between change brought about by profit economics, (Climate Change), and change that is a creative result of diversity, must be made. With thoughtful consideration most of us can tell the difference. What is the result? Is it useful? Does it promote life? Pope Francis goes on to say, “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know things can change.” (for the better) Paragraph #18, Pope Francis goes on to warn us, “The continued acceleration of (adverse) changes affecting humanity and the planet is coupled today with a more intensified pace of life and work which might be called ‘rapidification’. Although change is part of the working of complex systems, the speed with which human activity has developed contrasts with the naturally slow pace of biological evolution. Moreover, the goals of this rapid and constant change are not necessarily geared to the common good or to integral or sustainable human development… The ecosystems of tropical forests possess an enormously complex biodiversity which is almost impossible to appreciate fully, yet when these forests are burned down or leveled for purpose of cultivation, within the space of a few years countless species are lost and the areas frequently become arid wastelands. A delicate balance has to be maintained when speaking about these places, for we cannot overlook the huge global economic interests which, under the guise of protecting them, can undermine the sovereignty of individual nations. In fact, there are proposals to “internationalize the Amazon”, which only serve the economic interests of transnational corporations.” Paragraph #38. These same concerns can be applied to the Earth at large. Do we want to “make money or make sense?”

More than a third of nations have in their constitution’s rights to food, shelter and education. The intention is there but these nations cannot, for the most part, accomplish these aims. Why? Because economics trumps government. Economics is our World Government. From the moment of social consciousness to death every human on Earth becomes a part of and participant in the Worldwide Economic System. Its rules are the uppermost because they lead the way to survival or no survival, for everyone. National governments are secondary to this system and vulnerable to its functioning. We have already examined the ‘motives’ of modern economics. Pursuit of profit is a slim bet to base human and general life survival upon. But it is extremely entertaining for those that enjoy hoarding money and exerting the influence and power that it can bring. To what ends? Has the power brokering of a few individuals brought us to a good place? Or, are we seeing that the concentric circles of profit chasing bringing less diversity, less choice, less creativity, more stress, more population dislocation, more inequality, more poverty and starvation?

The reason that our physical human commonality is so important is that these things are self-evident and will ultimately bring us to agreement. Agreement is a wonderful human activity that has saved us throughout our history. This sounds like a simplistic statement. And it is. Some of the most profound things we are capable of, can start very simply. Things of general and urgent importance to humanity develop over time. They are woven intricately by countless and anonymous hands until they become a seamless part of everyday life and few remember when it wasn’t so. Some examples of these kinds of agreement are languages (verbal and written), storage and transfer of information, the development of science and technology that allowed industrialization, physical and time measurements. This last, physical measurement is particularly important for structuring an economy that enables life into the future.

How do we know what is fair, without measurement? How does a person know where he is or where to go, if he has no map, no measure for distance, no compass or other locating device? Let’s consider, a pilot has to bail out of his burning plane with his parachute and he lands in a field. As luck would have it, there is a person hiking nearby. The pilot asks the hiker, “Where am I.” The hiker says, “You are in a wheat field.” The pilot responds, “You must be an economist!” The hiker says, “Yes, but how do you know?” The pilot replies, “You just gave me perfectly accurate information and told me nothing.” Our economics presently functions in this same way. Valuations of human work energy (thought and physical effort) are subjected to interpretation. There is no standard of value from which human renewable energy, when used to run economies, is measured. Human work effort is what runs economies and is it’s source of value. How can it be measured accurately? We can begin to see a way toward this when we consider what our currency values are pegged to presently. The value of the dollar, and by extension the value of currency world wide because the dollar is considered the “preferred currency”, is linked to fossil energy prices. The significance of fossil energy is derived from its amplifying effect it has on human energy. It makes us stronger and faster through machinery and more intelligent through computing and technologies. Without it we would still be doing everything “by hand”. These fossil resources and prices are controlled by a small group of people and countries, subjectively. The urgent need for countries without these fossil resources to have a reliable source of them, gives great power and influence to the countries that have fossil fuels to sell. They can name their price. Civilization, as we know it, would be greatly changed without fossil energy. Renewable energies are being used more and more but are still a very small percentage of overall energy use. Sustainable economics and fairness will begin to evolve as we use more renewable sources for energy, gradually replacing fossil fuel, and place human renewable energy as the most important energy in economics by defining it with an equation. A reasonable estimate for human renewable energy can be expressed as 20 human energy hours = 7.2 mega Joules, (Dr David Borton, RPI, Troy, New York., http://www.oeic.us/articles/renewable energy/solar energy in our lives not in the news. The 20 hours represents a desired length of a basic work week and the energy represents hard physical effort for that time interval by someone in good physical condition. We can standardize that to an individual’s one hour of energy as 360,000 Joules = 360 kJ. With the Human Energy Renewable Measure, HREM, standardized to equal to 20 human energy hours or 7200kJ. This becomes a useful unit that expresses human energy similar to other numbers we attach significance to like, inches in a foot, degrees of temperature, ounces in a pound, horse power or any other valuable agreements on measurement or equating we use for a starting point for transaction, experimentation, travel, time, value, thought, etc.

Designing a human energy equation provides us a useful tool with which human needs can be distributed worldwide. The equation is expressed in Joules because the energy for human thought and effort derives directly from renewable solar energy. For almost all human existence on Earth, societies have been powered by humans themselves with only the help of hand tools and their intellect. Our air, water and food are all provided by sunshine on plants and sunshine distilling fresh water into the atmosphere for our rain that provides us with water. This essential renewable energy supply is roughly 4 giga-joules for every adult human or 1 million calories of food and water per year. The same has been true of whoever existed over the millions of years of beings we call human. Solar energy input powered our food gathering, our reproduction, our social interactions and our society (including the arts and our wars) and is still growing our population numbers.

Human renewable energy is a decentralized economic resource every human can produce and is less vulnerable to the inflation, deflation and manipulation our current ‘currency’ is subject to. Human energy has the real potential to create free markets. If our work energy is protected by the economy we live in, through human needs being met for a standard work contribution, then our work energy in the larger market place is voluntary and the opportunity to work for more money or our ‘wants’ is individual choice. This situation will eventually result in real free markets. Unlike the ‘free markets’ that exist today, which give most of the ‘freedom’ to the wealthy, the banks and the political power brokers. This freedom is often used by corporations to coerce workers in vulnerable economic circumstances worldwide, to work for marginal wages and in this way significantly boost corporate profit margins.

The gross domestic product, GDP, only concerns itself with human energy that is paid with currency (wages). Only people with jobs paid in wages are recognized in this calculation. GDP cannot exist without human energy but fails to calculate a most important aspect of human energy that is always at work in the shadows. We define this as the ‘human existence economy’. Once again, we are directing attention to the most basic concern of humanity, (each individual born), that of survival. We all have this drive in common. In fact human existence hours per person per year can be calculated to equal 8,760 hours. Of these hours an average 20 hour human work week would be equal to say, 2,000 work hours per year. The rest of these hours that are not used for sleep are individual human energies used to create support structure for the ‘work hours’. These support structures, and they take many forms, make it possible for some people to leave home in the morning, work 8 or so hours at a wage paying job, return home to refuel and sleep, then repeat that process 5 to 7 days a week depending on the wage they are being paid. We are all familiar with this. But, when we examine what makes this routine possible the ‘human existence economy’ is revealed. It supplies essential support in the form of child care, elder care, volunteer work of all kinds, maintenance of the home, preparation of meals, informal psychological council and emotional support, creative activities (writing, music, painting), innovative thinking, etc. In the H.R.E.M. economic system the ‘human existence economy’ is included in the GDP. It is recognized and rewarded with a base wage that guarantees every person functioning in ‘support economics’, no matter what age or ability; their education, healthcare, food and shelter. The success of a nations GDP will be rated not just by how many people have jobs that pay wages. Nations that develop H.R.E.M. economies will be rated by how well they recognize all non-wage social contributions and reward their entire population. “As human beings, all seven billion of us are born the same way and die the same way. Physically, mentally and emotionally we are the same. We all want to live a happy life and avoid problems, but in a materialistic culture we overlook the importance of love and affection.” Dalai Lama, Twitter post, 518-797-3377.

Through H.R.E.M. economics we are developing a more economical and efficient result. One of its many results will contribute to reversing Climate Change. Here is how it works. When we agree that everyone receive survival needs, we are then obliged to figure out is how to afford it. The only way this can be possible is if it is done in the most efficient and therefore least expensive way. Through this required efficiency, natural resources are not squandered and wasted. Everything is carefully grown and constructed with the future in mind. Will there be enough for future generations, how do we make this possible? Are the methods used sustainable and replaceable? What is the impact on our common home, Earth? Are we doing the best we can to keep Earth healthy? When we agree to recognize and protect the common good, which equals our species survival all life survival benifits. Our computerizing and systemizing technologies come into play to make this possible. All the common elements of human need can be identified and quantified no matter what the unique challenges of food , housing and education. And these can then then be converted into the appropriate energy units for purposes of calculation and distribution. This process can be recognized as real democracy. Human agreement and technology is being used to protect the common good.

Declaring that Humanity has rights, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafted 518-797-3377 by the United Nations does eloquently, is an essential beginning. Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the drafting committee that created the final document. It was her “driving force” that carried this process through the two years it took to finish. But, in order to make these rights a reality there has to be an agreed upon process. Articles, 22,23,24,25 and 26 of the UDHR speak to the common needs of humanity. The starting point and focus of HREM economics. An economic zero that will transform the present focus from unsustainable profit making to general life enhancement and human empowerment. Putting a measure of control back into the hands of the general population to counter oligarchy and waste. As BF said, “built a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

A new model built on measuring human energy. Our energy is our life, our time, our thoughts, our generosity, our spirituality, our conversation, our inventiveness, our survival and by extension, our Earths survival. Human energy profoundly effects the Earth at this time, to the point that a new era has been named for this process, the Anthropocene, as has been mentioned previously. We recognize that our busy activities on Earth have begun a process we call Climate Change. Over the 300 or so years of industrialization fueled by fossil energy, profound and damaging changes in our fragile atmosphere have been occurring. Though many nations are now converting to renewable energies, (notably Germany and China), this process has yet to catch up to the rate of damage. Still, there is hesitancy about accepting the reality of Climate Change and its human source. Propaganda from the elite status quo which profits greatly from fossil fuel sales worldwide, protects their interests with wars and continues to grab locations worldwide for future oil drilling, holds public opinion in a state of confusion. These missives of climate change denial coming from countless news organizations and world leaders whose resources are limitless in this pursuit, create an atmosphere of ignorance, suspicion, and mistrust of science, effectively thrusting humanity back into the Middle Ages where ‘bleeding a patient’ was considered an effective remedy for disease. We have come far beyond this in science, but it is very easy to create confusion with the same techniques that have worked historically for ages. Just use a “firehose of falsehoods” as President Putin once said. World power structures have always used ‘divide and conquer’ as a way to control populations. Dividing us into religious, language, race, color and sex categories. Resulting in helplessness in the face of crisis. Humanity has the option of “becoming enduringly successful,” as BF said. “ It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.” (Mr Fuller created this word to express what he felt was missing from our vocabulary) “The essence of livingry is human life advantaging and environment controlling… redirecting from weaponry to livingry production.” By inventing a new word BF is trying to show a new direction for humanity.

Another confusion that is presently in use is the myth of scarcity. Not enough for all. This tyranny of scarcity asserts that “ it has to be either you or me. Not enough for both… reasoning that unselfishness is suicidal.” BF This path of thinking promotes survival of the “fittest’, in other words, the domesticated. What about survival of the living, all the living? Is this no longer considered a possibility? The activity of dividing humanity into special function categories that serve the world economy and enrich the already rich, forces humanity into a game of musical chairs that always provides too few chairs for everybody resulting in desperation and panic. Competition over too few living wage jobs pits individual against individual and promotes selfishness and hypocrisy, a culture of lies. Behavioral science explains that aggression is a secondary behavior in humans. When we get what we need and are not overwhelmed, threatened or enslaved we behave in spontaneously benevolent ways. But, when we are desperate we become aggressive. A result of what was relied on, no longer working. When the United States were first forming their government and their attitude toward the Native Americans, a Squamish Indian Chief commented on their behavior when he addressed the Congress during bargaining for the sale of Indian lands. “We know the white man does not understand… One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his father’s grave behind, he does not care. He kidnaps the earth for his children, he does not care. His father’s grave and his children birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only desert.”

Let’s look at the economic game of ‘musical chairs’ in which we all are participating. You are invited to play a game and you are asked to bring whatever money you have to put into a 50/50 raffle. At the door of the hosts home each participant will be given $1,000. Your host greets all of you and takes your contribution and gives you $1,000. Then you are invited to sit in one of the chairs that have been arranged in a circle in the center of a room. Everyone takes a seat. Then you are instructed that as soon as music begins everyone has to leave their seat and start walking around the outside of the circle of chairs. When the music stops everyone is asked to find a seat and sit down. The music starts, everyone starts circling and the host removes one chair. The music stops and everyone scrambles to sit down. One person is left without a place to sit. This person is thrown out of the building by thugs employed by the host, the money he/she brought is confiscated plus the $1,000. All this money is then distributed equally among the remaining players. The game is continued until there is one seat left and two players. They circle the last seat while the music plays and fight over it when the music stops. If one of them survives The host and his thugs face this person and demand his/her money upon threat of injury or death. So, in the end, the host has all the money back that he gave out to each player plus the money each of them brought along. Then the game is played over and over again with new players.

“As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small – by giving you no time, instead of it all.” John Lennon, “Working Class Hero.” “Time is not money, time is life.” Jeff Beller, co-author of the HREM concept. It is important to ask the question, are we having the time of our lives? or, are we selling our time to be allowed to live? Modern Economics does not consider real data that impacts the survival of the human species and life survival in general. Modern economics concentrates on maximizing profit. Presently we live with the damaging symptoms of this kind of economics. Some of these are, wars (…only fools and profiteers want war.” Xena), poverty, starvation, dislocation of populations, mass emigration, terrorism, racism, scapegoating, religious persecution, massive landfills of wasted natural resources, to mention just a few. Modern economics provides no ground under our feet. We cannot be effective custodians of humanity and life on earth when, as George Sand wrote, “there is no there, there.” Meanwhile our dominant social system, economics, is doing extreme harm to Humanity and Nature. This can be changed if an agreement is made between people of good intention to modify our economic processes so that they provide human existence needs before any other function. Where are the people who speak to us about what can make our shared existence better? Where are the people who are willing to speak out against war and the violence that is being committed against humanity and life on Earth? Presently, fear, paranoia and lies speak the loudest. “…a nation will be judged by the integrity of the individual.” BF “…no superior order that can cancel your conscience.” Nuremberg trials.

“Agreement is sacred.” Utah Phillips What will be our agreement? Our defining act of survival? Can we come to a current understanding? The pun on ‘current’ is intentional. Currency can only have value if it is based on physical needs – Our Common Human Life Needs. Where is the humanity in our economics? It is not there, yet. But we know that change can happen, and agreement can be made. If a concept ‘rings true’ over time it will be adopted. Pope Francis speak of “elemental understanding”. He gives us a message of hope, “society can change quickly.” He cautions us, “stop exploiting others, stop exploiting Earth.” He urges us to understand the reality of “the connectives of life… realities are greater than ideas.” We need to be aware of the realities of our finite Earth. Our economics functions within a ‘flat earth’ mentality. Only an open edged planet that goes in all directions into infinity could inspire the concepts of endless resources and endless waste. “…things will slide in every direction, there won’t be anything you can measure anymore…” Leonard Cohan, from “The Future is Murder”. If we agree to change the economic environment by measuring human needs in energy units then fulfilling them as the main function of economics; we begin to change the behavior of the people who are functioning within our economic environment and the symptoms that result from present economic norms. “…economics and social systems contribute to difficulties… the human brain is different from other living creatures – how can the Human Condition become more in harmony with Natures continuity? How do we protect humans?” Pope Francis addressing US Congress, 2015. We are the decision makers, the ones that can come to agreement on a course for the future. Human renewable energy value belongs to all people, not just a few. Not just “the fittest”, not just the money makers. This was vividly illustrated in 1929 at the advent of the Great Crash in the stock market. “Save us!”, said the banks. And, they turned to the government, President Roosevelt and the People of the United States they said, “The citizens themselves and their government… become the wealth of last recourse.” The underwriting wealth belongs to all the people and not the few… “Bail us out!” said the banks. We have heard this cry recently. The same request was made of US taxpayers recently to bail out banks after the real estate crash of 518-797-3377. This was referred to as the Great Recession. But it should have come as no surprise since crashes of this kind occur approximately every 20 years with various degrees of severity. In this way resetting an economy whose flaws make this necessary. Always the failure of profit economics comes to human workers for remedy. Economics is pegged to human survival and human work energy in the final reckoning. So why don’t we protect Humanity instead of suffering through economic crash after economic crash, resulting in destroyed pensions, wiped out savings and the possibility of fatal harm to individuals and families, as banks try to recoup their losses and avoid bankruptcy? Maybe because we couldn’t figure out how to do it before. A revision of our Social Economic Agreement that requires quantifying accurately the survival needs of people everywhere on Earth and providing these needs, ‘cradle to cradle’, in this way protecting Human Renewable Energy, “the wealth of last resort”; was not possible till now.

For the first time in history we can accurately measure the survival needs of humanity. We can do this because of the sophistication of our internet information gathering. Human needs worldwide, no matter what the differing environments and circumstances, can be tabulated, systematized and algorithms created for each function that is used to distribute these survival needs. We already have systems in use that are on a smaller scale than the HREM, systems that provide essential services, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schools, public libraries and our Military support structure for participants and their families. All of these measure important human needs and fulfill them. We know these systems work and if that’s Socialism, Why Not? The HREM is a much larger system measuring human survival needs fairly Worldwide but it can be done and can be compared to the way horse power was standardized. The following is a useful equation that I have mentioned previously that could measure human renewable energy needs devised by physicist Dr. David Borton, RPI. Troy, New York. “The standard is somewhat arbitrarily set as 20 human energy hours = 7.2 mega Joules. The 20 hours represent a desired length of a basic work week and the energy represents hard physical effort for that time interval by someone in good physical condition. We can break that down as an individual’s one hour of energy is standardized to 360,000 Joules = 360 kJ.” With the Human Renewable Energy Measure standardized to equal to 20 human energy hours (or 7200kJ) it becomes a useful unit that expresses human energy similar to other numbers we attach significance to like, inches in a foot, degrees of temperature, ounces in a pound, horse power or any other valuable measurements/equations we use so that there is a starting point agreed upon for transactions, experimentation, travel, time etc.

Why is energy so important? Why is Human energy so important? Presently money values are based on Fossil energy. You have heard of the ‘Petrodollar’, a unit of currency earned by a country from the export of petroleum. Petroleum energy has been the driver for the industrialization and the wealth of Nations for more than 100 years. It is the prime enhancer for Human Energy. A front loader can lift more dirt than one person with a shovel. Because of the importance of fossil energies like oil, coal, gasoline/diesel and their derivatives money values have been pegged to their prices. The “wealth of last resort” has been ignored because it is much simpler, in the short run, to maintain a machine than provide basic needs to people Worldwide. But this blind spot is fatally dangerous. Petroleum driven prosperity assumes infinite resources to exploit, dependency on a dwindling and more and more expensive energy, creation of wars over properties and ocean coastlines that may provide the next oil boom, wasteful use of materials and possessions as the drum beat of consumerism is endlessly promoted through all media outlets. Because the economy cannot make money with petroleum unless people are constantly buying what it produces. Meanwhile, renewable energies like solar, wind and biomass are still trailing far behind even though they have been proven and less are damaging to our atmosphere. And the most important renewable energy, human physical and mental effort, is not honored or protected. Even though, without it the whole house of cards would collapse. This is what scares governments the most, that people will finally realize and demand their economic value. That they are indispensable. The real value of a dollar should be based on the HREM and create a Human dollar, ending the dominance of the Petro dollar. “Build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” BF With the advent of zero, mathematics was vastly improved. Economics can benefit from this same effect when our common human survival needs are the first priority of economic functioning. Then our Human Energy will promote economic functions that efficiently sustain Humanity, Nature, our Atmosphere our combined creativity of thought, inventiveness, spirituality, our survival, our humanity. Why? Because, when we focus on helping each other and design our social economic system to achieve this Worldwide, we commit ourselves to a system that functions economically – efficiently. And this is the turn in the road that will begin the environmental recovery of Earth; from which all life will benefit. As Buckminster Fuller stated, there is “no fundamental inadequacy of life support.” Only ineffective and inefficient distribution of support.

The inability and lack of will to measure human energy value in our social economic system is slowly eroding our democratic hopes and our diversity as a species. Real value is our life, our lifetime of human energy and its creations. Whatever promotes and sustains human life should be the basis of our social economic system. All life will benefit from the stability, the blooming of creativity and generosity that HREM economics can inspire. We are the dominant species on Earth at this moment and we have the fate of the lifeforms that live with us, in our hands. We must not fail them or ourselves. All survival depends on life diversity. A physical reality that surrounds us on Earth is that Nature promotes and preserves diversity in order to create equilibrium. Through the outputs, combinations and expressions of our diversity we contribute as a species to Natures equilibrium. We are part of Nature and our actions impact all life. We have a responsibility to behave toward life and natural ecosystems (chemical and mineral) in a manner that promotes, sustains and protects diversity.

A case can be made that we are all now governed by a Global Economic Government. It is clear to any person that if you are not economically independent (as minority are) you must function at work to earn money for shelter and the next meal and repeat this at least 5 days week, 8 hours a day until you can possibly retire around the age of 65. Any work that pays regularly is accepted. Not necessarily work you are good at or enjoy or is useful. Powerful individuals use this kind of economics to control large populations for thousands of years. The only difference now is that we are told to believe that we have freedom, freedom to choose and to rise to any economic level in society. This can happen. The rags to riches story is a favorite of demigods. But, it happens very infrequently. Millions of years ago Human cooperation saved our species. This was how we were able to multiply into our billions of today. We were small vulnerable populations at the beginning. Only by sharing of crucial information and not killing each other could the human species compete and thrive among life forms stronger and more abundant. Today this principle of sharing ideas and survival needs is just as crucial, but it is obscured by commercialism and our accelerated pace of life. Pope Francis referred to this as “rapidification” in “Our Common Home”. He describes it as a symptom of modern economics which emphasizes scarcity, competition, and profit above all. Wealth accumulates in the bank accounts, businesses and corporations of a minority and the rest of humanity is expected to work for them and then squabble over the leftovers. The result is an ultimate ‘divide and conquer’ activity. Desperate people pitted against each other to get what they need from too little for too many. BF felt that “70% of all jobs in America… are preoccupied with work that is not producing any wealth or life support.” The wealth that is produced is absorbed and hoarded by a minority and does not help provide the needs of the many. When the 70% of ‘make work’ jobs are eliminated and those that are left and essential are divided among the working populations through ‘job sharing’, we see shorter work week, more leisure time and more pride in the dignified work that is being done. “at home staying humans will start thinking – What was I thinking about when they told me I had to ‘earn my living’ doing what someone else had decided needed to be done? What do I see that needs to be done that no one else is attending to?” BF

Some might be thinking, “Why should we bother to save so many billions of people? Why not let them die and just keep enough population to serve the rich?” The answer is that we need diversity, there is enough for everyone, we need efficient distribution and populations will drop when child survival is more assured because of better prenatal and childcare. As far as we know, we are the most complex life forms on Earth. And could with time become an even more extraordinary presence with unimaginable potential. Maybe we can someday travel at will in space and visit other planets. Or, even more possible, we can make this Earth a real Eden. This has been foreseen (and remembered) since language began.

All lies are equally valueless, only truth has weight. On personal integrity hangs humanities fate. We cannot expect governments to act on our behalf. We need to assert what we know from experience to be real and life sustaining. Most basic of these being, food, shelter and education. When we assert that the HREM be the standard and starting point of economics then we can start to make the “pursuit of happiness” a possibility and not just a vague promise in a Bill of Rights. Our measure of dignity and survival should be the promise of our Rights. Then, we take the leap that we are capable of. We are on it’s verge. We only pause because we are confused and distracted by influences that preach never change and suppressed by economic slavery. Of course, there are powerful structures that resist change and insist on things remaining the same because it works very well for them. They do not want the general public to understand the flat earth economics under which we are born to work. Essential information is left out so that the majority of people remain in the dark about how economics is absorbing their time and their life. Economics operates by using our work energy (physical and mental) for production then storing most of the profit from that in virtual money (stocks) held for the use of a minority. This process is unsustainable but can continue through many generations, creating frustration, despair and premature death. There is no need for this behavior to continue. We can agree to provide survival needs calculated in energy units that cannot be manipulated as the preamble or bill of rights to our social economic system, then open the free market for everyone so that they can make as much money can and then buy their ‘wants’. No one’s economic status is threatened. They can still make lots of money if that is how they choose to spend their time. But some (maybe many) people will choose to use their lifetime to do other things. A whole Earth of possibilities opens up. Individual creativity is encouraged when there is significant leisure time to think. This also gets us closer to Natures model, equilibrium through diversity. Humans are built for motion and exploration. Our legs hold us upright so that our eyes can constantly scan for information. Our arms and hands are free to hold things and manipulate them. Our brains are large and capable of complex thought. These things all point to a capacity that will make it possible for all to be living optimally worldwide. “They will learn more than we will ever know – I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” Sachmo “No factor operative aboard our planet is so effective in aggregating, reorganizing, concentrating and refining the disorderly, random resource receipts as is the human mind. Human mind has discovered a number of cosmic laws – generalized scientific principles… Human mind has developed the computer, whose combined information storing, retrieving and formulate disclosing (is) magnificently augmenting human minds… BF and he wrote this before there were smart phones!

Our enslavement by the imperative of profit economics gone rogue, is threatening our long-term survival. This is not a new or sudden development. It has been in the works for a long time. In past history, approximately 90% of Egyptians were employed to prepare a container (pyramids and the like) that would take their dead Pharaoh to be born again in a paradise surrounded by all his/her riches and slaves. Today a similar percentage of workers worldwide is providing ‘heaven on Earth’ for our economically privileged minority (the present day Pharaohs). This is sanctioned by and hidden from most observers within present economic functioning. This could be referred to as an economic coo because all modern governments are subject to and subjected by economic pressure. Why else would ‘economic sanctions’ be wielded as a tool to control other countries? Bring them to their knees by raising the prices or denying entirely their survival needs. Then, move in and take whatever is of value, their property, their natural resources, under the guise that these things are being ‘developed’ within a free market economy. But the profit does not benefit the general population it profits a few industrialists and corrupt government officials. We know this. The great thing about truth is that it ‘ring true’ if we listen. We can all recognize it no matter what our education, language, religion, country or government. It is time for Capitalism to evolve, it has become stagnant. Embracing a physical human basis for sustainable economics is a beginning. An Agreement of Understanding that human physical energy be protected with a guaranteed survival ‘share’ (cradle to cradle). In this way acknowledging and honoring the indispensability of each individual’s life work energy. We can, with a clear conscience, hand the results of our generation to the children of the next, because we make this honest agreement. Only truth has weight.

This manuscript is, itself, a beginning. It attempts to put into language a radical change of direction for economics. I use the word radical with hesitation but feel it is appropriate because we have gone down the wrong road for so long and may only vaguely perceive that there is another way, other economic possibilities that serve humanity and nature. Maybe new words need to be invented for expressing this kind of economy. The language of economics presently in use has no definition for Humanity or Nature. It has not come very far from the ancient cuneiform writing that was developed for commerce and only the scribes could decipher. We need to do something difficult but necessary.

“Poverty is not a natural human condition.” Mother Teresa If we ‘Follow the Money’, as has often been said, we find that it never intersects life value. Gandhi once said, “the deadliest form of violence is poverty.” Poverty is not just about being poor but also ‘feeling poor’. Stresses created by living in stratified and economically unequal societies are well documented and very often deadly. What can we do? We can start discussion at every opportunity no matter how difficult and uncomfortable the opposition may be, about a new direction for economics. Instead of economics as usual, that follows the money. An economic system that seeks out sequences of value that preserve and enhance life. One that values our human renewable energy contribution and through us values Nature and helps preserve its dynamic. If each of us is trying to do what Nature is doing all around us, we can look to the future with justifiable hope

Postscript;

The Human Renewable Energy Measure belongs to everybody and will need our conversation, understanding and finally, agreement, to bring it into the light. Once all this is happening the practical aspects of integrating it into the economic system can be addressed and algorithms created to define and disperse universal survival needs; everyone’s fair measure for a fair contribution of their work life energy.

This humble attempt at putting the HREM, Human Renewable Energy Measure, into language is just a beginning. There have been many concepts that have come close to this in the past, Thomas Moore’s “Utopia” and recently the Universal Basic Income concept) but I have yet to find one that uses energy measurement (physics) to define human existence value and incorporate this value in economics. (Our unique, individual value is another subject and not measurable, but perceived and subjective. And is not the subject of this manuscript.) Most concepts fall back on money/wages as the defining value of humans and this is immediately suspect because money values fluctuate as they pursue profit and attempt to balance budgets. Measurement in money value is always the escape hatch for economies that are really oligarchies in disguise. Control the money value and you control populations. The result is not the value of humanity. It only reveals the activities of wasteful economies that can perceive no end to resources and that enslave its most valuable resource, humanity. Money values that fluctuate at the whim of governments and powerful individuals cannot provide solid footing for the rest of us, only the sensation of trying to stand upright on floating logs as they rush downriver.

This is not a structure for taking away wealth. But wealth cannot be taken out of the hides of working people.

“The gamblin’ man is rich and the working man is poor. I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.” Woodie Guthrie The economics that we live in does not recognize the value or diversity of human work, resulting in an extremely narrow definition of work. Only work that contributes to profit making and its enabling structures are rewarded with wages. Even the dictionary definition of work, “an activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something,” suggests a much wider scope. An expanded definition of work more closely imitates the best economy we know, Nature. Nature is economical in its own way and uses diversity to promote its equilibrium. Equilibrium is a desired outcome in nature and in economics and it is a pursuit; a process fed by constant and diverse input. An expanded definition of human work can serve the same purpose in human economics as diversity serves in nature, promotion of equilibrium and life survival. Economist and physicist John Nash recognized the danger to a social economic system that lacked diversity. His “Game Theory” explains a bargaining activity that presently occurs within modern economics. Each player, in game theory, has an ultimate threat presented to him/her, that ensures a bargain is struck. Seeking the bargain in a limited pool of choices continues to limit outcomes. Limited outcomes create vulnerability. This is a fatal weakness within our economic model. We can expand the definition of work by making the primary function of economics to fulfill the basic human needs of food, shelter and education and defining value as the human physical and intellectual work within this system. In this way, empowering and not enslaving people world

We join Illyria and Sunny the Robot, as they talk about what they think is real and what they imagine…

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 18:24:00 GMT

Chapter 1. In which Sunny mistakes wind generators for a flock of giant white birds. Illyria explains convection to him. And some interesting conversation between them.

Our story begins with Illyria and Sunny camping in a forest clearing. We find them waking after sleeping under the night sky.

“Good Morning Sunny! How are you?”
“Better I could not stand, Illyria! Though I do not sleep, I am sure I would have slept wonderfully here in this deep green quiet . What an outstanding Dawn! Her rosy fingers already reach up and paint the pale grey sky with ribbons of pink and silver. And I think I can detect the glow of her shining hair just below those tree tops.”

Our heroes stretch and begin rummaging in their packs for breakfast. Sitting comfortably on the ground back to back, they observe their surroundings while they eat.

“Oh, Sunny! Look, the leaves clap as the wind passes through the trees!”

“ An ancient story of Native Americans tells us it is the giant bird Wuchowsen, who makes the wind with its wings.

“Hold on Sunny! I have read that wind is the result of an action called convection. A process that moves heat energy through fluids.”

“ I am certain the story is true. And I think that big bird is nearby, Illyria, feel how the wind picks up and gets chilly.”

“ There is science written on this subject, Sunny, and there is general agreement. Asserting that you know what you don’t, gets us in trouble, remember? I hope you have not forgotten our encounter with the garbage whirlpool in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?!!”

“No, I have not forgotten. That was unforgettable! How did we ever survive? Anyway, listen Illyria, I want to tell you about this storm bird.They say there were times when he flapped his wings so violently that he drove the water out of the shallows where the Indian families liked to fish for eels. Eventually they could find no more eels and they started to suffer from hunger. One brave Indian went to where the big bird perched on a large rock far out in the water and addressed him. “My Grandfather, you are cold; let me carry you ashore on my back.” “Do so.” was the answer. So he waded out to where the Storm King was sitting and took him on his back and carefully carried him from rock to rock toward shore. At the last rock he stumbled on purpose and dropped Wuchowsen. The poor bird broke one of his wings. The man pretended he was very sorry and bound up the broken wing. Then he directed the bird to stay where he was and not move so his wing would heal. As a result the wind died away. Eels became plentiful and the people ate well. But slowly a scum was growing on the water and the eels became less plentiful again. Wuchowsen was revisited and examined. His wing had healed. He was told to keep both wings going but the motion must be steady and gentle.”

“Thank you, Sunny, that was a very entertaining story and I am glad you told it to me. Now sit here on the warm ground, enjoy this clearing of wild flowers and breezes, while I tell you how science explains wind.”

The air that flows around us is made up of fine bits of chemicals and dust and quantities of the gases nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide and finally, water. Chemists define water in a special shorthand: H2O. Hydrogen (two atoms) and Oxygen (one atom) When these atoms join together they become water. We don’t think our sky has water in it because most of the time its water atoms don’t take on the watery look we are used to, like that beaver pond in the distance. Water droplets in the air around us can be extremely small and far apart. We don’t even notice them! Sometimes we become aware of them when we feel sweaty then say, “Wow, it’s humid!”

Wind happens when heat energy moves through the hotter and cooler water pockets in the sky. This is called convection. We live within this process. It is happening around us all the time. Water atoms that are lowest in the atmosphere absorb the heat of the sun warmed ground and react by moving further from each other. This causes their pocket of water to become lighter and start to rise. As this pocket rises it cools, which causes the water atoms in it to condense. This means that they bunch closer together and their pocket becomes heavier than the lighter pockets of water that are rising from below. At some point the weight of the cooler denser fluid overcomes the warmer lighter fluid that is rising and it sinks back toward the ground. This lifting and sinking action of warmer and cooler water pockets pushing each other around, causes wind. It is convection in action. It can make a gentle breeze, a violent storm or even global winds!”

“Well, if I have heard you correctly, Illyria, what you say is more fantastical than stories about a giant bird flapping its wings… How can it be that these atoms, as you call them, make all this happen? And, by the way, I don’t see them. After hearing your entertaining speech, I am even more convinced that the Native Americans were correct.
And I sense the bird is nearby because I feel the wind increasing. I think we will find Wuchowsen just over that ridge.”

Sunny suddenly stands up and grabs his backpack and starts in the direction of the ridge. Illyria rises to her feet.

“ I am afraid you are in for a disappointment, Sunny! And I’m sure we are in for an adventure. This means there is no way of predicting the outcome. Wait! I am coming with you. ”

Together they begin their slow progress up the ridge. A narrow recently graveled road makes their way possible. When they get to the top they realize there is a still higher ridge just beyond. Wide steep steps of bluestone are typical of the Heldeberg Escarpment of New York, where they are hiking.

“You know, Illyria, the Indians who lived here long ago made ladders of dead trees. By using the branches as rungs they could climb the steepest of these ridges. “Indian Ladder” is the name of one of the most magnificent of these giant ridge ‘steps’.”

“How come you know so much about Native Americans and their ways, Sunny?”

“I access that information in one of my programs, Illyria.”

“I wonder why you weren’t given a science program…”

“I think I can answer that. You see, I was built by two teenagers as a science fair project. They just used what they could get their hands on. As you see, Illyria, my torso is an industrial water barrel and my head is made out of metal buckets…but I am capable of learning.”

Now they are approaching the top of the ridge and Sunny declares, “Not much further, Illyria, you will see a magnificent view up here and I’m sure we will find the giant wind bird too.”

But, the sight they see is very different from what either expects and both see it differently.

“Oh Sunny, look! A magnificent line of wind generators! Their graceful white blades gently turn in the wind. They are providing electricity for thousands of homes!

“Illyria, calm yourself. You are out of breath from your climb and hallucinating, which means you experience something that does not exist. I see clearly that we are watching a flock of giant white birds perched on that ridge. They are drying their outstretched wings in the heat of the sun. Their slow flapping motion is creating the wind. What I did not expect was that there would be so many Wuchowsens! ”

“Sunny, It is your eyes that are hallucinating.”

“Wait Illyria! You will see them rise into the sky as I rush in on them !”

“ Stop Sunny! A brave robot saves his strength for a more equal test, don’t you think? So many giant birds are too much even for you.”

“ True, Illyria, there are many more birds than I expected… the story mentions just one… But, I see they don’t notice us. I will just creep up on this one that is closest and when I stand and reveal my full hight you will see all of them rise together, their magnificent white wings beating in glorious flight!”

Illyria has given up trying to change Sunny’s mind and settles herself comfortably on a warm boulder to await the outcome.

Sunny creeps up to the base of the nearest wind generator then rises to his full hight. This turns out to be just high enough for the slow passage of one of the blades to make contact with his head sending him flying through the air and landing him some yards away. There he lies helpless, legs and arms wriggling like a beetle on its back, while Illyria makes her way to his side. With some difficulty she manages to pry him onto his feet using a long, sturdy branch, as a lever.

“Now you think this is not what you thought, Sunny?”

“True Illyria, that Wuchowsen transformed just as I came close! Very clever. If I wasn’t so dizzy I would challenge him again!”

“Let’s start our decent and leave the wind generators alone, Sunny. Sometimes you have to accept that bad luck is the best luck you are going to get. I will entertain you with descriptions of the magnet at the center of our Earth while we descend.”

“ Maybe we can return another day? But, I do enjoy your lectures, Illyria. Yes, let’s hear that one about the magnet! The sound of your voice will help me forget the echoing in my head.”

And so ended the adventure of the enchanted wind generators and our heroes are safely back on the woodland trail. As they progress, the late afternoon sun lights their way, casting long shadows across their path.

“If I am not mistaken, Illyria, these shadows look like the silhouettes of monsters. They must be lurking at the edge of this forest…”

“Just keep going, Sunny. I think I see the glint of the setting sun on water. We can have a refreshing drink and set up camp for the night. Tomorrow is another day.”

“Now that’s something we can agree on, Illyria!”

New Zealand plans to plant 100 million trees!

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 13:18:00 GMT

plant 100 million trees

Earthlings Letter #12 – Diversity

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 19:43:00 GMT

In this letter I want to talk about diversity, a word which means “a range or variety of different things”. And I think this will be the final letter in this series of Earthling Letters. There will be more letters in the future and you can be sure that they will all be about nature and being curious!

I want to end this series of letters with the topic of diversity because I feel it is central to everything that I have tried to say in previous letters. Diversity causes change and change never stops. Change is a way of life, and has an important purpose; helping life survive. If we try to find a constant in nature it would be the changes made by the interactions created by diverse things. But, how can change be constant? Doesn’t constant mean that things remain unchanged? Sometimes a thing can be constant or true, even though it keeps changing. The movement of the second hand of a clock keeps telling us time, which we accept as true time, moment to moment into the future. Our Earth is in constant motion orbiting the sun and rotating on its axis, changing day and night, cold and heat, as it goes.

We don’t feel this motion because we are being carried at the same speed as the Earth moves, but we experience the climate changes and light changes it creates with its movement. Change can be in motion and still tell something true and constant about life. Nature is constant and changing all around us. Life is a moving thing!

When life is diversifying and causing change this creates evolution, “to develop slowly to a more advanced state”, from the French word evolvere “to unroll”. It is doing what makes the survival of life possible. Nature uses diversity to evolve life forms, not towards a goal or finish line, but toward survival and equilibrium, “a state of balance”. But even balance is subject to change. You experience this when you are shifting your weight to stay on a skateboard and keep moving forward.

Evolution can be thought of as an extremely slow process of choosing within an infinity of diverse choices. The changes that diverse life interactions create make it possible for living things to balance or create equilibrium with each other… enough for each, for a moment, then more movement and evolution toward another moment of balance. Diversity helps life in many forms to live into the future and to continue the process of evolution.

When you stop to look around it is easy to see diversity everywhere. So many different trees, flowers, leaves, birds, people, insects, dogs and cats, on and on… Nature loves diversity, and life is constantly changing into different forms or slight modifications on old forms that adapt to new conditions. Yes, the conditions in which we are living, change too! Even the earth under our feet is moving very slowly. The plates that carry the continents are moving and bumping into each other beneath your feet! This results in new geology, “science that deals with Earth physical structure”. ( A subject for the next series of Earthling Letters!) This kind of change usually takes millions of years to effect life forms in any significant way. But fast change in the environment can happen too; like a hurricane. Then trees are torn from their places and some areas are scrapped clean of vegetation and animals. After the storm new plants, animals and insects have an opportunity to take over the stripped areas. They adapt in different ways than the old residents and sometimes become dominant.

One very important thing to keep in mind is that YOU are influencing evolution with your own life. The fact that you are living and doing things that you do everyday, is influencing evolution. You are alive and just your living is enough to change things you come in contact with. For instance, when you find something you are interested in, maybe you want to make a kite.

You start moving around gathering the things you will need, sticks, paper, string etc. You are generating movement and as you get more excited and involved in the project, movement becomes momentum, “the strength or force that something has when it is moving”. Momentum brings you in contact with a diversity of things, some familiar and some new, some related to your project and some unrelated. You are asking questions and making decisions with each move you make, will this work ? can I use this? who can I ask about this? More ideas come to your mind as you interact and collaborate with other people. Your activity creates activity in the things and people you contact and this is how your life changes life around you and creates its own small tornado of change. We already know how powerful change can be! Change changes change while it is seeking balance. We are all trying to stay on the skateboards!

OK, diversity is important for evolution but how does it help life survive? CHOICES. What if a dragon was chasing you and there was only one road you could run down to get away. Chances are good that you are not going to be able to run faster than a dragon can fly.

What if you had many roads to run down and they are all twisty and turny so you can dodge about till you come to a tunnel you can pop down before the dragon sees you and be very quiet, etc. The more options there are for avoiding the dragon the better your chances are to survive. When choice is limited, animals, plants, and people become more vulnerable. Yes, plants make choices too! Their movement is much slower and dependent on birds and wind and other things, to move their seeds around, but they are choosing in their own ways. A seed won’t grow where it doesn’t find the right conditions, enough water, warmth… A grown tree will die if conditions change around it so that there is not enough rain or sunlight. These are not the only things that plants need.

There are many things about the needs of plants that we still do not understand. And that is why you are here! You are living and thinking and you will contribute something that only comes from you to the understanding of each thing you do, people or animals or plants you interact with. You are a unique, “unlike anyone else”, person among a diversity of billions of people and other life forms. Your life tornado will meet and interact with countless other tornadoes during your lifetime. Welcome to the challenges and changes of diversity!

Let’s Defend the Caloosahatchee River

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 16:13:00 GMT

I come to praise the Caloosahatchee River, not condemn her. We have to stop maligning our waterways and start figuring out how to protect and restore them. Projects like Everglades restoration that have been on hold for 20 years or more are a sad testimonial to the lack of focus and flawed thinking going on in our state.

People don’t come here to see parking lots and more strip malls and places to shop. They can see that anywhere and everywhere they live and travel. The sameness of environment that we all experience traveling the East Coast of the US is alarming. Florida was a relief from this. No more.

Initially the Atlantic coast beaches and Gulf coast beaches were the draw. Now most of the beach front is obscured by motels and condos and places to eat and buy. Public access is limited. But, amazingly, there are still waterways in Florida that are magical and accessible to everyone.

The Okeechobee Waterways that include the Caloosahatchee River are still such an area. These waterways feed and define the Everglades, our “sea of grass”. Major damage has been done to this unique biome who’s like is found no where else in the world. But it has not yet been completely stilled. Like the red gleam in an alligators eye, it makes itself known and still demands respect.

How we behave to our Caloosahatchee River informs the larger picture of Everglades survival and revival and the behavior of future generations who hold the fate of rivers and waterways in their hands. When we are asked to think of this natural wonder as a national scourge, people will treat it carelessly and with contempt. It is a license to destroy. This is the present situation. Assertions that the Caloosahatchee is somehow creating the toxic chemical mix that stimulates alga blooms in places west and south of it like Naples, Ft Myers and Florida Bay are misleading and unhelpful. It is the equivalent of blaming the Hudson River for nuclear runoff from the Indian Point nuclear power plant. We know where the fertilizers, pesticides and other contaminants come from. Asking people to disbelieve what is logical and observable is an insult to intelligence. A damaging attitude is created when artificial scapegoats and excuses for inactivity are offered. It opens up the possibility for some individuals to treat the victim carelessly – destructively. The victim is further victimized.

One example of this kind of victimization is the careless, irresponsible behavior of some boat captains that traverse the Caloosahatchee using it as a route to speed from east coast to west coast and back again. The excessive speed of some of these boats and the resulting wakes are extremely dangerous, even deadly. Not only to manatee, but to people in smaller, slower boats who are trying to enjoy the river and sometimes are fishing. We have speed limits and signs for slowing boats around manatee zones but few indications for aggressive boaters to slow their speed around other boaters. Do we need “Slow for People” signs? This is common sense, but has to be emphasized with speed zones and many more No Wake signs along the river, because too many captains are not using common sense. Many of them feel they are justified in their dangerous haste because they are making money by delivering boats to buyers. They see dollar signs and don’t see the boaters, animals and birds or the beauty of the Caloosahatchee. Other speeders are simply rushing to the Gulf or Atlantic to deep water fish or return to their coastal homes. They don’t care about people or animals on the river, they just don’t care.

An example of a tragic accident caused by wakes near Moore Haven was the capsizing of a boat in which two men were fishing. One of the men swam to safety then saw his buddy was drowning and went back to help him and they both drowned. People have fallen in their boats that are rocked by wakes and broken their backs, wrists, etc. The captain causing the wake often does not even know about the damage and tragedy they leave behind. Because they have already left the scene and are racing away down the river. Isn’t this the equivalent of hit and run? We don’t tolerate this on roads, why do we allow it to happen on waterways? “Get as far away from them as you can” was the advise we got from a Fish and Wildlife officer when our solar powered tour boat was struck by a speeding 40 foot Sea Ray. Well, that is not possible. The Caloosahatchee is too narrow to get away from these huge 4 and 5 foot wakes. The further you pull to the side the closer you get to the rocks and the wakes will slam you into them. Another impact of these wakes is that people with docks along the river cannot use them. They cannot keep their boats on their docks that they pay fees to the Core of Engineers to have, because their boats get slammed against the docks and damaged. Furthermore, the wakes are eroding the banks of the river, killing manatee (a record in excess of 500 last year) and other wildlife.

Speeding on the Caloosahatchee river is criminal. A kind of criminality that few people witness, know about or understand. “If I didn’t witness the accident, I can’t ticket them” was another statement by an officer of Fish and Wildlife. “They didn’t have their life vests on.” was a local sentiment we heard in reference to the fishermen drowning. They wouldn’t have capsized if they hadn’t been waked! Is a defensive boating situation all we can hope for? Any smaller, slower boat that a fast boat is approaching is a No Wake sign! Similar to not speeding through a Stop sign with your car.

There are ways to slow careless and ignorant boaters that traverse the Caloosahatchee river. Three locks are located along its length. Lock-masters already take the ID of boaters who pass through. They can advise captains that they are responsible for their wakes and if they arrive at the next lock too quickly, they can be detained and possibly ticketed. A reasonable, safe amount of time to accomplish the distances between the locks is easy to determine. Maybe a top speed of 6 or 8 knots, along with a caution to slow as you pass other boaters?

Now let’s get back to our beautiful river. Let the chorus of praise begin. When people learn about and start to appreciate the Caloosahatchee then they will think about protecting her. And I hope praise can begin to act like an antidote for some of the toxic criticism our Caloosahatchee River now so unjustly endures.

She, Caloosahatchee, is a lady in the oldest sense of the word. She ‘acts like a lady’, dignified, modest, understated, but powerful. At first you may not notice her beauty because she is not flashy. She is preoccupied with more important matters than showing off, like providing refuge and forage for her charges, manatee, alligators, fish, birds, insects, plants and at the same time evaporating and adding to the clouds so we get rain and weather and fresh water to South Florida. Still she is beautiful in her understated way. You can observe this if you take the time. Her beauty is always changing, never the same moment to moment, day to day. She is created by the wind changes and rain changes and sun changes. Her waters are bright diamonds in sun, deep blue on a cloudless day, grey lavender when clouds gather and a perfect mirror of these clouds when the wind is still. Flocks of white heron arch over her, an osprey dives into her waters and carries away a silver fish aerodynamic in its talons, manatee rise and submerge leaving a “ring of bright water”, alligators drift gently on her surface the languid movement of their tails just discernible beneath the amber water, thousands of fingerlings feed and grow in her shallows, turtles flip to the surface for a gulp of air, snake birds peer about, then dive. She is alive, this river, very much alive.

She carries visitors in boats according to her mood, sometimes gently and other times not. You must be aware and wary if you wish to travel on her waters, but that is to be expected. Because she is a natural force like the elements that form her and is kin to the Oceans. She is our beautiful Caloosahatchee.

As historian Howard Zinn once said, “If enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.”

Together we can change our waterways for the better.

Solar Cart Project

Sat, 20 Jan 2018 23:53:00 GMT

We have now completed hour solar golf cart project. Check it out!

Universal Basic Income (UBI) Trial in Finland

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 20:20:00 GMT

Finland’s Universal Basic Income (UBI) trial highlights the need for improving how compensation for our work contributions are managed. This includes an expanded definition of what is work.

Presently, everyone is challenged by the limitations of the work for profit emphasis, automation of jobs that exist, downsizing to increase profit and stock dividends, elimination of unions and increased use of part time employees to avoid paying benefits. These developments are on top of the everyday demands for food and shelter, needs of young children and aging parents, healthcare expenses, keeping up with personal and dependents education and the cost, etc.

In this article about the UBI experiment Finland is doing , the issue of the money given not being enough to live on, is key. The amount of money that is enough to live on, anywhere in the world, is essential information that is being left out of most of the UBI discussions I have read. Probably because we have not agreed that there needs to be a way to measure what is enough. The reality is, what is enough, is physically measurable. Then, translatable, to current money values where ever in the world an individual lives.

Lets look at the money that Finland is giving to the 2,000 randomly chosen unemployed people once a month for two years. 560 eros, which equals about 518-797-3377 dollars a month, 8,196 dollars a year and a grand total of, 16,392 dollars by the end of the trial (now in its second year). I can remember living on about that much back in the late 70s through to the mid 90s and it wasn’t enough then. If I hadn’t owned my home and my family (of 3) hadn’t stayed relatively healthy so we had no major health expenses during that time, we couldn’t have made it. This was not an uncommon situation then and is not uncommon now, in the US, and worldwide. There are many reasons why this happens. Almost all of them not related to addiction and laziness as we are asked to believe by our media. The reality is that poverty and disadvantage are not choices. They are typically obstacles that severely, and often unfairly, limit choices.

Returning to the question “what is enough?” It is possible to measure what humans need to live. Physical needs are closely similar world wide. Energy units (calories) can measure how much water and food we need a day, month or year. Shelter needs can be measured in the energy units (materials and human effort) needed to build the average safe shelter in whatever the climate is in your location. Education needs and by extension, healthcare can be measured by the average human energy expended in teaching and healing. Human energy is calculable and measures have been invented in the past by military minds to determine how many soldiers will be needed to overwhelm an enemy in a specific battle. What we need is broader and much more diverse than what the military needs. We need a way to measure our survival allotment as we go forward within our socio-economic contract. Energy measures that define what all humans need to live and after that has been determined, translated into the currency of any location.

The accomplishments of the UBI discussions are real and important and will lead us to more discussion that will, I hope, promote conversation about measuring human needs (not wants) in energy units before they are translated into monetary values. Energy units are physical and can be objectively defined. They are not subjective. Like the sun coming up they are a physical, observable reality that cannot be changed. We need a physical basis for sustainable economics. This will safeguard our life security and that of generations that follow.

Countries like Finland should be applauded for experimenting with UBI. What is learned from their trial will help expand the definition of work and the accurate valuation of human needs.

We are so close to something that will change the whole dynamic of economics, human interaction and work. But, we must not settle for a stipend that does not equate to dignified life survival and cannot be protected.

Our Solar Boat Accident

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 01:10:00 GMT

The danger of wakes to small or slower moving boats that use the Caloosahatchee River and the rest of the Intracoastal Waterway is astounding. The No Wake and Resume Safe Speed signs are insufficient to awake aggressive boat captains to their responsibility to safely control their speed and wakes.

We recently collided with a 40 foot Sea Ray that speeded up toward the stern of our boat, changed from port to starboard at the last minute without slowing and catching our boat between its wakes which caused a collision. Two to four thousand dollars of damage was done to our boat, but fortunately no injuries.

When we recounted this incident to long term Moore Haven boaters they immediately related horror stories of small boat encounters with dangerous wakes. Fishermen capsizing and drowning, a woman falling in her boat and breaking her back, another her wrist, on and on. These are hit and and run accidents. There is no way the injured parties have a chance to identify or locate the perpetrator for prosecution. They are preoccupied with saving their boat or themselves from injury or death. The officer from Fish and Wildlife who took our accident information, made this clear when he said, ” if I didn’t see the accident I can’t ticket them”. What are the odds that an officer would be around to witness one of these accidents? Furthermore, this last year was the highest mortality rate for manatees on the waterways of Florida. More than 500 deaths and 9 out of 10 were caused by boat collisions.

This dangerous situation can be fixed. It will need cooperation between the lock masters and law enforcement on the waterways. How fast a boat is going between locks can be calculated. If a boat is going a safe speed it will reach the next lock in a certain range of time. If a boat is going at excessive, dangerous speeds, it will get there much sooner. Boaters can be warned as they leave the locks that lock masters can detain them and discuss safe boating with them if they are found turning up too quickly at the next lock. Just the delay, for most boaters, will change their behavior.

It needs to be understood by boat captains who say, “I didn’t see a No Wake sign, I can go as fast as I want,” that they can’t go as fast as they want. Any small or slower boat they are approaching is a No Wake sign. Why? Because people and animals die.
There needs to be a program to educate boaters about what Resume Safe Speed means. The notorious Miserable Mile in Ft. Myers is another example of lack of law enforcement. Just a few tickets up and down the Intracoastal would help solve this problem.

Icelandic Turf Houses…Durable and Efficient!

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 00:52:00 GMT

Here is an interesting housing design that is an efficient heat retaining structure with very high durability. It seems to have lasted to our present time from the beginnings of habitation in Iceland.

Don’t Follow the Money and it’s Surrogate Political Power

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 22:30:00 GMT

Follow the Realities of a Sustainable Future For America and the Planet.

Supporters of fuel ethanol have been seriously weakened by our failure to fully grasp this reality. Example: there is no way we could even nibble our way into the massive PR campaign of “We are Energy Voters” and other misleading efforts, reports and studies sponsored by the oil and gas industries. They simply “buy” their economic and political dominance into the future.

We should be mobilizing our vast biomass resource base moving forward into a bright sustainable future. Biochemicals, biopharmaceuticals, and biocosmetics are sailing right by their fossil competitors with way more than 30% market share while fossil chemicals haven’t even whimpered as industries shifted their feedstock base. BIO is wisely leading an effort to join with biofuels in meeting with members of Congress to better make the biomass case.

Biomass in many forms are quietly slipping into the food marketplace without a ruckus from Big Oil. Organics and home/nearby grown fruits and vegetables in stores and restaurants have been on a steady increase with little interference; actually with “Big Green Foods” frequently joining in. At the same time, the Grocery Manufactures Association teams up with Big Oil, falsely blaming ethanol for the high price of some foods.

But why is big oil and gas teaming up against biofuels, particularly ethanol as we struggle to reach 15% let alone E-30. This would actually boost their bottom line with a lower cost of octane while meeting the needs of advanced engines including direct-injected, turbo-charged, plug-in electric, and hydrogen vehicles? Is their anti-ethanol crusade based on lost market share, profitability, established refinery operations, and 100 years of successes in restraining ethanol? Who knows? The battle rages on.

What happened to the “all of the above” campaign leading to cooperative actions with Bio Oil and ethanol teaming up in the best interest of the nation while slowing/reversing climate change? E-30 could well be that beneficial common ground. Senator Daschle and the HOLC Alliance (High Octane, Low Carbon) provides a great opportunity to heal the consequences of an incredibly expensive and earth damaging war between the two fuels – oil and ethanol.

Additionally, it is fair to note that oil has been the root cause and the support of warfare for the past century plus. Consequently, it is fully tied into national security and warfare. It is a major source of funding for ISIS, al Qaeda and other radical Muslim groups. Only the U.S. Navy is deliberately turning to nuclear and biofuels in readying for the future.

So how do we turn a growing group of “hard chargers” into a literal army of like-minded Americans committed to the reality of the sustainable, biobased future? Sustainable biomass in all its many forms, including aquatic (algae and ocean plants) as feedstocks, can replenish itself in a growing year or two. Some trees take a few decades. Fossil oil takes the work of nature over millions of years, and is a major cause of carbon build up in the atmosphere

So what is bioethanol’s next series of actions? Set our positive record strait in terms of yields per acre requiring less land. No food shortage and no significant increase in cost. Enhanced organic matter in the soil, reduced use of water, and generation of water from the atmosphere with assistance from the full range of biomass. Enhancing lands supporting wildlife, shrubs, trees, forests, streams and rivers. Efficiencies in the conversion of corn, milo and other feedstocks into the production of ethanol, distiller’s grains, corn oil and pure CO2 that can reused. Then we have biochemicals and biopharmaceuticals, biogas, biothermal energy, and electricity. Include highly efficient wood stoves, furnaces and ethanol heaters. Recognize the organic and locally grown food for humans and pets. Include organic and bio fertilizers, pesticides, and compost. Strengthen soils with enzymes, micro and macro organisms, mineralization, biochar, etc. Trees, timbers and lumber for construction. Include biofibers for car and plane body parts, and trees and plants for protection of wildlife, land enhancement, and beautification. Incorporate other natural industries, all generating new opportunities as well as millions of good paying jobs with the satisfaction of living and working in concert with sustainable natural systems.

How do we reach tens of millions of like-minded people, and broaden their reach for sustainability to include biofuels and all the other renewable natural resources provided by our miraculous planet? We can rebuild farming communities and family farms with a wholesome blend of hard work, advanced science, technologies and digital revolutions while incorporating the beauty and meaning of wildlife and other natural systems. Rooftops, porches, and back-yard gardens add to the healthy food supply while adding volunteer supporters

It’s communications. We can’t spend hundreds of millions in buying PR time and political votes. We can, however, get into blogs, twitter and other systems beyond my understanding. Bless those who are doing so while embracing the wonders of nature. I would ask that you spread your wings to encompass major efforts in promoting all forms of sustainable biomass. Family, friends, neighbors and fellow workers are good starts. Creative efforts in several communities, states, and businesses are already providing great support and lessons for sustainable biomass products.

Perhaps we could print personal cards, Facebooks, blogs, etc. One section could read – “I’m For a United America.” The other side would read – “And I’m a Sustainable Future Voter.”

Bill Holmberg – An old Marine looking for creative help in transitioning from following the money and it’s surrogate political power, to embracing sustainable natural systems. This is an incredibly powerful national security challenge.

Renew the Earth Solar Boat

Sat, 20 May 2017 18:11:00 GMT

For Bill

Sat, 20 May 2017 18:05:00 GMT

A part of each of us
has been withdrawn.
Pulled away
like the tucking under of a recoiling wave.

Things that made sense
in Bills presence,
now are not certain,
not so clear.
For awhile we are left
unsure, stranded.
We look about and wonder at the expanse…
were we trying for too much?

Bill, was like a magnet
passing over iron filings,
aligning our efforts.
He kept our “eyes on the prize.”

That biomass and renewable energy prize,
that would bring the beautiful future
for humanity, that would
save us all, save our earth and its
Beautiful Life.

Bill assured us that this was not too much to ask for.
And, he cautioned us not to stop working.
He would tell us when we could stop working!

We have only stumbled and broken rhythm
Thats all.

After all, he had talked us into being stronger,
than we thought we were-
more courageous, more tenacious, more creative, bolder,
smarter, while he was here.
He left us each
with a smooth stone of hope
in our pocket.

Yes, Bill took a bit of each of us with him.
But we won’t miss what he took
for his own comfort – that we gladly give.
He left us each in return, a glimpse
a glimpse of a shining future of lush diversity and peace,
where we wish everyone could live.
And clues about how to get there…
A future worth working toward together,
because we are stronger
because of Bill;
for Bill

April 2017
Susan Caumont

Earthlings Letter #11 – The Human Species

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 05:55:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! In this EL, I want to introduce some thoughts about what we are doing here as Earthlings, as a species (a living group that is similar looking and can have babies like themselves) called Human. Scientists have figured that we have been evolving (developing gradually from ancestors closely related to us) on Earth for about 7 to 13 million years!

That sounds like a long time but in Earth time it is not very long at all. Here is how it works. Earth time (time that Earth has existed and what has happened to it) and time that life has been on Earth and time that Humans have been on Earth are all very different. Earth or Geological Time is the longest and tells us the age of the Earth, around 4.54 billion years. Life on Earth has been developing for about 3 billion years. And the most modern form of human life, Homo Erectus, (our relatives) have only been around for about 1.8 million years (not a billion)!

But all these numbers and time lines are so long and hard to imagine that this can get really confusing when you try to get a grip on it all. And, as time goes by, we learn more so these timelines keep changing. You can get a sense of what is going on from these numbers but don’t worry about getting them into your memory perfectly.

The word homo comes from a word, used in Europe a very long time ago, that means earth. Truly we are earthlings! But the thing is, even though we have not been around that long we have had a very, very strong effect on our Earth and the other life forms that live here with us – in a very, very short amount of time. Why are we changing things so much? How are we changing things? Is this good? Is this bad? What is it about us that is different than other life that is here? Hmmmmmmm.

One of the ways to refer to our species is with the name, Homo Erectus, which means that we are humans that stand on two legs, erect, or up right. This is a great thing for us, it frees up our arms and hands to do other things than just move our bodies from place to place. They can carry stuff while we walk and make stuff when we sit or stand. Also, standing up helps us see around us better. Our hands and eyes and brains developed over these almost 2 million years in very different ways because we can stand on our two legs. If you think about it I bet you can think of many ways being bipedal (standing on two legs) has formed us physically and mentally and given us huge advantages over other life forms in some ways.

We have developed the ability to alter our surroundings to fit our needs and desires and this has changed life on Earth and the Earth itself so much that an epoch has been named after us (by us!). The age of Humans, “anthopocene”, (anthropos is Greek for human) a period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate, environment and life on Earth. How did we do it? How do we do it? And Why? These are questions that have many answers and some of them are just more questions. One answer is that we have the ability to make things that ‘enhance our labor’ (make it so that we can do more than just what our bodies are able to do). An example of this would be the invention or modification of materials to make sharp pointed objects, attach them to a stick that can be thrown at an animal with the idea to kill and eat it. This idea occurred to people a long time ago and it saved a lot of hunting energy and lives. He/she can attack from a safer distance and not have to be right on top of an animal to kill it. This makes the hunter safer and more likely to survive the hunt. Another example that we do in the present time is use fuel to make cars run where ever we want and use fuel to make machines run so that they can work for us. This saves us time and a lot more area is covered faster than walking and more work is done as long as you have fuel for the machine. You may not even have to lift a finger or a shovel or even be there! See if you can think of some things that humans have built that save us time and energy.

How about your bicycle, a skate board, a row boat, roller skates, a washing machine, an oven, a refrigerator, electricity… do these things save you time and energy? If you make a list and keep adding to it as you think of more ‘labor enhancing’ creations we have made I think you will be very surprised how long that list becomes.

Have you ever heard someone say, “ the object of labor is to have leisure” ? This means that we work in order to have free time to do what ever we want and think about what ever we want. This kind of ‘free time’ is very important for all of us humans. It is important for the development of our brains.

It lets our brains have time to ‘play’. When we are able to let our minds wander and play, ideas sometimes get clearer, communication gets better, problems get solved, inventions get created and paintings and music and books too! Even ‘sleeping on an idea’ can help us solve it the next day! Also free time is very good for just walking around and looking at stuff and being curious. And very good for getting together to play with your friends!

We have just been thinking about human inventions that help us out, but there are side effects of some of these inventions that are not good for living things (meaning us too!), so we need to be aware of them. To try to understand what is going on. When we talked about clouds in the last EL I told you the names we have given to the clouds that form naturally. But there are other kinds of clouds. Clouds that are formed by human activity, formed by the use of some of these wonderful labor enhancing devices we have made. The burning of fuels to run machines creates smoke that contains particles that rise into the air as clouds and act very differently than normal clouds. These clouds, can change our atmosphere, in particular the Troposphere where our weather forms. How? When fossil fuels (fuels we burn to run cars and machines and factories and power plants etc.) burn, tiny bits of unburned material are carried into the upper air and form cloud covers that block sunlight from coming down to earth and doing its work. And we already know how important the sun is for everything that lives! Weather changes in areas where a lot of these clouds form. Eventually, the effects circle the whole Earth because of wind currents in the Troposphere. You could say that we are now living through a time of human caused weather change. Science can try to predict some of the long term effects of these changes in climate and weather patterns and many people are adjusting to these effect already. Maybe you have noticed them yourself. Some of the symptoms of Human influenced weather change are melting of the arctic ice that results in the rise of water levels in our oceans and this forces some many people from their homes along coastlines and islands. Also, there are temperature changes to much hotter in some places and much colder in other places. And there are many effects that science cannot yet predict. They can only guess.

The balances that Earth has come up with after 4.54 billion years of trial and error are profoundly more intricate and competent than what the minds of humans have come up with in less than a million years. This is something we can turn to as a comfort when we get frightened by the bad side effects of human activity on our shared planet. Earth is constantly compensating and over coming problems that we create for it. Earth is alway seeking balance, chemically and physically through weather, and at a molecular (smaller than we can see) level. Change is always happening. And all life on Earth participates in the balancing act. Trees that photosynthesize, and transform the soil and air, insects that eat leaves and are eaten to sustain other life, and we earthlings contribute in many ways to sustaining balance when we think carefully about what we build and use and throw away and how we do these things day by day.

There is a word that is very important to understand if we want to help Earth keep it’s balance, that word is diversity (a range of different things, variety).

What does diversity look like, how does it act? One example of diversity at work would be the way that the apple tree has ‘learned’ to survive in many kinds of climates all over the world. If you cut an apple in half you will see its seeds. There are five pockets that hold the seeds and each pocket can hold as many as two. So a really healthy apple has 10 chances to start a new tree. Here is the interesting thing, each of those seeds will form into a different kind of apple tree with different apples than its parent tree. This is the perfect way for a tree to create as many chances as possible for it to survive into the future. Each tree variety would have different tolerances for cold and heat and its fruit would have different desirability to animals that like to eat it. Some apples will be sweet and very edible and others tart and hardly edible. And maybe the sweet apples will be eaten more often and their seed carried farther in the digestive systems of birds and mammals. And maybe fewer tart apples are eaten so those seeds stay closer to the parent tree and are undamaged by chewing so they can sprout and form a tree that eventually makes, guess what, the sweetest apple of all! There are many, many ways this can play out, in fact that is what diversity is all about, infinite possibility! More possibilities than we can ever count.

Apple trees are not the only living things that have evolved infinite diversity. We have too. Every child born is different than the next. Every child has unique potentials and abilities. And they grow into adults that have experiences and react to them in their own ways. And we are all interacting with each other and learning from each other. With all these possibilities I am sure we can and will teach each other how to survive into the future and live within the diversity of all the wonderful life around us. This ability is built into us all!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” Dr. Seuss

Earthlings Letter #10 – The Earth’s Atmosphere

Sun, 12 Jun 2016 19:33:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings!

I promised to talk more about our earth’s atmosphere in this letter. This is a huge subject and I will write only about one tiny bit of it so you might get interested and, I hope, want to find out more. I am like the Pied Piper leading you here and there to this and that. But you are the ones that choose. You will know what holds your attention and gets you curious.

Scientists have named 6 layers of our atmosphere; the Troposphere (starting on the ground and rising 5 to 9 miles up), the Stratosphere ( rising 31 miles from the top of the Troposphere), the Mesosphere (rising 53 miles from the top of the Stratosphere), the Thermosphere (rising 372 miles from the top of the Mesosphere), the Ionosphere (a band of electrons that is effected by the sun), and the Exosphere (6,200 miles from the top of the Thermosphere).

Enough similarities within and differences between these layers were found, so they needed to be named separately. Scientists section off large systems they are studying, into manageable chunks so that they can study them with out going nuts!

Here is how it works. Doing science can be like cleaning your room. You can get frustrated and confused by the complexity of the job. (depending on how messed up your room is…)

Scientists who try to find what is true about physical things around us can get just as frustrated by the task they face, because living presents us with endless things to try to understand. A big system has to be broken down into manageable bits. It is easier to concentrate on cleaning up one part of the mess ( like putting all the toys in a box) at a time.

This is why scientists specialize. They choose some part of a larger subject like, orange moths with black spots, out of a study of all the billions of insects in the World.

There are good things and not so good things about doing science in this way. At lot can be learned in great detail about a particular animal or plant or rock… but by concentrating so narrowly the larger picture of how this item of interest effects it’s environment and other creatures around, can be lost. And this is something we don’t want to loose sight of! A good scientist will try to keep seeing with “wide eyes”. They will not loose the larger picture in the details. I am sure you have heard the saying “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”

A writer named John Steinbeck once wrote this about the practice of scientific research, “ …we were determined not to let a passion for unassailable little truths draw in the horizons and crowd the sky down on us.”

A research scientist studies one part of a large natural system in great detail then moves on to the next part to study. Then she or he looks to see how the parts or layers interact with each other and finally thinks of an hypothesis. An hypothesis is defined as “ an explanation based on limited evidence” or “a starting point for further investigation”. This word comes from the Greek word, hupothesis , meaning ‘foundation’. The beginning of the word, hupo , means ‘under’ and the end of the word, thesis, means ‘placing’. This is roughly how we try to understand our physical reality. We recognize that we don’t have all the information but we make up an explanation from what we know. There is always more to discover and learn about physical things. This may not be the best way or the only way to find things out but it has taught us a lot of stuff, so far. Some of the things we have learned may in the future be found wrong. But a curious person (which is what a scientist is and what you are) does not mind being wrong because that opens up other things to be curious about and this is where the fun lies!

What is physical? What do we mean when we talk about physical things? Physical things are those things that we experience through our senses – hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. When someone is talking about a physical thing they use words like; solid, real, actual, visible, sour, smoky, loud, bright, soft… I’m sure you can make a list of many more words that describe physical things. The original word in Latin, physica , means ‘things relating to nature’. And we know that nature is all around us and is our environment on Earth and that it is very physical!

I bet you thought we would never get back to our Earths atmosphere! We’re back. Atmosphere is one of Earths very large natural systems. Other large ones would be the oceans and waterways, the rocks and soil (which we thought about in the first EL), and the gravitational system. But let’s not get too many things out of our box of natural wonders. We don’t want to get overwhelmed! Or go nuts! The first layer of the thin envelope that surrounds Earth that we call atmosphere is the Troposphere, the layer that makes all our weather and rises from the ground up about 5 to 9 miles. This is the one with all the clouds. We can see it above us and stand under it where ever we live on Earth.

Clouds appear to us in different forms. Some names of their formations are; Cumulus, Stratus, and Cirrus.

These formations develop when certain kinds of temperature, moisture, altitude (the hight of an object in relation to the ground) and wind speed are present. If there is a lot of moisture in the air and the temperature rather warm then Cumulus clouds will start to form. The word Cumulus means, in Latin, to pile or accumulate. Cumulous clouds are clouds that ‘pile up’ on one another. You have seen them, they are white cottony mounds that become grey when they are about to rain on us. When cumulus clouds are white and puffy, rain is not going to happen right away. When they become grey then it will rain soon. A grey cloud is saturated (holding as much water as it possible can) the drops inside it are heavy and ready to fall. But why does the cumulus cloud turn grey? A cumulus cloud grows thicker and denser as it gathers fat water droplets. The thicker and denser it gets, less light is able to pass through it. It is no longer bright white and slightly see through. A cloud is grey or black because it is so dense that no light gets through. Try to think of it this way… you are seeing the ‘shadow’ of the cloud. Just like your body blocks light and you cast a shadow on your ‘dark side’.

How do rain drops form? The suns heat causes evaporation (when liquid changes to gas) of moisture from the ground and the heated/moist air rises (because warmth rises) carrying the water vapor upward to meet the cooler air higher up (cold air waits up high and presses downward). Tiny particles like dust, smoke and salt are also carried upward by the warm moist air and wind currents. These particles are important for the formation of raindrops. Moisture is drawn to a tiny particle and wraps itself around it, sticking to it and forming a drop of water. This is called condensation (warm/moist vapor that collects on the cool surface of a particle and becomes liquid). Drops of water are drawn to each other. Water is sticky! The larger ones “eat’ the smaller ones. When enough of them gather you see them as a cloud. Finally they get so heavy that gravity (the force that attracts any physical thing to the Earth) drags on them and they rain down onto the ground.

Suddenly you see two drops join together to make a fatter drop. If you watch closely you will see that larger drops draw in the smaller drops. Cohesion ( this means that water molecules are attracted each other) draws these drops together and they coalesce (come together and form one mass), then run away off the window!

Water molecules are attracted to each other and create surface tension. They draw so tightly toward each other that they can form the strongest and most efficient form in nature, a sphere. You can do a simple experiment and see surface tension. Fill a glass to the very rim with water then carefully add drop by drop of water to that same glass. You will find that you are able to fill the glass above the rim of the glass! The water will form a domelike shape above the rim.

You are seeing the cohesion between the water molecules, the attraction between them that pulls and creates tension on the surface Try carefully placing a fine sewing needle on the water dome you created. If you do it very gently and place it without breaking the surface, it will float! Also, you have probably noticed when you visit a pond that there are water beetles and spiders and skimmers that ‘walk’ on the surface of the pond.

They are moving about on the surface tension created by the strong attraction of water molecules to each other. How is this similar to the action of gravity? Is it similar? Do we know yet? Something to think about…

Water, what is it? Why does it flow? Why does it take on the shape of any container you pour it into? Water is very interesting stuff. It seems magical compared to solid things and gasses. Water and other liquids are a transitional form between solids and gases and let us actually see changes that turn one physical thing into another.

I was watching a river flowing the other day and suddenly I realized I was actually watching Earth going about it’s ‘business’. In front of my eyes it was operating like a magnificent machine that can rejuvenate and reinvent itself. A machine that lives and supports life. Our Earth doing its work.

Hope 10 Mission: Develop a Creative Solution to the Jerusalem/Palestinian Conflict

Sat, 23 Apr 2016 15:58:00 GMT

The solution encompasses a major set of historical/holy, territorial, productive-earth, and water challenges that, in my judgment, should be approached boldly from these perspectives in pursuit of solutions. To succeed it is essential to have the full support of Egypt. NATO could lead the strategic implementation strategy of this approach because the Israeli/Palestinian debacle stimulates hostile Muslim forces like ISIS and al Qaeda – and, this represent a major threat to some NATO Countries. America must be involved because of the strategic US–Israel relationship is a driving force behind much Muslim hostility to the US worldwide. Additionally, there a Multinational Force and Observers involving US military in Sinai; and ISIS also has a presence there. Aspects of the “Helping Hand”, Steel Fist” concept as outlined in HOPE 9, maybe appropriate.

With NATO in the lead, and supported by the US, European Union, and Middle East nation-building entities, they could reach out to several associations and groups like the International Renewable Energy Agency, with its headquarters in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and its research arm In Germany.

There are scores of other associations and groups that will support this “Great Adventure,” and bring their strengths to help solve the problem we are herein addressing. Importantly, I will be working with the staff of the Club de Med and the P-80 Agency to display technologies and scientific advances deployable to the Sinai Peninsula in their Global Technology Expo for Domestic Deployment in Little Rock Arkansas. This GTED2 will be functional before the year is out.

Advanced science and technology, creativity, good will and religious collaboration is essential in order to develop this historically important region into a new Garden of Eden, and to transition the adjoining Israeli/Palestinian conflict area from a boiling pot, to a melting pot of ancient history and an enlightened future with the three monotheistic religions, Christian, Jewish and Muslims working together to ensure the sustainability of our unique and God’s planet.

This concept for the Sinai Peninsula, now belonging to Egypt, is based on the willingness of Egypt, Jerusalem and Palestine working together cooperatively in their own self-interest and to the betterment of the world. If Moses was able to come down off Mount Sinai with the 10 Commandments that have help guide the world for three centuries, history and enlightened minds should be able to “upgrade” those Commandments so that we can join together is addressing the great challenges ahead. The fact that Moses continues as an important profit of the Muslim faith as well as Judaism and Christianity; and, that the Sinai Peninsula in ancient times and today was included in the Holy Lands, argues well for full cooperation as the will of God. Therefore, converting the Sinai Peninsula into the ultra- modern Garden of Eden, with the proper balance of the preserving the history of the Holy Land, would help foretell the future of our planet.

Here are a few of the technologies and concepts that can be deployed using optimized science, technology, creativity and good will.

New buildings could be “earth scrapers” instead off skyscrapers: architects are designing a 75 story underground building in space hungry Mexico City, and there is a long standing underground 4+ star hotel in Cooper Pedi Australia; evacuated sand and earth can be used to level unusable areas, with soil for gardens and agriculture. Subways have long been used to ease crowded streets and highways. Purdue University scientists in the US, report that many crops, including corn, can be grown underground with significant benefits. Jerusalem leads the world in producing a wide range of food crops under topsoil and water short conditions. All human and food waste, as well as other bio-based materials, can be gasified to produce biogas, electricity, humus, fertilizers and some water. Other renewable energies like solar, wind, geothermal, waterpower, hydrogen and additional renewable energy gases can be used to produce electricity and thermal energy.

The Egyptian owned Sinai Peninsula is almost surrounded by water on three sides, the Mediterranean on the north, Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal to the West, and the Gulf of Aqaba to the East. It covers about 20 millions acres and has a population of about 1.5 million. The Gulf of Aqaba is less salty than the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean. Using high-tech desalinization methods, adequate supplies of fresh water minerals for fertilizers can be made available.

In the Gaza Strip, West of the Gaza Peninsula, with about the same population of 1.5 million, mostly Palestinians, covers about 936 square miles or about .0002 % of the land in the Gaza Peninsula. Palestine certainly deserves more land for their people.

The hope is that NATO, the European Union, the US, and other agencies will barter with Egypt so that about 60% of the Sinai Peninsula, including most of the towns and villages already in place would remain under their control. In payment for the remaining 40% (or there about), they would be fully included in the optimization of the New Garden of Eden concept, unless towns/villages selected to remain all, or in part, in their current state to preserve their culture. 40% (or there about) of the Sinai Peninsula would then be titled over to the Palestinian and Jewish Nations as determined by an appropriately appointed Top Level Board.

Of course, final determinations in all aspects of this concept will be accelerated through a senior finalization process to ensure speedy and fair-minded implementation. This is needed so that we can get on with converting one of the world’s most serious boiling pots in the world into a glorious melting pot to the great satisfaction of our GOD who expects Muslims, Jews and Christians to join together in enhancing and stabilizing our unique and magnificent planet.

Like most hard-charging HOPEFULS, I can’t wait to launch an opportunity of this magnitude. So I am getting ready to do so on my 88th birthday in July of this year, and to include the other 10 HOPES as well. As we say in the Marine Corps, “what the hell. Lets go.”

May I suggest that this HOPE be professionally translated into a worthwhile Vision. Perhaps the United Nations Foundation and the United States Energy Security Council would be willing to launch that effort.

Bill Holmberg
Biomass Chair Emeritus , Biomass & Biofuels

“Building a secure and prosperous America with clean, renewable energy.”

Our new solar powered boat is sea worthy!

Sat, 27 Feb 2016 06:25:00 GMT

Earthlings Letter # 9 – What a Cat’s Fur Can Teach Us

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 06:55:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! I have been thinking about my cat’s fur. How come my cat, Port, can be comfortable in very cold or very hot temperatures and he never has to change his clothes (fur)?

You and I have to wear different clothes for different temperatures but cats don’t. Why? What is special about a cats fur? How does it work? Turns out that cat fur works in two ways. It can keep heat from escaping Port’s body so that he stays warm or it can prevent too much heat from getting to his skin and heating him up too much. The hairs we see on the surface are covering a layer of soft fluffier hairs underneath and they act together to keep my cat a comfortable 518-797-3377 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is normal for cats! We have a lower normal temperature of about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. A little cooler.

Cats are what is called homeotherms. This means that they keep a pretty constant temperature. Now if the outside temperature gets hotter than a cats fur can deal with it’s brain tells it what to do, so it can get back to its best (operating) temperature. It will seek a cool place, like under a house, and rest there till its temperature regulates to normal.

They may also lie on a cool surface so that conduction (The process by which heat passes through a substance. From the Latin ‘conductio’, which means, provision for safe passage) can regulate their temperature. If a cat is too cold it will seek shelter form drafts and a cozy space that its body heat can warm up easily, forming it’s own warm cocoon. Like when you go under your covers and quilt to sleep on a cold night. You are trapping your body heat under there and keeping your self warm. And, guess what, we have fur too! And we used to be a lot furrier, or so they say. This depends on whether science has traced our ancestors back to the right source.

Hmmmm. Interesting. Well, a small rodent is clearly a good size to be if you want to hide in small, cozy places from weather and predators.

Another word for what cat fur does is insulate (to protect or cover preventing heat loss. From the Latin word ‘insula’ which means, island). We can do an experiment that will show us how effective different kinds of materials are as insulation. Insulation, like fur, can keep heat in or out. This experiment will help us understand what makes a good insulator. You will need two jars of the same size, a thermometer, a T shirt, and some other different materials you would like to test as insulators, maybe aluminum foil or a sheet of paper or cotton or wool or whatever you think of… Fill the jars each with the same amount of hot water (not too hot!). Now take the temperature of the water in each jar. They should be the same. Record this temperature. This will be the temperature you can compare future temperature changes to. This is called a base temperature. Now wrap one jar with T-shirt material and leave the other unwrapped. Wait 2 minutes. record the temperatures again. Wait 2 minutes. record of each temperature again. Wait, repeat, wait, repeat until you start to see differences in the temperatures from one jar to the next. Which jar has temperature dropping fastest?

Which is holding the original temperature longest? Why do you think this is happening?

Another way to do this experiment is to try to keep something cold. You will need two coffee cans with lids and two small glasses that can fit inside these cans, a timer or clock, and materials you want to test for keeping things cold. Some possibilities are, cut up paper, rags, water, styrofoam, aluminum foil… and all the stuff you used in the first experiment! Now place one small glass inside each can. Stuff the material you want to test around the small jar in one of the cans. Put an ice cube into each of the small jars. The can without the test material in it will be the ‘control test’. Like the base temperature in the first experiment the control test is a starting point to compare future results to. Cover each container and record the time you see on the clock. Check often see what is happening inside each can. Both ice cubes should be melted within about 20 minutes.

Record how long it took each to melt. Repeat this experiment with another material you want to test. Which materials are best at slowing down the melting of the ice cube? What do these materials have in common? Are you finding that they are fluffier and lighter weight materials? Well this is because air is the best insulator of all. It keeps things hot longer and cold longer. So anything that can trap air between spaces or within itself is a good insulator. Look up the substance called Aerogel. It is an amazing insulation that is mostly air!

The other thing I have been thinking about a lot lately are clouds (drawing#4). What do clouds and cat fur have in common?! Turns out when you think about it they have a lot in common. They are beautiful and always changing like cats fur in the sunlight and they are a kind of fur or insulation for our planet! Our Earth has a beautiful soft white coat of clouds that is always changing, moment to moment. Sometimes it is streaked with the colors of the rain bow and sometime the colors of day ending or day beginning.

We are all very focused on what is going on in front of us on our ‘land islands’, which is understandable because that is where we spend most of our time and we have our homes and families and friends. So we seldom look up and focus our attention on the sky. Like thinking ourselves into space and looking back to earth, just looking up from anywhere we are, changes the way we see our earth and our place on it.

This is called changing our perspective. A way to look at something we have become very familiar with and think we know everything about and suddenly see it in a new way. Gazing up at the clouds for a while, like we have all the time in the world, changes your perspective and can start your mind wondering about all kinds of new ideas and questions. For instance, what are the clouds doing up there anyway? But before we start asking and answering questions and thinking scientifically, lets just relax and enjoy watching the clouds. There will be plenty of time to learn about our atmosphere, the word we use to describe the thin layer of moisture and gasses that surround and protect our Earth (and us!) in the next Earthlings Letter. Happy gazing!

Keep an Eye Out for Bill Holmberg’s Biomass Blog…

Sat, 06 Feb 2016 06:00:00 GMT

We will be hosting the Bill Holmberg Biomass Blog right here at RTE. Mr. Holmberg is the Biomass Chair Emeritus at the American Council on Renewable Energy. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience and will be a great asset for our community. You can learn more about Bill here , and be sure to check out the rest of the ACORE webpage .

-The RTE Team

Green Roof Proposal to ROC/Meridian by the Thomas Circle Go-Green Group

Wed, 20 Jan 2016 05:46:00 GMT

JANUARY6, 2016

OUR GREEN ROOF TEAM

OUR GREEN ROOF REHABILITATION PROPOSAL

CONTINUED: OUR GREEN ROOF REHABILITATION PROPOSAL

Design Plan

1. Existing Roof

Softcosts: $20,800

*As of March, 2015

3. Roof Improvements

Total Estimated Cost: $719,028 Hard costs: $688,228

Soft costs: $30,800

4. GreenRoof(LivingWall,SolarHotWater,Gardening)

Total Costs: $394,933* Hard Costs: $369,933

Soft Costs: $25,000

Less reimbursements:

Rebate Yr 3: $173,930

Sell SRCs Yr 6: $21,621 (@$2.27/SRC)

Net cost: $199,382

*Does not include hard costs for solar hot water system provided by Nextility under self-financed contract.

Value of system $141,400

10 year gas bill savings $18,518-797-3377 year savings $108,000

Donovan House Hotel next door

TOTAL Estimated Cost: $54,245 Hard Costs: $52,245

Soft Costs: $2000

“Going-Green” is a Win-Win-Win

Environment:

Economic:

Community well-being:

Earthlings Letter #8 – Spaceship Earth

Fri, 04 Dec 2015 22:07:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! I was just thinking about two of my favorite things, maple trees in the fall and wild cherry blossom in the spring… Do you remember how in the early spring we saw some of the ‘true color’ of leaves as they came out of their buds and had not yet blushed green with chlorophyll for photosynthesis? Well now the summer is over and Fall is begun where I am on Earth. The leaves are stopping their photosynthesis. The vail of green is being drawn away and every leaf is revealing its hidden color. The maple trees are among the first to change and glow orange, red and yellow. It is like each leaf has a light inside.

This change is happening because plants and trees are sensitive to the amount of time the sun shines on them. And you are too! If you live in the northern hemisphere (the half of the earth north of the equator), (the equator is an imaginary line drawn around the Earth equally distant from both poles).

Haven’t the days of midsummer, felt wonderfully long? You were outside playing and it would be daylight as late as 8:30 in the evening. In some far northern places it is day till 12:00 pm, or even later! That must be neat… The lengthening of the daylight time continues until the summer solstice (the time of the longest day, around June 21st in the northern hemisphere and December 22 in the southern half of the Earth).

Why is change in daylight hours happening? In order to answer that question lets step back, way back. I am going to give your imaginations a work out in this Earthlings Letter. Let’s draw so far back that we are looking at our Earth from space. First thing, we see that Earth is shockingly beautiful. A ball of bluest blue water with bright white webs of clouds drifting over it and completely surrounded by the black space.

Then, we realize that Earth is almost all water. Maybe we should have named it Ocean! You have to look carefully to observe here and there through the clouds the small broken brown bits of land islands where we live. Keep watching and you will notice that Earth spins slowly on its axis (an imaginary line about which Earth rotates, and the north and south poles are the ends of this axis of rotation).

At the same time Earth orbits (circles around) the sun. Way out in space, in our imaginations, we can see this.

As we approach the winter solstice (time of the shortest day around December 22 in the northern hemisphere and June 21st in the southern hemisphere), we notice that the passage of the sun across the sky is becoming a lower and lower arc. Another way to recognize this is the longer shadows cast around noontime. The lower arc of the sun is happening because the tilt of our earths axis is changing the angle that sunlight shines on Earth. This tilt is just enough to change everything. In some parts of Earth it stops the growth of plants, dramatically changes the air temperature and causes animals, people and plants to hibernate or migrate (to move from one place to another where they can find food and shelter so they can live). Our sun is that important… and the tilt of Earth is that important.

We are one of nine planets that orbit our sun. But hold on, some people are saying, recently, that Pluto is not a planet…(a solid form in space that orbits a star). We can let scientist debate that. They like to have stuff like that to argue about. Pluto is so far away and I’m sure it doesn’t really care if we think it is a planet!

Something we do know is that our planet Earth is just the right distance from the sun to sustain life. Which is incredibly lucky for us and plants and creatures that live! As far as we know life does not exist on the other planets that are in our solar system, (the collection of 8 planets (minus Pluto, for now) and their moons in orbit around our Sun. Asteroids, meteoroids and comets are also included. I am going to let you look up what they are…). Probably there is life somewhere else in the Universe. The Universe is beyond our ability to imagine in size. It is so hugemongus! So the odds are good that life is out there somewhere. What we call life here on Earth is something we have but we do not know why or really what it is… we know when it is not, but we don’t know why it happens or why it happened on our planet. We are very fortunate to be alive, and to experience the life around us. It is our greatest adventure and at the same time a great mystery. Sometimes I think to myself, maybe all the planets in our solar system had life at one time in the very far distant past… what happened? Could our Earth ever have no life?

You can think about living on earth as a fantastic ride. Like one you might experience at a carnival. We are spinning and orbiting at the same time, all the time! Our speed as we orbit the sun is an average of 18.5 miles per second. And, one complete spin on our axis which is 24 hours – is what we call a day. We are riding together on “Spaceship Earth” as Bucky Fuller said. We spin and orbit within the cluster of stars called the milky way galaxy that is one of countless galaxies moving in the endless largeness we refer to as Universe. Earth is our very own space ship with our food supply and shelter, air to breath, gravity to hold us down and an energy system that is the Sun. We must take good care of our Spaceship Earth, this amazing planet we live on, and protect its life and its systems like you would protect and take care of your parents or friends or pets or favorite toys or anything you depend on and love very much.

Why can’t we feel the Earths movement? Because we are all moving with it at the same constant speed… ? Or, here’s another thought, maybe we are so adapted to it that we can’t feel it? We are born into it and it feels as natural as living in our bodies. As familiar as being alive. Nobody knows. Another mystery we can live with.

Well, I don’t know about you but I’m starting to get dizzy and homesick imagining myself way out into space. I want to go home. See you back on our Spaceship Earth!

By the way, I would love to see your drawings of Spaceship Earth. If you want to send them to me by email use the address susancaumont@renew-the-earth.org , and I will post them on this website, thanks!

Why Bees Are Disappearing | TED Talk by Maria Spivak

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 05:46:00 GMT

Earthlings Letter #7

Sat, 19 Sep 2015 20:40:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! You may be wondering by now if I have a particular ‘method’ behind how I choose what to write to you about. Well, I don’t. The way I see it everything in nature interacts and changes and doesn’t begin in any particular place so I am not writing about things in any kind of sequence, but randomly according to what gets my attention. I think that this approach may be closer to the way nature does things. Or, the way it appears to me that nature does things. Because I am sure that nature knows just what she is doing and we only know a little bit about what she is up to.

So, let’s go on a ‘noticing walk’. Yea, I know I talk a lot about noticing and noticers. Because I think this is so important. What I mean is that someone is looking around and observing what is around them and what is going on. Then making up their own minds about what they think. Some of the very best thinking starts with good noticing.

Here is how a noticing walk went that I took recently. On this particular day I woke up pretty early, around 5:20 AM. And I stood out side for a while just looking around, being still and listening. It was cool and slowly light was appearing. One of the first sounds I noticed was bird song. I have found that at this time of morning certain birds start singing the opening movement of a kind of symphony for the day. One song that I could identify right away, without actually seeing the bird, was the that of the robin.

One will sing then shortly after another will answer or just blurt out it’s notes because they have been sitting in its throat all night and he just has to sing as soon as he sees some light! I know that there is a theory that birds sing just to let other birds know where their home turf is, keep other birds out of it and compete for mates. But I can’t accept that this is the whole story… because how could a bird tell from just the song of another bird where or how large the territory is of that other bird? The only way they could start to get an idea of the extent of another birds home turf would be to fly out and see when they get chased away from some area. And why would they bother if they already have a place to call their own and sing from? The song itself is not pin point-able any more than the shouting of a friend in the distance who you can’t see.

You are able to figure out the general direction that the shout came from but not the exact place where your friend is standing. Generally a bird could know not to go ‘over there’ but when hundreds of birds start singing at once in the early morning like they do, the sounds overlap and echo and blend and are very hard to pin point. It is a general chaos of song! So what does all this bird song mean? Does it mean anything the way we think of meaning? How can we start to understand bird song?

Sometimes it is useful to think about a completely different type of animal in order to start to understand the one you have a question about. Let’s take whales for example. At first you may laugh and think what could birds and whales have to tell us about each other?

What do we know about whales? They live in the deep water of oceans. They swim those waters and travel great distances looking for their best feeding grounds and places to raise their young. So do birds. Birds fly in the air and travel great distances to find food and the right temperatures to raise their young. Couldn’t we think of water as a thick kind of air? Don’t whales seem to ‘fly’ in their element, graceful and huge? For that matter aren’t birds kind of ‘swimming’ through the air? Lets think about what scientists have observed whales doing as they travel the deep of the oceans. They sing. And each pod (family) of whales has its own songs that they understand, like we use language to communicate with each other. So when they sing it appears that their song is meant for the ears of its pod mates.

Maybe they are saying something like, ‘Where are you?’ , ‘I am awake,’ ‘Has anyone found food?, ‘where are we going today?’, ‘I’m here,’ ‘All is well’… ‘Are you well?’ Whales are sounding the water. They are sending vibrations through the water and communicating with other whales. Birds sound the air. They send their vibrations (songs) through the air to communicate with other birds. Maybe they are saying, ‘I made it through the night,’ ‘I am alive, are you?’, ‘Where are my relatives?’, ‘Good Morning,’ ‘Are my children OK?’ … ‘Are you there?’, ‘I’m happy and excited!’ “Morning is come!”

Maybe there is a lot more going on in the lives of other creatures than we give them credit for… Another thing that bird song may be trying to do is help the individual bird locate itself in time and space. It is singing to itself so that it knows where it is — its location or starting point. ‘I am here,’ ‘I know it, ‘this is where I am’. It is very important to know where you are, whether you are a bird, a human or any living thing.

Now that there is enough light to see all around, I am going from my starting point where I was standing listening to the birds sing and I am walking from there toward a path in the woods. I am going on my noticing walk. The first thing I do is start to whistle quietly to myself as I am walking and just loud enough to not startle any animals that are around. I find that I start to whistle without even thinking about it. Because it feels like the right thing to do! I unconsciously put my thoughts to the timing of a tune while I am wandering about. Maybe because music is a universal language! Anyone or animal can make it and enjoy it. If I am totally quiet I often frighten animals that don’t know I am around until I am right on top of them and we both get startled! So it is kind of a compromise, I whistle quietly and give the wild creatures a chance to be aware of me and we end up just watching each other as I pass.

The first animal I spot in the woods is a young deer.

It had become aware of me before I saw it. I could tell this because its stance was still and alert and it was staring right at me with big eyes and its huge ears were focused toward me. It was not running away. It was just as curious about me as I was about it. So we both stood still and stared at each other. A sound in the distance was approaching slowly that I recognized as a group of Canadian geese coming my way. Shortly seven geese were ‘barking’ overhead then passing on toward the beaver pond. When I looked back the little deer was gone.

Now I am continuing on the path, enjoying the springy feel of years of fallen pine needles beneath my feet. The summer is just on the edge of fall. The air already has that leafy, wet soil, cool air smell that starts to clear the mind of hot summer days and prepare us for the stricter occupations and weather of winter. When I reach the beaver pond I am there just in time to see a beaver running along the top of its dam. It doesn’t seem to be concerned about my presence and continues on its way to the edge of the pond. There it starts gathering tall leafy reeds that are growing in the water then it swims off dragging them somewhere out of sight. I sit down on a flat rock by the side of the pond and wait for the birds to stop calling to each other about me. “It is there, It is there!” I see the geese at the other end of the pond. They have settled down and one of their number is being a ‘lookout’. It is almost time for them to make their long fight south. Maybe they are restless. The youngsters challenge each other with their wings. Finally, after I have been sitting quietly long enough the local creatures loose interest in what I am up to.

As I sit quietly I become aware of more and more things going on around me. My mind is expanding outward like it has the multiple eyes of a spider, seeing several directions at a time. One of the things that draws my attention is a single call of small black bird in the tree tops. Its call is answered by the same call from another black bird. Suddenly there are about 10 black birds in the branches above me calling back and forth with that same sound. Then those birds move on calling as they go and even more black birds are overhead calling and moving on. Maybe they are saying, “Come, let’s go together in this direction!” “Let’s go where it is warmer, time to go!”

The birds are not the only living things that are aware that winter is coming. Overhead leaves are wagging in the wind and already there are a few Maple trees drawing back, from the leaves on the tips of their branches, the chlorophyll that has been working to make food for them all summer. Those warriors of summer, some scared by feeding insects, are now tinted bright red and orange.

These leaf furnaces of photosynthesis glow briefly even after their job is done.

Going ‘noticing’ in Nature is not like going to the zoo or a pet store (which I think of as a kind of zoo). Nature does not easily or quickly reveal itself. You have to return, again and again with a patient heart and a mind that lets the light of dizzy stars shine in.

Slowly you will be forming paths and a personal map that is there for you to use when you need them. When you want to be where you belong.

“How often I have found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.” Buckminster Fuller

Earthlings Letter # 6

Sun, 02 Aug 2015 15:45:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! I would like to give you something to think about.

At some point in our Human Family Time there was a thought that surfaced that went something like this, “ When a baby is born its fists are closed, because that is where it is holding its gifts. As it grows older it opens its fists and shows it’s palms as it releases its gifts to the world.”

Many people repeated this thought because it seemed true to them and when people find something true it is remembered generation ( the average amount of time between the birth of parents and that if their children – about 30 years.) after generation. That is why I am able to write it down now, because someone told this to me and I feel it was true so I give it to you. What this thought is saying to me is that every person born has their own unique gifts to release to the world. And I find this to be a very exciting and happy thing to think about. I hope you do too.

So how do we find out what our gifts are so that we may someday release them? Many people have pondered this question over our long/short history as a human species on Earth. Now that I think about it, where does the word ‘earth’ come from?

I will look it up. Here is what I found, the word ‘earth’ traces back to a German word ‘erde’ which means ground or soil. I am not going to suggest what you should or can think about this. We have thought about soil in an earlier Earthlings Letter. Now it is time for you to form your own unique thoughts about the name of our planet. Thinking about stuff is one of the paths you can take to discover your own unique ( the only one of its kind ) gifts that you will someday release to the world.

This letter will be a little different than ones I have written to you in the past. In this letter I am going to encourage you to think. Just to think. This is the whole experiment. And it is an experiment that will continue for your whole life. This may sound like an easy thing to do. But it is not. It is the hardest thing you will do, having your own thoughts about things. And sometimes you will succeed. There will always be someone trying to tell you what/or how to think. So you must be strong and determined and curious and brave. And with all that effort, you will learn things and that will encourage you to think some more.

So how do you know if your thoughts are really your own? And here hangs all that is important. The closer you get to thinking thoughts that are really yours the more excited and happier you will become and self motivated and eventually, if you stay focused, you may make a discovery! And real discovery is something that makes everyone nod their heads in agreement, if they are also thinkers, and helps everyone to live closer to the wonderful efficiency that Nature is using. We have been here only a tiny bit of time and Earth has been here a whole, huge unimaginable amount of time, and is way ahead of us when it comes to how to make things work. And that brings us to a question, “are you a noticer?”

Do you notice things that other people around you don’t? When you go for a walk in the park or woods do you walk up to plants, trees, creatures and examine them closely? These are signs that you are a noticer. Do you ask a lot of questions? This is another sign. Do you always know where to find something in your home that other people can’t? Another sign. And a noticer is a great thing to be! When you are a noticer you are gathering lots of information that your brain then stores and compares with other information it already has from your previous noticing and starts to make sense of these different observations in relation to each other. The more stuff your brain has to consider the closer the conclusions, you come to about whatever you are thinking, will be to what is real or true. And you may learn that what you thought before is not true at all! And that is not something to worry about because this ‘thinking thing‘ is what we are made for and answers always lead to more questions; if they are the right answers. We can never find what is ‘perfectly true’ because everything in nature, and we are part of it, is always changing. But we can come close… and that is close enough. There are infinity of wonderful discoveries possible between zero and ‘close enough’.

I am going to introduce you to an interesting word – synergy. This word came from the Greek word, ‘synergia’ which means working together, to help, cooperate. Our modern word, synergy, means the creation of an effect that is different and greater than the combination of its parts. Buckminster Fuller once said, “there is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”

You can see what he meant, that there is nothing in the many parts and arrangement of parts of a caterpillar that would make you think that some day it will transform into a butterfly which looks completely different and can fly too! Synergy occurs when people interact with each other, nature is synergetic to all its diversity and to us, and Earth is synergetic to everything that is constantly happening. We are all involved in a huge cooperation experiment! And the out come cannot be foreseen, but we can guess that it will be different and/or greater than its many parts! Each of our individual contributions to this synergy is essential for the constantly happening result to keep becoming…

Remember, we are each of us alive on Earth so that we can share our ‘gifts’. By thinking your own thoughts and by being yourself you are cooperating in the synergetic way the Nature loves!

Earthlings Letter #5 – “Still Life”…Let’s Talk about Rocks!

Fri, 19 Jun 2015 17:06:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! For a while we are going to leave the lively strutting of life that photosynthesis makes, the plants and animals and us, and take a look at the ‘still life’ of rocks.

Rocks! One of my favorite things on Earth. Those objects that just sit there and don’t go anywhere, but they contain all the mysteries of our Earth’s history. Believe it or not we started to think about rocks when we were examining dirt. Yes, one ingredient that makes rock is soil. Plants and animals are not the only things that are dependent on soil. At some point in the development of the rocks we call ‘biologic (related to living things) sedimentary rocks,’ they were soil. Soil, that is made from the decay of plants and animals, became this kind of rock. Some very ‘young’ rock of this type you can pick up and easily break apart with your hands. It is little more solid than dried mud. Older sedimentary rock is ‘solid as rock’. This happens because of the way that these rocks form, over millions of years. To understand how they are formed we must understand what activity the word ‘sedimentary’ is naming.

You studied sediment when we examined soil in the first Earthlings Letter. Sediment was what settled to the bottom of the jar of water into which you dropped a soil sample. The word sediment comes from a Latin word, ‘sedimentum’, that means ‘a settling’. If you have ever observed a chicken getting ready to rest you will have noticed it’s process of settling and finally staying in one place, very content.

The Latin word, ‘sedere’, is also a root of the word sediment and it means, to sit. So what we are noticing, in the case of sedimentary rock formation, is particles of decayed plant and animal matter drifting through water till they finally settle on the bottom of the river bed, ocean, lake or whatever, and stay put. Over lots and lots of time, (millions and millions of years) many, many layers of organic matter drift and settle and create pressure by their weight on the layers below them. Also, the pressure of the water above them is added to this and compresses (makes them flat and thin) the layers, finally making the deposits under the most pressure, in the lower levels, bond together into sedimentary rock.

Now, I mentioned that rocks contain the mysteries of Earth’s long existence. Let’s see how we can start to ‘read’ this story in rocks. Sedimentary rocks are some of the easiest to read. They can sometimes even have messages stamped right on their surfaces! We say that these rocks have ‘fossils’ in them. First, I will define ‘fossil’ then we are going to do an experiment. A fossil is the remains of an organism preserved as a mold or cast, in rock. This word comes to us from the Latin words ‘fodere’, to dig and ‘fossilis’, dug up. Now let’s do an experiment. All you will need is a piece of clay or damp mud and an object of your choice that you can easily hold in your hand. Now form your clay or mud clump into a ball maybe three inches or so across. Press the object you chose into the surface then gently pull it away. You will notice that the texture (The way something looks or feels on it’s surface) of your object has left its impression in the clay. This is called a mold of the object. And if you were to fill that mold with plaster, let it dry, then pop it out, you will have made a cast of your object.

I have a collection of fossils that are both molds and casts. They are mostly ancient clams and some plants. I have been able to find these because 3 million or more years ago or so there was a part of the Atlantic ocean covering where I live today. Many kinds of clams lived in that shallow sea and died there and were covered by sediment, layer after layer. The pressure of these layers acted like your fingers pressing an object into soft clay. The object disintegrated but its impression remained, ‘set in stone’.

So how can we read these fossil stories? We must slow our selves down and pretend we have ‘all the time in the world’. And, by the way, this is how much time rocks have had to develop! A trick you can do to slow yourself down and observe in different ways is to close your eyes. The information we get from our eyes is wired directly to the words we have been trained to use when we refer to objects we see. So often we leap to the word that will describe ‘in general’ (very simply) what we are looking at. We don’t linger and let ourselves make discoveries that the ‘namers’ may have missed! When you close your eyes you are activating other senses that are excellent observers but are often taking back stage to the ‘star’, which is sight. So, chose a rock that interests you and if you can find one with a fossil in it, great! Now, hold it in your hands and close your eyes. Let your rock tell you things about itself through your sense of touch, how rough or smooth is it, how cold or warm. See if scratching it with your fingernail will break pieces of it away. This will tell you something about its age and what it is made of. Observe through your sense of smell, is it an earthy smell, a metallic smell, or sulfurous, etc. If you wet the rock this can bring out the scent of it more clearly. Even your hearing will give you clews about your rock, for example, if you hear a stream near where you found it, flowing water could have helped it form. Start to open your mind to all the possibilities and activities of nature in the area where you found your rock and you will begin to piece together in your imagination what has formed it to its present state.

Here is what I have observed, about a rock I am holding, that has a fossil cast in it, with out using my sight to help me. I know, it is very hard not to cheat and look! The first thing that I notice while I hold the rock in my hands is how cold it is. So I start to think about why it is cold. We understand that sedimentary rocks are formed from small bits and particles under massive pressure for a long time. These particles are forced very close together and create what we refer to as a dense object.. The denser an object is the longer it will stay cold or hot. It takes longer to heat up and longer to cool down because each of the particles of the rock has to give up its portion of hot or cold in order for temperature change to happen. And there are so many of these particles in the rock! If my rock had been sitting out in the sun it would be warm. It is cold because it gets cold during the night. And it will take a while for it to warm up when the sun shines on it. Even a rock that is warm to the touch may still be cool deep inside if you were to break it open. It still has the coolness of the night inside it. And did you know that rocks move! When it heats up it expands (gets bigger) a little and when it cools down it contracts (gets smaller).

Next, I smell the rock and it smells earthy. This tells me that it is made up of mostly decayed organic material and is a ‘young rock’. Only millions of years old! Finally, I begin to feel the cast of the fossil. There is a special kind of writing that is called ‘braille’ and it is used in books for people who cannot see, so that they can read. This writing is made up of raised groups of dots, each one representing a letter in the alphabet.

In this way words can be punched into paper so that a blind person can read them with their finger tips. I am going to try to read the ‘braille’ of Earths alphabet in the fossil form under my fingers. First, I feel ridges that radiate from a central source. The overall shape is not quite round, it swells a bit like the surface of an egg and it is mostly smooth and feels longer than it is thick. Since I know that I found this fossil where there used to be an ocean, I can guess that it is an animal that lived in the sea and protected itself with a shell.

It is the shape, of a once living creature turned into stone, that my fingers ‘read’. And this is just the start. One answer leads to another question and another answer and another question and on and on… Our Earth is alive in countless ways and life causes change and change creates more questions for us to think about. There will always be some thing new for you to try to figure out! So, if someone says to you ‘those are just a rocks’, you can reply, ‘they are not just rocks, they are capsules of earth history. And they tell us wonderful things!

Earthling Letter # 4 – Seeing GREEN!

Mon, 11 May 2015 05:29:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings! I’m seeing GREEN!

Suddenly, every plant and tree is boiling up with fresh bright GREEN! Why is this happening? Why all this GREEN? There is a word that we have created for this greening. It is the most important biological process on Earth. The word is, photosynthesis. (from the Greek word, ‘phos’ which means light and a Greek/Latin word, ‘syn’ which means to put or place — ‘light placing’). Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and trees use sunlight to make food for themselves from carbon dioxide and water.

Now, let’s get back to that green color. Leaves have special structures within them that we call chloroplasts. (chloros is from a Greek word that means green and plast, is from the Greek word, plastos, which means, to form. “green forming”).

These make up the photosynthesizing system within the leaf. They convert sunlight into energy the plant can use. But they are very picky about which colors of sun light they will ‘eat’. Plants mostly prefer red and blue wavelengths ( light moves)! of sun light to use for their photosynthesis. Just like you might prefer a candy that is red or purple. In this photo below you can see the colors of light that plants absorb.

These wavelengths occur at either end of the light spectrum. All the other colors of the spectrum are rejected by the plant and so they are there for us to see! We see only the reflected colors. The green is not “in” the leaf. The surface of the leaf is reflecting the wavelengths we see as green and absorbing all the rest. This is why plants appear green to us. Wait, LIGHT SPECTRUM, what is that?

The spectrum of visible light (the light our eyes can see) is very organized and can be understood as an arch of colors — each, a separate color band. When you see a rainbow you are seeing the light spectrum displayed in the sky!

The absorbing (soaking up) and reflecting (revealing) of colors of the light spectrum make the colors we see when we look around us. Our eyes can see only a portion of the all the colors the light spectrum makes.

By the way, there are insects that can see colors of light that we can’t see! Just like some animals, dogs and bats for instance, can hear sounds we can’t hear.

What else is needed for photosynthesis to happen? Several things need to be available to a plant in order for it to photosynthesize. It is like a recipe. First, as described above, sunlight, then the gas carbon dioxide (a plant ‘breaths’ this from the air) and water and minerals. Sunlight provides the energy( we call this energy, Jules that runs the little cell ‘motors’ (chloroplasts) of the leaves while they combine carbon dioxide and, through the plant’s roots, the water and minerals that are stored in soil. When these ingredients are all present in the leaves, they can photosynthesize. This process produces food for the plant and (lucky for us) the gas oxygen (a left over of photosynthesis), which we need to breath!

Photosynthesis is underway as soon as we see green. Here is an activity you can do and observe what happens to plants as they photosynthesize. When you go for a walk in early spring before every thing starts to turn green, mark plants and trees that interest you by tying a short length of colored yarn to a branch or stem.

Make some drawings of these plants and take notes about what you see. Make a map of where you go on your walk and where you left marks. Things will be changing so fast in the spring that you may not recognize where you walked when you return a few days or weeks later. You will need your map! When you return to your marked plants you will see surprising changes in them.

You may want to make drawings and notes in a ‘nature notebook’ (a small note pad you can fit in your pocket) about the changes you see. Also be aware of the insects and other animals that are nearby and think about what they are doing. Is anything they are up to important for the plants you are observing? Even if it is not spring when you go for your walk, you can create ‘observation maps’ for any nature walk, at any season. Fall is another season when changes in plants happen pretty fast. The trees and plants reveal their ‘true colors’ as they prepare to fall to the ground. Once photosynthesis stops (plants and trees sense the cold winter coming) leaves loose their green color and show the stain of what they were absorbing all through the growing season. They are bright with the colors of red, orange, purple and yellow.

Their secret is out!

But let’s think about those evergreens a little more. How do they stay green all winter and why? The needles of evergreens are leaves rolled up very tightly!

This allows them to conserve (save) water. Evaporation (disappearance of moisture) from the leaves is slowed down, because there is less surface area from which moisture can escape. This is very important (we know water is essential for photosynthesis). Evergreen needles also have a waxy coating to help to slow water loss. Here is a simple experiment you can do so you can see why that works so well. Fill two jars of the same size with the same amount of water and mark the waterline on the outside of the jar with a marker or piece of tape. Now cover one jar tightly with a piece of plastic wrap. Wrap a rubber band around the mouth of the jar to seal the plastic wrap tightly over the opening of the jar. Leave the other jar open to the air. Check your jars each day and you will notice the water in the open jar is disappearing and the water in the sealed jar is staying the same. This is how wax on the needles of evergreens helps to keep water from evaporating.
Evergreen trees evolved (developed slowly) in cold northern climates. In order to survive in areas that have a short growing season (a very short period of warm, sunny weather in which to grow), they need to gather light and photosynthesize all year long. They have to eat! And, water needs to be available to them throughout the year. They can make their food (photosynthesize) most of the winter as long as the soil doesn’t stay frozen too long. Freezing makes it hard for them to get liquid water out of the soil. Evergreens still need some water in winter, but not a lot.

Why is photosynthesis the most important biological process on Earth? I mentioned that oxygen is a by product (something the plant does not need) of photosynthesis. Well, it turns out that humans need to breath in oxygen from the air in order to survive (live). And (lucky for plants and trees), the carbon dioxide they need to survive, we exhale as a by product of our breathing. We help each other out! We also depend on plants and trees for all of our food. There is nothing that we eat that did not have, at some point, plant beginnings which got their energy from the sun. (See if you can trace the foods you like to eat back to the sun…) The clothes we wear are made from plant sources (cotton, wool (sheep eat grass), linen) and the houses we live in are made with lumber we get from trees. We can trace all the things we need for survival back to the energy from the sun and the photosynthesis of plants.
Our sun has given us all life, through Photosynthesis.

This has been a long letter and with lot of information for you to absorb. But I know you can do it! You are like the leaves in spring growing bigger and bigger and absorbing more and more of what helps you grow. Information is like sunlight for your brain! We will return again to the subject of photosynthesis someday. There are still plenty of things that need figuring out. Plants have been on the earth much longer than we have and have had a lot of time (about 700 million years) to develop really amazing ways to survive. So, till next time, keep on being a good ‘noticer’ and ask lots of questions!

Illyria’s World

Mon, 04 May 2015 14:57:00 GMT

Check out Susan’s eBook Illyria’s World! Join Illyria on her adventures with Sunny the Robot as she explores climate change.

Download (PDF, 5.45MB)

RELACCX Conference Interview with Rengenuity

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 16:06:00 GMT

Our second interview was with Antonio Antonopoulos, Brandon Noakes (Millennium Energy Finance) and Jose Biaou (MEF). Their goal is to help small scale renewables get a sufficient amount of financing from private sources and in that way give banks confidence to provide the balance of funding necessary to make their project viable. We talked about the difficulties involved and possible strategies.

You can check them out and learn more about what they are doing on the following websites:

https://newenergynation.com/

http://rengenuity.com

Learning to Observe

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 21:16:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings!

It is early evening and I think to myself what is the reason they are swarming in groups above me. Animals don’t waste energy. So I figure they are up to something. They are probably eating. I can’t see the insects they are eating but I am guessing they are flying around up there too. More and more birds are joining the original group. The shape of the birds seems to indicate they are swallows. Later, when I looked up what swallows feed on I found that some insects they eat can be smaller than a grain of sand! I guess that is why I couldn’t see them! Now the breeze is stronger and the birds are gone. I am guessing the lightweight insects were blown to another location and the birds have followed them. This is an example of general observation (to notice or see something) and conjecture (guesswork, an opinion). You can do this too. You can teach yourself about what is happening around you. The longer you stay in one spot and watch what is going on, the more you will notice and try to figure out. Your thinking brain is a wonderful thing!

You see, even when we seem to be doing nothing… just sitting out side or lying in a hammock, we are really doing a lot. Just like the roots I talked about in the last letter. You can’t see what they are doing but they are doing important stuff. When you stay in one place for a while and observe, you are feeding these observations to your brain. Then your brain gets busy thinking about each one in turn.

Let’s do an experiment. Let’s see how many things we can observe while staying in one place. You can make a list. Here is my list. I am sitting outside and I see sun light pressing through leaves and blurring into a bright blue haze…

I see a butterfly float by…

I hear the grinding of a lawn mower, bottles dropping into something, a generator making 3 different sounds one after another, low voices of men talking while they work on a roof, then one of them laughs, I smell the grass that is being cut, I see sunlight shining on the polished surfaces of leaves, I feel heat coming up from the ground, a lizard clings to the tree and flashes it’s red chin at me.

I see clouds passing, I feel it is getting cooler, I see the sun has gone behind a cloud! Each of these events stimulates my mind and starts a train of thought. Thinking is doing something. You are teaching yourself about what you are experiencing and relating experiences to each other and coming up with conclusions or… more questions. Maybe that is why I feel tired after I have been thinking for a long time?

So, how do you become a really good observer? Like anything else, the way to become good at something, is to do it a lot. One way to start is to just plop yourself down outside and use only your senses (sight, smell, touch and hearing) to entertain you. This is not a chore or something that must be scheduled. Just do it when you feel like it. There will always be something going on no matter when you decide to observe.

Observation doesn’t only mean what we see. Of course we depend a lot on what we see. But really good observation includes what we smell, hear and touch. Even our senses are just the start. When we combine in our brain all the information our senses can bring we begin to think about all this stuff and our wonderful thinking brain comes up with conclusions and ideas. Over a lifetime, if we try to be good observers, we gather a lot of impressions and formulate a lot of ideas. This is an important part of who we become as we get older and also is part of what is so very interesting about being earthlings!

Here’s another thing to try. Instead of observing things right around you, try watching clouds.

When we watch clouds as they form and pass over head we broaden hugely what we are considering. We start to get the sense that we are on a planet that is roaming through space. And if you lie on your back on the grass and watch clouds you can even start to have a dizzy feeling of riding on our planet.

Making drawings from nature is another way to become a good observer. Choose something and draw it! You can sit outside and do this or, if the object, plant or animal you choose is catchable or moveable… carefully bring it indoors while you draw it. Always remember you will be returning it unharmed to where it was, after you are done. An insect capture container is easily made from a jar… small plants can be potted or cuttings put in a vase of water… and rock and other collections placed on a tray. Take your time and look carefully at what you have chosen. Don’t be concerned about how well you draw. Just start drawing. Use pencils or crayons or paint, anything you want. Your objective is not to make a beautiful drawing. It is to learn about what you are looking at, by drawing it! Drawing something makes us look at the object carefully and for a long time. Write down your thoughts about what you observe, next to the drawing.

Things like, colors, smell, location, size, texture (how a surface feels), etc. are very helpful when you look at the drawing, days and months later. Suddenly, the original moments of observation come back to your mind and you can review them and add to them if you have new impressions (ideas or feelings).

Good observers often figure interesting things out that can lead to inventions, discoveries and creativity. And these are wonderful things that can make everyone happier!

In my next letter I will be writing about what leaves are doing… but for now, I am going to make like a tree and leave out!

Solar Panels on the White House

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:52:00 GMT

Check out the process of putting solar panels on the White House…

The Life of a Root

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 19:09:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings!

The root of a plant is very busy and most of it’s business happens out of sight, in the soil. With a simple activity we can observe the beginning of the life a root. Here is how to do it…

Take a piece of paper towel and make it into a cylinder then put it into your jar so that it stands up in it and presses against the sides. Now, choose the seeds you would like to sprout. Carefully place 4 or 5 seeds (using a pencil or chop stick to poke them gently into place) between the paper towel and the glass of your jar.

Don’t press them further than 1/2 way down the jar. You don’t want them to touch the water at the bottom. You will notice, while you were placing the seeds, the paper towel has been getting wet as it soaks up the water. This is just enough dampness to get your seeds started and to keep them pressed against the inside of the jar. Remember to keep an inch of water at the bottom of your jar. Just check it now and then. You don’t want the paper towel to dry out. Now you must be patient… very patient.

One day, and you may have to wait from 15 days or less to a month or more, (every different plant has seeds that make their own schedule) you will look at the seeds in your jar and you will see a tiny white nub has started to emerge (come out) from one of them.

This is the beginning of the very active life of a root. In fact, maybe if you have really, really sensitive feet and you stand barefoot under a tree you might be able to feel movements the roots are making underground? Just a thought. Anyway, the root will grow a little more each day and it ‘knows down’ from the very first moment it pokes out of the seed! How does the root know down and the leaf know up? Hmmmmm. This is one of the very many things we don’t have answers for, yet. Maybe you will be the one to figure it out someday!

What is happening to your seed is called germination, the process by which a plant grows from a seed. This word comes from a Latin word that was invented thousands of years ago, germinatus, which means ‘to sprout’. Your seed is ‘coming to life’. There are many different kinds of seeds and each plant type makes its seed look the way it wants.

Before the event of germination your seed held carefully protected the potential (possibility) for life within it – like a promise. If you had been looking closely at your seeds, as the days went by, you would have noticed that they were swelling slightly as they absorbed (soaked up) water from the wet paper towel that pressed against them. Water is very important for starting the process of germination. And as you will see, the root comes out first and then the folded first leaves arch out of the seed shell (sometimes wearing part of the shell as a cap!) and reach for sun light. A plant grows in two directions at once!

The root needs soil to develop to it’s full potential ( it’s form in the future). It uses soil to hold its plant stem, branches and their leaves secure in wind, rain and storm. This will make it possible for the leaves to keep reaching for the sun and photosynthesizing. (the way plants use sunlight to make their food). There is an awful lot going on at once that a new plant has to ‘get right’ so it can grow and mature. Once leaves have appeared from your seed you can plant it gently into soil. If we could see underground we would be able to watch the root grow longer and press deeper into the soil and start to grow lateral (from the side) ‘branches’ and finally hairlike rootlets off the branches that can be as small as one cell (smallest living unit) thick!

The root looks sort of like a tree underground but without leaves.

Roots are not just for support. They absorb and conduct water and minerals to their plant. They also store the food of photosynthesis that the leaves are making. A plant has to eat just like you.! And it eats stuff that is very much like what you eat. And you can eat certain plants, called vegetables!

Maybe we have a lot more in common with plants than we think… Did you know that they make what we need to breath (oxygen) and we make what they need to breath (carbon dioxide)? This is taking us to another subject that I will tell you more about in a future letter.

Now let’s go back to the root. Watch it carefully as it develops in your jar and use your magnifying lens to see the lateral branches and fine hairs that grow from it. See if you can find differences between the roots from different seeds. Why do you think there are differences? You can keep a special notebook to write down what you observe (see) and make drawings. Don’t worry if you are not an artist. Drawing is something everyone can do! It is just another kind of writing. So have fun! And send us your results. I will post them on the Renew the Earth website. Writing/drawing to you again soon.

Remember, “do what you do, do well!”

Let’s take a closer look at: dirt

Wed, 04 Feb 2015 22:38:00 GMT

Greetings Earthlings!,

I have been thinking about dirt. (should we ‘treat it like dirt?) What use is it? What is it? Turns out this question keeps people who study dirt, pedologists, busy for a lifetime.

Pedology is the study of the nature and history of soils (soil is another word for dirt). Pedology, what a strange word! Words that are used in science often have their ‘roots’ in the ancient languages of Greek and Latin. The word ‘pedology’ has two ‘roots’ in Greek. The word ‘pedon’ means soil and the word ‘logos’ means study. So pedology means ‘soil study’.

A Pedologist is a person who studies soil. Why study soil? One way we can easily understand ‘why?’ is; we need food to live and food plants grow in soil. Pedologists understand that balances in soils are fragile and through understanding the history of how soils developed it may be possible to use soils sustainably (able to continue forever) for agriculture (growing food for us to eat).

But there are many other reasons to study soil. They come under the heading of ‘pure science’; learning in order to expand what we know, (or think we know). Science is a way of always learning. Pedogenesis is the word that refers to the evolution and functioning of soils. ‘Pedon’, we already know, means soil, and ‘genesis’ means beginning or source or root. Pedogenesis means ‘soil source’.

When we try to understand what the source of a soil is, what it is made of, we have to look at the environment (a specific area) in which it developed. Not just in our life times but for many hundreds and more years before our lives began. What rocks wore down and became particles in the soil? What plants died, reduced in size and mixed with the rock dust? What animals, insects, etc lived in the area, ate and died there, and left their bodies in the soil? What animals transformed the soil by living in it? What kind of weather effected the landscape and the evolution (development over time) of the soil? Storms and violent weather events can bring elements from far off areas to mix with the ‘indigenous’ soil changing it dramatically. And there are many more influences that can effect what made up a soil. Every place you go has its own unique mix. Pedologists use 5 major ‘factors of formation’. These factors are: climate, organisms, relief (the lay of the land), parent material (original bedrock) and time.

So how do we start to understand soil? Soil seems to be very complicated! One way to begin to understand is to walk out your door, find the soil nearest you and start to figure out what is in it. What follows are some suggestions on how to get started .

Separating the heavy stuff from the light stuff.

This is a useful thing to do because it will help us figure out two basic things – what amount of soil came from heavy stuff (maybe rocks) and what amount came from light stuff (maybe plants and animals). This kind of information will begin to tell us the story of our soil. It is the same as solving a mystery by examining the clues. “Who done it?”

Things you will need to begin your ‘investigation’.

Now go and dig up some soil! Maybe enough to half fill one jar. Make sure you get not just a sample of the soil on the surface but also dig down five or six inches to get some soil that is deeper down. You may have to clear away some plants and leaves to get to a good area for digging.

Use the spoon to stir the soil gently. Stir until all the soil ingredients are mixed. Now take four or five spoonfuls of this mixed soil and drop them into the jar of water. It will take a while for the water to clear, but when it does you will see that the heavy stuff and the light weight stuff have separated. The water has floated the light stuff to the top and all the heavier stuff has settled to the bottom of the jar. You can now examine and analyze these two very different parts of your soil sample.

I’m sure you already know that the floating stuff is probably from plants (and other light weight bits like insect parts) and the stuff at the bottom of the jar is probably from rocks. But let’s look deeper. There is a lot more to it!

Now I will tell you what I found out about my soil. And I am going to make some quick sketches of what I see.

I used the spoon to get some of the light stuff from the surface of the water and spread it on a paper towel to dry. I did the same with a sample of the heavy stuff at the bottom of the jar.

In the light weight stuff that floated to the top I found a very, very small shell, a seed, lots of tiny bits of plant (probably leaf, stem and bark).

In the heavy stuff that settled to the bottom I found tiny grains of shiny material and larger grains of black material mixed with a little bit of heavier plant material.

In order to try to identify the shiny grains and the larger black grains I need to look around the general terrain where my soil formed. I am located at this time in a part of Florida called the Everglades (a special environment in South Florida). And I have learned that millions of years ago before the Everglades formed, there was a beach here! Beaches form from the action of waves grinding rocks into tiny grains. The color of the beach sand depends on what kind of rocks are being ground up! My grains are shiny and give the sand an overall whitish color. I think that the ocean was grinding up a lot of quartz. Quartz is a very hard shiny glass like rock. The larger dark grains are probably a mix of iron oxides. Some names for these are, magnetite, lodestone and hematite. You can look these rocks up if you wish to know more about them. Also there are white bits of rock which I identified as limestone. Turns out that the Everglades developed on a limestone shelf that rises only about 15 feet above the ocean and slants slightly downward till it enters the ocean at the bottom of Florida.

Once you start examining your own soil you will discover that each particle or rock you find brings its own questions and answers and these lead to more questions and answers. You must use your own thoughts to decide what you want to investigate and how far to go with your investigation. Question everything! And don’t be afraid to not know the answer. You are an explorer with the rest of us and have just as much chance of ‘getting it right’ as anyone else. Most of all, keep alert and curious and have fun!

You are welcome to post your findings on this website. Just use the blog.

Till next time, Earthlings, Good by!

Green Airports – An Interview with Grazia Zanin and Max Shauck

Sat, 03 Jan 2015 05:07:00 GMT

In the late 1970s and early1980’s Max Shauck was experimenting with developing airplane engines to fly on ethanol fuel. He was also test flying these planes with engines he had modified for ethanol. He was motivated and inspired by the effects of the Arab oil embargo of the 70’s (gas rationing, lines at stations, etc.) Ethanol could be made regardless of the Arabs. So he started experimenting with it. Max was running a flight school at this time and also doing air pollution research. While testing engines on ethanol he crashed many times but learned ‘the hard way,’ as he says. He made the process better and better over time, did some cross country flights and went further and further. He was flying on ethanol made from waste chocolate at the time and got the nick name “Candy Man”. Ethanol is naturally high in octane, without the lead which provides the high octane in aviation fuels now (they are gas based). This makes ethanol a superior fuel for airplanes, both economically and environmentally. Aviation fuel made from ethanol would be half as expensive as the gas based fuel presently used in airplanes. Making ethanol aviation fuel from waste products would be economical.

In 1989, Max Shauch and co pilot Grazia Zanin made the historic flight from the coast of North America across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe in an experimental plane fueled with only ethanol. They were awarded the Harman trophy for this feat of, carefully calculated and planned, aeronautics bravery. With this flight, they proved that ethanol is a viable, dependable fuel for airplanes. As a result, first agricultural planes were certified by the FAA to use ethanol. Second, the Cessna 152, a common ‘training’ plane was certified. The main obstacle for these newly certified planes was ‘getting the fuel’. They need to operate from one field. Take off and return to the same field, so that they could refuel. Not every airport had the ethanol fuel. This is when Max and Grazia started thinking about a Green Airport. They want to start a small green airport as a model for others. By 2004 they had five 152s converted to ethanol and were looking for a good location for the green airport project. They had two disappointing starts in the Dominican Republic then finally placed three ethanol planes in a major airport there and started training 20 students in those planes. Eventually these project stalled also. Next they looked into possibilities in Puerto Rico. Here, financial resources were not available. But the dream is still alive and they are now looking at small airports in Florida and Texas. They have not given up.

The vision of the Green Airport goes something like this. First, the flight training will be on locally produced ethanol. Second, photovoltaic energy runs the student housing. Third, a theme park for educational purposes. The whole project would be ‘off grid’. Private and commercial pilots could be trained there. Finally, Max and Grazia see ethanol aviation fuel as a transition to an even more economical and environmental fuel, solar powered air planes. This, they say, is the ‘next step’.

CLICK HERE to listen to the interview on Bridges Programming .