Category: Earthly Wisdom

100% Clean Energy Cracked!

The man with the 100% clean energy plan.
The man with the 100% clean energy plan.

Professor Mark Jacobson and his team from Stanford have engineered a way to transition to 100% Clean Energy – for each of the fifty United States of America.  Working with some forty top engineering and science students, most of them from Stanford, Jacobson has created a state by state strategy and plan to fully transition to clean energy. Jacobson says the science is both accurate and conclusive.  The only huge remaining question is whether or not the rest of us have the integrity and the will to make a clean energy world happen.

Do we? Do you?  How are we going to make this happen?

For many states, the best source of energy is wind power, which has benefits galore, such as: 1) You can still farm the land around wind turbines.  2) Fewer precious resources are needed for their construction than solar. 3) Offshore wind turbines are highly productive and there are amazing side benefits, such as the fact that wind turbines actually break up hurricane energy – just as the storm approaches the shore!

100% Clean Energy would change everything.  As Bucky said in 1982,  a clean energy world will be much more livable for all life on Earth, because clean energy is also free energy, which means we can work less for our daily energy supply.  In addition, we will be able to leave some of “nature’s energy savings account”  in the ground, for emergencies.

All that’s left is to decide whether or not we not have the individual integrity to demand that the “fossil fools” get out of the way so this can happen. Bucky had great faith that we would rise up and make an “emergence through emergency”  but said that this would require the will of each and every one of us.

If you’re still not sure whether clean energy is that important, please consider one last Bucky thought for today.  When I asked him, “How could it be possible that our use of fossil fuels could really affect the whole ecosystem of Earth?” here is the gist of his reply:

If Earth passes enough gas, it could be as if the sun is the match. Poof.  But if we align ourselves with nature and green up the world through a design science revolution, humanity can thrive in ways we haven’t even dreamed.  We can give up the specious notion that human beings have to “earn a living”.  Fish do not pay for water, nor grass for rain; so how did it come to pass that nature’s most sophisticated species has to toil, day after day after day, for its energy? The world can work for 100% of humanity, without harm to the environment, if only we decide to do it.

A 100% Clean Energy Earth.  Why not?

Here’s the link to THESOLUTIONSPROJECT.  Go check out your state, sign up there to help make it happen, then come back here and share Buckyworld with as many people as you can!  Also, please like Buckyworld on Facebook.

Worldwide Water Problem Solved?

The featured opening night movie of the Sausalito Film Festival tells an amazing and true story about the development of a solution to the problem of providing the entire world with clean drinking water.

The movie is called SlingShot.  It is about the man who invented the Segway, Dean Kamen, and no, he is not dead as was rumored, but has spent the last fifteen years working quietly to solve the world’s drinking water crises, and — spoiler alert — he has done it!

Not only has this funny charming guy who will remind you of Phil Dunphy built a portable machine that distills even wretched canal water into purified drinking water, Dean Kamen has partnered with Coca Cola to distribute his magical SlingShot machines all over the world.

The backstory is beautifully told. He felt beaten when the Segway was laughed at, so he went away and focused on the world’s biggest problem instead. As long as Coca Cola lives up to its promise, the most significant health problem humanity may be on its way to being solved.

Bucky would love this solution, and the brilliant and funny movie about it.

Here’s a link to the web page for the film. See this movie! 

Human Success: What will it take?

Buckminster Fuller’s Eight Rules for Securing Humanity’s Success

In this time of global struggle and awakening, Buckminster Fuller‘s ideas and inventions are more profoundly relevant than ever before.
Most notable are his “integrities for living” which he shared with me in May, 1982, during an interview which turned into one of the famous Bucky’s trademark one-on-one “all I know” multi-hour lectures.  I promised I would share his ideas with you, and that I would watch to see when people would be ready to hear them. So here they are, Bucky’s eight general guidelines for securing a happy future for humanity:

1.  REALIGN WITH NATURE.  Despite what we have been taught, it is not our role to dominate nature, but to live by her rules. Nature is never wrong. She wants us to succeed, but she does not depend on us. We are not her only experiment. If we fail to conform to her design integrities, she will sweep us aside like a bad case of fleas and start over. Nature’s design principles must guide all our decisions about how to live.

2.  EVOLVE CONSCIOUSLY. This is about stretching ourselves to arrive more quickly at the place Nature is leading us.  As the first species on Earth that’s aware of its capacity to destroy itself, we also  sense that we have a choice in the matte. If we can evolve consciously, together, by embracing values of compassion, cooperation, and community, we can affect our own future as a species. Only then we can “begin to make all the right choices for all the right reasons.” 

3.  DEMAND AND SPEAK THE TRUTH. Seek the truth. Know the truth. And then, speak the truth. Bucky went over this again and again. If this was our true ‘religion’ everything else would fall into place. Take time to become informed about what’s going on, so that you will know what you are talking about. Women especially must not allow their voices to be shut down by those who feel threatened by it. Beware of masterfully crafted messages, designed to deceive. 

4.  BE A COMPREHENSIVIST.  Humans are becoming too specialized. We must resist being pigeonholed as specialists and keep our eyes forever on the big picture. Bucky was not just an architect, a scientist, a mathematician, a poet, an author, a mapmaker, an inventor and a philosopher; but in consciously devoting his life to serve all humanity, he was also greater than the sum his  parts. He even introduced the world to the word “synergy” and coined the phrase  “Think global. Act local.“ He called on us all to do the same. Overspecialization (reliance on only fossil fuels, for example) will lead to our extinction. 

5.  EMBRACE ABUNDANCE.  Current economic theory is based on the outdated notions such as the assumption of scarcity.  Technological capabilities exist to move beyond an ‘us versus them’ scenario to one of ‘enough for all’. It is a great fallacy of today that there is not enough for all. If we work toward providing enough for 100% of humanity, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological harm, that is exactly what we will achieve.

6.  DEMAND LIVINGRY. After serving in the Navy during World War I, Bucky was dismayed that technological innovations used to kill people weren’t later turned around and applied to creating better lives during peacetime. He called for a turning away from weaponry and killingry technologies, and toward ‘livingry’, or life supporting enterprises and inventions.  This calls for a new feminine paradigm of leadership, He said, focused on creating abundance. Once we set out with the objective to take care of 100% of humanity without ecological harm, we have an excellent chance of making it happen.

7.  EPHEMERILIZE YOUR LIFE. As technology evolves, we continue to increase our ability to do more and more with less and less. This is the concept of ephemerizaliton. A great example is how something as small as a phone now connects us to the entire world. Writing a letter to the president once took paper, ink, envelopes, and several days. Now you click a link and dash off your thoughts (although a handwritten letter is now more powerful!)

We must use ephemerilization to help us reduce our massive carbon footprint. Leading the way toward clean energy development will make America a leader again.  Humanity has amazing potential to do more with less. All we have to do is take advantage of that potential.

8.  KNOW YOUR POWER. The ordinary individual human being can accomplish things that no government or corporation can. Not subjected to the will of stockholders or bureaucracies, an individual can do as he or she sees fit with great untapped power. This is Bucky’s famous “trim tab” idea, a metaphor of how a small tab on a small rudder is what turns a huge ocean liner around.

Bucky said if we follow these rules and therefore pass our final examination as a species, everything will get easier and better. So surely that is at least worth a try. Right?

We are all crew on United Spaceship Planet Earth

Never forget what Bucky said: “There are no mere passengers aboard United Spaceship Planet Earth. We are all crew.”

Screen Shot 2014-05-16 at 2.52.12 PMOur beloved planetary spaceship is in trouble. Our atmosphere is being destroyed and our precious resources are being senselessly squandered by rogue and rampant capitalists motivated by unnecessary greed. It is time for each of us to get to work to change the course of this crippled spaceship. Specifically:

1) We must get the money out of politics by overturning Supreme Court “Citizens United” ruling.

2) We must end fossil fuel subsidies and redirect those same funds
for development of clean, renewable energies – wind, solar, electromagnetic, geothermal, wave, hydroelectric, biomass.

3) We must help awaken others, Screen Shot 2014-04-22 at 12.16.42 PMin time to realize that #1 and #2 must happen very soon. We must have the courage to speak up to help every person find the bravery and political will to help make this happen.

Once we do these things, life on United Spaceship Planet Earth will change for the better. Mankind will start making the right choices for the right reasons. A clean energy world will be a healthier and more prosperous one, since we will no longer have to labor for our daily energy supply.

Think about it. Fish don’t pay for water. Screen Shot 2014-05-16 at 2.37.34 PMHuman beings can also live off the abundant natural energies of Earth. All we have to do is wake up and convince the fossil fool industry to let life live on our United Spaceship Planet Earth.   And, in the meantime, we can to reduce our own carbon footprints, by buying less, eating less meat, planting more trees and solar power panels, and doing other intentional things to regenerate the environment we are well on our way to destroying.

We are all crew.  What will you do?

 

What’s Next Depends on Us

What’s the use of brilliant scientific climate modeling, if we just sit back and watch it happen?  That’s the question asked and answered in an excellent TedTalk by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt.

Schmidt explains, in simple terms, how the climate works as a whole system together, the impact of high carbon levels on that system, and then shows various models of what is  next to come, depending on how much we control, or don’t control, carbon emissions.

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The talk, with strong visuals, paints a picture of what kind of world the choices we make today will create.  See this (twelve minute) Ted Talk for the whole story.

One way you can do your part — to do something — is to read about the efforts of the  Pachmama Alliance.  Their specific aim is to get the money out of politics, and to place a price on carbon) at http://www.uptous.org .   Their Awaking Symposium is a excellent way to get your head in the game – the biggest game the human race could ever face.  It’s time to get involved, people. Scientists are calling upon us to revolt.  What’s next depends on us.

Thank you for sharing Buckyworld. Screen Shot 2014-05-01 at 11.40.48 AM

Bucky on Earth Day

 

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Bucky’s quotes strung together especially for today:

“If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top.”

Screen Shot 2014-04-22 at 12.10.09 PM“I think that we cling to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s contrivings as the only means for solving a given problem.”

“In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete.”

“We have learned that from here on, it is success for all or none.”Screen Shot 2014-04-22 at 12.14.18 PM

“We need a design revolution by scientists and architects versus world revolution by political leadership.”

“We must each opt for integrity or we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.”

“Only the free-wheeling artist-explorer, non-academic, scientist-philosopher, mechanic, economist-poet who has never waited for patron-starting and accrediting of his co-ordinate capabilities holds the prime initiative today.”

Screen Shot 2014-04-22 at 12.23.20 PM“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity.”

“The minute you choose to do what you really want to do, it’s a different kind of life.”

“Each one of us could make the difference.”

Thank you for sharing Buckyworld.

Wireless energy is here.

Bucky would be dancing to read about two amazing new advances in energy. First, wireless electricity is finally happening, thanks to a company called WiTricity in Boston. This woman-owned business has figured out how to run our homes on wireless energy, using the power of electromagnetic fields.

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“We can transfer power without any kind of wires,” says Dr Hall, now Chief Technology Officer at WiTricity, a startup developing wireless “resonance” technology. Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 2.13.54 PM(See CNN story below)

If all goes according to WiTricity’s plans, electric wires will soon disappear. Smartphones will charge in your pocket, televisions will flicker with no wires attached, electric cars will refuel sitting on the driveway. Look mom, no wires. Energy harvested right out of the air, just like Tesla and Bucky said there would be.

Another jaw dropping innovation comes from Dan Nocera from MIT, the man who figured out how to mimic the workings of a leaf to provide a new kind of energy for the world.

Screen Shot 2014-04-16 at 2.12.09 PMNocera has figured how to release the natural energies in water (hydrogen and oxygen) using the light of the sun. When the sun hits his magical wafer in the water, it splits the hydrogen from the oxygen, releasing the energies of both.

Just ten to fifteen gallon bottles of water could provide enough energy to run an average household for two full days, according to Nocera.

Bucky is no doubt blowing bubbles under the surf to celebrate both of these free energy ideas.  So much good energy news, I think I’ll go to the beach and join him.

Here are links: Report on WiTricity from CNN.  BBC’s Nocera SUN + WATER story.

WHY WOMEN MUST STEP UP TO LEAD THE WORLD NOW.

 

silhouette-of-woman-holding-globe

What would life on Earth be like if women were in charge? Bucky’s wisdom about the overall superiority of the feminine gender to provide enlightened global leadership was published by McCall’s Magazine in a 1968 article, entitled “Why Women Will Rule the World”. 

Bucky said that if woman can find the courage and power to insist on a government focused on nurturance, replacing our obsession with weaponry with that off “livingry”, we can help all countries around the world get onto a sustainable course that aims to make the world work for 100% of humanity.

This is not about politics, Bucky says. This is about real life on planet earth. With all due respect to today’s male paradigm leaders, focused on competition and aggression against one another, we know you have tried, but in light of abysmal recent events and a decided lack in any progress on peace and justice issues, isn’t it time to give women a shot?

A world led by women, Bucky said, would toss out outdated notions of scarcity which dominate the male paradigm. Abundant technology and knowledge has brought humanity to the point where we need not be “us versus them”, but contrarily, must insist that it is all about “US”.  All of us connected.  At-one-ment.  Atonement.  One United Spaceship Planet Earth.

Women, and people who think like women, bring so much to the table: compassion, cooperative spirit and community, and in doing so can create a new and superior kind of leadership. This leadership paradigm is not exclusively female, yet is clearly based on a feminine model and should be accepted as such.

The first (and huge) step in which women must lead is to wean the world off fossil fuels. Most of the oil in the ground needs to stay there. They are our reserves for the future, our “energy savings account” as Bucky put it, and burning them is like burning up the house to keep the family warm. Not worth it.

By switching to “readily tappable cosmic energies of sun, wind and wave power” we can create true economic freedom for all people. Clean energy would allow us to work less and thrive more in a healthier environment.  We could stay closer to home, and live more creative, artistic and sustainable lives if we didn’t have to labor daily for our energy supply.  And that would give us time to rule the world, just like Bucky said we would, while our husbands tinkered with their scientific inventions and other intellectual pursuits in their home offices and backyard.

Women must find the courage to speak truth to power NOW. Wield your mighty keyboard. Share this message.  Future generations are depending on us. Start by reading Bucky’s article below for more details about how cool life could be with women in charge. As Bucky said, If we simply commit ourselves to making this happen, we are almost there.

Here’s a link to the full McCall’s article by Buckminster Fuller, courtesy of Brent Reitzel at Southern Illinois Univeristy in Carbondale, Illinois, where Bucky served as a professor for many years in the mid twentieth century.