Time for a Global Science Corps

The Scientist | In 1882, Iranian scholar and political activist Sayyid al-Afghani made a prescient argument that there is no "European science" or "Muslim science." Those who say there is, he went on, "have not understood that science is that noble thing that has no connection with any nation and is not distinguished by anything but itself." 1 Today, in a world increasingly fractured by national and cultural differences, we scientists should be seeking ways to promote science as a universal activity with the potential to advance public welfare.

One way to do this - and to help reduce economic and social disparities between nations - is to provide opportunities for well-trained scientists to work at those few places in developing countries where excellent scientific work is already possible. That's the goal of the Global Science Corps (GSC), a new program to build scientific capacity in the developing world. The GSC aspires to place scientists and engineers, referred to as GSC fellows, at research facilities in developing countries for one-year terms to collaborate with local partners.

Such efforts need not be drudgery or self-sacrifice; they can be productive intellectual adventures. Imagine spending a postdoctoral year in Botswana collaborating with local chemists and ecologists to study the largest inland delta in the world. Consider a sabbatical year in Chile as a member of an international network of scientists conducting applied research on complex engineering systems. Think about collaborating as a senior scientist with Ugandan colleagues in biochemistry and bioinformatics as they study antimalarial drug resistance and malaria vaccines.

Astronomy in Brazil, epidemiology in Vietnam, and molecular biology in Cameroon are among the opportunities that will be available. The hope is that with the right funding, five to 10 fellows could be selected next year, with growth after that. Placements will be custom-designed to suit the strengths and needs of fellow and host. Typically, fellowships will emphasize research and include some lecturing and teaching. The program will encourage and support long-term collaboration through electronic communication, possible exchange visits, and the establishment of a GSC alumni network.

Since I introduced the idea in 2001 at the Nobel Jubilee Symposium in Stockholm, www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/6285.cfm the GSC concept has gradually gained attention and support from organizations and individuals around the world. It moved toward implementation when it found an administrative home with the Science Initiative Group (SIG), a small, international team of leading scientists. SIG also works in informal partnership with the World Bank to manage the Millennium Science Initiative (MSI), which supports competitively selected centers of scientific excellence in developing countries. MSI centers will be among GSC host institutions, and SIG, with its extensive international network of contacts, will help make appropriate placements for GSC fellows.

The Knack

All roads lead out of Afghanistan

Asia Times | It seems almost inevitable that Moscow and Tehran will join hands. In all likelihood, they may have already begun doing so. The Central Asian countries and China and India will also be closely watching the dynamics of this grim power struggle. They are interested parties insofar as they may have to suffer the collateral damage of the great game in Afghanistan. The US's "war on terror" in Afghanistan has already destabilized Pakistan. The debris threatens to fall on India, too.

Most certainly, the terrorist attack on Mumbai last month cannot be seen in isolation from the militancy radiating from the Afghan war. Even as the high-level Russian-Indian Working Group on terrorism met in Delhi on Tuesday and Wednesday, another top diplomat dealing with the Afghan problem arrived in the Indian capital for consultations - Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mahdi Akhounjadeh.

Speaking in Moscow on Tuesday, chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, General Nikolai Makarov, just about lifted the veil on the geopolitics of the Afghan war to let the world know that the Bush administration was having one last fling at the great game in Central Asia. Makarov couldn't have spoken without Kremlin clearance. Moscow seems to be flagging its frustration to Obama's camp. Makarov revealed Moscow had information to the effect that the US was pushing for new military bases in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Coincidence or not, a spate of reports has begun appearing that Russia is about to transfer the S-300 missile defense system to Iran. S-300 is one of the most advanced surface-to-air missile systems capable of intercepting 100 ballistic missiles or aircraft at once, at low and high altitudes within a range of over 150 kilometers. As long-time Pentagon advisor Dan Goure put it, "If Tehran obtained the S-300, it would be a game-changer in military thinking for tackling Iran. This is a system that scares every Western air force."

It is hard to tell exactly what is going on, but Russia and Iran seem to be bracing for a countermove in the event of the Obama administration pressing ahead with the present US policy to isolate them or cut them out from their "near abroad".

greek youth violence could be contagious...,

IHT | Firebombs and breaking glass, tear gas and burning cars. The images from Greece this month were enough to put the fear of youth into the hearts of European leaders.

That dread was palpable in France when President Nicolas Sarkozy abruptly delayed for one year a plan to overhaul France's high schools, after students from Bordeaux to Brittany took to the streets in protest.

Those demonstrations haven't turned violent yet. But French history, and the example of Greece, suggests they might. At least that is what people like Laurent Fabius, a Socialist Party leader, are saying on French radio.

"What we see in Greece is not out of the realm of possibility in France," Fabius said on Europe 1. "When you have such an economic depression, such social despair, all it takes is a match."

An editorial in the daily newspaper Libération said the decision to delay the education law - which would change schedules and academic requirements for the last three years of lycée, or high school - was purely defensive. "One senses among the team in power a hesitation, a dread of riots, a fear of explosion," wrote Didier Pourquery.

The rapid rise in unemployment among people under age 25, particularly in southern Europe, is one concern. In Spain, for instance, youth unemployment shot up from 18.4 percent in August 2007 to 28.1 percent in October 2008. The average jobless rate for young people in Italy, Greece and France is well above the average for the European Union, according to Eurostat, the Luxembourg agency that collects EU statistics.

"All these events have at their core a sense among youth that their lives are not going anywhere, and they have nothing to lose," said Ken Dubin, a visiting associate professor at University Carlos III in Madrid. But economics alone doesn't explain the restlessness in universities and high schools. Students, after all, have no jobs to lose.

India will have to reduce energy consumption by 20%

Economic Times | Some sections view the current economic meltdown as a direct fall-out of consumption exceeding money supply. Power policy makers of the country seem to have stuck on the analogy to caution energy consumption in urban India.

“In fact, we need to expand energy consumption in this country, mainly to the two-thirds of our population who have scarce or no access to electricity, and non-biomass fuels,” said Planning Commission principal adviser (energy) Surya P Sethi. India’s per capita consumption of power is 20% the world average, 4% that of the US, and 28% that of China.

“To achieve a desirable human development index growth, the present power consumers will have to cut their usage by 20%, by which growth may come down by a percentage point or two”. Speaking at the panel discussion on sustainable electricity in India, at Pan IIT, an IIT alumni conference, at the Indian institute of technology Madras on Saturday, he said the situation was potentially explosive unless we invest talent, technology and innovation in equitable allocation of basic resources like energy, water and land.To achieve 20% energy conservation we need to increase the energy efficiency of our appliances by 20%, he said.

“Theft happens 90% in urban industrial lines, and not in rural areas, as many of us have misconceived,” Mr Sethi said. “As electricity is stolen only to be consumed, the basic problem is a supply-demand mismatch.” According to AES corporation director Sanjeev Agarwal, the three main issues hindering the advancement of power projects in India are land acquisition, environmental clearance and evacuation infrastructure.

Swindler's List

Counterpunch | In terms of financial and psychological impact, Bernard Madoff's $50 billion heist certainly ranks as a major ethnic cleansing here in America, a hugely traumatic event for American Jewry. Of course Madoff had clients of every creed and nation, but he made a specialty of trolling for Jewish money. I asked a Jewish woman I know here in California if any in her circle had taken a hit. She looked at me tremulously, shaking her head, on the edge of tears. Though no one was in immediate earshot, she whispered, “They kept telling me to put my money with Madoff. At that time the entry level was $250,000. I dodged the bullet. Some of my friends didn’t. They’ve lost everything. This is Kristallnacht Two.” Her fear and horror would scarcely have been diminished if she’d heard what a perfectly nice young person had remarked to me earlier, apropos the Madoff affair: “Now the rich people will know what it’s like.”

"‘It’s an atomic bomb in the world of Jewish philanthropy,’ Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network, told Anthony Weiss and Gabrielle Birkner of The Forward newspaper. ‘There’s going to be fallout from this for years to come.’ The collapse of the investment firm of Bernard Madoff has opened a black hole at the center of the tight knit circles of wealthy Jews who socialize and do business together, and who, year after year, support Jewish causes… ”

Watching how this saga unfolds in the media will prove most edifying. Madoff has been handled VERY gingerly here-to-date. Think about what that means. He has absolutely devastated a lot of people and organizations. One would imagine that such an act would get him violently tarred, feathered, and strung up ASAP. The fact of the matter, however, is that given the magnitude of what his organization did, it's inevitably true that what we read now as the extent of the devastation - is really only the tip of the iceberg. Madoff will continue to receive kid glove treatment because if subjected to aggressive interrogation and rough handling, there's no telling how far reaching and extensive the rot he epitomizes could prove to be. Shake Madoff hard and watch the Swindler's List further metastasize through an even larger expanse of the financial system.

Motive IS 20/20

Washington Post | Madoff played to two of our most serious weaknesses as investors and human beings.

As investors, we love to believe in market wizards who hold the secret to making serious money. In fact, there's no such secret, but admitting it is like abandoning a childhood faith. Faith propels the money-management business, despite the evidence that managers rarely beat the market indexes, over time. We especially love a fatherly wizard who's close to his children, plays golf, supports caring charities and lays expensive carpets on his office floor.

As human beings, we love status symbols and, to those who knew him, Madoff was status on wheels. Investing with him proved your wealth, position and general superiority to the poor slobs bobbing around on the fringe. His investors believed they were earning steady monthly increases of 1 percent or 2 percent, even when markets went bad. Who would dream of vetting such a prize?

Pam Martens is quoted at Counterpunch as saying; Of course many of them thought Madoff’s famous model was dubious. After all, how could the laws of financial gravity be defied, year after year, producing an unending yield (for the fortunate) of 10 to 12 per cent annual returns on capital invested. But the thought came with a knowing wink, that Bernie was scoring these huge returns, by being in the know, running on the inside track, using insider knowledge. As my father pointed out to me many times, many people have a bit of larceny in their bloodstream, and it’s what con men trade on, as Gogol imperishably described in Dead Souls.

Unconventional "Strategic Shocks" in Defense Strategy

This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. As such, it is in the public domain, and under the provisions of Title 17, United States Code, Section 105, it may not be copyrighted.

Pages 31-33

Violent, Strategic Dislocation Inside the United States. As a community, the defense establishment swears to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. DoD's role in combating "domestic enemies" has never been thoughtfully examined. Thus, there is perhaps no greater source of strategic shock for DoD than operationalizing that component of the oath of service in a widespread domestic emergency that entails rapid dissolution of public order in all or significant parts of the United States.

While likely not an immediate prospect, this is clearly a "Black Swan" that merits some visibility inside DoD and the Department of Homeland Security. To the extent events like this involve organized violence against local, state, and national authorities and exceed the capacity of the former two to restore public order and protect vulnerable populations, DoD would be required to fill the gap. This is largely uncharted strategic territory.

Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security. Deliberate employment of weapons of mass destruction or other catastrophic capabilities, unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters are all paths to disruptive domestic shock.

An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home. Already predisposed to defer to the primacy of civilian authorities in instances of domestic security and divest all but the most extreme demands in areas like civil support and consequence management, DoD might be forced by circumstances to put its broad resources at the disposal of civil authorities to contain and reverse violent threats to domestic tranquility. Under the most extreme circumstances, this might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States.

Further, DoD would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multistate or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.

A whole host of long-standing defense conventions would be severely tested. Under these conditions and at their most violent extreme, civilian authorities, on advice of the defense establishment, would need to rapidly determine the parameters defining the legitimate use of military force inside the United States. Further still, the whole concept of conflict termination and/or transition to the primacy of civilian security institutions would be uncharted ground. DoD is already challenged by stabilization abroad. Imagine the challenges associated with doing so on a massive scale at home.

TERRIFIC CHOICES: A CLEAR MESSAGE ON THE ENVIRONMENT

Any concern that the economic crisis would soften the resolve of the Obama administration to deal with the sad state of the environment was swept away today by the choice of Harvard physicist John Holdren to be presidential science advisor, and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Both have battled industry opposition to climate initiatives.

Along with Steve Chu as Secretary of Energy they should form a powerful block of scientists in the Obama administration. It will almost certainly be the most influence science has had in the White House since the Eisenhower administration.

But we don't have much time. Let me tell you what no one else is saying publicly: every step we take to improve the environment will soon be wiped out by population growth. The fact is that we are already beyond a sustainable population. We can't keep talking in terms of reducing the rate of growth.

That's the second derivative. What's New Bobpark.org.

War College warns military must prep for unrest

Phoenix Business Journal | A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned Wednesday of economy-related riots and unrest in various global markets if the financial crisis is not addressed and lower-income households are hurt by credit constraints and rising unemployment.

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., both said U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson brought up a worst-case scenario as he pushed for the Wall Street bailout in September. Paulson, former Goldman Sachs CEO, said that might even require a declaration of martial law, the two noted.

Nuke-U-Ler Slide Rule

The ABC-M1A1 RADIAC Calculator is used by the US Army to determine the dose rates and doses to personnel after a nuclear explosion. It is the military version of the "Radiation Dosage Calculator" developed by William Orr.

Former US admiral: Don't fear Iran

Jerusalem Post | Israel is one of the strongest countries in the Middle East and needs to stop giving in to a "fear factor" with regard to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, Adm. (ret.) William Fallon, the former commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

In Israel for a regional security conference at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, Fallon told the Post that he could not understand why Iran would even contemplate using nuclear weapons against Israel unless the country wanted to be destroyed.

"Do they wish to go away?" he asked, insinuating that a nuclear attack on Israel would elicit a devastating response.

"They are not nearly as strong as their rhetoric indicates," Fallon said of Iran. "They are not particularly strong militarily outside their own internal entity, and they have huge economic issues and political instability. Their nuclear capability might give them something to feel consolation in."

Fallon abruptly stepped down from the command of CENTCOM in March after Esquire magazine portrayed him as being opposed to President George W. Bush's Iran policy, describing him as a lone voice against military action aimed at halting the Iranian nuclear program. Today, he is a fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies.

Is Psychology a Science?

Arachnoid | Since its first appearance in 2003, this article has become required reading in a number of college-level psychology courses. Because this article is directed toward educated nonspecialist readers considering psychological treatment, students of psychology are cautioned that the terms "psychology" and "clinical psychology" are used interchangeably.

The field of human psychology is a powerful force in modern society, and its influence is widespread – in language, law, the social contract, and in our perception of ourselves. Because legal decisions are sometimes made based on psychology, decisions that might cause someone to be incarcerated or freed, it is important to establish whether psychology is a science or a simple belief system. We should determine whether psychology can be relied on to objectively support the social and legal policies that are based on it. In modern times, such a serious public burden can only be borne by a field that is based on reason, on science. Which leads to our question: is human psychology steered by science?

Conclusion: At this point it must be clear to the intelligent reader that clinical psychology can make virtually any claim and offer any kind of therapy, because there is no practical likelihood of refutation – no clear criteria to invalidate a claim. This, in turn, is because human psychology is not a science, it is very largely a belief system similar to religion.

Like religion, human psychology has a dark secret at its core – it contains within it a model for correct behavior, although that model is never directly acknowledged. Buried within psychology is a nebulous concept that, if it were to be addressed at all, would be called “normal behavior.” But do try to avoid inquiring directly into this normal behavior among psychologists – nothing is so certain to get you diagnosed as having an obsessive disorder.

In the same way that everyone is a sinner in religion's metaphysical playground, everyone is mentally ill in psychology's long, dark hallway – no one is truly “normal.” This means everyone needs psychological treatment. This means psychologists and psychiatrists are guaranteed lifetime employment, although that must surely be a coincidence rather than a dark motive.

But this avoids a more basic problem with the concept of “normal behavior.” The problem with establishing such a standard, whether one does this directly as religion does, or indirectly as psychology does, is that the activity confronts, and attempts to contradict, something that really is a scientific theory – evolution. In evolution, through the mechanism of natural selection, organisms adapt to the conditions of their environment, and, because the environment keeps changing, there is no particular genotype that can remain viable in the long term.

The scientific evidence for evolution is very strong, and evolution's message is that only flexible and adaptable organisms survive in a world of constant change. Reduced to everyday, individual terms, it means no single behavioral pattern can for all time be branded “correct” or “normal.” This is the core reason religion fails to provide for real human needs (which wasn't its original purpose anyway), and this failing is shared by psychology – they both put forth a fixed behavioral model in a constantly changing world.

The present atmosphere among many psychologists and psychiatrists can only be described as panic. This panic is clearly shown in the rapid, seemingly purposeful destruction of the DSM, the field's “bible,” as a legitimate diagnostic tool (because if everything is a mental illness, then nothing is). This panic arises in part from a slow realization that many conditions formerly thought to be mental conditions amenable to psychological treatment, turn out to be organic conditions treatable with drugs (or, like homosexuality, turn out to be conditions not appropriate to any kind of treatment). Further, many traditional clinical practices have been shown to be ineffectual and/or indistinguishable from ordinary experience or nothing at all.

In the final analysis, the present state of psychology is the best answer to the original inquiry about whether it is scientific, because if human psychology were as grounded in science as many people believe, many of its historical and contemporary assertions would have been falsified by its own theoretical and clinical failures, and it would be either replaced by something more scientifically rigorous, or simply cast aside for now.

But this is all hypothetical, because psychology and psychiatry have never been based in science, and therefore are free of the constraints placed on scientific theories. This means these fields will prevail far beyond their last shred of credibility, just as religions do, and they will be propelled by the same energy source — belief. That pure, old-fashioned fervent variety of belief, unsullied by reason or evidence.

Economics needs a scientific revolution

Compared to physics, it seems fair to say that the quantitative success of the economic sciences is disappointing. Rockets fly to the moon, energy is extracted from minute changes of atomic mass without major havoc, global positioning satellites help millions of people to find their way home. What is the flagship achievement of economics, apart from its recurrent inability to predict and avert crises, including the current worldwide credit crunch?

Why is this so? Of course, modelling the madness of people is more difficult than the motion of planets, as Newton once said. But the goal here is to describe the behaviour of large populations, for which statistical regularities should emerge, just as the law of ideal gases emerge from the incredibly chaotic motion of individual molecules. To me, the crucial difference between physical sciences and economics or financial mathematics is rather the relative role of concepts, equations and empirical data. Classical economics is built on very strong assumptions that quickly become axioms: the rationality of economic agents, the invisible hand and market efficiency, etc. An economist once told me, to my bewilderment: These concepts are so strong that they supersede any empirical observation. As Robert Nelson argued in his book, Economics as Religion, the marketplace has been deified.

Physicists, on the other hand, have learned to be suspicious of axioms and models. If empirical observation is incompatible with the model, the model must be trashed or amended, even if it is conceptually beautiful or mathematically convenient. So many accepted ideas have been proven wrong In the history of physics that physicists have grown to be critical and queasy about their own models. Unfortunately, such healthy scientific revolutions have not yet taken hold in economics, where ideas have solidified into dogmas that obsess academics as well as decision-makers high up in government agencies and financial institutions. These dogmas are perpetuated through the education system: teaching reality, with all its subtleties and exceptions, is much harder than teaching a beautiful, consistent formula. Students do not question theorems they can use without thinking. Though scores of physicists have been recruited by financial institutions over the last few decades, these physicists seem to have forgotten the methodology of natural sciences as they absorbed and regurgitated the existing economic lore, with no time or liberty to question its foundations.

The supposed omniscience and perfect efficacy of a free market stems from economic work in the 50s and 60s, which with hindsight looks more like propaganda against communism than a plausible scientific description.

Full Monty at the Post Autistic Economics Review

The state of China’s economy 2009

Introduction: Over the past few decades there have been numerous forecasts predicting an "imminent collapse" of the Chinese economy. Some of these have a strong Anglo-Saxon ideological bias with little substantive theoretical or empirical support, while others offer standard economic principles in defense of a negative forecast. More recently, however, these pessimistic forecasts have been fewer in number and less dire. Meanwhile, some other analysts have offered quite favorable economic performance forecasts. Who appears to have been correct?

This paper will examine some past forecasts, and then evaluate the current performance of the Chinese economy. The first section will provide a brief summary of some previous forecasts. Analysis of the recent performance of China's economy will be presented in the following section, including trends over the past 5 of both standard macroeconomic and some socioeconomic indicators, using both Chinese and non-Chinese data sources. The third section will evaluate the overall state of the economy at present, weighting performance indicators both according to their relative importance to Chinese policy makers as well as to non-Chinese analysts. The following section will suggest the likelihood that the economy's performance during 2003-2008 is likely to continue for another five years. The final section will offer a summary and conclusions as to the likelihood that China's economy will inevitably collapse within the next 5 to 10 years.

Conclusion: Taking into consideration data provided by both Chinese and respected international sources of macroeconomic indicators the Chinese economy, as well as the likely impact recent events within China, no imminent collapse of the Chinese economy appears likely over the next five years. Rather, the economy is likely to continue to perform favorably when GDP growth, urban unemployment, external and domestic fiscal balances, stability of the banking system, FDI, and exchange rate stability are given relative importance. As the world financial crisis unfolds China may wind up owning substantial shares of some major financial institutions. Thus, as 2009 approaches, China's economy is stronger and more fiscally sustainable than every G-8 members' economy. However, Chinese policymakers will need to address more aggressively growing environmental and income inequality while preventing higher rates of inflation - particularly for food and health care, if China's economy is to continue on its favorable path.

Full Monty at Post Autistic Economics Review.

Rethinking Easter Island's Catastrophe

University of Hawaii | Despite repeated claims, Rapa Nui does not appear to represent a case of ‘‘ecocide.’’ The documented population collapse for Rapa Nui occurred as a consequence of European contacts, with Old World diseases and slave-trading (Peiser, 2005; Rainbird, 2002). As VanTilburg (1994, p. 164, emphasis added) noted, the scary parables and metaphors for disaster represent ‘‘a projection of Western values which emphasizes the self-destruction of the Rapa Nui culture over the actual, near-annihilation of it by contact with the West.’’ Indeed, early ethnographer Alfred Metraux described the historic genocide as ‘‘one of the most hideous atrocities committed by white men in the South Seas’’ and as ‘‘the catastrophe that wiped out Easter Island’s civilization’’ (Metraux, 1957, p. 38). Today the idea of ‘‘ecocide’’ enjoys popular acceptance, but an actual genocide decimated the native Rapa Nui population and its culture (Peiser, 2005; Rainbird, 2002). Unfortunately, the victims of cultural and physical extermination have been turned into the perpetrators of their own demise.

The model of ‘‘ecocide’’ was constructed in part on the foundations of faith in a long chronology, speculation about prehistoric population size, and a remarkable, but still somewhat coarse-grained palaeo-environmental record for the island. Recent field research, including comparative case studies in places such as the Hawaiian Islands, have changed some perspectives and allowed us to raise questions about Rapa Nui’s historical ecology. In this review I have examined archaeological, palaeo-environmental, and contemporary ecological evidence to suggest that the Pacific rat may have played a major role in Rapa Nui’s ecological catastrophe. The fact that rats alone are capable of widespread forest destruction compels us to evaluate their contribution to the transformation of Rapa Nui, as well as in other island ecosystems. While I argue that the role of rats has often been underestimated, direct human actions of felling and use of fire likely have played a significant role as well. Additional research will be essential to disentangle the contributing factors. The environmental catastrophe of Rapa Nui is likely a complex history, one that has been masked by speculations about the intentions of people cutting down the last tree. Indeed, the ‘‘last tree’’ may simply have died. Rats may have simply eaten the last seeds. Perhaps the lessons of Rapa Nui tell of the effects of invasive species, invasional meltdowns, and the synergy of effects that ensue as people and their portmanteau biota reach evolutionary isolates in the remote islands of the Pacific.

time of slime...,

The Register | The US government has warned that enormous swarms of killer jellyfish - some the size of fridges and weighing up to a quarter of a ton - are ravaging the world's oceans. Particularly aggressive specimens are said to be capable of causing serious damage to ships, and have even managed to knacker nuclear power plants.

News of the challenge to humanity's dominance over planet Earth comes from the US National Science Foundation, which has put out a chilling warning entitled - rather beautifully - Jellyfish Gone Wild!

"When jellyfish populations run wild," the NSF jellyboffins warn, "they may jam thousands of square miles with their pulsing, gelatinous bodies."

It seems that no less than half a billion "refrigerator sized" slimy horrors weighing 450 pounds each invade the Sea of Japan daily, while Australian waters are plagued with "deadly, peanut-sized" Jellybabies of Death. It took the scyphozoan (or possibly hydrozoan) hordes just eight years to seize control of the Black Sea, apparently.

The NSF boffins warn that the gelatinous global usurpers are spawned in hundreds of vast "Dead Zones" in the world's oceans, where nothing but jelly-based lifeforms can live. These frightful blancmange sargassos send out their wobbling hordes on fearful expeditions of destruction, probing the strength of humanity's defences in preparation for the long-planned Time of Slime.

When will the oil run out?

Guardian | George Monbiot puts the question to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency - and is both astonished and alarmed by the answer.

Can you think of a major threat for which the British government does not prepare? It employs an army of civil servants, spooks and consultants to assess the chances of terrorist attacks, financial collapse, floods, epidemics, even asteroid strikes, and to work out what it should do if they happen. But there is one hazard about which it appears intensely relaxed: it has never conducted its own assessment of the state of global oil supplies and the possibility that one day they might peak and then go into decline.

If you ask, the government always produces the same response: "Global oil resources are adequate for the foreseeable future." It knows this, it says, because of the assessments made by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its World Energy Outlook reports. In the 2007 report, the IEA does appear to support the government's view. "World oil resources," it states, "are judged to be sufficient to meet the projected growth in demand to 2030," though it says nothing about what happens at that point, or whether they will continue to be sufficient after 2030. But this, as far as Whitehall is concerned, is the end of the matter. Like most of the rich world's governments, the UK treats the IEA's projections as gospel. Earlier this year, I submitted a freedom of information request to the UK's department for business, asking what contingency plans the government has made for global supplies of oil peaking by 2020. The answer was as follows: "The government does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude-oil supplies peaking between now and 2020."

So the IEA had better be right. In the report on peak oil commissioned by the US department of energy, the oil analyst Robert L Hirsch concluded that "without timely mitigation, the economic, social and political costs" of world oil supplies peaking "will be unprecedented". He went on to explain what "timely mitigation" meant. Even a worldwide emergency response "10 years before world oil peaking", he wrote, would leave "a liquid-fuels shortfall roughly a decade after the time that oil would have peaked". To avoid global economic collapse, we need to begin "a mitigation crash programme 20 years before peaking". If Hirsch is right, and if oil supplies peak before 2028, we're in deep doodah. Direct link to video here.

Capitalist Fools

Vanity Fair | Behind the debate over remaking U.S. financial policy will be a debate over who’s to blame. It’s crucial to get the history right, writes a Nobel-laureate economist, identifying five key mistakes—under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II—and one national delusion.

There will come a moment when the most urgent threats posed by the credit crisis have eased and the larger task before us will be to chart a direction for the economic steps ahead. This will be a dangerous moment. Behind the debates over future policy is a debate over history—a debate over the causes of our current situation. The battle for the past will determine the battle for the present. So it’s crucial to get the history straight.

What were the critical decisions that led to the crisis? Mistakes were made at every fork in the road—we had what engineers call a “system failure,” when not a single decision but a cascade of decisions produce a tragic result. Let’s look at five key moments.[...]

The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.

'Peak Oil Theory' Demands Energy Alternatives

NPR | Plummeting gasoline and diesel prices have given consumers relief at the pump. But oil pessimists believe the current slump in demand will pass. And when it does, the world will be in the same fix it was before the global recession. The era of easy oil is behind us. According to those who believe in what's called "peak oil theory," world oil production has already peaked, or flattened, and in the foreseeable future, the declining resource will inevitably change the way we live. [...]

Matt Simmons.

"I am saying the sky is falling. If we ignore peak oil; worse, if we laugh about it, continue consuming, we will have a massive shortage," Simmons said from his office in Houston. The garrulous, 65-year-old oil-field investment banker said the world's giant oil fields are all in decline — from the North Sea to Mexico's Cantarell field.

"Energy reality, if you take off rose-colored glasses and just study data, is that crude oil in most non-OPEC countries is now in decline, and in too many countries in steep decline. Virtually all of the OPEC producers, with the exception of Angola, are really struggling to keep their production flat," he said in a recent speech to the Houston chapter of the Young Professionals in Energy.