Walled-In Pond: January 2013

Friday, January 18, 2013

Clean Water for EVERYONE? A Dream No Longer...

SLINGSHOT | Paul Lazarus from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

This is Slingshot, the aptly named water purification device that is now taking on a Goliath of a challenge, the worlds clean water supply.

Slingshot was created by Dean Kamen who’s best known for inventing the Segway PT. The idea was inspired by the World Heath Organization (WHO) statistics that portray a rather shocking story of 900 million people across the globe without a readily available supply of drinking water and around 3.5 million people many children under 5 dying annually with diseases related to unclean water.

The world’s surface is about two-thirds water yet only about 1% is fresh potable water with the large percentage making up saline oceans and ice. Slingshots objective is to tap into this vast resource creating drinkable water that is readily available and inexpensive to produce.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Climate Change: A Postscript

(In 10-minute segments is the only way I can find it Click on the link for all 10 subsequent sections.) I copied the following comments from the Fbook correspondent, one Marco Spinelli, who introduced me to this.

James Burke of "Connections"-fame produced an excellent program about 30 years ago called "After The Warming" that you can see online. It's done as if it's 2050 with Burke looking back over the history of the world's climate changes and the effect that cyclical warming and cooling has had on the development of animal, vegetation, and civilization. Up until the industrial revolution, and how what's happening is man-made, how we know that it's man-made, and how fast it's happening. In less than one generation, human civilization on the planet is going to irrevocably break down. Mass die-off of species, specifically humans, from a whole host of assaults (famine, drought, disease, pandemics, wars, etc.).

If every Fox viewer saw it, they might be convinced, but it wouldn't matter; it's too late.

What's happening politically now is that the world leaders are arranging for the time when chaos will be the order of the day. The loss of civil liberties, setting up for martial law, endless wars, etc. I think they're giving the 'haves' one last bite at the apple, to amass as much wealth as they can, to move their families to high ground for the coming bad times. The US is positioning itself much like the Roman Empire did, and will take what it wants through military might - Not for we ordinary mortals, mind you, but for the survival of the elites.

I think it's obvious that the decision was made some time ago, like several decades ago, that the US wasn't going to respond and try to avert the catastrophe. Too many people to get on board, too much work, and altruistic work at that. It was a cynical and corrupt decision, with greed controlling it, with the likes of Jim Baker and the Bushes making fortunes by the decision (in oil). War industries were another venue for amassing great wealth, and that's the path that Cheney took.

In the late 1990s, when the bubbles were taking shape, I estimated that those who didn't have a net worth of, at least, $250,000 wouldn't stand a chance, but I'm revising that upwards to $5 million. That's just bare bones, to keep from dying from an inability to purchase food and water, and keep a roof over your head that you don't have to trade watch duty with family and friends to keep marauders out.

Bleak? You bet. But we have to start talking about it and demanding politicians address it.

Watch "After The Warming" with your families and friends. It's somewhere to begin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oFjy5FORbo&list=PL16E277DDB6723CC0