Forget the credit crunch, it is not compared with the problems ahead. This says top economist Jeremy Rifkin in an exclusive interview with EénVandaag.
http://www.eenvandaag.nl/binnenland/3 …
According to Rifkin, everything depends on the question, how we deal with energy?
We continue to cling to fossil fuel than is the survival of mankind is at stake.
We move towards a sustainable society where everyone self generates and exchanges we have a chance to survive.
He bases his ‘Third Industrial Revolution' on four pillars: (continued after the clip (27 min) and below the line)….
Pirate Parties: A new poll today places the Icelandic Pirate Party in parliament, with their election three weeks out. This follows a continuous and rapid ascent for the Icelandic Pirate Party. The poll will probably have the additional effect of putting the media spotlights on the party, further accelerating its growth.
The poll gives the Icelandic Píratar 5.6% of the votes, translating to four seats in the Icelandic Parliament. This growth is nothing short of phenomenal, even within the Pirate Party movement, and it would seem that the Icelandic pirates will be the first to put people in a regular, proportional, national-level parliament. (Sweden was first with the European Parliament, Germany was first with state-level parliament, and the Czech pirates were first with a senator.)
I predict that this will have the exact same effect as happened when the Swedish Pirate Party was first polling at parliamentary levels a month ahead of the European elections in 2009, and when the Berlin Pirate Party was first polling at parliamentary levels ahead of the Berlin state elections in 2011. Tons of media spotlights turn to focus on the newcomer darling, at which point support surges further. The Icelandic elections are on April 27.
Distance 2,132.62 miles. Missile light time <15 Minutes.
North Korea: Tension has notched up again.
The Russian and British Foreign Ministries and the US State Department reported that on 5 April the North Korean Foreign Ministry distributed a diplomatic circular to all resident embassies in Pyongyang and non-governmental organizations that the North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the event of conflict from 10 April. The North Korean government asked foreign embassies whether they were considering evacuating staff.
This week South Korean workers employed in factories in the North were also told to leave by April 10, according to South Korean press.
British reaction. The British Foreign Office said it “has no immediate plans to withdraw our embassy in Pyongyang. We are considering next steps, including a change to our travel advice.”
Earlier, a spokesperson said: “The DPRK (The Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has responsibilities under the Vienna convention to protect diplomatic missions, and we believe they have taken this step as part of their continuing rhetoric that the US poses a threat to them.”
First the US fanfared the placement of two F-22 Raptors in the Osan airbase of South Korea. Then it demonstratively launched a B-2 stealth bomber on a training mission over a South Korean gunnery range. Then it deployed an anti-ballistic missile defense system to Guam and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near Korea. And now, courtesy of the Aviationist, we learn that the Pentagon has escalated once more in an ongoing cat and mouse game with North Korea, of who blinks first, and dispatched several B-1 (“Bone”) Lancer strategic long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. What is different this time, however, is that unlike the previous very public and widely trumpeted reciprocal escalation steps, this particular deployment has been kept secret from the public (at least the broader public), “a fact that could be the sign that the U.S. is not only making symbolic moves (as the above mentioned ones), but it is preparing for the worst scenario: an attack on North Korea.”
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Finally, and most disturbing, is that another aircraft also in the process of deployment is none other than the E-6 Mercury “Doomsday” plane, which are among the pinnacle in US Airforce nuclear war preparedness, tasked with “providing command and control of U.S. nuclear forces should ground-based control become inoperable” and whose core functions include conveying instructions from the National Command Authority to fleet ballistic missile submarines and also to further command post capabilities and control of land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.
You can read more about the military air activity recently monitored by Steve Douglass in an extremely interesting article he posted on his blog that not only summarize the contents of the messages he sent to The Aviationist, but provides some more details about the alleged overseas deployment of E-6 Mercury “doomsday” planes from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
Perhaps to Kim Jong-un the military escalation to nuclear war is only one big joke, but to the US it is increasingly appearing very serious. And perhaps this is precisely what the Pentagon wanted all along?
Phytoplankton are microscopic organisms that float around the water surface, harnessing sunlight to make energy for themselves. Like plants, they use chlorophyll to produce oxygen while absorbing carbon dioxide.
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So, with impending sea level rises, French architecture firm Sitbon Architectes designed a livable, phytoplankton farm to be installed in the Indian Ocean.
Called the Bloom, the concept behind this large-scale project is “to practice the culture of the phytoplankton to absorb CO2 excesses.”
This 5-level, semi-submersible center will be moored to the seafloor with a system of cables. The part that’s underwater offers housing for resident scientists and aquariums for phytoplankton.
The structure will be made of aluminum and methacrylate (common in polymer plastics). The total floor area is 2,070 square meters.
The pod can also monitor water quality and inject phytoplankton into rivers, lakes, and ports to help regulate oxygen levels, accordingly.
Additionally, since it’s situated in the ocean, the Bloom will be able to alert coastal zones of tsunamis.
Their vision: “every factory would have its own bloom allowing it to absorb the CO2 that it created.”
Check out the Sitbon Architectes gallery for more photos and drawings. (Some labels say “diatom,” which is fitting because the Bloom looks glassy, but if you ask me, it looks more like a coccolithophore.)
Another game-changing technology. Built by Turkish inventor Muammer Yildiz, demonstrated here at Delft University in the Netherlands to a critical public of engineers and energy researchers
