Environment (Problems) – Page 10 – Public Intelligence Blog

Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth

Today's economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. However, as David Korten shows, the steps being taken to address it do nothing to deal with the reality of a failed economic system. It's like treating cancer with a bandage. Korten identifies the deeper sources of the failure: Wall Street institutions that have perfected the art of creating “wealth” without producing anything of real value: phantom wealth. Our hope lies not with Wall Street, Korten argues, but with Main Street, which creates real wealth from real resources to meet real needs.

Continue reading “Worth a Look: Books on Real Wealth Economy”

2009/11/262009/11/26

Review: Global Warming False Alarm–The Bad Science Behind the United Nations’ Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming

5 Star, Communications, Corruption, Crime (Government), Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Games, Models, & Simulations, Information Operations, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Media, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Science & Politics of Science, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Survival & Sustainment, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, United Nations & NGOs, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized)

Righteous Good SLAM of IPCC Fraud & Intimidation

November 26, 2009

Ralph B. Alexander

I read a lot, and I confess to have been among those who “bought in” to the celebrity alarmism of Al Gore, but I never displaced the totality of the threats to Earth for an obsessive focus on carbon emissions. Among the three books I have always recommended that are far more balanced than anything by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are:

High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
The Future of Life
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)

That having been said, I was generally supportive of the Kyoto Treaty and the concept of carbon reductions.

Then I read The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity and within weeks, read Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage) and finally, just the past week, noticed the Hacktivism that outed all of the fraud and deception in the Climate Research Unit central to the IPCC (Climate Change Fraud is now a global meme).

Continue reading “Review: Global Warming False Alarm–The Bad Science Behind the United Nations' Assertion that Man-made CO2 Causes Global Warming”

2009/11/012009/11/01

Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism

6 Star Top 10%, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Change & Innovation, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Consciousness & Social IQ, Cosmos & Destiny, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), History, Intelligence (Collective & Quantum), Intelligence (Wealth of Networks), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Philosophy, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Religion & Politics of Religion, Science & Politics of Science, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

Deep Look at Soul of Man, Society, and Capitalism

November 1, 2009

Howard Bloom

I received this book in pre-publication form so as to offer a blurb for the jacket. Below is my take on this book.This book will simultaneously tease your brain, arouse your emotions, and motivate you as it probes deeply into the soul of man, society, and capitalism as the engine of Western civilization.

The author gifts us with a counter-culture manifesto that resurrects the goodness of capitalism while also connecting to the roots of humanity, of the human soul as a microcosm of the soul of society.

Be patient, the first third of this book will amuse, enlighten, & provoke, at which point it will grab you by the throat and shake your fundamental perceptions of life. The author is compelling in both a scientific sense, weaving psychology, biology, economics, and sociology together; and in an artistic sense, delivering theater of the mind, new visions, poetic turns of phrase page after page, and a massive amount of purpose-laden provocative minutia, all of which culminates in blinding flashes of insight that explain the mind-expanding role of circuses, the failure of religion, and the natural cycles of fission and fusion, splintering apart and coming together.

Continue reading “Review: The Genius of the Beast–A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism”

2009/10/162011/10/22

Review: Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines

5 Star, Consciousness & Social IQ, Culture, Research, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Excellent Primer, Narrowly Focused, Provokes Reflection

October 16, 2009

Richard Heinberg

I was tempted to limit this book to four stars because it fails to properly recognize, among many others, Buckminster Fuller, e.g. his Critical Path and it provides only passing reference to such foundation works as Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update and Human Scale, but place it at five stars for two reasons: 1) excessive negativity by other reviewers; and 2) a superb primer for the public ready to get past Al Gore's hysteria, the venom surrounding The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, and connect in a very easy to read and understanding elementary counterpoint to The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity.

Another important reason for attending to this book and respecting its author, apart from him many prior works including the globally recognized The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, is the endorsement of two of the top ten (in our view) in this arena, Lester Brown (Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)), and Bill McKibben (Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future).

Continue reading “Review: Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines”

2009/10/092009/10/09

Review: Green Intelligence: Creating Environments that Protect Human Health

5 Star, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions)

Excellent Overview Book, Great Price, Nice Emphasis on Public Information Gaps

October 9, 2009

John Wargo

I like this book. It is not as detailed as any of the following but does a super job of blending together in a very easy to read manner coverage of five areas: nuclear testing, military contamination of training areas, pesticides, vehicle emissions, and plastics.

Among the books I recommend (and have reviewed) for more detailed insights:
Pandora's Poison: Chlorine, Health, and a New Environmental Strategy
High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health
Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power
The Blue Death: The Intriguing Past and Present Danger of the Water You Drink
Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness
The Next Catastrophe: Reducing Our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters
Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Ind
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications

This book would normally have been a four on the substnace of the five domains, especially if one is looking for more in-depth appreciations, but I found the Notes and the Index satisfactory, and the intelligence-information perspective that this author makes a special effort to address carries the book most easily to a solid five.

Highlights from my fly-leaf notes:

Continue reading “Review: Green Intelligence: Creating Environments that Protect Human Health”

2009/10/082009/10/08

Review: COOL IT–The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming

5 Star, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Science & Politics of Science, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Excellent for the General Reader, Nicely Slams the Hystericals

October 8, 2009

Bjorn Lomborg

I must acknowledge that I appreciated this book all the more for first having read Global Crises, Global Solutions as edited by Lomborg (37 contributors), but I do NOT recommend the latter book–read my summary review instead. This book I most definitely recommend for anyone of any age. By the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, this is now the most current and fluid means of coming up to speed on the relative importance of climate change versus other global crises such as infectious disease and a lack of access to clean water.It is the best available critique of why cutting carbon emissions is NOT the best focus for remediation of global crises, and most certainly not the best way to spend our money. The cost benefit is simply NOT THERE.

Continue reading “Review: COOL IT–The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming”

2009/10/082009/10/08

Review: Global Crises, Global Solutions

4 Star, Disease & Health, Economics, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

NOT for the General Reader, Get Cool It Instead

October 8, 2009

Bjorn Lomborg (Editor)

I was among those who considered Lomborg discredited when he produced The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, and I now retract two thirds of my rejection in light of The Resilient Earth: Science, Global Warming and the Fate of Humanity and Lomberg's work in creating the Copenhagen Consensus as reported on in this book–37 serious people considering alternative perspectives and ranking remediation options in relation to real cost-benefit analysis, something Al Gore and other hysterics do not do.

This book is NOT recommended for the general reader–it is way too heavy, too many charts, not enough of a flow, a lot of this stuff has to be taken on faith. Instead, I recommend Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming (Vintage) for the general reader, and probably How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place which I may order in a few minutes.

Continue reading “Review: Global Crises, Global Solutions”