Security (Including Immigration) – Page 9

2008/04/252010/01/05

Review: State of the World 2008–Toward a Sustainable Global Economy

4 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Security (Including Immigration), Threats (Emerging & Perennial), Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Superb Primer for Any Level, Needs Two Missing Pieces, April 25, 2008

Worldwatch Institute

This a superb edited work that melds chapters (with notes at the end) from world-class authors on a broad range of topics.

I kept this at five stars until the end and then I could not stand it anymore. There are at least five reasons to reduce it to four. Here are the first two.

1. As someone who grew up with Banks & Textor and have created four analytic models in my lifetime, I am growing increasing impatient with the continued fragmentation of research and writing. There is a model available: ten threats (from the UN High Level Threat Panel), twelve policies, eight challengers. We need to start fusing, analyzing, visualizing and discussing all ten threats in relation to all ten policies. I am no longer content to read about water in one chapter, meat in another, and so on. Stop putzing around and create the EarthGame with all information, all languages, all the time–geospatially grounded of course–and let's get on with the task of identifying with precision the global range of gifts table down to the household level, from $1 to $100 million.

2. I am increasingly irritated by the little cabals that strive to cite only themselves, and furthermore, have their own language to distinguish them. “Get the price right” instead of “true cost”? Get over it. Enough already. I am also increasingly of the view that the Notes must be indexed. The notes are good, but when the lead chapter talks about “Adjust Economic Scale” and fails to cite Small Is Beautiful, 25th Anniversary Edition: Economics As If People Mattered: 25 Years Later . . . With Commentaries or Human Scale I growl.

Together with Plan 3.0 and Vital Signs, both linked by another reviewer, this book represents a fine stand-alone study set if you want to limit yourself to the WorldWatch oracles and dismiss all others.

Here is what grabbed me about this book:

+ Opens with utterly sensational four pages of “timeline” for 2007 with little blocks that are priceless. I really like this.

+ Chapter 1 does a fine job of listing:

– Four flawed economic assumptions:

– 1. Independence of economic activity from “infinite” nature

– 2. Growth should be the primary economic objective

– 3. Markets are always superior to governments at allocating resources

– 4. Humans are economic maximizers and place no value on community

This may sound simple but I admire it.

– The seven big ideas for economic reform:

– 1. Adjust economic scale

– 2. Shift from growth to development

– 3. Make prices tell the ecological truth [note: for World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility–WISER–to not be in index irritates me so much I almost take the fifth star again).

– 4. Account for nature's contributions [I am infuriated by a second hand citation. I am not familiar with more than a couple of books, but to not mention Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications or The Future of Life moves this book, as very good as it is–toward Classic Comics book shallowness.

– 5. Apply the precautionary principle. [Cites a San Francisco Chronicle opinion piece, what happened to the real books on this subject, such as Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing The Precautionary Principle

– 6. Revitalize commons management

– 7. Value women [here I am irritated by the isolation of these authors and their citations from a broader understanding of why we should value women: because it is a proven fact that there is no better investment, dollar for development dollar, than a dollar spend educating women. That ripples through society and impacts on the men big time.]

The second chapter has a prices Figure showing that computer diffusion is growing arithmetically while cell phone diffusion is growing logrithmically plus. My comment: Nokia is slowing beginning to grasp what I told their Chairman a year ago: give the cell phones to the poor free, sell the call, not the phone (and my other idea, educate the poor one cell call at a time, starting with call centers in India and China, and then monetize the transactions. Having six farmers call in asking about the same animal disease is PRICELESS! How governments cannot understand this simple logic is beyond my comprehension.

Across the book the tables and figures are powerful but they are not integrated into a total model (e.g. you should not grow grain with water you cannot afford to create fuel instead of feeding a family when you could run 35 million cars a year on Cuban sugar cane sap).

I was pleasantly surprised to see meat and seafood in its own chapter, but as an avid admirer of everything by Francis Moore Lappe
, see for example Diet for a Small Planet and her most recentDemocracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life.

Toward the end are two very important chapters, one on the financial implications of sustainability (i.e. what alternative vehicles can be used to push back on predatory lending, absentee ownership, and wasteful food practices) and on harnessing human energy (e.g. to plant trees).

I put the book down with irritation–Open Money, Collective Intelligence, even the word Citizen are not in this book–and I again harken to the need for an EarthGame in which all knowledge, all budgets, all citizens, can come together to game, understand, dialog, and decide.

I've come to the conclusion that the fragmentation of the “academy” is now just as dangerous as the desperate failure of our political system in America (see Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It for the simple reason that if the academy would get its act together and “make sense” to the public, the public will take care of the political fix.

We knew most of this stuff in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's–at the academic level–but the politicians were able to ignore us because a) the people were unwitting and b) low gas prices and high Exxon bribes were great for the smokey room crowd. That's over. It's time for the academy to start producing explicit recommendations and budgets, at the zip code level, that we can use to beat politicians into submission or out of office.

Please have it online by 4 July 2008, and thank you for all the wonderful work up to this point. Time to bring this program home.

Two more links that are action oriented:
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

2008/04/102009/10/30

Review: Victory On The Potomac–The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies The Pentagon

5 Star, Budget Process & Politics, Congress (Failure, Reform), Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Politics, Security (Including Immigration)

Setting the Stage for the NEXT Reform of National Security, April 10, 2008

James R., III Locher

I bought this book at the Army War College after hearing its author speak to the Army Strategy Conference on “Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power.” I have posted 29 pages of notes at Earth Intelligence Network, with a page or two from Jim Locher's brilliant luncheon presentation.

Having spent the evening with this book, and with an understanding of what the Project on National Security Reform will be providing to the next President of the United States, I found the book totally inspiring, and most important for what it represents as proof that “Phase II” of national security reform is not just possible, but likely in 2009.

A few highlights:

1) The service chiefs fought this bitterly, to include lies and deceptions and fabricated studies.

2) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Jones, and later Crowe, get high praise for having the gumption to call for reform in the first case, and agree with reform in the second, but they were virtual outcasts for doing so.

3) Senator Sam Nunn will be back. As I look at the make-up of the Project, which also benefits from Newt Gingrich's brilliance and his mastery of history and House protocol, I have a very strong feeling that the follow-on to Goldwater-Nichols, a National Security Act of 2009, is not just viable, but undefeatable.

4) I've known Jim Locher as a thoughtful and courteous person for over a decade, and this book confirms my personal view that he is one of the most loyal, dedicated, intelligent, and responsible individuals we have, totally committed to public service in the purest sense of the word. The reviewer who demeans the author has no basis, in my view, for his negative judgement.

I have just one worry: everyone is beginning to realize that neither John McCain nor Barack Obama have a strong bench, and at the same time everyone I talk to seems to believe they will repeat the long-standing mistake of seeking to implement a single-party executive. This they must not be allowed to do. Please visit Reuniting America to understand the concept of Transpartisanship, in which ALL parties (including Libertarians, Reforms, Greens, and others) share leadership positions so that we might harness the COMPLETE distributed intelligence of the entire Nation.

The Project will provide a preliminary report on Phase II of national security reform in early July 2008, and a longer report in September 2008. Once a President is elected, a complete set of Presidential directives, draft legislation, and recommended amendments to Congressional jurisdictions and protocols, will be provided so that the President might be ready to implement national security reform within 100 days of taking office. We cannot wait for the Quadrennial Defense Review in the second year of the Presidency; those focusing their time on influencing that document would be well-advised to contribute shorter versions of their work sooner to the Project. By 1 May 2008.

In his comments today at the Army War College, the author told us that everyone said this would be impossible; that it was lunatic, and so on. This book is a deep historical account of how good intentions across party lines can achieve the impossible and serve the public. While I disrespect both party machines for failing to control a reckless and arrogant presidency hijacked by the vice president, I do believe that we can create a narrative on the need for reform that the public will accept and then demand of its Congress.

I will miss Barry Goldwater, the last true conservative I remember, but I am, in putting this book down, confident that John McCain and Sam Nunn and others can find common ground. This book proves the impossible can be achieved, and I believe this book is essential substantiation that the next step: civilian professionalization, inter-agency operations and authorities, multinational information sharing, a robust “white hat” capability, and a national open source agency that can influence how $2 trillion a year in other people's money is spent eradicating the ten high level threats to humanity, are all achievable in the near term.

2008/02/122010/01/05

Review: The Virginia Gun Owner’s Guide – Sixth Edition

5 Star, Democracy, Secession & Nullification, Security (Including Immigration)

Better Information Than Available Online or From Government, February 12, 2008

Alan Korwin and Steve Maniscalco

Edit of 13 Feb 08 to add “rush & crush” comment, and links including those recommended by Mr. D. in comment.

For those of us that believe in the Constitutional right of all citizens to own and bear arms (the National Guard is NOT a militia–individuals, not groups, have this inalienable Constitutional right), and who feel that the combination of random fatal violoence is accelerating, along with fatal crime, carrying a side arm makes sense. Carrying it concealed makes even more sense, to avoid attention or upsetting the soccer moms (plus weapons cannot be on school grounds except in the car).

I picked this book up today while on a trip, and finally sat down with it tonight. Here are highlights:

1) Opens with a tremendous single-page list of 13 kinds of pending laws intended to restrict citizen rights AND a great list of the harder to do more sensible things, 15 in all, that government *should* be doing. Being made aware of this pending legislation is important. The NRA does not do this good a job.

2) Landlords cannot limit rights.

3) Right to transport (unloaded in container, to include in locked baggage on airlines) is very broad, while right to carry, loaded, is very narrow.

4) Concealed or open carry cannot come within 100 fett of any site serving alcohol.

5) For natural reasons, 98% of those who own and carry a handgun are reluctant to register that fact with the government at any level.

6) Deadly Force section is the most important part of the book and essential reading for anyone unfamiliar with the term. I taught deadly force to Battlaion Landing Team 3/4 in the Fleet Marine Force, but learned even more from my Chief of Station in El Salvador. He handed me my Browning 9mm and said “Use this when you absolutely don't give a damn about being fired.” Lovely. This book sets out the three principals: Retreat, Attempt Peace, draw and fire only if lethal force against you is imminent. It emphasizes that you can protect a third person but only if they face lethal force.

7) Excellent sections on related laws (e.g. do NOT “brandish” a weapon) and federal laws.

8) Covers gun safety and child safety.

9) Ends with a list and discussion of 19 noble uses of firearms.

Lots of appendices.

A righteous worthy book, very glad to have it.

TEACHING OUR CHILDREN

After the Virginia Tech mass murder, I realized we have become a nation of sheep. Not only do our children need to become fit, they need to learn the modern day equivalent of “duck & cover,” which I call “rush & crush.” From 6th grade on, children should have a bi-annual drill and be taught two things:

1) See a gun sound the alarm with “GUN GUN GUN”

2) Without further prompting, all those closest to the person with the “gun” should throw books chairs and then “rush and crush” while the teacher sounds the school alarm and other kids use their hidden cell phones to call 911. This will invariably limit the dead to 1 at most and wounded to 2-4 at most. This is a proven “swarm” defense across the animal kingdom, and now that we are back closer to animals than civilized human beings, our children need to learn this.

Two afterthoughts:

1) In this era of idiot lawyers where border patrolmen go to jail for shooting a drug dealer entering the country illegally, it makes sense to wipe down your rounds and police up your expended cartriges. I personally do not like the illegal “shock” rounds” because I worry about them jamming. I am very accurate and the limited edition Walther PPK is a glorious piece of engineering.

2) Situational awareness and avoidance combined with use of the cell phone to call police remains the single best defense for any citizen, armed or unarmed. If you get drunk (in which case you should not be in carrying) and get mugged, great, its Darwinian culling of the herd. Ninety nine out of one hundred times, the cell phone and retreat are the best answer.

Links:
Rage of the Random Actor: Disarming Catastrophic Acts And Restoring Lives
The Truth About Self Protection
On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace

2008/02/062010/01/05

Review: Silent Steel–The Mysterious Death of the Nuclear Attack Sub USS Scorpion

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration)

First-Rate Cover Story Great Human Interest, Service Loyalty, February 6, 2008

Stephen Johnson

EDIT of 9 Feb 09: There is evidently a very strong community of submariners, mostly officers, none of whom were in service at the time the incident happened, most of whom have little intelligence experience and very small libraries, who feel they and only they are qualified to judget between the two books. My two reviews stand. Normal people will find the other book much better in terms of trying to get to a reasonable semblance of the truth. Better yet, skip both books and go right to those I list below.

This a superb individual effort using normally available materials. It fully merits five stars because it can be bought and read simultaneously with Scorpion Down: Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion, which leverages Freedom of Information demands, direct invesdtigative journalism (HUMINT), and the end of the Cold War which produced a treasure trove of valuable primary materials. If you buy only one book, buy the other one but I find reading books in twos and threes is more interesting.

See for context, other reviews and if attractive, the books also:
The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command
Very Special Intelligence: The Story of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre 1939-1945
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
The Age of Missing Information (Plume)
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
The Pathology of Power – A Challenge to Human Freedom and Safety
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)

2008/02/042009/10/30

Review: Scorpion Down–Sunk by the Soviets, Buried by the Pentagon: The Untold Story of the USS Scorpion

5 Star, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration)

Extraordinary Tale of Courage, Possible Dishonor, and Reality, February 4, 2008

Ed Offley

Edit of 25 Feb 08: The Admirals are apparently worried about something. They have squelched our proposed public debate between the two authors, ordering the submariners not to attend. So much for open minds. I recommend both books–the Admirals confirm with their fear which of the two is closer to the mark.

I stand my by review of both books, both are excellent, and both present us with an opportunity to evaluate several factors:

1) Is it good judgement at the flag level to put submariner's in harm's way “because we can?”

2) Is it good policy to deceive Courts of Inquiry to protect secret sources and methods of questionable value?

3) Is it good judgement to lie to families of lost ones, to hound them out of base housing and out of town, and to fail to honor those who died in virtual combat with the appropriate recognition?

The author is gifted. He inspires tears by page eight.

A few highlights:

1) A handful of top Navy Admirals including the Chief of Naval Operations, authorized missions whose danger was probably not properly briefed to the political “leaders” and their advisors. This is not to say that the US submariners were anything other than honorable, courageous, and unusually intelligent–but rather that there was a failure of strategic moral leadership of epic proportions. The same Admirals privy to the truth knew five days before the USS Scorpion was “executed” by a Soviet torpedo of the relentless tracking of the USS Scorpion, and did nothing to save it.

2) Decades of reckless arrogant misbehavior were concealed from the US public, the US Congress, the US media, and most (98%) of the chain of command from President down to fully-cleared seamen.

3) The US Navy, not the Soviet Navy, refused year after year to include submarines in the bi-lateral Incidents at Sea agreement.

3) In the early 1970's “double reporting” became a US Navy standard for all “special intelligence ” (signals and illegal direct access) operations, with all “incidents” being reported twice: first as a lie (we call this a “cover story”) and second, as truth for a handful.

4) The handful of Admirals who realized their mistakes lost a sub to enemy action moved immediately to conceal all evidence of their criminal disregard, and sent the Naval Investigative Service all over the world to immediately confiscate for destruction all acoustic and message traffic records of the death of the USS Scorpion. One full copy survived and was played to a SOSUS (undersea acoustic surveillance system,) class in 1982 .

Here are some other tid-bits that really made this book a compelling useful read:

1) President Johnson personally presided over the cover-up at the same time that he presided over the cover-ups on the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the USS Pueblo as well as the USS Liberty

2) The fake search & rescue operations mounted by the US Navy were the largest fleet deployment since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

3) Acoustic data from 1300 miles away *nailed* the truth that was kept from the families, the Navy at large, Congress, and the public.

4) The USS Scorpion represented a “quantum leap” ahead in propulsion and capability, was a known spy ship known to be constantly deployed into Soviet waters and against Soviet ships in international waters.

5) The author first realized the magnitude of the cover-up on 17 December 1984, when a former Navy enlisted man who has served in top secret senior staff positions and was now a newspaper colleague, told him directly that based on his personal past, the USS Scorpion had been killed by a Russian torpedo, not a mishap.

6) Despite massive Top Secret Codeword restraints, the crews had common sense and would brief each other when turning over missions, the incoming crew walking to the end of the pier with the outgoing crew, having a seaman to seaman informal “turnover brief.”

7) The author provides an excellent leavening of contextual history together with a solid look at the people, materials, and methods that went with undersea covert espionage operations.

8) JFK and Johnson approved so much funding for so many submarines that the US Navy went from having a submarine service manned by crews with 2-5 tours behind them, to officers and crews with ZERO tours behind them.

9) Additional context for the combat death of the USS Scorpion include that she sailed with low crew morale and many operational discrepancies; B-52 going down in Greenland with four thermo-nuclear bombs caused riots all over Europe which closed liberty towns; and Six Day War opened ports and airfields to the Soviets in Arab and African countries bordering the Mediterranean.

The author has connected three big dots: the irresponsible aggressive operations of the US Navy and the USS Scorpion (following orders) leading to the loss of the K-129 eleven weeks prior to that of the USS Scorpion; the treason of the Walker naval family spy ring that delivered key lists of top US codes to the Soviets; and the Soviet capture of the USS Pueblo in order to obtain the actual cryptography machines needed to leverage the key lists.

I put this extraordinary book down with three thoughts:

1) We need political leadership committed to waging peace and eschewing illegal sources and methods that cost too much, not only financially, but morally.

2) The USS Scorpion was executed covertly, and US naval and political leadership accepted that execution as being within reasonable bounds within the covert war that waged most dangerously and uniquely, in “the silent service,” the submarine service.

3) We need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine both the “fifty year wound” we ourselves have imposed on the Earth and on Humanity everywhere; and the betrayal of the public trust that this book captures so ably at the tactical secret level.

This is an extraordinary book. It inspires feelings of dread, rage, and helpless dishonor, while confirming that over time public collective intelligence can triumph over top-down idiocy enabled by secrecy.

Based on Mr. Rule's comments, I must now conclude that we cannot chose one book over the other, we must consider both, and because books cannot do this important matter justice, I respectfully hope that the two authors and Mr. Rule will agree to meet professionally. I want to know. The families want to know. Let's serve them.

Longer review at Earth Intelligence Network, 1000+ Reviews. See also:

The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project)
Web of Deceit: The History of Western complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin
The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past

2008/01/192010/01/04

Review: The Culture of National Security

4 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Security (Including Immigration)

Great from an academic point of view, missing some pieces

January 19, 2008

Peter J. Katzenstein

I confess to some impatience with this book, published in 1996. It is very much state-centric, although to its credit in the conclusion it postulates a need to focus more on non-military resources and objectives, and on non-state actors.

The book opens with the statement that the key to understanding is to focus on how people view their interests and how that changes, but I searched in vain for any differentiation among the eight tribes that define my own study of international and internal relations: government, military, law enforcement, academia, business, media, non-governmental and non-profit (and in the US, especially, foundations), and finally, civil including religion, labor, and advocacy groups. This book may well be one of the last gasps of “state uber alles” literature.

I have a note, bridge between the European literature of the 1980's and the new view emerging in the post 9-11 environment, where most of us now recognize that security in all its forms, including human, food, and water security, are easily as important and often more important than military security.

The editors themselves recognize that all the theories were wrong, and that academia slept through the revolution, failing to foresee or explain.

I am amused by the discussion of identity, and how this presents the academics–poor dears–with moral issues.

I love footnotes, and this book has many of them, but as I went on and on I felt two things: 1) holy cow, the best of the best talking to themselves; and 2) where is everything else? This book strives to examine the fault line between Kennedy's focus on resources and Fukiyama's focus on ideology, while missing the impact of technology on the rise of indigenous peoples. In some ways, this book marks the end of the state-centric academic era, and the rise of the practitioner non-state actor era. There is now more to be learned outside the university than inside.

On balance, I would recommend this book as torture for aspiring PhD's who need to be steeped in the arcane debates among the varied schools of international politics and the effect of domestic politics on foreign policy, but very candidly, I find the books listed below to be a better investment of time and more accessible to broader minds.

Modern Strategy
Security Studies for the 21st Century
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Preparing America's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom

2008/01/112009/10/30

Review: Plan B 3.0–Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition

5 Star, Complexity & Catastrophe, Complexity & Resilience, Environment (Problems), Environment (Solutions), Future, Intelligence (Public), Nature, Diet, Memetics, Design, Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Priorities, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Survival & Sustainment, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution

The Best and Most Essential Guide, Not the Whole Picture, January 11, 2008

Lester R. Brown

I have followed Lester Brown's dedication to evaluating the state of our planet for over a decade, and wrote to the Nobel Committee urging them to recognize him, Herman Daly, and Paul Kawkins and the two Lovins instead of Al Gore. They have all done a great deal more of the heavy lifting.

I decided to purchase this book when Medard Gabel, creator of the analog World Game with Buchminster Fuller, gave me a budget for saving the planet that totals no more than $230 billion a year (at a time when we spend $1.3 trillion waging war).

I've gone through the book and consider it to be a best in class effort, a seminal work no one else on the planet could have produced. In the author's chosen area of focus, there is no other book like this one. However, some other books are easier to read and understand, such as High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, and others do a better job of addressing all ten high-level threats to Humanity and Earth, such as A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility–Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

Here are a few highlights:

+ Book is offered free online (but the hard copy is much better deal, easier to work with, mark up and return to as a reference….use the online version to search for specifics.

+ The Introduction is clear and inspiring. This book is loaded with carefully collected facts ably presented.

+ $12 per gallon of fuel in “true costs” externalized and not billed

+ One 25 gallon ethanol tank takes enough grain to feed a person for a year. This means that those in hunger going to double from 600 million to 1.2 billion, as cars compete for grain (which is nuts).

+ Food-oil axis is developing into a triple crisis: oil, food, water. As 50% live in cities, the fuel intensity of food in the face of Peak Oil is becoming a major issue.

+ Stopping the ethanol program dead in its tracks is the single best thing US Government could do, followed my more wind farms and an end to coal plants.

+ Amazon reaching a tipping point, mega-fires are foreseen (as with New York City if its 1920's water system fails and a firestorm emerges)

+ Western model will not work for China or India (or Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and other Wild Cards)

+ Ice cap is melting fast, gfalciers are melting fast and causing small earthquakes.

+ 600 million refugees expected if sea level rises ten meters (33 feet)

+ Mortality has been reduced, but fertility has not, leaving persistent population issues.

+ 15 of 24 primary ecosystems degraded or pushed beyond their limits.

+ Climate has become more destructive, with 55 weather events costing $1.5 billion or more each since the 1980's.

+ Great discussion of the ecology of cities, Bioneers would resonate with all the author recommends.

+ Scarcity crossing national boundaries.

+ Excellent notes, heavy reliance on UN and other primary sources.

+ He proposes a budget of $190 billion a year to achieve our social goals and restore the Earth.

+ The only thing missing from this book are some of the positives, for example bacteria as an energy source, healing bacteria, eletrified water as a cleanser needed no other ingredients, the recovery of the Dead Sea with furrows that retain every drop of water.

I am so surprised to find only one review that I wanted to quickly add my praise for this author, while also pointing out three things that a handful of wealthy philanthropists could do tomorrow to execute this vision.

#1 We should all support the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER) as created by the Natural Capital Institute, and encourage colleges and universities around the world to begin loading the “true cost” information for all products and services (e.g. 4000 gallons of water in a designer T-shirt). Delivered to end-users via cell phone query at the point sale, this will dramatically affect markets.

#2 We should ask the 90 major foundations in the USA to host a summit to which all governments, non-governmental organizations, prominent wealthy individuals, and the United Nations are invited. The objective should be to create an online “Range of Gifts” Table that identifies specific contributions that can be made at every cost level, to eradicate the ten high level threats within fifteen years, by harmonizing the twelve policies such that ALL organizations and ALL individuals can opt in on a master budget that is strategically sound, operationally executable, and tactically open to all.

#3 We must absorb the wisdom of C. K. Prahalad, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and others listed below, and recognize that the only enduring sustainable solutioin lies in educating the five billion poor, who do not have the time or the money to sit in a classroom for 18-22 years. We can create today, using Telelanguage.com, an immediate registry of 100 million volunteers with Internet access, speaking 183 languages among them, who can educate the poor–who are not stupid, just illiterate–one cell call at a time.

I believe that Reuniting America, True Majority, and WISER are reaching critical mass. All we lack now is one well endowed champion who sees that it is our collective intelligence that will solve the world's problems, and there is no need to run for President. Here are the handful of books I would recommend to Michael Bloomberg if he were to ask me today how to fulfil his vision of political, educational, and philanthropic reform.

Visit Earth Intelligence Network for free public intelligence on the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers. The weekly report “GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review,” will appeal to anyone interested in this book and its topic.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
The Future of Life