Public Intelligence Blog – Page 2474 – The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.

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2012 Global Water Security, US IC 2 February

Assumptions: We assume that water management technologies will mature along present rates andthat no far-reaching improvements will develop and be deployed over the next 30 years. In addition, for several states, we assume that present water policies—pricing and investments in infrastructure—are unlikely to change significantly. Cultural norms often drive water policies and will continue to do so despite recent political upheavals. Finally, we assume that states with a large and growing economic capacity continue to make infrastructure investments and apply technologies to address their water challenges.

Our Bottom Line: During the next 10 years, many countries important to the United States will experience water problems—shortages, poor water quality, or floods—that will risk instability and state failure, increase regional tensions, and distract them from working with the United States on important US policy objectives. Between now and 2040, fresh water availability will not keep up with demand absent more effective management of water resources. Water problems will hinder the ability of key countries to produce food and generate energy, posing a risk to global food markets and hobbling economic growth. As a result of demographic and economic development pressures, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will face major challenges coping with water problems.

Continue reading “Reference: US IC Global Water Security Study”

2013/03/172013/03/26

Dolphin: Chinese Congress Puts Environment on the Table — Major Revolt within Congress, More Reforms Anticipated

02 China, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 07 Health, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Government

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China People's Congress environment surprise

TIM PALMER: In China the fallout is still being felt from an open rebellion over air pollution at the country's annual session of parliament.

It was a dramatic shift for a Congress that's normally seen as no more than a rubber stamp.

Sensing a growing environmental crisis, a third of the delegates rejected a key anti-pollution measure.

Meanwhile China analysts are now expecting major economic reforms from the new administration in Beijing after premier Li Keqiang declared that more sections of the economy needed to be handed over to private enterprise.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell has been covering the closing stages of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

(Ceremonial music)

STEPHEN MCDONELL: China's annual session of parliament, the National People's Congress, has closed with plenty of big vision from the country's new generation of leaders.

Xi Jinping told some 3,000 delegates what an honour it was for him to be president and he was talking up the so-called “China dream”.

(Sound of Xi Jingping speaking)

“China is a great nation with great creativity,” he said, “We created this Chinese culture and we will be able to expand our path towards Chinese development.”

But a third of the delegates listening to him had just staged a large revolt on the floor of the Great Hall of the People over pollution.

When it came time to endorse the members of a key committee overseeing environmental protection and resource conservation, 850 delegates voted no and 120 abstained.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Dolphin: Chinese Congress Puts Environment on the Table — Major Revolt within Congress, More Reforms Anticipated”

2013/03/172013/03/17

17-18 May 2013 Geneva Global Governance of the Internet

Advanced Cyber/IO, Autonomous Internet

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Global Governance of the Internet: Intergovernmentalism, multistakeholderism, and networks

International Workshop

17-18 May 2013, Geneva, Switzerland

PDF: 2013-03-16 GigaNet 17-18 May Geneva

We invite five-page long memos that address the role and future of different models of governance of the Internet, presenting recently completed research or work in progress. Papers from any discipline or institution, from emerging as well as established scholars, are encouraged. Key questions to be addressed include, but are not limited to, the following:
· What are the long-term implications of the failure of the WCIT? Is talk of an Internet “Cold War” relevant, or misleading?
· How can we assess the role of intergovernmental organizations in Internet governance?
· How can cooperation between intergovernmental organizations and NGOs be structured?
· What are the potential and limitations of multistakeholder models of governance?
· What role do non-hierarchical networks currently play in global Internet governance, and should that role be increased or diminished?
· What is the relevance of sovereignty and jurisdiction when the Internet creates cross-border harm?

Continue reading “17-18 May 2013 Geneva Global Governance of the Internet”

2013/03/172013/03/26

Sepp Hasslberger: Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Easier — Lockheed Martin Achieves a MAJOR Breakthrough

12 Water

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Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Easier

Andrew Tarantola

Gizmodo, 15 March 2013

Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets. In response, many countries have turned to the sea for potable fluids but existing reverse osmosis plants rely on complicated processes that are expensive and energy-intensive to operate. Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalinization energy costs by 99 percent.

The Reverse Osmosis process works on a simple principle: molecules within a liquid will flow across a semipermeable membrane from areas of higher concentration to lower until both sides reach an equilibrium. But that same membrane can act as a filter for large molecules and ions if outside pressure is applied to one side of the system. For desalinization, the process typically employs a sheet of thin-film composite (TFC) membrane which is made from an active thin-film layer of polyimide stacked on a porous layer of polysulfone. The problem with these membranes is that their thickness requires the presence of large amounts of pressure (and energy) to press water through them.

Lockheed Martin's Perforene, on the other hand, is made from single atom-thick sheets of graphene. Because the sheets are so thin, water flows through them far more easily than through a conventional TFC. Filters made through the Perforene process would incorporate filtering holes just 100 nm in diameter—large enough to let water molecules through but small enough to capture dissolved salts. It looks a bit like chicken wire when viewed under a microscope, John Stetson, the Lockheed engineer credited with its invention, told Reuters. But ounce for ounce, its 1000 times stronger than steel.

Continue reading “Sepp Hasslberger: Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Easier — Lockheed Martin Achieves a MAJOR Breakthrough”

2013/03/172013/03/26

Yoda: Google Glass — Dark Side of the Force? + Big Data RECAP

Civil Society, Commerce, IO Impotency

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Concerns, have we.

Google Glass: The opposition grows

“Stop The Cyborgs” is a new site that attempts to bring a balanced trepidation to the unbalanced idea that we'll all be walking round with Google's outer brain strapped to our faces.

The opposition will congregate in dark corners.

They will whisper with their mouths, while their eyes will scan the room for spies wearing strange spectacles.

The spies will likely be men. How many women would really like to waft down the street wearing Google Glass?

It won't be easy. Once you've been cybernated, there's no turning back. Which is why the refuseniks are already meeting in shaded corners of the Web.

One site is called “Stop The Cyborgs.” It claims to be “fighting the algorithmic future one bit at a time.”

It's going to take a lot of bitty fighting, but the people behind this site — they're naturally anonymous, in an attempt to stop Google spying on them — say they're fighting Google Glass in particular.

They say that it will herald a world in which “privacy is impossible and corporate control total.”

Some would say that, thanks to Googlies and other bright, deluded sparks, we're there already. The Lord and Master Zuckerberg explained to us a long time ago that he knows us better than we do and that we don't actually want privacy at all.

Still, the people behind this anti-cyborg movement claim that there's no way you'll ever know that someone wearing Google Glass is recording your every word and movement.

There's no way of even knowing if someone else is recording you through their glasses from somewhere in the cloud.

And how are we, whose egos are already more fragile than a porcelain potty, supposed to feel when we know that a glasses-wearer has one eye on us and another on our Klout score or teenage sexting pictures?

The site explains: “Gradually people will stop acting as autonomous individuals, when making decisions and interacting with others, and instead become mere sensor/effector nodes of a global network.”

Continue reading “Yoda: Google Glass — Dark Side of the Force? + Big Data RECAP”

2013/03/172013/03/26

John Maguire: Hackerspaces & Open-Source Creativity — Making Up for Educational Shortfalls

04 Education, Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence

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“Inspired in part by the open source movement, public spaces are emerging where people congregate to share ideas, make cool projects, teach, and brainstorm with collaborators on everything from coding to cooking. With no leaders, they have one rule: “Be excellent to each other.” Take a tour of the hackerspace Noisebridge, located in the heart of San Francisco's Mission District, with co-founder Mitch Altman.”

With educational institutions failing to provide young-people with the information and skills they need to succeed in an ever-evolving planetary-landscape, the hackerspace movement is helping to fill the void. Kids are coming out of schools ignorant, disempowered, lost, and disinterested. Entrepreneurial spirit and constructive risk-taking are in their death-throws as a result. Alternative educational/cultural spaces are needed now more than ever to rejuvenate this untapped generation of human potential.

See Also:

HackerSpaces Wiki

2013/03/172013/03/26

Penguin: Banks Confiscating Percentage of Depositors Cash in Cyprus, Collapse of Banking Across Europe Possible

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Commerce, Corruption, Government

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Facing Bailout Tax, Cypriots Try to Get Cash Out of Banks

ATHENS — In a move that could set off new fears of contagion across the euro zone, anxious depositors drained cash from automated teller machines in Cyprus on Saturday, hours after European officials in Brussels required that part of a new 10 billion euro bailout be paid for directly from the bank accounts of ordinary savers.

The move — a first in the three-year-old European financial crisis — raised questions about whether bank runs could be set off elsewhere in the euro zone. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the group of euro area ministers, declined early Saturday to rule out taxes on depositors in countries beyond Cyprus, although he said such a measure was not currently being considered.

Although banks placed withdrawal limits of 400 euros, or about $520, on A.T.M.’s, most had run out of cash by early evening. People around the country reacted with disbelief and anger.

Read full article.