 
# The Abundance Myth: Our Environment in Crisis

# Jon Van Loon

# Copyright 2013 Jon Van Loon

# Smashwords Edition

## Preface

There is a dangerous and erroneous belief pervading the public mind that an exponential output in research presently being experienced particularly in North America, will contain answers that will save mankind from all the present and future serious problems threatening worldwide sustainability of a biosphere suitable for the continued existence of mankind. This belief is dangerous because it suggests that the general public can continue sitting back waiting for the skilled researchers to solve our major life endangering problems.

Times have changed and in a fundamental way. The plant Earth is now grossly overpopulated both in developed and developing countries and this problem grows worse. Predicaments like Climate Change are already causing major destructive incidents worldwide. Where are these technological miracles that will reverse this trend? Making matters worse governments are in gridlock over the very basics that pervade this issue.

In this small book I intend to attack the one dimensional notion that remediative research will eventually materialize and be accepted in some magic way by all concerned on a worldwide basis. In particular I intend to show that simplistic one dimensional thinking as is purveyed in popular best selling tomes is doomed to failure. This manuscript is peppered with personal stories that either illustrate a salient point or which although related vaguely to the topic are meant to give a short rest from the overall hard hitting message.

## Introduction

When we think about the time frame over which we can maintain a sustainable biosphere in which mankind can live with a good quality of life are we thinking in terms of millions, 100 of thousands, 10 of thousands, thousands or hundreds of years? One thing can be predicted with certainty without drastic changes in middle and upper class lifestyle and economic, political, social etc. practices such conditions will not be maintainable for even a very few hundreds of years.

Also let's remember that the age of the earth is in the 5 billion year range. In round numbers and ignoring the many existing disputes Homo sapiens (us) have been around for no more than about 1 million years. But it dates back to only to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution around 1830 and a world population of only about 1 billion, when modern man began the evolution to what we are today. So in less than 200 years and a phenomenal increase in population to 7 billion in 2012, we have raped the earth of vast quantities of resources and in doing so have caused desperate environmental problems, social and economic inequities and damage. Now this population of 7 million and still increasing, depleting resources at ever increasing rates is basically standing by waiting for technological measures to remediate the environmental mess. In this regard are any duplicitous Governments moving forward with dispatch on the most serious problems such as climate change? Most like Canada are doing little if anything significant. In this light how long does the reader think humans can possibly exist as we are presently proceeding without producing irreversible damage to the biosphere that in turn causes our destruction?

Do you not think serious 180 type degree changes in life's fundamentals are immediately necessary?

## Abundance will Never Happen-Opening Views

The Incredible Naivety that Characterizes the Books like "Abundance"

One dimensional, in this case technological solutions without much consideration of the multitude of disciplines, organizations-government and private, time and money consuming aspects necessary to establishing functional facilities for the technology worldwide. Naïve books Like "Abundance" (Abundance by P.H. Diamandis and S. Kotler Published by Free Press, February 2012) exacerbate the problem of convincing the public of the unlikelihood that a sustainable long term biosphere callable of supporting mankind is possible without fundamental changes in many of our time worn institutions including governments capable of accepting and establishing multidimensional solutions to the worlds many critical environmental and related problem that must be arrived at soon. These solutions must be vociferously demanded by the public at sacrifices to our present standard of living.

In my view this bestselling book "Abundance" is very misleading to the public. That having been said I am totally convinced the authors wrote the truth therein as they understand it. Thus its conclusions represent their honest contentions. In anything that follows I am in no way questioning their veracity or their heart-felt belief in the views they present.

Also I have no argument that the pace of technological innovation as described in "Abundance" is tremendous and accelerating daily. I also agree that technological developments may occur in this massive spouting of technology that may hold answers too many of the worlds pressing problems.

Thus why do I claim that the book is naïve and misleading? Please read on.

Notes: I intend to include in some sections below stories of events in some of the countries I worked and lived which although vaguely pertinent to the main theme of this manuscript are relevant and will help break the tedium of the main message.

Please keep in mind that North Americans do not live in the 'real world' on the basis of the much less opulent life styles of the majority of the worldwide population. Because of this the disproportionately high per capita resource consumption and complex environmental damage we inflict on the majority of the world is egregious.

Readers may wonder how I keep up with the research and developments relating to technology today being a retired academic. I have 18 computers that I have either built from scratch or rebuilt from 'wrecks' purchased on eBay. Each has an 8 core processor and most have solid state hard drives. I can do individual research projects on each core separately meaning that when fully operational I can do 144 separate research projects simultaneously.

Technology as a Major Perpetrator of Today's Major Problems

How have we managed to dig humanity into an abundance of major world problems? Mankind consists of a large number of talented innovators of technology. The appearance of new technology is occurring at an accelerating rate. Many of these developments have been of great benefit to mankind and in this regard the medical field should be noted. Unfortunately technology also has caused serious problems.

The world before the Industrial Revolution was largely free of technologies that caused serious pollution. Of course without technology the world at that time was plagues by problems in urban locals of pollution caused by such as untreated sewage running through the streets together with related untreatable disease. Medical procedures were crude and largely ineffective. Today despite a 7 fold increase in population the average life span of individuals in most developed jurisdictions has increased many fold together with the middle-class and upper-class standard of living. Yet still a staggering percentage the world as a whole remains caught up in poverty.

Traditionally we divide the world into 2 camps the developed and the developing nations. The explosion in technology has occurred largely in the developed countries but its side effects have become a threat to all nations worldwide. Developing nations without the means to broadly adopt the latest technology use old dirty technologies which are also a major part of this threat. There is one large difference in the nature of the waste substances of the rich and the poor nations and that is the much more complex chemical and biochemical nature of waste substances from the former which may have consequences now and in the future that are much more serious than we now can predict.

It is important to stress that the technological acceleration is largely confined to developed nations. Thus the good and the bad effects of this technology are first felt there-in. However pollutants that are air and water born or which transform into such become a threat worldwide. Thus those of us in the developed nations bear a responsibility to take care in the deployment of our new technology to identify harmful side effects that must be controlled and kept out of the environment. This latter problem historically and at the present has been a serious omission.

Let's look at the invention of the internal combustion engine to illustrate this point. Here is only one example of a technology that when it first was deployed to propel vehicular devices seemed to have only positive consequences. This engine appeared upon its inception to portend few adverse environmental side effects. The benefits of vehicles to the public seemed unchallenged.

Fast forward to 2013 and observe what has occurred related to this invention. Together with combustion based electrical power generation and other combustion dependent technologies the internal combustion engine side effect mainly carbon dioxide has become a major source of the ongoing Climate Change problem that threatens mankind's sustainability worldwide in the long term. Although this internal combustion engine hazard has existed for many years very little has been invented to effectively deal with the problem. Catalytic converters were developed to control some of the harmful emitted components in vehicular exhaust but not the carbon dioxide levels. Electric vehicles have existed for years but have never been a serious competitor for internal combustion engine powered devices mainly because of the lack of a suitable battery. Although battery research has been tackled by many talented innovators there appears to be little hope of vast improvement in this technology. Ultracapacitors used instead of batteries still have serious limitations. Thus we have carbon dioxide spewing vehicles an essential part of our lifestyle but also a major contributor to the ongoing climate change problem that threatens the sustainability of a biosphere that will allow mankind to persist into the future. Such a side effect scenario was not predicted when the internal combustion engine was first introduced. Worse, when the carbon dioxide threat became clear many years ago and despite warnings from International groups of experts, most governments and indeed those from the key offending counties failed to take remediative action and still do.

What about other technologies that might be developed to propel vehicles? For example research is feet to use induction to either propel cars wirelessly from electrical fields generated by infrastructure embedded in roads or to charge electric cars wirelessly on the fly. Any radical new technology such as this has huge new infrastructure requirements which apart from being costly have inherent problems. The point remains that even if some revolutionary technology is proposed this or any other could unlikely be installed and fully operation in a timely manner, That is before the climate change problem is irreversible.

The same argument applies to other technology that may be developed now and in the future. Apart from the possible obvious usefulness of selected new technology, unperceived harmful side effects, cost and operation of associated infrastructure ant the question of its timely widespread adoption especially in developing countries can be problems that will prove insurmountable in many cases.

"Hotel California" Syndrome

In the final 2 sentences of the Eagles rendition of their immortal classic, "Hotel California" it conjectures, although you can check out of Hotel California, you can't leave!"

So much innovative technology originates from areas like California which have moderate almost ideal climates. Important forms of technology that are designed for outdoor implementation often run ideally in such climates. When used in the many more areas in the world that can experience subzero winter temperatures accompanied by snow and ice together with other associated hazards of such locations, operational characteristics are commonly compromised. Admittedly further research may improve operation under these less than ideal conditions but such is time consuming and often involves increased energy consumption. Other forms of moderate climate developed technology, for example that which requires batteries run under high current drain conditions like the song says will never leave or in any case not operating at anywhere near peak performance.

It is important to emphasize that although as correctly stated in the book "Abundance", innovative important, technology will be developing at an accelerating pace now and in the future, implementation of these potential solutions will be time consuming, often frustrating (often for other types of impediments). It must be emphasized we are currently at a time for some major problems like climate change when immediate fully functional solutions are essential. Most importantly in instances like the climate change present dilemma we must ask that if technology is indeed going to produce abundance that will solve our worst problems where is that technology right now when it is crucially needed? Does anyone even see workable solutions that will soon be available?

An Already Overpopulated World-The Major Problem

Many of the top scientists and other experts who are attempting to assure sustainability of life on this planet are working on the popular subsets of what is the real threat, Human Overpopulation. Climate Change, Food Shortages, Water Scarcity, Resource Depletion, Recycling and Waste Disposal, World Distribution and Provision of Health Services and Financial Crises are simply issues related to this overriding predicament.

In the July 29/11 special issue of the influential journal Science, devoted to population, the lead editorial written by Babatunde Ostimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, begins in a related vein. "As the World's Population reaches 7 billion this year, we should reflect on the many ways in which population dynamics matter to the planets future. Population growth patterns are linked to nearly every challenge confronting humanity, including poverty reduction, urban pollution, energy production, food and water scarcity and health".

As the world population expands at unsustainable rates those dealing with the above subsets are always working to catch up with an accelerating predicament. Scanning the scientific literature on the overpopulation threat most documents show a surprising tendency to relate this crisis to only one or two of these subsets. A typical symptom of modern scientific research is narrowness of topic and a failure to recognize a more pervasive controlling factor.

Population related features appear infrequently in the popular press. The following are typical examples- "International Conference on Family Planning in Uganda", "How do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?", "Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow" and "Contraception is an Economic Issue." Articles such as these though narrowly based when taken together demonstrate the fact that climate change, world food shortages, widespread health problems and economic inequities cannot be solved outside the context of World Overpopulation.

There have been a few important related statements from well-known sources on this issue. The following 2 are typical examples.

David Pimentel Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, has stated that "With the imbalance growing between population numbers and vital life sustaining resources, humans must actively conserve cropland, freshwater, energy, and biological resources".

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) called the Global Environment Outlook which involved 1,400 scientists and took five years to prepare. It "found that human consumption had far outstripped available resources. Each person on Earth now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the planet can supply.] It faults a failure to "respond to or recognise the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet. 'The systematic destruction of the Earth's natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged - and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay'.

Using the World Population clock provided by Princeton University on their website http/opr.princton.edu/popclock/popupclock.html the world population at the time of this notation was 6 billion, 994 million and increasing by an astounding 2.4 persons a second, a massive accelerating change from the 2.5 billion in 1950. The preeminence of the problem of overpopulation prompted Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall to state, "If we don't halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature, brutally and without pity - and will leave a ravaged world".

Many of North America's largest urban areas are blessed with a plethora of communities encompassing a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. Those who are new North Americans should be more highly aware than most of the urgent need to address important global issues. After all many still have family members suffering severely from combinations of the above dilemmas back in their countries of origin. Probably an even more relevant reason is that many have emigrated here from these problem plagued locales largely to provide their progeny with better opportunities and hence a superior future. The "Catch 21" is that this desire will not be realized in the future without worldwide action to prevent these problems from becoming an issue here. In reality it is possible to recognize as a result of the relatively elevated standard of living enjoyed by the North American majority and the now obvious environmental stresses and other consequences there-from that North America will develop or might even now be beginning to exhibit some of the symptoms of the overpopulation predicament.

More pointedly it is difficult for most to conceive that North America, a relatively large area with a population of less than 350 million, could suffer from over population when compared with our usual overpopulation benchmarks of India and China with populations in the billions. However when considered in the light of interrelationships related to disproportionate consumption of resources, consumer demand for goods and services and the wastes generated there-by, a relatively small highly developed population can exhibit the properties consistent with overpopulation. The following is a statement that supports this view.

US National Research Institute on Food and Nature (INRAN), estimate the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy at 200 million. According to this theory, in order to achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States would have to reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population would have to be reduced by two-thirds.

An appreciable portion of the population in North America was born here. Unfortunately with the probable exception of climate change, many of this group has had little need to consider the world in its most urgent contexts. Unlike most in this grouping a few have had the privilege of living and working for various periods in various jurisdictions on every Continent. In my case contrary to most of the born in Canada Canadians including those world vacationers who may also have visited these locations, I made it a point to live in typical neighborhood communities throughout the areas of my assignments whenever possible. In thus doing and partly because of the work which involved environmental chemistry, awareness developed of the good fortune that most North Americans enjoy in this world simply because of their birthright. Thus an important responsibility becomes clear and that is to publicize among our citizens the obligation to broaden and amplify our global concerns.

A compelling difficulty exists in a broad context, between New and Born in North American North Americans. That is the lack in large part of meaningful interrelationships between their members on a daily basis with the important exception of the children in our schools and in to some extent in the work place. However neighborhoods, particularly in large urban centers, frequently develop that consist largely of single ethnic groups. The benefits of diverse ethnic interaction in microcosm, is obvious for example in the multicultural nature of many research groups within our Universities. Despite the many societal and cultural background differences and the existence of individual goals each member interacts in an intimate manner to efficiently stitch together a focused and unique research strategy. Clearly because of these background differences and not despite these, the projects have a more meaningful and broader success in defining and proposing solutions applicable to the challenges being researched. Success at this level provides hope that such an approach might be applicable in the broader community, country and worldwide sense.

Many new North Americans, particularly those dynamic individuals emanating from countries in the developing world, upon establishment here, in due course find themselves enjoying a much higher standard of living. This contrast has unfortunately not been experienced by most of those of us born in North America. Distressingly only those in North America, Europe and a few other locales representing a relatively small population, presently enjoy this extraordinary standard of living. Not surprisingly due to many contemporary factors including the worldwide spread of television and increased frequency of travel, the not unexpected desires of those in developing countries to achieve life style improvements are developing at a rapid pace. This presents a difficulty, not only because we in privileged countries will be hard pressed to make substantive changes such as a more equitable sharing of resources to accommodate these desires, but because developing countries represent the largest portion of the population. Unfortunately as outlined in recent volumes of prestigious journals such as Science and Scientific American, technologies although much advanced in recent years, will be unlikely to generate, alternate energy, food supplies, medical treatment and refined natural resources at levels to meet worldwide demand in the face of widespread improved health and lifestyle expectations. These are difficulties that will be further complicated by present high rates of population growth.

So what is to be done, wait for a natural disaster to solve the overall overpopulation problem? This inevitable consequence predicted by Nobel Laureate Professor Kendall as the certain consequence of not discovering and installing an alternate solution must not be allowed to transpire.

On the world level any responsible solution most certainly rests by establishing widespread cooperation and establishing a vigorous dialog between the diverse indigenous groups that populate our globe. North American large urban communities, being microcosms of world ethnicity, should be a seedbed in which to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a widespread understanding. This implies drastic improvements in religious and political benevolence and a rapidly changing attitude in recognizing the equality and human rights of all responsible individuals. Worldwide experience personally gained in negotiating a few solutions to environmental issues suggests that the only way necessary progress can be achieved is to first dwell on similarities of purpose and on factors through which relatively easy agreement can be achieved. Breakthroughs consummated even at this level generate an atmosphere of good will which is the only umbrella beneath which meaningful dialog for progression towards the solution of big dilemmas can occur. Working in the reverse has and is presently resulting in failure.

In the book "Abundance" there is a chapter designated "The Limits to Growth". This phrase is identical to the report title of discussions of a multidisciplinary group of experts brought together and known as the "Club of Rome". This report from a meeting that took place in 1972 predicted serious consequences from the unfolding trend of unchecked economic and population growth in the face of our world possessing as it does, finite resources. The "Abundance" authors opine wisely that although 4 decades has passed with many of the more serious predictions failing to materialize, they do admit that presently there is still proof of incidents occurring related to such thinking. Also on the right track the authors refer to a recent statement from Nina Federoff the USA science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state that noted basically that a decrease of the global population is needed since our planet cannot sustain a much greater population.

From here in my view the "Abundance" authors get it all wrong. After stating that top-down population control won't work including the Chinese very basically flawed in practice (bribery, corruption etc) one child per family dictate they conclude that if population reduction policies won't work they conclude that the conception that we are then must employ the approach where the amount of resources used must be stretched might have to come into play. The Authors of Abundance point out the document of OPL-The Ten Principles of One Living Planet, WWF and partners, which organization consider the contents of this document as the only option. After having pointed out these principles the "Abundance" authors suggest that from their life's experience other possibilities exist. The following conclusion came from work related to the" X PRIZE Foundation" formed by Diamandis ,(" X Prize Foundation" is "nonprofit dedicated to bringing about radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity through the design and operation of large incentive) prize competitions" including pivotal meetings which involved world renowned inventors, brilliant technology entrepreneurs and international business giants. Diamantis suggests something akin to this. To overcome scarcity we should not rely on reducing the size of the content in the pot we need to learn how to make more such pots. On the surface this may seem pretty hard to argue with and is certainly an important approach to have in play. However it is only a very a very partial and one dimension of what is essential and apart from being a bit "Hotel California-ish" contains only inventors, technologists and business whizzes leaving out crucial political, political-economy, resource specialists, social, health, legal and international ramification input so essential to create solutions that will solve problems on a worldwide basis.

The Human Factor that Guaranties Failure to Deal with Crucial World Problems in a Timely Manner

I plan first to outline selected critical challenges and crisis that my generation including me failed to resolve. By attacking the human nature problem from my own perspective of 60+ years the pattern is provided with a history finally arriving at the situation as it currently stands and calamitously with no sign of any change in sight. The issues will include those we consciously decided not to worry about, ones which developed and were discarded from our minds as issues that would be resolved by others or because required remediation would interfere adversely with aspects of our happy existence they were purposely ignored. Herein I, a strong proponent of democracy, provide a hardnosed look at selected possible reasons why often for selfish motives the world we have developed as our legacy for our progeny is essentially dysfunctional and fraught with critical threats to the sustainability of mankind.

Its human nature to respond to disaster after it has already occurred instead of assessing situations and then acting to prevent their occurrence. The most famous calamity in modern times commonly known as 9/11 was not the first terrorist attack attempt on New York's World Trade Center and in fact this Center was a well recognized potential target of terrorists around the world. The responses to the successful attack on 9/11 have been far reaching and have for example changed the face of security for air traffic at all major world international airports. The Homeland security Department also came into being after this event. Prior to the aircraft attack on the World trade Center there had been a variety of successful airliner hijackings worldwide which resulted in some new but very less stringent security precautions at many International Airports. My deepest condolences go out to the families and friends that lost love ones or were otherwise affected by 9/11.

This same common human pattern of response as opposed to planning to prevent problems is legion in the environmental field. One of the best ongoing examples is the disaster posed by climate change already being allowed to take hold while governments dither hands tied against taking effective action by a plethora of causes the most common being the economic problems such action portends. With the complexity of life today responding in a timely fashion to such potential disasters will be our downfall in maintaining a sustainable biosphere suitable for the long term existence of mankind on the Earth.

There are many excuses for inaction on crucial world issues. Here are a select few. Some typical individuals will claim they were largely unaware of the critical state of the urgent problems I will be divulging. Many will claim freedom from blame since they were not employed in any area that related to these issues. Or there are those who would assert that there were others better positioned to act on these serious issues hence they assumed these individuals were handling the problem. None of these reasons relieves anyone in my generation of their perfidious in the major predicaments we now face. In a democracy and in a well-informed world like ours each of us has had the responsibility to become aware of the crucial predicaments and then pressure our representatives at the relevant levels of government for remediation.

A large fraction of us live our lives in a very self-centered manner and have engaged in actions and pursuits mainly to benefit our own family unit Taking Climate Change again as an example, few of us were climatologists or related scientists who had the expertise to study and propose changes to avert this disaster. Still fewer were in the decision making chain that could have enacted legislation to effect these needed changes. Yet as must be emphasized again in a democracy all of us are empowered to exert pressure for corrective action when needed; but how many do? How many of us took up the chalice in this broadly publicized mess and bothered to keep pressure for needed change constantly flowing to the crucial climate change pressure points. What if 100% of the citizens of Canada made a plea to government for remediation of the Climate Change issue do you not think much more meaningful action would be forthcoming? But most of us don't bother to communicate our concerns to authorities. This has permitted governments and the vested interests to delude most of the population into believing that actions like planting trees, cleaning up urban clutter and recycling represent an adequate show of environmental responsibility. Most politicians and I say this after years of experience locally and worldwide, despite their political leanings are like buckets which are full to the brim with promises and intentions, some deeply felt and many purely intended to garner votes. Once elected these political buckets begin to empty, and are left with only a few deeply held beliefs that relate to crucial long term problems of mankind.

An Example of a Commonly Recurring One Dimensional Thought Process That provides False Hope on Crucial Issues

Taking the book "Abundance" as an example I find it strange that in a book by such distinguished science writers from what one might suppose contemplating their background educations to be the case the authors use the erroneous phrase renewable energy. This phrase favoured among the general public and non-science professionals such as non-rigorous journalists and politicians has become a commonly used misnomer. Renewable energy implies that energy can be created when in fact this is forbidden by one of the most important fundamental laws of physics, the First Law of Thermodynamics. This law taught to every high school science class, says that energy cannot be produced or destroyed. To illustrate and taking solar energy for an example-the type preferred by the authors-the suns energy is simply converted by the solar cells at relatively low efficiency, into electrical energy plus enough other products such as low grade heat so that no energy is destroyed. Thus in alternate energy schemes like solar and wind schemes of obtaining electrical energy, energy is simply converted from one form to another and thus has not in any way been renewed.

Despite the energy misconception demonstrated by the use of the term renewable energy and the fact that these authors, unlike many experts, favour solar energy. The "Abundance" authors conclude that "with efficiencies lowering our usage and innovation increasing our supply, the combination really could produce a squanderable abundance of energy". Let's assume that the Energy chapter in the book "Abundance" to be pertinent. This implies this chapter contains and correctly discusses information on ongoing and hypothesized research for solar technologies, storage infrastructure and other essential components that the authors believe might eventually be available to potentially realize such a feat. Unfortunately having the requisite pieces to the solar energy puzzle and then fitting these together through a complex process of validation to a practical worldwide solution and actually achieve the predicted abundance of energy are two entirely separate issues. This problem is much more difficult if as is likely pieces to the puzzle are missing or poorly fitting.

In the energy chapter, as is often the case in this book the authors outline a scattered series of energy research projects that appear to have been chosen to illustrate the potential of the technology. So doing is only one dimension of the problem and the only dimension given much detailed coverage throughout the book "Abundance". To illustrate, using their solar energy conversion to electricity these authors opine that from the exponential output of energy research will emerge technology(s) that will ultimately come into play and result in their predicted abundance of energy. They also briefly mention other important steps, other dimensions (eg. storage), that have that have been proposed or actually exist at some stage in development, that might be pieced together to solve an urgent problem. Such is the approach not only in the energy chapter but in most other chapters. The research items under development are the puzzle pieces, each one dimension of this multidimensional, crucial problem. It is important to realize that some of the puzzle pieces in the chosen energy scheme may end up not reaching full satisfactory development or some of the components may not fit together and hence the favoured scheme may never reach practical fruition. Although often, as in the case of the solar energy technology and storage technology puzzle pieces, outlines of cost estimates per unit of electrical energy are given. These cost estimates are not very relevant not having much or any detail as to cost of the research, cost of procuring land, storage infrastructure, assembly of often multiple stages of prototypes, final infrastructure assembly, upkeep and legal and other fees. This just covers the development phase then there are a myriad of other costs such as storage costs, interfacing cost for input onto the grid or the production of a new more suitable grid, transmission loses and costs for lobbyists, lawyers and other costs related to dealing with governments of many different types worldwide. This illustration of crucial costing missing pieces is a typical illustration of the authors' failure to include in any detail a large number of the important dimensions of the issues relating to products they purvey will be available in abundance in the future .

Time is our major enemy in solving the worldwide energy crisis and all the other subsets of an overpopulated world. This is because we neglected all these issues for much too long. The problems in developing a practical energy solution somewhere in the shot gun scattering of research solutions outlined in the Chapter on Energy in the book 'Abundance' will result in glacial rate progress and have little chance of becoming practical large scale realities in adequate time if ever.

## Abundance will Never Happen-Unique Problems in Establishing Technology In Developing Countries

A First Glimpse at Understanding Problems of Establishing Technology in Other Countries

Some of us in developed countries have had a few brief encounters with real life many of us have had none.

Glance back on the truly impressionable episodes that constitute your existence so far on this planet and it is my guess that there are several, probably a few, that stand out quite particularly vividly in your memory. The remainder of your waking hours form a slightly varying roadbed upon which these episodes protrude. Most particularly for most individuals their life's roadbed is also relatively short, not perhaps in age but in distance ventured from a comfortable home base. For example most born-in-North America citizens have a relatively small piece of geography in which they have lived their total existence, with the possible exception of relatively short periods abroad. In fact less than 40% of Americans even have a passport. It is my contention that despite exposure to conditions in other countries through abundant media hype, only actually being physically exposed to incidents and even more so, actually living and working in another country can make a meaningful impression. More importantly this is the only way we will truly understand the multifold and frequently quite unfamiliar difficulties that present themselves as obstacles to Introducing new technology even when such technology is designed to solve critical world problems. Some of my own problematic experiences with exporting technology and establishing it abroad are given in other sections below.

Material in such books as "Abundance" seems to indicate an over simplified perception of dealing with real world problems. There appears to be no multidimensional appreciation of such issues and so the narrow discussion promote false hope that technology appearing at exponential rates will result in abundance of those commodities upon which the future of mankind depends.

Middle and upper class North Americans seem to think that our relatively consumer dominated comfortable life style can go on forever. My experience suggests that we are quite wrong in this contention based for example on our disproportionate consumption of the world's resources and consequently our major and incommensurate contribution to the world's pollution. Although thoroughly attached to the democratic political system I believe the present democratic structures are designed for life as it was in the 19th century and requires urgent change to be applicable to the problems of the present.

My research here in Canada has been dominated by evidence which is strongly in support of the above contention. Additionally it has presented me from time to time with the opportunity of living and working in a variety of jurisdictions on all the Continents except Antarctica. I found that I experienced what I call striking evidence that it was only during these "brief" intervals both here and abroad that I was experiencing examples of what the real world is truly like. Another important point to mention in making such judgements is my propensity for choosing living accommodations that were regional in nature to maximize my exposure to the habits and living styles of the locals wherever I resided abroad. In this way I hoped to better understand the problem of establishing imported technology abroad for the ground roots up.

Understanding Some Implications of Massive World Poverty that Portend Serious Logistical Problems for Creating Abundance

The majority of world citizens live in poverty or under adverse conditions of other natures such as in terror, in nations actually at war or work under conditions of constant danger such as the ill-fated garment workers in Bangladesh. This is hard point to grasp from the North American perspective. Even tourists who have visited poverty ridden countries are shepherded carefully to avoid exposure to the real conditions suffered by most of the world's disadvantaged citizens.

Poverty relating to lack of-nutritious food, healthful living quarters and associated adequate sanitation, adequate education and transport-to name a few obvious examples are only the tip of the poverty iceberg. How these vestiges of poverty destroy a poverty stricken person's body and soul is often inadequately understood. Superimpose this on the prevalence of crime and wars common in such jurisdictions and even in your worst nightmares you cannot imagine how these human beings exist. We must begin to give ourselves a constant reminder that these down trodden are our fellow citizens with whom we so unfairly share this world. But for our birthrights go we. To be fair, which of course we are not, the poverty stricken citizens of disadvantaged countries should have the same rights over the world's bounty as we do. The opportunity to utilize these resources for their betterment is largely denied. Nonsense like the future possibility of abundance as outlined in the book of this same name even if they were able to read about such claims wouldn't even compute. Cruel rich Rulers of many poverty stricken countries have no interest in abundance except for them and would fight you just to keep the existing poverty ridden status quo amongst the citizenry.

Here is a hint of poverty from India that my family and I as tourists experienced.

A large, common looking black crow on the tarmac, with an intestine like object hanging in a curve from its beak, was my first sight of exotic India as the plane rolled to a stop in New Delhi. It became a common spectacle to view vultures and other scavengers feeding on human remains in many jurisdictions we were exposed to in this country. Just as common was the open palm. For example our bags had been scattered in a rectangular fashion about the arrivals area at Delhi Airport,1974, with customs people in the center running from traveler to traveler to stamp the passports and release their luggage. I became impatient and then suspicious when I could not make contact with any of these officials to have our formalities completed. On closer observation I noted that the serviced travelers had one of their hands held down flatly on one of their bags. Below this resided a USA currency dollar bill. Once I learned this important scam our paperwork was completed forthwith. Such behavior, common throughout India, I also encountered in other developing countries that I chose to visit in the future.

Upon attempting to exit the Airport in with a crowd we squeezed out the door, like tooth paste from a tube, into an even larger throng of city residents pushing and shoving and even coming from underneath on hand mobilized trolleys to achieve our attention in the hopes of providing a service, desired or not, or just to obtain bhiksha (beg for food ) or often money. Grimy children pushed forth by parents and amputees (some, we were told, had self-inflicted the injury) were scattered among the multitude. Here and there one could see the almost submerged roof of a vehicle, presumably taxis'. Imagine the impression such a fracas had on a Toronto family, particularly the children. Only by good fortune did we find the person arranged to meet us from our travel company.

The hotel, chosen back in Toronto, had a 3 star rating and we were assured was quite acceptable. This was to be the first time that we realized that the star rating system must vary from location to location throughout the world. (In Cuba it was a 4 star Havana hotel without toilet seats). Here In this abode, I was preceded down the hall by a quickly receding rat. A fast glance down a shaft-way indicated the presence of garbage of all descriptions from food waste to solids and oozes of no particular definition. We had little choice, it being here or the street. In the case of the latter there were dozens of citizens squatting on their little territory, leaving sparse room for uninvited guests. Cooking odors dominated by fat and curry wafted from all directions and pretty much dominated the airspace. Urine but not feces odor could also be discerned. Feces were fastidiously removed by the poor of the "Untouchable Cast". For some reason we had 2 rooms, but not adjacent, Maureen and the girls in one and Jon Jr. and I in the other. It was Christmas eve and we had little expectation that there would be many Christians celebrating the season in the hotel. Unfortunately Maureen's room abutted one in which a 'gentleman' and undefined guests were partying at unprecedented drunken and vociferous levels and because of this we all jammed into mine spreading ourselves wherever a space allowed.

The food problem dominated our thoughts. This was the first and only occasion that oranges were our staple. These were plump and juicy and quite the best I had tasted anywhere before.

Talk about a contrast, a trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal was on the books for Christmas day 1974. Winter in the Delhi region of India is mild and sunny for the most part and the trip to Agra was in excellent weather. Driving, using hired drivers is in my experience "spotty", not to put too fine a point on the issue. In our case the young man had a desire to reach the destination in as little time as possible without worry for consequences outside the vehicle. In this regard he totaled a dog with only the utterance of a curse, not even bothering to slow. When not holding on for dear life we noted beautiful Bougainvillea bushes growing wild in the ditches and flocks of Ring Neck green Indian Parrots circling above. Some villages were populated by buildings constructed entirely of "thatch". I did manage to persuade our transporter to stop for fruit at a stand in a small village, at which point we were able sate both hunger and thirst with oranges. When I look back I wonder how we missed out on the wonderful, juicy, Indian Mangoes which are, because of modern transport, now available even in Toronto. Of course I probably would not have recognized a mango in 1974, even if it had hit me in the head. The Taj was partially visible from some distance off because of its size and imposing appearance. Upon arrival it was hard not to remove ones gaze from the Splendor of this monument, even more so since this architectural and construction feat was accomplished in the 1600,s. Before approaching this "Crown Palace" (meaning of Taj Mahal) it was necessary to stroll along a path through rose gardens which seemed to try unsuccessfully to rival the grandeur of our goal. This white marble, jewel encrusted, edifice was built in memory of his favorite wife by a Muslim Emperor employing 20 thousand workers and costing about 30 million Rupees. The jewel constructed inlays represent most often plants and their flowers. A black and white marble checkerboard forms the floors. In order to enter to view the magnificent domed ceiling it was necessary to remove ones shoes. Photographs were extremely poor renditions of the actual structural and decorative components. What an experience for Canadians on a Christmas Day! But strangely as I retreated to the car, I found myself trying to contemplate the position of common Indians of that era and locale going about their daily lives. Surely it was extreme poverty under the heels of a few extremely rich. In many countries this condition still exists today.

Bazaars, the equivalent of our open-air Markets but more particularly, our Flea Markets , are often immense in size and sometimes very unsanitary. They are common in any sizable Indian town or city. Here-in one can purchase foods, a variety of household essential and other bic-a-brack of all imaginable descriptions. In some instances bazaars specialize in one or only a few items bazaars, for example the Sadar Bazaar in Delhi which features ironware and other cooking utensils. And the Mina Bazaar jammed with bronze items and needle work. Each bazaar has unique smells and sounds which assail the visitor often from some distance off. We drove around Connaught Circle, the upscale shopping district of Delhi, where-in resided many of the Name Brand stores found in North American and European High End Shopping regions. Today there is the Palika underground market where counterfeit goods can be obtained. The Largest bazaar in Old Dehli is Chandni Chowk; its offerings of countless varieties of goods and wares are accompanied by the strident voices of Hawkers from every direction. This coupled by the incessant crowding was, to us, quite unnerving. During the whole time I had my hand thrust warily in my wallet pocket.

Shahjahanabad became the Capital city in 1640 AD in a move from Agra. This was the 7th Muslim City to be developed in the area. The Red Fort on the eastern side of this Capital City within Delhi, is contained within a wall 30 meters high and 2.5 km long. The red color of Fort and Wall derives from its construction from red sandstone. Today Delhi is a large metropolis filled with people and loud wailing and accosting voice sounds, together with the cacophony of and vehicles permeate the senses. Side streets are often wall to wall with pedestrians making vehicular traffic difficult and hazardous. Perhaps our most interesting excursion in India was a 4 hour car adventure to and stay at My brother's mother and father-in-laws home in NE Upper Pradesh (UP) province. I had hoped after our terrifying ride to Agra the Agency might have sent a different driver, but this was not to transpire. Once outside the city, following written instructions, which he read over extended intervals in complete disregard of the road, we bounced and rebounded from side to side within the car streaking our way to the destination. I have long ago forgotten the name of the town that we visited, but I can still pretend to be in the main room of the cozy home that was our goal. Of particular note three walls were covered floor to ceiling along their full width with hundreds of paper backed books, which had been so thoroughly used, that the backs were badly scratched and some were even peeling up and/or down, away from the gluey bindings. The room was tidily but furnished. The final touch was a mouse whose frequent side to side dashes went seemingly unnoticed by the occupants but certainly not by us. We were fed in grand fashion (the meal was probably a week's wages), by this kindly Christian family. Dinner entertainment was surprisingly provided by a wild peacock which jumped, in full view, onto the veranda while thoughtfully fanning his tail for our astonished visual consumption. The after dinner events were nothing so wonderful, being highlighted by me holding young son Jon over one of the 2 holes in the outhouse facilities behind the house as he chokingly relinquished his meal.

In the 1970's there was no inexpensive bottled water to drink in countries like India, as there is today. Thus A great thirst had accumulated during the days of our stay. Upon boarding the PAN AM flight that we were taking and which had originated in New York I made an urgent dash to the water cooler, drinking about 8 of those little conical cups full of water. The Stewardess was just passing by and I commented to her on how tasty and satisfying it was to have fill up on good old USA water. My stomach took a sudden lurched when she replied that the water in that tank had been obtained at an airport tap in Delhi.

In the very few days we spent in India we had undertaken a full daily schedules but had only brushed a few of the sites, sensations and sorrows that comprises this fascinating and important country. Our exposure to typical impecunious living conditions of many Indian citizens was just a glancing blow.

We could not afford like most tourists to stay in American style hotels in India nor would we have even if we could. What we saw was a vestige of a different type of overpopulation, that in a developing country, quite startlingly different from overpopulated North America. My Indian colleagues though impressed by a few thriving modern impressive medical and technological centers here and there now in India say that on the whole conditions today are worse for the average person living in India than in 1970.

Everyday Experiences Typical of those Encountered in Working Abroad-A China Example

She approached the nearby Chang'an Ave rubbish bin at a trot. Groveling through the waste there-in, this motherly looking woman garbed in what appeared to be clean, untattered and appropriate for the season clothing, retrieved a grease covered paper box. Deftly out of her coat pocket flashed a pair of chopsticks. Quickly she sat down at the other end of my curb-side bench and in rapid fire fashion began consuming the remaining contents, which I could see was some type of noodle dish. This mysterious scene never repeated in my presence again was certainly an unusual event in the cities that I knew in China. Begging of any type was not evident on China's streets. No matter how menial, everyone appeared to have employment and hence the where-with-all to purchase some food. The same seemed to be true of habitation.

Large red tassels hanging in a row across the front of buildings defined them as restaurants. The absence of western type, often garish signage was the rule in the early 1980's. Many of my meals were taken in restaurants with medium priced fare. One of my colleagues in Changchun was very knowledgeable of the cities restaurants . At an early stage of my tenure here, he announced that he would take me to the best dining facility in the city. Realizing that my means were limited and envisioning this destination to be to be upscale both in decor and pricing, I was hesitant. Surprisingly we traveled into the back neighbourhoods of Changchun. There appeared to be little commerce in the area when unexpectedly a red tasseled building appeared. Upon entry I was presented with a most unlikely scene. First of all the walls were marred floor to ceiling by dried food stains. Today's menu could be gauged closely by the food fragments littering the floor. The cacophony approximated that of a Toronto Subway car at rush hour. Needless to say the place was jammed. Tables that had no coverings were as stained as the walls and worse there appeared to be no space. My friend searched here and there and found 2 chairs which he left in my tutelage with the command to retain these at no matter the circumstances. There were no servers or Maître-Dee. To place an order it was necessary to locate the 'manager', dictate from memory the desired dishes, barter the price, pay and then wait at the kitchen doorway to pick up your tray. Meanwhile my grip on the chairs was being tested by new entrants to the establishment. Having now reappeared with the meal my colleague motioned to me to carry our chairs to a minute location he had physically generated at an already crowded table. By the time we sat down my level of tension had built to about the 2 Valium level. I had already dismissed the comment that this restaurant had the best food in the city. Imagine my delight and relief when after a few bites I indeed had to agree that the food met his lofty promise. Despite this excellent culinary experience, I spent the next few days waiting for Montezuma's revenge, which remarkable never attacked.

Ptomaine Lanes were features that best describe outdoors food vendors common along streets in neighbourhoods not on but just back from the main thoroughfares. Here carts or small stalls were lined up side by side offering everything from salads and cold meat dishes to barbequed snacks served on spits. No provision was made for refrigeration, nor was the meat cooked with any degree of thoroughness. The creamy salads in particular could have been days old as estimated from their often somewhat off coloured appearance. Unlike western practice there was no evidence of licensing.

Cooking within my accommodations was often possible but in one typical example consisted of a rusty gas ring attached to the gas source by a flimsy rubber hose and a leaky pot. As in this case most facilities provided for cooking in other of my Indian residences were meager and dangerous. Foods offered for sale for home purpose had to be obtained daily. Very little protection for foods on the roadside stands from the environment and little or no refrigeration were evident.

Two specialty dishes of many that I particularly wish to mention were snake and fried ice cream, both of which I sampled. In the case of snake there was a restaurant in Canton that served this as the only meat dish. Here the customer could pick this reptile of his choice from a writhing mass that showcased the street-facing window.

As an addendum to eating in local restaurants and the dining rooms in Chinese style hotels I was given the advice by numerous friends; "whatever you do refrain from asking what meats were being used in concoction style dishes". Apparently it was not uncommon to serve cat, dog and horse meats. This list contains only the more common of the offbeat (to a Westerner) meat ingredients. The mind can only boggle at other possibilities.

Can you imagine bringing Developed Country devised technology for abundance into these situations, having this technology understood, approved, then construct the infrastructure and then have the process operated by typical poorly educated persons brought up in these disadvantaged situations?

Fitting North American Devised Technology into Extreme Climates Causes Environmental Destruction-Farming Example

Located as it is only about 3 degrees south of the Equator my family upon arrival would be able to experience an equatorial type climate and ecosystem. Manaus is also north central as far as its positioning within Brazil is concerned. Being at the confluence of the Rio Negro, a clear dark river flowing to the south east and the main tributary of the muddy Amazonas, to form the core Amazonian River, strange water patterns are formed. The mixing of these contributing sources is not complete near Manaus so large dirty patches of unassimilated Rio Negro flow on well down the major river.

Hotel accommodation at the time of our visit consisted of an expensive resort or something of much lower grade in the city itself. Our finances dictated the latter; in fact the hotel we booked was only partially finished. Rooms facing the river were available. Behind these was a wide hallway bordered on the side opposite by hording. We booked on the 6th floor, allowing an excellent view of the river and surrounding area. The patchy river and port area were clearly visible. The river was very wide and the opposite shore though visible was not detailed. Ocean going ships could ply the waterway as far as Manaus. A few of these, fishing boats and a few tour boats filled the harbor. From our room it was usually possible to see a patch of rain somewhere in the local area and down pours were common. Of course the humidity was always extreme.

Historically the city was built mainly on the rubber boom which ensued with the process of vulcanization and the rubber tire for the automobile in the 1890's to 1920, after which time synthetic rubber killed this trade. However during the rubber period fortunes were made and the city grew both in size and culture. A world class opera house was constructed which attracted many of the world's greatest stars in many fields. This edifice has been well preserved and is a major tourist attraction, which we as well enjoyed. After the riches, came an era of poverty, which had not entirely disappeared at the time of our visit. We greeted a time when the tourist trade had begun in earnest and the city was a "free port" allowing purchases to be made tax free. Brazil being a nation with a surfeit of semi-precious stones meant that bargains in this area abounded.

Of greatest interest to us was a tour of the Rain Forest which because of high water could be arranged by boat. Stories of Piranhas, hundreds of bird species' monkeys Caimans and Anacondas thick through as a man's leg filled our heads. What we mainly saw was many species of trees and only heard the screeches of monkeys. From time to time a few very colorful birds swept down from the dense, canopies which towered above. Suddenly upon rounding a curve between trees the worst happened. There before us popped out a typical North American tourist scene. A dock above which hung colorful bunting blared over the previous natural scenery. At the end of the pier stood a muscular looking chap ensnarled loosely in a constrictor type snake. Upon closer view I realized that the snake was a nonnative species (boa constrictor) probably overfed for the occasion thus available, as he desired, to sling over any willing visitors. Behind him lay numerous tables strewn with enticing (for some) trinkets and manned by some indigenous people in their typical costumes. This, of course, was the mandatory stop at which the tourists were milked and the tour operators prospered.

The Amazonian Rain Forest is disappearing at an alarming rate. Peoples in the richer countries must bear abundant blame in this regard for a number of reasons. The hardwoods of these areas as in other tropical rain forested areas in the world are in much demand for furniture. The mining industry has found mineral wealth worth exploiting and this is done with little regard for environmental damage in the local area. Probably the most destructive of all is the deforestation for agricultural purposes. Soils in Amazonia are very rich BUT terribly thin. The lack of depth results from the extremely fast decomposition of forest litter and the recombination of nutrients thus released, at a very rapid pace back into living species. Agricultural crops as a rule denude the nutrients into edible material and hence these do not return back to the soil. Rapidly the soils become useless for agriculture and the area is abandoned in favor of a freshly cut section of the rain forest. Human Induced Climate Change is a very serious receptor of the consequences of deforestation. Unless countries, most prominently those comprising G-8, pay compensation to prevent rain forest destruction who can blame the Brazilians for using these approaches as a source of income in an effort to tilt the wealth balance.

There is a bit of irony associated with agriculture in Amazonia. A farmer acquaintance of mine told me the following story. Growing Soya beans was becoming a big trend in Canadian agriculture to satisfy the expanding oil and organic food market. But now the Brazilians are growing this crop in such quantity and at less cost that Canada is being priced out of one of our most important agricultural initiatives. To illustrate the Brazilian scale of farming a crop he said he watched a harvester run on a line of the crop, straight for 4 miles, before having to turn back and harvest another row!

North American Farming technology as practiced in Amazonia is a typical case of the technology not fitting the conditions. Forested land cleared for agriculture leaves fields with only a few inches of top soil. Tropical forests grow in a manner in which the organic decomposition of naturally falling trees and other debris is not accumulated as in temperate forests but quickly becomes nutrients fed upon by fast growing new vegetation. This means tropical topsoils are thin.

Farmers using North American modern agricultural technology and growing techniques quickly deplete the land of nutrients and organic matter so that after a few harvests the land becomes useless for the intended crops and is left abandoned. To replace this 'useless' land new valuable irreplaceable forest is cleared.

Historical Background-Typical White Race Destruction of Old Established Cultures in the Name of Greed and Expansionism-Hatred thus Spawned Harms Western Technologies Acceptance

One can easily describe a myriad of examples to illustrate the historical background. These include the Spanish invasion of the Aztecs and the destruction of the latter culture and most of the citizens in a quest for gold and beginning with Columbus's 'discovery' of the West Indies and North America this later territory was invaded and conquered as new land from the indigenous races over a long history of spreading disease and wars. British Colonialism of the 19th and early 20th centuries is perhaps the worst case scenario in causing destruction of cherished cultures and religions worldwide.

Perhaps the famous cleric Desmond Tutu said it best: "When the white missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land".

The following more detailed story is a look through a small window pertaining to the struggles of the indigenous Africans reacquisition of Desmond Tutu's lands. This demonstrates White race barbarism and since its final chapters occurred in the late 20th and 21 centuries will resonate with many still alive today.

I as an Invited Speaker along with my wife was attending an International conference of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in the year of the intense Soweto riots of 1976. Here are a few of our experiences together with some of the related history of foreign occupation of South Africa.

The Johannesburg Metropolitan area including Soweto and other Black Townships in the 1970's, this period of extreme unrest had a population exceeding 8.5 million. The city itself was about 3.2 million. This gives a stark representation of the inequity of Black vs. White population. Additionally throughout South Africa habitation inequities were represented by an average floor area of 33 square meters for each White compared to 4 for each Black person. Both of the above statistics have been approximated from 2001 figures in the New Internationalist, The new South Africa – The Facts. Johannesburg itself has an area of about 1,700 square kilometres or about 2,000 persons per square kilometre. The city and Black suburbs owe their existence to the discovery of gold and other precious metals, in the 1800's, in a unique "Reef" structure. The local was like a prospecting town near Pretoria and initially depended on this city for permissions to build and was governed there from.

A few typical personal experiences in my exposure to a vestige of Apartheid follow.

My Bladder was bursting and by myself on a main street in Johannesburg, where was I to turn? No problem, I was within sight of a public toilet enclosure on the boulevard (long gone in the USA and Canada). Not surprisingly this being 1976 there were 2 doors one marked Coloreds and the other Whites Only. As stated being much opposed to Apartheid. I first thought to use the Coloreds side. On reflection I thought this might offend the Coloreds in some way. So marching into the Whites Only enclosure, imagine my astonishment to bump face to face with a Black. Immediately this gentleman said. "Very sorry boss, please don't tell anyone!" Of course this was the furthest thought in my mind. Having finished my business I found the nearest bench and began to reflect on the wisdom of my presence in this country at this time in history.

On Saturday afternoons in Johannesburg a form of entertainment was available called "The Mine Dances". This name was poorly chosen and the event was no doubt exploitive. Yet our group, including me, attended. The music and dance was provided entirely by different black tribes and the beat, pace, and dance steps were unique to each dance (tribal) group. Somehow the agenda was arranged such that the cadence and volume of sound increased throughout the program until at the ending the ground seemed to be literally quaking.

The ramifications of a censored communications Industry is of interest. During Apartheid heavy censorship characterized the industry. This greatly affected Maureen and I in that we were kept totally ignorant of the riots going on in Soweto during our tenure. It was only when we reached our next destination, Kenya that this state of affairs came to our attention. Apparently our families in North America were well aware of the happenings and were frantic for news of our safety. On air communications were sketchy until the arrival of TV in South Africa in 1976 after our departure the same year, but of course this medium was subjected to the same intense restrictions. Communications were also divided along White Afrikaans and English speaking communities. During Apartheid illegal Black underground radio broadcasting existed.

(As an aside I must insert the point that I as I speak of these personal experiences I must admit to culpability in supporting the regime by merely accepting this opportunity although offered by an International Scientific Organization, to be in South Africa at that time.)

A tour to the World Famous Kruger National park had been arranged for conference attendees. The guest living structures in a Kruger Rest Camp were rondovals which are circular in shape. Posted inside the doors were posted notices which stated; In case of an insurrection lie down in a safe place". This seemed rather ironic to me that Park Officials postulated there could be any safe place in an insurrection. The danger of "insurrection" came from the intrusion on the eastern park boarder of armed bands from neighboring Mozambique, a country often in a state of turmoil and a main training area for South African freedom fighters.

The return trip to Johannesburg had one unusual event. Most of the group was tired and snoozing off and on. The journey up the Drakensburgs was again notable for arid succulent filled road sides. The enormous flowers seemed even more spectacular on the way back. Back on the High Veldt, after we had traveled for I hour or so I noted a large expanse of smoke dense beginning to rise on the horizon in the direction of Johannesburg.. It was something you might expect back home from a forest fire or a large area of burning tires. Upon approaching closer the smoke sources individualized into a massive collections of plumes. Upon some pointed questions I learned that this district was the Black Township of Soweto (short for South Western Townships). This rapidly growing municipality, slightly south and west of Johannesburg, itself consists of about 60 (30 or so others exist in the area but outside this grouping) individual townships (estimate 2006) some strictly representing different ethnic groupings. Soweto was the name adopted in 1963 for this grouping. Klipspruit was the first Township established in 1904 near a SW municipal sewage farm by the British by moving the Blacks and Indians from the Johannesburg Municipal boundary during a "plague" outbreak. Following the discovery of gold on "The Reef" in 1886 Blacks flooded into the area that became "White" Johannesburg to work in the mines. The mine waste dumps occur throughout the Soweto area and contaminate the ground and surface water with acid runoff.

In 1948 the Afrikaner controlled Parliament started implementing Apartheid principles in earnest and the near total expulsions of Blacks from "White designated" areas in South Africa began in earnest causing Black Townships to grow astronomically, none more so than Soweto

The townships near Johannesburg are growing yearly as landless rural blacks flock into the area. The population of Soweto as a whole is approaching 1 million. To illustrate the deprivation in services only one hospital, built in World War 2, but now admittedly the Worlds largest, services this population. The large township of Orlando within Soweto, formed in 1934 is well-known for the spot in which police first opened fire on the 10,000 or so strong group of students during our 1976 visit to South Africa. This, of course, was the event which drew strong world attention and the subsequent rash of sanctions against White South Africa. Thus in the Black struggles to freedom Soweto bears a landmark scar.

An Important comment about my ignorance and lack of sensitivity to the 1976 riots in Soweto abounded, even as I began this memoir is essential here. Compelling research that I undertook both in printed and movie venues has left me shocked that I undertook my projects in this country, especially the second one in the late 80's. The excuse I used that my focus was intensely on my science and that had little to do with politics, no longer holds water.

Recently I watched a movie made before the end of Apartheid called, "A Dry White Country". In this excellent portrayal of the 1976 riots that Maureen and I unknowingly were living through children as young as 11 years old were being held and tortured in jails under appalling conditions for up to 850 days without charges being laid. Statements were made such as "Justice and Law are distant cousins" in the cases of blacks and that a black man willingly "added his body to the growing pile because they (Whites) won't be able to play the game forever)! The scenes of torture graphically displayed and the condition of the mangled dead bodies extended beyond atrocious.

Even within Soweto there is a discrepancy in living standard but its economics were restricted by Apartheid principles. In the early 90's there was about a 6 times better wage earned by persons living in Johannesburg than in the surrounding Townships. Electrical supplies are erratic within Soweto, with most of the poorer population unable to afford this service. The year of our visit, 1976, found only 20% of Soweto homes with electricity, the large hospital, 2 movie theaters, 2 hotels. The poverty and the absence of electricity in most homes meant cooking was done over fire (hence the smoke in the sky I saw from the highway). Soweto's Blacks were permitted to operate small shops but the Township was developed mainly as a "bedroom community". Homes of brick exist in Soweto but large areas of not meant to be permanent makeshift housing still occur. Education, though improving after Apartheid is still sub standard. Health Care is abysmal and the generally poorer state of health due not only to lack of access to modern facilities but food shortage and disease, particularly HIV/AIDS. In the case of the latter the area has one of the highest incidences anywhere in the world!

The Portuguese were the first foreign race that took an initial claim to this part (ZAR) of Africa and there was a danger that they would try to link the territories of Portuguese East Africa and Angola through here. Declaration of the Union of the Union of South Africa in 1910 helped organize this mining area solidly into the sway of South Africa. Johannesburg and its Townships owe their existence to the Mining Industry that formed along the Precious rich Witwatersrand (Rand) reef. This was at the time of discovery a uniquely rich deposit of Gold, Platinum, Palladium and other rarer Precious Metals, from which these valuable metals could be relatively easily recovered. Almost 50% of the world's gold reserves are found in South Africa and although declining the annual production is still greater than 10% of the world total. Apartheid was established so that the white races could not only pillage the resources but use the black races and coloured's ruthlessly and without proper reimbursement, as a form of near slave labour.

During Apartheid the conditions in the mines were abysmal at best and I was not allowed to descend to see a mine in operation. Additionally Black miners, who often traveled long distances in order to come and provide monetary support for their families back home were paid a pittance, their main 'perk' being 'free lodging' in overcrowded bunkhouses and the small amount of money to send home. The treatment of miners by foremen was often brutal. Typically miners were allowed 2 weeks annual leave to be back with their loved ones. Fatal accidents were frequent and mine Safety is still (2007) very much an issue.

As might be expected mining profits were immense and much of this money left the country. However a prosperous and healthy White community built a flourishing city (White Johannesburg) with all the usual European amenities. The Downtown has tall buildings housing the mining and support businesses. Banking, Africa's largest Stock Exchange, cultural and commercial development also exists. Crime during Apartheid, within the city was minimal consisting mostly of thievery. With the abolishment of Apartheid poor Blacks from the Townships flooded in and Downtown Johannesburg became one of the most crime ridden areas in the world. Large companies and the Stock Exchange moved to the more peaceful suburbs such as Sandton. Drastic steps are now being invoked to reduce crime with the aid of ex New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. A dry moderate climate blesses the city because of its 1.8 km elevation. Being in the Southern Hemisphere the hottest and coldest months are January and June respectively. Short afternoon rainfalls characterize the summer weather. Trees are very abundant, particularly in the cities north.

How incongruous this tableau seems to any possible interest in North American inventions and attempts to establish environmentally related technologies here-in. Countries in such a state of disarray are not uncommon in the developing world. Achieving any interest in the premises of books like "Abundance" would be hopeless. The authors of this book seem hopefully to be speaking of abundance on a worldwide basis thus the many worldwide areas in disarray could cause delays that would prevent timely acceptance of essential technologies.

Worldwide Encounters-My Beginnings

My main Academic Appointment was as a Full Professor at the University of Toronto, a full time commitment. From time to time not counting sabbaticals I applied to my Dean for permission to undertake consultancies abroad, particularly in Developing Countries. These were generally approved with the understanding that I would still fulfill me teaching and research commitments in Toronto. These visits, encounters and consultancies were the bulk of what I termed my "Brief Encounters with Life" (free eBook, Jon van Loon available at Smashwords.com). It was really only at such times that I experience life as it is in the majority of the World. An outline follows briefly describing a typical consultancy from which most the stories in the rest of this book derive.

The University at which I taught was the State University of Campinas (Sao Paulo State) called Unicamp founded in 1966. The section I belonged to and in which I taught and helped setup research was funded by UNESCO the Educational Division of the United Nations. Here the faculty was about 30% foreign, mainly US. The Campus consisted of a string of low rise buildings built in a wood on the out skirts of the city. This gave a pleasant ambience for learning.

In all personal contact severe criticism during such a consultancy is a no, no. Praise in as liberal quantities as can be justified is important. Indicating the correct avenues of approach for course content and research in kindly but not condescending terms is appreciated. In working in developing nations it is crucial to recognize political and financial differences and constraints. Maximizing what can be done within the existing situation is critical.

It took very little time to recognize that approaches that I commonly used effectively at The University of Toronto would not work here. Then there were political differences between Canada and Brazil that added a whole other set of complications.

Corruption Real World Typical Problem

Sometimes it may be necessary to circumvent or even sometimes if minor give in to obvious problems like bribes, baksheesh, skimming etc. In this regard I ran into the following road block.

I possessed in my own laboratory a very functional but dated piece of equipment which was no longer of use to my work. I recognized its value to modernizing and expediting work here. It seemed that the equipment should be shipped here to Unicamp and I was quite anxious to do this even at my own expense. The request was made to approve the paper work. Somewhere up the line and outside the University (which was pleased with the idea), a snag developed. Someone wanted the equivalent in cash and then would purchase some equipment in Brazil. Firstly I knew such quality equipment did not exist in Brazil and secondly I had been informed that such a sum would be much diminished before, or if it ever came to the proper place. As I was wrestling with the situation an unexpected solution appeared. I complained bitterly in the presence of a variety of movers and shakers. One asked me where the equipment currently stood; I explained that it resided on such and such bench in my lab. He then said, "when do you wish it to arrive" and I replied "the sooner the better". Next week there it stood in the Unicamp lab. It was in full working order which was amazing since it contained delicately adjusted optical components. During the remainder of my stay I was careful to remain within the existing boundaries. Although an effective solution like this works in isolated situations, they are morally never satisfying

Communication Real World Typical Problem

Lecturing would appear to present a problem since I spoke no Portuguese. In the first instance many student scientists knew English. In fact scientists wishing to succeed in more than just a local venue must be capable in English. If he/she wishes to make a mark with his work worldwide fluency in English is essential. All journals of import and conferences at high levels are in English. To expedite my work an interpreter was provided mostly for my benefit. This also allowed all students to learn the material without problems they might encounter in my tone of voice and phraseology. Additionally he could provide Portuguese references for my material. Lectures were usually 3 hours long so I could cover a terms worth of work in my allotted time. Exams and assignments were mandatory since these were credit courses. Such were set in Portuguese to minimize misunderstanding. Answers were written in Portuguese for the same reason. I managed to learn a smattering of scientific Portuguese so with assistance I could mark what was received.

There are already technological solutions for automated translations and these will become more comprehensive. Here is a case I can side with a truly technological solution and agree with the power technology alone solving this important problem.

Concern for Safety Real World Typical Problem

The typical consultants stayed in Western style accommodation, most opting for American chain hotels where available. This was not a problem since most agencies that hired consultants paid ample salaries for such living and usually in American dollars. The advantage of the later was that inflation was commonly high in third world countries meaning that a premium was paid on American money exchange both due to inflation as well as the propensity for American money among the local citizens. So the usual consultant staying in American chain hotels got American meals cooked from contaminant free produce of well defined origin eg. Beef was actually beef and not just named thus while actually originating from some other animal. These consultants were then transported to the consultancy destination by designated vehicle. A consultant using his standard system had minimum safety concerns but experienced a minimum of the local dynamics.

Then there were those like me who felt a consultancy in a foreign country entailed not only providing our best efforts as consultants but was also an opportunity to experience the life of that jurisdiction. First this meant choosing local type accommodations and in many countries this was the first safety hazard. Usually this began with the building itself. Fire and other regulations were often lax compared to those in America. For example a hotel in an African venue had a wide central stair case from the lobby to the roof. Should a fire start in such a building the central area would act like a chimney and provide a corridor of upward rushing air to help fan the flames. There were no doormen to appraise the entrants and locks on the room doors could easily be released by a credit card. Well you must be getting the picture.

Safety once you left the hotel unescorted as I did frequently depended on the country and the location within that domain. Your chances of a physical mishap also depended on how much you were willing to risk walking around the different neighbourhoods on your own following the advice of the locals. Two or three incidents occurred where I was threatened but managed to escape due to my athletic background. In one of these I was attempting to have just a quick peak in a South American Slum, not the brightest idea I think you will agree. As a general rule I found pickpockets a particular nuisance in many locales and thus I took particular care not to be carrying important documents or much money. Shoeshine boys and other ad hoc service providers were often a danger. Police on the other hand varied in their veracity and usefulness from country to country and often locally variable within a country.

Ecological Reality-Political Protection of Violators

A few final comments about my educational expedition to Brazil are essential. In Brazil resides a biosphere of great diversity and like plants such as the native impatiens has been encroached upon or irreparably damaged, as have sections of the rain forest. What remains must be preserved for future Brazilian generations and to prevent further, human induced, world climate change. We still have in Brazil a country being raped by the few and exceedingly rich, land and commerce barons living in a deliberate manner that excludes betterment of the massive deprived population. This is, of course, being done under the full knowledge and protection of the Political Leaders and their minions. Those like myself, an environmentalist, importing special scientific know-how by working at the Universities such as the UNESCO sponsored UNICAMP in Campinas can only trust that the client/scientists (usually the small but developing middle class) will make the beneficiary of this material, part of the solution to the countries unimaginable environmental problems. I was extremely pleased to find that I was dealing, for the most part with academics of high energy, ambition and moral standards. For me life and travel in Brazil were for the most part idyllic. It was evident, however, that a deliberate and concerted effort had been made to exclude and hide sections of widespread poverty and ecological damage, as I found to be common in much of the developing world. Thus in retrospect my deep concern is, what help did I provide to those of the population that were most in need, those majority living in poverty?

Problems Establishing Technology-China Example

Grimy, polluted and crowded, Changchun a city of more than 1 million in The Manchurian part of China bore all the wounds of heavy industrialized cities everywhere. It was the magnitude of the mess that made this city more typical of such localities in the developing World. Dried up waterways flowing only during rain and runoff and filled with garbage together with industrial stacks spewing multicolored emissions were the rule. No obvious attempts, even minor, had been made at pollution control in any segments of the biosphere. Dominated here and there by remnants of the Russian occupation periods Stalinist, heavy blocky looking grey buildings created an additional eyesore. Strangely however, locations of beauty were thrown up here and there against this dismal back drop. Such was The Peoples Square, 2 or 3 hectares of trees flowers, grass and flagstone squares wedged between a large car factory and a military heavy industry site. This gathering place for thousands of citizens became the back drop, especially on weekends and holidays for such diverse activities as Ti Chi and Communist propaganda sessions. Sandstorms from the Gobi Desert a few 1000 Km to the north were the source of unimaginable intensely coloured sunsets that from time to time bathed Changchun in another welcome blanket of beauty.

Northeast Normal University was my teaching and research responsibility in this city. "Normal" Universities are the source of most teachers in China. I made it my goal to slant work in both areas towards Environmental Chemistry. In this way I could hopefully create programs that would produce graduate teachers armed both with the will and the tools to begin the auspicious task of engendering an environmental consciousness backed by the ability to begin rectification of China's massive problems. Industrial and Governmental participation in this process is of course essential. The most useful approach in this regard is to involve key personnel in these bodies in design and implementation of research and teaching programs at the University.

Interweaving university, governmental and industrial interests in almost any endeavor even in developed jurisdictions provides a complicated challenge as I had learned many times in Canada. Attempting this in a country like China was akin to madness. This Government had become entrenched in the habit of establishing and administering programs and the ground rules required without consultation or interactions with the Principals. Commonly individuals sympathetic to and cooperative with the Government were appointed to the decision making roles within industry and university and thus provided no independent leadership roles therein. Fortunately due to internal environmental disasters and outside pressure at highest levels, the Government had become anxious to explore changes to industrial and municipal environmental practices. To promote a venue for change my approach was to establish Working Groups of Academics of widely ranging disciplines together with Government representation to investigate problems establish priorities and then plan programs for rectification. Sounds wonderful in theory and does work eventually, but initially just achieving some understanding among individuals in such a diverse group is a major education job in itself. Perhaps even more frustrating was Government arbitrary decision making.

Upon establishing an "Agreement" (always couched in generalities and often unwritten), it was common to celebrate with a banquet. The principals involved would gather in a private hall within a good restaurant and partake of a multicourse feast laid out in profusion on an immense Lazy Susan. This was always finished off with a soup course which being the reverse to North American dining procedure was a challenge to pretend to enjoy. The fish eyes being saved for the guest rule, of course pertained and these delicacies so difficultly consumed seemed to roll around in my stomach for days. Thus when I received a severe rebuff for presently initiating the establishment of the details of the "Agreement", it became obvious that the Government officials were more interested in celebrations than living up to their word. This misfortune of having Governments backing out on time consuming and intensively negotiated precepts was common in countries existing on the extremes of the right and left wings politically. Any person in my position had to accept such behavior with understanding or extricate himself from such endeavours post haste.

I reproduce a few sentences from a letter I received after establishing a program of research in China. The letter sounds very super and is very complementary of me for establishing a program of some importance. It is from the Chair of a World Bank International Advisory panel. Take care with the praise because there is an ironic twist.

"Up to this point in the Project, my International Panel has sent some 150 specialists to China. I have no hesitation that in terms of its long term impact your visit is likely to turn out to have been the most successful of the Specialist Program".

This turned out to be a typical disappointment as my program collapsed after several years. Why? It is a big problem to establish lasting programs no matter how useful they may seem when they have to be designed to work to fit into foreign systems. There is no evidence that the authors of "Abundance" recognize this type of difficulty or have any proposals to offer.

Jobs in China

Commendably as stated earlier all citizens requiring employment appeared to have a job. Many of these were menial and unfulfilling as judged by western standards. During the night and early morning gangs of street sweepers polished the streets with handmade twig brooms. Moving ever so slowly from end to end these custodians of the byways worked at an amazingly steady pace. Crews engaging in this profession consisted of both male and female members, with the latter being by far in largest proportion.

Gardening in most instances was totally non-mechanized. Scythes were used for cutting grass In the rough as in ditches and on most lawns. All weeding was done by hand and in the cities there was little evidence of use of herbicides or insecticides. Hand weeding of lawns was often performed by large groups of students. This was one aspect of required public service performed by students attending university.

One strange source of fertilizer comes through an open flap in baby clothing. This requires an explanation. Shortages of what in Canada would be rated as absolutely essential items are common in Communist countries. For example a 4 star Hotel in Havana Cuba in which we reposed for several nights had brand new toilets in the guest rooms but these devices lacked toilet seats, requiring the guest to hang in suspension above the porcelain opening during their use. An illustration of a similar type in China was the absence of an inexpensive supply of diapers. Thus baby clothing was equipped with an open flap over the bum area. In this arrangement when the baby relieved itself the excreta both liquid and solid was dispensed directly onto the ground. In a strange twisting of an even, not to put too fine a point on the issue one might say that babies engaged in the labor of fertilization of the biosphere.

Of particular amazement to me was the use of bamboo scaffolding in the construction of buildings. The use of this approach was not restricted as one might think, strictly for low rise structures. In Canton on the street that fronted the University in which I taught a 50 story office tower was being erected nearby. At the point of my arrival in Canton the building had reached about 35 floors in height. The actual building was almost invisible inside its dense cocoon of bamboo scaffolding. Upon close inspection no metal of any kind had been used in this superstructure. Worse in my estimation was the observation that all fastening of the bamboo members consisted of a material that to me looked like leather strapping. As a point of interest I asked one of my University colleagues; " in a strong wind or worse an earthquake would the bamboo superstructure not be in danger of collapse?" To which he quickly replied; "no but the building might."

As was most often the case in Developing Countries safety for workers was noticeably absent or at least very transient. For example vehicles had no seat belts. One strange 3 wheeled taxis was constructed with the gasoline tank residing directly beneath the passenger in the front seat. Rules of the road if such existed were seldom enforced even by police at busy intersections. Habitations seemed to be lacking fire regulations and precautions. Never did I encounter a fire alarm, hose or fire extinguisher.

Although in the 1980's when I lived and worked in China almost every citizen had employment. Most of these jobs were manual in nature, requiring minimal education. Education levels amongst the general public are improving but manual labour still provides the majority of opportunity.

Adjusting to New Work Styles-A Personal Example

Hard at work in my office frequent unfamiliar annoying, piercing, beeping episodes below my third floor window were ruining my already tenuous concentration. Not yet mandated in Canada (1981) trucks in Japan were equipped with devices that automatically emitted this warning beeping sequence as soon as the gear lever was engaged in reverse. My office it turned out was directly above a busy loading dock.

Ranked amongst the finest universities in the world, my tenure in the Department of Chemistry as a Visiting Professor was an exciting prospect. Without doubt my intention had been to spend the majority of time in the laboratory. Unlike in Toronto I had no Administrative responsibility, Research Grant proposal preparation/report drudgery and no manuscripts to prepare which in that jurisdiction seemed to consume the vast majority of my working hours. The forced concentration on these duties cast made me wonder whether the obvious success in our research might have little to do with me personally, but was perhaps resulting almost entirely from my skilled and ambitious Graduate Students, Post Doctoral fellows and Guest Scientists. Here I supposed was my opportunity to reassess my laboratory and research skills.

Boldly I entered the laboratory of the famous Professor Fuswa (not his real name). A quick appraisal of this facility confirmed that all the lab ware, chemicals and instrumentation essential for my research was indeed available and in pristine condition. In my work the preparation of chemical solutions was the initial task. I bent eagerly to this task, collecting the needed glassware, weighing assorted chemicals and carefully diluting the dissolved chemicals to prepare the Standard Solutions on which all my ensuing results would depend for their accuracy. Slowly it came to my mind that something was amiss. No one else from Professor Fuswa's mammoth Research Group was currently present in the lab. This seemed strange since I had observed on several occasions much activity here-in. Gazing about I noted a large crowd of his associates observing my perambulations from behind the glass paned entrance door to the laboratory. Then suddenly Professor Fuswa, himself making his way quickly through his assembled workers burst in through the door. Upon reaching my side I observed a man in severe consternation. He then informed me that Professors in Japan never make up their own solutions and that there are a variety of skilled fluently English speaking helpers, presumably those crowding the door, whose job it is to do all preparations and experimentation under my direction. In fact I learned later that Professor Fuswa's consternation arose because several in his group had threatened to quit should my work continue thusly.

In my haste to do some research I had failed to inform Professor Fuswa of my intention. This together with a lack of knowledge of how Japanese Research groups are structured entrapped me in this near disaster. In a resulting session in Professor Fuswa's office I discovered that this great man headed an enormous Research assemblage consisting not only of Graduate Students, Post Doctoral Fellows and Visiting Scientists such as myself, but several "lesser" Professors, young colleagues who spent an interval under Professor Fuswa's tutelage. To say the least I had stuck my foot in a tank of hungry Piranas. Worse I was not to have my cherished desire of a direct test of my own research capabilities. Here in Professor Fuswa's laboratory I found myself even less personally involved with the real work than in my own lab in Toronto.

## Abundance will Never Happen-Problems Related to Technology

Job Situation in a Technical World-When Robotics and IT Proliferate in the Working World-Problems, Problems...

The naivety in the discussion of this reality as it is presented in "Abundance" is frightening.

The following is from "Educational Attainment in the United States" US Census Bureau 2012. As recorded in Wikipedia. Educational attainment in the United States, age 25 and over (2012) is as follows; High School graduate 87.65%, Some College 57.28%, Associates and/or Bachelor's degree 40.58, Bachelor's degree 30.94% Master's degree 8.05%, Doctorate or Professional degree 3.07%.

In the last 2 chapters in 'Abundance' the authors try to rationalize how the human population will adjust to the rapid rise in technology and the accompanying swiftly changing job market. Basically they conclude that slowing technological development is not a viable option. Thus jobs that can be automated will largely disappear.

Although it is possible to imagine small changes in the above statics if the demand for higher skilled workers occurs as is already occurring, there still will be a large fraction of the population with only high school level or less capability. As the jobs for unskilled workers rapidly depletes what will happen to these people? There is no logical solution in 'Abundance' to cover this situation. Suggestions such as merging with technological advancement and becoming more capable both bodily and mentally enlightened or somehow soon most of us will be augmented in one way or another is surely the height of naivety.

The pattern of low skilled jobs being replaced with those that require a higher skill level is already occurring. Presuming that most of the new jobs will require at least College or Bachelor level education; from the table above only about 41% of the age 25 or older US population has these credentials. Needless to say the situation is much worse in most developing countries. So how do the 'Abundance' authors propose to remediate the situation for the large portion of the population with the insufficient training?

Problems that exist in making this transition to accommodate changes that will be dictated by the pendulum swing away from the massive loss of low skilled jobs include the type of existing system of economics. If this is so does any reader think a major change in the economic system can happen lockstep with the rate of change in required job skill level? Think of the radical changes in how businesses and related money markets operate that would be essential. Do you think this could this massive economy change could happen in time to prevent the chaos that would likely occur in solving already urgent worldwide ecological sustainability problems if long periods of time are required as is likely the case?. It seems obvious that many other present institutions including government would also require extensive modification. We certainly know significant changes in the way governments are structured and operate if they happen at all will occur very slowly.

Think of the present USA with its crushing debt load in a gridlocked situation unable to agree on day today operational requirements. This problem rooted mostly in personal disagreements and selfishness is exacerbated by a deep political gulf that has developed over many years between the major ruling parties. Can politicians such as these make timely decisions on any matter of consequence? This also portends serious chaos for the major worldwide ecological sustainability problems.

 Smoke and Mirrors?-a possible example?

The acid rain problem as discussed in "Abundance" under the section ' This Moaning Pessimism' is so incompletely presented that it has to be a case of ignorance of the authors on this issue or a possible case of smoke and mirrors. They dismiss it as a major issue based on a statement of a Canadian Environment Minister in 1982 to Time magazine of "Acid rain is one of the most devastating forms of pollution imaginable, an insidious malaria of the biosphere" and its adverse effect on trees which the "Abundance authors claim "It wasn't that the trees weren't dying, it was that they never had been dying- not in any numbers and not because of acid rain" (perhaps the authors have forgotten that a group of NSA astronauts were sent by NASA to the acid rain tree denuded area around Sudbury for training because the acid remain damage created a moonscape like terrain!).

More seriously they never mention the very major problem of widespread loss in many areas of loss of freshwater fishery caused thereby. In a future post I intend to detail a very telling story on acid rain caused fishery loss that left a large band of indigenous people without fresh fish their main food source and was so serious it ended up in the courts.

The authors then go on to enumerate the remedial actions that were taken that resulted in a reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions from 26 million tons to 11.4 million tons in 2008. Such prompts them to state the 'eco-apocalyptic predicted in the 1970's never did arise".

Not only did they omit the important freshwater fishery loss caused by acid rain they fail to identify the area in which the sulfur dioxide reductions were achieved. Assuming this relates to the USA the situation certainly would have no relevance to countries like China where coal burning is still the main source of power generation. This is another example of the Hotel California Syndrome but on a worldwide basis.

Also deficient is that inherent in the statement that the ''eco-apocalyptic predicted in the 1970's never did arise" is relevant only to the period ending in 2013, an interval much too short to predict that such will never occur affecting future generations. Again we see the short term thinking characteristic of biosphere damage apologists.

As indicated above I was personally involved very intimately in the acid rain issue at a research level and find the "abundance" authors seriously deficient in their coverage of this issue. Consequently it throws into question the relevance and comprehensive qualities of arguments throughout their book in predicting future abundance of life's essentials

 Time Delays Will Kill Abundance

Time is often the ultimate enemy in adoption of technology. Thus the proliferation of technology will not lead to abundance

As has been emphasized throughout these treatises we have reached a critical stage in a variety of world crises. This has occurred through a number of causes, world overpopulation and a failure to act until the crises such as climate change have reached a possible point of no return to name just two. Thus standing here on the brink of disaster we need quick proven solutions to rectify acute problems. In fact in the case of climate change there are no viable solutions in sight.

There are a surprising number of time consuming roadblocks to the quick adoption of even problem solving technologies. Taking climate change as an example to solve the greenhouse gas emission problem we have to deal with many sources that exacerbate this problem.

Taking just one classic examples of these sources, the automobile, the main problem to mass production and utilization of electric automobiles is inadequate battery technology and worse there is no solution in sight. Time has definitely been exhausted in the solution of this difficulty and we still do not possess an alternate power source to the internal combustion engine.

Time is wasting and most Governments have also failed to enact meaningful legislation restricting other major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and again there seems no likelihood of this occurring anytime soon. Technology that is available to potentially remediate some of these sources is either not proven on the large scale or is not employed for economic reasons.

World governments vary greatly in their political styles thus what is acceptable in countries like the USA and Canada would never be politically acceptable in many others. I have been in negotiation with governments throughout the political spectrum from left to right on scientific issues and can with authority report the time involved in achieving progress is drastically protracted in many political contexts and that is even if any agreement is even finally possible.

I will leave this very vexing problem without further comment here for readers contemplation now and will continue later with other examples.

 Flawed Decision in the name of Abundance in the Energy Field

This is an example of mankind's typical poor decision making. Such illustrates what typically happens when governments under the influence of politics and industry lobbies make dreadful decisions. This will undoubtedly produce and abundance of dirty energy.

The fate of the Alberta's tar sands-and climate change-may come down to the Keystone XL Pipeline" is an eye opening quote from a July 2013, Scientific American feature article entitled "Greenhouse Goo" by David Beillo, Associate Editor. This article based on data from a variety of experts in the climate change field, coincides with 3 potentially related issues now receiving broad coverage in this newspaper and most other media outlets throughout North America. These are Obama's seemingly impossible condition that the XL Pipeline will only be completed if it doesn't worsen the carbon pollution problem, the recent erratic behavior of the weather determining Jet Stream and the increased ferocity of storms examples of which include the 2005 and 2013 floods in Alberta and this year's Oklahoma City tornadoes.

Perhaps the basis for the Obama conundrum comes from the even more ludicrous US State Department's conclusion that Keystone XL Pipeline would not result in increased development of the Canadian tar sand deposits. Contrast this with the conclusion from the above mentioned Scientific American article that "If built, the Keystone XL Pipeline will be a spigot that speeds tar sands production" and you have the classical rational science based conclusion in marked contrast with the an economy motivated and vested interest lobbied political body.

If long term sustainability of a habitable biosphere on this earth is our main priority as surely it must be; then thoughtful, unfettered, often tough decision making is essential. Unfortunately irreconcilable muddles as illustrated by the above are more commonly the case.

Hyperbole?- A Sales Pitch for 'Abundance'.

Energy is one of our most crucial problems and the following relating to the energy chapter is thus chosen to illustrate my contention.

"Squanderable abundance of energy"; reading this phrase in the concluding pages of the "Abundance" chapter on energy I was reminded of hyperbole a used car sales man, or televangelist might resort to make points in their sales pitches.

Using such excessive terminology is particularly dangerous and open to question considering that solar power, the authors favoured process for realizing squanderable levels is presently the most expensive and problematic of alternate energy sources. As usual a plethora of usual one dimensional thinking is evident in arriving at this statement. Herein the Authors trundle out a selection of inventions together with those that may occur on the exponential curve of technological developments that might revolutionize solar energy production, storage and transmission together to justify this hyperbole. But where are the other dimensions of establishing a technology? Cost and availability of the required resources, prototyping, infrastructure costs and upkeep, acquisition of land to house such infrastructure, NYMBYism, the usual selfish opposing political attitudes, legal deliberations, obtaining government final approvals and potential side effects of solar power production are a selection of these other important dimensions which must be faced in any massive solar power development in any country. Any one of these could stall or scrap such a venture. While publicists for establishing a world saving technology might believe that citizens and governments would not only never stand in the way of such a development but would actively work to speed its establishment, human nature has shown time and again its propensity of precipitating such a failure.

Inventing technology that could result in commodities such as electrical energy or potable water in abundance in no way guarantees that abundance of that commodity will actually result. This is of course the indispensible first step in such a process. It is in fact a tiny step in what is a complex multi step process as detailed above. Publicists such as the authors of the book 'Abundance' have shown no practical experience in most of the other dimensions of establishing a technology, in this case solar power their solution to creating a sqanderable abundance of energy.

Establishing industry such as a solar energy installation in countries outside of North America where the problems though complex are usually much different and usually much more complex than on this continent. Having worked in countries for example Brazil and China at opposite ends of the political spectrum I can speak with authority about the complex set of debilitating roadblocks that exist even to the development of courses and supporting laboratories for inventing and developing technologies that I was invited to do. The authors of 'Abundance' will find what works in California may never be applicable in these other jurisdictions for reasons more political than scientific. Just ask the flood of immigrants in and American city why they left their countries of birth and the daily problems related back to factions, religions and politics paint a discouraging picture for innovation. Yes there are some countries India being an example where centers for innovation have arisen and work well, but other political jurisdictions have little likelihood of doing likewise at least in an atmosphere of individual freedoms.

By the way has anyone seen a viable solution to a really practical electric car an already many decades research invention endeavor? Does such even appear to be likely in the near future? Four decades ago the lithium ion battery was invented, this being only one dimension of this issue. Thus 4 decades later those other dimensions of developing this invention, prototyping, improving the technology and many of the other dimensions listed above are a perfect example of how an invention does not result in a quick solution.

Side Effects of Technology that Arise Unexpectedly Much Later

Little discussion is present in the book 'Abundance' about the potential serious side effects of adopting new technology

In the 1970's pollution problems, side effects of established technologies, began to emerge as serious, vociferous, wide ranging, public debates. This forced government funding for worthy environmental projects to suddenly arise as a major priority. Measuring quantitatively, levels of key pollutants in widely varying samples, was a first essential step to the devising remedies.

Heavy metals, particularly, lead and mercury which are neurological poisons, were among the first metals of concern. Children are particularly at risk when exposed to these metals.

Lead compounds added to gasoline as an octane booster, had become widely dispersed in urban environments as an exhaust product through vehicular traffic. The reprocessing of worn out lead acid batteries had resulted in soil contamination around industrial installations used for this purpose, at toxic levels as high as the percent range. Within the Public Health purview, lead leached from solders used widely in electric kettles was being directly consumed in harmful amounts in hot beverages. Children were also being poisoned from chewing on household objects containing lead based paints such as cribs, window ledges and even toys.

Mercury pollution from rain, sewage disposal and incineration of household garbage was resulting in the widespread distribution of this substance in lakes, ground waters and rivers. As a result of food chain magnification the top predator edible fish species were becoming loaded with harmful mercury levels. Government regulations governing the permitted levels of both mercury and lead in a large variety of samples were established. Reliable techniques for the determination of lead and mercury and lead in all these samples were necessary.

To deal with these threats our research group established 4 goals:

Make certain that methodology being used by governments and other agencies responsible for monitoring such substances were producing reliable results.

Develop equipment and methods that when used with appropriate reference materials would give consistently reliable results.

Establish that there was an important requirement to be able to determine the forms of these pollutants rather than just the total amounts. This is because some of the organic forms were orders of magnitude more toxic than the metal itself.

Develop simple methodology for the determination of the chemical forms of these pollutants.

Many other research groups worldwide also recognized that technology often has harmful side effects that are discovered only after this technology has been widely adopted and realized the urgency for discovery, quantification and control of these threats. If as is suggested in 'Abundance' technology will develop at exponential rates then if past history is any indication harmful side effects will also be abundant. The question is can we detect and eliminate these before they become lethal to susceptible components of the biosphere on a large scale.

Researchers Propensity to Announce Results Prematurely, Misleads the Public

This is a particularly serious problem in medical research venues.

A typical violation in this regard I call "Mousey Medicine".

Presently there is a wide spread use of animals for testing purposes in medical research. This practice, embracing a wide range of nonhuman species, is however largely centered on rodents. Of these by far and away the greatest number are mice. An important reason for this choice is that mice have a genetic composition that is about 90% identical to humans. For this reason many researchers expect results obtained on mice to closely approximate those that might be expected to be obtained with humans. However, close genetic similarities of species are just one factor to be considered when choosing a species for this experimental work. Many other important factors such as adsorption and elimination of test substances in mice and humans can still be quite dissimilar. This and other important factors greatly affect the use of such experimental results in predicting their implications for human treatments.

In perhaps the best historically documented case of this type the drug Thalidomide, a supposedly harmless sedative and nausea suppressing drug, was prescribed for expectant mothers based on excellent results obtained with mice. This substance occasioned a disastrous outbreak of widespread human birth defects, up to 10,000 before the problem was discovered and thalidomide use discontinued. In this instance a follow-up study found that mice could actually tolerate about 8000 times, on a relative basis, the dose compared to humans without ill effects of any type. The thalidomide disaster beginning in 1961 caused dramatic changes to occur in procedures and permissions for human testing using substances flagged as possibly useful based on results obtained with experimental animals.

It would appear however that many medical researchers show little concern for reporting results as possibly having favourable implications for treatment of human disease from research still at the mouse stage that is before enacting any testing directly on humans. Since rules for human testing of such substances are now so stringent and time consuming the temptation for reporting of new potential human disease treatments at the mouse stage is high. Those of us who have reached middle age or greater are very familiar with this practice followed with the very common disappointments that result when mouse study predictions for favourable human treatments are never realized. In fact less than 10% of successful treatments on mice translate into successful treatments for humans. Being learning disabled I have a great interest in possible medical treatments for this problem. At the age of 76 I have seen several dozen predictions for successful drug treatments of this problem doomed for failure. As of this date no properly documented cure for learning disabilities exists.

Due to revolutionary advances in analytical biochemistry the genetic composition of a large number of organisms including humans has become known. Researchers can now identify defective and marker genes related to a variety of problems and using this information can predict the likelihood of certain diseases being developed through individual testing. For example this can infrequently even result in women opting to have mastectomies despite the absence of any actual physical symptoms of breast cancer. Should individuals results fall into the public domain genetic testing could be utilized in pricing and even determining whether to grant life insurance. Likewise genetic information could be used in making hiring decisions.

Although some successful genetically based treatments for human disease actually exist today, I have particular concern relating to the following growing practice. Here nonhuman laboratory research studies show that a genetic procedure has cured a disease or drastically improved the treatment of that disease, in a test population of mammals such as mice. These results are then used as the usual springboard for predicting the likelihood of developing medications or favourable clinical procedures and even cures, when used with humans in the future.

Results are still often being reported without any vestige of human testing having been done. The problem today is the much wider ranging, still weakly based, but much more aggressive nature of this type of prediction, something the science of my day would strongly have disavowed. Many medical research facilities actually maintain Media Rooms for release of such material.

Charitable organizations and research groups in the medical domain depend on favourable research results for the granting and improvement in monetary support. Many of us donate to charity and would be predisposed to be more generous if favourable predictive medical results applied to diseases affecting our progeny, other loved ones and the fate of life in the long term. It is worrisome to me, as a scientist who believes that some research indication of human benefit should be accomplished, which is publishable in peer reviewed journal, before probability of any human success is announced. Otherwise, less rigorous press released material; totally non-human based may wrongly influence the charitable actions of generous citizens. Non-the- less carefully validated genetically based medicine does hold tremendous and wide ranging promise for treatment now and in the future.

Generalizations made public that are based on poorly designed experiments often with a ridiculously small sample size having been used is a common problem in this area.

Using a recent report that stated gum disease bacteria may be associated in Alzheimer's disease in a prominent daily newspaper as an example. On the basis of a tiny sample of 20 brains, 10 from non Alzheimer's individuals and 10 from patients with Alzheimer's they found 4 brains in the case of the latter group contained the gum born bacterium whereas none of the former showed the bacterium's presence. Such skimpy evidence while worthy of pursuit in a proper large population also requires verification by other researcher groups before being released into the public domain. Of course as admitted further down in the article this was basically released at this time in order to try to attract funding.

Researchers' too frequently seek funding using the popular media as pressure tactics to avoid the proper but protracted method of applying for research funding through the relevant funding agencies. Funding agencies correctly require detailed information on experimental design and costing parameters and further each project is peer reviewed for it worthiness for funding based on the quality, cost and relevance of the application.

Another serious error in premature announcements such as the above is that it may preempt in people's minds similar and often much more valid work by other researchers who are working on the same issue but have chosen to follow the correct rules for achieving research funding.

In a desire to sell newspapers these sources have a serious culpability in fostering such scientific violations

## The Already Occurring Tipping Points to Disaster

Water

Up to 1.8 million children die yearly due to water related disease!

About 800 million people worldwide have no safe drinking water.

In my view problems in maintaining an adequate world supply of fresh water is most likely the tipping-point in the fate of mankind and a sustainable earth's biosphere.

"While the amount of freshwater on the planet has remained fairly constant over time—continually recycled through the atmosphere and back into our cups—the population has exploded. This means that every year competition for a clean, copious supply of water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and sustaining life intensifies". This is a quotation from a recent National Geographic article entitled Freshwater Crisis (2).

A related statement occurs in the Executive Summary of The UNEP/GRID- publication Sick Water? (3) "The world is facing a global water quality crisis. Continuing population growth and urbanization, rapid industrialization, and expanding and intensifying food production are all putting pressure on water resources and increasing the unregulated or illegal discharge of contaminated water within and beyond national borders. This presents a global threat to human health and wellbeing, with both immediate and long term consequences for efforts to reduce poverty whilst sustaining the integrity of some of our most productive ecosystems".

There is a persistent migration throughout the world but particularly in developing countries from rural to urban centers. This trend is particularly troublesome for dwindling freshwater supplies and the ultimate pollution of nearby water bodies by the polluted waste water remnants of that water. These discharge areas, frequently depended upon as a local aquatic food supply are damaged by the pollutants so that they no longer are useful for this purpose.

Most mammals including humans are over 60% water by composition making continuous water replenishment on a daily basis essential. The world is 70% covered by water but of this less than 3% is fresh and of this 2/3 is tied up in polar ice caps and glaciers. With Global Warming melting this latter this fresh water is mixing into the surrounding salt water oceans and hence relentlessly depleting the small existing fresh water supply. These figures emphasize the tiny amount of water, about 1%, in the world that is directly useful to humans and much of the rest of the water dependent world's life forms. Since there is no desalination process that is simple, not highly energy consumptive and economical on a large scale for use widely on ocean water we remain dependent on the present fresh water supply.

A look at the map of North America shows a landscape dotted densely with fresh water lakes in the north including the Great Lakes. These latter large fresh water bodies contain 20% of the world's fresh water and 80% of the freshwater in North America. Statistics are boring but the essential point in this data is the revelation concerning the relatively tiny amount of fresh water available to the bulk of the rapidly expanding human race.

Not all available fresh water is visible on the surface of the earth, 30% being below the ground level in the form of large bodies of water known as aquifers. Several large cities such as Phoenix which are appreciable distances from an adequate source of surface water must obtain their fresh water supply from sources natural and man constructed from some distance away. Often aquifers exist beneath the surrounding area and even underlie the cities themselves. In many cases as with Bangkok replenishment of these sources is slower than the withdrawal causing potential problems due to subsiding of inhabited areas residing above and in the case of this city a 1.6m subsidence has occurred in only 10 years. Some of the world's largest aquifers are brackish in composition that type of water being unfit for human consumption. Probably the most famous of these brackish aquifers, the Great Artesian Basin, underlies much of Australia and although too salty for human use fortunately some major farm animals such as cattle can tolerate water in this condition.

On average over 70% of the worlds available freshwater is used agriculturally. Depending on location the fraction of domestic to industrial sources vary. In North American locales domestic and industrial usages are about equal. Whereas in Southern Asia only a small percentage of available water is used by industry and for domestic purposes the vast majority being required for agriculture. This situation is changing with rapid urbanization and the associated large scale industrialization that must result.

Climate Change, often termed global warming is certain to have an effect on the water cycle if only to change precipitation patterns perceptibly. Changing patterns involving drought and excessive rainfall are already being noted in many parts of the world. Climate Change and problems related thereto will be covered in much greater detail in a section to follow.

Pollution of fresh water by human, industrial and farm use rises rapidly as a threat to the sustainability of adequate supplies. Water pollution in Developing countries remains largely unabated. This problem is now being addressed in many jurisdictions in the developing world in some cases with new ingenious technology. Schemes have even been developed whereby the water in sewage steam arriving at sewage treatment plants is recycled and purified to the point of being suitable for drinking. Yet presently even in many Developed Country urban centers poor quality waste water treatment abounds.

The urban populations present astounding rate of increase will likely result in doubling the current 3.5 billion urban value by 2050 thus being the main contributor to the rise to a total 9 billion estimated world population in 2050. Sadly the population rise in the associated slums will be even greater than that of the urban population as a whole. Only a miracle can hope to solve the attendant increasing urban fraction of discharge of largely untreated wastewater outside those forward looking large Developed Country urban centers with installed advanced wastewater treatment. With the concentration of most large urban centers being positioned on the world's major waterways the destruction of self sustaining aquatic ecosystems due to waste water pollutants in both salt and fresh water is rapid. The attendant damage to natural aquatic food resource follows in lock step.

The greatest benefit to dealing with wastewater in urban areas is to have a system whereby the sewers that connect to homes, industry and businesses are separated from storm sewers that carry waste water from urban runoff. Thus by concentrating the waste water that requires special treatment in sewage treatment plants by separating this from the runoff waste water, treatment plants will not suffer raw sewage overflow problems during storms and other periods of high volume waste water runoff. Low Impact Development (LID) is a program that takes this sewer separation a step further in treating runoff sewerage as a resource rather than a waste. A variety of practices are already available for this bio-retention of runoff. These include, rain gardens, vegetated roof tops, rain barrels and permeable pavement. In areas where road salt run-off into storm sewers occurs in winter care is required in making choices in the receiving area that do not involve the salty discharge contaminating any soils.

Sewer separation is an expensive proposition, especially as a retrofit procedure. Thus to avoid municipal tax increases many municipalities are wary of this approach. Again we find ourselves facing the problem that environment related choices that will be essential in the long term often fall by the wayside to prevent expenses that could contribute to a loss of constituent spending power and hence an assault on living standards.

The supply of potable water in Developing countries is sadly restricted since half the population in these jurisdictions does not have adequate sanitation facilities. Under present condition of rectification the problem is bound to become worse with climate change and population increase. Currently over 1 billion people suffer from water shortage likely to increase to close to 3 billion as early as 2050. My experience of working with environmental chemistry problems in developing countries indicates a persistent lack of will within governments to tackle even such dire problems.

Although seldom mentioned in well informed sources that I am reading the problem of corruption at all government and government services levels is rampant in many of these counties. Thus money often donated from foreign sources diminishes significantly through pay outs to officials at all levels and is greatly reduced before reaching its intended beneficial destination. In my view this is a problem that in magnitude and nature is often more atrocious than most others. Thus the reader is cautioned in reading in detail an account of promising sounding solutions in any of these comments that a genuine will to implement such programs is frequently sadly lacking.

Despite the availability of high tech solutions to wastewater treatment, many of these processes being energy intensive require consumption of large amounts of energy resources and often result in other forms of pollution during the process. This cycle of the abating of one form of pollution requiring large energy consumption while often resulting in an additional other type of pollution is a dilemma that ranks high amongst those that inhibit the process of establishing worldwide sustainable conditions of the biosphere. As in most problem issues debated here exacerbation due to the mushrooming population and the larger proportion of the growing population demanding a standard of living equal to the average in North America pertains.

Climate Change/Global Warming

Carbon dioxide emissions (2012)-about 34 trillion tons

The so called greenhouse gases include mainly, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapor and ozone and all are present naturally in the atmosphere; the fifth a group of fluorocarbon compounds are manmade.

The consequence of excesses of these gases in the atmosphere is designated by many under the umbrella of Global Warming, Climate Change is a weather related phenomenon; a very obvious consequence of global warming. This public confusion has been generated through over use of the moniker "Global Warming" to represent the total consequence of human source (anthropogenic), greenhouse gasses.

A further confusion in understanding the ramifications related to human source greenhouse gas emissions is the slow deleterious acidification of the world's oceans resulting from the dissolution of carbon dioxide in ocean water, which sets up a reaction whereby carbonic acid is a product. Carbon dioxide the most prominent of the human source greenhouse gases is emitted into the atmosphere and causes increased levels there-in, but it is also dissolvable in water accounting for the present ocean acidification trend. The most immediately proposed ocean acidification consequence is the partial dying off of ecologically important coral reefs in some localities. But for this treatise we will look at the better understood atmospheric consequences of greenhouse gas emissions.

Presently the phenomenon of global warming is most obvious in Polar Regions where the predominant rise in average temperature is now occurring. In particular the 2011-2012 discovery in the Western Antarctic, a region some distance from the atmospheric ozone hole, that temperatures in this region are rising at rates 2- 3 times the global average is particularly ominous.

Weather is phenomena related to air pressure differences from one locale to another, the latter thus being responsible for daily weather patterns. Mid-latitude yearly seasonal weather variations are due to the change in the angle of the rays of the sun passing through the troposphere (atmospheric layer that intersects the earth's surface) and hitting the earth's surface. The temperature difference between polar and equatorial regions generates the "Polar" Jet Stream in the mid-latitudes. The Northern Hemisphere jet stream is a thin band of fast flowing air which itself moves from west to east together with the daily weather causing high and low pressure zones.

Climate is the yearly combination of changing weather trends on a seasonal basis. Climate Change is a phenomenon whereby the average weather patterns undergo a permanent change. Ocean temperatures vary seasonably to a lesser degree than those on the land and hence have a buffering effect on coastal temperature fluctuations. Warm or cool ocean currents occur along most coastal regions and these can have a very tangible effect on climate. In the Northern Hemisphere the warm temperature massive Gulf Stream is of particular importance. By this system which travels far north the climate of Western Europe is moderated.

In the mid- latitudes which possess the greatest world population density, climate change is the more prominent vestige of the global warming phenomenon. For this reason the public's attention to dangers there-from are more easily captured noting presently occurring changes in local weather patterns. Shifting regions of wet and dry zones, increased frequency and ferocity of storms and widely fluctuating seasonal temperatures both hot and cold are presently occurring. It is important to stress not all weather changes in every locale are reflected in phenomena suggestive of rising temperatures; some few regions are actually showing colder trends at present. A frightening comment indicative of human non concern of Climate Change vagaries is the common statement, on a particular cold winters days here in Ontario; "wouldn't a little global warming go well just now"?

It is not uncommon to encounter in the press and by word of mouth the view that human source global warming is not occurring. Even a few well-known scientists engender this concept. Many try to reason that the warming being noted today is similar to some of the many natural warming cycles that have been noted in the earth's history over hundreds of millions of years of geological time. Fast forward to an article in the July 2012 Scientific American reporting on a fact finding scientific expedition to the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The study was carried out by a group of scientists under the jurisdiction on the Worldwide Universities Network by world renowned experts representing a wide variety of specialties and emanating from England, Norway and The Netherlands. The following is an interpretation in my own words of what I felt most relevant in this content.

The concept was to compare the rate of temperature change and consequences that occurred in a particularly notable natural cycle of global warming 56 million years ago, which will be designated (GW 56M), with that occurring today. The (GW 56M) temperature rise maximum of 8 degrees C, with catastrophic consequences, occurred after an ascent lasting about 20,000 years. However it then took another 200,000 years for the earth's natural defenses to decrease the temperature to what we consider normal. In (GW 56M) there were many consequences including a large rise in ocean levels, rapid ocean acidification that destroyed much of the ocean life and a forced migration of much terrestrial life both plant and animal toward the poles to ensure survival.

Unless drastic measures are very soon taken to cut human activity sourced carbon gas emissions, the same catastrophic 8 degree temperature rise on today's earth will occur in only a few 100's of years. Grievously all the same (GW 56M) consequences would happen but ever so much more quickly. Considering the massive human population involved, heading the consequence list this time would be unthinkably large losses of human life. As demonstrated through fossilized evidence found in cores drilled in many locales into the oceanic subsurface there becomes a point-of-no-return. That is at a presently uncertain point in the temperature rise curve; the disastrous upward temperature rise becomes self sustaining and hence continues unaffected by any human intervention. At this point-of-no-return mega tons of methane gas now trapped safely in the oceans depths in the form of methane ice begins to melt in the warming ocean water and bubbles into the atmosphere. At that point the unstoppable methane gas release becomes the dominant cause of Global Warming.

Is anything of real consequence presently being enacted to slow or prevent the present calamitous human induced greenhouse gas emissions damage to the earth's environment? In a word; no.

The very savvy Bill Gates, ex CEO of Microsoft and the personal computer guru is one of the World's richest persons. Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he gives billions to charity and in support of innovative research and technology. In this regard one of his largest grants is supporting a particular favourite, the production of ultra safe Nuclear Power technology. On the other hand the Ontario Government while speaking of expanding Ontario's nuclear power capability has spent billions of your tax dollars on Wind Power and Solar power projects forms Gates has spoken doubtfully about. For emphasis again, remember that when comparing wind and nuclear power, 1GW of energy requires 1 nuclear power plant. In contrast a wind farm covering ¼ of the surface of Lake Ontario and running at full power 100% of the time (impossible) would be necessary to generate a similar amount of energy. Meanwhile our yearly output level of carbon containing, greenhouse gas emissions remains undiminished. Remember also that for now, climate change is an appropriate term to describe the present consequences of human source greenhouse gas emission. But under existing political and economic circumstances global warming will soon have migrated to cover even our temperate zones. Most disconcertedly, due to worldwide changing greenhouse gas emission dynamics, the time in the future when the point-of-no-return will occur is not known and cannot be predicted.

Let's look at the earth from another perspective that casts global warming in an innovatively different light.

Gea better known as Gaia, is the Greek Goddess of the earth (Ge=earth).

What possible connection to anything relevant in modern times, could be ascribed to Gaia? James Lovelock in 1968 while working at NASA, chose this name for his world renowned and revolutionary theory. Here-in he postulates that the earth can be best described as being much like a living organism, particularly in determining earth's atmospheric compositional makeup from its inception until its final hot passive state hopefully sometime in the very distant future. This precept replaced for most scientists the static earth concept of previous theories.

Since the earth is in dynamic interaction with the atmosphere the composition of the latter is then dependent to a major degree on the reactions occurring in the biosphere and the lithosphere. This self-regulation is crucial not only to maintaining the 20% atmospheric oxygen content into which the human race evolved, but also to preserving life sustaining climatic conditions. Reasoning that helps verify the Gaia approach is convincing, but involves points concerning the need to employ nonlinear rather than linear differential equations in all climate modeling, the first law of thermodynamics and the natural regulation of methane and is beyond our scope here.

But in any case through this approach we can see that the maintenance of this self-regulation must be considered important in deliberations of today's urgent climatic concerns.

In his latest book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia" Basic Books, 2009, James Lovelock outlines the indomitable threat that human sourced emissions, now and in the near future, pose to this self regulation mechanism named Gaia. It is important to emphasize that after the title is appended the phrase "A final warning" which should be ample to garner our rapt attention. But why should this book be singled out from the many others on climate change? Like other authors of popular Climate Change/Global Warming books Lovelock carefully hunts amongst the available data for material that best serves his purpose. However as the inventor and main purveyor of the dynamic earth theory he builds his arguments in a scientific, yet very readable format, around this theory, a fact in marked contrast to most others which have no accepted central theoretical dictum. This scientist who possess earned degrees in Chemistry, Medicine and Biophysics, all from first rate universities, looks at climatic problems as an expert from a multidisciplinary perspective, also unique from writers of other popular treatments.

Some may ask, how with some current local trends to cooler, wetter, summers and cold winters could Lovelock and indeed I, still offer an urgent plea to please take seriously the present warming trend of this planet as caused by the activities of man? This brings out one of the strengths of the Gaia based approach. Lovelock bases most of his important conclusions on average Northern and Southern hemispheres open ocean temperature trends and accompanying biochemical changes rather than terrestrial local variations. The rising ocean temperatures are most discernible closer to the poles and as stated above the oceans have a buffering effect against short term land based temperature fluctuations providing a truer picture of the serious Global Warming trend.

What are Greenhouse gases and why is the situation relating to mans contribution to these so urgent now? Greenhouse gasses are substances that when introduced into the atmosphere impedes the reradiating of heat produced at the earth's surface by radiation from the sun. This can occur because the wavelength of the pertinent radiation from the sun is of such values that they freely penetrate the greenhouse gas laden atmosphere; while on the other hand the heat radiation thus produced is of different wavelengths and upon attempted re-radiation are susceptible to greenhouse gas interaction thus becoming trapped. Of particular note; when we introduce greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere their effects are not instant but take several years to develop. Thus should we find some time later, maybe even in the near future that human source atmospheric discharges are causing a serious problem, it may be too late for meaningful action. This could transpire since the warming trend will continue regardless, based on the delayed affect of years of previous uncontrolled emissions. That could then result in 'The Demise of Gaia' as this indispensible self regulation gives up and leaves us in an essentially out of restraint situation.

Of the 5 most common greenhouse gases 4, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone are present naturally in the atmosphere; the fifth a fluorocarbons (a commonly used refrigerant) is not. Each of these naturally occurring gases has a different efficiency of effect as a factor in Climate Change/Global Warming. For example methane is many times more severe a problem than is carbon dioxide based on the radiation spectral region in which it is most active. On the positive side methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide. Up to the present time carbon dioxide has largely been the greenhouse gas released due to human induced activity. It is important to understand that methane, largely a low volume human induced greenhouse gas emission presently results mainly from cattle husbandry in agriculture venues. However it is important to remember that humongous quantities of methane ice, most at great depths cover large areas of costal ocean floor. Some of these deposits; most particularly in the Russian North have been noted to have been subjected to warming typical of far northern localities and hence are releasing methane gas that has begun slowly bubbling into the atmosphere.

Over millions of years variations in the levels of the naturally occurring greenhouse gases, solar radiation intensity, volcanic activity and other factors have themselves caused climatic disparities. As noted above there have been well defined cycles of natural climatic warming and cooling on the earth each normally lasting 10's to 100's of thousand years. Yet variations of climate under natural circumstances have been recorded that lasted for much shorter times, some even as short as a few hundred years. Again this has led some few scientists to question whether present climatic change trends are just a natural occurrence. Although no absolute proof exists of human sources being the cause of present climate change, the best meteorological models absolutely do require a human induced component to account for the magnitude of present global warming trend. Thus approximately 90% of meteorological experts are now convinced that human activity, particularly extending since the period of the industrial revolution and rising in a lockstep relationship to the magnitude of this human activity is the cause of this phase of Climate Change/ Global Warming.

This delayed reaction time associated with emitted greenhouse gases is an important parameter of unknown magnitude in establishing the size of the problem being caused by present and predicted greenhouse gas emissions. This unknown affects all models of Global Warming and not only Lovelocks Gaia model just discussed above. Thus in attempting to establish the point at which the human induced greenhouse gas emission effects will become irreversible is exacerbated in all cases by this delayed reaction unfortunately of unknown magnitude in whatever model exists or may be developed.

As emphasized throughout this book one of the most worrisome characteristics of the average human being is to carry on as usual particularly when said problem has been developing over a considerable period of time as in the present problem of Climate Change/Global warming. Thusly we largely ignore such a predicament until it becomes a full blown crisis. The cause of this popular trend is many fold but mainly results that up to now something has normally been devised that will provide a solution to such a problems just before the catastrophic point.

With Climate Change/Global Warming a variety of worrisome climate related changes are yearly being revealed with little meaningful remedial phenomena resulting. The plethora of circumstances that one can delineate for example the increased frequency and destructive power of wind related events, widespread drought and record high temperatures in some regions and flooding accompanied by destructive erosion events in others are likely results of this inaction. Of these, economic ramifications at governmental, industrial and personal and particularly at agricultural levels are particularly noteworthy. Greenhouse gas emissions being the main source of Climate Change/Global Warming phenomena and a rapidly rising increased human activity related component of these is now abundantly obvious as the main culprit. Real progress on reduction of this source can only come at the Federal government and International levels as a worldwide initiative. In democratic countries Governments themselves although directly contributors often through their ownership and/or control of utilities; the problem falls most precipitously within the jurisdiction of industry and individuals. Resistance to amelioration at these latter levels is particularly strong due to the very appreciable added costs that are inherent in any positive action. Of course democratic governments react strongly to pressures imposed from constituent and business and industrial sources and are unlikely to invoke meaningful changes with negative reactions from these jurisdictions.

Again it is important to remind ourselves that cost increases incurred for pollution abatement if imposed have strong negative ramifications related to maintaining our present standard of living. The situation is totally different in concept with non democratic systems of government. Depending on the form of governance the government or individual in power can make decisions independent of the operators of industry and individuals, but instead of taking positive steps toward amelioration of their pollution sources in general they tend for many reasons in my experience to be on the average more recalcitrant. Additional comment appears below on worldwide organized attempts to develop multinational strategies to ameliorate the Climate Change/Global Warming Problem.

But first let's stop here for a moment and remind ourselves again that in the recent past, solutions often technological or political in nature have been developed in good time to prevent serious problems from taking place. Where are/were those solutions in the case of the present problem of climate change? Even looking forward do effective remedies seem likely? Problems that affect the continued sustainability of the world's biosphere are gargantuan being highly multidisciplinary in nature and demand radical procedural changes at all levels of government. Pure and applied science funding and reordering the priorities of and interactions within the disciplines must change drastically.

### Energy

Our Energy Resource it's Sources and Conversion Misconceptions

Energy used Dec 26 2012- about 316 million mW-250 million from conventional sources-about 60million from alternate (green) sources.

Days left to end of oil-about 15,000 days, natural gas-about 60,000 boe

Despite the optimism expressed in 'Abundance' of exponential growth in technology solving our energy problems long standing technological road blocks remain unsolved and are ongoing at a time where Climate Change, perhaps past the point of no return is the immediate inevitable consequence.

Energy and Climate Change are inexorably related thus some of the concepts in this Energy section have been mentioned in the above sections. This is unavoidable.

I have already made it clear that energy as dictated from the tenants of basic physics is not in any sense renewable. What is commonly designated in the popular idiom as renewable energy originates from reports about devices such as solar cells and windmills and these should be referred to as something like alternate energy technologies. In conversions of other energy sources such as solar the efficiency of the conversion to the desired form of energy, electricity can be calculated. Thus we find the conversion of energy in the sun's rays by solar cells is only about 35% with 65% waste using 2012 technology.

But speaking of wind and sun as energy resources you could say "so what", we have an unlimited source of solar and wind energy so who cares that the conversion efficiency is low. The trouble in both the sun and wind energy conversion cases is as follows. Both technologies are expensive to fabricate, install, maintain and connect to the existing power grid. Worse they require large areas of space and their generation is intermittent. Thus compared to cost of electricity from conventional electrical energy sources electricity from wind and solar installations is several times higher. Here in Ontario we already have seen the overwhelming public reaction opposing increased electricity bills which are presently based on electricity generated by conventional sources.

But let's assume that if by some miracle the idea that the very significant cost increases incurred by switching to alternate less polluting sources of electrical has been accepted as a necessary consequence of our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions we still have the problem of the huge space that would be necessary being unavailable if we were to produce our total requirement for electricity in these ways. This is true even if these technologies achieve increased energy conversion efficiencies. There is no direct solution to the intermittency constraint associated with both wind and solar technologies. Importantly there still is no storage technology for large amounts of energy. Thus excess capacity when it is produced cannot be saved for use when required at another time. Thus as things stand these electrical energy sources must have intermittency back up by fossil fuel electricity generators.

Of course any problem such as this lack of suitable alternate energy electrical generation technology capability is daily being exacerbated by population growth. This coupled with more and more of the existing and increasing population insisting on a higher standard of living such as many of us now have in North America; the space requirement for these existing technologies, already a serious impediment becomes rapidly more acute. Thus in 2012, even if we demanded that the government work toward adopting alternate electrical energy technologies as our sole form of electricity generation this could not be accomplished.

Electricity Storage Technology Constraints

The lack of adequate battery technology to make electric vehicles a practical reality persists. Electrochemistry, the science on which battery design depends, has been investigated to death and the lithium ion battery in current use in most electric cars is the technically superior. The trouble is that from a really practical stand point these batteries don't fit the bill. Continued research relating to this technology can only achieve marginal improvements. Lithium ion batteries that are in use today are large, provide electrical storage power for only short trip driving, recharging is relatively slow, no practical scheme of battery exchange has been proposed and these batteries are expensive and must be replaced at regular intervals after the recharging limit is reached.

If as has been supposed here no electrochemical scheme will be found to provide batteries of a practical capacity are there other technologies for such a purpose. One present area of investigation is the ultracapacitor. These devices have 2 oppositely chargeable metal plates which are coated with porous activated carbon and are then immersed in an electrolyte. The plates are closely separated by a thin sheet of plastic or ceramic insulator material and the whole device contained in a package. When ultracapacitors undergo the charging process, 2 layers of opposite charge form on each of the 2 plates instead of just 1 layer per plate in conventional capacitors; this results in the alternate name dual layer capacitors. During charging and discharging no chemical reaction occurs as in a battery and hence ultracapacitors do not suffer the wear and tear as does a battery when in operation and hence have a much greater lifetime. These capacitors have the same properties as a battery in the sense that they can deliver an electric current to run an electric motor. Presently available ultracapacitors are unsatisfactory for use in electric vehicles because when used for this purpose they can only store about 5 to 10% the charge of the lithium ion batteries currently in use.

The above discussion relating to electrical storage devices presently available having insufficient capacity for really practical all electric vehicles holds has a parallel in the field of high capacity electricity storage for intermittent electricity generation sources. Availability of such a storage device is essential for standalone wind and solar electrical power generation.

Electrical Energy Transmission Consequences

Another factor to be considered in costs of electricity is that necessary new electricity generation facilities both alternate and conventional for greatest economy in provision of product should be built near the points of greatest demand. An important factor in electricity transmission along the electric power grid is the power losses that occur therein. For a given unit of power generated the fraction of that unit that is received by the consumer depends on the distance travelled from source to consumer. The greater the distance of the power generating station from the consumer the lower is the percentage of each unit of generated power that arrives. Unfortunately attempts of electrical power generating utilities to construct generating facilities within local areas of high electricity consumption demand thus lowering transmission costs are met with a not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) attitude. This resistance to locating power sources near the consumer is so hard core that a week or 2 before a recent Ontario election the government currently in power promised to relocate some long distance away a partially completed, urgently needed, gas fired power generating plant out of an urban area to save a government politicians which was presumed likely to be lost because of NIMBism. The politician's seat was indeed saved but at a projected cost just for disassembly and reconstruction of the facility of nearly 1 billion dollars! Of course increased transmission costs incurred by this move will be ongoing.

Ancillary Consequences of Using Petroleum Resources as Fuel

Interesting crucial but seldom thought of serious consequences pertain as to the types of resources chosen as energy sources. Petroleum and natural gas are the most common resources used for production of vehicular propellants.

Both resources consist of organic polymeric compounds that were synthesized over periods of millions of years over a variety of epochs of the earth's evolution; but in large part during the Mississippian era 200 to 400 million years ago. Plant and animal life was at a peak and petroleum resulted from the remains of these life forms in locations at depth and at extremely high pressure. The polymers that form petroleum (hydrocarbons) are long strings of many different lengths of carbon atoms chemically bonded together with hydrogen atoms which in turn are chemically bonded to each carbon atom along these strings. Why bother the reader with all this millions of years, high pressure and chemical bonding palaver? First and foremost the crux of the matter is the tremendous energy contained in the carbon atom chemical bonds. In the production of gasoline petroleum is placed in a distillation chamber together with steam and subjected to additional heat whereby the various hydrocarbons are separated according to the length of their string of carbon atoms (The shorter the carbon atom string the more volatile the hydrocarbon) into different size fractions with the gasoline fraction being quite volatile, containing that with only 5 to 12 carbon atom strings. Other fractions form other useful products for example that averaging 12 carbon atoms being diesel. Other less volatile, longer string fractions are sent to a petrochemical "cracking" reactor where the carbon atom chains are broken into shorter more volatile hydrocarbon products such as more gasoline.

Not to worry if I lost you in some technical pot hole along the way because the critical concept relates simply to the consequence of using the largest portion of our rapidly dwindling supply of petroleum resources for combustion in vehicular transportation. The process of vehicular combustion is the breaking down of the gasoline or diesel carbon atom strings in the engine cylinders releasing energy for vehicular propulsion resulting in the waste pollutant exhaust gases, the worst being the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Yes this is a serious consequence of our use of petroleum resources as a fuel, but it is not the one I want to emphasize.

The chief raw materials for plastic production are presently petroleum products. The petroleum industry is commonly cracking the longer carbon atoms in petroleum to augment the amount of gasoline and other more volatile hydrocarbons produced from a unit of petroleum. Instead if these products were treated in other chemical processes they would be also useful as raw materials in the plastics industry.

The rapid depletion in our non-renewable petroleum resources using most of the energy locked up over millions of years in the carbon chemical bonds as a source of vehicular propulsion means that when the presently economical sources of petroleum are soon depleted the main raw material from these sources for plastics will likewise be gone. In itself this does not mean that no plastics or gasoline will be available. There are costly sources of petroleum products such as the Athabasca Tar Sands in large supply as a raw material source.

Fracking to increase Oil and Gas Production

Oil and gas production is from bores or wells drilled into the surface of the earth down deeply enough to intersect reservoirs of these substances trapped below. Oil from some of these wells flows freely, but others must be pumped. Gas wells flow freely. Oil and gas fields contain many individual wells. In time oil wells that were free flowing often require pumping as the supply diminishes. Finally the flow of oil and gas from a well diminishes to the point that working the well is not economical and it is sealed off (capped) and abandoned. Since 1947 it has been known that production from gas and oil wells can be increased by hydraulic fracturing (Fracking) of the rock that boarders the wells. In this process new fractures and fissures are created in the adjacent rock by injecting fluids under high pressure into cracks. This opens up areas in the rock formations that have trapped petroleum products that were otherwise inaccessible. This procedure has been used to reopen capped wells for further production, increased production from existing working wells and reached petroleum products at greater depth and horizontal distance from wells.

Fracking is a controversial practice that has resulted in a wide variety of environmental concerns. Of particular direct worry is ground water contamination both by petroleum and from the complex compounds used in fracking fluids. Both surface air and water pollution are additional concerns. Without giving more details it is easy to see that fracking is a technique with great potential benefit to the petroleum industry but at a possible environmentally costly price.

Resource depletion problems leads to the proposed wide use of controversial techniques like fracking that complicate our decisions on what can be permitted for commercial reward in the face of possible permanent damage to the biosphere. This technique is discussed here as an example of the economic and environmental conflict that new techniques for working diminishing resource sources can occasion. If fracking were banned as it is in many jurisdictions, the available reserves of these resources become less. Oil and gas being examples of resources essential resources the depletion of which has negative connotations for our standard of living if not as fuels then certainly for the plastics industry.

Nuclear Energy Sources

Of great relevance to energy resources, scientists demonstrated to the public that humongous amounts of energy are available from tiny sources when they used a relatively tiny quantity of a fissionable isotope of uranium for the destruction, during the 2nd World War, of a large portion of 2 Japanese cities. A natural consequence of this discovery was the subsequent development of nuclear reactors as electricity sources. It being impossible to use the explosive release of energy as was done in the detonation of a nuclear device for energy conversion to electricity Nuclear Power Generation Facilities employ a controlled fission reaction in a very trivial way to generate heat which in turn produces steam that drives turbine electricity generators. The many controversies surrounding this method of electricity production are well-known and the relevance of this to our energy future will be touched upon below.

This leads naturally to the idea that since bonds between subatomic particles in atoms represent a source of immense energy, might there be some way to tap directly into this as a method of energy conversion and acquisition; hence the proposal to use the concept of nuclear fusion as a possible approach. The world famous Einstein Equation Energy equals the Mass times the square of the Speed of Light holds the secret to how this could be accomplished. Since the speed of light squared is an immense quantity only a tiny amount of mass represents a huge amount of energy. Thus a nuclear reaction was proposed whereby 2 different isotopes of the element hydrogen would be fused together to form on an atom of neon. If this can be made to occur the energy sums would mean that the product neon atom formed, having slightly less total mass than the reactants would release this excess in the form of an equivalent amount of energy which in magnitude would be massive. To this date in actual fusion experiments even on a very small scale the output of energy obtained has yet to exceed the input energy required to initiate fusion. Even assuming this problem will be overcome and the output exceeds the input energy the scaling up to large plants for commercial sized production is very problematic.

Thus back to realistic sources of energy that might provide a practical long term solution to our energy needs. In this category nuclear stands out as a technical winner. Unfortunately unrealistic public concern for safety impedes its wider spread adoption. However think seriously about this energy source as discussed below before writing off nuclear reactors for future emphasis in the energy field.

One nuclear power plant can generate the power equivalent to a wind farm that would cover an expanse ¼ the area of Lake Ontario.

Lest we allow the very serious nuclear catastrophe in Japan to determine our future attitudes to the relative safety of the nuclear power generation worldwide I wish to make the following points. This perspective is based on the very different Geological and technological situation as it exists in many other regions.

Geologically Japan is located on top of an area that is underlain with continuously very active continental tectonic plates. The earth is not a solid system of continents and sea floor that is inherently stable and unmoving. Instead the continents are forever moving, the movement being more in some areas like Japan while much less in most. The crust and upper mantle of the earth, often denoted geologically the lithosphere, comprise the total surface and under pinning of the earth. The lithosphere is broken up into sections called tectonic plates. There are 8 major tectonic and many minor tectonic plates on the continents and on the sea floor worldwide. There are 3 types of motion occurring along plate boundaries; these are transformal, convergent or collisional and divergent or spreading.

Tranformal movement is most troublesome and is characterized by major earthquakes, volcanic activity and mountain building, this approximating the situation upon which Japan is located. Strong earth quakes happening at sea are accompanied by a tsunami, which usually accounts for the largest proportion of damage and deaths. Twenty percent of the world's earthquakes occur in Japan making this region the most probable for such a problem. When I was living in Tokyo it seemed unusual for me not to feel minor earth tremors weekly. Japan has an immense person to surface area ratio and a large industrial base much of it concentrated along the coast. The power requirement is high and in Japan natural resources for conventional power generation are low by proportion making supplementation by nuclear electrical power generation attractive. Unfortunately even using the best safety precautions, many unavailable or improperly maintained in the 40 year old 4 Fukushima reactors affected by the recent earthquake, the chances for serious nuclear accidents resulting from an earthquake were high. A frightening figure is that there are a total of 55 nuclear reactors in Japan.

Need this recent Japanese experience cause us to dynamically alter our plans for development of new nuclear electrical power facilities Worldwide? For example according to Natural Resources Canada in all of Eastern Canada 450 earthquakes can be expected to occur each year. Of these only 4, averaging about a magnitude 4, will be strong enough to be felt and then only very slightly. In comparison the recent Japanese quake was about a 9. This is 5 orders of magnitude greater or in other terms 10x10000 times greater. The reason Eastern Canada does not have large structural damaging earthquakes is that geologically this region is in the middle of a very broad and stable continental land mass containing very old and relatively stable fault zones.

For the more technically minded, a few comments on the design and safety features of present Canadian reactors used for power generation. CANDU reactors, originally designed by Canadian Researchers at Chalk River Ontario, are among the best and safest available worldwide. Multiple systems exist that can detect loss of coolant in the fission (the nuclear reaction) reactor vessel and any one of these can shut down the reactor and inject a reaction poisoning mixture under high pressure to prevent overheating and meltdown. These entities are multiple so that if one or more fail there will always be others to take over this function. Additionally the reaction rods in the core are grouped so that coolant failure can affect only small sections of the total reaction chamber, not the total chamber as occurred in Japan. A large volume low temperature fluid moderator surrounds the reactor chamber and is a heat reducing (heat sink) safety shield that can safely absorb heat from heat causing events. This again is surrounded by a water shield tank for biological and further thermal shielding. The heavy water neutron kinetics (an energy expression), a property of the CANDU nuclear reaction process, is several orders of magnitude slower making control easier than in the Japanese type reactors. There are other technical factors relating to safety too complicated to discus here that are part of the CANDU design.

Although safe disposal of nuclear reactor waste, even just the large amount accumulated to date is a serious problem; locations and adequate containers for this purpose are being sought. Recycling procedures have been developed to recover reusable components of nuclear waste Additionally treatments now exist to reduce drastically the volume of waste by separating the relatively much smaller quantity of highly radioactive waste components from the whole thus reducing the disposal problem. Much more research is still urgently needed.

Nothing exists of a complicated technological nature that is totally foolproof. However nuclear reactors for electrical power generation in Eastern exist under favourable geological conditions plus they possess the superior safety features embodied in the CANDU design. This means that as long as safety precautions are continuously reviewed and then updated when these are determined to be advantageous and stable areas are chosen there should be no need to delay plans for building new nuclear power installations despite the catastrophic problem with the 4 inferiorly designed and drastically geologically misplaced Fukushima reactors in Japan.

Of particular desirability is that unlike the harmful nuclear waste products characteristic of the fission reactors the fusion reaction produces virtually none. As we noted the problem with fusion is that to date the energy output from experimental fusion trials has not exceeded the input. Full scale energy production using fusion is likely decades away if it is ever achieved.

Journalistic Unbalanced Short Term Perception of Energy Related Topics, an Understandable Difficulty

There are many reasons for our confused state towards choosing viable future energy "generation" sources. Commercial interests and the susceptibility of Governments to their desires frequently predominate. But reports on energy sources that are disseminated by the media carry appreciable public opinion guidance.

One danger we face in the media world today is the plague of influential Business Section journalists often graduates in economics and business with little training in science technology that seem to constitute the majority of authors of articles on energy in our major newspapers. An average citizen reading these articles has no basis on which to judge there validity. Truly the fate of the worlds energy and other resources and the problems related there-to have very little to do with economics as portrayed presently.

Basically there are 4 main problems that disenfranchise Business/Economics prattlers as capable of writing meaningful dissertations on the Energy problem.

They seldom demonstrate a useful knowledge of even basic science and most particularly that essential to geology, chemistry, physics and related engineering of energy products.

They consider each source of energy as relatively unrelated marketable commodities whose dollar values in the western world should be governed simply by supply and demand and the markets and their fates being related largely to the present and very near future.

Their articles are frequently stimulated by the public conception that energy prices are presently excessive and for the most part economists/business scribes with shallow reasoning support this view.

These writers must rely in large part on interviews or quoted reports of vocal spokespersons in the energy/resource field whose views they are incapable of expertly judging.

We are at a pivotal time in the future of energy sources. Concern for the environment has recently spurred a spate of alternative energy production alternatives. As already stressed these produce energy at a much higher cost than present conventional methods. To encourage alternative energy production large government subsidies are paid from our taxes to the entrepreneurs. Thus at present in many instances the consumer is directly billed at a rate much less than the actual cost of the energy they consume. Economists/business writers seldom give recognition to this dichotomy. In terms of long term bio-sustainability suitable for the existence of life on this planet, present economic thinking is inapplicable. This is of course understandable since short term problems necessary for financial stability and maintaining our present standard of living are uppermost in the public, corporate and governmental idioms.

On the other side of this journalistic coin are the often fine articles by outside experts under headings such as 'Opinion' that are frequently presented on topics of importance such as energy. This is highly commendable.

The incredible magnitude and rate of natural energy resource depletion and the skew of this depletion as being a Western World paradox is basically not considered by economists. Considering the earth as 5 billion years old and then for easy illustrative purposes lets equate this interval to one year. Using this analogy mankind will have depleted the readily recoverable resources in less than 1/10th of a second. Petroleum products and coal emanate from a period about 300 million years ago and using the same relationship these resources will have largely been consumed in 1.7 seconds. The Western world countries containing only 15% of the world's population, with our high living standards and considered at the present rates of consumption is consuming 70% of energy resources.

Modern, major, media sources have a myopic view of a wide range of important issues as the one illustrated above. Intervals of more than a few years are rarely involved in crucial reports. Despite "sustainable" the new politicians buzz concept now being used to describe a hypothetically stable condition of life in the future, the fate of future generations seldom appears to even enter economist journalistic equations. As harmful as such an approach will prove to be, perhaps it is easy to understand. Consistently the main departments of dominant news outlets feature spectacular daily events. Why then should economists not follow suit and report nearsightedly on current subjects which really deserve a long term perspective.

Unrealistic Expectations in Energy Pricing

A serious problem that begets public confusion is energy pricing. At present in round figures Ontario residents pay on their electricity bill 6 to12 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the time of use with the new Smart Meters. This is however very misleading. The present mammoth costs associated with the establishment and production of electricity from alternate energy, a legitimate item in the price of electricity, are also being paid by you but from your taxes as Government subsidies. These subsidies for wind and solar power alone are estimated variously as between 3 and 5 billion dollars. At these subsidies Ontario consumers will obtain about 800 to 900 megawatts of electrical power. Contrast this with the present output from the Darlington nuclear facility of 3500 megawatts which is over 3 times as much. At present total Ontario electricity generation potential stands at 19,000 megawatts. Thus this subsidy from our taxes will replace only about 5% of existing electricity production with wind and solar power. Similar dichotomies are common throughout North America.

There has already been such a public ruckus over rising electricity bills that the government dares not admit to the real cost of electricity. Government subsidies like this for electricity are common across the alternate energy sector and for that matter in some instances for conventional energy processing.

Electricity pricing differs from Province to Province in Canada. Consumer complaints about billing for this commodity in Ontario have been vociferous of late. But again on a nationwide basis, comparisons of our electricity costs with those of other nations are possible. In this case comparing 20 prominent industrialized nations Canadian prices were the third lowest overall. Similar consumer unrest due to energy pricing exists in many of the Developing Nations

Recently Ontario residents will have received a missive from the Ontario Government entitled "Electricity Prices are Changing-Find Out Why". Herein the opening gambit states "Like a lot of places around the world, electricity prices in Ontario are going up". Under "How much will I pay" we learn that each year for the next 20 the rise is projected at 3.5% but the likely increase in the next 5 will be 7.9% per year. This will add up to $300 annually to an average electricity bill by about 2016.

Alternate electrical energy producers have contracts promising payment for power produced and hence the government must pay for the electricity whether needed or not. An option is to sell excess power to adjacent US and Canadian jurisdictions. As was reported recently, at times the government has even had to pay these neighbors just to rid ourselves of this surplus. Since the wind does not blow nor the sun shine consistently it is not possible to rely on a steady supply from these electricity suppliers.

Note how the government tries to hide the costs for subsidizing companies to build alternate energy installations by emphasizing the many jobs thus produced. Down the line when these expensive sources of energy cause electricity rates to skyrocket there may actually be a loss of jobs when other industry decides to avoid investment in Ontario due to exorbitant power rates.

Clearer power technologies are indeed needed to combat climate change. The problem is worldwide in nature. The USA and developing countries continue to persist in an appreciable reliance on coal, the dirtiest but cheapest method of power production. Industry in Ontario will thus be in a disadvantageous competitive position if clean energy costs do not continue to be subsidized from our taxes but are passed on to the consumers.

Another important misconception exists relating to the price of gasoline, a factor that enters the public's mind after every trip to the gasoline station.

According to a recent Yahoo pole 63% of the respondents identified gas prices as the top money issue in a recent Canadian election. Gasoline prices in Canada differ city by city. Taking an average on a national basis several surveys showed Canadian gasoline prices to be in the 40% range of about 150 countries surveyed. For example gasoline is more than 2X as expensive in The Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the UK; while in the US, China and Russia gas is only 0.8, 0.7 and 0.5 as costly as in Canada. Perhaps the chronic complainers would like to move to Venezuela where gas costs a measly 5 cents per litter. Also just for fun compare the current Markham gas price at about $1.36 per litter with local supermarket prices for 1 litter well-known, Brand Name, bottled waters averaging $1.60 when checked recently.

A large proportion of Canadian Oil reserves are located in the Western Canadian oil sands. Production from this source is still subsidized at the billion dollar level by the Federal Government. Environmental problems related to production of oil from this source will accelerate drastically with the June 2013 tentative approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. The oil sands operation already often referred to as the worst source of pollution in Canada any large scale oil production from oil sands must be queried on this basis. Never-the-less as the amount of oil production in Canada from conventional wells inevitably decreases over time, reliance on oil sand produced product will undoubtedly rise. It is essential that this also be accompanied by innovative improvements in oil sand processing pollution control. The result will have to be an attendant increase in the cost of gasoline, diesel and the many consumer products based on petroleum as a raw material.

No one can deny that present higher gasoline and diesel prices can unbalance the family budget and cause problems for commercial and industrial users. With gasoline prices always likely to vary up and down, over the long term a relatively consistently rising trend cannot likely be avoided. The only answer is to plan to adjust our cost expectations both for fuel and for products and services that depend on this commodity.

Considering these inevitable cost increases in consort with a growing population and mode of resource consumption particularly of the conventional type; such will presage the fate of our present average middleclass high standard of living. This detailed discussion involving the fate of a familiar and widely utilized conventional resource is just one example of our constant the relentless shortsighted approach to life that continues to be typical of mankind.

## Conclusions

The Major Problems facing the world have been left on the back burner much too long.

Environmental issues instead of being always at the top of the list of voter priority when elections are called are frequently replaced by concerns for the economy and other lesser important related issues. I presume this means that voters assume there is not a problem in low rating environmental issues even if there is no human population remaining to benefit by a strong economy. Or perhaps put in less exigent terms it is more likely yet another indication that retaining the existing standard of living even at the cost of further delays in dealing with the major environmental problems already at or near the point of no return, is more important.

The interval that exists between a long term solution and the inevitable point of no return may already have been passed for many issues, including Over Population and subsets such as global warming, resource depletion of critical substances and fresh water deficits.

Technological solutions for amelioration of many critical problems still remain inadequate or don't even exist. Even should new technological solutions arise developing, obtaining required approvals, assessing possible side effects, testing the technology as smaller scale prototypes and if successful full scale level infrastructure its cost and repair and expert operation, together with other unforeseen problems will be essential. Such steps are time consuming and interfere with the timely adoption of such solutions at a time when the world's major problems can become out of control quickly. Most of the major world problems have developed over a relatively short interval, in less than 200 years lock step with a worldwide population increase from 1 billion to 7 billion.

The reason for our procrastination in applying remedial solutions is many fold. Sometimes rational solutions are absent. Worse, Governments have relatively fixed agendas and priorities. Mechanisms for defining, prioritizing and acting upon problems depend on the ruling party's politics. Policies are enacted by elected individuals often under pressure exerted by short term concerns of vested commercial concerns and on constituent's major interests. In the latter, Nimbyism rules supreme and in the process frequently negates an installation that makes abundant sense in the longer term. National Governments policies and actions are based on relatively short term needs often motivated by the effect on the economy. Many give lip service to long range planning and then provide only band aid solutions. Most politicians themselves have no demonstrable long term interest in problem solving. Commercial interests generally triumph over ecological concerns.

Long term problems that threaten our existence, having ballooned rapidly through protracted inaction are rapidly becoming much shorter term. Blame has in large part been apportioned to lack of government will to act and on outdated government procedures. Yet in democratic countries when boiled down to the true source, it is you and I who are ultimately to blame. We elect our representatives that form our governments. We establish lifestyle expectations. Our elected representatives act or appoint representatives to act on our behalf on multinational environmental groups. Democratic countries encompass a large portion of the world's major problem causing population. Large Developing Countries act in accord with our interests, being our largest economic benefactors. Until recently citizens of these latter jurisdictions have remained on average at a relatively low standard of living. This situation is changing rapidly under our example.

As an immense new population of consumers strives to reach a standard of living near ours and our own population increases, the need for energy skyrockets and the depletion of natural resources, even factoring in savings through recycling, follows in lockstep; so how long can we continue at this pace?

Alternate energy sources cannot begin to fulfill increased demand for energy so the increased burning of fossil fuels causes increased greenhouse gas emissions and climate change continues virtually unabated.

Our own individual and collective priorities are also only in lip service when they should be deeply embedded in environmental issues.

Humankinds most pressing concerns relate to the health and economic wellbeing of our present families and friends. On the surface this approach to life seems to make sense. But what about making plans for these priorities within a structure that includes dealing with environmental consequences on a long term basis?

Think of our days and how each hour unfolds. Whether it be at work, at home, at school, at play or even maybe at church, synagogue, mosque, temple etc.; how much time do we really spent thinking about and working on the critical problems that must be solved to ensure a long term sustainable environment for the biosphere and mankind therein?

Consumerism prevails. Sit in any coffee shop and have a listen and a quick look around. How few young patrons are not deeply engrossed in using or discussing the merits and/or planned purchase of portable communication, computing or gaming devices that dominate the present technology revolution?

We an overpopulated 21st century world with all its attendant critical problems are also living in a manner that economically, politically and socially is stuck back in many ways in a 19th early 20th century suitability framework.

The concept that the accelerating volume of technological research will not only provide workable solutions to the World's major problems, but will in addition provide us with an abundance of needed commodities such as energy has no practical credence.

It's staggering to think that most of the mankind threatening problems that we face now and in the future have developed in less than 200 years together with a worldwide human population increase of from 1 to 7 billion. Despite accelerating rates of technological innovation time for establishing solutions from selected promising choices is small.

Judging from present government lackadaisical or even resistive meaningful action on solving environmental problems time could expire before reaching the point of no return on critical issues.

The next few years could be the most pivotal in putting the seal on mankind's future fate; worse in some critical areas that seal may already be in place.

