What to expect in the future--if there is one

That you cannot predict the future is not a proper rebuff to someone who tells you to get off the tracks because a train is coming.

Greek is suffering an economic crisis.  Italy is looking to cut spending. There seems to be an epidemic of austere proportions.

Germany is suggesting that private sector investors bear some of the burden of their speculation.  The scolds are everywhere but we don’t see much in standard practices when it comes to analysis.  We have experts galore, but few agree.

In the US, rising energy costs are seen as a problem that can be solved by summer.  Only a few months ago, the doomsayers were predicting $5 a gallon gas by summer.  Gas prices are declining.  For now.

China is feeling the impact of growth.  The Arab spring is turning into a very hot summer.

All agree that there are difficulties.  All agree that the problems may be around for a while.  Some have solutions.  None seem viable, practicable, or sustainable and most of what we read and hear is descriptive not prescriptive.

Hence:

The world can no longer afford to play a zero sum game.  For a while, this was the joint policy of US – Soviet relations.  (First strike capability, SALT treaties, détente.)  NATO, as evidenced by the Libyan Operation, seems more like a Maginot Line.

Therefore, a global initiative is mandatory.  It is compulsory.

It is intuitively obvious to the casual observer that an energy crisis is coming.  Increased competition for oil is what is causing prices to go up at the pump.  Not our failure to drive hybrids or use mercury vapor bulbs rather than incandescent bulbs.

Nuclear power can no longer be seen as a plan for the future.  Not unless you are planning for a disasters.  Such plans are intended to prevent disasters, not cause them.  You can have, tsunamis at the coast, floods along the rivers, fires in the forests, and if all else fails—earthquakes.

On my blog, I wrote Memo to Big Oil.  I also wrote; Nuclear Energy has lost its lustre but not its glow.  These are admonitions and cautionary tales.  Read them. Heed them.  The latter is a definite scolding of the US failure to embrace and pursue solar power over the past 50 years, and a seeming refusal to embrace and pursue it over the next 50 years.

At http://slideshare.net/slimfairview I posted two PowerPoint Presentations.  Global Management: A shift in the paradigm of corporate America and The Future of the G 20 in Good Times and Bad.

Each is a moderately concise vision of a.) How companies around the world can do a better job of going global and b.) A scenario for global disaster and the means to prevent it.  Take the time to review each.

On my blog, http://slimviews.blogspot.com/ I have posted numerous monographs explaining the fallacies and failures of Western Diplomacy in the Middle East.  No sooner than I make a case, my point becomes evident by way of the unfolding events.

The EuroCrats are quibbling while the Greek debt crisis grows larger. There seems to be no strategic planning—or non-strategic planning for that matter.  It would almost seem that Economic Development is something for discussion among the volunteers at a small town Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee.

The 21^st Century seems to be carrying forward the lust for symbolic gestures over substantive gains that hearken not to the last decade but to previous centuries.

Corporate business leaders have given precedence to the process after coming up with a plan.  The one thing they’ve forgotten is The Project.  That too has been covered in my writing.

If we are serious about the future—serious about having a future—we should get started rather quickly.

Sincerest regards,

Slim

Copyright © 2011 Slim Fairview

Slimfairview@yahoo.com

Nuclear Power Has Lost Its Lustre, But Not Its Glow

Planning for Disaster

Dateline—1964

Class—Science

Teacher—Mrs. Holman

Project—The Photoelectric Cell

Atomic energy was just being talked about. After the detonation of the atomic bomb, the subject of nukes was a bit outré. 

It wasn’t long before a toy car came out with a photoelectric cell on top. Shine a flashlight on it and away we go.

However, it wasn’t long before the nuclear energy industry was all fired up and running like an old coal furnace—all the heat, none of the smoke.

Then the anti-nuke protesters came along.

We were told that nuclear waste is deadly. It can’t be shipped safely, it can’t be stored safely, and it stays deadly for the “half-life of an atom—186,000 years!”

After a big fuss and bother, the protesters went on to something else and nuclear energy went on to become the energy source of the future.

Easy to understand. Aside from the production of a solar power, the power source is free.

Nuclear power requires stuff. Nuclear power requires physical plant and planning. Nuclear power can be regulated. (Or not.) Nuclear power is the stuff of business. It is the stuff of manufacturing business. It involves production. Raw materials go in, there is production, and there is output.

Today, aside from a few solar panels on rooftops here and there, the solar panels of the future are still the energy source of the future. Until now.

As a result of Chernobyl, we learned nothing. As a result of Three Mile Island, we learned nothing. 

As a result of Fukushima we are learning nothing except damage control. Not damage control in the event of a disaster at a nuclear power plant; but damage control in the event of a disaster in the image of the nuclear power industry.

After almost half a century, we’ve had no problem concocting an industry out of pure science. However, we’ve concocted little in the ability to learn from our mistakes. We did not learn to come up with a plan B. We did not come up with an alternative product fabricated from pure science.

By now anyone with a lot of scientific knowledge and only a bit of common sense, would have created the industry of the future; the technology of the future; the science of the future.

By now, more than half the houses in America could have had solar panels on the roofs, geothermal heating systems installed, and a much more efficient use of materials and space in the construction.

Alas, no; and there is little evidence to suggest that anyone can see the future. Impossible, you say. Try standing on the railroad tracks and watch the train coming your way.

Oh, yeah!

We actually have the audacity to discuss preparations for any foreseeable disaster. Well, what about an unforeseeable disaster? Well, we can’t prepare for an unforeseeable disaster. Exactly.

Perhaps if we were to rid ourselves of this fixation and stop clutching retentively to our highly intelligent ignorance, we will finally stop planning to build nuclear power plants and start to develop our solar energy.

Planning to build nuclear power plants can be seen as planning for disaster. But we’re supposed to plan to prevent them, not cause them.

Regards,

Slim

PS. I am not Paul Harvey.  Still, I am open to becoming a paid blogger, columnist, or commentator.

In the meantime, if anyone finds the monographs on my blog to be especially helpful, please do not hesitate to send me on of those tricked out laptops and few dollars tucked into the envelope with the thank you note.

Sincerely  

Slim

Mail slimfairview@yahoo.com

Copyright (c) 2011 Slim Fairview