Forelaws on Board The Age of Empathy and Compassion on Earth "To suppose that Earth is the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd to believe that in an entire field sown with millet, only one grain will grow." - Metrodorus of Chios (Greek Philosopher, Fourth Century BP.) "I see Congress as a place where strong progressive voices must be heard and basic changes must be fought for." - Norman Solomon, Author and Candidate for California's North Coast District. "In less than 20 years, we have gone from not knowing if any other planets exist in the universe, to being able to look out at the night sky and realize that essentially any star we can see has at least one planet, and a good number of those are likely to be habitable." - Dr. Alan Boss, Science Working Group, NASA Kepler Mission. Global Water Equilibrium on Earth Residents of Beijing, China's capital, could be drinking desalinated seawater within five years. As part of China's eleventh five-year plan, this source could become a main supply in efforts to deal with the water shortage (National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) People's Republic of China.) Eminently in order on a global scale, the potential and success of global five-year plans aimed at satisfying freshwater needs, at job creation and environmental sustainability through seawater desalination is in dramatic step with achievable global water equilibrium on Earth. A turning point for environmental sciences, for planetary stewardship, and for climate stability uniting all humanity, global water equilibrium - extant, in process, or in prospect on all planets with intelligent life - describes the state of balance between seawater converted to freshwater amply available worldwide on one side and, on the other, relative constancy in planetary ocean and sea levels. Mandated and coordinated through the United Nations Security Council, dramatically accelerated, expanded and sustained seawater desalination - receiving important impetus from the International Desalination Association - will ensure (1) globally plentiful freshwater, (2) relief for low-lying communities vulnerable to sea-level rise, (3) stabilization of ocean shorelines, (4) enlarged land mass/biomass on Earth, (5) freshwater storage in areas which include those where once resided coal and petroleum, (6) climate stability. Global water equilibrium on Earth begins with a growing network of overland pipelines (new &/or converted to freshwater use) carrying freshwater from desalination plants, as well as from seaports (linking freshwater transported by tanker ships), to interior points for local and regional needs including irrigation and replenishment of aquifers. Interport transportation of freshwater converted from seawater can be expected to take advantage of surplus marine tanker capacity coincident with ongoing trends to green energy sources. The same is true with respect to existing overland pipelines (potentially a medium for the transport of freshwater) now used in moving petroleum and petroleum products. The current growth rate of desalination at coastal locations bodes well for strategic and direct movement of freshwater to inland points. In this and all stages of global water equilibrium, from seawater desalination to rolling back desertification, plastic pipe and other products made from industrial hemp are destined to make a major contribution. An agricultural plant requiring no genetic modification, industrial hemp can be cultivated with and without irrigation in countries like Afghanistan, Columbia, Mexico, and the USA - and processed into upwards of 10,000 useful products which includr food and building materials. Industrial hemp (a producer of paper, fiberboard, and hempcrete) and trees (in their full life cycle) have important roles to play in planetary climate stability. Planetary climate stability rests on innovative permaculture dedicated to refinement (by each generation) of Earth's surface reflectivity (albedo) in concert with continuing scientific research and understanding of solar radiation. "Regional changes in the surface albedo can cause variation in the energy budget of the Earth-atmosphere system, specifically in the tropospheric temperature, and therefore can be an anthropogenic source for climate change on a global scale." - from "Global and Regional Surface Albedo Changes due to Land Use Transformation: an Anthropogenic Source for Climate Change." (by E. Monier, S.Wharton, B. Laabs, R. Reck, UC Davis, American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #B41A-0153). Global water equilibrium advantages hydrosphere mining for resources other than freshwater: "The economics are more favorable if these and/or other elements or compounds are obtained as byproducts of seawater desalination . . . . ." - Ulrich Petersen, from Mining the Hydrosphere (Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Vol 58, issue 10, pp 2387-2403). Yucca Mountain in Nevada, USA - no longer judged a respository suitable to accept the nation's nuclear waste materials - should be given consideration as a storage site for effluent salts extracted from seawater (and not recycled) at desalination plants in the USA. "By the outset of the 2nd decade of the new millennium, urgent global mitigation and adaptation measures are needed if H. sapiens chooses to restore the conditions which allowed the rise of Neolithic civilization some 10,000 years ago." - from The World at +4 Degrees Celsius: Implications of Cainozoic Warm Periods, by Dr. Andrew Glikson (16 May 2010), Earth and Paleoclimate Scientist, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University. "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new approach to desalination being developed by researchers at MIT and in South Korea could lead to small, portable desalination units that could be powered by solar cells or batteries and could deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village. As an added bonus, the system would also remove many contaminants, viruses and bacteria at the same time." . . . . . Source: “Direct Seawater Desalination by Ion Concentration Polarization,” by Sung Jae Kim, Sung Hee Ko, Kwan Hyoung Kang, and Jongyoon Han. Nature Nanotechnology, March 21, 2010. - from MIT News 23 March 2010. ". . . we have found a way to make a membrane (for use in seawater desalination) that can produce higher amounts of water compared to the commercial membranes being used today, while using the same process." - Dr. Mohammed Rasool Qtaishat, Water for All. "Among U.S. states, Maryland, Virginia, and DC are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change. The states have more than 5,000 miles of Chesapeake and Atlantic shoreline, almost every inch of which would be degraded or inundated completely by the projected sea-level rise of up to three feet." (Chesapeake Climate Action Network.) "Concerns about global warming, energy consumption and increased demand for potable water sources are causing a dramatic expansion of the desalination industry. These changes present an exciting opportunity for IDA to play a more centralized role in speaking for the industry to increase public awareness of the many benefits of desalination, including drought-proof reliability, expandability, availability and potentially unlimited production." (Lisa Henthorne, International Desalination Association.) "and then there is the greatest opportunity of all, the prize of securing and safeguarding the planet for our generations to come." - Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on global warming and The Stern Review. "Indispensable to the world of science which knows no national or other political boundaries, but is a document (the Antarctic Treaty) unique in history which may take its place alongside the Magna Carta and other great symbols of man's quest of enlightenment and order." - Dr. Laurence N. Gould, former chairman of the U.S. National Committee on Polar Research at the National Academy of Sciences. "Create a multi-disciplinary environment whereby compassion and altruism studies are supported and legitimized within the broader scientific community." - Vision of The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, Stanford University. A compassionate/cooperative global society on Earth manifests the essential and basic goals of progressive science, five-year plans, neo-economics/politics. and the DEMOCRATHON Process: (a) a healthful, sustainable environment for every planetary citizen, (b) universal health care publicly supported, (c) education for all based upon individual capability, (d) creative/productive employment for every planetary citizen, (e) post-retirement security, (f) global water equilibrium. Key to this societal evolution are new cornerstones and guidelines for the United Nations: (1) Forelaws Education, (2) World Summitry on Economic/Societal Sustainability, (3) Global Water Equilibrium, (4) The DEMOCRATHON Process. "We are witnessing the birth pangs of a paradigm shift as important as the Copernican revolution half a millennium ago." - N. C. Wickramasinghe, Director, Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, discussing panspermia (fast becoming mainstream science) and the significance of "Fossils of Cyanobacteria in C11 Carbonaceous Meteorites" (The Journal of Cosmology, March, 2011), by Richard B. Hoover, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center. Early successes of NASA's Kepler Mission (logically inferring that in a Universe of infinite Earth-like exoplanets "we are not alone") . . . . . following Louis Pasteur's pivotal work in 1859 in disproving spontaneous generation of life and, in modern times, that (in astrobiology) of the late Sir Fred Hoyle, N. C. Wickramasinghe, Brig Klyce, Halton Arp, and others . . . . . begin the transition on Earth to a compassionate/cooperative society consistent with universal forelaws of empathy and compassion. As empirical attributes of cosmic genealogy defining the cosmic community of intelligent life, universal forelaws of empathy and compassion (seated within the genome of humankind and all intelligent life), underlie, particularly, reciprocal propagation and dissemination of intelligent life from infinity to infinity by intelligent life (RDIL), the search and discovery of parent planets of intelligent life, and global water equilibrium. Life-centered cosmologies, part and parcel of naturalistic Nature ("everythng is connected to everything else"), reflect cognizance of the observable universe of humankind (13,000 million light years in all directions), of solar systems with and without intelligent life, and of intelligent life reciprocity in cosmic propagation of and dissemination of intelligent life. Inviting human participation, this cosmic reality/morality (RDIL) interacts with the phenomenon that no two parent planets of intelligent life receive identical solar radiation - accounting for "races" (superficial genomics before amalgamation) in the makeup of intelligent life. The search for parent planets of humankind (SPPH) - addressing the deep human need to know from whence we came - creates new frontiers for nascent astrobiology. SPPH efforts will likely focus on planets showing evidence of global water equilibrium, signature of intelligent life. Thus far on Earth exemplars of intelligent life as a gift with indefinable promise include progress toward global water equilibrium, ethnicity revisited, the merger of astronomy and biology (astrobiology), discovery of over 2000 exoplanets, and NASA's OSIRIS-REx - lifting off in 2016 and returning to Earth in 2023 with samples from asteroid 1999 RQ36. Akin to comets and asteroids are icy outer planets made "homeless" by supernovae. Comets, like asteroids, are apparent carriers of DNA materials germane to reciprocal propagation and dissemination of intelligent life by intelligent life. "The first message from an intelligent extraterrestrial civilisation may not emerge from a radio telescope but, instead, from a DNA sequencing machine." - John Walker, Fourmilab Switzerland. Universal forelaws of empathy and compassion, grounding and shaping education at all levels, operate cosmically as well as locally and globally - with marked relevance to human mate selection, nurturing of offspring, and early childhood education in a healthful, sustainable environment. Ending international terrorism requires employing the total resources of the United Nations, including military (right of self-defense), with primary emphasis on forelaws education coupled to scrutiny of all social dichotomies ranging from religious dogmas, to political ideologies, to economic systems. Though actively in denial of their own intrinsic humanness, adherents of international terrorism remain genetically predisposed (and reeducable) to appreciation of their creative potential and positive contribution as part of the cosmic community of intelligent life. World summitry on economic/societal sustainability, marshalling previously untapped human cooperation, energy and resources, faces challenges not least of which deal with terrorism - fossil fuels - nuclear weapons/energy - the specter of international trade wars - overpopulation - world hunger - integrity of the human gene pool - climate stability - as well as the unifying legacy of Kyoto, Rio+10, Johannesburg and Copenhagen. Bolstering world summitry on economic/societal sustainability as a new cornerstone proposed for the United Nations is scientific research validating both the biological basis for human cooperation (Rilling/Berns et al, Emory Univ.), and empathy and compassion (Rodrigues/Saslow et al, Oregon State Univ. & UC Berkeley.) "But the climaxing observation appeared in year 2002. How exceedingly ironic that 30 years after Fred Hoyle pointed to NGC 7603 as a crucial system which must force out acceptance of the existence of discordant redshifts - after a generation has passed - the luminous link between this active Seyfert and its appendage is observed to have two high redshift, quasar-like objects in it." . . . . . "Of course, today, for science in particular, electronic communication makes possible communities of individuals from all corners of the world. The most direct evolution toward an enlightened science is for these groups to just go about supporting each other in doing science free of disproved, official assumptions." - Halton C. Arp, American Astronomer, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, and author of Seeing Red, Apeiron, 1998 (refuting "Big-Bang" theory). "Peace is the marriage of the people and the planet, with all attendant vows." - Anonymous "The hazard of fission products persists for a time that is longer than any I can conceive." - Larry Bogart (1914-1991), Anti-Nuclear Activist. "The survival of all living beings on this planet, the entire ecosystem, depends on our civic engagement . . . . . to be part of the political process . . . . ." - Norman Solomon (author, recipient of Alex Forman Peace Award, founder of Institute for Public Accuracy. "Whatever you can do . . . . . or believe you can . . . . . begin it Boldness has magic . . . . . power . . . . . and genius in it." Johnne Goethe Links to additional internal webpages, and external websites, at home page www.forelawsonboard.net. Forelaws on Board Forelaws_on_Board@forelawsonboard.net |