| Forelaws on Board In keeping with the promise and gift of intelligent life, universal forelaws of empathy and compassion (empirical attributes of cosmic genealogy seated within the genome of humankind and all intelligent life) expressly highlight and define reverence for life underlying evolutionary panaltruism and human unity - moving humanity to a compassionate/cooperative world order with new cornerstones for the United Nations, to global water equilibrium (first step toward climate stability), and to development of life-centered cosmologies. As part and parcel of naturalistic Nature ("everythng is connected to everything else"), life-centered cosmologies 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 global water equilibrium. In 1859, Louis Pasteur's pivotal work in disproving spontaneous generation of life began the age of cosmic genealogy on Earth, increasingly more pronounced in modern times owing to emergent astrobiology (merging biology and astronomy) as pioneered and led by the late Sir Fred Hoyle, by Chandra Wickramasinghe, Brig Klyce, Halton C. Arp, and others. "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." - Halton C. Arp, American Astronomer, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. "Life comes from space because life comes from life." - Brig Klyce, Astrobiology Research Trust. "If life is always derived from antecedent life in a causal chain that is clearly maintained throughout the fossil record, the question naturally arises as to when and where this connection stops. The continuation of the life-from-life chain to a time before the first life appears on our planet and before the Earth itself formed implies the operation of panspermia." - N. C. Wickramasinghe, Director, Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology. Reverence for life, highlighting the intrinsic unity of all intelligent life, underlies (in addition to evolutionary panaltruism and human unity) the age of cosmic genealogy on Earth, the cosmic community of intelligent life, and intelligent life reciprocally propagated from infinity to infinity (from habited sites to habitable sites) by intelligent life. Though today actively in denial of their own humaneness, international terrorists remain genetically predisposed (and reeducable) to compassionate humanness common to all humankind. Evolutionary panaltruism and human unity are imperative in creating a democratically planned and shared global economy and in achievement of global water equilibrium. Fundamental to fulfillment of the promise and gift of intelligent life, deep human needs to know from whence we came, safety and security, and meaning and purpose rest, finally, on determinants consonant with universal forelaws of empathy and compassion: individual mate selection, nurturing of offspring, and early childhood education in a healthful, sustainable environment. "The greatest discoveries of science have always been those that forced us to rethink our beliefs about the universe and our place in it." - Robert L. Park, University of Maryland (in The New York Times, 7 December 1999). Global Water Equilibrium - Climate Stability Reverence for Life "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. Project Ice-SHARE/Green Earth, proposed as a new cornerstone for the United Nations, seeks to achieve global water equilibrium by conversion of seawater to freshwater. Emblematic of the promise and gift of intelligent life, global water equilibrium will effectively address climate change and provide the basic necessity for a compassionate/cooperative world order on Earth: freshwater amply available the world over. Achievable global water equilibrium on Earth is the state of balance between seawater converted to freshwater amply available worldwide on one side and, on the other, constancy in planetary sea levels. Today, in the face of global warming, global water equilibrium has particular revelance to the plight of low-lying coastal and island communities. Mandated and coordinated through the United Nations Security Council, dramatically accelerated, expanded and sustained seawater desalination will ensure (1) globally plentiful freshwater, (2) relief for member-states vulnerable to sea-level rise, (3) stabilization of ocean shorelines, (4) enlarged land mass/biomass on Earth, and (5) freshwater deposits where once resided coal and petroleum. 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 land pipelines potentially serving global water equilibrium, but now used in the movement of petroleum and petroleum products. As envisioned and proposed by Project Ice-SHARE/Green Earth, a growing network of pipelines - many already in place - will carry freshwater from land ports and desalination plants to all interior points where potable water is needed, including, predominantly, arid and semi-arid areas for purposes of irrigation (reversing desertification), as well as for replenishment of aquifers and the storage of freshwater both above and below ground. In this and all stages of global water equilibrium, from seawater desalination to rolling back desertification, plastic pipe and other products made from non-narcotic industrial hemp are destined to make a major contribution. An amazing 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, including 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 - governed by generational vigilance and refinement 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). "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 Andrew Glikson (16 May 2010), Earth and Paleoclimate Scientist, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University. Global water equilibrium advantages hydrophere 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 at desalination plants. "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A new approach to desalination being developed by researchers at MIT and in 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. As the first step toward climate stability and a new era in the age of cosmic genealogy - unifying all of the family of humankind - global water equilibrium warrants preeminent agenda status at the first world summit on economic/societal sustainability. World leaders are therefore urged to undertake at the earliest possible time all appropriate steps preliminary to recommending a global task force on seawater desalination and implementation of Project Ice-SHARE/Green Earth under United Nations Security Council purview and mandate. Global water equilibrium on Earth, like space exploration, captures the questing spirit of all humanity, with success of the latter tethered to success of the former. ". . . 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, President, 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." - 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. " "Life comes from space because life comes from life."(Brig Klyce, founder of Cosmic Ancestry and Astrobiology Research Trust). "I suspect that the cosmic quality of microbiology will seem as obvious to future generations as the Sun being the centre of the solar systems seems obvious to the present generation" - Sir Fred Hoyle (from "The Relation of Biology to Astronomy," 1980). . . . . . this essay will examine the possible role of viruses in the evolution of complexity, including the evolution of human-specific attributes. - from"Can Viruses Make Us Human?" by Dr. Luis P. Villarreal, Director, Center for Virus Research, University of California, Irvine. "Astrobiology has emerged as a new science for the new millennium. It seeks to understand life in the context of the wider cosmos. The new Centre will continue in the pioneering traditions of astrobiology started in Cardiff over 25 years ago, taking note of the many relevant discoveries that have been made in recent years. The Centre aims to combine the expertise of astronomers, biochemists and microbiologists to generate cutting edge science that would eventually enable us to answer the age-old question: where did we come from?" (Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, director of Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, and author of A Journey with Fred Hoyle - The Search for Cosmic Life, World Scientific, 2005). "The discovery of intergalactic seeds produced by intelligent life would immediately change our view of the origin and purpose of life on Earth, and improve our expectations for the future of life in this universe." (Robert T. Hemphill, fromSearching for Signals from Civilizations Spreading Life Among the Galaxies). "A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." - Albert Einstein "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." (Dr. Halton Arp, astronomer and author of Seemg Red, Apeiron, 1998). "knowledge gained is always subject to further testing as understanding matures" - The Center for Naturalism. "I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane." The ideal of humanity has to be revived." - Albert Schweitzer Recent creation of a synthetic bacterium by the J. Craig Venter Institute marks a profound achievement having both local and cosmic significance not only for bioscience but also for biophilosophy and the reverence for life ethic. On May 20, 2010, responding to this development, President Barack Obama requested from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues a comprehensive report to be completed within six months. A week later the U. S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce held hearings entitled "Developments in Synthetic Genomics and Implications for Health and Energy." "Given the importance of this issue, I request that the Commission consult with a range of constituencies, including scientific and medical communities, faith communities, and business and nonprofit organizations." - President Barack Obama. "Craig Venter's successful implantation of a digitally determined genome sequence into a bacterium has been widely reported (29 May, p 6). Now imagine a future where a successor to Venter is able to digitally reconstruct a set of the best possible sequences of human genomes and incorporate them, in pieces, into bacteria that could autonomously reproduce the sequences. If these bacteria were then launched into space, the fragmented genome could be reassembled on countless habitable planets in the galaxy. This would be a process similar to that outlined in the theory of directed panspermia proposed in 1973 by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel (Icarus, vol 19, p 341). Carried on comets, these bacteria could travel from one planetary system to the next, where the genome could reproduce. The legacy of human life could then be thought to have been given an eternal existence in the cosmos." - Intergalactic Legacy (New Scientist, 9 June 2010) by Chandra Wickramasinghe, Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology. "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. Holistically monitored and reviewed by this and succeeding generations, the future of artificial life (synthetic biology) turns essentially on its compatability with the promise and gift of intelligent life, with universal forelaws of empathy and compassion defining reverence for life, and with evolutionary panaltruism and human unity - allies as humanity progresses toward active membership in the cosmic community of intelligent life, in the age of cosmic genealogy on Earth. Compassionate/cooperative humanity, appreciative of the grandeur and import of cosmic genealogy, concerns itself with life-centered issues and questions including cosmologies merging biology and astronomy (astrobiology) - the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) - infinities in Nature unrelated to mathematics and physics - the strong version of panspermia (Cosmic Ancestry) - Viruses in the Evolution of Life (Villarreal, 2005) - locally developed horizontal gene transfer (HGTE) and cosmic/intelligent life propagated from Earth (CLPE), both keyed to reverence for life and evolutionary panaltruism - ground rules apropos to "artificial life" and "synthetic biology" - how do solar flares impact climate on Earth? - parent star stabilization/solar energy constancy - polar wander/pole shift - climate change - industrial hemp - reverence for life and ethical veganism - the terraforming of Mars - the overlapping of observable universes as a communicative mechanism for intelligent life - education coming to grips creatively with origins, meaning and purpose - all in testament to "concern for others and for those who will succeed us . . . . . " (The Center for Naturalism). "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 panaltruism@yahoo.com |