There is an underlying naiveté to his economic and political knowledge, indeed he is an iconoclastic Socratic one upping asshole (I clearly can't relate to that!!!), who is inadvertently shilling for Monsanto, but what I appreciate about this guy is that he 'appears' to be thinking, even though he is wrong about all of it. Especially his blurb on love in the end, which I already have refuted in the span of typing this message.
i.e. you don't love the shit of a person, love IS ideological and abstract, you love what you like about someone and put up with the rest. Like I say though he has devolved into full on fucking with peoples heads. I am saving that for the golden years (robot wiping my ass years). For now... well its time to live for other people who don't even care about their own wellbeing!!! PRIORITIES FIRST!
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FROM WIRED SHILLS
For years, the military has made on-again, off-again attempts to find eco-friendly ways to get power war-zones, bases and drones. And lately, they’ve seemed willing to try almost anything to do it. In the last year alone, the military’s funded projects that’d turn ocean water into liquid fuel and use dye inspired by purple bacteria to charge UAVs.

Now Darpa, usually the agency behind the Pentagon’s most out-there ideas, is putting their money into an old standby: solar power. They’re investing $3.8 million into the creation of high-powered, lightweight solar cells that can “stand up to battle conditions and environmental extremes.”

The program, called Low-Cost Lightweight Portable Photovoltaics (PoP), is being spearheaded by Dr. Robert Birkmire, director of the University of Delaware’s Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC). The Institution has a long history of working on Darpa-funded projects, including a 7-year consortium, launched in 1995, that successfully created much of the tech now going into PoP.

“Obviously, this is an agency that sets out some incredibly ambitious goals,” Birkmire told Danger Room. “But if you’d asked me in 1995, if we’d be able to complete that project? I’d have had no idea.”

And, Birkmire is quick to point out, the cells Darpa’s after will require some lofty innovation. Thin-film, flexible solar cells are a major priority for the military, because they can be applied onto almost everything — from tents to uniforms — and would minimize the number of generators and portable battery packs needed by troops in battle. In 2005, the Army tested tents lined with silicon-based solar cells that were able to generate adequate power for fans, lap tops and lights.

Five years later, Birkmire and co. have taken that technology up a notch. They’re testing cutting edge, copper-indium-deselinide-based cells, made on a lightweight plastic substrate. And Darpa wants the PoP program to yield solar cells that are more than just light and flexible — they should also be able to withstand dirt, rough handling and punctures, and be manufactured inexpensively.

Right now, Birkmire said, the cells are in their infancy, and operate at 7-11 percent efficiency. Darpa wants to see that doubled — at least.

“They want to take performance to



Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/darpa-push-solar-cells-tough-enough-to-handle-a-war/#ixzz0s2X0QFyk
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Either Monsanto and friends will buy this and bury it, or its actually going to be sold by them while charging some annual stipend for using "their" property, (i.e. the suns light and rain and earth nutrients that makes plants) let robofarming commence... in 20 years, after shit has hit fan of course.

PULLMAN, Wash. –Earth-friendly perennial grain crops, which grow with less fertilizer, herbicide, fuel, and erosion than grains planted annually, could be available in two decades, according to researchers writing in the current issue of the journal Science.

WATCH INFORMATIVE VIDEO HERE
 
Perennial grains would be one of the largest innovations in the 10,000 year history of agriculture, and could arrive even sooner with the right breeding programs, said John Reganold, a Washington State University Regents professor of soil science and lead author of the paper with Jerry Glover, a WSU-trained soil scientist now at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas.
 
“It really depends on the breakthroughs,” said Reganold. “The more people involved in this, the more it cuts down the time.”
 
Published in Science’s influential policy forum, the paper is a call to action as half the world’s growing population lives off marginal land at risk of being degraded by annual grain production. Perennial grains, say the paper’s authors, expand farmers’ ability to sustain the ecological underpinnings of their crops.
 
“People talk about food security,” said Reganold. “That’s only half the issue. We need to talk about both food and ecosystem security.”
 
Perennial grains, say the authors, have longer growing seasons than annual crops and deeper roots that let the plants take greater advantage of precipitation. Their larger roots, which can reach ten to 12 feet down, reduce erosion, build soil and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.  They require fewer passes of farm equipment and less herbicide, key features in less developed regions.
 
By contrast, annual grains can lose five times as much water as perennial crops and 35 times as much nitrate, a valuable plant nutrient that can migrate from fields to pollute drinking water and create “dead zones” in surface waters.
 
“Developing perennial versions of our major grain crops would address many of the environmental limitations of annuals while helping to feed an increasingly hungry planet,” said Reganold.
 
Perennial grain research is underway in Argentina, Australia, China, India, Sweden and the United States. Washington State University has more than a decade of work on perennial wheat led by Stephen Jones, director WSU’s Mount Vernon Research Center. Jones is also a contributor to the Science paper, which has more than two dozen authors, mostly plant breeders and geneticists.


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UPDATE 2-Venezuela to nationalize U.S. firm's oil rigs

Thu Jun 24, 2010 1:34am

* Minister said idled rigs opposition ploy against Chavez

* Socialist government has nationalized many industries

* Giants Halliburton and Schlumberger also in Venezuela (Adds byline, details, background)

By Frank Jack Daniel

CARACAS, June 23 (Reuters) - Venezuela will nationalize a fleet of oil rigs belonging to U.S. company Helmerich and Payne (HP.N), the latest takeover in a push to socialism as President Hugo Chavez struggles with lower oil output and a recession.

A former soldier inspired by Cuba's Fidel Castro, Chavez has made energy nationalization the linchpin in his 'revolution'. He has also taken over assets in telecommunications, power, steel and banking.

The 11 drilling rigs have been idled for months following a dispute over pending payments by the OPEC member's state oil company PDVSA. Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said on Wednesday the rigs, the Oklahoma-based company's entire Venezuelan fleet, were being nationalized to bring them back into production.

Ramirez said companies that refused to put their rigs into production were part of a plan to weaken Chavez's government,

"There is a group of drill owners that has refused to discuss tariffs and services with PDVSA and have preferred to keep this equipment stored for a year," Ramirez told reporters in the oil producing state of Zulia. "That is the specific case with U.S. multinational Helmerich and Payne."

The company was not immediately available for comment.

Chavez, who faces legislative elections in September, often pushes ahead with radical plans during election campaigns.

The 55-year-old leader is having a hard time in his 11th year in power. Venezuela's economy is the worst performing in Latin America this year, a problem exacerbated by a drop in oil output since 2008, power outages and soaring inflation.

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"However, organic farmers disputed the findings of the study. Cookstown Greens owner David Cohlmeyer said organic farmers use only natural pesticides as a last resort. Simon Jacques, Ontario representative for the organic certification program Ecocert, added the first priority of organic farmers are on rotating their crops, planting habitats for beneficial predators and looking for good soil, instead of using pesticides."
This snippet from All headline news


See article below from CBC
Natural pesticides may hurt environment

A new Canadian study suggests natural pesticides could cause more environmental damage than conventional chemicals.

University of Guelph researchers said natural compounds often are used in higher doses than traditional chemical pesticides, resulting in potentially more problems for the water table and other parts of the ecosystem.

"These data bring into caution the widely held assumption that organic pesticides are more environmentally benign than synthetic ones," said a synopsis of the paper published in the most recent edition of PLoS ONE, an online magazine that publishes medical and scientific research.

Questions about natural pesticidesThe study places in doubt the conventional wisdom that has led to the banning of chemical pesticides in cities such as Toronto.

Some municipalities have prohibited the use of synthetic compounds on the theory that artificial substances will leach into the ground and the water table and cause more long-lasting damage to the local ecosystem.

Some provinces have already banned the use of so-called natural pesticides.

The Guelph study did not address the safety of traditional pesticides, but instead examined the environmental impact of natural compounds by looking at the active ingredients of these substances based upon factors such as their leaching rates and toxicity to wildlife.

The five Guelph scientists involved in the study, including Rebecca Hallett, a professor at Guelph's School of Environmental Science, looked at compounds used to combat soybean aphids, a major destroyer of that crop.

Comparing two synthetic compounds to a pair of natural pesticides, Hallett and her colleagues discovered that the natural products were generally less effective at getting rid of the aphid. Thus, they needed to apply more of them to get the same result as the traditional pesticide.

"Ultimately, the organic products were much less effective than the novel and conventional pesticides at killing the aphids and they have a potentially higher environmental impact," Hallett said.



Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/23/guelph-pesticide-study.html#ixzz0rmyrMjng
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I am still not sure about the "peak oil" thing... but good video nonetheless

NOTE: This is not Joe Rogans theory!!! It came from James Lovelock

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NOTE THE FOLLOWING OVERGENERALIZED HEADLINE WAS EXTRAPOLATED ON THE BASIS OF STUDYING 18 EGGS IN ONE REGION OF THAILAND!!!! ITS TOTAL BULLSHIT, ESPECIALLY THERE REASONS FOR WHY PEOPLE EAT THEM (i.e. NOT BECAUSE IT IS DISRESPECTFUL AND UNSANITARY, BUT BECAUSE ITS HEALTHIER!!!!)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Free-range eggs 'contain five times as much pollution as those from caged birds'
By NIALL FIRTH
Last updated at 2:15 PM on 17th June 2010


Free range eggs may contain high levels of pollution

Ethical shoppers are being warned that free-range eggs may be less healthy than those from caged birds.

Scientists found that free-range eggs contain at least five times higher levels of certain pollutants than normal eggs. 

Around 17 per cent of the free range eggs had levels that European regulators would have deemed unsafe for consumption.


The study was carried out in Taiwan but the findings will raise concerns about the safety of eating free-range chicken eggs in the UK.


Free-range chickens are those that have continuous access to fresh air, sunshine, and exercise, in contrast to chickens that are confined to cages. 


But scientists suspect that free-range chickens may risk getting higher levels of exposure to environmental pollutants, particularly PCDDs and PCDFs, potentially toxic substances that are produced as by-products of burning waste.

Also known as dioxins, these substances may cause a wide range of health problems in humans, including reproductive and developmental problems and cancer.

They found that the free-range eggs contained 5.7 times higher levels of PCDDs and PCDFs than the regular eggs.

The scientists collected six free-range eggs and 12 regular eggs from farms and markets in Taiwan and analysed the eggs for their content of dioxins.

Taiwan is a heavily populated, industrialized island with many of the municipal incinerators that release PCDDs and PCDFs. 


But the authors of the report warned that the issue could be more widespread.

They wrote: 'The issue of contamination in free range eggs could be a global issue, and more research should be done to identify the factors from the external environment that influence and modify the PCDD/F levels in eggs from free range hens.'

The researchers believe the free range eggs contain pollutants which the hens pick up from being free to feed in the open.


They said the chemicals were present in 'feedstuffs, soil, plants, worms and insects'.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1287301/Free-range-eggs-contain-times-pollution-caged-birds.html#ixzz0r8zNSjPO
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Maybe they should stop the practice of usury which fuels the materialistic mindfuck then. Nope, sail around the world in a boat made of pop bottles instead of using his fortune to buy a spot on the news that them and their friends pretty much already own anyway.
You have been on the ocean for 54 days now. How is it going?

Really well. I have to keep pinching myself that we are floating on a boat made out of 12,500 2-litre reclaimed plastic bottles.

Why is your boat, the Plastiki, built out of these bottles?

We thought they would make a tough hull but we also wanted to highlight the bottle's status as one of the most disposable plastic items we buy. This project is about taking a symbol of dumb plastic 1.0 - the single-use, throwaway kind - and making it functional. The Plastiki gets 68 per cent of her buoyancy from the bottles.

Environmentalists' knee-jerk reaction is often to vilify plastics. Instead we need to differentiate between the throwaway kind - the bottle, the bag, the polystyrene foam - and the smarter materials like the laptop I'm using now or the lifesaving machinery in hospitals. The latter have a valued place in our society and a longer life cycle but we need to re-engineer them to have a closed-loop life cycle, so that they are recycled over and over.

Is this kind of smarter plastic incorporated into the design too?

Yes. The structure of the boat is made out of a material called self-reinforced polyethylene terephthalate (srPET). It is a single-substance material which means it is easily recycled.

What is srPET used for today?

Not much. It has been around since the 1980s but there hasn't been the desire to take it out of the laboratory. It is slightly more expensive than less green alternatives, but I think the market is starting to move on. People want to know where their materials come from and how they affect the health of the planet.

Did you offset the carbon footprint of manufacturing the boat?

Our footprint was a lot smaller than it could have been because we manufactured a lot of the boat ourselves off-grid, using solar power. When we got into tracing the carbon footprint of all the stuff we had ordered, it actually became financially restrictive for us to do the analysis. We got a quote from one company that was of the order of $100,000 to do a full analysis of our carbon footprint.



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FROM PRESS TV
The US paper industry plans to plant forests of genetically altered Australian eucalyptus trees to save the country's ecosystem, currently subject to unrelenting tree cuts. 

US Department of Agriculture approved a total of 250,000 trees last month to be planted at 29 sites during the next few years in seven southern states in the United States. 

Researchers chose the Australian eucalyptus trees for their fast pace of growth. The trees produce high-quality pulp perfect for paper production. 

The strategy, however, infuriated critics who believe the bioengineered non-native plant could put natural ecosystems in danger. 

"We have many reservations about it," the Associated Press quoted Neil J. Carman, a biologist who serves on the Sierra Club's genetic engineering committee, as saying. "We don't think the scientific evidence is in yet that says this is a good idea." 

The paper industry is one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It also removes a large number of trees, natural oxygen producers. 

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