becomingconscious - The Unseen made Visible.
Have you ever had that feeling that you are here to do something really important – something "big" or "really special" somehow, even though you actually have no idea what that is? This is a common feeling among Starseeds and Indigos and it's true that we are here for special reasons, but perhaps not in the way we thought or have imagined. Firstly, how do I say to you that merely the embodiment of our soul essence and individual energetic coding is "something big" or "really special" that we might be here just to do that? Not "merely" of course because soul embodiment is something pretty special, and to find that it was always within us when we've spent years looking outside of ourselves for it, is just part of the "not quite what I thought" equation. The gem we looked for in the external was embedded, encoded deeply within us all the time and it is in fact, in every cell, every atom, every particle of our physical body and most importantly in the speck of consciousness that we are and when we activate that through the genuine experience of it's embodiment and the conscious awareness of it, then THAT is the "something big" but still probably "not quite what you thought" because after all, what does that actually even look like or mean in the real world?
Well in a sense that is our gift to humanity – to embody and activate that coding and to share it amongst our fellow humans so that we may all benefit from elevated consciousness - and at this time in earth's history we were meant to step into our Truth, into our Wholeness… but it has been almost impossible for many of us to do that as we have been battle weary and have been dragged down by the experiences we have endured in our human life. It is sometimes not just this lifetime that has dragged us down, but some of us have also brought through from other lifetimes certain bindings, contracts and agreements that have limited us and held us back from any level of being self realised or being all that we truly are, or free to express our true gifts. It has been such a heavy weight for many and relatively few of us have done as well with this project as we thought we might. Various controls on planet have proven to be somewhat harder to navigate than at first expected and various revisions of how we were to get our work done were called for.
Very often, we as Starseeds have come through with a huge weight-load to carry – not just accumulated karma from personal lives, but also some of us apparently took on a particular role and agreed to clear genetic and collective karma – or so we have been told… A few of us agreed to this knowingly during our "in-between lives" phase (although those contract have mostly ended now) and others of us were actually tricked into taking on this role through mere suggestion (or implantation into our subconscious mind) by various negative factions once we got here, often at the time of our spiritual awakening or upon first accessing galactic awareness and these are the more disturbing contracts that I have been seeing in session work with people more recently.
Because we feel such a strong calling to "be of service", in our naivety many of us were completely hoodwinked into believing that because of who we are and because we often can clear this type of thing through our lightbody, that we, in fact, should do it and also take on large portions of collective clearing that in truth, was never ours to clear in the first place. Because of this, many of us have found ourselves in a position where, at times, we have hardly been able to hold our head above water, due to the sheer volume of mass consciousness negativity and fear bearing down on us, plus the collective and accumulated trauma of humanity (it's abuses, wars and degradation of the human soul) and the extremely malevolent energies that have existed here in lower dimensions. These painful energies that have accumulated in our field have held us in trauma, submerged and stuck in heavy matter and often the more we were told we are doing a great job, the more we offered ourselves up for that role and the more it inhibited and suppressed complete soul embodiment and the expression of our true Self.
Our exquisite sensitivity as empaths has opened us up to so much pain at times that we can hardly bear to feel any more, in fact sometimes it doesn't even feel safe to feel and many of the millienial starseeds have unfortunately completely shut themselves down emotionally as they have not had the adequate training as to how to navigate the fields or manage their energy body in this harsh environment as some of us who have been on this path for a longer time, have.
Taken at face value many of these millennial starseeds appear to be hugely successful – they talk the right talk, connect with all the right people and seem to have nailed their market but their spiritual substance is severely lacking and many have actually missed their spiritual mark and are not embodying or activating the coding that they agreed to bring through on to this planet. Many have been blinded by their own ego brilliance and their arrogant awareness of their own DNA wiring has created a false reality for them that would have them believe that they can bypass the deep healing and spiritual work that is required for code embodiment and activation, believing in a sense that they can access all at the touch of a button – such is this technological age of artificial intelligence versus genuine spiritual intelligence and wisdom of having walked the path.
In a sense, this adds yet another level of confusion for the more recently awakened spiritual students because they see these successful people that say all the right things and they readily sign up and jump on board but they are unable to see the energetic layers of what is hidden underneath. Of course they want it all and everything IS available to them (to all of us) however without the proper grounding and core strength, heart centred business goes out the window and gives way to yet another ego based business. One must wonder if this is all by design as the surest way to a spiritual downfall and halted consciousness growth is when the ego is lead into temptation and we only have to look to Hollywood and various other celebrities to see this in action.
Millenial Starseeds have been given a really amazing opportunity to make a difference in this world. Many of them hold some fairly advanced coding in their lightbody and with heart engagement at the age they are now they really could play a vital role in creating a more conscious planet so it is quite unfortunate that rather than embodying and living the level of consciousness available to them and sharing to activate others, they have used it for personal gain and to afford themselves a high profile image. There is no advancement without diligent focus though and their busyness keeps them looking externally so they miss the internal red flags. Words can be cheap.
Now is our time to awaken on earth. Do we really need books, workshops or You Tube videos to do that? No, of course not. It would be ridiculous to think that Source Light would set things up so that humanity on earth in 2018 had to have access to technology to watch a video or listen to a meditation in order to awaken. Or that we had to have access to books or workshops in the right language at the right price before our consciousness could evolve. So we don't NEED these things, but we may choose some of these things and in the current climate where people are looking to develop their spirituality in great numbers, well, what a great market place for the unscrupulous to set up shop! In fact many of them ARE like pop up shops, here today, gone tomorrow with no chance of going back for customer support when the item you bought turns out to be faulty, dangerous or completely misrepresented on the box. Many people are participating in ceremonies and initiations, taking on vows and agreements with absolutely no idea of what they have just bought into, because the terms and conditions are not fully understood and Universal Law is being twisted to submerge the truth and subvert personal power. This is a very real problem on this planet – the usurping of personal power very deliberately and destructively by unscrupulous people with no care for others.
If we choose to look only at the darkness and the darker side of people, then we will see only darkness. There is so much human suffering and pain on the planet that if we focus solely on the pain we will see only pain and we will feel it too. Our minds are so incredibly powerful that if we choose to move from darkness and into light that we can absolutely make that move and change our whole reality. What we focus on becomes our reality… if we choose to make our lives successful, if we choose to thrive, then we must decide to take steps towards it and this sometimes requires that we leave some other things behind... The Law of Attraction says that we attract to us what it is that we must focus on and are a vibratory match to - this is accurate however what is often missed is that we must take steps each day in the direction of our goals, action steps, because as wonderful as the Universe is, it rarely just comes along and drops everything in our lap just because we spent time each day doing some thinking. It is the action steps that count and if we do nothing we get nothing.
So currently on planet there is a sensation of being sorted, of being moved in location, although not in physical location. Many people are experiencing this… it might feel as if a minor earthquake occurred and you wobble on your feet a little, as if you just got picked off and dropped off in another location that looks exactly the same but feels different (you may have to steady yourself a little bit as you drop back in) or as if a time wobble occurred and the things you thought you said already, were said somewhere else in a future time, space or reality and you've had to come back into this one to say them again because the people here haven't heard you say them yet – I know that's a bit mind bending but it's all part of these dimensional shifts that are happening now as we come in and out of our body and adjust at different levels of our consciousness. It's a bit like the sorting hat on the Harry Potter movie where we are moved around through various houses to find the right fit.
This feeling of being sorted is a vibratory thing and it is happening naturally, it's occurring naturally… there is nothing that we can do at this point to change anything because it is what it is… the work that we have done beforehand dictates where we are and the measure is taken in our heart and energy field - our heart reveals where we are at and the measurement taken is only ever accurate. No amount of falsity, illusion or PR can influence the measurements being taken now and we always knew this time would come. It is about reading the frequency of a genuine heart – words and actions and vibration must be a match because incongruency is also measured plus intent to deceive. This is about being authentic. In a sense it is almost like a universal barometer reading is being taken from every human heart on planet and we are gently being moved into the right locations (or energetic stations) to experience what we next need to experience. This actually could be classified as a blessing because for those of us that have done a fair degree of work on ourselves already we will really be able to get somewhere now… that ascension gateway is closing and the energy feels somewhat more focused. Rather than being sprayed with a water cannon we are now being targeted with a very precise and focused stream of consciousness that allows us to move forward very directly on to our path. In fact it propels us along that path in some cases but it is directly related to the amount of frequency that one can hold in their lightbody at this time and to how focused one is able to be on what it is that we are required to do. As an example and in the most basic terms, suppose one were to take up a new hobby of embroidery… the person that focused purely on their embroidery would progress far more quickly than the person who chose to pick up embroidery, crochet, knitting and yoga all at the same time. Would you prefer to be a jack of all trades or very targeted and focused upon one of which you can become a master?
That is the time that we are in right now. It is time to knuckle down and focus in order to excel. Our time for dabbling and finding our way is somewhat passed for many of us, this is a time to absolutely formulate our strategy so that we can create the big things that we need to, in order to transmit our particular codes out into the world. Let us not forget that for many of us as Starseeds this is about transference of activation coding for those who are not activated yet. We are the leaders in our field and our uniqueness dictates that what we have embodied must be put forward and shared in a different way now because what many of us hold within us, quite literally has never been here before on this planet. It may look similar to what others are doing or have done before but there is a frequency alignment to our work. The frequency is unmistakeable to others in the same vibratory field because finally those of us at this level get to meet our real soul family, our tribe, and it leaves all of the others that we've so desperately tried to connect with and found nothing there for us, in its tracks. There is a star family alignment happening now and we recognise each other. We are coming together as equals - it really makes no difference as to what role we each play as this is about a code exchange that is happening. What I share with you, you equally share with me in terms of growth, learning, activation and resonance. This is a star alignment and a high level of consciousness exchange, and even to the degree of inter galactic lineage reconnection points that are being activated within our consciousness via various pathways because what is being revealed on planet now is far and beyond what we have previously ever been able to access.
I have seen in session work particular galactic alignments taking place now and as a being who holds a huge variety of connection points within my own field, I have noticed that a new and different configuration is happening in my clients' energy fields during session work and that no matter at what level the client appears to be in their physical emotional process or understanding level, that the configuration happening at galactic levels now opens access points for them to also connect to their star family in order that they may begin to move beyond some of the trauma experienced on earth and be able to process it a bit more easily. Perhaps it is merely that they have learned from it what was needed and it is time to move on now and this would reflect my view also that we are not here to process massive amounts of karma for everyone else and stay churning in a vat of pain and misery any longer because that time has passed for collective human pain to be continually felt and processed and my sensing is that for those of us so aligned and committed we are now being given that "proceed to the next point" card while those who have manipulated their way through life, knowingly caused pain and suffering to others or concealed it and those who have effectively sold their soul to the devil in order to get on in life are being handed out the "do not pass go" card and I foresee that their life will begin to get tougher, first from the inside and we won't see that part but quickly reflected and projected from the outside too. It is a time, we could say, when Empires might fall, reputations will fall into disrepute and people will begin to wish they had never chosen to dance with temptation in the first place.
I'm sorry, if this sounds a little dire… it is not mean that way, however that is what is shown to me in terms of vibrational resonance when I look at where we are moving and what we are moving into. Those organisations who have willingly misled people, usurped their energy and basically set up sophisticated levels of enslavement upon their clients' energy bodies will be held accountable, for that is the age that we are moving into now. People are going to be held accountable before they can progress any further. For a long time on planet, people have not been taken to task for their actions – the catholic church, cult organisations, slave owners, environmental polluters, governments and more… you know where I'm going with this… it's all about our rights as human beings, to live freely upon this planet.
Only when we are free can we shine fully. When we are enslaved we feel it as a compression on our lightbody – our light is dimmed and we often have not realised that whilst our life may look "free" at a physical level that we can be enslaved at multiple hidden levels from the emotional and mental levels to countless multidimensional levels depending upon what we entered into with no clue that it entailed more than a piece of paper that we signed stating that we wished to participate in that experience. When we willingly participate in something, we generally are not aware that multiple layers of commitment have been entered into and the ramifications can literally bind us for lifetimes. Thankfully at this time the layers of deception that have kept this hidden are slipping off now and we can see what has been hidden much more easily. I am reminded of how gently silk cloth slips and falls to the floor… there is no loud crash or bang, the silk just gently drops away and reveals what was hidden beneath and many people now are being uncovered, de-cloaked we could say. Only those who are looking would see it fall and be rewarded by a clearer vision.
In many places and at many levels the silk has dropped away now and this is so much more than saying that the veil has lifted… here we are talking about multiple levels of revealing, inter-dimensional and multi-dimensional levels of revealing. So much is becoming transparent right now that it is almost comical. It is rather like ones eyes have opened and we can see that the Emperor is indeed naked as the day that he was born… and it is quite laughable how some have not even realised that their silk has dropped to the floor and they are quite easily seen.
So of course, with this, once again, we must find compassion in our heart and understanding for those who were mistaken into thinking that they could take all and give little in return or that they could treat others badly and not have to answer for their actions and of course in the big scheme of things, that's ok… the lessons that they require will be delivered to them through the benevolence of the Universe, as will ours. Judgement is not ours to give – thine will be done.
All up, exciting times that we are moving into. I can feel a freshness in the intensity of that laser focus but it feels like a push from the heavens and that is infinitely better than treading water and waiting for the choppiness to subside. Now that the ascension gateway is closing I feel that things will settle – not into complacency by any means – but into a space where we can actually make some headway and progress on this planet for those of us that want that. Enough consciousness has been downloaded that we can move forwards into the right direction and enough of us have accessed coding to help to elevate others. Many of us have a direct connection to Source that we cannot be cut off from now like we once were down here. Enough people have poked through the frequency fences and nets to weaken them and providing that we stay focused and true to our path we should all now begin to feel some progression and movement forwards.
So you don't know what your job is yet? No problem – you've just read this newsletter and codes have already downloaded as a result. Tapping into what is aligned to you, continues to move you forward. The trick is to not get distracted by some of the Emperors cohorts – who appear to be wearing clothes but are actually only creating the illusion of wearing clothes – or in this case the illusion that they are leading you somewhere you need to go, when actually the only place you really need to go is within because all of your answers are there. When you can really get in touch with your self, your soul, your inner guidance you will know what is aligned to you and what is not and you will know where your focus and direction lies… so turn your back on distractions that lead you nowhere and come back to yourself – what inspires you, what lights you up, what brings you peace.
As always, stay in truth, stay in the Light, and I'll see you next time.
Thank you Karen, as always this is so spot on. Your newsletters are the most pure and sharp bits of spiritual information updates that I read :) Very much so, now is the time to step into our roles and start making real progress!


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Tag Archives for " history "
Get to know Queen Victoria and her dog Dash
/ Dash and Victoria	My Projects
I've always been interested in Queen Victoria, my so-called namesake. My father said I had a "regal birth" (he's a doctor and I have no idea what that's supposed to mean) and so they named me Victoria. I've read many books about the queen and know that the love of her life was her first cousin, Prince Albert from Coburg (today's Germany). Their marriage was one of great love. When he died at the age of 42 from what was officially named as Typhoid (now they think he died of complications from Crohn's disease), she mourned for the rest of her life. She was crowned in 1837 and died in 1901 and was the longest reigning British monarch until the current Queen Elizabeth overtook that record.
As princess, Victoria was very lonely. She lived at Kensington Palace with her mother, Duchess of Kent and Strathearn and her mother's comptroller, Sir John Conroy. The two of them devised a plan to keep Victoria safe and well called the Kensington System. Victoria wasn't allowed outside the Palace and had to hold someone's hand while going up or down the stairs (so she wouldn't fall).
One day, Sir Conroy brought a young dog to the palace to give to the Duchess. Victoria took one look at the King Charles Spaniel named Dash and fell in love.
I'm pleased to announce my new book, "Dash and Victoria Find True Love." Dash loves his Queen but when Prince Albert comes he must learn that his heart is big enough to love more than one person. This book will be launched in May, 2019 in honor of Queen Victoria's 200th birthday.
School Visit – My first reading to Elementary school students
/ Buzzy and Thomas	School visit
My First School Visit!
I took the plunge today! I had my very first school visit and reading! It's so important to connect with the kids that are the readers of my book so I needed to schedule some school visits and readings. It happened to be at the elementary school my children attended many many years ago. I couldn't believe was there and that my kids have been long gone. Most of their teachers have left or retired so I didn't know as many educators as I thought I would. The school had gone through major changes as they built new buildings for classrooms, administration and parking. They expanded the library too!
I could hear the students coming…
I was nervous as 50 first graders came into the library. They grabbed their mats and sat on the floor in front of me. On the screen was the first illustration in the book, Thomas Jefferson petting Buzzy on the grass. A couple of the students said they had read my book. Although I doubted that was true, it still made me feel good! Their innocent faces looked at me waiting for me to begin.
I introduced myself and told them that my own kids had gone to their school. I told them that my son just graduated college and my daughter is about to graduate from law school. "What's law school?" one of the students asked. Then I asked them if they knew the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Most of them did. I asked, "Who likes History?" All hands shot up so I continued to explain how this book is "historical fiction." I can take real people, places and times and make up a story about them. As long as I stick to some facts.
I asked who had a pet and, again, all hands shot up. One student had a frog, one had some fish, and one even had a shrimp! Hmmm. As I read the book, I noticed all eyes on the screen and me. They were entranced and engaged in the story. My worst fear went out the window!
After the 1st graders left, the Kindergarten class came in. This was 1 class with about 15 students. They were just as inquisitive and attentive as the first group.
I'm trying to set up more readings throughout Southern California. In March, I'm visiting the Chicago area and will be doing some readings there.
Stay tuned for a contest I'll be running in March!
Monticello: the Home of Thomas Jefferson
/ Dogs	History	My Projects
My first book, "Buzzy and Thomas Move into the President's House," will come out in October on Amazon in ebook and printed form. This early chapter reader is about Buzzy, Thomas Jefferson's dog, moving into the White House with newly elected President Jefferson. But Buzzy loves living at Monticello and doesn't want to move. What will she do?
To continue my research on Thomas Jefferson, I took a trip to Monticello.
Northeast Portico
My docent led tour started at the Northeast portico, which then and today serves as the front door. Directly above the door is the "Great Clock." The clock has a dual face, one on the outside of the door and another on the inside of the door. It also tracks the days of the week and was wound every Sunday. Mr. Jefferson designed this clock to serve the residents of the house and the workers in the field.
Still standing under the portico, I looked above me and saw the "Compass Rose", a compass connected to the weather vane on the roof. Mr. Jefferson and his family could determine the wind direction without stepping outside! This was altogether different because they didn't have cell phones to tell them the weather!
Inside Monticello
We were not allowed to take photos inside the house but I'd like to tell you about a couple of things that stood out for me. In the dining room, Jefferson had installed a revolving serving door, which connected to the stairs leading to the kitchen. The servants could place plated dishes on the shelves and turn the door into the dining room where Jefferson or another servant could grab the plates to serve. When no servants were present inside the dining room, Jefferson had complete privacy when entertaining if needed.
Jefferson had designed his bed in the same manner as he noticed in France, when he was ambassador for 7 years. The bed was placed sideways in an alcove, which gave the room more space. It seems logical now, but in those days, no one was doing that except the French!
Jefferson wrote many letters and in 1804, acquired a device called a "Polygraph" that could duplicate his letters while he wrote them. Invented by John Isaac Hawkins, the polygraph used the principles of the pantograph, a draftsman's tool for reducing and enlarging drawings. The writer's hand moves one pen whose action is duplicated by the second one, producing a copy strikingly like the original. Because of this device, we have copies of over 11,000 letters that Jefferson wrote!
Outside Monticello
Jefferson was known for many things, but not many people know that he loved his vegetable garden. It still stands today, with many plants that grew when he was alive. In the Monticello Café, I ate sautéed kale, from kale grown in his garden. He grew many kinds of lettuce, peas, beans and strawberries. He also planted sesame seeds, which he used to make his own salad dressing!
We toured the kitchen, stables and wine storeroom as well. While in France, Jefferson collected many kitchen utensils, which he brought back with him to Monticello. In 1809 and kitchen remodel was completed which included a bake oven, fireplace and stew stove. Jefferson is described as America's "first distinguished viticulturist." He believed the United States could "make as great a variety of wines as are
made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good." His wine cellar was built directly beneath the dining room with bottle-sized dumbwaiters that rose into the cellar's ceiling and into both sides of the mantelpiece in the dining room.
My visit to Monticello taught me a lot about our 3rd President and founding father. As I walked around the grass, flowers and gardens, I could envision my main character, Buzzy, running around, chasing a stick, lounging under a cherry tree and playing in the snow.
I hope you'll love my new book and share it with friends and family. And if you're ever near Richmond, Virginia, stop and visit Buzzy and Thomas' home, Monticello.
Book Review: "Ben and Me," by Robert Lawson
/ Book Reviews	Mice
While doing research for possible historical fiction stories involving animals, I came across this great book, "Ben and Me," written and illustrated by Robert Lawson. This 114 page chapter book was originally published in 1939. Robert Lawson was born in 1892 and was the recipient of both the prestigious Caldecott and Newberry awards. As well as writing and illustrating his own books, he also illustrated books for a number of different authors, including Richard and Florence Atwater, authors of "Mr. Popper's Penguins."
"Ben and Me" is about Benjamin Franklin as told by his mouse, Amos. He starts the book explaining that Amos's manuscript came to him by an "architect friend." The friend had been working on an old home in Philadelphia and discovered a tiny room "beneath a bedroom hearthstone." The room contained "small articles of furniture, all of the Colonial Period," and in the desk was a"manuscript book, the leaves of which, about the size of postage stamps, were covered with minute writing." Such a cute idea for telling the story of a famous person through the eyes of an animal!
Lawson details the story of the mouse, Amos, his childhood, parents and many siblings and how Amos found his way to Benjamin Franklin's home. Of course the mouse could talk and would freely give Ben advice every day. Mr Franklin was very accomplished and Lawson describes these accomplishments in separate chapters. Amos claimed many of Ben's inventions as his own idea and made fun of the fact that Ben thought that he had discovered them!
Benjamin wouldn't travel without Amos, so he joined him in France. He hid in a special cozy "nest" in Ben's hat, making it very easy to whisper in his ear! Amos met a "royal" mouse who had been exiled from the castle. She implored him to help her return to her family and Amos couldn't resist. A revolution amongst the French mouse population was born!
This book is perfect for children aged 6-9 who can read by themselves or with help from an adult. To buy the book, click on the Amazon link.
I am giving away my hardback copy of the book. If you would like to be entered into the contest, please leave me a comment describing your favorite childhood book.
January 17, 1706: Benjamin Franklin's birthday
/ History	My Projects
Today is Benjamin Franklin's birthday. This founding father was a scientist as well and invented bifocals, an instrument called a "glass harmonica," the Franklin stove and a lightening rod. Watch this video to learn more about this very accomplished man:
He also had a pet squirrel!
Will this be our next Historial Tail? Watch and see!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q: understanding String^ in C++ .Net I remember seeing somewhere there "^" operator is used as a pointer operator in Managed C++ code. Hence "^" should be equivalent to "*" operator right??
Assuming my understanding is right, when I started understanding .Net and coded a few example programs, I came across some code like this:
String ^username; //my understanding is you are creating a pointer to string obj
.
.         // there is no malloc or new that allocates memory to username pointer
.
username = "XYZ"; // shouldn't you be doing a malloc first??? isn't it null pointer

I am having trouble understanding this.

A: String^ is a pointer to the managed heap, aka handle. Pointers and handles are not interchangable.
Calling new will allocate an object on an unmanaged heap and return a pointer. On the other hand, calling gcnew will allocate an object on a managed heap and return a handle.
The line username = "XYZ" is merely a compiler sugar. It is equivalent to
username = gcnew String(L"XYZ");

A: That's a reference, not pointer, to a garbage collected string.
It will be allocated and deallocated automatically, when nothing is referencing it anymore.

A: If you consider that ^ is similar to shared_ptr you will be not far from the truth.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Auto Task Force Outsources Jobs
Obama's recovery plan steers GM and Chrysler in the wrong direction .
Roger Bybee June 12, 2009
Members of Obama's Auto Task Force arrive at the White House April 30 for a news conference on Chrysler's bankruptcy.
As rescue attempts go, the Obama administration and its Auto Task Force are pursuing a peculiar course: They seem intent on keeping General Motors and Chrysler afloat as corporate entities by tossing more U.S. workers overboard.
GM told the Detroit News that none of the $15.4 billion worth of federal loans will go to overseas operations. But this claim is hardly credible given GM's acute shortage of cash.
Even as unemployment rates soar in longtime GM-centered communities hit by shutdowns, such as Janesville, Wis. (14.7 percent), and Flint, Mich. (15.3 percent), Obama and his task force pressed GM and Chrysler for more cuts. GM plans to shut down at least 14 factories and discard some 21,000 workers. Chrysler is closing eight U.S. plants, though it claims that somehow its merger with Fiat will result in a new increase of 5,000 jobs. In a telling observation that carried unsettling echoes of Bill Clinton's push for NAFTA, the New York Times called the job cuts and other worker sacrifices "steps that most analysts thought could never be pushed through by a Democratic president allied with organized labor."
The most recent version of GM's recovery plan – closely tailored to the demands of the task force – calls for a stunning 98 percent increase in autos produced in Mexico, China, South Korea and Japan for the U.S. market. In May, the United Auto Workers (UAW) and United Steelworkers launched a 36-city campaign to prevent GM "from importing small cars from China, a move that would have increased GM's profits while very likely reducing the number of domestic automobile jobs," the New York Times reported June 2. This last-minute drive was successful, but it's still unclear exactly what modifications GM will make.
For its part, Chrysler announced May 1 (the day after it filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy) the closing of its Kenosha, Wis., engine plant and the transfer of many of the plant's 850 jobs to Mexico. As recently as the day before, top Obama administration and Chrysler officials had assured Wisconsin legislators that the Kenosha plant would be preserved. Faced with a firestorm of protest for using federal dollars to transfer jobs to Mexico, Chrysler now says that Fiat will consider keeping the plant open.
On top of all that, job losses will balloon with the closing of more than 1,100 GM and 789 Chrysler dealerships, eliminating tens of thousands more jobs.
Although Obama hasn't ordered auto industry cuts himself, "the revamping of the nation's largest car company is being guided by the administration's auto-industry task force, and it follows the president's calls for a leaner, healthier industry," DowJones.com reported on May 12. The Obama administration's downsizing of the auto industry, established as a precondition for approximately $30.5 billion extended thus far in loans to GM and Chrysler (with another $20 billion in the pipeline), sharply contrasts with the lightly-conditioned, larger bailout of Wall Street. Nomi Prins, author of It Takes a Pillage, a forthcoming book on the Wall Street meltdown and its roots in Washington, estimated that Wall Street has received $12.5 trillion – nearly 400 times more – in loans, loan guarantees and taxpayer subsidies for the sale of risky loans.
Contradictory policies
Only three of the Auto Task Force's members were notably pro-labor, despite protests from labor and auto-state lawmakers. "The Auto Task Force members are basically red-pencil types who looked at saving the auto industry on the cheap without much consideration to social costs, let alone generating green alternative jobs for auto," says economist and author William K. Tabb. "They have the narrowest business criteria for auto, unlike the banks that got capital and loan guarantees worth trillions. So their focus was to save the auto companies but not the auto workers." Essentially, Obama and the task force wanted a quick and cheap solution to the Big Three's ailing finances rather than providing an endless flow of resources, as the government did to the "too-big-to-fail" financial sector.
Bizarrely, the Auto Task Force's policy direction dramatically undercuts Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program. "The problem with GM's new Washington-mandated restructuring plan is that it steps on the gas in the wrong direction," UC Berkeley professor Harley Shaiken told NPR's "Marketplace." "The stimulus package spends $800 billion to create jobs, while billions in loans to GM are conditioned on eliminating them."
In addition to the factory job and dealership cuts, GM will unload its Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer brands. By contrast, the Italian government provided $1.7 billion in aid to Fiat as long as Italian plants stay open, noted Robert L. Borosage of the progressive coalition Campaign for America's Future. Also, France loaned $8.5 billion to its big three automakers, in exchange for pledges to keep jobs in France.
Labor advocates fight back
After months of the UAW trying to avoid a fight with Obama, in early May it began openly challenging the use of taxpayer loan money to finance the outsourcing of jobs. "We believe (GM) should have an obligation to build in this country the vehicles it will be selling in the U.S. market, thereby maintaining the maximum number of jobs in the United States," UAW legislative director Alan Reuther wrote to the Senate.
Former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich blasted the notion of paying billions of taxpayer dollars to keep companies afloat while they cut tens of thousands of jobs and wages. "We're transferring money from taxpayers to Big Three shareholders for no apparent reason other than the Big Three are headquartered in America," he said. "Why should taxpayers foot any of this bill unless the Big Three agree to keep their workers employed while they try to turn themselves around?"
The full answer to that question remains unanswered at this moment, as the two corporations' plans for future outsourcing are unavailable. But significantly, the Auto Task Force didn't explicitly require that federal assistance be directed to renewing production in the United States. Furthermore, following conventional management wisdom, "the Obama administration structured the GM and Chrysler plans to lessen the union's voice in management," the New York Times stated.
But so far, the mainstream media hasn't much noticed or criticized the contradictions between Obama's plans to simultaneously stimulate job growth and shrink GM and Chrysler. With all the attention on unwarranted Wall Street bonuses, major media lump Wall Street brokers' compensation and CEO pay with autoworkers wages as part of the same culture of "excess." Reports that autoworkers were paid as much as $73 an hour quickly spread through the media.
Actually, the typical wage is $26 to $28 an hour, plus an additional $10 or so in benefits, according to the Center for Automotive Research. UAW's agreement to accept a new starting wage of $14.20 an hour with vastly reduced benefits received little attention. Neither did the fact that UAW-represented plants ranked "very favorably" on quality and productivity compared to Japanese "transplants" in the United States, according to independent industry assessments.
Shielded by a lack of accurate and coherent media analysis, the Auto Task Force used a narrow and conventional single-firm turnaraound framework to create a strategy for GM and Chrysler. "A hedge fund wants to make money fast for its client – in this case, the taxpayer – without regard to social cost," Shaiken says. "Unlike most clients, however, the taxpayer picks up the social cost. Longer unemployment lines and more foreclosures are devastating for the victims, not cheap for the rest of us."
But the Auto Task Force seemed largely oblivious to the human costs of eliminating thousands of U.S. auto jobs. Obama and his task force withheld billions of dollars in new loans requested by GM until after the company came up with a more aggressive program of job cuts, plant closing and outsourcing. The Auto Task Force rapidly divorced the reinvigoration of GM and Chrysler from a longer-term shift to a fuel-efficient economy and production not just of high-mileage cars, but also of mass-transit equipment for buses and high-speed rail.
Ironically, GM's ruthless downsizing of its U.S. workforce and outsourcing of jobs over the last 25 years diminished its leverage with the Obama team. GM has discarded 85 percent of its domestic production since 1990 – and that was before it hit the current recession and the resultant nosedive in sales. It was no longer "too big to fail."
So Obama and the Auto Task Force felt free to promote a recovery strategy for the two ailing auto firms that stands in appalling contrast to the generosity shown Wall Street. GM and Chrysler headquarters will remain intact, but thousands of U.S. workers will be vaporized, retiree health benefits could be put on the chopping block (especially at Chrysler) and numerous industrial communities will suffer permanent damage. And the Obama team has forfeited the opportunity to recast the current crisis into a fuel-efficient re-industrialization of America – right when the country needs the stimulus of high-wage green jobs the most.
Roger Bybee is a Milwaukee-based freelance writer and University of Illinois visiting professor in Labor Education.Roger's work has appeared in numerous national publications, including Z magazine, Dollars & Sense, The Progressive, Progressive Populist, Huffington Post, The American Prospect, Yes! and Foreign Policy in Focus.More of his work can be found at zcommunications.org/zspace/rogerdbybee.
More articles by Roger Bybee
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Wisconsin Gov. Walker's convenient crusade against offshoring may prove to be surprisingly good for the state's working people.
Emmylou and the EPA Take on Big Coal
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CAP Publicly Distanced Itself From the UAE. 8 Months Later, It Was Still Meeting with UAE Lobbyists.
A foreign policy expert at the influential think tank remained close to UAE lobbyists.
Sarah Lazare
Too Important to Fail
The feds saved Goldman Sachs and other banks deemed 'too big to fail,' but Park National was left to swing in the wind.
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We haven't been to the Okla. State Fair in over 30 years but today is opening day (admission just $2.00 for opening day) and this year mama has been hinting that she wants to go.
I did have plans to go to the range this morning and do a little target shooting but I'll normally bend over backwards to do whatever I can for her so it looks like here in a little bit we're headed north and going to the fair after a quick stop at the bank......have I mentioned that I absolutely hate crowds ?
Take her, have fun! Our state fair now has ATM machines all over the place. Are you going to try some of that deep fried fare (deep fried snickers, deep fried butter, deep fried bacon, deep fried whatever you can think of).
Our Florida State Fair is in February. Why in February you might ask? Well, if it were in August like most of the other state fairs, there wouldn't be enough ambulances and paramedics in the Southeastern United States to cart all the heat stroke victims off to the emergency rooms, of which there wouldn't be enough either. Thus February.
That makes sense. Ours is in September and it's usually nice (like it has been so far this year). A couple of times the temps were over 95 degrees and one year I think it rained almost every day.
Great! Time to eat horrible food that will shorten your life, and queue up for unsafe carnival rides that may kill you on the spot! Yee-haw!
Have a little fun and make some points with Mama sounds like a win-win to me!
Take her and have fun. Of course you'll bend over backwards for her.
I happen to like a whipped man.
We spent about five hours at the fair looking at the critters and displays.....we'd walk a bit and then sit a bit and people watch.
Most of the food there was battered and deep fried but we ended up finding one booth that had huge grilled turkey legs and whole ears of roasted corn......we split a turkey leg and each of us had large ear of salt & peppered and lightly buttered roasted corn which was pretty darn tasty.
I'm in no hurry to go back but I suppose I enjoyed myself a little but more importantly I probably ended up making a few brownie points with mama......you know what they say, "happy wife = happy life".
Actually that DOES look good. Yummm and a much healthier choice.
May all of the turkeys who gave their lives, so the teeming masses at the fair could stuff their faces, RIP.
We like to go to our State Fair...but only if the weather is fairly mild. It is held in early August, which means that we've only gone about 3 times in the past 15 years. Wandering around in a large crowd in 90+ degree heat is more than we can stand, anymore.
What Ever Happened to World's Fairs?


text:
"We want to take the atmosphere back to its pre-industrial chemistry as quickly as possible. For that, we have biocomposites."
We screen grabbed these images off earth.nullschool.net when we were looking at Tropical Storm Cindy on June 19. The top image shows Earth's oceans. Red is hotter than normal. Blue is colder than normal. The Polar seas are colder than usual because of all the fresh ice water from melting glaciers and ice shelves.
The lower image is the same moment, looking at the land masses too. There are simultaneous heat waves in North America, S. Europe, Africa, the Middle East, India and parts of China, setting temperature records for the date, all the way around.
Kathleen Draper is US Director at Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence. In addition to editing The Biochar Journal, the leading on-line biochar magazine, Draper researches carbon intelligent cities; climate farming: nutrient recycling and GHG reduction in livestock farming; biochar characterization and optimal usage recommendations; closed loop biochar production and use modeling; ecosystem remediation; land management and landscape design. She has worked with Cornell University to model the Triple Bottom Line impact of Combined Heat & Biochar unit at the urban aquaponics greenhouse in Central New York.
Working with the Rochester Institute of Technology, she developed the Filtration to Fertilizer strategy using biochar first to harvest nutrients in effluents from food and beverage industries — including rentals to tofu shops — and then sales of nutrient-saturated char as a soil amendment/fertilizer for greenhouse crops. She is also working with RIT on the use of biochar in sustainable building materials, packaging materials, filtration media for the food industry and heat recovery options for the Kon-Tiki kiln technology.
A few days ago Kathleen Draper penned to her blog:
Last week I visited a small slice of heaven; The Farm in Summertown, TN. The Farm is [one of] the oldest intentional communit[ies] in the country and has been home to Albert Bates, author of The Biochar Solution amongst other books, for decades.
Biochar experimentation at The Farm spans the gamut from soil amendment to building material to humanure additive which then moves over to worm bins for some final processing. Just walking around the various natural buildings and permaculture filled ambiance was enough to inspire, but actually getting my hands dirty making biochar plasters, cement mixes, bricks, filtration devices with other like-minded folks was soul boosting.
We visited a nearby farmer that feeds his livestock (pigs, goats, poultry) an earthy blend of biochar mixed with lightly fermented whey and grains which they gobbled up greedily. We used rather grand outhouses that mitigated odors and reduced nutrient leaching with a blend of biochar and sawdust. And we shared stories of our mutual journeys, lessons learned and best practices along the biochar continuum.
What I really enjoyed about this experience, especially compared to attending biochar and other related conferences which tend to pack an enormous amount of information into back-to-back 15–20 minute sessions all day long for 3 days, was the more relaxed pace, the ability to get to know everyone there and hear about their own particular biochar experiences. The other fun part was leveraging everyone's tools and backgrounds to take certain ideas further — such as the chardboard paper which I wrote about nearly 3 years ago. Albert had a contraption that was able to measure the electromagnetic shielding of the chardboard which was pretty substantial, roughly 90% reduction!
For those of you that have the time and desire to experience truly sustainable living, I highly recommend a visit to The Farm. Staying in the Fairy House, a cozy earthbag building with a living roof provides the quietest sleep you could ever dream of….
We liked having Draper here for the workshop but can't let her escape with just this short report to the public domain. She and Dr. Hans-Peter Schmidt at the Ithaka Institute in Switzerland brought to our course a wealth of information on the practical applications for biochar when removed from the agricultural sphere. They are co-authors, with Ute Scheub and Hailko Pieplow, of Terra Preta: How the World's Most Fertile Soil Can Help Reverse Climate Change and Reduce World Hunger.
Hans-Peter beamed into the workshop via Skype and together with Kathleen provided a picture of a new realm of biochar that we had been nearly unaware of — as biochar concrete, or "char-crete"
Cementing History
Pantheon Oculus, Rome (126 CE)
Firstly, there is a global problem with concrete and it is getting bigger. The most important part of concrete is Portland cement, the binding agent made from pulverized limestone (calcium oxide) and clay (silicon oxide), heated together at high temperature (2700F).
The discovery and refinement of Portland is a cautionary modern tale of the intersection of materials and manufacturing at the dawn of the fossil fuel era. The Romans and Chinese had millennia ago discovered that gypsum and lime could be mixed with pieces of rock, sand, ceramics or rubble to form a hard material that would hold up to weather, or even set up underwater for dams and bridgework. Roman concrete, developed from 150 BCE, is durable due to its incorporation of volcanic ash and cinders (pozzolana), which prevents cracks from spreading. After the famous fire of 64AD, Nero rebuilt much of Rome with brick-faced concrete. The Pantheon in Rome, with its 142-foot coffered dome and oculus, is an example of Roman concrete construction still standing after 2000 years.
Lime is a powder that wants to be a rock. It has a million-year memory. Formed as the aggregated dust of seashells on an ancient sea-bed, limestone (CaCO3) gets unpacked from its bed in some quarry, hauled by truck to a kiln, and baked at >1500°F. The burn drives off CO2 and leaves behind a powder (CaO), called burnt lime or quicklime.
Quicklime (calcium oxide) is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature, but feeling an urge to go back to rock, it will draw CO2 from the air unless slaked with water. Slaked lime is what the Romans and Chinese used for mortars and plasters. It is what Michelangelo in 1511 spread across the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and painted the image of God into. In the 1820s scientists learned that when heated to >4,000°F (2,200°C) it emits an intense glow. That feature was used broadly in theater productions before electric lighting — limelight.
As it slakes, quicklime releases heat by the following equation:
CaO (s) + H2O (l) ⇌ Ca(OH)2 (aq) (ΔHr = −63.7 kJ/mol of CaO)
When limestone is kilned to make lime for mortar or cement 1.8 tons produces 1 ton of CaO. The missing 0.8 goes to the atmosphere as CO2 and a few trace impurities. China is by far the world's largest producer, burning enough rock to produce around 170 million tons per year. The United States is the next largest, with around 20 million. Worldwide, lime kilns send about 225 million ton of CO2 to the atmosphere. File that number a way for a moment.
If you add an atom of carbon to quicklime in the presence of oxygen, you get limestone and water.
Ca(OH)2 + C + O2 = CaCO3 + H2O
That limestone molecule can take a much-deserved rest. It has now completed a full revolution on the wheel of life and rebirth.
Suppose that, instead of leaving it to chance, we supply lime with carbon? One easy way to do that would be to mix biochar with cement and let it harden in the open air. You could replace sand in concrete or mortar. This is convenient because construction-grade sand is getting harder to come by and is experiencing rising demand (and price).
But here is the kicker. The resulting concretes or mortars have improved:
• Weight (biochar is significantly lighter than sand)
• Compression strength
• Flexural strength (MOR)
• Curing (soaking the carbon into the lime)
• Capacity to absorb CO2/NOX
• Electromagnetic shielding
• Fire resistance
• Humidity control
• Indoor pollutant control (dust, pollen, chemicals).
Run the Research
What does the research say? Choi et al (Mechanical Properties of Mortar Containing Bio-Char From Pyrolysis, 2012) tested char-cretes at 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% biochar and found:
• All biochar admixtures had less weight loss due to moisture evaporation. Mortar mixes with char have better water retention. This may lead to improved strength. "In this way, biochar seems to play a role as a self-curing agent."
• The workability of mortar decreases as the percentage of biochar increases.
• 5–10% biochar replacement is similar to 20% replacement with fly ash (the toxic residue of cement making and other industries).
• Up to 5% biochar shows an increase in compression strength.
A study by Restuccia et al, Promising low cost carbon based materials to improve strength & toughness in cement composites (2016) tested the mechanical properties of cement using biochar made from coffee powder (unroasted discards) and hazelnut shells.
• All char additives outperformed control bending strength, compression & fracture energy.
• Coffee powder did better on compression tests.
• Hazelnut shells did better on flexural (MOR) and fracture energy tests.
• Hazelnut shells' irregular morphology creates "perfect bond with surrounding matrix."
• Coffee powder has higher silicates which could work as an accelerator helping to speed up the hydration process. It stabilized at 7 days.
A study by Khushnood et al, Carbonized nano/microparticles for enhanced mechanical properties & electromagnetic interference shielding of cementitious materials (2016) tested mechanical & shielding properties of cement using peanut shells and hazelnut shells at 6 different concentrations.
• All char additives outperformed flexural strength of control (2.96 MOR).
• Hazelnut shells optimized at .25% (5.44 MOR).
• Peanut shells optimized at .25% (5.43 MOR).
• Fine aggregates increased fracture toughness.
Does char-crete remove CO2 from the atmosphere? Not directly, although using sources like peanut shells and coffeebean discards that would otherwise go back to the atmosphere as CO2 or CH4 interrupts these (natural) emissions and entombs them for a very long time. However, char-crete does remove other greenhouse gases directly.
A study by Tommaso et al, NOx Adsorption, Fire Resistance and CO2Sequestration of High Performance, High Durability Concrete Containing Activated Carbon (2016) found dramatically decreased levels of NOx (-66%) in addition to fire resistance.
Hans-Peter Schmidt points to concrete fire resistance as more important than most people realize. In the 1999 tragedy on the autobahn through Mont Blanc, 39 people died when a Belgian transport truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire in the tunnel. The fire burned for 53 hours and reached temperatures of 1,000 °C (1,830 °F), mainly because of the margarine. While it is unlikely biochar in tunnel cements or plasters could have filtered air quickly enough to save the lives of those who suffocated from the toxic smoke, we can at least say that the repairs to the tunnel afterwards would have been easier had fire not damaged the concrete of the tunnel.
If just one percent of the sand going into the 25 billion tons of new concrete each year were replaced with biochar, 250 million tons of biochar would be sequestered. With a carbon content of 82–98 percent, that biochar is the CO2 equivalent of 738- 882 million tons per year (205–245 MtC). At present rates of emissions, we'd need to sequester 5.6 billion tons of carbon (GtC) per year just to get to carbon neutrality, 25 times more than this example. Alternatively, the biochar industry could raise its ambition and replace 25 percent of construction sand worldwide with char-crete.
Sources of unregulated waste biomass now in the process of becoming greenhouse gases on their own are literally as vast as the sands of the Ganges. In many places, they will pay you to take them.
Of course, our goal with biochar is not neutrality but drawdown. We want to take the atmosphere back to its pre-industrial state as quickly as possible. For that, we have biocomposites.
A "composite" is when two or more different materials are combined together to create a superior and unique material. The prefix, "bio," means that the composite takes natural fibers including wood or non-wood (e.g. leaves and grasses) and blends them with a matrix (binder) made from either renewable or non-renewable sources (lime, clay, plastics, old tires).
Zhao et al evaluated biochar's impact on hot-mix asphalt when compared to carbon black and carbon fiber (Lab Investigation of Biochar-modified Asphalt Mixture, 2014). Switchgrass biochar was blended at 10% by weight of the asphalt. The study found that bending strength in asphalt normally decreases in temps ranging from 300C — 500C, then increases above 500C, but biochar reduces that temperature susceptibility in asphalt binders. Biochar also showed the highest rutting resistance, meaning it was less often to need replacement because of damage.
1.6 billion tons of asphalt is poured every year. At 10 percent biochar, that industry would use 160 million tons, or 89 MtC. It is still a long way from the 5.6 GtC we need for net neutrality, never mind legacy greenhouse gas drawdown.
In 2016 DeVallance et al investigated hardwood biochar as a replacement for wood flour in wood-polypropylene composites. Wood-polypropylene composites are used in building construction, automotive and consumer products. The study combined biochar at rates of 5%, 15%, 25%, and 40% by weight with wood and plastic to make alternative composites to traditional wood-plastic composites. The findings:
• All biochar rates increased flexural strength by 20% or more
• Tensile strength was highest with 5% biochar
• Tensile elasticity was highest with 25% and 40% biochar
• Water absorption and swell decreased
• Biochar additions showed improved thermal properties.
All this academic research is good, but it hardly matters until it gets out of the classroom and laboratory. This is why Schmidt was in Nepal making kilns and showing biochars properties to the homeless after the earthquake in April, 2015, and why Draper is working with engineering students from RIT to design biochar concrete roof tiles in Nicaragua.
Their goal in Nicaragua: replace the current metal roofing with something that could be manufactured locally, at low cost, hold up in heavy sunlight, keep out the torrential rains and deter animal intruders. The group made a lightweight aggregate of biochar.
Their method: mix all dry ingredients, add water, blend thoroughly, pour into flat tile mold, vibrate to remove air bubbles (an electric sander works well), transfer flat tile to curved tile mold (using a plastic sheet), allow 2 weeks to cure.
• Each tile weighs around 14 to 16 lbs
• The tiles withheld a 210 lb person standing on them
• With two workers, it will take 5 days to make the 224 tiles for one home
• Estimated CO2 saved per roof is ~400 lbs
During our workshop here at The Farm last week we made char-crete with various biochar concentrations. We made composites by melting styrofoam and soy-foam packing peanuts and the kinds of clamshell containers they use for take-out in restaurants (and typically wind up in rivers or the ocean). We made chardobe brick and compressed CINVA ram brick. We made grout for a tile bench. These exercises were a tiny drop in the ocean of what is required to remove carbon from the atmosphere, but they showed the potential.
By melting extruded polystyrene foam packing peanuts and clamshell containers — (C8H8)n — in an acetone bath — (CH3)2CO — and adding biochar until it stiffened, we made a char-tile that is light, structural, fracture-resistant, and can be molded to any shape. It could be kitchen tiles, surfboards, iphones, boats or biodomes.
Biocomposite "ore" from recycled polystyrene
Reversing climate change may not be as difficult or dangerous as many imagine. The only hitch in this scenario is that paved roads and monumental (concrete and steel) architecture are manifestations of peaking civilizations — arriving with times of high Energy Return on Investment (EROI), typically in double digits for firewood, slaves or whales, and triple in the case of light sweet crude. Pyramids and paved roads do not get built in the trough that follows civilizational overshoot and collapse (forest destruction, slave revolt, whale extinction and fracking).
As we return to the circular economy that pre-existed the Ponzi, we may discover in wastes — think of the oceans of discarded plastics — a new source of wealth, and building materials, we can barely imagine.
Polystyrene waste at a Japanese fish market, by beth
Labels: biochar, Biophysical Economics, Climate Change Solutions, construction, drawdown, EROI, natural building, Nicaragua, plastics, Ponzinomics, Rome
" This is where biochar is today in agriculture. Its a better mousetrap in the midst of a huge rodent epidemic and still, most people can't even buy any. "
Ever since William Woods, Wim Soembroek, Bruno Glazer and other dirt dorks started revealing the miraculous capacities of terra preta do indios, the dark earths of the Amazon, the story of climate change and our species impending extinction became all about agriculture. By the time Johannes Lehmann and Stephen Joseph published Biochar for Environmental Management, it was clear (and validated by excellent science) that reinvigorating agriculture with ancient practices involving biochar, taken to scale, could restore Earth's atmosphere to pre-industrial health.
Native stewardship of the Americas was all but invisible to the sensibilities of European conquerors. Worse, 500 years of unremitting ethnic cleansing destroyed unknowable riches of ecological knowledge, along with much of the rich, deep philosophy of how humans can inhabit Earth as citizens, not pirating rapists.
We confess we were among those who took the pilgrimage to Brazil, returned baptized in the soil, and predicted that billions of hectares would soon be biochared, drawing gigatons of carbon into eternal sequestration.
Decades on, you still can't buy biochar fertilizers in most garden stores. The entrepreneurial landscape is littered with the corpses of companies that ramped up biochar production, or packaged microbial mixes, and then couldn't find enough buyers to pay the office rent, never mind their payroll.
In the animal probiotic supplement area, federal laws were passed banning biochar.
A few gardeners and farmers made their own, tried it out and were sold. They evangelized their neighbors. But the vast majority were skeptics or took clueless Master Gardener courses and took no notice. While those with relatively good soils, typical of the temperate zones, saw 40 percent productivity gains, those in the tropics and other areas of poor soils, saw gains of 400 percent and more. And yet, the nascent industry continued to tank.
This past week we have been hosting a workshop at The Farm Ecovillage Training Center called Biochar from the Ground Up. We are taking biochar up from the ground and putting it to other uses that might have better business potential.
Over and over again during the workshop we heard that "farmers are conservative," "nobody is going to pay for something that takes years to show its worth," and "unless you spend the time to make it, you won't even be able to get any." This is where biochar is today in agriculture. Its a better mousetrap in the midst of a huge rodent epidemic and still, most people can't even buy any.
Because we are busy with the workshop we can't easy cut out the time to pen a blog, so we taped (feebly, using a collection of devices such as phones and voice recorders) a segment of one talk we gave during the week. Enjoy.
Paleofuturism
"We haven't hit the temperature levels we can expect from current CO2 levels, and by the time we do, CO2 levels will be even higher."
According to Danish politician Karl Kristian Steincke, "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." Steincke was cataloging a comment made in the 1937–38 session of the Danish Parliament (without translation: "Det er vanskeligt at spaa, især naar det gælder Fremtiden"), which if you consider what befell Denmark shortly thereafter, was prescient.
It was too good a line to attribute to Danish politicians, so it fell to less rigorous quotists to ascribe it to Yogi Berra, Mark Twain or Sam Goldwin.
It seems especially apt when we read predictions of what the world will be like at mid-century or later. Truth is, nobody can know — and less now than before. This is not your parents' future any more.
At the risk of serving our readers more dollups of doomer porn — after only just telling ourselves to stop doing that because it frightens people — we have been reminded of the Michael Mann hockey stick chart published more than a quarter century ago, recently updated and retweeted by climate scientist Joe Romm.
Romm says that historically,
[R]ecord CO2 levels are accompanied by record temperatures and record sea level rise. We haven't hit the temperature levels we can expect from current CO2 levels, and by the time we do, CO2 levels will be even higher. Sea level rise can take even longer to catch up but the latest science says we are headed towards worst-case scenario levels, 3 to 6 feet (or more), by century's end.But now CO2 levels have surpassed those seen not just during modern civilization, but during all of human evolution. Indeed, current levels haven't been seen for many millions of years.
While man-made emissions may have peaked in 2014 and, following the wave of national pledges of the Paris Agreement (and a deepening global recession), are starting to slightly decline now, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise.
Monthly levels of heat-trapping CO2 hit nearly 410 parts per million (ppm) in May. How do we explain that? Only one way. What were once natural sinks have become sources, as CO2 reservoirs trapped in permafrost, ocean clathrates, forests and soils heat up and start to release their stores.
While man-made carbon additions actually declined slightly in 2015–2016 according to official data (admittedly an inexact accounting because fracking sources are still undertabulated and military departments keep theirs secret), Keeling's Mauna Loa data for
2015 and 2016 showed the two biggest annual jumps in actual atmospheric CO2 levels.
Has the clathrate gun fired? Its too soon to say.
Weeds alert! We are about to follow a rabbit trail into the briar patch of recent reports.
Methane hydrate is likely undergoing dissociation now on global upper continental slopes and on continental shelves that ring the Arctic Ocean.
Rachael James and 12 co-authors, writing for the J. of Limnology and Oceanography in Nov 2016, Effects of climate change on methane emissions from seafloor sediments in the Arctic Ocean: A review (Volume 61, Issue S1, Pages S283–S299), concluded that the present scientific consensus converges on pegging methane stored in gas hydrates at a few hundred gigatons. This is high by US Geological Survey standards, but an order of magnitude below pegs by Arctic Methane Emergency Group and Professor Guy McPherson.
If the consensus view of total reserve is a few hundred Gt spread over billions of hectares of cold regions and yet Near-Term-Human-Extinction proponents keep repeating the possibility for a 50 Gt burp, bringing death to our species within this decade, they are really stretching the truth. Its a vivid yarn not backed by evidence.
From May 3 to May 11, 2017, the R/V Hugh R. Sharp manned by British Geological Survey with support from the USGS and NOAA went on expedition to explore seafloor methane seeps on the northern U.S. Atlantic margin. Their data is not in yet, but very soon we shall get to hear what they say.
Ruppel and Kessler, writing for Reviews of Geophysics, Volume 55, Issue 1 Pages 126–168, March 2017 write:
Many factors — the depth of the gas hydrates in sediments, strong sediment and water column sinks, and the inability of bubbles emitted at the seafloor to deliver methane to the sea-air interface in most cases — mitigate the impact of gas hydrate dissociation on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations though. There is no conclusive proof that hydrate-derived methane is reaching the atmosphere now….
We are less sanguine about that statement also. Hydrate-derived methane is reaching the atmosphere now. There are YouTube videos of it being ignited out of holes in frozen lakes. In some places are brewing morning coffee that way. It is a question of volume, and whether there is enough to explain the gap between our current emissions slowdown and the Scripps readings of 410 ppm.
The most revealing of Romm's charts was, for us, this one from Yale360, to which we have added a few labels for clarity:
This chart dovetails very neatly with news accounts of a discovery of fossil skulls in Morocco, pushing back the date of homo sapiens' appearance in Africa to 300,000 years B.P.
The people of Jebel Irhoud were certainly sophisticated. They could make fires and craft complex weapons, such as wooden handled spears, needed to kill gazelle and other animals that grazed the savanna that covered the Sahara 300,000 years ago.
Newsweek reported:
"We used to think that there was a cradle of mankind 200,000 years ago in East Africa, but our new data reveal that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African continent around 300,000 years ago. Long before the out-of-Africa dispersal of Homo sapiens, there was dispersal within Africa," study author Jean-Jacques Hublin said in a statement.
Romm sums it up:
"CO2 levels have surpassed those seen not just during modern civilization, but during all of human evolution. Indeed, current levels haven't been seen for many millions of years."
By adding more labels to the Yale360 chart, we can date the appearance of our bipedal, hominid-like ancestors to a recent point along the timeline when climate — and particularly the weather in Northern African savannahs — went from considerably warmer and wetter to highly variable but within a hospitable range (180–280 ppm CO2 and plus or minus 2 degrees C). That describes the period 250,000 to 300,000 years ago. Then, suddenly in geological terms, 11,700 years ago the last glacial maximum passed and in rushed the extremely comfortable and stable Holocene, that flat blue line across the chart. For as long as we have had stomachs and skeletons, we have never existed outside a 180-280 ppm world.
Humans looking much the same as today's took up residence in every corner of the world. In what is to biological evolution the blink of an eye, they built great cities, sailed across vast oceans, forged steel, split the atom, sequenced their own genome, and landed travelers on the Moon and returned them safely back to Earth. It took some two billion years to create thousands of minerals during the Great Oxidation Event, but we humans added hundreds of thousands in just the short time since the industrial revolution.
Even if sea levels rise 300 feet and cover coastal cities, those minerals will still be visible in the sedimentary record. That's because landmarks like the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian will collapse into piles of rubble — signatures that are later preserved as highly unusual lens-shaped pockets underground, distinct from their surroundings in both shape and minerals. The Washington Monument, for example, will eventually be a lens-shaped pocket composed of limestone where no other limestone is found. And the pocket that was once the Smithsonian will contain so many rare minerals that they could not possibly have formed so close together in nature. To boot, they will be surrounded by the vast array of the man-made minerals we use every day.
— Scientific American
And there, at a glance, is the problem confronting futurists. Most assume that even if the worst happens and seas rise 300 feet or nuclear bombs descend from the heavens, humans will persist as they always have and civilization will recover, in the fullness of time. We wonder.
In that same article from Scientific American, Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester and chair of the Anthropocene Working Group, says of the mineral divergence, "One of the most distinctive vertical lines on the graph is the growth of mineral species… It's one of the most striking changes."
His choice of words is insightful:
There is nothing at all like this in the geology of the past 4.5 billion years on Earth," Zalasiewicz says. "It is tragically different."
There is a change unfolding, and the way it is headed now is profoundly tragic. While it is not too late to reverse climate change, the momentum already gathered suggests that recovery will be a slow process even if we could apply the full potential for human social organization to the task — and we are, by no means, doing that now.
We enjoy romps through science fiction, even fantastical retrofutures like John Michael Greer's steampunk Retrotopia or James Howard Kunstler's nostalgic World Made By Hand series, but realistically, when we step out to inhale the brilliant clean air on a beautiful new day, we do so with a sense of foreboding that will not be shaken off so easily.
There is a ray of hope coming from another chart. This one is a chart of opinion in the United States about who thinks imposing more regulation on coal burning would be a good idea. The darker counties are for more regulation, the lighter counties for less. As expected, many of the old coal towns are centers of light. The surprise is where dark pockets are found in new and unexpected corners of the map.
We expect to find intelligent responses to climate change in the over-educated northeast, or liberal pockets around Austin, Albuquerque, Boulder or the Left Coast. We don't usually expect it in South Wisconsin, West Central Mississippi, Alabama and Southeast South Carolina, the border towns of the Southwest, Las Vegas and Miami-Dade. So what is that about?
We would guess it might have to do with the weather. If that is so, there is plenty more weather just ahead.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
— Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin
Labels: Anthropocene, Arctic, Biophysical Economics, Climate Change, collapse, Doomers, extinction, Greer, ice, Kunstler, McPherson, methane, neoliberalism
"Patterns of regenerative thinking augur regenerative patterns of living and the reverse is also true."
Ten years ago, Brian Eno suggested a word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or "scenes" can occasionally generate. The word he came up with is "scenius." Scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes.
In a Wired interview in 2011, Kevin Kelly described the idea this way:
Really, we should think of ideas as connections,in our brains and among people. Ideas aren't self-contained things; they're more like ecologies and networks. They travel in clusters.
Historical examples are the Yosemite rock climbers Camp 4 in the 1930s, Building 20 at MIT, the Algonquin Round Table, Silicon Valley, Soho, Burning Man, the North Beach of the Big Island in the 1950s, Greenwich Village, the Panhandle flats in the Haight in the 1960s, Glastonbury, Akwesasne, the affinity groups at Seabrook, the bioregional congresses, the World Social Fora, the UN climate summits, and the Amazonian Shamanism conferences.
We have been lucky to stumble into a number of those scenes; so many we sometimes wonder if we are Forrest Gump.
Lucky stars have led us to be present at the birth of the Noho loft art and music scene, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and the Winter Soldier hearings, a blithering Nixon at sunrise on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the first Earth Day in Central Park, the Longest Walk, the conspiratorial Leningrad public baths on Saturday nights, the bioregional Consejos de Visiones at Meztitla and Condor, sundry Earth Summits, the ecovillager gatherings at Findhorn in 1995 and Istanbul in 1996, Viridian design, the post-millennium peak oil conferences, and the Kinsale College birthing of Transition.
The scenius we are most familiar with, although it encompasses and interpenetrates many of these others, is of course The Farm. As one of the longest floating crap games of the past century, it remains a dynamically evolving scene: a creative hub for the world midwives' conspiracy, the cabal of alternative education advocacy, an incubator for progenitors of cool tech, and lately, a climate-reversal counterdevelopment seeding group, including, but not limited to, we ecovillage, regrarian, permaculture and alt.fuels evangelists.
The geography of scenius is nurtured by several factors that Kelly described:
Mutual appreciation — risky moves are applauded by the group, subtlety is appreciated, and friendly competition goads the shy. Scenius can be thought of as the best of peer pressure.
Rapid exchange of tools and techniques — as soon as something is invented, it is flaunted and then shared. Ideas flow quickly because they are flowing inside a common language and sensibility.
Network effects of success — when a record is broken, a hit happens, or breakthrough erupts, the success is claimed by the entire scene. This empowers the scene to further success.
Local tolerance for the novelties — the local "outside" does not push back too hard against the transgressions of the scene. The renegades and mavericks are protected by this buffer zone.
Scenius can erupt almost anywhere, and at different scales: in a corner of a company, in a neighborhood, or in an entire region.
What Brian Eno called scenius, Stephen Gaskin used to call "the juice." In a paper we delivered to a history conference in Illinois in 1987, we attempted to describe a series of intellectual and technological steps that guided the first 16 years of The Farm, but cautioned that we could not try to fathom how it came into being. "How juice moves from place to place and time to time would be an interesting exploration," we said.
Lao Tsu (literally the "Old Boy" because he was born with a small white beard), put these ideas into poetry. We think it silly when we have to take off shoes and give up our toothpaste at the airport, but when Lao Tsu tried to leave China they told him he couldn't leave until he had written down all he knew. In the Tao Te Ching, the 72 gems of wisdom left with a border guard, Lao Tsu summarized his findings in order that he be allowed to leave.
The first verse is the Old Boy's disclaimer: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao."
Alan Watts observed that this famous opening line also showed Lao Tsu to be a punster, but you have to understand a bit of Chinese to get it.
"Tao" means the way, or course, of nature, but it also means to speak. So in Chinese, the first character is this:
The first character is "the way." The next is "can" or "can be."
The third is again "the way," but it could also be "spoken"
What Lao Tsu says in one entendre is that he can't really describe the way, because it is ineffable; if he could describe it then it would not be true. The way that can be spoken is not the way.
In the other entendre Lao Tsu says it cannot be taken as a way. The way that can be "way-ed," or traveled, is not the way.
Do you think you can make the world a better place? I do not think you can. It is already perfect.
— Lao Tsu
This is also the point Kelly labored to underscore, which is that scenes, and hence scenius, cannot be created. The best we can hope for is to recognize them when, for whatever extraordinary confluence of good fortune, they seem to arise. And when that happens, the best we can do is to not step on them.
That may be so, but maybe not. Scenius with the grand historicity of a Yosemite Camp 4 cannot be stamped into existence. But the conditions to potentialize scenius can be laid by design. Daniel Wahl, in Designing Regenerative Cultures, provides these basic ingredients:
Transformative Innovation
Biologically Inspired
Living Systems Thinking
Health and Resilience
In his forward to Wahl's book, David Orr offers a nuanced challenge. It is Patricia Scotland's "And, so?" question. We have developed an ecosystem of solutions. How do you get this to scale? Holistic design is akin to the core nature of religion, Orr says, "a discipline binding us all together in our stewardship of the Earth as a shared habitat and the underlying assumption to be shared is that we are more worthy together than apart."
Orr then takes it a step farther. He says the five billion poor, soon to be 7 or 9 billion, must be empowered with free energy, free clean water, free pressed-brick shelters, and free Internet access. In return they will innovate and create infinite wealth with a regenerative aspect. We hear this, and we shudder a bit.
This is also what Buck Fuller used to say, and many others before and after him. It's become kind of holy grail in Silicon Valley or at Burning Man — liberating ideas will liberate masses. It philosophically underpins the UN Sustainable Development Goals — the essence of neoliberalism. But….
If I am worthy then show me the way.
— A Fed board member's prayer.
First, the whole modern amusement park ride is scaffolded on cheap, available, abundant energy, soon to be a bygone. Sooner than you imagine, those Microsoft server farms that are allowing you to read this will brown out, flicker, and die. Kevin Kelly again:
A web page relies on perhaps a hundred thousand other inventions, all needed for its birth and continued existence. There is no web page anywhere without the inventions of HTML code, without computer programming, without LEDs or cathode ray tubes, without solid state computer chips, without telephone lines, without long-distance signal repeaters, without electrical generators, without high-speed turbines, without stainless steel, iron smelters, and control of fire. None of these concrete inventions would exist without the elemental inventions of writing, of an alphabet, of hypertext links, of indexes, catalogs, archives, libraries and the scientific method itself. To recapitulate a web page you have to recreate all these other functions. You might as well remake modern society.
Second, imagining 7 billion hominids empowered with free everything opens the gates of Hell unless they are restrained from reliving the patterns of their collective past, only worse. Historically, when provided abundant food and energy the hairless two-leggeds have been as locusts. Without some countervailing ethic of restraint, should Orr's wish comes true, this fragile blue orb becomes Easter Island.
Wahl says that which must change is more mental than physical, and in this we are agreed. Lately with the climate march for science, Paul Hawken's Drawdown tour, and the debate over fake news and science suppression we have been hearing, over and over, people we respect make pledges of allegiance to the gods of science as if they were saying a rosary. But we know that scientists — and even more-so academics — are inherently conservative defenders of the rote and two or more steps behind the vanguard. Who are the vanguard? Artists like Brian Eno, or the cabal that gathers in a scenius to thrash out the hard truth. Moreover, they then endeavor to actually make the change they've lived go viral.
Patterns of regenerative thinking augur regenerative patterns of living and the reverse is also true: living together or coming together can change your mind or open new frontiers. We have witnessed this phenomenon in ecovillage communities all over the world. Designing the future — any future beyond mid-century — requires redesigning a collective consciousness, our psychodemographic. We are already doing this with the hardware gateways to cyberamphibian transits, and with permaculture, ecosystem restoration camps and ecovillages in the non-virtual world.
Ecovillages do it with eco-covenants; social contracts that build all eight forms of capital, externalizing nothing.
Our travels to Marrakech and Zhejiang last year made clear to us that the role of ecovillages is key. They are a viral carrier — patient zero. Don't be put off by the hippy or elitist veneers of many of the prototypes; those were leading edge experiments by the fringe-dwelling creatives. Any change for humanity arrives only after extreme vetting. At that point they become nearly inevitable.
To quote Wahl,
"Sustainability is not a fixed state to reach and then maintain, it is a community-based learning process aimed at increasing the health and resilience of our communities, our bioregional economies, ecosystems, and of the planetary life-support system as a whole."
We say "nearly inevitable" because there are still countercurrents and eddies that can drown us. There are no guarantees. The odds against success are high.
Feeling the wind at our back, we edge the kite closer to the power zone.
If you want to be reborn, let yourself die. If you want to be given everything, give everything up.
This post is the last of a series we dubbed The Power Zone Manifesto. It is a series of building blocks that describe our existential climate dilemma and the only possible way to escape it. We'll continue to post to The Great Change and Medium on Sunday mornings and 24 to 48 hours earlier for the benefit of donors to our Patreon page. If Power Zone makes it to print, our Power-Up Patreon donors will receive an autographed copy.
Labels: Anthropocene, Baroness Scotland, Buckminster Fuller, Climate Change Solutions, cognitive science, drawdown, ecovillage, evolution, hippies, Kevin Kelly, Lao Tsu, prescriptions, Scenius, The Farm, Wahl