For entertaining and enlightening us through your leadership, passion, and knowledge, and for teaching us about science and social responsibility – in all its diversity: Thank You. Happy Birthday David! 75 Years!
50 Years of The Nature of Things Uncover the rich legacy of The Nature of Things with David Suzuki as he looks back at discoveries, adventures and more. Watch tonight at 8 p.m./8:30 NT on CBC-TV.
For entertaining and enlightening us through your leadership, passion, and knowledge, and for teaching us about science and social responsibility – in all its diversity: Thank You. Happy Birthday David! 75 Years!
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Coming Soon!
The Save Our Earth Now Foundation is delighted to announce and present the upcoming book in the words of the creator of Resolutionism, introducing the ideas, teachings, and message of Resolutionism from the insights of philosophy. This body of work sets aside the political and economic theories of Resolutionism to focus on of the most important aspects of the human condition, the nature and structure of life, the resources and limits of the human mind, the principles of morality, and the relationships between all of these concepts. This new text contains the powerful ideas and the peaceful perspectives that can save the world through individual practices and universal responsibility to reconcile all of our behaviours and relationships in our increasingly complex and fragmented planet. Are Americans finally ready for more energy-efficient and cleaner-running cars? In his State of the Union address to Congress last month President Obama challenged the U.S. automotive industry produce more electric-powered alternatives. An electric car is a plug-in battery powered automobile which is propelled by electric motor(s).
Electric cars were popular in the late-19th century and early 20th century, until advances in internal combustion engine technology and mass production of cheaper gasoline vehicles led to a decline in the use of electric drive vehicle. The energy crises of the 1970s and 80s brought a short lived interest in electric cars, but in the mid 2000s took place a renewed interest in the production of electric cars due mainly to concerns about rapidly increasing oil prices and the need to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In the early 1990s, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the government of California's began a push for more fuel-efficient, lower-emissions vehicles, with the ultimate goal being a move to zero-emissions vehicles such as electric vehicles. In response, automakers developed electric models, including the Chrysler TEVan, Ford Ranger EV pickup truck, GM EV1 and S10 EV pickup, Honda EV Plushatchback, Nissan lithium-battery Altra EV miniwagon and Toyota RAV4 EV. However, it was not long until these companies realized that the huge demand for these electric vehicles would mean the end of their internal combustion engine cars. For example, that the oil companies were afraid of losing their monopoly on transportation fuel over the coming decades; while the auto companies feared short term costs for EV development and long term revenue loss because EVs require little maintenance and no tuneups. Quickly they all sued CARB and revoking their cars from their new owners and destroying them. They didn't get away with it though, because of the documentary film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" The film details the California Air Resources Board's reversal of the Zero Emission mandate after relentless pressure and lawsuits from automobile manufacturers, continual pressure from the oil industry, orchestrated hype over a future hydrogen car, and finally the George W. Bush administration. The filmmakers had promised to release an upcoming feature documentary film, that chronicles key players driving the electric vehicle (EV) renaissance. The film features exclusive behind-the-scenes access to several large car makers as they work to change the auto industry and offer new electric car options to the general public. REVENGE OF THE ELECTRIC CAR, currently in post-production by WestMidWest Productions, is scheduled for official release in 2011. We'll be waiting for it...and electric cars. Congratulations to the people of Egypt, who refused nothing less than freedom and democracy for themselves, and rose up from all walks of life, backgrounds and ages, to speak out and risk their lives (or lost them) so that they and future generations may live in a better world. Now I only hope that democracy flows like a wave throughout the middle-east. May we all learn to walk like an Egyptian!!!
Many new updates to fill you in on the website. The official Blog is about to roll out, but first I have to mention
that you can check out more info on Resolutionism and sites dedicated to it at resolutionist.weebly.com <--A website for Resolutionists. resolutionism.podbean.com <--Soon to be updated Podcast Webseries about Resolutionism. resolutionism.spruz.com <--Great forum for discussion on topics that deal with todays issues. and of course you can check us out on Facebook! In this blog series we will discuss and examine the fundamentals of the core topic of my books. In the future we will delve into the new political and economic theory known as Resolutionism, and the roots of How To Save The World. I will discuss the methods which will realize our objective of having a more peaceful, safe and unified planet. We'll explore an enormous enterprise that can provide and supply the people of Earth with a function and a future. This endeavor is called Resolutionism.
Join us. Yours Truly, Aaron Nordquist COMMON COURTESY
It’s time to start hammering down some ground rules. I don’t think I should have to say this, and I can’t believe I actually have to say this, but, people need to use their manners. People should already know how to use good manners, most of us were taught them as children. But I feel like I have to pretend that the whole world is filled with a bunch of children, that didn‘t learn their manners. We have to start returning politeness back into our language, and common courtesy back into our behaviour. One of our human flaws is that we forget that we rely on other people for most things in life, and therefore in order for everyone to positively gain, it is better for us to be polite and courteous to each other. Watch some TV with a little research project going in the back of your mind. Try to find, and make note of, all the places where very polite language is in use. First of all, I bet it’s hard to find. Secondly, I bet you had to go looking for it…and you finally found it, but mostly only children’s programs supported such language and courtesy. Third, I bet you notice that most of those shows, are unpopular, and relatively unwatched by anyone your age, and you probably feel silly watching such a program. What do we find on the shows we do like watching? Well, I‘ll leave that up to you…but, it comes back to the issue of life imitating TV, or TV imitating life. Any show for children of age after pre-school level, has little or no politeness, or common courtesy. Therefore in real life, we are losing our politeness and our courteousness. Have people forgotten about politeness and courtesy? Well, in case we have, I’d better remind people. To be polite is to be well-mannered, or showing or possessing good behaviour, or showing common consideration to others, which is looked upon as being elegant, and pleasant, often considered refined or cultured. Consideration for other people means careful thoughtful concern for, or at least sensitivity towards the feelings of others, which is something to be taken into account when weighing the pros and cons, of any situation, before making any decisions. What’s been happening lately, is that people are in too much of a hurry, or they think that they are more important than other people, and some people are just plain ignorant jerks. Here’s a small scene I’d like to act out for you. A man walks into the restaurant and walks up to the front counter, where a woman sits on a stool, reading a magazine, waiting to serve customers. The customer looks up and mutters “Coffee.” The Server looks up at the customer, and says, “Coffee…what…?” The customer stares at the server, dumbfounded for a moment, but the server carries on. “…to drink?” The customer blurts out, “Yeah, can I get a coffee? The server just stands there staring back at the customer, equally dumbfounded for a moment, until the customer finally says, “Please?!?” The server jumps off her stool sarcastically and says, “Oh yes, happily!” One of the worst work industries in the world for people being treated poorly, is the hospitality industry. Servers are members of a wait staff, who serve other people, by bringing requested items. They go and get the things that somebody asks for, usually continuously for a long period of time. They attend to the purchasing needs of a customer, mostly serving somebody at table, bringing food and drinks to people sitting at a table, usually in a restaurant setting. Most of these servers work for the lowest minimum wage allowed by law, (although, for some reason, significantly less than minimum wage in Ontario) and they take home a percentage of the tips they make. Tips are a gift of money in return for a service, especially in addition to what is owed. There is an old acronym which I was taught as a younger man, and that was, TIPS, Tips Insure Premium Service. Meaning that if you want premium service, you will have to tip more, if you don’t tip at all, don’t expect premium service. Most servers make their living off of their tips because they work for minimum wage or less and with that small of a wage you can barely pay the bills. The tips help make sure that they can afford to pay their rent, and so on. But many people think that they do not have to tip servers. They think it’s their job to serve people, and that they should be insuring premium service anyway. Many people think servers should wait “hand and foot” to meet their demands. However, they forget about common courtesy and politeness. They are not considering the feelings of others when they treat others in this way. What I often ask people who treat servers impolitely is, “would you treat your own son or daughter in this manner? Or your own mother or father in this manner?” “How would you like it if others treated you in this manner?” Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes for a second. Imagine you are a server, waiting on someone as rude and demanding as yourself, what would you want to say to them? Imagine yourself as a server, being paid less money than all of the people you are serving, and having to wait on them hand and foot, while being treated impolitely…how do you feel? Another thing to think about, is the fact that most servers are continuously stressed and anxious, because of having too much to do, or worry about, all day long, day after day. Looking after dozens, maybe hundreds of people in a day, and doing the other duties that are required, aside from serving, including any of the following procedures. Most servers are responsible for cleaning duties, and some management duties, and handling, and being responsible for other people’s money, while handling other people’s their food and drinks, and being responsible for other people’s safety, and pleasure, and at the same time, these servers are trying to make good tips, because if they don’t, they might not be able to afford to pay the bills. People just think that it is their job to do so, therefore, no politeness is necessary. That is incorrect. Nobody is above politeness. All people deserve common courtesies when being spoken to, just because they are people. Anytime you ask something of someone, it is polite to begin with “may I, can I, could you, would you,” etc. Why should the other person take time out of their day, to get up off their chair, and get you something, or let you borrow something, or anything else you could ask of someone, if you can’t even ask with a little common courtesy? If you are asking for a favour, it is always polite to say “please.” If that person decides to do that something for you, it is polite to say “thank you.” In fact, those words are the most widely spoken words in the history of humanity. Every single language in use today, from cultures all over the world, has words or actions that mean “please” and “thank you.” Let’s remember that. When people start behaving in more polite, courteous ways, it becomes much easier to help solve underlying conflicts, especially those conflicts where everyone needs to work together, to ensure the safety of all. AVERSION ARRAY
Everyone’s seen the movie “Armageddon,” where Bruce Willis and his crew of Americans save the world from an asteroid that is flying towards Earth. This is a very real threat to the entire world. Since the primary goal of Resolutionism is to save the world, to help everyone in the world sleep at night, we will build an Aversion Array on Mars, which will protect us from these comets and asteroids that could collide with our planet. We will build a huge satellite network on the surface of Mars that will scan space for these “doomsday rocks,” and being 2 million miles away from the Earth, they will be able to detect them much faster than our satellites back home. Once an asteroid is seen, the Aversion Aaray can divert the problem away from Earth, thus ending our fears of destruction by asteroid. This creative idea will save the world. These are just a few of the ideas that could be put into place with a new global government and a new economic structure, and this would start making positive changes in the world we live in. We need more ideas. RESOLUTIONISM: REPLICATORS
by Aaron Nordquist Do you remember the Replicators on Star Trek? Many of the inventions on that science fiction show have become a reality, now all we need is this one technology to truly save the world. The next stage in civilization offers us more technological advances, and these advances will play an integral part in saving the world. Today we have the technology to map genomes of almost anything, and for years we have had the ability to make digital copies of information. When we transfer anything into a digital format, we convert that information into discrete quantities, and assigned values. The assigned value is in the form of binary digits, or Bits. Most of us learned the base 10 system when we were growing up, meaning the numerals 0 through 9. The Binary Digit system uses a base 2 system, meaning a system consisting of 2 numerals, 0 and 1. These values can be encoded on any medium that stores memory, and then can be decoded when played back or replicated. These values can be used to represent one of only two outcomes, like on or off. Groups of bits form digital words, called bytes. A byte is a group of eight bits, representing a unit of data, a kilobyte is equivalent to 1,024 bytes, a megabyte is equivalent to 1,024 kilobytes or 1,048,576 bytes, a gigabyte is the data or storage space equivalent to 1,024 megabytes, or over one million bytes, and a terabyte is equivalent to 1,024 gigabytes. Technology continues to expand the storage space and memory capacity for digital data, and soon we will be able to store 1,024 terabytes, and 1024 of those and…well, you get the point I think. Our ability to store digital information continues to improve. We can make digital copies of almost anything. The next step will be to digitally make physical copies of physical objects. If we assign a basic numerical value to the all of the molecules of an object, and record all of the data on all of the substances that compose that object, including all the information in the DNA, and so on, and if we copy and store the basic properties of the composition of these physical objects, we could store that information and replicate it later using another medium. Today we also have the ability to break physical objects down at a molecular level. We can use this ability to help us recycle all of the world’s garbage. We can recycle anything in the world by breaking it down at the molecular level, to convert those objects into a harmless base compound that we could also put into storage, to be used later. We could recycle and reuse anything in the world, by turning it into another physical substance that would be meant to be used to replicate something else. The original object can be recycled at the molecular level, and it can be converted into this new substance, that I’ll call Protomatter, which would be a complex compound that can easily be stored. That Protomatter could then be converted into any another object by retrieving the digital code that is stored in memory, and by physically recycling it into the digital code specified thereby creating a physical replica of the original object. I think I need to paint you a picture. Imagine that you are in your new apartment, that was built by the UE. Imagine that you are holding a big red apple. You decide that this apple is perfect, so you want to have more apples just like it. Imagine that you walk up to the Replicator, which is a machine about the size of a refrigerator. You place this apple in the Replicator, and press a button that says “Replicate.” The Replicator reads and maps the properties of the apple and stores that information within its computer. The Replicator then breaks down Protomatter which is stored within the Replicator, and converts it into the properties of the original apple. Now you have two big red apples.The Replicator then breaks the object down at a molecular level, and converts it into another substance which can be stored, called Protomatter. You walk up to the Replicator and use its computer to find the apple. The computer inside the Replicator looks up the information that you just stored, and pulls enough recycled Protomatter, and then reorganizes the Protomatter to create a new apple. You could recycle the clothes you don’t like, or don’t need, or don’t wear anymore, and create a whole new wardrobe. Or if you have a favourite pair of shoes that you don’t want to get ruined, you could scan it, and store the information in the computer. When the shoes get worn out, you can recycle them and get a brand new pair. We could recycle all of the water in the sewers. We could recycle the water in the oceans. We could recycle the air we breathe. We could turn steel into food. We can turn water into wood, and wood into water. The waterlines in your house could all be connected to the Replicator, so that the water that goes down the drain could be converted, and reconverted, and reconverted, and used over, and over, and over again. This is sustainability. We can recycle everything this way! Imagine that we could clean up the entire world of garbage, and convert that garbage into food, and clothing, and blankets. This invention will play an astronomical role in saving the world. Not only does it help us clean up our planet, by ridding us of our garbage, but it completely reduces our wastefulness. We won’t need to buy anything anymore. We could replicate everything we need, right in our own homes. Imagine again with me, just for a moment, that you are in your apartment again, ready to cook a meal. You tell your Replicator to produce your favourite meal, and it replicates it for you, complete with plates and utensils. When you are finished eating your meal, you put your dirty plates, knives, forks, spoons, glasses, napkins, and uneaten food, back into the Replicator. The Replicator breaks it all down again, and converts it back into Protomatter, to be used again in the future at your convenience. This creative idea will save the world. Building Cities by Aaron Nordquist
Speaking of innovative and imaginative designs, what we are doing here is so large; creating societies, cultures, and civilizations, we need to start thinking creatively, to come up with new ways of building a society. We are going to be creating many new societies, and what we are doing will reshape the world’s societies that exist today. Since Resolutionism declares that housing is a basic human right, we are going to have to build efficient and affordable housing for millions of people, requiring that we build more towns and cities around the world. Remember that we are going to house the homeless, as we talked about earlier, and we are giving hundreds of millions of people jobs and homes. We will literally have to manufacture these homes and jobs. I remember that when I was a little, I tried to come up with an idea to house the homeless. During that time, there were thousands of homeless people living in Winnipeg and other cities in Canada, and my plan was to build a small city or large town on my parents property. My parents own a small ¼ section of land, and I thought that we could just build a city there, where all the homeless people could live and work. Of course, that couldn’t happen because nobody could afford to build an entire city. But…of course, the United Earth could afford it. This new system is there just for those reasons: so that we can solve those problems that we could not previously “afford” to solve. We can build residential sectors where the people will live, commercial sectors for businesses to move in, and industrial sectors so that the people of that city can work. In fact, just building the city would create thousands of jobs. Businesses will pop up all over the place, as people begin moving into the town. The city is going to need police and fire protection, creating security for the people. The city is going to need a hospital, and doctor’s offices, so that the people of that community can be healthy, where people can receive medical, surgical, psychiatric, and nursing care. We’ll build schools so that both children and adults can learn to better themselves, and improve the quality of their lives. We’ll build water refinement plants so that we can ensure safe, clean water is being supplied to the city. We’ll build recreational facilities, day care centers, and free public transportation systems, so that the people of the city are well looked after. The UE could easily afford to build thousands of these small cities all over the world. Despite what you might have heard, there’s still tonnes of land left. This would help save the world on so many levels. Imagine cities like this popping up in Africa, where so many starving people have no homes. We can build those people the homes they need, and we can offer them a life to live. BUILDING BLOCKS To help us create these cities, we must create a new element, regarding the contribution of the growth of this system. I’m talking about the method in which we build our homes, where we build them, and what we use to build them. For much of the beginning of human history we lived in caves to shelter us from the environment, and protect us from predators. Groups of nomadic peoples over 15,000 years ago, hunted wooly mammoths, ate the meat, and made shelters from the skin and bones. The very first houses were built in the Middle East around 11,000 years ago, and were very small. These people would build thatched huts with walls of grass, reeds, and sun-dried mud. These can still be seen in some parts around the world, such as the beautiful village of Mali in Africa. They are cheap to build and cool to live in. Tall reeds grow around Lake Titicaca, in Peru, South America, so the people who live there use these reeds to build their homes. Traditionally, the Inuit peoples of Northern Canada lived in igloos made out of blocks of snow. We eventually learned to build much stronger structures, with thick walls and a roof to protect us from the environment. In time we learned to build durable houses, and other large buildings. All over the world, people make use of whatever materials they can find or produce, to make their homes. Mud, stone, slate, boulders, bricks, branches, reeds, steel girders, sheets of iron, concrete, glass, timber, straw, turf, ice, bamboo, animal hides, cardboard boxes…you name it. It took us thousands of years to come up with the idea for solid bricks, which was, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable achievements in the history of humanity. Bricks are mostly rectangular blocks of clay, or any similar material, that is baked until it is hard and is used for building walls, houses, and other large permanent structures. They are very strong, and they help regulate temperature, to keep heat inside the home during the winter, and keep it dark and cool in the summer. It’s time to start thinking creatively, to think up the new brick. We need to be able to build homes and structures all over the world, using a new construction medium, that is cheap, strong, relatively light, can help regulate temperatures, and is not hazardous to us or to the environment. It has to be able to withstand Earth’s ranging temperatures and weather patterns, such as the winds, water, snow, ice, and intense heat. It has to be something strong, so that it can protect people from harm. It has to be something light, so that it can be easily transported, and used all over the world. Not only our world, but eventually we should be able to begin colonization of the moon, or Mars, etc., and using this technology, we should be able to create temporary and permanent shelters, and even cities, on other planets. |