REALITICS: Primer for Discussion
Swimming in Stormy Seas of Politics, Humanity's Feet Must
Eventually Touch Ground or ~ Inevitably ~ Humanity Drowns
I wrote and read, in part, “Laws of Nature” before the General Assembly of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Conservation Congress 2000 in Springfield, Illinois.
With few exceptions it's message fell on deaf ears. This and other similar experiences have caused me to conclude, “hope for a sustained healthy relationship between our planet and its most demanding human species resides somewhere hidden in the collective mind of the masses.”
Political minds, severely polluted with this uniquely human need for possessing a sense of tangible AND abstract power, are utterly incapable of seeking and recognizing life sustaining, planet earth preserving solutions. Our leaders have demonstrated, beyond doubt, their intellect cannot function beyond parameters that serve their immediate political desires. A seasoned politician having retained his or her peripheral vision is a rare one, indeed.
Blame games will not correct humanity’s dilemma. At least in democratic societies, we the people are partly to blame for our governance.
Whether subjects of totalitarian or democratic governance, we humans have failed to require a base of reality from which politicians, local and beyond, launch their “careers.”
Politics here in the USA floats in eerie, slow spinning currents above true reality in this cloudy, rancid, and surreal atmosphere of extortion, gamesmanship, pandering, outright corruption and other uniquely human behaviors - none of which have their basis in universal truths commonly called "laws of nature."
Duane Short
Your Realitics Host
"Laws Of Nature"
Legislated law will always be subject to bending, breaking, twisting, perforation, revision, and often times outright abolition. Legislated law has but one enduring characteristic...it is always in a constant state of flux.
...and while the rhetoric flies among environmental law-makers and law-shapers, natural law with its thermodynamics and law of entropy cycles on. Ultimately measuring with an unchanging, quantitative, and qualitative yardstick, a discipline called physics is the foundation of all other disciplines devoted to the of study of nature and her ways.
In the context of human impact on this planet, our use and/or abuse of the natural world will one day end or flourish according to the laws of nature.
Legislated law cannot change natural law. However, legislated laws, second only to science based, public environmental education, will influence society's actions, attitudes, and how well we and future generations honor the laws of nature.
Earthlings, especially their leaders, must understand and accept the fact that, in nature, laws of physics reign supreme.
Only if we understand and accept “Nature’s Law” to reign supreme over our own human “Legislated law” can we move forward in our efforts to make Illinois and our planet, first and foremost, a beautiful and healthy place for mankind, now and for generations to come.
Until we understand that legislated laws, in all their political and democratic glory, render absolutely no influence on even a single law of physics, we will continue to waste untold hours and energy trying to decipher which special interest group presents the greatest argument at the political round table.
Until the leaders of the most influential nation on earth understand and accept that we cannot include the game of “political footsie” when shaping environmental policy and law, we risk allowing human behavior that continues to do “critical harm” to our planet.
When law-makers and law-shapers begin to use our best available science and technology as their guide, environmental policy and law will inevitably begin to parallel natural law. Again, natural law truly governs the long-term physical well-being of the human race.
Economy, a social and political yardstick, provides many citizens a sense of well-being or doom. However, far more important to our actual well-being is the assurance of clean air to breathe and fresh, clear water to drink. When there is no longer, clean air to breathe or fresh, clear water to drink nothing else matters.
Leaders truly concerned for the health and well-being of present and future citizens of this state will not fear for their own political survival. Wise and courageous leaders will find ways to publicly display the wisdom of using the appropriate yardstick, “science” when developing public policy and creating laws concerning the use and management of our natural resources.
Which experts will we consult as environmental policy is shaped and laws are legislated? Far too long have policies and laws governing our management, use, and abuse of our natural resources been contaminated with input from groups who know little if anything about biological, geological, and ecological principles and processes.
This is not to say those representing groups concerned with economy, individual rights and responsibilities, or any other legitimate topic should be forever excluded from policy and law making processes. It is to say, however, that input from these groups should enter only after thorough scientific study and analyses of any given environmental issue has been completed by well-suited “unbiased”experts.
Mandating such an approach will better serve to secure the health and well-being of this states citizens.
[If we are honest, we must admit.] All of us possess the human need for security.
Some seek security in terms of their finances, others in their relationships with others, others in their physical safety, and others in a more spiritual sense.
No matter one’s emphasis our greatest security, in this life, is truly in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
As I have said time and again, “When there is no longer clean air to breathe, nor water to drink, nothing else matters.”
I ask you:
“Will nature’s laws be our guide?”
“Which experts will we employ?”
I reiterate, "Only if we understand and accept “Nature’s Law” to reign supreme over our own human “Legislated Law” can we move forward in our efforts to make Illinois and our planet, first & foremost, a beautiful and healthy place for mankind, now and for generations to come.
I would like to close with this challenge.
With all resources available (including the information highway), search and find one example in human history when "sustained" prosperity existed in a failed land.
We must care for the land and its inhabitants. To do so we must honor the laws, the real laws, that govern it.
Thank you.
Duane Short
September 11, 2000
Eventually Touch Ground or ~ Inevitably ~ Humanity Drowns
I wrote and read, in part, “Laws of Nature” before the General Assembly of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Conservation Congress 2000 in Springfield, Illinois.
With few exceptions it's message fell on deaf ears. This and other similar experiences have caused me to conclude, “hope for a sustained healthy relationship between our planet and its most demanding human species resides somewhere hidden in the collective mind of the masses.”
Political minds, severely polluted with this uniquely human need for possessing a sense of tangible AND abstract power, are utterly incapable of seeking and recognizing life sustaining, planet earth preserving solutions. Our leaders have demonstrated, beyond doubt, their intellect cannot function beyond parameters that serve their immediate political desires. A seasoned politician having retained his or her peripheral vision is a rare one, indeed.
Blame games will not correct humanity’s dilemma. At least in democratic societies, we the people are partly to blame for our governance.
Whether subjects of totalitarian or democratic governance, we humans have failed to require a base of reality from which politicians, local and beyond, launch their “careers.”
Politics here in the USA floats in eerie, slow spinning currents above true reality in this cloudy, rancid, and surreal atmosphere of extortion, gamesmanship, pandering, outright corruption and other uniquely human behaviors - none of which have their basis in universal truths commonly called "laws of nature."
Duane Short
Your Realitics Host
"Laws Of Nature"
Legislated law will always be subject to bending, breaking, twisting, perforation, revision, and often times outright abolition. Legislated law has but one enduring characteristic...it is always in a constant state of flux.
...and while the rhetoric flies among environmental law-makers and law-shapers, natural law with its thermodynamics and law of entropy cycles on. Ultimately measuring with an unchanging, quantitative, and qualitative yardstick, a discipline called physics is the foundation of all other disciplines devoted to the of study of nature and her ways.
In the context of human impact on this planet, our use and/or abuse of the natural world will one day end or flourish according to the laws of nature.
Legislated law cannot change natural law. However, legislated laws, second only to science based, public environmental education, will influence society's actions, attitudes, and how well we and future generations honor the laws of nature.
Earthlings, especially their leaders, must understand and accept the fact that, in nature, laws of physics reign supreme.
Only if we understand and accept “Nature’s Law” to reign supreme over our own human “Legislated law” can we move forward in our efforts to make Illinois and our planet, first and foremost, a beautiful and healthy place for mankind, now and for generations to come.
Until we understand that legislated laws, in all their political and democratic glory, render absolutely no influence on even a single law of physics, we will continue to waste untold hours and energy trying to decipher which special interest group presents the greatest argument at the political round table.
Until the leaders of the most influential nation on earth understand and accept that we cannot include the game of “political footsie” when shaping environmental policy and law, we risk allowing human behavior that continues to do “critical harm” to our planet.
When law-makers and law-shapers begin to use our best available science and technology as their guide, environmental policy and law will inevitably begin to parallel natural law. Again, natural law truly governs the long-term physical well-being of the human race.
Economy, a social and political yardstick, provides many citizens a sense of well-being or doom. However, far more important to our actual well-being is the assurance of clean air to breathe and fresh, clear water to drink. When there is no longer, clean air to breathe or fresh, clear water to drink nothing else matters.
Leaders truly concerned for the health and well-being of present and future citizens of this state will not fear for their own political survival. Wise and courageous leaders will find ways to publicly display the wisdom of using the appropriate yardstick, “science” when developing public policy and creating laws concerning the use and management of our natural resources.
Which experts will we consult as environmental policy is shaped and laws are legislated? Far too long have policies and laws governing our management, use, and abuse of our natural resources been contaminated with input from groups who know little if anything about biological, geological, and ecological principles and processes.
This is not to say those representing groups concerned with economy, individual rights and responsibilities, or any other legitimate topic should be forever excluded from policy and law making processes. It is to say, however, that input from these groups should enter only after thorough scientific study and analyses of any given environmental issue has been completed by well-suited “unbiased”experts.
Mandating such an approach will better serve to secure the health and well-being of this states citizens.
[If we are honest, we must admit.] All of us possess the human need for security.
Some seek security in terms of their finances, others in their relationships with others, others in their physical safety, and others in a more spiritual sense.
No matter one’s emphasis our greatest security, in this life, is truly in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.
As I have said time and again, “When there is no longer clean air to breathe, nor water to drink, nothing else matters.”
I ask you:
“Will nature’s laws be our guide?”
“Which experts will we employ?”
I reiterate, "Only if we understand and accept “Nature’s Law” to reign supreme over our own human “Legislated Law” can we move forward in our efforts to make Illinois and our planet, first & foremost, a beautiful and healthy place for mankind, now and for generations to come.
I would like to close with this challenge.
With all resources available (including the information highway), search and find one example in human history when "sustained" prosperity existed in a failed land.
We must care for the land and its inhabitants. To do so we must honor the laws, the real laws, that govern it.
Thank you.
Duane Short
September 11, 2000
posted by Duane Short | 5/04/2006 05:00:00 AM
1 Comments:
Friends, the following post demonstrates the need to create a "body politics" that requires an understanding of the physical ramifications of proposed legislation before signing such legislation into law.
When agencies such as the EPA, FDA and FTC are freed, by legislated law, to approve foodstuffs, drugs, herbicides and such without knowing even their most basic behavioral characteristics unknown dangers continue to threaten and, in fact, unnecessarily harm the health and wealth-being of humans and other vulnerable forms of life on this planet.
Realitics would slow the perceived pace of technological progress. Ultimately, however, technology would be required to keep pace with as opposed to outrun science and this is a good thing. Technology is a busy field of endeavor but much of technology’s energy is expended in desperate studies to learn how to undo prior mistake technologists have made in their attempt to push the envelope of science, its parent.
When technology runs ahead of science, because it can, it behaves as the energetic child capable of running ahead of it parent(s) straight toward a dangerous cliff.
Realitics does not embrace the doctrine that an individual, an entity, or a power can run ahead of all else simply because it can. Realitics is a cautious form of governance, i.e., politics. Once again, nature’s laws must govern humanity’s legislated laws.
Realitics, in short, respects restraint guided by science.
Duane
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Atrazine, More Than Twenty Years Later!
A perfect example of technology (the tool) leading science (the knowledge).
-----------------------------------------------
Newton, forgive me. Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) U. S. physicist, born in Germany.
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This USDA article (dated: August 16, 2001) states my case more clearly than I ever could.
I have said time and time and time again when it comes to the use and long-term effects of of chemicals we are shooting in the dark and putting future generations at great risk.
Here we have an official document admitting that Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. since the 1980s, (harmless or not) has been used with little knowledge of its leaching characteristics. Leaching, of course, is the most significant factor in ground water contamination.
This article applauds one researcher’s very recent discovery of how to measure the leaching characteristics of atrazine.
Even this article refers to this discovery as a mere “clue.” A “clue” is not a “fact” and the writers of these kinds of articles know very well their legal latitude in terms of the language they use.
Read and then let the first paragraph sink in.
Then read the rest and imagine the billions of gallons of this chemical that was allowed to be distributed across the land before something as vital as its leaching characteristics were known.
Now imagine the billions of gallons of countless herbicides and pesticides that, likewise, have been spread about.
We are fools to believe the confident claims we hear about Transline or any other new or old herbicide or pesticide.
We have got to convince some of those among us and the public we are being defrauded and deceived by chemical companies and the governmental agencies they control.
Duane
The article online:
http://www.nps.ars.usda.gov/menu.htm?newsid=1639
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New Clues: How Herbicides and Soil Interact ARS Information Staff | Latest ARS News | Latest Version
___________________________________________
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
August 16, 2001
Jennifer Arnold, (301) 504-1624, jaarnold@ars.usda.gov
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Predicting how herbicides move in soil requires accurate estimates of how these chemicals bind to soils and geologic materials--vital information that's often lacking for materials below the soil's surface.
Now, Agricultural Research Service microbiologist Thomas B. Moorman at the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, working with researchers at Florida International University- Miami and Iowa measured how one important herbicide, atrazine, binds to and lets go of particles in different soil types. Unlike previous research, this project measured atrazine's binding deep into Iowa soil.
Atrazine is an organic compound, widely used as a herbicide for control of broadleaf and grassy weeds. During the 1980s, atrazine was estimated to be the most widely used herbicide in the United States. Today, because of its low cost, it is still applied to millions of acres of U.S. croplands,especially corn and sorghum fields.
The scientists used a variety of simulation models to predict the risk of this herbicide's movement into groundwater. For accurate prediction, these models integrated information about rainfall, waterflow, soil types and atrazine use.
The team found that the soils were low in organic carbon. But they retained more herbicide than would have been predicted, based on past research. The researchers also found that certain glacial til sediment of sand, silt and clay in the saturated zone beneath the groundwater surface--were able to retain atrazine quite strongly, greatly limiting its leaching. This geologic sediment was deposited as glaciers retreated from Iowa about 15,000 years ago.
The researchers believe this knowledge should increase scientists' and farmers' ability to predict herbicide contamination of groundwater and aid in developing practices that protect water resources from contamination. This will help producers manage herbicides more carefully and assure better water quality for the general public.
The ARS National Soil Tilth Laboratory is on the web at: http://www.nstl.gov.
___________________________________________
This item is one of the news releases and story leads that ARS Information distributes on weekdays to fax and e-mail subscribers. You can also get the latest ARS news on the World Wide Web at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/thelatest.htm.
* Feedback and questions to ARS News Service via e-mail: isjd@ars-grin.gov.
* ARS Information Staff, 5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128, (301) 504-1617, fax 504-1648.
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