We’re doomed!

Another worry: More severe storms resulting from climate change will produce more fallen trees, converting the carbon sinks of forests into carbon sources as killed trees stop photosynthesizing and start decomposing. Researchers studying the ecology of Louisiana and Mississippi pre and post Katrina have determined the net effect of the storm, which took down 320 million trees, has been to convert net carbon storage in the region into net carbon release. More storms caused by more climate change will take down more forests and release more carbon which will contribute more to climate change, the researches concluded.

This news joins a pronounced trend of late: we are every day learning of more feedback loops in regional and the global ecosystems, feedback loops that seem to take human activity out of the equation once we played our role in starting the loops up.

The effect on the public mind will be a creeping inexorable feeling of helplessness and fatalism. It should begin showing up in novels and films depicting sympathetic protagonists unable to alter the course of looming catastrophes in their personal lives. When those cultural products strike a chord of resonance and echo what people feel, that will set up a further feedback loop of amplified and echoing fatalism in human consciousness mirroring the feedback loop of environmental deterioration in nature. Eventually, both loops will hit sympathetic frequencies like a wind whistling through a bridge beginning to buck and swing wildly in resonant frequency collapse.

In such a cultural situation, it is interesting to contemplate what kind of political leader will rise to the top.

The science of crossing streets

An interesting thing happens at intersections along Victoria Drive, a largely residential East Vancouver street doubling lately as a reliably quick commuter route for suburbanites traveling to and from downtown office towers. In recognition of the hazards for residents walking from homes east of Victoria Drive to the busy commercial district of Commercial Drive two blocks to the west, City workers have lately installed pedestrian “bulges” at some intersections and have beefed up painted markings on the pavement. The bulges of sidewalk space into road space serve to reduce the lanes of traffic a pedestrian must cross from four to two, and cuts the time a pedestrian is at risk from cars by half. They also serve to make a pedestrian trying to cross more readily visible to oncoming drivers, enabling them to stop, as is the law.

If a lone car approaches these intersections when a pedestrian is indicating she wants to cross, it’s fairly likely the driver will stop. But if the very same driver on the very same trip happens to be in a line of cars, he is far less likely to stop. A number of things must be running through the driver’s mind. Ordinarily inclined to obey the law, show courteousness, and stop, the driver observes no one in front of him stopping for the perfectly visible pedestrian, and so must make a snap decision that since everyone else is doing the wrong thing, one more minor crime can’t hurt. To stop, the driver has to go through the additional step of thinking that what everyone in front is doing is wrong, and they’re going to be different. By the time that thought is completed, the window of opportunity to stop has passed. It only lasts for about two seconds anyway, between the moment a driver sees a pedestrian and after the driver is past the point of no return.

The solution to the hazards of pedestrians crossing where cars travel seems therefore to be cultural. Drivers are typically preoccupied with their task at hand: complete the journey as quickly and as efficiently as possible. A driver is typically searching constantly for escape routes around blocks in traffic, for patterns ahead that present obstacles, and for risks to their own safety as they may present themselves during a trip.

If drivers—who are after all pedestrians when they aren’t in their cars—added to their list of things to think about when they set out on a journey a search for opportunities to show good behavior, which we normally do in most of our day to day activities, then a pedestrian trying to cross amidst a line of cars would more likely find a driver noticing the chance to earn a merit point and stop where no one else did.

Pedestrians who acknowledge with a small wave and smile a driver who went out of their way to stop might contribute to that cultural change by reinforcing the good deed with recognition.

The US peso

It was odd to hear the Saudi minister for oil speak at the extraordinary OPEC meeting last week, rebuking Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for their call to use oil for geopolitical aims. Observers will recall that OPEC, at the urging of Saudi Arabia, withdrew supplies from the market in 1973 specifically to punish the US for its support for Israel in its war with Egypt. OPEC was originally created in 1960 at the instigation of Venezuela, and along with that country, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were the original five founders. The list doubles, curiously enough, as a who’s who of where current US military interests are focused a half century later.

The additional call by OPEC founding nations Iran and Venezuela to consider a switch from the US dollar to other currencies for sales of oil, strikes by far the more interesting note. Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, in a conversation accidentally (or was it?) picked up by microphones that were supposed to be off for a closed meeting pointed out to Chavez that even just talking out loud about switching to a basket of currencies from an exclusive US currency market could utterly collapse the US dollar. He is, of course, right. The only compelling reason anyone in the world seeks US dollars is to be able to buy oil supplies. Once countries no longer need US currency reserves, demand for the US dollar will fall off a cliff, and along with it, it’s value relative to other currencies. The steep decline already witnessed by the US dollar in the last two years shows just how unstable it is even while it remains assuredly the currency of exchange for the world’s most important commodity.

A further and more dramatic collapse in the US dollar would have the effect of driving oil prices for US buyers through the roof. That would, amongst other things, greatly reduce American’s consumption of oil . . . leaving, of course, more for China, for example, to consume. That answers the biggest riddle facing China’s leaders today as Peak Oil dawns on them: how to keep fueling the expanding economy so that social unrest is balanced against improving prosperity, keeping revolt against the Communist Party at bay. What? Did everyone forget that China is still ruled tightly by a revolutionary Communist dictatorial regime? The question, as every retailer knows, is one both the seller and the buyer answer together: what is a thing going to sell for? It isn’t just OPEC and other sellers of oil who get to alone determine what currency sales should take place in. Buyers have about an equal say in that, and China is fast becoming one of the biggest buyers in the market. They don’t have any good reason to go on indefinitely buying oil with US dollars. They might think, on the contrary, Chinese yuan is a very good alternative. Buyers of Chinese goods—which is everybody now, isn’t it?—might be inclined to agree.

Careful what you wish for

Good new/ bad news for America At War [AAW]. Levels of violence seem to be declining in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is contemplating sending “military advisors” to Pakistan where something big really seems to be shaping up. The move comes amidst growing risks of war between the US and Iran and worsening signs for the American military in Afghanistan. The American experience in Vietnam spread in the later stages to Laos, Cambodia and even Thailand, an expansion of the theatre of war that as much as anything else contributed to America’s ultimate defeat and graceless exit from the whole region. Likewise, the American experience in Iraq, after nearly five years, seems to be spreading to every country in the entire Middle Eastern crescent. Unplanned and uncontrolled expansions of wars is indeed the main reason generals are wary of starting them.

The difference this time for America is where this present war expands to: Pakistan is no Cambodia and Iran is no Laos. Perhaps this is why Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under President Clinton, and by no measure a dove herself, nearly popped her eyes out in response to an interview question about how the present war compares to the American war in Vietnam. She said “I am afraid that Iraq is going to turn out to be the greatest disaster in American foreign policy–worse than Vietnam.”

Highlife getting high

Highlife World Music has been a mainstay of Commercial Drive for a long time. Twenty-five years, in fact. The profound changes in musical styles over that period mirror the extraordinary degree and number of changes in musical reproduction technology. First it was vinyl, then magnetic tape, then CDs, and now digital downloads. Through it all, Highlife has thrived, and they’ve done so by not changing what they do at their core: find the best music from around the world, constantly educate themselves about it, and provide connoisseurs and newbies alike with expert knowledge and guidance. That’s why digital downloading will also fail to knock Highlife down, but will on the contrary be a spur to the venerable small business. The array of musical forms and expressions available to everyone is in the process of exploding at the moment. That means a much larger number of people seeking guidance and knowledge to develop their discernment amidst the chaos, and guidance and knowledge is what Highlife has been actually selling all along through several format changes.

It’s a sparkling story and it’s a stellar example of that key intangible that separates small neighbourhood businesses from the big corporations who forever try to mimic and reproduce them on big-money scales. It’s the HMVs and Virgins of the world that are in trouble because of digital downloads: all they ever did was sell the disc, cutting the price by evading the market for knowledge and guidance. Wrong horse boys. You never did get it.

Join Kevin and Dennis at Highlife’s 25th Anniversary party at the WISE club, 1882 Adanac St, November 24th at 8 PM and enjoy three-time Juno Award-winner Alpha Yaya Diallo. Call 604-251-6964 for tickets and info.