Voici la question qui me guide dans mes recherches...

L’appât du gain manifesté par les entreprises supranationales et certains groupes oligarchiques, de même que le contrôle des ressources naturelles par ceux-ci, dirigent l’humanité vers un nouvel ordre mondial de type féodal, voir même sa perte. Confronté à cette situation, l’être humain est invité à refuser d’accepter d’emblée une pseudo-vérité véhiculée par des médias peut-être à la solde de ces entreprises et groupes. Au contraire, il est invité à s’engager dans un processus de discernement et conscientisation afin de créer sa propre vérité par la confrontation de sa réalité nécessairement subjective à des données objectives, telles que révélées par la science, par exemple.

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. - Plato

mercredi 31 mars 2010

Good news: Arctic Sea Ice close to the 1979-2000 average

Will anybody notice?  Is global warming no so bad?


Source

lundi 29 mars 2010

Quelques vidéos pour s'amuser

Une vidéo pour s'amuser:


Une autre pour réfléchir sur la puissance de Google:


Une pour aider les spéculateurs:


Et pour finir une parodie d'AVATAR, certains disent qu'AVATAR était copié sur des scénarios connus, nous serons bien servies avec la suite.

vendredi 19 mars 2010

We can own our banks - A possibilty for all nations, states, provinces.

In my last blog post, I talked briefly about the creation of credits for investing in our future. One way of doing this is to have a bank that works for the people by the people. The state of North Dakota is doing it since 1919 with the bank of North Dakota serving the people and the state.

Here's a preview from Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'
I love the end of the clip.


Another example is the state of Florida. An economist named Farid Khavari wants to create a state owned bank, like North Dakota is doing. Listen to this video for his plan. I suggest doing pauses from time to time to have time to read all slides.


Now to understand a bit more how the banking world works, here's a good video on Money as Debt.


Ou si vous préférez, en Français: L'Argent Dette de Paul Grignon


Passer le mot - Spread the word.

lundi 15 mars 2010

A bright future for our planet, follow those simple steps.

1. The base for everything we need is energy.

Good video from Energy innovation at MIT


Nuclear power and other types of innovation will provide the energy we need for steps 2.
2. The electrification of transport.
Now that we have the energy, we need fast electrical transport systems, here's a example done in Shanghai.



And another one in Japan going at up to 581 KM/h. With those speeds, you can do Montréal - Québec city in around 30 minutes.

 3. Water for everyone through desalination
Now that we have enough power to spare, we can now use that power to desalinate sea water and produce fresh water for agriculture and consumption. The cost of desalination could be as low as $0,50 per 1000 liters. Comparing this to one dollar for a bottle of 500ml is not that much.

Here's a good discussion on using waste heat from nuclear power station to produce fresh water from brackish or sea water or even waste water from water treatment plants.

4. Money?  All of this will cost a fortune you ask?

Now we get to the cost of all this. Let us ask the question in another way.

Do we have the resources to accomplish all this.  Human, material, technological, etc.  This answer is simply yes.  So what about the cost of building all this infrascture for 7+ billion people.  Where is all this "money" coming from?

We actually do not need any money, what we need are credits emitted by a central bank. A central bank owned by the nation for which you create the infrastructure.  If you have the resources to build something, then we can emit the credits for it and all the interest paid to the central bank will go back to the nation as revenue.  This will create jobs, better infrastructure and will push prices of goods down,  thus anti-inflationary.
  • The bank of Canada did exactly this to "finance" the war effort during WWII.
  • The bank of North Dakota is doing the same thing today and is the only state with no debt and a surplus of one billion for 2008/2009. Click on the link to see a video.

So what is the problem of our societies that prevents us from going forward on all those wonderful opportunities?

Comments?

mercredi 10 mars 2010

A little perspective? It is always good to have a long term view.

How does the temperature of the last few decades look when compared to 400,000 years?

  • Are we in a cycle?
  • Is it really abnormal to see temperature swings like we have seen for a few generations?
Is it true to affirm:
  • The Earth’s never, ever, been hotter,
  • The “hockey stick” proves it,
  • It’s unprecedented, and
  • Its all your fault!
Look at this graphic and video.  A little perspective is always a good thing. Source



    By the way, here's the corrected hockey stick.

    Go natural, go nuclear

    NOTE: I posted my comment on the hill on March 10th, but it seems they choose not to publish it.!


    Interesting article in "The Hill" opinion section.  This need to be debated more.  Read my comment below after the story.  I have documented a large part of this discussion here on this blog.


    Go natural, go nuclear
    By Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Theodore Rockwell - 03/08/10 07:48 PM ET

    The fantastic success of the movie “Avatar,” in which an interplanetary Stone Age species of people overcomes an expeditionary force that looks suspiciously like the U.S. Army, is convincing millions of Americans that the secret of success in the modern world is to “go back to nature.”

    President Barack Obama mirrored this in his Inaugural address when he said, “We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.” It all sounds so easy — free energy all around us, waiting to be harvested at little or no environmental cost, putting us back in tune with nature.

    Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The rhythms of nature are not always our rhythms. The sun shines only 10 to 14 hours a day, while we consume electricity around the clock. We don’t want our TVs and refrigerators running only when the wind blows. Until electricity can be stored in large quantities, we will need something that can provide electrical power on demand.

    So far, fossil fuels and hydroelectricity have filled the bill, but each has its limitations. We’ve already developed all the good hydroelectric sites and people object to the way they drown valleys and interrupt fish migrations. There are more old dams being torn down these days than new ones being built.

    Despite new natural gas finds and new technologies for coal, oil, and natural gas exploration, the supply restrictions of fossil fuels are also well known.

    These are limited resources. We already import two-thirds of our oil. Coal, oil and gas also have an enormous environmental impact. They cause pollution and are widely considered to be major contributors to global warming.

    Make no mistake — solar, wind and other “renewables” have their own environmental impact as well. Solar and wind farms will occupy dozens — even hundreds — of square miles to produce ordinary amounts of electricity. The Nature Conservancy has labeled this “Energy Sprawl.” Even geothermal energy — tapping the Earth’s heat — is creating problems. In December a long-term project in Switzerland was called off because it was causing earthquakes. The developer is facing criminal charges for causing property damages. The next day an almost identical project in California was called off, also because of fear of earthquakes.

    So what other options does America have? Republicans have proposed building 100 new nuclear reactors in the next 20 years, just as we built 100 reactors between 1970 and 1990. Americans have been using nuclear power for a half-century and are quite familiar with the technology. We have worked out the kinks and established an impressive record for reliability that no other power source is able to match. The average American nuclear reactor now produces electricity 90 percent of the time, as opposed to 70 percent for coal and 20 to 30 percent for wind and solar. And no member of the American public has ever been killed by commercial nuclear power — a record unmatched by other fuels.

    Since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, there has been a highly subsidized, worldwide effort to develop wind and solar as reliable sources of electricity. (France skipped that phase, went straight to nuclear, and now sells its electricity all over Europe.) Despite favorable policies and generous incentives, neither solar nor wind has been able to establish a significant presence in the marketplace. Denmark has installed wind power for 19 percent of its electrical demand yet must dump up to 85 percent of this production abroad, sometimes at a significant loss, because wind is so unreliable. Denmark still has a large carbon footprint, since it must burn fossil fuels as a backup.

    The natural case for nuclear power is compelling. Today nuclear power produces 19 percent of our electricity and 70 percent of our carbon-free electricity. Nuclear plants occupy a fraction of the land required for wind or solar and can be built in locations near where the actual power is needed rather than being transported from faraway places where wind and sunshine are stronger. And nuclear reactors operate 90 percent of the time while wind and solar are only available about a third of the time. So why aren’t we building nuclear power today?

    President Obama’s recent actions have been encouraging. He has endorsed a “new generation of nuclear reactors,” appointed a commission to make recommendations about used nuclear fuel, and supported increasing loan guarantees for new nuclear plants to $54.5 billion. This is a welcome change from an administration energy policy that looked more like a national windmill policy, which was the equivalent of going to war in sailboats.

    Polls show that the American public increasingly favors nuclear power. Still, the fear-mongering and prejudice against the technology persist. A nuclear power plant is not a bomb. It cannot explode. Ninety-seven percent of a spent fuel rod is recyclable. The French store all their “nuclear waste” from 30 years of producing 80 percent of their electricity beneath the floor of one room.

    When properly understood, nuclear energy is as clean and natural as wind, sunshine or any of the supposedly more “natural” alternatives. The tremendous power that lies at the heart of the atom is part of nature as well.


    Alexander is the Republican Conference chairman. Rockwell is a member of the Health Physics Society, a fellow of the American Nuclear Society and a vice president and a founding director of Radiation, Science and Health Inc.


    My comments to this story:
    All this is known and very logical but there a more problems to be addressed.

    When you have nuclear power operators, investing in wind and solar and stopping the construction of new reactors, because this would push prices of electricity up and push up the profit margin more than building new reactors. 

    The problems in our societies are:
     - A lack of common sense policies
     - Profit only logic
     - GREED
     - Fear of the unknown

    A good portion of this, is caused in my humble opinion, by a lack of a proper education in science by the people in power and the tendency of the human species of working for his own profit instead of the profit of the community.

    This is what we saw in the Avatar movie, a sense of community, working for the group before ourselves.

    I have heard so often the word "socialism" when referring to the nuclear power in France. 

    Those misconception and problems needs to be address at the same time as educating oneself to basic science.

    One thing we often forget to mention. is that we use in average 90% of fossil fuel for all of our energy use on this planet.  Therefore it is safe to assume that 90% of the money spent on an energy system will consume fossil fuel to build and maintain it, until the percentage of our power base is switched to a non-fossil fuel base power. 

    This is the main reason why we need to have high energy density energy sources that give power near to 100% of the time.

    We may not have much time left in term of fossil fuel reserve to build the nuclear power base infrastructure needed to power 7+ billion souls to a descent energy level we are used to have in our industrialized society.

    Good luck to us all.

    Best regards,

    Simon Filiatrault from Québec, Canada.

    mardi 9 mars 2010

    Latest news on the climate debate - March 2010

    The New York Times Strikes Back
    Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 5 March 2010

    Bullies Waxman & Markey Promote “Endangerment” of Economy, Democracy
    Marlo Lewis, BigGovernment.com, 5 March 2010

    Carbon Caps through the Backdoor
    Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal, 5 March 2010

    Joe Romm, Where Art Thou?
    Michael Lynch, MasterResource.org, 5 March 2010

    Green Jobs Fantasy
    Iain Murray, National Review Online, 4 March 2010

    Democratic Senators Move To Stop Wind Subsidies in Stimulus
    Dan Eggen, Washington Post, 4 March 2010

    “Anti-Lobbyist” Obama Administration Recruits “Green” Lobbyists To Sell Subsidies
    Chris Horner, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

    The Mainstream Media’s New Favorite Republican
    Myron Ebell, Pajamas Media, 3 March 2010

    Gore Still Hot on His Doomsday Rhetoric
    Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 3 March 2010

    Media Fails Public on Climate Coverage
    Walter Russell Mead, American Interest, 3 March 2010

    Global Warming Winners
    Washington Times editorial, 3 March 2010

    Bring Back the Robber Barons
    Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal, 3 March 2010

    Al Gore Returns!
    Myron Ebell, Fox Forum, 2 March 2010

    Climategate: This Time It’s NASA
    Iain Murray & Roger Abbott, Spectator, 2 March 2010

    Virginia AG Cuccinelli Takes on EPA
    William Yeatman, Free Lance-Star, 2 March 2010

    Gore’s Latest Global Warming Whopper
    Alan Reynolds, New York Post, 2 March 2010

    Climate Errors More than Incidental
    Christopher Booker, Telegraph, 28 February 2010

    Will NASA be privatized or closed ?

    On March 1st 2010, I visited the Kennedy space center in Florida. The fear of loosing the space program after the announcement by Obama to close the constellation program, adding to the last 4 flights of the space shuttle was palpable to everybody I talked to over at the space center.  There where guides there that spend the last 40 years around NASA and lived through the early moments of NASA with the Apollo programs, who where very happy to voice their concern to me about their fear of loosing jobs and the space programs.

    Here's a couple of pictures I took around the Kennedy space center that shows the extent of the space program to our everyday life on earth.





    Here's some video clips from MSNBC on the subject.







    More clips on Space from MSNBC

    Do you think we need a space program? Comments?

    UPDATE:
    All of those cuts are taking place while the US is spending $1 trillion dollars per year on the military:
    Estimated combined budgets for the Pentagon, two wars, foreign aid to allies, 16 intelligence agencies, scores of thousands of contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our new castle-embassies: $1 trillion a year.
     Why is there no talks about cutting the military spending?
     Dan Carlin talks about this issue on his last show.

    Another clip form MSNBC worth watching

    dimanche 7 mars 2010

    What is the bias on measured temperature of population density?

    Dr Roy W. Spencer, did a fine analysis of the bias (positive effect) of the measured surface temperature caused by population density of cities where those thermometers are placed.

    Here's the complete study

    My conclusions are:

    • The influence on temperature of cities start very fast even with low densities cities.
    • The Bias get quite large, > 2 deg C for large cities
    • Using those temperature records from when the density was low in the past to high today for those records, will show a temperature increase, caused by population increase.

    How does a nuclear reactor works? Could nuclear power save the world?

    Here's a nice flash application that explains the inner workings of a nuclear reactor.



    More from this nice web site

    Could Nuclear Power Save the Planet?