Petey's
Pipeline E-zine
Issue #51
May 7, 2007
Contents
Business
First Entrepreneurial
Trendsetters
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
National Security—Safe
or Sorry: Economic and
Environmental Security
Write Thinking Rules of Capitalization
(Part II)
Business
First (Editorial)
Entrepreneurial
Trendsetters
by Phil Hanson
Entrepreneurs
are the innovators of economic trends. To be sure, the entrepreneurs
of past and present generations are largely responsible for
the rampant consumerism that's brought us to the brink of global
environmental disaster. To be equally sure, it will be the entrepreneurs
of present and future generations that show us how to build
a vibrant, sustainable economy that's not dependent on trashing
the environment for its success.
We
find ourselves, for better or worse, on the threshold of a new
era—perhaps, even, a new age—in which massive changes
are set to take place. The era of cheap fossil fuels (for all
practical purposes) is folding its tent, leaving behind a void
that other technologies, some of them in their infancy, rush
to fill. The windows of opportunity are open wide and in no
danger of slamming shut anytime soon.
In
order for global societies to achieve sustainability they must
first achieve maximum efficiency. It makes no sense to pour
resources into a project if those resources are wasted. Restructuring
our communities and our workplaces, rebuilding infrastructure,
redefining society's goals, and resetting priorities are all
good places to start.
Green
technologies are poised to move to the forefront of economic
importance. According to the Oregon Department of Energy, every
$100 million invested in renewable energy spins off 1250 jobs.
But the good news doesn't stop there.
Building
sustainable societies requires huge across-the-board investments
of money, time, talent, and labor. Spending for renewable energy
is only the beginning. After energy come transportation, communications,
education, housing, manufacturing, agriculture, and public health,
followed by a host of lesser things that still requires a solid
commitment of human and capital resources to effect meaningful
change.
These
are exciting times soon to be ripe with unprecedented opportunities.
You can create your own job, career, or niche. Or you can prepare
yourself to work in a specialty field for someone else. You
can be a trendsetter, or you can be a trend follower. The choice
is yours.
But
for now you only need to know that the opportunities are coming.
That they are many. And that you must be ready.
Copyright
© 2007 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
• • •
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Random
Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings
National
Security—Safe or Sorry: Economic
and Environmental Security
by Phil Hanson
In
nature, everything is food. Natural processes extract, consume,
and transform in endless cycles of renewal and sustainability—perpetual
life inside a closed loop. Evolutionary forces determine whether
the loop expands or contracts, but always the loop remains closed.
Mankind should be so wise.
Unlike
nature, mankind extracts, transforms, consumes, and discards
in a linear fashion, sucking up resources to convert into consumer
goods, which are then discarded when they've served their purpose.
With no plan or provision for renewal, it's an economic strategy
that eventually undermines itself, and in the doing exposes
capitalism's fatal flaw.
A
wise person once wrote that growth for the sake of growth is
the ideology of the cancer cell. An unfortunate side effect
of cancer's ideology is that unchecked growth always
kills the host. Today, we see mounting evidence of this fundamental
truth in all parts of the world as cancer's analogues (humans)
have increasingly deleterious effects on the host (our planet).
Nothing about capitalism as it's currently practiced is sustainable.
Capitalism
has no conscience, only a rapacious, insatiable lust for short-term
profits. Plunder the commons, create a product, create a demand
for the product, mass-produce the product, build in obsolescence
to create more demand, increase the population to create even
more demand, externalize the costs of manufacturing the product,
internalize the profits, and you have the basic philosophy of
the capitalist economic system. For many reasons it's a system
that can't endure.
Given
that a large population consumes renewable resources faster
than the rate of renewal belies a few of capitalism's favorite
delusions. A finite energy supply cannot adequately serve
an ever-expanding population. Air pollution, water pollution
and soil contamination does put all life in peril. Monocrop
agriculture is not sustainable. Global warming is
a fact. Upsetting the balance of nature does have undesirable
consequences. The list goes on.
Unbridled
capitalism in its present iteration is a formula for certain
disaster. What's most needed now is a new kind of capitalism
to replace the old, a system that mandates social responsibility
and holds polluters accountable.
When
producers and consumers are made to pay the costs of the environmental
destruction they cause, their behavior will change. Businesses
will adopt new methods and adapt to changing conditions; consumers
will make wiser lifestyle choices. In the long run, everyone
benefits.
It's
all about values. Nature values logic and economy, simplicity
and viability. People value money, convenience, expedience,
consumer goods, and unsustainable lifestyles, and therein lies
the conflict.
Unrestrained
capitalism for the sake of short-term profits is a short-term
strategy for a short-term existence. Rather than trying to control
nature, mankind would be better served by working with it. Synergy
and symbiosis are the keys to economic and environmental sustainability,
which are the keys to mankind's—indeed, all species'—survival.
There's
a new Renaissance underway. Inventors and innovators and entrepreneurs
are working together to reinvent and recreate the world in ways
that are economically, ecologically and environmentally sustainable,
and numerous grassroots citizens' groups are lending their support.
A ground swell of public opinion will force governments to effect
changes at all levels of society to restore a balance between
economic needs and environmental protection. Not long after,
the New Renaissance will be complete.
Copyright
© 2007 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
Write
Thinking
Rules
of Capitalization (Part II)
Capitalize:
•
Names of seasons when they are personified
It
was August, and Summer's hot caress (personified) brought
with it an overriding lethargy that kept us confined to tree-shaded
hammocks, cold drinks close at hand.
It's
going to be a long, hot summer.
•
Languages always, and other school subjects when they are the
names of specific courses
She's
an English language major who speaks five foreign languages
fluently, among them German, French and Italian.
His
favorite classes are Economics 101 and Chemistry
201.
His
favorite classes are economics and chemistry.
• Ethnic groups, races, and religions
Various
Asian minority groups—Japanese, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Thai—comprised a majority
of students in the class.
Religious leaders of Islamic, Judaic and Christian
faiths came together to discuss the merits of a plan to end
world hunger.
•
Areas of a country or continent (but not directions)
The
Pacific Northwest enjoys a moderate climate.
The East had a particularly brutal winter.
If
you travel south for half a day, you will come to the
river.
•
Names of specific localities, regions, and political divisions
Only
a small part of Greenland lies outside the Arctic Circle.
Much of the corn now grown in the Great Plains
region is being converted to ethanol.
Flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans'
Seventh Ward. The Ninth Ward was
also hard hit.
•
Titles of people when title and name appear together
It
made sense for Doctor Ellison and Professor Blaine
to collaborate on a study of airborne pathogens.
•
Names of or references to deities, and the titles of holy texts
and books
In
Greek mythology, Gaia is the Earth Goddess.
The Koran (also spelled Quran) is the Holy
Scripture of Islam.
•
Words showing familial relationships when used with a person's
name or in place of a person's name
The
practical joke had Uncle Dave's name all over it.
A
person couldn't have a better uncle than Dave.
I sent a letter to Mother.
I
sent a letter to my mother.
•
Names of historical documents, events, or periods
The
Constitution and the Bill of Rights are
based, in part, on English common law, which emerged from the
Magna Carta in the Middle Ages.
Copyright
© 2007 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.
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