Sorry this took so long, I was in the middle of my exams and I kept putting it off. But like I say, procrastination makes perfect.

As some of you will know, Earth – and in fact the rest of the Solar System – is present in Spore as an easter egg. I’m not going to provide you with the details on how to get there, as there are plenty of instructions and videos already. The star (our Sun) is named Sol, which is the Latin word for sun. The planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are included, and can be terraformed and colonised with like any other planet in the game. The Moon, Titan and Ganymede are also there. No other moons are, however, as there are too many of them. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, being gas giants, cannot be interacted with and are simply there for show. Pluto is not included, probably because of its title as a dwarf planet.

Anyway, I found it. It was actually just a few clicks away from my Home Planet the whole time.

Mercury

Nothing much there. It has a big crater on it, but otherwise is just a dry, hot planet when you get there.

Venus

Unlike its real life counterpart, which has a very thick atmosphere, the Spore Venus is simply a hot planet with a high atmosphere level since the designers couldn’t make it into a gas giant type planet. It actually has water on its surface at first, which in real life would be impossible with its current conditions due to the extreme global warming caused by its atmosphere. Other than these unrealistic features, there’s not much else on it.

Earth

When you find Earth, you get the “Manifest Destiny” achievement. If you destroy it with a Planet Buster, you get the “Oh The Humanity!” achievement. Those factors themselves make it a pretty important planet. It has all the continents, and a few geographic landmarks (but not many). However, it is only T1, and often doesn’t even have a completed biosphere (in my game it was missing a herbivore and a carnivore). Terraforming it to T3 gives it an ugly pinkish-brown colour, so you should probably leave it as it is. Since the planet had to be scaled down, placing a colony often screws up the map. I placed my colony on Antarctica. I kinda messed up the coasts, but other than that everything remained unaffected. Besides, no one really cares about Antarctica… You can also safely place one over Russia.

My Antarctic colony:

Map of Earth:

My hologram scout standing on Ireland:

The Moon

The Moon has a few craters and a very flat landscape (which can cause a bit of flooding during terraforming). If you use a Planet Buster on Earth and don’t intend to revert to a previous save after you get the achievement, then be prepared to lose The Moon as well, since it gets destroyed along with it.

A T3 Moon with Earth in the background:

Mars

Mars on Spore, in my opinion, is pretty realistic. It has some landmarks such as Olympus Mons, but doesn’t have as many craters as it should. It’s also at the right temperature (it just lacks an atmosphere) on Spore, while in real life it should be colder. I used the Staff of Life on it (more about that in a later post) because it seemed fitting. It’s gone kinda pink now, but I don’t want to colour it in green because the green land colouring tool doesn’t look natural to me.

Terraformed Mars:

Ganymede:

Ganymede is the only moon that orbits Jupiter which appears in Spore. Not much else to say.

Titan:

Titan is the only moon orbiting Saturn in Spore. Again, not a lot here other than the weird purple terrain colour.

As you can see, the Sol system has a lot of planets in comparison to other solar systems in the game. I still havent terraformed all of them, but that’s because I haven’t even opened Spore for two weeks. Good luck finding Earth yourselves! If you have a ton of cash and an Interstellar Drive 5, you’ll have no problem getting there. Rushing back to save it every time pirates attack is another story, however…

Pictures yay!

My next Spore post (whenever I get around to writing it) will be about the Galactic Centre.

Don’t hold your breath, though.

-legoless

There is a distinct lack of simple instructions on just how to get the raw terrain map file and actually open it in PhotoShop CS3. Here’s what finally worked for me.

WARNING: I learned the very hard way that after using the terrain editing tools and ‘baking’ the terrain that reverting must incorporate a lot of lossiness because my smooth wonderful beach and slopes were then irretrievably terraced. Ugh. Lesson learned. Only using terrain files from now on.

Here is how you download the raw terrain file. It’s the top of the three buttons (click on image to get higher rez if you need).

Ok, you get a terrain.raw file that you can open in Photoshop, if you have the right settings. Here is what finally worked for me after a lot of ‘file is too small’ and ‘file is too large’ errors and ugly formats:

The thing I missed was ‘Interleaved.’ That made all the difference. Hope this helps someone else. More as I figure it out.

Vi har vel etterhvert fått med oss at verden ikke er slik vi trodde den var i 2007.

Løfter man blikket fra de daglige problemene, er det en ting som opptar meg om dagen, nemlig terraforming av andre planeter og eventuelt asteroider/satelitter. Ikke bare er dette et eksepsjonelt interessant tema, men det har også potensielt sett en enorm nytteverdi: Vi bør ha minst én backup av jordkloden, og vi bør prøve å spre intelligent liv utover i solsystemet og deretter til andre stjerner.

Once conditions become more suitable to life, the importation of microbial life could begin.[9] As conditions approach that of Earth, plant life could also be brought in. This would accelerate the production of oxygen, which theoretically would make the planet eventually able to support animal and human life.

La oss håpe at dette er et blikk inn i fremtiden!:

If you read my sarcastic entry on NASA’s bombing the moon, you’ll get to ask–why criticize something humans consider monumental? Frankly, what’s so monumental or even exciting about finding water on the moon where we have billions or even trillions of tons of water here? The US Geologic Survey says there is roughly 326 million cubic miles of water covering 72 percent of the earth. Quite a lot, not to mention that there is more water underground also.

So, was that US$ 79 million spent for bombing the moon’s surface with a Centaur rocket nothing but lunar air? No. There is still some use for that, maybe in the future.

Artist rendition of yesterday's moon blasting

What I am more concerned is how we use science or our scientific knowledge about the universe. Why are we so fascinated with what’s happening “up there”, when there are more exciting things happening “down here.” I mean, solving global warming and creating devices to control those strong storms are, for me, worth every cent than blasting the lunar surface looking for water.

Is there not enough data to solve nature’s mysteries here that we need to look elsewhere for answers?

There are still so many things left to discover on earth, but we put greater emphasis on space exploration and worst, using monies supposed to benefit the people?

During the Cold War, space exploration was all about breast-beating and competition. The space race was about fuelling egos. Now that we’re all living in a globalized world, science should at least serve the needs and concerns of people down here. We have tons of problems to solve here that science would surely be a very good tool to use.

Blasting a spot on the moon, great! Or maybe, we are just being fooled by NASA?

That this experiment of sending a rocket in outer space has military uses which they are wont to tell us? That this is not in the name of astronomy or terraforming; rather knowledge on how we can wage a war against fellow humans or war against extraterrestials?

Satellite image of crater impact in the moon

NASA just did the unthinkable (if you are to ask a 19th century guy)—they just blasted the moon’s surface with a Centaur rocket. Scientists want to know if there is really water down there, so they funded this LCROSS mission with US$ 79 million and launched it last 18 June from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission is simple—fire a rocket at a precise spot in the moon’s South pole and create a plume of moon dust. A device will capture some data from a plume and analyze if there are water vapor or even ice particles from the plume.

Yesterday, they did it–an historic event if you may ask me–since that is the first time somebody blasted someone’s planet (if, as some surmise, there are still creatures, microscopic ones, living in the moon’s arid surface).

NASA said it would take some weeks before they get some definitive evidence of water existing beneath the lunar surface. What it means, if they do discover water, is it will boost proposals for human habitation on the moon. So, what scientists want is for humans to live at the Southernmost point of the moon and for what?

Is the earth not enough for 8 billion people?

Or, maybe scientists want their own lunar spa? Are we seeing travel agencies offering trips to the lunar alps soon? Or, a dip into the icy waters underneath the moon’s surface?

Or, probably, discover a living underground world in the moon? Or, maybe, this is the first of many attempts by NASA to create their own subdivision in the moon? Imagine how expensive such real estate be?

Just think about it—you living on the moon with your friends here on earth, using their high powered telescopes just to see you.

Extra terrestial terraforming in the works? Probably. Next stop—blasting Mars for Martians.

Wooo!  Way more water ice on Mars than we thought, and at a very high purity level (99%!).

Time to start crash-landing some solar collectors to start up an atmosphere.  I want Mars human-habitable by the time I hit retirement, dammit!

Geo-Engineering has been a fringe science since the Sixties (when it first became popular to believe that Technology could fix anything), and it seems to be finally coming into vogue after being brought to back to public attention by mainstream Media sources such as the New York Times .

Before drilling down too deep though, let’s start by sharpening some of our bits of terminology first.

Unlike BIO-Engineering, which seeks to apply pure Science via Technological processes to produce engineered results in Biological fields (from GM’d corn, to the materials of Orthpaedic hip-joint replacement hardware), GEO-Engineering seeks to take the same approach to the entire Earth in order to effect positive changes to our environment. Regrettably, the term Geo-Engineering seems to have been misappropriated and popularized as a description of Ecological or Environmental engineering applications on a global scale, even though the terms Enviro, Global, or ECO-Engineering would likely have been a more appropriate descriptors. Unfortunately for the real  Geo-Engineers out there (who’ve been working long and hard on true Geological Engineering), the term GEO has already been co-opted by Environmentalists, adopted by the Media, and is now popularized to represent a much more narrow scope of applied technological solutions to our most pressing issues around Climate Change.  So Geo-Engineering has effectively come to mean something else entirely to all of us (relatively ignorant) non-engineers.

So….Geo-Engineering (as we currently accept the poorly defined definition) is a notably complex endeavor that requires the collection, collation and application of knowledge from three VERY large areas of study:

*  Scientific disciplines including Climatology, Biochemistry, Ecology, Meteorology and several subsets of Biology and Physics
*  Engineering disciplines including aeronautical, naval, architectural, ballistics, propulsion, and materials Engineering.
*  Regulatory/Management and other control disciplines such as business process and risk management, and realtime operational research…and of course an insanely complex and interdependent maze of International Politics, Regulations, Diplomacy, and Trade.

Before delving into these ridiculously broad categories of study, first, let’s just put away any indignant or ignorant self-righteousness about “playing God” with the environment. Insteaed, let’s  simply admit that we’ve already been toying with our Ecology, and changing the Earths environment in countless ways for a long time now already.

Whether it’s by altering watersheds and aquifers, re-engineering entire drainage systems for irrigation or hydro power, or by clearcutting the heat and CO2 consuming capacity of entire forests, and let’s not forget the ongoing and always contentious issues behind enormous volumes of CO2 (and other more potent greenhouse gases) escaping into the atmosphere, as Humans we are already very deeply ensnared in the tricky game of Geo-Engineering. Thus the dire scenarios described as AGW, or “Anthropogenic” (man-made) Global Warming are directly attributed to Human activities, which nobody questions as being capable of changing an entire planet.

So since we’ve already been behaving like foolish Gods (or rather like some lesser being that has self-provisioned itself with Godlike dominion over nature according to some self-distorting Judeao-Christian fallacy) let’s then look at the risks of Geo-Engineering more realistically.

By presuming that the the man-made component of natural CO2 emissions is indeed at the root of the current cycle of Climate Change, let’s just adopt the pretext of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) as the indisputable truism that it appears to be, and skip straight ahead to finding some possible solutions to Climate Change ( as caused by AGW, or otherwise), through whatever extraordinarily global-scale means necessary.

Why Geo-Engineering ?

What are our options when it comes to effecting positive changes to the global climate?

Of course we all know that there’s just no way that we could bring our economies to a screeching halt by denying the use of fossil fuels, and thus plunging the world (or at least the parts that comply to Environmental laws) into some modern version of the Dark Ages.

Instead of putting all of our resources into developing alternative energy sources, we could just continue to ascribe faith in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) methods and pray that such an incredibly expensive gamble proves to actually have some impact on the course of Climate Change.  This is an especially risky gambit,  because current technologies in CCS would likely double the cost of our electricity, and deeply impact our economies and life as we know it, while we wait to see if they even have any appreciable impact on the climate after all.

Of course, this is indeed a huge gamble to consider

We could also simply stop burning down forests for the sake of Agriculture, and help at least slow the destruction of the Planets living lungs. However it is already quite clear that we’re quite willing to drive up the cost of food by shifting agriculture into Ethanol producing crops, while continuing to grow and support markets for immensely energy intensive feedstocks, and the destructively wasteful and inefficient agricultural practices behind industrial scale poultry, cattle, pork, and dairy production.

We will likely continue to condone (at the cash register) the burning of forests in exchange for cheap sugar cane and cheeseburgers. We’re already well entrenched in the type of energy intensive and increasingly Bio-Engineered farming that’s required to continue feeding corporate greed and industrial might with the large scale results of petroleum-based methods and fertilizers. Without a complete revolution in modern agriculture, nobody  should be holding their breath for an ecologically-based solution to global warming….not anytime soon anyhow.

Short of making radical changes to our lifestyles and drastically crippling our current economies, the next big possibility still seems to be Geo-Engineering. In the process, we can only hope that any successful Geo projects wouldn’t actually have the negative effect of reducing the political and social pressures for emissions controls, as a result!

Stewart Brand is a highly regarded Environmentalist and feels that Geo-Engineering is still a taboo subject for most Government bodies, but proclaims in his speech on “Environmental Heresies”, that Geo-Engineering will be our next greatest challenge to International Diplomacy as we contend with the very problematic “downstream” implications to global scale Geo-engineering projects.

When it comes to addressing global warming as the key issue within general Climate Change, Geo-Engineering presents us with a variety of far-fetched possibilities.

On the other side of the equation, we already have all the Conspiracy Theorists lining up to save us from the dire repercussions of this endeavor

Aside from bankrupting future generations with the enormous folly of setting up gigantic solar shades or reflectors in space, the most realistic possibilities for Geo-Engineered solutions rely on either reflecting solar energy in the atmosphere to negate the greenhouse effect, or in figuring out how to capture more CO2 right down on the surface.

Since Carbon Capture deserves it’s very own category of investigation, let’s start our ongoing examination of Geo-Engineering on what can be done way up in the atmosphere.

“Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get” -Robert Heinlein

The most popular approach seems to be in creating ’sunscreen’ protection by altering the “albedo” (no, not “libido’”) of the atmosphere to reflect more light back into space before it strikes the surface and converts into heat. Although altering “libido” might itself also serve some of the scary Eugenic approaches to limiting Climate Change via population control, if we cannot in fact change consumption and energy production patterns otherwise.

One of the first ground sightings of noctilucent clouds over Budapest, Hungary on June 15, 2007. Credit: Veres Viktor

Early Signs

Later today (15/09/09) NASA will be hoping to launch a rocket to carry it’s “Charged Aerosol Release Experiment” (CARE) into the outermost reaches of the atmosphere in order to try and seed artificial clouds. Since the weather for this experiment must be ideal for not only the launch site, but the multiple optical observation sites (on Atlantic coast and Bermuda), the launch will only proceed under perfect conditions. Since it remains to be seen if man-made Carbon Dioxide is indeed the big bogeyman of Climate Change, we should all be very interested in what sort of PLANS B (C, D, etc) are being considered now, if the monumentally costly and risky presumptions of CO2 reductions don’t yield the results we’re told to expect in order to (at least) slow global warming. Seeing as the fate of the Climate may very well rest in the hands of alternate plans, we’re very interested in how the CARE project turns out, and a followup story on this groundbreaking attempt to create clouds for the purpose of Geo-Engineering will certainly be forthcoming as the results start to come in.

Until then, keep your feet on the ground, and click here to launch your head up into the clouds…

Terraforming is changing a planet using ship tools. You can sculpt the geography of a planet, change its colour, and can even make a barren wasteland into a thriving centre of life (wow that sounded dorky). Most terraforming tools are always available once you buy them, and they use up the ship’s energy. Some however are one-use, and you need to buy more of them when you run out.

To make a planet more hospitable, you need to change its terrascore. To do this you need to use tools to make the planet hotter, colder, whatever you need to do to make the little dot move towards the bulls eye on the terrascore meter. That probably doesn’t make sense, so here’s a picture:

Sorry about the pixeliness. Apparently MS Paint isn’t the best at image resizing. The little red thing (surrounded by a green circle) is the TerraScore. The funny looking thing in the middle is where you need to get that red dot to. For the planet above you’d need to make it hotter, because of the dot being closer to the left side of the meter, which is where the blue thermometer is. If you want a perfect T3 planet, you’d also need to decrease the atmospheric levels, because the dot is over the halfway line, so its nearer the white cloud at the top (which means its atmosphere is too dense).

There are lots of tools that let you change the planet’s climate, but I’ll cover them in more detail in a later post. Or just put them on another list. I dunno.

After you make a planet T1 (the outer ring of that target above) you need to stabilise it by placing plants on the surface. You need to place one small plant, one big plant and one tree. Now your planet will stay T1 as long as you don’t interfere (it might wobble around for a while, but unless you went overboard with the terraforming tools it’ll be fine). but to complete the ecosystem, and make it livable for your species, you need to place some creatures. Two different herbivores need to be placed (GENTLY) onto the planet first. Then you need one carnivore or omnivore.  Congratulations, you’ve just terraformed.

On a T0 planet you can only place one colony, and can’t build any buildings other than the city hall. The city needs a protective force field to stop it being destroyed by the natural disasters that happen every few seconds. (Also, watch out for them yourself. Just because you got yourself a fancy space ship doesn’t make you immune to fire blasts, meteor showers and electric clouds.) Once a planet becomes T1 however, the force fields come down and you can build up to five buildings/turrets. Now your colony can get to work mining that spice that was floating off into space.

As you increase the terrascore to T2 (by using more ship tools and placing another set of plants and creatures) you will be allowed to create more buildings, and can now place a second colony on the planet! Once you hit T3, you can buy as many buildings as you can fit into the cities, and get to place a third and final colony. Three colonies is the most a planet can support (unless you capture/buy another species home planet, in which case you can have up to 10). I’ll talk more about colonies in another post (cuz I don’t feel like doing it now).

Changing a planet’s climate isn’t the only way to terraform. You can also use special tools (most of which you get the same way as rares, see my last Spore post) to sculpt the landscape and colour the planet in. You can get three free planet colouring tools by doing on of the Home Planet tutorial missions, and you can buy a few of the planet sculpting tools in the trade menu for some races (but you need to unlock them first). Using these tools is considered an attack if you use it on other empire’s planets. How would you like it if someone came along and turned your planet pink and made swirl-shaped oceans everywhere? If you accidentally change a planet’s colour but decide you don’t like it, one tool allows you to revert a planet to its original colours. However, you need to find it first. Sculpting tools cannot be reverted though (unless you do it yourself, which might be hard) so be careful where you point those things!

Thanks for reading. Sorry I don’t have a cool picture to post at the end.

-legoless

Don’t forget to read:

• My ‘Back to School’ post. Self explanatory.
• Woof’s…. review. Click it at your own risk.
• An out-of-date  DragCave post. All dragons have grown up or been frozen, so there’s no need to click anymore.
• My 5th Spore post, about the tutorial missions.

One of my dad’s favorite stories is Le Petit Prince, a philosophical reinterpretation of author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s personal experiences guised as a children’s book. It’s a wonderfully fantastic story filled with adventure and mysticism and quite a bit of useful commentary on our daily lives. Definitely check it out.

Equally as adventurous is industrial designer Martin Miklica’s invention of the same name. Pictured below, his Little Prince is a finalist in Electrolux Design Lab’s 2009 competition. Miklica’s goal? Make it easy to grow plants on Mars.

The eye's a little creepy...

Actually, it kind of reminds me of my entry for a ConceptArt.org industrial design competition from a few years ago.

Oohh.. blue lights!

Now, anyone that knows me well knows that I get excited when it comes to Mars. The thought of a human being setting foot on another planet blows my mind.  My dad’s generation had the moon landing. I’m looking forward to the Mars landing.

Oh, and here’s a video of the little bugger:

Thanks to TreeHugger for shedding light on this design. And good luck, Martin. If your design doesn’t win, I may still want one for my living room.

Nature doing it's thing...

If there’s one sure thing about government and bureaucracy, it’s that personnel and projects will grow to fill the budgets provided for them, and public servants are a class of citizen highly skilled in the art of creating projects that ensure their jobs and careers grow.

And so it seems to be with the ARC in Muriwai.

Many years ago there was only one ranger, and he was so busy doing practical stuff that he was difficult to find, now there are more staff, a bigger budget and their remit has expanded into attempting to single handedly take on nature.

We’re not talking about weeding the sides of the tracks, we’re talking about attempting to terraform the beach to influence it’s entire structure.

We think this is a waste of time and, more importantly money – our money.

The current fashionable theory (and there have been many many theories over many many years) is that by flattening off the dunes to make them low and smooth, this will stop them moving inland.

This project ‘usefully’ involves ARC staff in long term project management, and brings in contractors and the like and looks impressive. So far the effects haven’t been so inspiring on the ground.

From this photo you can clearly see that in fact the ‘waters edge’ has moved inland by about 4 meters.

That this is happening shouldn’t be surprising, but then again, we see this all a being a bit like the emperors new cloths. There are now individuals with a vested interest in this project, either financially or personally. Long after the bulldozers have left the the money spent these people will either claim victory or blame something that someone else didn’t do if it fails. Eitherway our rates got wasted pushing sand around – something the wind and sea is going to do without our assistance.

There is, of course methods that could effectively halt nature in it’s tracks, but these are so unsightly and expensive it’s pointless to examinine them in Muriwai’s context, which is exactly why the ARC’s pointless tinkering is such a waste of time and money.

Like the other terraforming projects before it, this is doomed to fail. This wouldn’t be so bad, everyone could have a bit of a laugh and get on with life, but in fact this is not funny at all. It’s a huge waste of our rates money – that could be better spent elsewhere on more useful projects benefiting the community.

If the ARC was really serious about the beach front it would start by accepting that nature is unpredictable, and that it is better to retreat and let things go the way nature intends them.

The first thing to do is to move the car park way back from the beach front, behind the camp site. Build a proper LARGE car park sited far enough back and we won’t have to worry about it for many years to come. The traffic could be re routed through coast road, with the medium term plan being to build the road so it by passes Motutara Road.

The everyone can stop trying to control nature at the beach, it also might do Aucklanders some good by making them walk to the beach.

... one solution

We’re sure this sensible option won’t happen, because it doesn’t provide long term jobs at the ARC, once it’s done there won’t be the need to waste money each year with silly projects playing in the dunes with bulldozers – hell, they might not need so many staff here and those that are might have to get out from behind their desks and out of their trucks and do stuff like pick up rubbish, ‘educate’ dog walkers etc etc. Heaven forbid, it might save some money that could be used for storm water drainage.

Roll on supercity.

The spanking brand new “Asian Steampunk”-inspired sim of Steelhead Shanghai landed while I was away. It is still in the terraforming and construction phase. I love when sims are fresh out of the LL oven like this. It’s so extremely interesting to me to see how they evolve and what builds end up there. There are only a very few lots left, so if you’re interested, please contact TotalLunar Eclipse…

Excerpt:

Obama’s top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren has been forced to issue a statement in which he denies advocating the [blatantly] totalitarian population control proposals outlined in his own 1977 academic ["policy"] textbook, “Ecoscience,” [which he co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich].

From Infowars.com

Obama’s top science and technology advisor John P. Holdren has been forced to issue a statement in which he denies advocating the totalitarian population control proposals outlined in his own academic textbook. However, Holdren’s response is a tissue of half-truths, spin and outright lies.

The controversy began this past weekend when fresh attention was given to passages from the 1977 book Ecoscience, which Holdren Co-authored with close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, leading to accusations that Holdren supported the numerous eugenicist policies outlined in the book.

“This material is from a three-decade-old, three-author college textbook. Dr. Holdren addressed this issue during his confirmation when he said he does not believe that determining optimal population is a proper role of government. Dr. Holdren is not and never has been an advocate for policies of forced sterilization,” reads a statement provided by Holdren’s staff.

A statement from Holdren’s co-authors the Ehrlichs was also released by the White House which read, “Anybody who actually wants to know what we and/or Professor Holdren believe and recommend about these matters would presumably read some of the dozens of publications that we and he separately have produced in more recent times, rather than going back a third of a century to find some formulations in an encyclopedic textbook where description can be misrepresented as endorsement.”

During his confirmation hearing, when asked whether he thought “determining optimal population is a proper role of the government,” Holdren answered, “No, Senator, I do not.”

Is it likely that Holdren’s true feelings towards overpopulation can be extracted from a five word response at a confirmation hearing, or from his own encyclopedic length textbook?

On the one hand we have to weigh the credibility of a one sentence comment at the public sideshow of a confirmation hearing, a spectacle that has become synonymous with the art of lying, deception, and hiding skeletons in the closet, as can be witnessed right now with the Judge Sonia Sotomayor hearings.

On the other hand we have a 1000-plus page book which is littered with proposals centered around forced abortion, numerous different methods of forced sterilization and numerous other proposals describing invasive government control of pregnancy and the life cycle.

Which is likelier to be a true representation of Holdren’s real position on the subject?

Holdren’s claim that he “never has been an advocate for policies of forced sterilization,” alongside the Ehrlich’s claim that “formulations” in the Ecoscience textbook have been misrepresented as endorsements, is provably an outright lie.

Phrases such as “it has been concluded” are used in the book alongside proposals for forced abortion, such as the passage on page 837 which reads, “Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”

Holdren and the Ehrlich’s do not identify who “it has been concluded” by, leaving the reader in no doubt that “it has been concluded” by the writers themselves that forced abortion should be introduced. This is called “hiding behind the passive voice.” It provides the writers plausible deniability, but only the idiotically naive would deny that it represents anything other than an endorsement of forced abortion and sterilization.

Furthermore, the whole tone of the Ecoscience book is directed against those who would disagree with coercive population control measures. These people are even referred to in a derisory tone as “pro-natalists,” a word invented purely for the purposes of the book. The book does not merely present a neutral stance on “formulations” as is claimed – the endorsement of these proposals is implicit in the fact that opponents of them are scorned throughout the book.

Ecoscience is clearly an endorsement of totalitarian population reduction measures. Anyone who has read the quotes contained in the book in their full context can see that this is manifestly the case. Holdren and the Ehrlichs are presumably counting on the fact that the book is now out of print and that no one will actually read it, because if they did then the entire context of what the book endorses becomes crystal clear.

Furthermore, some of the nightmarish proposals about adding sterilants to the water supply and food that are outlined in Ecoscience are already taking place, with global sperm counts dropping worldwide, partly as a result of the discovery of antiandrogens in rivers and lakes, which are also used in pesticides, and have been found to release “endocrine disruptors” that induce demasculinization in both fish and rats, according to several scientific studies.

It is also somewhat amusing to see that the Ehrlichs are trying to distance themselves from positions they held 30 years ago and attempting to get people to focus only on what they are saying now. I’m sure this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Paul Ehrlich’s alarmist predictions about overpopulation which were made in the 1960’s and 70’s have proven to be spectacularly wrong, wrong and wrong again in every instance.

It would be very embarrassing indeed for more people to learn about how Ehrlich predicted that England would not exist by the year 2000, that 4 billion people would starve to death during the 1980’s, and that the average American life span would be 45 years of age by the start of the 21st century, especially that Ehrlich now spews his doomsday threats under the banner of global warming alarmism.

Holdren’s attempt to use the fact that the book is over 30 years old to distance himself from its content is also a deceptive move, because before this controversy arose, Holdren was perfectly happy to conduct a major interview with the Associated Press with the book proudly displayed on his bookshelf in the background. If Holdren has changed his mind about the proposals in the book, or never agreed with those presented by his fellow authors in the first place, then why does he prominently display a copy during this interview? Watch the clip below.

In the video, Holdren talks about “geoengineering,” effectively terraforming the planet by injecting untested aerosols into the upper atmosphere in an apparent attempt to offset “global warming,” with unknown side effects.

This brings to mind another example where Holdren has flip-flopped and apparently changed his mind in an attempt to defuse controversy.

In April, Holdren told the media that talks were already underway within the Obama administration to explore the possibility of geoengineering the planet. However, following a largely negative reaction, Holdren then backpedaled and told the New York Times that administration level talks had not taken place. Days later, Holdren told an Massachusetts Institute of Technology audience that , “Large-scale geoengineering projects designed to cool the Earth could conceivably be done.”

We reprint below quotes from Ecoscience and leave the reader to make their own mind up about whether the book was merely presenting “formulations,” as the Ehrlichs claim, or whether they were de facto endorsements, keeping in mind the fact that opponents of such measures are regularly undermined throughout the whole book.

————————————————————————

Page 786: Single mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions

“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.”

Page 787-8: Mass sterilization of humans though drugs in the water supply is OK as long as it doesn’t harm livestock

“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.”

Page 786-7: The government could control women’s reproduction by either sterilizing them or implanting mandatory long-term birth control

Involuntary fertility control

“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.

The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”

Page 838: The kind of people who cause “social deterioration” can be compelled to not have children

“If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.“

Page 838: Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size

“In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”

Page 942-3: A “Planetary Regime” should control the global economy and dictate by force the number of children allowed to be born

Toward a Planetary Regime

“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.”

“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”

Page 917: We will need to surrender national sovereignty to an armed international police force

“If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.”

Page 749: Pro-family and pro-birth attitudes are caused by ethnic chauvinism

“Another related issue that seems to encourage a pronatalist attitude in many people is the question of the differential reproduction of social or ethnic groups. Many people seem to be possessed by fear that their group may be outbred by other groups. White Americans and South Africans are worried there will be too many blacks, and vice versa. The Jews in Israel are disturbed by the high birth rates of Israeli Arabs, Protestants are worried about Catholics, and lbos about Hausas. Obviously, if everyone tries to outbreed everyone else, the result will be catastrophe for all. This is another case of the “tragedy of the commons,” wherein the “commons” is the planet Earth. Fortunately, it appears that, at least in the DCs, virtually all groups are exercising reproductive restraint.”

Page 944: As of 1977, we are facing a global overpopulation catastrophe that must be resolved at all costs by the year 2000

“Humanity cannot afford to muddle through the rest of the twentieth century; the risks are too great, and the stakes are too high. This may be the last opportunity to choose our own and our descendants’ destiny. Failing to choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catastrophe. But it must never be forgotten that the right choices could lead to a much better world.”

s

Ethics in Terraforming via Google Video

If we were to terraform a nearby or distant planet, could we be encroaching upon existing life forms we are unaware of or unconcerned with? Should we even care? Christopher McKay asks a few of these questions in a dry but interesting talk.

A group of humans arrive in dark space. They have with them all of the tools that they will need to create a new home. They start by creating a sun. In side the center of a large skeletal sphere a small sun is born.

Next they begin to add atmosphere to a large asteroid in tow. After a few hundred hours the celestial body is ready to take on water and the first degree of biological terraforming.

Colonization will take place successfully.

Unbeknownst to the colonists, a few small errors have been made in the gene replicators. The human colonists will only survive for two more generations before being forced into cryogenic hibernation. Most will never awaken.

On the surface of the new planet life will continue to flourish and mutate. New intelligences will arise and clash. One will come to dominance. Eventually, sciences will reach a point that allows for not only first contact with the few remaining humans but also salvation.

A strange and almost magical bond connects these two intelligences when they gaze into each other’s optical receptors.

Here at ÖeG we like to think big, really big. Some of the ideas we discuss while drinking beer and eating good food make us feel like they deserve to be pitched. That’s why we’re starting a series of “Weekly Pitches” that we’re putting up here on the blog.

If you’re an investor and are interested in a particular idea, feel free to send some millions our way. Though we’re mostly doing it to exercise our pitching skills and give you all a window into the world of ÖeG, where nothing is impossible. And of course to throw our ideas out into the world. Perhaps some will get a life of their own and change humanity’s destiny forever.

Anyway. This is our first one. More to come, perhaps on a weekly basis, perhaps not.

Also check out our brand new marketing site for GOOSE at http://thegooseapp.com!

I’ve just finished reading Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Set in the not too distant future, Robinson follows the lives of the “first hundred”, the scientists, workers, politicos and personalities that form humanity’s first attempt at prolonged colonization of Mars. I downloaded the book for free both through Stanza and the iPhone Kindle App, so I can’t really complain too much. Red Mars is a pretty easy read, and thanks to Stanza I was able to define any words I wasn’t sure of. At times the writing became a little slow paced, but nothing that ever made me give up on the book.

Really fascinating to me (and to you too) is many of the devices and schemes that the humans in the book use to change Mars into Earth’s image are being used in the here and now. As I finished Red Mars, I came across this article about Russia planning to build floating nuclear platforms for oil drilling in the arctic. Being self sufficient for 12 to 14 years, these are exactly the mobile, self-contained kind of power plants which would be necessary in transforming Mars from a thin atmosphered rock into a water covered oasis.

The scary part is that while in Red Mars the scientists had to contend with UN oversight on their various terraforming projects, here on Earth there is no such oversight. We’ve been dumping carbon and nitrogen into the air since the Industrial Revolution. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been until fairly recently in our history that we’ve come to question the repercussions of our actions. Robinson’s book makes terraforming Mars seem like a real possibility, and even though I probably won’t be alive to take advantage of the Martian frontier perhaps one of my descendants will be Martian. I just hope there’s still an Earth for them to send their snapshots back to.

The day after reading, I saw Mitchell Joachim on Colbert, also a lot of similar technology one would need to terraform Mars.

No, no, not this kind of party — the Thesis soiree was several weeks ago — although yes, that is Dr. Landman’s back, in case you’re wondering. And the catering at the Towers has vastly improved in the last quarter century or so.

No, I’m talking about gardens partying — the grand bash of mid-May, after the tulips have faded [and they don't seem as inclined to give repeat performances here as they were up North; that makes no sense to me], and the big guns of the garden start their shows. Azaleas. Iris. Peonies. Dutch iris. Elderberries. Nine-barks.

The first iris opened last night; more are due tomorrow [so far, two plicatas, a Thornbird, and a lovely silver-blue thing].  The peonies all have big fat buds, and the clematis out in the front yard is not only climbing the cast iron post I gave it, but has two blooms already.  Gotta love late-season sales and those half-price plants!

The azaleas are midway to gone; the ones to the right I caught last week [a nicer thing to catch than a plagiarist, but my job makes one take priority over the other].  While I do miss the great swaths of blooms on the hillside of our old home, the way the sun-loving plants have taken off in the last three years has really been impressive.  In fact, the garden beds are filling in to the point that today I felt fine buying annuals.  Normally I’m trying to dig in things for the long haul, because I really want to reduce the grass coverage of the yard.  But some decorative annuals in pots just seemed like fun for a change. [It may also reflect the fact that the next round of terraforming here will require massive amounts of dirt and perhaps professionally-installed drainage.]

Oh, dear — look at the time.  Must go listen to Word sing!

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