The Global Brain for Survival.

This page has sections in it which are difficult to understand, but we can take action without reading difficult books or articles.

To really get beyond the “simple” or "difficult" arguments put forward by those who don’t want to change - we need to take ACTION if we are serious about protecting the LifeSupport of the planet for our kids. In other words, we have to get BRAINY for our survival and their survival.

We need a Global Brain that can give You and Me understanding of what we can do about our most intractable problems – most especially the “ecological predicament” (environmental problems) caused by the impending convergence (future coming together) of Climate Change and Oil Depletion.

How Complex is the “ecological predicament”? If you can read the excerpt from “Powerdown” (see ARTICLE # 3 below) and understand what he is trying to say – Congratulations! - You are reasonably “ecologically aware”. No one can be completely ecologically aware - beccause our global situation today is extremely complex. Why is this so? Because we are totally interdependent and interconnected. My future is your future and your future is my future.

So then: “What can WE do about it?” What’s needed now to safeguard YOU & ME and our childrens' childrens' future is - ACTION. We need to take action to change the way things are, if we're serious about leaving our children any future at all.

The www.web-of-unme.com is FOR THE LIKES UNME TO TAKE SOME ACTION.

Taking ACTION is either reading more about the problem or telling someone else about what you know, writing letters to politicians and becoming involved in the United Nations - because today we live on a BORDERLESS PLANET - what happens in one place happens everywhere. Disease, war and climate change (the baddies) and peace, goodwill and sustainability (the goodies) for example, are not contained by borders. ACTION BY YOU AND ME TODAY NEEDS TO BE GLOBAL AND THE UNITED NATIONS IS ALREADY WORKING ON THIS IN HEALTH, SECURITY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION.

If you have time to read - look below for a couple of Articles (#2 and 3) which will both test and inform you in becoming "ecologically aware". Alternatively, read one or two of these three books which I have recently read and which tell you things which politicians don't want to think about, because the issues go well beyond the three to four year election framework within which they tend to work. Book # 1: "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery (Australian author). Book #2: "Powerdown" by Richard Heinberg (American author). Book #3: "Half Gone" by Jeremy Legget (British author).

If you DON’T HAVE TIME BUT want to take the actions suggested by the web-of-unme COPY THIS LETTER AND SEND IT TO YOUR NATIONAL POLITICIAN. These people are elected to do something about serious problems like animal extinction due to global warming. Not enough research into or investment in renewable energy is being made. Instead, investment in technology which is dangerous, untested, complex and short term, such as nuclear energy, is the easy option being taken. Coal power is another easy option being taken, even though it is the worst polluting energy source. Safe and limitless solar power, wind power and wave power are the real renewable energy sources, which will see our children into the next century. But You and Me need to push our politicians onto this path. This ACTION is the only way we can leave our children a safe future in fact the only way we will leave our children any future at all.

Download this letter and send it (or tailor it, if you wish to say whatever Action you propose to REDUCE OUR DEPENDENCE ON NON-RENEWABLE ENERGY) to your national Environment Minister 0r Transport Minister or Treasurer: download now

IF YOU HAVE TIME TO READ and/ or want to be an informed person, SELECT –

ARTICLE # 1 (easy)
and look at conferences and events and keynote speakers on this site.

ARTICLE # 2 (not too difficult)-

The following article is from The Observer. It came to me from one of my networks. "Rex" from the network says "it is hard-hitting stuff .. but not all doom and gloom. Some positive elements and very relevant right now as the Kyoto review process is underway".

Read the article and become 'tuned in' to finding as many non-sensational, factual, clear and "hard-hitting" newspaper and magazine articles as you can on the same topic, to make yourself more informed and ecologically aware. Read books, join discussion groups and talk about these topics to raise your awareness.

MISSION TO SAVE PLANET IS 'FAILING'
By Heather Stewart
The Observer
Sunday, December 4, 2005

The world scored an abysmal two out of 10 for its efforts in trying to save the planet from environmental mayhem this year.

That is the stark view of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which has blasted governments for failing to make progress on global warming and on the safeguarding of the world's endangered environment.

Few countries have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions, and the US continues to ignore the Kyoto climate treaty, the forum points out. As a result, the annual check-up from the Forum's Global Governance Initiative gives the world only two points out of a possible ten on ecological issues.

'Climate change is already exacerbating malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea throughout the world,' the forum warns. 'The world's poorest people need sustainable managed ecosystems to preserve their livelihoods, and scarcity of natural resources can fuel violent conflict.'

The forum's warning comes as the charity Make Poverty History launches a new campaign for trade justice. Using posters of sports stars, the publicity drive has been timed to coincide with the World Trade Organisation's annual meeting in Hong Kong next week.

Stars -- including Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, Sol Campbell, Jonny Wilkinson and Nick Faldo -- pose in a series of images to illustrate how unfair trade rules are holding back the performance of developing countries. Redgrave is seen clutching bananas instead of oars, Wilkinson attempts a try conversion with a pineapple and Faldo attempts a putt with a sunflower. The images feature key elements of the campaign: how global trade rules destroy farmers' livelihoods and force the developing world's poor to pay for basic services such as water, health and education.

'Farmers in wealthy countries are subsidised by their governments and dump their excess produce on poor countries,' said a spokesman for the charity. 'So farmers in developing countries can't even sell their produce locally, let alone export it to foreign markets.'

Human rights also worsened across the world in 2005. The WEF criticizes weak world reaction to violent attacks in Darfur, Sudan, and warns that knee-jerk government responses to terrorism, including the tube attacks on London, have threatened civil liberties.

'From the United Kingdom to Thailand, laws passed in the name of fighting terrorism shifted the centre of gravity from protecting rights to restricting them -- with uncertain consequences for democracy.' The WEF researchers also attack the 'legal black hole' of Guantanamo, where the US continues to holds prisoners without charge.

However, despite its pessimism about the environment and human rights, the WEF gives a cautiously positive report for 2005 overall, with better scores for the global fight against poverty, hunger and war than last year. Tony Blair receives plaudits for his leadership in pushing through agreements on debt forgiveness and substantially increased aid for Africa at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in July.

Make Poverty History and the Live8 concert this summer are also commended in the report as a positive sign. 'Civil society groups have mobilised on an unprecedented scale to force governments to get more serious about their commitments to the world's poor,' it says.

Peacemaking efforts have helped to prevent any new conflicts breaking out this year, the WEF says, while peace agreements in Sudan and Indonesia raised the hope that two long-running conflicts could be brought to an end. However, it said bringing an end to the violence in Iraq should be an urgent priority in the new year.

On education, too, there has been some progress, including a 20 per cent increase in primary school enrolment in some of the poorest African countries, including Ethiopia and Malawi.

However, the WEF points out that there are still 100 million children worldwide who do not go to primary school; and 94 countries where more boys than girls receive an education. Achieving universal primary education within the next decade is one of the Millennium Development Goals which 189 countries signed up to in 2000.

Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who sits on the CGI's steering committee, said the report showed how much still needed to be done.

'These are not reasons for despair. They are, very definitely, reasons to redouble our efforts. If we do, historians may look back one day and say that 2005 was the real beginning of the 21st century -- the century when humanity found ways to achieve meaningful stability and prosperity throughout the world.'

ARTICLE # 3 (difficult) TAKEN FROM R. HIENBERG’S BOOK “POWERDOWN” click to download word document

This Preamble makes us conscious of being global citizens for the protection of our Borderless LifeSupport.

Find out more about a GLOBAL BRAIN.

Global Brain
The Evolution of Mass Mind
From the Big Bang to the 21st Century
And on its author, Howard Bloom

“A modern-day prophet, Bloom compels us to admit that evolution is a team sport. This is a picture of the universe in which human emotions find their basis in the survival of matter, and the atoms themselves are held together with love. I am awestruck.” Douglas Rushkoff—author of Media Virus, Coercion, and Ecstasy Club

“This lusty tome generated by Bloom’s voracious reading habit and extraordinary talent for explanation proclaims that groups of individuals—from people to vervet monkeys to bacteria—organize themselves, create novelty, alter their surroundings, and triumph to leave more offspring than loner individuals. A stunning commitment to scientific evidence, this sequel to The Lucifer Principle ought to purge the academic world of ‘selfish genes’ and the neo-darwinist dogma of ‘individual selection’.” Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts, recipient of a 1999 National Medal of Science, author of Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution.

And here’s more:
The Global Brain Concept.
Gottfried Mayer-Kress
Sat Apr 22 21:04:59 MDT 1995

The parallels between biological brains and the global Internet has been discussed in some details in [28]. In this section we want to summarize some elements and provide some recent examples and applications.
In 1983 Russell [42] proposed a Global Brain that might emerge from a worldwide network of humans who were highly connected through communications. He based his argument on the observation that throughout evolution qualitative transitions to a new level of organization have been observed to occur in several instances where a system attains approximately 10 billion (ten to the tenth power) units that are tightly but flexibly coupled. Examples include the number of atoms in a bio-molecule, the number of molecules in a cell, and the number of cells in the cortex of the human brain. Since the world population (5.7 billion, 1994) is within an order of magnitude of ten to the tenth and growing, the threshold for a new level of organization, by his arguments, could be reached soongif. Thus Russell saw the network of interconnected humans forming a Global Brain; we expand the concept to include computers -- not only as communication links between humans, as Russell used them, but as active information-processors alongside humans. Simulations in this environment will have to include life-like, agent based elements (see e.g. [20]).
* Phase-Transition in the Information Flow on the Internet
* Global Tele-Conferencing on the Internet
* Future Extensions of the Global Brain Concept

• Multiple Global Brains
• Implication for Marketing
• Extensions to Non-Human Species

Gottfried Mayer-Kress
Sat Apr 22 21:04:59 MDT 1995
Life is less simple than we think it is.
There was I thinking biodiesel was better because it was bio or because it was an alternative fuel – and then this email arrived. We really are going to need that global brain to solve the problem of how to transport ourselves - without killing ecosystems and ourselves.

>By promoting biodiesel as a substitute, we have missed the fact >that it is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces. > > George Monbiot Tuesday December 6, 2005. Guardian

Over the past two years I have made an uncomfortable discovery. Like most environmentalists, I have been as blind to the constraints affecting our energy supply as my opponents have been to climate change. I now realise that I have entertained a belief in magic.

In 2003, the biologist Jeffrey Dukes calculated that the fossil fuels we burn in one year were made from organic matter "containing 44 x 1018 grams of carbon, which is more than 400 times the net primary productivity of the planet's current biota". In plain English, this means that every year we use four centuries' worth of plants and animals.

The idea that we can simply replace this fossil legacy - and the extraordinary power densities it gives us – with ambient energy is the stuff of science fiction. There is simply no substitute for cutting back. But substitutes are being sought everywhere. They are being promoted today at the climate talks in Montreal, by states - such as ours - that seek to avoid the hard decisions climate change demands. And at least one substitute is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces.

The last time I drew attention to the hazards of making diesel fuel from vegetable oils, I received as much abuse as I have ever been sent for my stance on the Iraq war. The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon. I am now prepared to admit that my previous column was wrong. But they're not going to like it. I was wrong because I underestimated the fuel's destructive impact.

Before I go any further, I should make it clear that turning used chip fat into motor fuel is a good thing. The people slithering around all day in vats of filth are performing a service to society. But there is enough waste cooking oil in the UK to meet a 380th of our demand for road transport fuel. Beyond that, the trouble begins.

When I wrote about it last year, I thought that the biggest problem caused by biodiesel was that it set up a competition for land use. Arable land that would otherwise have been used to grow food would instead be used to grow fuel. But now I find that something even worse is happening. The biodiesel industry has accidentally invented the world's most carbon-intensive fuel.

In promoting biodiesel - as the EU, the British and US governments and thousands of environmental campaigners do – you might imagine that you are creating a market for old chip fat, or rapeseed oil, or oil from algae grown in desert ponds. In reality you are creating a market for the most destructive crop on earth.

Last week, the chairman of Malaysia's federal land development authority announced that he was about to build a new biodiesel plant. His was the ninth such decision in four months. Four new refineries are being built in Peninsula Malaysia, one in Sarawak and two in Rotterdam. Two foreign consortiums - one German, one American – are setting up rival plants in Singapore. All of them will be making biodiesel from the same source: oil from palm trees.

"The demand for biodiesel," the Malaysian Star reports, "will come from the European Community ... This fresh demand would, at the very least, take up most of Malaysia's crude palm oil inventories." Why? Because it is cheaper than biodiesel made from any other crop.

In September, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impact of palm oil production. "Between 1985 and 2000," it found, "the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia". In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest have been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5 million in Indonesia.

Almost all the remaining forest is at risk. Even the famous Tanjung Puting national park in Kalimantan is being ripped apart by oil planters. The orangutan is likely to become extinct in the wild. Sumatran rhinos, tigers, gibbons, tapirs, proboscis monkeys and thousands of other species could go the same way. Thousands of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands, and some 500 Indonesians have been tortured when they tried to resist. The forest fires which every so often smother the region in smog are mostly started by the palm growers. The entire region is being turned into a gigantic vegetable oil field.

Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they've cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.

The British government understands this. In a report published last month, when it announced that it would obey the EU and ensure that 5.75% of our transport fuel came from plants by 2010, it admitted "the main environmental risks are likely to be those concerning any large expansion in biofuel feedstock production, and particularly in Brazil (for sugar cane) and south-east Asia (for palm oil plantations)."

It suggested that the best means of dealing with the problem was to prevent environmentally destructive fuels from being imported. The government asked its consultants whether a ban would infringe world trade rules. The answer was yes: "Mandatory environmental criteria ... would greatly increase the risk of international legal challenge to the policy as a whole." So it dropped the idea of banning imports, and called for "some form of voluntary scheme" instead. Knowing that the creation of this market will lead to a massive surge in imports of palm oil, knowing that there is nothing meaningful it can do to prevent them, and knowing that they will accelerate rather than ameliorate climate change, the government has decided to go ahead anyway.

At other times it happily defies the EU. But what the EU wants and what the government wants are the same. "It is essential that we balance the increasing demand for travel," the government's report says, "with our goals for protecting the environment." Until recently, we had a policy of reducing the demand for travel. Now, though no announcement has been made, that policy has gone. Like the Tories in the early 1990s, the Labour administration seeks to accommodate demand, however high it rises.
Figures obtained last week by the campaigning group Road Block show that for the widening of the M1 alone the government will pay £3.6bn - more than it is spending on its entire climate change programme. Instead of attempting to reduce

demand, it is trying to alter supply. It is prepared to sacrifice the south-east Asian rainforests in order to be seen to be doing something, and to allow motorists to feel better about themselves.

All this illustrates the futility of the technofixes now being pursued in Montreal. Trying to meet a rising demand for fuel is madness, wherever the fuel might come from. The hard decisions have been avoided, and another portion of the biosphere is going up in smoke. > >

click for a visual history of planet earth

Expert opinions on

Global Brain
The Evolution of Mass Mind
From the Big Bang to the 21st Century
And on its author, Howard Bloom

“A modern-day prophet, Bloom compels us to admit that evolution is a team sport. This is a picture of the universe in which human emotions find their basis in the survival of matter, and the atoms themselves are held together with love. I am awestruck.” Douglas Rushkoff—author of Media Virus, Coercion, and Ecstasy Club

“This lusty tome generated by Bloom’s voracious reading habit and extraordinary talent for explanation proclaims that groups of individuals—from people to vervet monkeys to bacteria—organize themselves, create novelty, alter their surroundings, and triumph to leave more offspring than loner individuals. A stunning commitment to scientific evidence, this sequel to The Lucifer Principle ought to purge the academic world of ‘selfish genes’ and the neodarwinist dogma of ‘individual selection’.” Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor, University of Massachusetts, recipient of a 1999 National Medal of Science, author of Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution .

"I have met God and he lives in Brooklyn. I could try to convince you that Howard Bloom is next on a very short list that includes Darwin, Freud, Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, but Howard can probably do a much better job of convincing you himself." Richard Metzger, creative director Disinfo.com, host of Channel Four TV Britain’s Disinfo Nation.

“In a superbly written and totally original argument, Howard Bloom continues his one-man tradition of tackling the taboo subjects. With a marvelously erudite survey of life and society from bacteria to the Internet, he demonstrates that group selection is for real and the group mind was there from the start. What we are entering now is but the latest phase in the evolution of the global brain. This is a must read.” Robin Fox, University Professor of Social Theory, Rutgers University, co-author with Lionel Tiger of The Imperial Animal.

"A fascinating new evolutionary theory which could deeply change our view of life, and a new worldview which could radically change our interpretation of social structures." Florian Roetzer, editor, Telepolis, Germany, author of Digitale Weltentwürfe. Streifzüge durch die Netzkultur and Megamaschine Wissen.

"Global Brain is wonderful! I'm amazed at the book's knowledge and the scope of its reach. The 'mass mind' idea is wondrous, smart and immensely creative." Georgie Anne Geyer, syndicated columnist, Universal Press Syndicate, and author of Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro.

photo by Howard Bloom

"Howard Bloom has a fascinating vision of the interplay of life, and a compelling style which I found captivating." Nils Daulaire, President and CEO, Global Health Council.

"Howard Bloom's work is simply brilliant and there is nothing else like it, anywhere--we've looked, as have our colleagues. Global Brain is powerful, provocative, and mind-blowing." Don Edward Beck, Ph.D., author of Spiral Dynamics, co-director, National Values Center.

“The Thales of the Internet, Howard Bloom thinks what he wants, writes what he thinks, and performs his synthesis with a good heart, uncompromising truth, creative brain, and mountains of evidence. From the bacterial web of Eshel Ben-Jacob to the scientific sidelining of Professor Ling, we see the daunting power of groups that interact and sacrifice their members in order to thrive and evolve. Global Brain is a historical tour-de-force, one based on evolution and the complexity of adaptive systems.” Dorion Sagan, author of Biospheres and co-author of Into the Cool: The New Thermodynamics of Life.

"Stunning! Howard Bloom has done it again. He is certainly on to something." Peter Corning, Director, Institute for the Study of Complex Systems, President, International Society For the Systems Sciences, author of The Synergism Hypothesis: a theory of progressive evolution and Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind.

"Howard Bloom believes that the Leviathan, or society as an organism, is not a fanciful metaphor but an actual product of evolution. The Darwinian struggle for existence has taken place among societies, as well as among individuals within societies. We do strive as individuals, but we are also part of something larger than ourselves, with a complex physiology and mental life that we carry out but only dimly understand. With this bold vision of evolution and human behavior, Bloom has raced ahead of the timid scientific herd.” David Sloan Wilson, co-author ofUntoOthers: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior

photo by Howard Bloom

"Bloom paints a spiritedand wide ranging picture of the importance of information sharing and otherforms of cooperation in organisms ranging from bacteria to humans. Arguments ongroup vs. individual selection are normally conducted in dense prose, butBloom's overview is high, swift, and enjoyable." Peter J. Richerson, Departmentof Environmental Science and Policy, UC Davis; co-author (with Robert Boyd),Culture and the Evolutionary Process

"You have not lived until you have interacted with Howard Bloom. He offers sweeping looks at similar functional patterns of organization at cellular, neural, social, and cosmic levels, combining them with powerful insights on social history and movements in human thoughts and rituals." James Brody, Ph.D., Founder, Clinical Sociobiology, organizer "Healing The Moral Animal" seminars, sponsored by The Cape Cod Institute, Albert Einstein Medical College of Yeshiva University. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE.

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Global Brain:
The Evolution of Mass Mind From the Big Bang
to the 21st Century click here howardbloom.net home