Cosmopolis Earth, Volume 2

Another draft

November-16-12

 

The World Belt; A Global Vascular System

By John Taylor; 2012 Nov 16, 169 BE

 

For centuries farsighted writers, scientists and engineers, most notable among them Jules Verne and Buckminster Fuller, have put forward ideas to improve our infrastructure. The most difficult of these megaprojects remain undone, including domed cities, moving sidewalks, pneumatic tube transit and modular housing. Others, long dismissed as utopian pipe dreams, are already completed, such as train tunnels below the Alps and under the English channel, not to mention satellites and GPS location. Wikipedia's article on megaprojects lists hundreds of other schemes, all formerly impracticable, that present technology allows and which are in various stages of planning, including some already under construction.

One megaproject is so daunting that nothing like it has ever been attempted. This is the World Belt, a long corridor of superconducting power lines crossing and joining the continents. This energy grid would both deliver electricity and store it. The peculiar properties of superconduction permit power lines to act as a huge storage battery. This is the ideal enabler for green energy, wind, wave and solar, all of which are intermittent. These high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines are actually more efficient transmitting electricity over long distances than our present grid, using alternating current, is over much shorter distances.

 

 

This world belt would permanently shift the balance of electrical power towards green energy. As Buckminster Fuller tirelessly pointed out in his public talks (two of which I had the honour of attending), one side of our planet is always bathed in sunlight while the other languishes in darkness. A global grid connecting these shifting dark and light halves of Earth would pay for itself very quickly. It would transmit energy from where it is free, bountiful and unneeded to where it is in demand, from bright to dark areas, from warm to cold regions, and from low population desert areas to those with a high population.

Once the global grid makes the entire energy resources of the planet available anywhere at a very low price, it will be economical to undertake a similar and parallel megaproject to reorient the all-important area of transport, transit, travel and tourism. A rapid transportation line running near or alongside the World Belt's power lines could derive power directly from this energy grid.

Together, these two, power and transport, would constitute the vascular system first of continental union, then of a global democratic super-state. This technical development allows us to move ourselves and our stuff from one place to another with a speed and efficiency approaching electronic communications, which is virtually instantaneous. It will permit our built world to enter into the third dimension; as Fuller pointed out, until now we have built only two dimensionally, scratching the surface of earth. Our internal processes can be seen from above, like bacteria, amoebas and other unicellular creatures. Once we have these veins and arteries, however, we can build in every direction, erecting floating cities on the ocean, flying domes in the air, and boring underground, into mountains and underground.

Ambitious projects like this require undreamed of integration and interdependence, however, not only physical but mental and spiritual as well. We are unlikely to move forward in this direction without the advances in politics, religion and education that John Amos Comenius laid out for us back in the middle of the Seventeenth Century. We discussed his analyses and proposals at length in the first volume of this series, Beyond Borders. Once we remove our habits and mental blocks, we will learn to balance our lives in an integrated way. Then, we can erect the machineries of world democracy, of which megaprojects such as the world belt are only an outer expression.

Thoughts about the Industrial Wind Turbine Debate

Badi blog post for 8 November, 2011

 

I have been sick for 5 weeks with a fever that became a cough that turned into pneumonia. Then, when I thought I was on the mend, I coughed so hard I that I popped a rib. Nothing turned up on the Xray, other than pneumonia in my right lung; however, the doctor says I may have moved a rib (yuck) or maybe tore a ligament or muscle or something. I asked if I should wear a girdle or some other back support. He said I can if I want to catch pneumonia and die. I answered, "Hey, I've already got pneumonia. Oh ... I see."

 

 



 

 

 

All I know is that even now it hurts a lot whenever I move, sneeze, or even fart.

 

So I underwent yet another week of agony every time I cough and of sleeping sitting. One benefit, though, was that the constant threat of a cough accompanied by a knife in my side somehow removed a mental block I have had against video editing. So, I took a day or two and put together the following 15 minute video on the case against Industrial Wind Turbines (IWT's), based on the opening comments by a well known opponent of IWT's in a debate that took place at the end of September.

 

 



 

 

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At Dunnville High School a group of activist students named DREAM recently sponsored a debate on wind turbines. It was called: It is All About Power; Should there be industrial wind turbines in Haldimand County, Ontario?

Part One: The case against.

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/its-all-about-power-should-there-be.html

http://youtu.be/qIZVWVT5AHM

 

Arguing against wind turbines was John Laforet, founder of Wind Concerns Ontario, a member of parliament who in opposing wind farms went against the policy of his own party. His argument, basically, is that we need to step back and do an environmental assessment before we commit to installing industrial wind farms.

 

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If my video editing mental block stays out of my way, I plan to post two more videos on this subject before next Thursday's Philosopher's Cafe. I promised a showing of these YouTube videos at our October discussion, after which we will debate the issue again, hopefully with more informed opinions.

 

My second planned video will condense the best parts of the Q&A that took place after the debate (unfortunately, the proponent of IWT's did not address the issue in his allotted time in the debate section, but he did better in the question period) and a third video will be devoted to my own ideas on the subject, many of which I will sum up now. I guess I am pretty shy about speaking into a camera, so this may be something that never happens. Or, maybe the period of illness will have changed that mental block too.

 

Another YouTube video I came across just after posting my video against IWT's is a good supplement to many of the points that John Laforet makes in his harangue. Grant Robertson, an environmentalist turned NDP policy wonk on Industrial Wind, explains "How to stop the Industrial Wind Model." The title is a little deceptive, but he makes some very good points,

 

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-to-stop-industrial-wind-model.html

 

I am especially grateful to MPP Grant Robertson for mentioning the fact that the amount of air pollution here in Ontario has vastly decreased since the Recession started, and that as a result the industrial heartland of the U.S., just south of where I live, was gutted. This explains why my health, generally speaking, has been so much better during the past four years. A lot of people are suffering from unemployment, but human canaries-in-a-coalmine like myself are much better off.

 

MPP's Laforet and Robertson offer hints at the strategy that the owners of the fossil fuel industry seem to have adopted. First of all, buy out the manufacturers of IWT's. This has been done already. Second, use this so-called "green" technology to accomplish several of their overall goals. They are in a win-win situation. Let us say the issue becomes so politicized that wind turbines are blocked wherever they are proposed. They win, because the alternative is natural gas and other fossil fuels, and that is where most of their profits are going to come in any case.

 

Or, say they win the "battle" for IWT's without enough opposition being provoked. Being so powerful, and being ostensibly on the side of "green power," they can frame the issue in whatever way they please. So they stipulate that whenever you put in a wind turbine, you have to burn their natural gas during all the times when the wind is either not blowing or blowing too hard for the turbine to work safely. If you do not like that odd coupling, we simply will refuse to run the turbine, and the government will be accused of slowing the switch to green energy. And of course, we are more than willing to shut the process down, since our main purpose is to burn as much gas as possible anyway.

 



 

 

Not many people realize that fracking shale for natural gas has revolutionized the whole energy situation during the past five years. Now the fossil fuel industry has so much gas in its hot little hands that it is desperate for new markets. And, as Robertson points out, southern Ontario is surrounded by vast shale deposits under the Great Lakes. Sure, fracking here could turn the world's largest freshwater lakes into vast toxic waste ponds, but think how much profit would go to the Fat Cats! This opening frontier of easy profits explains why they are so avid to push what one would never expect from them, wind turbines.

 

When you edit a video like this and try to bring hours of footage into the 15 minute limit that YouTube imposes, you hear the same argument over and over again, dozens of times. One point that Laforet makes is that water power, hydroelectric dams and turbines, is a much more viable and economical prospect than wind. I checked his facts about hydro and on the whole they stand up. For example, the Canadian Research Council says,

 

"Electricity generation in Canada amounted to 585 terawatt hours in 2009. Canada's abundant water resources provided a significant contribution in this regard, as hydroelectricity represented 60.4 percent of total generation. Other sources of electricity supply included coal (16.9 percent); nuclear (14.6 percent); petroleum products, natural gas and waste (7.5 percent); and emerging renewable sources (0.6 percent), i.e. solar, wind and tidal." (http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/statistics-facts/energy/895)

 

This figure is so high because of the huge power generation facility in northern Quebec. The Wikipedia article about Ontario energy policy points out that the figure for hydro here is lower than that for all of Canada, but it is still a pretty respectable percentage.

 

"Hydropower currently accounts for approximately 21% of the current electricity supply in Ontario. This capacity is estimated to rise to 30% by 2025 as new sites are added to the current installed capacity and the existing ones are refurbished. Particular emphasis will be placed on developing hydroelectric plants with large storage capacities that can be used to provide dispatchable energy, which are equally capable of meeting peak electricity demand or offsetting the intermittent nature of other renewable sources such as wind." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_electricity_policy#Hydroelectricity)

 

If you are interested in more data about what kinds of electricity generation goes on in Ontario, here is a site with a detailed breakdown by type and geography.

 

http://www.centreforenergy.com/factsstats/MapsCanada/ON-EnergyMap.asp

 

So yes, Ontario already benefits from green energy, hydro, especially from Niagara Falls, more than almost anywhere in the world. We have less need for wind energy than the industry is trying to make out.

 

Better still, the prospects for hydro are getting better with improved technology. For example, check out this video from Make Magazine, one of my favorite publications.

 

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Anthony Reale invents water turbine

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/anthony-reale-invents-water-turbine.html

posted on the Badi Blog on OCT 31, 2011

 

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What this talks about is an inventor in Michigan who was watching a nature documentary on television about the basking shark when he wondered, "How can that huge mouth move forward without a vast expenditure of energy?" The result was a new Water Turbine that should exploit hydroelectric power in more places with much more efficiency.

 

http://www.gizmag.com/strait-power-hydroelectric-turbine/17801/

 

Or, for Canadian content, this guy invented another new kind of water turbine,

 

http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/cars/story.html?id=6419d7e0-1920-467e-9760-4c987ef683b5

 

So yes, my opinions about wind turbines are changing as I delve deeper into the issue. Right after the debate in September, I wrote,

 

"Neither debater mentioned the double standard of requiring the makers and installers of wind turbines to jump through hoops by complying to long health studies and environmental reviews, while cars and road noise and fumes, much louder and more poisonous, are left unquestioned, simply because we are used to them, and, one surely must concede, the fact that we all undeniably benefit from roads and vehicles almost every hour of the day, whenever we travel. Anyone who actually spends time in the country, perhaps camping out in the open, realizes that the noise from roads and rail are much, much louder and disturbing than wind turbines. At least so far ... Probably there are ill effects on our health from that preexisting noise, but we accept it as the price of this present infrastructure. The problem with wind is that the benefits are much further down the road, and mostly they have not kicked in yet. ... ten years after this debate (we will see the good as well as the bad, and the benefits and harm will not be) mere speculation."

 

This opinion was modified considerably when, during one of my long, miserable nights of coughing and trying unsuccessfully to sleep sitting up, I watched a long and rather tedious documentary on TVO about how the first turbines to be built in England for decades were introduced.

 

http://ww3.tvo.org/program/165864/blown-apart-windfarm-wars

 

The industrial turbines were opposed ardently and at great sacrifice by residents who were getting sick from the noise.

 

An American version of this documentary will be showing on CBC this upcoming weekend.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/program/windfall/

 

 

By then I was aware that the turbines are being pushed by fossil fuel magnates who could not care less about whether they succeed or not. As it turned out, they succeeded and according to news reports this fall the wind farms in Devon went online. I am sure that the covert owners of the turbines felt some chagrin at how easily they pushed it through, in less than ten years. After all, everything they did was calculated to kick up as much dust and confusion as possible. They kept all data secret, and shared it only after court orders and delays in court gave them no choice. Be secretive about everything. What a perfect way to fan the flames of controversy and keep the opposition in a fury!

 

The takeaway lesson from this weird story is that if we really want to promote wind power while minimizing any harm it causes, all government has to do is make laws requiring that noise and wind monitors be sited all around every wind turbine. The main guy in this documentary bought and set up such a monitoring system all by himself, so it cannot be all that difficult or expensive to do. Then you have the data overseen and collected by an impartial third party, like a university. Let them pipe all data directly to an open systems website on the Internet, one that is immediately accessible to anyone interested.

 

Here you can register all complaints of local residents and their doctors, with all of the information being confirmed on an ongoing basis by epidemiologists.

 

This third party information gathering should involve naturalists as well. If bats or birds are dying from a turbine, shut it down right away, until the problem is solved. We can no longer tolerate harm to animals, any more than we should harm to humans.

 

One reservation I had at the start remains unchanged. I wrote,

 

"I regret that the debate format was chosen in the first place. What we need is brainstorming, not clashes of ideas and opinions that kick up more dust and distortion than they illuminate the facts at hand. We need to modernize the whole idea of a debate."

 



 

 

I would add now that public discussions need to be set up in a problem solving format. A debate only helps if a question has been around for centuries with little agreement by experts; then it is useful to hear both sides so that you can make up your own mind. The prospect of wind turbines is not such an issue. For one thing, the decision to put IWT's in here has already been made, with our local government, Haldimand County, being excluded completely by Ontario Government's Green Energy Act.

So it is all moot, as far as practical decisions go.

 

Aside from the spiritual principles taught by the Baha'i Faith, I am very enthusiastic by NEF's problem solving approach to a public discussion. You can read about it at:

 

http://www.neweconomics.org/projects/crowd-wise

 

Next time, I will talk about what we should be doing to solve the specific energy problems in Haldimand.

 

 

Debate on Wind Turbines

Dr. Reza Kazemi was kind enough to give me permission to videotape the following event, so I am including some of the promotional material here on the Badi' Blog.

 

 

It is all about power A debate on wind turbines in Haldimand County

 

 

 

Dunnville, Ont.

 

DREAM presents

 

Its all about POWER; Wind or No Wind

 

A debate on wind turbines in Haldimand

 

Industrial wind turbine are a hot topic in Haldimand since the news broke that Samsung, a Korean company, will be investing 7 billion dollars in this industry throughout Ontario. Overnight, citizens worried about the size of these electrical generating structures, their effect on property values and their health.

 

On Friday, Sept. 30th, 2011 at 7pm in the cafeteria of Dunnville Secondary School, dream presents Its all About Power: Wind or No Wind to create a dialogue and raise awareness on industrial wind turbines.

 

Dream has invited a strong opponent of wind mills, John Laforet, president of Wind Concerns Ontario, as well as a proponent of this type of energy production.

 

This opening event of dream's seventh season of raising awareness will be moderated by Wayne Nyomtato.  At the end of this town hall meeting, dream hopes that the community will better understand the issue and be able to reach a consensus with a vision and guiding values that will be published in all three regional papers.

 

Raising Awareness presents a series of film and guest speakers running from September to May at Dunnville Secondary School.

 

On film nights, dream presents a social justice, community awareness, or life-planning film. On speaker nights, dream presents an engaging guest speaker or an eclectic panel of guests ranging from published authors and social activists to civically responsible members of the community.

 

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This Year's DREAM Presentations

 

Members of the Haldimand community should mark the following Friday nights on their calendars. All presentations take place at Dunnville Secondary School's Cafeteria:

 

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Friday Sept. 30th

 

It’s All about Power: Wind or No Wind; A debate on industrial wind turbines

 

The seventh Season of Raising Awareness begins with a debate on wind turbines with guest speaker: John Laforte, Wind Concerns Ontario; Green Peace Canada

 

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Friday Nov. 4th  An American Marine's Experience in Iraq

 

Guest Speaker: Jake Davis

 

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Friday Feb 10th  Preserving Our Planet: Garbage

 

This night features dream Grade 8 Environment Contest.

 

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Friday Mar 30th; Film: Lets Make Money

 

Where is our money? In the bank? Think again!

 

http://www.letsmakemoney.at/

 

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Friday April 27th;  Hope Through Action

 

Guest Speaker: Mark Zelinski, Photography to Enlighten, Educate & Entertain

 

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Friday May 25th  Street Drugs of Dunnville

 

Exploring the problems and its solutions

 

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For more information on how you can purchase season tickets to dream's raising awareness: film & speaker series or join as a volunteer or community sponsor contact Dr. Kazemi at 905.774-8841, or rbkazemi@shaw.ca or visit www.dreamfwb.com

 

About DREAM

 

DREAM is a community-based organization of volunteers that builds Dunnville's capacity to better serve its youth by providing academic, social and financial support to secondary school students. DREAM offers a four-year, youth mentorship program and hosts other community services that include a field school program in Ek Balam, Mexico to promote global literacy.

 

 

 

Cosmopolitan Leadership

Cosmopolitan Leadership; Summation and Prospect

By John Taylor; 2010 Dec 30, Masa'il 19, 167 BE

Panorthosia addresses many questions that are being skipped over in our globalizing but still un-cosmopolitan world. We have gone over Comenius' answer to the question: how do we eliminate corruption, fanaticism and partisan thinking? Other crucial questions are: how would a cosmopolitan leadership involve everyone in universal concerns? Even assuming that we are all sober, balanced, sincere and vigorous citizens, how could we coordinate our efforts efficiently? For reasons of his own, Comenius does not detail in Panorthosia how exactly to go about this. Nor does he even attempt to outline a global plan. Instead, he concentrates on the process, on how to devise the mechanisms for reasonable action at every level of leadership.

As we saw in our discussion of corruption, the most salient feature of Comenius' answer was to separate governance and social organization into three parts, and to distribute the guidance of each semi-independent part to each level of society, starting with that of the individual. The logic is something like this: In our lives every one of us is called upon to avoid the perversion (which literally means "turning away") that gives rise to corruption by facing adequately our three responsibilities and reasons for being: the good of self, that of our environment and our progress through time and space. Once we get that right, we express harmony through three chief relationships, with nature, with our fellow man and with our God.

Earlier I suggested -- in the spirit, I hope, of Comenius -- that open planning software be designed to aid cosmopolitan citizens in maintaining such a balance. This I called steles, automated, interactive displays that would be erected in every important location, starting with one's bedroom and personal work space and proceeding to every crossroads of public intercourse.

Using such steles, every world citizen could work on becoming a more effective contributing member to each of the three guiding institutions, the College of Light, the Dicastery of Peace and the Consistory of Holiness. The college is an institution dedicated to education, science and philosophy, the dicastery to peace and practical politics, and the consistory to ethics, faith and universal existential well-being.

Last essay, "Planning for the Supreme Law," suggested that, once personal good is established by individuals in communion with their stele, the good of the people, that is, of all humanity, be upheld as our universal first principle. This follows a suggestion of Frances Bacon in his essay, "Of Judicature,"

"Judges ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve Tables, `Salus populi suprema lex.'"

The welfare of the world's people, then, would become the supreme law not as defined by an unseen, faceless bureaucracy (the welfare state) but as worked out by every healthy world citizen.

In this way we would form a truly cosmopolitan government, not a mere monolith, a supreme autocracy that arbitrarily dominating earth and all its dwellers. Cosmopolitan leadership is not political in the narrow sense that we understand politics today. Instead, its ruling principle is just that, principle, not dictatorial authority. Its division of powers derives from our essential purpose and our three basic relationships, relation with self, with others and with one's God.

Each separate institution acts as a tripod, each leg independent of yet supporting the other two.

Although the members of the continental and world government may at first be appointed, as they become democratically elected these three parliaments will comprise the first institution in history with a comprehensive mandate to oversee the progress of all humans by all humans, comprehensively, everywhere on the planet.

Next time I will look at the Cyclical Decade Plan, a plan that Comenius only hints at but which I think could become the tune to which cosmopolitans sing the song of unification.

Raccoon and the Jevons Paradox

Moving Like Raccoon

(revision of an early chapter of Cosmopolis Earth)

By John Taylor; 2010 Dec 20, Masa'il 10, 167 BE

When my children were young, they had a favourite toy which they called their "raccoon" -- we got it second-hand but I later found out that this toy is marketed as a "Weazel Ball". Raccoon consisted of a yellow plastic ball with a fluffy, brown and white "tail" connected to it. When placed on a smooth surface and they flipped its switch, it vibrated furiously, rolling forward, sideways, every which way. In the midst of its erratic spurting and wobbling, there was no way to guess which direction it would go next, much to the consternation of Malley, our cat, and the delight of the children.

Thus the gyres and gimbals of Raccoon amused the childish mind while exasperating the ordered feline imagination; as Hamlet put it, Raccoon made the "unskilful laugh but the judicious grieve." I was pestered to explain how Raccoon got that strange, stutter step, so when its batteries ran down we opened the yellow sphere to find the secret. The erratic stutter-step came from a clever design where an off-center electric motor did nothing but vibrate, while opposite it were its batteries, which acted as a counterweight, spinning its center of gravity alternatively into balance and out of balance.

Raccoon's intentionally crazy mechanism is an apt metaphor for the incomplete globalism that puts the times out of joint. Quicker transportation encourages free trade across borders, making the economy more global. But hearts and minds stay glued to one location, one nation surrounded by impermeable borders, firmly set in past ways. At the same time, the Internet spins hearts and minds into instantaneous motion through cyberspace.

Like Raccoon, we spin around our own batteries, the burning of hydrocarbons, instead of the true center, our humanity. The economy accomplishes miracles of productivity and green food revolutions one second, and the next turns around to destroy the environment and set the positive feedback mechanisms of global warming in motion. The ordered mind expects thought and actions to synchronize and roll the world straight forward. But some invisible misalignment within forces a derangement.

Our sources of energy align with a vibrator, not the true center of gravity. Fanatics and partisans proliferate, earnestly upholding causes which, one way or another, contradict one another. Our global center spins, bursts forward, halts and turns in a completely different direction. Instead of world order, everything resolves into flittering Brownian motion.

If education does not produce balanced citizens, if it trains only narrow-minded specialists who are sophisticated technically but clueless in ethics, philosophy and spirituality, is it surprising that lives are unbalanced and politics disruptive? Institutions and interests will always work against one another in a crazy spin. It will always be impossible to say in what direction events will roll.

Even if education were turning out well-rounded citizens by the billion, there would still be an unavoidable need for moral courage.

This is demonstrated in a phenomenon known as the Jevons paradox. Instead of improving the overall situation, an increase in efficiency makes it worse. Automobiles that run on cheap fuel, that do not require much maintenance and that are safe and comfortable to ride in will only encourage drivers to drive them more, not less. In a seminal 1865 book, "The Coal Question," William Stanley Jevons asserted that it is a "confusion of ideas" to think that economical use of fuel will result in less consumption. Almost a hundred and fifty years of experience have proven Jevons correct in his paradoxical prophesy. He concluded that Britain had a choice between "brief greatness and longer continued mediocrity" in its use of energy.

A recent article by David Owen points out that by "mediocrity" Jevons meant what we now call "sustainability." Here (The Efficiency Dilemma, by David Owen, The New Yorker, December 20 & 27, 2010, p. 78) he adds that energy policymakers imagine that they are getting a free lunch by pushing fuel efficiency. They find that it is not contentious to suggest greater efficiency rather than hard choices, which demand sacrifice, responsible behavior and restraint. They avoid discussing higher taxes, legal protections for the environment and the inevitable switch to renewables. Instead they take the easier course, which Jevons proved is only oiling the wheels on a handcart to hell. The only way for decision makers to delve deeper into the mechanism and come up with a design that will set us on a smoother equilibrium. Such a design will include energy, but in order to avoid the Jevons paradox it will have to include everything in the scope of humankind.

Paul Farmer, Doctor in Haiti

On Haiti and the Day of the Covenant

By John Taylor; 2010 Nov 28, Qawl 06, 167 BE

Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York, 2003

Long ago I read Tracy Kidder's early book about the computer company Data General, one of his first books. Then Kidder turned to themes that were less interesting to me. At our library's annual summer book sale, I came across a recent book by Kidder, called Mountains Beyond Mountains. It is about Paul Farmer, an amazingly saintly American doctor in Haiti who learned Creole, then in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere invented techniques for controlling difficult-to-handle diseases like tuberculosis and AIDS.

Until he came along everybody thought it was impossible to deal with them in a poor country, and planners blithely left the world's most destitute to die in the dirt. Aside from the ethical issues, this unthinking lack of policy let the disease spread unchecked, and it inevitably spread to what really matters in the minds of rich planners, home, in rich countries.

So effective is Farmer the doctor's approach that it is now the model for epidemiology around the world. What Farmer and his organization, Partners in Health, do is they train local talent to work in their health clinics. They go out on house calls to the homes of anybody who gets sick and, if they judge their situation desperate enough, they see to it that they get a job, a new house, whatever it takes to assure that they will actually take their treatment in its full course, and that they get better before the disease can spread further. This targeted approach nips epidemics in the bud, and takes a major swipe at the scum of poverty as well.

Farmer's approach is now standard practice.

He took the technique to the prisons of Russia (which had become breeding grounds of TB). This proved that Haiti was not an isolated case. His approach works anywhere, it is transferable. This eventually persuaded "smart charity" groups like the Gates Foundation and that of George Soros to finance it around the world.

The local, community-building approach of Paul Farmer reminded me of our local, non-Baha'i Persian physician in Dunnville, Reza Kazemi, who has started a community based organic farm. Every week I go there and pick up fresh veggies from the farm. Anyway, after I finished reading Kidder's book, I passed my copy on to Reza to read.

Since I am fascinated with democracy, I chose the following amusing incident that took place when Paul Farmer was in Russia, trying to arrange a loan to pay for TB drugs for prisoners there.

The chief of the Russian doctors -- a colonel -- laughed. A woman doctor said gravely, "We have lots of TB and no labs." More toasts, more vodka. The colonel reached in his pocket, began to take a pack of cigarettes from it, then paused and asked Farmer,

"Is America a democracy?"

Paul's face grew serious.

"I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic. I think of myself more as a physician than as an American. Ludmilla and I, we belong to the nation of those who care for the sick. Americans are lazy democrats, and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nationality as Ludmilla, I think that the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich."

I thought he was done, but he was only pausing for the interpreter to catch up.

"Look, I'm very proud to be an American. I have many opportunities because I'm American. I can travel freely throughout the world, I can start projects, but that's called privilege, not democracy."

As Farmer had talked, the colonel's face had begun showing signs of exertion. Now he let his laughter out. He said,

"But I only wanted to know if you would permit me to smoke a cigarette."

Goldfarb made a face.

"Paul. He wanted to know if he could smoke, and you gave heem a speech on socialism and democracy."

"But the speech was marvelous," said the colonel, smiling at Farmer, who seemed on the verge of falling asleep.

Goldfarb turned to the colonel. "Tomorrow Paul will represent your interests at the World Bank."

Farmer shook himself alert.

"The only thing wrong, I don't think it should be a loan. But for the international community of healers it will be a good thing.

"I pray," he put his hands together in a steeple, "that it will go well." (Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder Random House Trade Paperbacks, New York, p. 229)

I have expressed this opinion before on this blog: if we had real and open democracy, without candidature, if there were any justice in the world (this is just two ways of saying the same thing), then Paul Farmer (and others of his moral caliber) would be elected to the parliament of the Americas, even if he did not "run" for office. Once you get people like him representing us all, then you would see government start doing good, start being good. Farmer is the perfect choice for office. First of all, his activism follows the divine principle of "go for the greatest need." That is why God chose the places that He did to receive His Manifestations.

That, consciously or not, is why Farmer chose to concentrate on Haiti.

Go to the poorest, treat them, and if it works there the treatment will work anywhere. To prove oneself capable of office, one must do so by helping the poorest, most desperate place. Anybody who does not succeed, or does not try, is a poseur, unworthy of the high station of leadership.

For another blogger's view of this book, go to:

http://eileens52review.blogspot.com/2010/03/book-8-mountains-beyond-mountains.html

Toward Inherently Diversified Power

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 02, Mashiyyat 06, 167 BE

We have seen some of Plato's ideas about wisdom and corruption in the Laws. Here he offers the thesis that only by wisdom does a society become stable; power corrupts and therefore, "it is wrong to establish overpowerful or unmixed sovereignties..." (Plato, Collected Dialogues, The Laws, 693a, p. 1282). Most of Panorthosia, or Universal Reform, is concerned with reforms that avoid corruption by diversifying the bases of power, starting within the individual, continuing on up to the highest level.

Only at the end of Panorthosia, in two short closing chapters, does Comenius deal with the details of world government. Once corruption is under control, we can safely set up a global government by either electing or appointing representatives from each continent to come together in a universal gathering, an intercontinental constitutional conference. Although Comenius does not offer as many details as one might expect, he does paint the general outlines of what he expects would emerge.

At the global convention, organizers would give each delegate a condensed version of Panorthosia as supplemental reading. The delegates would then choose from among themselves the members of standing world institutions, including a senate and parliament, who would stay and meet permanently at a world capital -- he suggested London. Initially, the members of the international institutions, one set for each continent and one for the whole world, would be appointed or at least ratified by national governments. After everything is set up, elections would take place again every decade. Once a working, dependable global election process is in operation the appointment of delegates can stop, since the world's people have primary moral authority. At that point Cosmopolis Earth will have come into being.

Because wisdom is only possible when every part of the whole participates in due proportion, this can be no ordinary conference restricted to narrow, limited ends. It would involve experts of all kinds, who would devise international standards including not only weights and measures, but the much more difficult question of an official world language. Today, we would include many more areas to be regulated, including ocean fisheries and mines, and climate change issues, eliminating carbon and soot emissions, and development and wildlife conservation goals. Educators would devise standards for school curricula designed to encourage diversity while removing artificial barriers of class and culture. An economic section would seek ways and means of narrowing the gap between rich and poor, and so forth.

Comenius had good reason for devoting so little space to the details and setup of a world government. He had seen first hand the truculent peace negotiators in Amsterdam, trying to end the Anglo-Dutch war. It is folly to fill a room with angry, greedy partisans and expect productive results. The clashes of blathering bigots can only prolong conflicts. This is because, as Plato asserts in the Laws, it is impossible to be a partisan and a citizen at the same time. It is crucial, no matter how the global constitutional convention is organized, that the meeting room be filled with citizens concerned with the welfare of all, and that partisans be kept away. Plato and Comenius would be horrified to find out that today's democracies require of those who wish to become politically involved that they join a political party. That is like forcing cadets to join the Mafia in order to become police officers.

For all these reasons, Comenius chose to devote over 90 percent of his text to the question: how do we involve everybody as sober, balanced and vigorous citizens, without degrading anyone into a fanatical partisan? That is, how do we mix power relations? His answer was to make every world citizen a member of three guiding institutions, each specialized according to a fundamental human purpose. In our lives we are called upon to balance three basic expressions or reasons for being through three relations, with nature, God and with our fellow man.

First, we maintain a relationship with nature and the physical world; through science and education, we seek enlightenment through a philosophy of life. Therefore, each of us can be a card carrying member of what Comenius calls the College of Light.

Second, we all have a relationship to God, or at least seek a place in eternity and infinity. No matter what our beliefs, all in some way enjoy or participate in expressions of music, art and religion. As such, we have the right to be voting members of the Consistory of Holiness.

Third, each of us relates with our fellows. Every human, therefore, has an interest in the establishment of peace, reciprocity and political harmony in the world. This qualifies every individual as a functionary of the Dicastery of Peace.

We express this triple human right and responsibility by serving in affiliated institutions -- a college of light, a consistory of holiness and a dicastery of peace -- at every level, especially local ones, the family, neighbourhood and the workplace. That way, instead of a monolithic state, each level of governance, from family to neighbourhood right on up, bifurcates according to Comenius' three chambered model, each branch of which is affiliated with a global franchise. Every government at every level of society, from the global right down to the family and the individual, expresses in its own way each of these three pursuits. As a result, the narrow democratic principle of "one man one vote" grows into, "one person, three votes."

Beyond Monolithic Power

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 01, Mashiyyat 05, 167 BE

John Amos Comenius proposed that we consciously make power structures diverse and inherently decentralized, in accordance with the dictum of Christ to "call no man master" or father, only our Father in heaven. Otherwise, power is unrestrained as a cancer; it becomes an idol by arrogating to itself the absoluteness of God. And, as we saw in Plato's teaching last time, absolute or disproportionate power inevitably results in corruption. Because of this constant danger, we must see ourselves as servants to all humanity, remove all emphasis on individual, charismatic leaders and subsume narrow loyalties to universal ones.

Comenius would have all educated comprehensively, trained as world citizens comfortable with each of the big three human needs, our need for contact with nature, for contact with others and contact with God. Each must learn to balance them in all phases of life. No matter how wrapped up in friends, family or work, we still keep a hand in politics, religion and philosophy -- science is too narrow a term, since it does not cover non-natural philosophy and the art of teaching.

"Philosophy deals with books and knowledge and the reasons for things for the purpose of enlightening mankind. Politics deals with rule and authority for the purpose of keeping mankind in order. Religion deals with God and conscience for the purpose of kindling in mankind the flame of faith, charity and hope (or keeping it alight)." (Comenius, Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, p. 205)

This places a heavier burden on individuals than what is expected of us today. Everyone must become, in effect, a Renaissance Man. Instead of being either a "man of faith" or a "man of science" or a "man of action," a Comenian world order lays all three responsibilities on our shoulders. What is more, every individual initiative or group enterprise requires all three, knowledge (science), volition (faith) and action (politics).

It would be impossible for everybody to excel at all three -- by definition. However, we have a duty at least to keep a hand in each; parents and teachers should make each generation more competent and concerned with them than the generation that came before. Otherwise, corruption will set in. Leaders and experts will be prone to becoming unbalanced, narrow, parochial and overspecialized. The general public will be susceptible to fanaticism, fundamentalism and distorted worldviews.

The Abdication of Homo Universalis

I called an early draft of this chapter, "The Plan of a Renaissance Man," but moderns are uncomfortable with the generic sense of "man" that was fashionable in Comenius' day. Today, "man" is commonly misunderstood as excluding women and children. So I looked up the term, "Renaissance Man." Various synonyms turned up, including "jack of all trades," "generalist," "polymath" and "Homo Universalis." "Polymath" and the others describe someone who achieves prominence in several areas of knowledge; it describes a kind of knowing that is more technical than what Comenius had in mind for the world citizen. The most comprehensive term seems to be "Homo Universalis," which does not have sexist overtones. It is also a Latin term, and that is appropriate since Comenius wrote mostly in Latin, although he himself would probably have preferred his own Latin neologism, "pansophism," or universal wisdom. He believed that only by concentrating upon on wisdom in its most universal guise can we strike the needed balance. Still, I will use the term "Homo Universalis" because it is more widely understood today than "pansophist."

The ideal of Homo Universalis is all but lost in modern times. Individuals tend to guard their rights jealously, forget social obligations and remain content if government keeps out of their hair. To us, that is what good government means. It is difficult to picture anything else. As a result of this abdication, we are used to living under a monolithic state where politicians jealously guard their own bailiwick.

Politics is the sole, central power and others are dependents. They make the big decisions, and all taxes go to them. Even in a democracy their power is, if not absolutist, at least predominating. In religious matters, the state either withdraws completely from ethics and faith concerns, allowing groups to dissipate their energy by fighting with one another, or it interferes, setting the rights of one religion over all others. Every other expression of human nature, even essentials like science, economics, education and the arts, must go hat in hand to government for financial support.

Tripartite Governance

The distinctive object of Comenius's proposal is to break up the monopoly of the monolithic state by dividing it into at least three parts. This in my opinion is a stroke of genius as revolutionary for human governance as what Copernicus, Darwin or Einstein did for our scientific worldview. Rather than a single world body, a global constitution would institute three parliaments. In accordance with the triple duties of Homo Universalis, these parliaments address each of the three main concerns of human life, enlightenment, ethics and peace.

One parliament he called the "college of light;" its members are charged with the reform of science and education. The second parliament, the "holy consistory," acts as a parliament of religions. Its job is to encourage cooperation among religious groups while removing fundamentalism and interfaith conflict. A third parliament, the "dicastery of peace," addresses the basic purpose of politics, laying the groundwork for peace on earth.

"These will serve as three universal antidotes to the plagues which have afflicted us in the past... For the college of light will purify the light of understanding ... The holy consistory with intent to maintain the zeal for piety will salt ... against elements of moral corruption (such as impiety and hypocrisy). Lastly, the dicastery of peace will keep the whole political world in order, so that no power either succumbs in face of danger to its possessions or degenerates into tyranny by destroying the possessions of others." (Panorthosia, Chapter 25, p. 142)

Thus, in a Comenian democracy all three houses would be independent and equal, yet cooperating closely with the others -- as the "call no man master" principle demands. Each body is elected and raises taxes independently. Constitutional stipulations assure equality and balance among them. Firm legal protections keep one from lording it over the others. In this way, with power divided externally, citizens can be robust, balanced and unified within themselves and society. Homo Universalis will walk through the broad gates of Cosmopolis Earth.

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Comenius and Homo Universalis

Comenius's Decade

Comenius and Homo Universalis

This is a re-re-re-write of an early chapter in People Without Borders

Comenius's Decade

International opinion polls show again and again that most humans are world federalists. That is, a large majority of the human race as a whole believe wholeheartedly that world problems can only be solved by a government representing the entire human race. Given the chance, most people in most nations would welcome an electoral system where each human being has a vote in a popularly elected United Nations. A global polling institution reports that,

"There is strong international support for various approaches for making the UN more democratically representative. Large majorities around the world favor direct elections of their country's UN representative to the General Assembly, a new UN parliament with directly elected representatives, and giving non-governmental actors a formal role in the United Nations." <http://www.cfr.org/publication/20019/world_opinion_on_international_institutions.html?breadcrumb=%2Fthinktank%2Fiigg%2Fpop%2Fpub_list>

  This broad support, they go on to say, "appears to be derived from a perceived need for collective action to deal with global problems and from a belief in the efficiencies of collective action." The pollsters express this sentiment of the world's populace rather weakly. This is not something that modern intellectuals like to talk about. But the implications are clear. We must take policy beyond barriers of national boundaries; borders and nationalities exist only in the imagination. Half-hearted negotiations between states can never solve the environmental problems facing us all. International agreements among many disparate groups will never constitute good governance, even if they were being honoured, which they tend not to be.

  The question that we should all be asking, then, is not whether there should be a world government but rather what kind of union should it be? Should there be a world senate as well as a world parliament and a world court? Would a strengthened, democratic United Nations suffice, or is it better to start again?

  These are not new questions.

  It is not well known that many of them were asked and answered brilliantly some three hundred and forty years ago by the Eighteenth Century reformer John Amos Comenius in his posthumous masterpiece, Universal Reform, or Panorthosia.

  Aside from his accomplishments as a school principal, pedogogical theorist and language teacher, Comenius late in life became a peace negotiator during the war between Holland and England. He finished his masterpeace, Panorthosia, a comprehensive plan for world peace through both world and local government, on his deathbed. The only extant copy languished in an obscure library for centuries and was only fully translated into English in two volumes in the 1990's. As soon as I read it I was persuaded that here is the most insightful and appealing plan for a world government that I have ever come across. It should be studied carefully by anyone with aspirations to world citizenship. People Without Borders is largely my response to the possibilities opened up by the ideas in Universal Reform.

  Unlike the all-embracing, monolithic states that make up the United Nations today, Comenius envisioned institutions designed from the ground up as inherently localized and decentralized. Long before Lord Acton said that, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," Comenius understood that it is a very bad idea to invest power in individual leaders. This, he pointed out, is in accordance an admonition in the Sermon on the Mount to "call no man master." Corruption is an inevitable result of disobeying divine commands, not only to call nobody master but also to "seek and ye shall find," never to delegate one's own obligation to search and serve to anyone else.

  The closing chapters of Panorthosia recommend that the human race come together in an intercontinental constitutional conference. Organizers there would hand out to each delegate a condensed version of Panorthosia, as supplemental reading. The representatives there are elected or appointed from each continent; they in turn choose members of standing world institutions that will meet permanently in a world capital -- he suggested London. The global senate and parliaments are then regularly re-elected at this conference, which he suggested take place every ten years. Members of these international institutions, one for each continent and one for the whole world, are initially ratified by all levels of national governments, but once a world election is held this can stop, since their moral authority will rest in the hands of the people of Earth.

  This meeting to be held every decade is no ordinary conference with narrow, limited ends. It tasks experts and educators with choosing or devising international standards of all kinds, including a world language and common weights and measures. Today, of course, we would also include climate change and wildlife conservation among its areas of regulation. Educators at the conference would also devise a world curriculum, which would encourage diversity while removing the artificial barriers of class and culture. An economic section would also seek to eliminate the gap between rich and poor.

  I should note here that the comprehensive approach of Panorthosia has already had an influence on the evolution of the United Nations. This was recognized when passages from Panorthosia were translated into English for the first time in the commemorative volume published at the formation of UNESCO in the 1950's. After almost three centuries, his advice that Panorthosia be used as conference material at a world convention was finally taken.

  The distinctive feature of Comenius's proposal is in my opinion a stroke of genius every bit as revolutionary for the realm of human governance as anything that Copernicus, Darwin or Einstein did for their specialties. Rather than a single world body, the global constitution should institute a three chambered parliament, in accordance with the "call no man master" principle. The three parliaments address each of the three main concerns of human life, enlightenment, ethics and peace.

  One chamber he called the "college of light;" its members are charged with the reform of science and education. The second parliament, the "holy consistory," acts as a parliament of religions. Its job is to remove the plagues of fundamentalism and interfaith conflict. A third parliament, a "dicastery of peace," addresses the basic purpose of politics, laying the groundwork for peace on earth.

  "These will serve as three universal antidotes to the plagues which have afflicted us in the past... For the college of light will purify the light of understanding ... The holy consistory with intent to maintain the zeal for piety will salt ... against elements of moral corruption (such as impiety and hypocrisy). Lastly, the dicastery of peace will keep the whole political world in order, so that no power either succumbs in face of danger to its possessions or degenerates into tyranny by destroying the possessions of others." (Panorthosia, Chapter 25, p. 142)

  This in a Comenian democracy all three houses are independent and equal, yet cooperative one with the others. As the "call no man master" principle demands, each body is independently elected and funded. Constitutional stipulations protect the balance among them and legal protections keep one from lording it over the others.

  We are used to living under a monolithic state where politicians jealously guard their own bailiwick, and where power is all but absolute. To us, that is what government means. It is all but impossible to picture anything different. The absolutist state with centrally empowered leaders makes certain that politics will dominate and, if it chooses, subjugate science, economics, education, the arts, and every other important expression of human nature. The state either sets one religion over all others, or ignores ethics and matters of faith completely.

  A Comenian government would be the reverse of this. Every voter is enfranchised not with one vote but at least three. Instead of a monolithic state government, all levels of government, from family to neighbourhood right on up, use the three chambered model. Each is affiliated with the others in a sort of franchise system dividing power among three semi-independent institutions.

  Why three?

  We all are called upon in our lives to balance three basic expressions of humanity. Each of us has a relationship with nature and the physical world. Each of us is enlightened by a philosophy of life, science and education. Therefore, each of us is a member of the College of Light.

  Second, we have have a relationship to God, and seek our own place in eternity and infinity. That is, we all in some way participate in expressions of religion or art. As such, we are members of the Consistory of Holiness.

  Third, each of us relates our fellow man. Every human being has the object of establishing peace, reciprocity and political harmony in the world. This qualifies us as card carrying members of the Dicastery of Peace.

  Our triple human responsibility should be expressed in our service to all institutions we come into contact with, especially the family, neigbourhood and the workplace. As a result, the narrow democratic principle of "one man one vote" becomes instead, "one person, three votes." Every government at every level of society, from the global right down to the family and the individual, somehow expresses each of these three pursuits.

  As mentioned, John Amos Comenius, was no dreamer of an imagined tripartite perfection. He embodied all three qualities that he sought to introduce into governance. He was an experienced peace negotiator, a renowned educational reformer, one of the founding fathers of the Royal Society, and a leader in his religious community, the Moravian Brotherhood.

  Just as Comenius himself in his long career somehow straddled all three of the great potential sources of human progress, politics, science and religion, the government he designed calls upon us, upon each world citizen, to attempt a similar challenge. Panorthosia goes into great detail about how each of us should seek to unite science, religion and politics in our life. Only by taking on the ambitious goal of becoming a Renaissance Man, only by having amateurs work alongside specialists, will governance strike a happy balance between the needs of both individual and society.

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