High-Temperature Electrolysis

This got a mention a few days back and here's an article with a lot more information on the how of the technique. The nub of the matter is that the high temperature offsets some of the electrical energy need for electrolysis. As such, as the article points out, it need not be a nuclear power plant producing it. I wonder whether geysers produce hot enough water?

Green Car Congress: Milestone for H2 Production by High-Temperature Electrolysis

Storyteller's World: The Trouble with Evangelism

I like the guy who is referenced here; he tells stories, he's into linux and he says sensible things as well as having one of the best 'about me' profiles I've seen [quote from Lark's Rise to Candleford' I think]. ANYWAY, he has commented on evangelism quite helpfully and I have commented back...
I'm with you on this Tony -and I'm from the evangelical end of the spectrum. Did you read 'Anyone for Alpha?' -good study of what Alpha was actually doing. While quite clearly it does help some to become Christians, it is much more an opportunity for those already Christian to explore things -perhaps it is the experience of meeting exploring Christians that helps people to come to faith?
Another area of Alpha's formula that I think deserves more attention is the meal aspect; I'm convinced that this is an important bonding and opening up occasion [let alone the sacramental resonances].
However, I am vexed even more about the whole thing of how we encourage evangelism. Mostly, for good reasons supported by heaps of evidence, we tend to be trying to use friendship connections. There are a couple of things about that that trouble me. First is the idea of 'using' friends isn't very ... well, friendly. Secondly it then leads to calls to befriend people, except that it isn't befriending because it's appearing to be friends while actually wanting to convert them; the entrprise of freindship is fatally undermined by the ulterior motive [and in any case aiming to make friends often doesn't work -frinedships are so often obliquitous: they happen on the way to something else, obliquely].
All of which may relate to the issue that the NT actually contains very little exhortation to evangelism as we know it ...
I think we're shooting ourselves in the foot.
Storyteller's World: The Trouble with Evangelism

Biofuels & UK Farming Future

This is one of those stories that need thinking about more than the first sight. First reaction -good for reducing global warnming. Second reaction; but how will it affect land use, food production etc given that there is no way that we can grow all the present fuel-oil consumption of the UK? Third and most serious thought of all: is this really 'saving' oil? Well I suppose it is but it will still involve using some mineral oil unless the biofuels are organiscally farmed. You see the thing we need to remember is that in effect if we are not eating organic, we are probably, to some degree, eating mineral oil. It goes like this non-organic farming using fertilisers and pesticides, these are derived on the whole from mineral oil [and rely on it for transport]. So biofuels are similarly likely to be a way of converting mineral oil into bio-oil by passing it throug chemical processes and the soil. Not such good news then. Has anyone told the UK government?



Planet Ark : Biofuels Seen Key to UK Farming Future

Stem cell succesfully treats paralysis

I can't work out how I've missed seeing this [published 27 November] -and sadly it come too late for Christopher Reeve- but it looks like they may have done it. "The woman could now walk unassisted, the scientists said" It's using umbilical cord stem cells so the ethical problems are considerably diminished and the article makes it sound relatively simple ... Let's hope so.
World Peace Herald

Rough Guide to a Better World

It's getting good reviews as a publication on how to be involved in development issues -even seen American sites give it good reviews. It's availabel to download free and the British government has produced it ...
Why? In their own words: "Public opinion research tell us that lots of people are concerned about poverty, but that they aren't sure what positive action they can take. Many in the UK also feel powerless in the face of the negative images and stories about the developing world carried by television and newspapers. We have worked with Rough Guides to publish Better World to encourage people to become actively engaged in fighting poverty. Better World explains the challenges, the Millennium Development Goals and highlights progress that has already been made."

DFID | News | Launch of Rough Guide to a Better World

Pupils face penalties for bad grammar

It's only a twinkle in the eye of Ken Boston who heads up the QCA but it could come to pass. I predict some interesting discussion about what constitues 'good' grammar etc since what is really meant is the grammar of a particular variety of English with a hegemonic history. How much regional and social variation will be allowable? Unless we're going to come clean and state that what we want is that English school students should become bidialectal in their own regional or social dialects and also in 'standard English'. It also means making the case for that. I think that case can be made: it's about being able to communicate in a world language across Britain and the world without our regionalism or whatever being misunderstood. If we can't teach our kids to learn foreign languages let's at least make sure that they can use a variety of English that stands a chance of being well understood by the billions of English speakers across the globe.

It's okay in Australia where Mr Boston comes from: the dialectal variation is quite small but in Britain we're quite rich in regional and social dialects, many of them really are the first/home dialect. The challenge is to help those kids that don't really care, care enough. I fear though that if it is not approached carefully this can become yet another alienating factor between some children and the school system.
EducationGuardian.co.uk | News crumb | Pupils face penalties for bad grammar

Turn yourself into a diamond

What? The short answer is the last paragraph of the article: "LifeGem of Chicago, Illinois, the book reveals, will take a few grains of your cremated remains, subject them to high pressure and temperature, and you will emerge from the process, 18 weeks later, as a sparkling one-carat diamond" -I seem to recall seeing that portrayed in an advert on TV recently, while I knew it was technically possible, I didn't realise that someone actually offered it as a service. Wonder how much it costs...

Anyway much fun to be had in this article suggesting all sorts of things to do before you die. You never know, perhaps some of them are a good idea. Some of them carry health warnings or at least 'be careful -don't attemtp this without a suitable adult to supervise'.
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Turn yourself into a diamond: tips from science on a good life, and death:

Britain was told full coup plan

Oh dear, oh dear. And the USA is implicated too ...
The Observer | Politics | Revealed: how Britain was told full coup plan

vitamins to improve criminals' behaviour?

I'm all for measures that improve society and rehabilitate criminals and if diet helps that's nice. Of course there are those who may dislike this:
"the approach is likely to be attacked by right-wing critics as allowing offenders to escape responsibility for their own crimes by blaming their diets."
But I think that the best that this will do is demonstrate that some people are not helped in their ability to make good choices by being poorly fed. I suspect that the situation would be like drinking alcohol; it has a deleterious effect on rationality and decision-making skills but there is still a degree of responsibility at two levels at least. One is the responsible to act to the best of ones ability even if capability is diminished -diminished is not the same as 'obliterated'. Another is that there may be a prior decision also; in other words, bad dietary choices are in effect choices to behave less well which would be somewhat analogous to drunk-driving issues, I suspect.
The Observer | UK News | Criminals to be fed vitamins to improve behaviour:

Sequester That Carbon Dioxide

Well I'm getting to the point where I think that perhaps any help against global warming is okay especially with peak oil meaning that we're going to have to reduce consumption anyway ... so here's the article.

"In the depleted South Liberty oil field near the town of Dayton, a University of Texas team successfully pumped 1,600 tons of carbon dioxide -- the principal greenhouse gas -- into the reservoirs of briny water more than 5,000 feet underground."Wired News: Sequester That Carbon Dioxide

£60 PC

Significant for several reasons: it's cheap and aimed at developing countries for educational pruposes. For that reason it's running linux and firefox. It can be run on sunlight or human muscle power. Hey, we could even take these to Greenbelt...
Linux PR: SolarPC Announces the $100 Personal Computer

Fusion Power from the Moon

I can't decide how seriously to take this. Downsides are that they can't actually do this yet and that no-one seems to have costed out the power used to get stuff to the moon and back again ... the figures are huge admittedly but I can't help feeling that this could act to distract people from doing what's necessary in our short term.





Moon gas may solve Earth's energy crisis

Artemis Project: Fusion Power from the Moon

Great composers scored on language

For me, as a linguist, this is fascinating, I'll certainly be keeping my eyes open for more on this kind of topic. It's like there are a few main roots to our knowing and creating and they provide templates and metaphors for most of what we do ...
"comparing the rhythm and melody of English classical music from composers such as Elgar, Holst and Vaughan Williams, with that of French composers including Debussy, Faur� and Roussel. 'The music differs in just the same way as the languages,' said Dr Patel. 'It is as if the music carries an imprint of the composer's language.'"
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Great composers scored on language:

What they really looked like

What did ancient Greek statues really look like? Here is one answer, courtesy of Michael at www.2blowhards.com via http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/arts_update.html

Quite garish really compared with the serene white marble we're used to contemplating -but somehow more likely. It makes you think about the effects of visual 'details' on our responses. Classical will never seem the same again to me now that I know that the plain vanilla wasn't really what the artist had in mind. Probably.

ClassiColor

Why USA's subsidies must go

Since the USA has a profound impact for good and ill on the rest of us it is worth checking out this article on the economic prospects and remedies for the current USA huge deficit [and this is a conservative administration? -Spends like socialists]. Anyway, the recommendations are:-
"First, abish the remainder of the $190bn (�100.4bn) in extra loans First, abolish the remainder of the $190bn (£100.4bn) in extra loans ludicrously awarded to farmers who are already subsidised up to the gills. Second, phase out the $3.9bn a year farmers get, equivalent to $230 an acre, to grow uneconomic cotton that could be grown more effectively in developing countries (thereby generating extra income for poor countries to buy international goods).

Third, rescind tax cuts for the rich. They are bad in themselves and don't do much to boost the economy since recipients are too well off to spend it. This could be accompanied by modest spending cuts and a start on taxing petrol to conserve a scarce resource."
Guardian Unlimited | Economic dispatch | Why the subsidies must go:

Ibn Warraq: Why I Am Not a Muslim

Just read this and reviewed it -definitely worth a read for any Christian thinking about reponses to Islam. There are other things we might want to reflect on specifically as Christians: the status of the Word of God and the word of God, revelation and human agency etc ... but read Kenneth Cragg for that!
Why I am Not a Muslim.

Convert or be damned

In the same vein as the last blog entry: another article on the same sort of topic, encouraging secularists to defundamentalise themselves before lecturing religious groups ....

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Convert or be damned:

New Humanists tolerate religion

A number of us who have worked 'religiously' in secular institutions have tended to find that secularism can be pretty hostile to religion. Some of it openly so, rarely passing up chances to score points. Some of it probabl;y most of it tacitly and for the most part unwittingly so: it is simply assumed that the way to approach things involves a 'neutral' and therefore non-religious starting-point. Of course there is no such thing as a neutral standpoint and such an agenda is bound to cut across some religious sensibilities at some point. Part of my battle has been to get secular authorities to recognise that they are not neutral and that their claims are paradigmatic with religious claims and that therefore the imposition of secular solutions is the same kind of imperialistic/chauvinistic approach that they [rightly] decry in religious or, say, Marxist proposals.

So it was good to come across this humanist article in which is said:
"To rerail the humanist agenda, a less adolescent approach by the carriers of the humanist tradition would help. Humanists who mostly read about the ills and evils of religion and other superstitions, need to be challenged to remember that there are decent folk among the religious, and that we need to work with them if we want to achieve our larger goal of a more just society. "
New Humanist November 2004:

Green chemistry

I didn't realise that so much progress had been made and note the causal factor: internalisationof costs -or, as the artcle has it, 'full cost accounting'. Also note the role of biomimicry.

green chemistry has gone from blackboard conjecture to a multimillion-dollar business in the past 15 years. "Chemical manufacturers are understanding that part of their costs — and therefore subtractions from their bottom line — are waste and environmental disposal," says Mary Ellen Weber of the Environmental Protection Agency.

USATODAY.com - Green chemistry takes root

Quotable

"'Speaking tongue in cheek, playing God is harder than it looks,' he said"

Worth reading the article too for a look at an attempt to mitigate human malfaisance in the envrinment.
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Restoring the Grand Canyon, Experimentally

Brit ingenuity -again

We do oursleves down but the British are actually pretty good at inventing things [prabably got something to do with high tolerance of eccentricity!]. Well here's some UK-based good news for anyone who likes the idea od flat-screen montiors and TV. A brit has invented a way of doing it very cheaply....
"'The manufacturing costs are so low because this falls within the scope of existing injection-moulding techniques. We are told that it will take about $500,000 to make a mould and that a dedicated machine to make these would cost around $6m. This compares with the $2.8bn that Samsung needs to spend every time it builds a new plant for Transflective LCD screens,' explained Travis."
UK prof pioneers new LCD screen system | The Register:

Why care about Software Patents?

This is an open letter from Linus Torvalds [originator of Linux] about the patenting issue with the European scene in view. In it you can see why it is an issue worth worrying about.
"At first sight, a patent appears to protect an inventor but the actual implications may be the opposite, dependent upon the field. Copyright serves software authors while patents potentially deprive them of their own independent creations. Copyright is fair because it is equally available to all. A software patent regime would establish the law of the strong, and ultimately create more injustice than justice."
No Software Patents!:

Blair, Bush and GW

It's reported as a slap down for Blair and for the environmental concerns he was seeking to promote. But I wonder whether it is so easy. REad this:

"The White House said last week that 'President Bush strongly opposes any treaty or policy that would cause the loss of a single American job'."
That's not a direct refutation is it? That's almost and invitation to be persuaded that provided jobs are not lost then it may be possible. Given the need to decentralise and localise, it is not hard to make the case that reducing GHG's should make jobs in the local economies. Perhaps what is needed are concrete examples of that?

href="http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=585076">News:

Other nations' humour

"Today they offered me more hours for less pay. I accepted before it got worse"
I hadn't really thought about this rather lugubrious side of the Spanish till I saw this... but then I got to thinking: I am not very up onpSpanish current affairs, such as how their economy is going so I may have missed a dimension to this. I guess it actually appealed to me because it's a bit like how I feel at the moment.

greens after Bush

This is a witty article assessing the way for USAmerican environmental movement to play things in the coming four years. Godd stuff we can all learn from. I particularly like this.

if you want people on your side, act like you're winning. Karl Rove gets this; it's why he had Bush doing victory laps through obviously blue states toward the end of 2000's squeaky-close election. Spiking trees and blocking roads can be incredibly effective as emergency measures to stop specific timber harvests, but as a primary strategy they are a mark, like all violence, of marginalization and helplessness -- of losing.



I got to thinking whether this applies more widely, like to Al Qaeda?

The last thing enviros need now is a bout of radicalism | By David Roberts | Grist Magazine | Soapbox | 22 Nov 2004

why biofuels aren't THE answer

A very useful George Monbiot article on why growing oil substitutes is at best a stop gap or minority pursuit -it's screw the world economy especially on the food front. [Someone once told me that to feed Britain's current fuel habit from biodiesel etc would require all the land area to be growing biofuels -sounds plausible fromthis article].



Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Fuel for nought

Green Car Congress: Renewable Natural Gas? The Discovery of Active Methane Biogenesis in Coalbeds

This is interesting, because if it's right, there's a way to make coal seams productive and old oil wells too ... or did I miss something? However, what is the impact on GHG's?



Green Car Congress: Renewable Natural Gas? The Discovery of Active Methane Biogenesis in Coalbeds

Cities Evolve

Jus thought that this link is worth bookmarking for its links to other interesting stuff about how cities evolve. For those of us interested in urbanism and spirituality as well as human corporateness it's a must, surely?
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: How Cities Evolve

replacing oil in NZ?

It seems that ways to produce hydrogen are proliferating at the oment; here's another...

STUFF : NATIONAL NEWS : ENVIRONMENT - STORY : New Zealand's leading news and information website

Integrated Solar Building

Interesting idea, integrating pVC's into building -but make sure you read the first comment too.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Integrated Solar Building

Integrated Solar Building

Interesting idea, integrating pVC's into building -but make sure you read the first comment too.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Integrated Solar Building

seriously fast electirc car

I just include this because I didn't know how fast they could go! That said it's not a commercial product yet ... or anywhere near.
Auto Express

Nearly but not quite Fairtrade

It's a sign of success I suppose that fairtrade is now getting its wannabes, including Kraft and Nestle. BUt be careful:
"Kraft is proposing to pay farmers who adhere to its ethical criteria a 20% premium on the price of green coffee beans on the open market, which this year was about 65 US cents (about 35p) a pound. The payment would be significantly less than the flat rate of $1.21 paid to farmers under the Fairtrade scheme."

Nearly but not quite. And the problem may be that the truly sustainable may have trade siphened away by the wannabes. However, I guess we should cheer [if only one or two out of three] that there is some progress.
Asked why Kraft is proposing to offer farmers substantially lower returns than the Fairtrade scheme offers, the US firm said: "We believe the majority of consumers are not willing to take the premium we would have to charge if we were to convert to the Fairtrade system."

Er, quite. or as one of the guys in the white hats said in the article:
"If people are not making enough to send their children to school they are not going to be preoccupied with long-term issues around damage to the environment."

Anyone say 'Ethics lite'?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Forget Maxwell House. Would you like a cup of Kenco Sustainable?:

Thinking genes

If you're looking for a brief intro to recent brain research and a quick outline of how it affects anthropology [Christian or otherwise] this article may help get you in the right vicininty. I think that the biggest issue is shown by this quote:
"although cultural influences on morals are strong, an important genetic element is also present. 'Much of what we think of as culturally learned or individually reasoned in moral judgment,' he said, 'may turn out to be driven primarily by evolutionary forces.'"
It's a challenge not only to Christians [though perhaps not as great as some might think] but to large sections of the social sciences too. Most social sciences have tended to think that biology stopped where culture started -or vice versa. It looks like the picture may be more complicated [and are we really surprised?]
It needn't be a problem to Christians [at least not those of us who don't take it that we're supposed to believe in creation taking 6x24hours]. If God creates/d through the mechanisms that the geological record shows [and I don't see this claim as, in principle, different to the idea that God created me through the mechanism of my parents' bodies and bringing me up], then we should expect that both the traces of that process should show up [just like we have the trace of our development in utero in the form of a navel] and that perhaps even, providentially, that process delivers at least some of the things into our human nature that God wants there ...

Now, I know that there are difficulties with that: what about the things that may be in our nature that God doesn't want there. That's another debate, perhaps; suffice to say that I am not sure that this question is as simple as it may first appear: I am not convinced for example, that aggression is necessarily wrong. Like sexual desire, it may be a matter of how it is dealt with and used. I note that Jesus acted aggressively on a few occasions ... or perhaps we should make a distinction between the polar opposites of aggressive and passive and the middle way of assertive? -Where the difference is in our choices about how to respect ourselves and others and how to make the best of the situation or not.

It seems to me that some of this brain science stuff is going to challenge us to think more carefully and fully about ethics, but it isn't going to challenge the fundamentals of there being right and wrong, and virtue and vice to discuss, think and pray about.

The idea that physical disgust may actually be the basis for moral feelings is not, in principle, diferent from the claim that our thinking is inevitably fashioned by our physical condition [eg Lakoff's "Metaphors we Live By" ] or by our social interaction with others. [Hobson, Peter. 2002. The Cradle of Thought. Exploring the Origins of Thinking. ]
Wired News: Clear Pictures of How We Think: These form the raw material, the clay, that God breathes life into and makes able to relate to him. Our priviledge and responsibility is to make these things the stuff of relating truly and lovingly to God and to our neighbour. How they got there is interesting and may even be enlightneing, but it doesn't take away from it.

The Commons Blog: Taxing Grocery Bags

Apparently San Francisco are considering doing an Eire; taxking plastic bgs. Now while the tax in Eire has done wonders for the countryside apparently no longer strewn with the things, it is worth thinking about the longer term and bigger picture. Helpful thoughts follow:

"The proposed grocery-bag tax singles out a select portion of the waste stream for special treatment, and may even have perverse environmental effects insofar as it discourages bulk shopping. A true user fee would not target consumer buying habits. Rather, it would require consumers to pay for disposing of the waste they actually generate. Allowing competition in waste management services would further promote more environmentally sound waste management insofar as it would give waste management companies to push recycling where it makes economic sense. In sum, moving toward greater market provision of waste disposal services would both create greater incentives for waste reduction and encourage innovation in waste management strategies. Such approaches are much more 'sensible' than taxing grocery bags."



The Commons Blog: Taxing Grocery Bags:

GMO's could power cars

Here's a quandary for some: a method for turning waste into fuel bilogoically. Snag is it GM yeat and fungi. I tned to feel this is a good case for GMO's. The whole thing could be a kind of compost for fuel idea and sound like it has a future. Here's how it works: 'Fungi make enzymes, chemicals that act like tiny scissors that can cut up complex strands of organic material,' said project leader Katy Reczey, of Budapest University. 'These enzymes are quite good at breaking down cellulose, but not good enough. We have improved on nature by splicing extra genes into fungi so they make even better enzymes.'



Spot the potnetial difficulty; what if those enzymes are good at breaking down other stuff and the organisms go wild? Do we have a fungal flesh-eater?



Guardian Unlimited | Life | Forget the tiger. Put some mushrooms in your tank

Software Patents Are Bad

I know that it seems remote but patenting software really is an issue that has importance. Here's a simple explanation of why
Software Patents Gone Bad

Ubuntu!

Got the CD on Friday and today I installed it on my laptop. There is now no M$ Windows on the laptop just a nice istall of Ubuntu linux. Lovely thing was that it recognised my wireless card straight up and used the net to download updates of the software. The CD's arrived free to me and I'm a happy bunny just now. Firefox is the default browser and Open Office.org is the default office software and there are a nice set of desk games with this lot too. So I'm happier still.

When I feel I've got to know this particular linux variety well enough on the laptop, I may well use it to replace the one I have on my main machine -though that's a bigger issue since it would mean making sure that all my important data is backed up just in case. The nice thing is that the software firm who produce this are Manx and so 'real' English is readily supported!

So further encouragement to you to consider going over to Linux, if you're sxared abit of losing Windows, then you can set up partitions on your harddisk so that you can leave M$ Windoze sitting there for use in panic-attacks but you can also have the Linux system there too and work from that to get used to it before giving Windows the chop.

If you're quick you might even get the Ubuntu CD's free ... there's an evaluation/live CD and then there's an installation disk. The 'live' disk is a set up only in RAM thing so that nothing is actually placed permanently on your harddrive. You can try things out on your system before installing even. How easy can they make it?

Ubuntu = 'humanity to others'

Way facts do matter in fiction

I know that the Da Vinci code is a work of fiction but it still irritates me that factually it is inaccurate where is 'purports' to be based irl. I guess some of that is that for me the sudden requirement to suspend even more disbelief is an aesthetic degradation. But then also, when it comes to stuff that people [a] don't know much about and [b] can'te easily check out for themselves (even if they have the energy) then the stakes get higher.

...Like this article seems to indicate: obsessive fans not knowing the boundaries between truth and fiction are causing damage. Now tell me that it doesn't matter: it's only fiction. AS the Mayor of the town affected says: "Some don't seem to realise that it's just a story".

Telegraph | News | Da Vinci code priest is dug up, hidden from 'rapacious' relic hunters

Effects of global warming

A bit of fun about something really quite serious ...


The Onion | Infograph

Natural beauty

Gotto admit; it's lovely.


Metanexus Institute

Propulsion Options

A very quick but helpful guided tour of the options for automotive travel and the basic pros and cons. A bookmarkable article.



Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Va-va voom - via solar power or chip fat

USA exit poll flaws

I think that this is an important article for us in interpreting what has apparently gone on in USAmerican politics lately. This is mainly because of the ambiguity of the 'moral values' question as Jim Wallis here explains quit lucidly and helpfully. It certainly reframes the way that people over here are talking about the thing. It looks like the Zogby poll really needs an airng in this context.

Oh and in the same issue of the Sojourners mailing there was this factoid:
115,000: Number of hits made by U.S. users on the Canadian immigration Web site the day after the U.S. election.
20,000: Usual number of hits per day.
From CNN.

Sojourners : SojoMail : Back Issues

Replacing 'I vow to Thee my COuntry'

I've always had trouble with the patriotic hymn 'I Vow to Thee my Country'; it doesn't address God and it seems to me that the implicit claims it makes for the nation state are idolatrous. So I' pleased to see a set of words that I can sign up to on the whole. Not sure if I want to sing 'socialists' in verse 3 and would prefer another word; 'patriots' would be an interesting choice. Thanks to Billy Bragg. If you want to catch a bit of the reasoning behind it read the article.

"The many not the few

We vow to build a country
Where all can live in health
Where no child need live in poverty
Where we will share our wealth

Where we fulfil the true potential
Of each and every one
And we achieve more together
Than we achieve alone

As democrats and socialists
We hold this to be true
From each by their ability
To everyone their due
We vow to build a country
Where none of us take heed
Of birth or disability
Of race or sex or creed

By the strength of our endeavour
We can build the world anew
And put the power in the hands of
The many not the few

For there is a simple principle
That no one shall displace
We are all alike in humankind
We are the human race"

Hydrogen-on-demand

This looks interesting. There are still some things I would like to know like the way that the main catalyst is produced and the environmental impacts of that and just how it would play out with regard to infrastructure issues ... a bit more info at GreenCar Congress blog



But it looks promising ...

Millennium Cell - Markets -Transportation

Google Scholar

Google Scholar Thanks to Aaron over at Radical Congruency for bringing this to our attention -since I'm using a Gmail account as a portable file depository for research, this looks like a useful complement. Just checked it out with a search. It seesm to give two kinds of reference: one is a direct link to and online article, the other is picking up citations and book references with the option of doing a search on that citation. The direct web links also have citation links. Looks useful.

USAmerica: disappearing from its own films

"American films used to be an advertisement for life in the states -- there was sophistication, depth, the allure of a cool, complex manner. Now most big studio films aren't interested in America, preferring to depict an invented, imagined world, or one filled with easily recognizable plot devices. 'Our movies no longer reflect our culture,' said a top studio executive "

It's hard not to feel a certain schadenfreud [sorry to my US readers]: Hollywood films have long exported USAmerican values and dreams and realities to the rest of the world. Now there is a biteback effect. The sheer realities of global reach and perceptions of USA by the growing non-USA consumers of filimic produce seem to be forcing a mythical USA on the films. My schadenfreud comes form that 'hoist by your own petard' thing but also a 'taste of your own medicine': Brits have long had to endure the reflection back to us of a mythical England and Scotland. Look at Bridget Jones, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and so on. It's interesting too that MacDonalds has been trying to redo its menus to suit those who find traditional USAmerican tastes are not really theirs ...

Cynical amusement episode over.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Honeymooners Recast for the 21st Century

Micro$oft dirty tricks?

IT's a dubious claim and these are scare tactics, but when you look at the figures for linux uptake in Asia [and add that to Brasil, India, some German Lander, some British corporates etc etc] you can see that they have some cause to be scared. But come on ...

Yahoo! News - Microsoft Warns Asian Governments of Linux Lawsuits

Nous sommes desoles que notre president soit un idiot

Memex 1.1 Tony Price alerted me to this and yes, the label really does say what the translation caption says. Wonderful!

training church leadership

I posted something a few days back that included a bit on training for ministry under the heading 'post academic training'. Well timely or what? Maggi [see header ref] and Jonny are now discussion how to train folk for emergin church leadership etc. Of course there is some appearance of disagreement but it does seem clear to me that there is both a need for church leadership that is theologically literate and also practically competant. CLearly too there is a perception that too much theology does not make connections with ministry. In actual fact these are cartoon positions. I'm married to someone currently being processed in a vicar factory. My reflection are in the earlier post though I would like to add a few things in the light of the current debate I've just referenced.

There is a trend in the training institutions for the CofE to try to develop skills of theological reflection; if I understand it aright the aim is to develop reflective practitioners of ministry. However there are countervailing forces, to some extent, in the form of the Church's ministry commissioners [ABM] who seem to have become fixated on more traditionally academic rigour. This wouldn't be so difficult an issue if this rigour could be applied n creative ways [and there is some good work being done on assesment related to creative and practical/vocational subjects]. However, man academics are reared scholastically in the old school and both harbour suspicion of stepping outside of what they know and also have not [yet!] developed the imaginitive purchase to 'see' how it might be done differently. All of which is not helped either by the cultural prejudices of our society which disparages non-traditional subjects, and this prejudice is often all to easily uncritically absorbed by academics cought up in the cut-throat business of defending their turf and prestige. So it is in the teeth of all this opposition and misunderstanding that we have to push forward the perfectly possible project of retrofitting training for ministry.

This is why I thinkit is important that we find helpful analogues o f what we are trying to do and I will say it again: the training of medics [including especially nurses, paramedics, physios etc]; the training of actors and artists; the training of post-compulsory teachers/lecturers all have academic rigour but a huge vocational and creative component. It can be done.

I reiterate too that I think that it is uefuyl for us to have in mind the idea of the 'scientist- practitioner'. This is a model that I uncovered while researching for my dissertation on Life Coaching and Spritual Direction in a paper on the professinalisation of life coaching. There's alot we can learn from reflection on this issue and perhaps when the dissertation is ready for publication you might read it [email me I hope to have pre-submission copy in the new year].

Let me quote a bit from this paper which I think is helpful in the debate.
Practitioners are trained within this framework to have a working understanding of the principles and methodology of research. This understanding then enable them to apply informed critical thought to the evaluation of their practice drawing on and being informed by the relevant academic literature to design and implement relevant evidence-based interventions evaluating client progress and adhering to relevant ethical practice.

Now it is not a direct analogy to ministry but there is enough to pursue, I think. The idea of enabling the application of 'informed critical thought' etc seeems fairly straightforward in thinking about pastoral care, leading worship, teaching the faith, developing and 'growing' people and facilitating mission. And in that sense 'evidence-based interventions' become understandable if we include in 'evidence' the data of biblical and theological reflection. 'Client progress' would be broadened to include 'church or project progress' or somesuch. Ethical consideration go almost without saying.

I still think that my suggestions earlier about the pattern of training could be a good way to develop this agenda, but I'm open to other ideas too.

What is encryption?

Techworld.com - What is encryption? Noddy guide to ciphers, codes and encryption and related stuff. Just in case you're interested.

Reality principle

Yahoo! Groups : AlasBabylon Messages : Message 5168 of 14950

Interesting mini essay on how restructuring economies needs to go -if it's not too late.

Review of The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin

Review of The Hydrogen Economy by Jeremy Rifkin

This is an informative review and helps to expand understanding of what is needed.

Hydrogen: Empowering the People

Hydrogen: Empowering the People Jeremy Rifkin's article on the prospects for a hydrogen economy. Note that it means doing things differently: it isn't a straight switch leaving everything the same as under the oil regime. But then, every technology has its socioculturally economic ramifications. In this case decentralised and bidirectional electricity generation.

The peak of petroleum production

The peak of petroleum production - the reason for the "War on Terror" A further p[ag on peak oil with lots of links so many hours of concerned reading potential here.

Equality and deference

EducationGuardian.co.uk | News crumb | Prince 'out of touch' with education, says Clarke: I stand and applaud Charles Clarke, education minister responding to revelatiosn that Prince Charles seems to think that certain of us have gianed ideas 'au dessus de nos gares' [reference to Terence Rattigan's play, French without Tears, in case you thought my command of French had seriously dwindled] "[Prince Charles's ] remarks drew a stinging response from Mr Clarke. 'We can't all be born to be king, but we can all have a position where we can really aspire for ourselves and for our families to do the very best they possibly can,' he said. 'I want to encourage that culture rather than the other way round.'
The education secretary criticised 'patronising and old fashioned' views that said people could not do certain things, saying that in Norfolk, where he is an MP, people used to be told they could not be better than farm labourers."

I feel strongly about this since I was given careers advice that saw my future as no better than shop work; simply because I was at a secondary modern school and came from a working/lower middle class family. Prince Charles is seriously in danger of losing the respect of those who are nominally his future subjects. I'm afraid that his remark that too many people think that they can do things they can't is [a] not largely true or there would be no market for life coaching, and there clearly is; [b] is applicable to the rpiviledged classes -British history is replete with people of the upper classes with all the advantages of education and training money can buy making complete asses of themselves; [c] as Charles Clarke points out, it is better to have a culture of possibility thinkers than a cowed population.

The prince appears to have overgeneralised a perception of one person by linking it to a particular ideological reflex of his borne of a priviledged upbringing that knows little of how it feels to know that you can do certain things but being denied the opportunities simply because of ancestry and social background. Grrrrrrrrr!

Arctic oil

ColumbiaChronicle.com - 2004-11-15 -

Noted a few days ago that the possibility that the arctic might become virtually ice free raises the potential that currently uneconomic oil reserves become available for exploitation. This article ponders the irony further.



Of course the questions about whether the artic ocean would really be so navigable is moot, but I suspect that won't stop a whole raft of people ignoring the environmental consequences and seeing it as a further pushing on of the date for peak oil ...

Political Rights and Terrorism

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Political Rights and Terrorism Tell you what this is intriguing. The idea that terrorism is rooted in economic disadvantage is intuitively plausible but it may not be the most fundamental cause.
it may be that political freedom is the most important common factor in terrorist behaviour growing. Intriguing is the apparent correlation of increasing violence to the intermediate state between dictatorship and democracy. It's worth checking out the comments section on this item too.

How others see us

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | A typical Briton: uptight but witty: "'Cleverness makes me think of British humour,' one American said. 'Clever is a word and concept that I think is particular to Britain.'"

I'd love to see how others comment on this; it's a favourite pastime of mine to compare national characters; so un-PC!

Welcome to Plenty Magazine

Welcome to Plenty Magazine New magazine in the USA -uestion is whether it'll be true to the mission or an agency of greenwashing?

Mission statement excerpt:

Partly because of unprecedented consumer demand, but also because of the inherent logic, businesses are rethinking their core processes. They are not simply trying to market themselves as green, but more and more forward-looking companies are becoming green by reinventing how they make things and by closely examining the resources they use.

vegetarians save theworld!

America's Debate > Peak Oil: Just for your consideration ...
"* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate meat-centered diet: 13 years
* Length of time world's petroleum reserves would last (with current technologies) if all human beings ate vegetarian diet: 260 years"

come on: you know it makes sense.

everyday effects of peak oil

IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog This article briefly outlines the non-obvious effects of rising oil costs as a result of 'oil interdependency': suburbia, retail outlets, food, material manufacture ... worth looking at.



Worth looking at this quote:

peak oil is a problem which will come at the most in the next 10-20 years, and at the least, in the next 2-4. This problems is very real, and will have very real consequences, whether we act to solve it or not. If we do act though, we have the opportunity to lessen the blow or even dodge it altogether.



And a food-miles factoid: 'In the U.S. for every 1 calorie of food in your refrigerator, it took 10 calories of oil energy to harvest, store, and get it there.'



and an energy factoid: 'In Germany in 2000, nearly 20 percent of electrical power use was due to "invisible drain" or standby circuits on TV's, VCR's, computers, and DVD players.'

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative: "'a cooperative effort by Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.' Initiated in 2003 by New York governor George Pataki, RGGI combines the efforts of nine states (New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont), along with representatives from Eastern Canadian Provinces Secretariat and the Province of New Brunswick, to develop a regional cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The program is set to be unveiled by April of 2005."

Arctic thaw could open vast oil and gas region

Reuters AlertNet - I was hoping to get some idea of how much oil and gas this would open up ince it would make some difference to price and therefore the marginal utitlity of extraction ... no sign here, though the official oil company response seems to be cautious; wait and see what the actual conditions are; worried about the effects of ice bergs. And how did is the arctic ocean anyway?

City Inundation study

Marginal Revolution: Intersting brief economic thought experiment about how people would depopulate a flooding city. It would be worth factoring in what is or isn't happening in Venice, since that is one example of the bleeding edge of inundation ... I'm also a bit disturbed by the slightly cavalier attitude to population density, but maybe I'm oversensititve?

How many Muslims become Christians

It's hard to believe these figures ... 'The Internet site aljazeera.net published an interview with Ahmad Al Qataani allegedly an important Islamic cleric who is suppposed to have said: “In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity." '

Now, a Google search show up Ummah.com with an apparent interview with the guy where the polemical intent seems to be to scare muslims into action against 'Christianisation', so hyperbole may well be the order of the day. Especially when we see the exact same conversation on another message board which seems to bespeak a planted message; as I say with polemical intent at arousing muslim action, most likely. Now it's supposed to have been on Aljazeera but I can't read Arabic so it's beyond me at source but it's still suspicious to see it reproduced as if apparently a real debate in two BB's. It is interesting to note that perhaps we really do need to check the figures and facts if we can because there is clearly a lot of mythmaking -as this page seems to illustrate [though it's provenance needs checking too -not one I'd be over happy at recommending but the figures look as if they check out]. I know that there are converts to Christianity from Islam and I know that they can't really speak out about it because of the sanction Islam gives for violence against those who do turn from Islam ... certainly worth remembering when Muslims high-profile converts to Islam: at least they have that freedom.

booklogging: Humane Christianity -Alan Bartlett

booklogging: Humane Christianity -Alan Bartlett This book deserves looking at [read the review to see why more fully]. It is a gentle, open and insightful advocacy of open evangelicalism an in today's religious world an important word in season.

Metaphors green and healthy

Whither the environmental movement? III | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine: "We think in metaphor. The conceptual frameworks that structure our reality are robust; if we are confronted with data that does not fit in them, it is the data that is discarded, not the framework." -Insight from a book called Philosophy in the Flesh ...
Of course we kind of knew this already but this was picked up in a plea to the green movements to change their way of communication. Stop giving facts, start creating metaphor and being aware how conservatives have employed language and metaphor to neutralise our concerns.

[I once discovered this when involved in a diocesan mini-conference on baptism reform. Our publicity fairly cleverly framed the issue in the words "principled baptism policy" -this clearly rattled the cage of at least one 'open baptism policy' priest who ddin't like th eimplication that he didn't have principles [and I could see his point though strongly disagrreing with him. Tecently, full-circle-wise, I have been in the presence of a priest calling himself a 'baptism slut' ...]

Anyway, I digress. A key point is this:
'The term "the environment" suggests that this is an area of life separate from other areas of life like the economy and jobs, or health, or foreign policy. By not linking it to everyday issues, it sounds like a separate category, and a luxury in difficult times.'

So a counter bid could look like this: 'Instead of the "environment," why don't we say we that ours is the movement for resource rights - air rights, water rights, land rights? Children have the right to breathe clean air; coastal fishing communities have the right to protect their waters from rapacious, destructive industries; all of us have the right to make decisions about resources we have no choice but to share.'

In fact the best manifesto, using this kind of idea, is towards the end of the article: 'What we need is a positive, forward-looking set of frames built around reducing the poisons in our communities, stimulating the next wave of technological progress, and getting creating a better, more modern, and yes, more stylish lifestyle with fewer resources. These are historical challenges and they call upon people's ingenuity and optimism rather than their guilt.'

Of course, in Britain, we are a little wary of this because it smacks of spin doctoring and the foibles of style over substance associated with the new Labour project. But I'm not convinced that this need be in the same league. This isn't just about presentation; there really is substance under the style and substance that needs to be communicated effectively.

PS. Clearly there are ramifications too for the way we present the gospel. Have we been too defined by the discourse that others impose on us? HAve we been able to readapt language which doesn't have negative connotations for others? Arguably the apostle Paul did this in reframing the gospel message several times in differnt circumstances for differnt audiences [compare Romans with Colossians, for example and read through the lastter half of the book of Acts].

And in this context I commend you to Justin Baeder's little project ' Grid::Blog::Gospel project' on reframing the gospel for our contemporaries [I'm thinking about it Justin -just haven't managed to get it all together yet].

Mordechai Vanunu interview

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Exclusive interview: Duncan Campbell meets Mordechai Vanunu This guy is an Anglican Christian recently released from a long sentence in Israel because he blew the whistle on what Israel was up to in the nuke weapons game. Interview here. He's currently living in St.George's cathedral, Jerusalem.

In prison his main motivation was survival. "I decided from the beginning that they could have my body in prison but my spirit, mind, brain, I would keep free, under my control; that would be my way out. I used my Christianity as my defence, my barrier." He would sing hymns to himself, he said. He was visited by a priest but there was a glass between them and they were only allowed to communicate by exchanging notes. After five years, he decided that he wanted to meet the priest in person or not at all. The meetings ended.

Tide power -Korea is doing it!

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Alternative Energy in Korea

This may turn out to be an important showcase: Britain could be self -sufficient in energy if we harnessed tadal flow ...

LED Light Bulbs coming soon

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: : "Advantages: ten times the life of incandescent bulbs, one-tenth the energy consumption (making them more efficient than compact fluorescent, too), less heat, and plastic bulbs that don't shatter when dropped. Disadvantages: three times the cost of incandescent bulbs... and still not yet available."

Green Car Congress

Green Car Congress a site worth bookmarking if you're interested in sustainable mobility.

DIY XGA Projector! - Giant Wall Display

Tom's Hardware Guide PCs & HowTo: Supersize Your TV for $300: Build Your Own XGA Projector! - Giant Wall Display
This is the kind of tip that hard-up altWorship groups and experimental chruches need .... how to build your own video projector. It ain't pretty but it works!

Personal mission statement

anamchairde: Wierd; for the first time ever, my blog on spirituality scored more hits, so far, today, than nouslife! I think that it is the latest posting... but can't work out what's so intriguing about it or why, alternatively, it's suddenly turned up in some search facilities ...

routine exercise of imagination

Fast Company | Fast Forward 2005: 67-70: Couldn't help wondering what Church would look like if we took this idea seriously. "one of the most intriguing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission is 'to find a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing, the exercise of imagination.' In every organization, bureaucratic or not, liberating imagination is at the core of competitive advantage. How to do so? The commission suggests: creating a team that regularly dishes up analysis from the perspective of the enemy, or in business terms, your toughest competitor; developing a set of telltale indicators to better predict an attack, perhaps a rival lining up a key supplier; having a management process to monitor and act on such signals; and ensuring that someone is held accountable for it all."

It fits in with my feeling that decision-making bodies in church could do with training in things like the Edward de Bono mind tools and where use of stuff like 'six thinking hats' was normal ...

Better batteries better prospects

Alternative Energy Blog - Alternative-Energy-News.com: Electric Vehicles: Mini the Electric Car of the Future? Just a few thoughts about current imporvements in battery tech and the prospects for electirc cars.

We're responsible for killing bushmeat

Yahoo! News - Finding No Fish, Ghanaians Turn to Bushmeat, Report Says: "subsidies of European fleets may be in part to blame. 'If it weren't for this financial support, these studies suggest, it wouldn't be worthwhile for EU fleets to head to West Africa,'" And let us make no mistake: it's our overstimulated demand for fish [and meat] that lies at the heart of this too. There's another report over at the National Geograpic site too.

City living's eco-merits

The Urban Archipelago, It's the Cities, Stupid., by The Editors of The Stranger (11/11/04): "as counterintuitive as it may seem to composting, recycling self-righteous suburbanites, living in dense urban areas is actually better for the environment. The population of New York City is larger than that of 39 states. But because dense apartment housing is more energy efficient, New York City uses less energy than any state. Conversely, suburban living--with its cars, highways, and single-family houses flanked by pesticide-soaked lawns--saps energy and devastates the ecosystem."



Interesting thoughts eh?

Dehumidification

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Dehumidification Apparently, dehumidification is power costly especially with air conditioning since a big chunk of air-con power actually goes on dehumidification ...

The Urban Archipelago

The Urban Archipelago, It's the Cities, Stupid., by The Editors of The Stranger (11/11/04)
It's important for us to understand the USA [maybe some over there will reciprocate the compliment?] so I include this article. Some of it gets ranty towards the end and most illiberal! However the idea that there is an urban/rural divide will be familiar enough to Brits.
I want to add a few things to beef up this perspective and hopethat this beef isn't BSE'd!
One is to cross reference with this article on whether the days of suburbia are numbered -as oil grows more expensive. How will that reshape the scene: will urbanity reshape attitudes or will the trraffic go the other way? Interesting social experiment, eh? Especially if, in the meantime, cities start becoming even more ecologically sound entities. It will also mean managing sprawl -but its do-able, especially as there's a cost case for it: "The state ought to set impact fees, and set them high. It's bad enough that we're letting a handful of short-sighted developers trash our region: We shouldn't have to pay for the privilege". Brits should hear this too: factor in the externalities and price becomes the tool of rational collective decision-making....
All of which nearly makes me excited enough to consider being an urban politician; and that's freaky ....

Reenvisaging the CofE? [2]

The rant I've title-reference-linked is the proverbial bucket of cold water to wake you up before I get onto the next reforms. It's referenced because I think that it is the foil against which institutional reform needs to be played. You are of course quite entitled to read this first!

Anyway on to the reforms. The is the 'post' section. You may want to look at the first posting in this mini-series and the next post (much delayed).

Post denominational Let's face it: it's hard to come up with any very good arguments to support denominationalism. The real glue holding a denomination together is finance and governance, not theological emphasis or even any great commitment to ecclesiology. So let's go with that. Don't worry about formal mergers, just free up the situations so that ministers/priests/pastors can serve flexibly across denominational boundaries. There are some practicalties involved but are they really so onerous? So why shouldn't I, as an ordained Anglican serve in a Baptist or Methodist Church? It might be helpful, why not take up two part-time pastorates one Anglican the other URC? And so on ... Probably someone is going to object; something about catholicity of orders? Excuse me; read again what I've said and think about the meaning of the word 'catholicity'.

Post academic training. I think that we have to recognise that ministry is not an academic activity and training people as if they were likely to go into research is a big mistake. Don't get me wrong: I think that having church leaders and the like who are able to deal with the issues, questions and challenges in a well-thought-out way is a Good Thing. However, I think that we need some other analogue than academic research as a root metaphor for ministerial training. The leading contenders, in my view, should be performance arts and medical practitioners. In both of these fields professional and academically rigorous training takes place. However, in both fields it is also allied strongly to praxis. There is a heavy empahsis on reflective learning. I choose these two analogues because part of the ministerial role is like medics: it involves seeing people, helping them to articulate what's up and then evolving appropriate responses in ways that help them to make progress and finding healing [cf cure of souls]. Some of the role is like a performer: the need to lead a group of people, live, through a journey of discovery and contact with the ineffable; the need to do so in an embodied way and to use all the physical and mental resources at your disposal to do so.

So I would like to develop the current mixed-mode training even further. In this development an even higher emphasis would be placed on the individual supervision so that the trainee minster's academic curriculum was set more fully by the experience of working ministerially. This means the trainer/tutor acts in a more 'coach' mode and need sto be theological astute as a practical/community theologian rather than a discarnated academic. Now I know that there's a cartoon in that but the big-bold drawing will suffice to get over the thrust of what I'm saying.

The interesting link up here is that the role of trainer/tutor/coach would be somewhat analogous to that of coach/bishop as I suggested in the previous posting on this and, of course, this suggests that episcope is a shared ministry.

Post-Parochial For the time being anyway, geographical situation is not such a strong determiner of social network. Many churches operate in effect as post paochial. eE need to find good mechanisms for working network 'parishes' as well as geographical. And in fact it makes little sense for the kind of parish boundariedness that has been used in the past to continue in certain areas. Either we need to be able to redraw them more easily or in some areas simply to pool sovereignty, or something like that. 'Post'in this case does not mean 'without' but 'supplemented by something else'.

In this connection I think that we should note an important development; the rise of network communities. The Northumbria Community, The Community of Aidan and Hilda, The Iona Community, and perhaps even Spring Harvest, Soul Survivor and Greenbelt all form significant nexuses of spiritual resourcing. I think that it may be that for many people allegiance to these 'dispersed communities' is greater than to the local church which serves more as a point of contact for things spiritual between dispersed comunity events and activities. If the local church ties in with these 'parachurches' then that's helpful to the 'punter'. Perhaps the nearest precedent I can come up with to this is the pre-Reformation Churhc in Britain where local churches, as I understand it, we effectively run by the various monastic organisations with a few exceptions where the leading priest was called a Rector because he had control rather than being appointed by a monastery. I wonder whether we could be heading in that direction, cross-denominationally? If so why not actually go with it?

Post-hierarchical This is partly about things like equalising stipends across the board but it is also about clearing out the informal elitism. I keep noticing that some people seem to be approached to do stuff seemingly because of their background rather than, necessarily ability. I'm not syaing they don't have ability, merely that sometimtes the combination of some ability plus having gone to the 'right' universities/schools/ dioceses/parishes seems to score over ability on its own. This shouldn't be the way it is in church, natural and understandable as it is, we should be past this, folks.

I commend the current Archbishop of York for chosing to serve his last years before retirement in a parish ministry [and the loss of pension that implies too]. I hope that we can move to a church where this isn't so unusual an idea because there is a genuine valuing of ministry rather than status. A bishop is a 'job'/'ministry', so is a deacon, and so, for that matter is being a Reader or a secretary.... its an endemic problem, history tells us. so can't we be serious about finding systemic ways to encourage it?

Personal mission statement

5 Top Tips to Upgrading Your Beliefs

A personal mission statemnt can be a really helpful exercise for uncovering what we really do value and for getting us to be serious about our sense of vocation. It could actually take quite a while and is the kind of exercise that could very usefully be undertaken with the 'supervision' of a spiritual coach or mentor. Or it could be doen in the way suggested here, perhaps this is how to start: simply give yourself two minutes to write down the first things that come to you.



It is also quite interesting then to do what the referenced page goes on to suggest: whether your beliefs support what you have written, or even what beliefs are actually suggested by what you have written. This may give plenty of grounds for reflection and discussion. There may need ot be some kind of dialogue between the two things and between your 'official' beliefs and what may turn out to be your actual if not 'owned' beliefs.



Some of those beliefs may be negative in the sense that they cut you off from Life, and so the third 'tip' comes into play. How are you going to deal with those beliefs. Indeed, how will you make sure that there are people and means of personal support if and where such things become matters of some anxiety, grieving or anger.



In place of smiling [though it's no bad exercise as set, actually] I would encourage looking to give thanks for at least 50 things each day [see the last blog entry on this blog].

You heard it here first

Fast Company | Fast Forward 2005: 28-32:
"Time Sovereignty. ... balance is bunk. So chattering about 'work-life' is, too. 'Time sovereignty' replaces the work-life buzzwords. The idea: It's not so much balance that employees are trying to achieve as it is the freedom to do either -- work or have a life -- when needed"

Fits in well with the ideology of hte self-actuating autonomous individual too. It's a myth, in Barthesian terms, but it's a central one to our culture at the moment. Let's see if it catches on.

Corporate chaplains

Fast Company | Fast Forward 2005: 25-27: In a series of 'predictions' for 2005 I found this one: "26. Corporate chaplains. As spirituality in the workplace grows, more companies will offer some kind of spiritual adviser for employees. "

It's about time the CofE really grasped this real change in the way things are going. In some ways bit so it have but I don't sense any real visionary motivation...

Bishop Tom's home is his castle

Telegraph | News | Bishop defends his castle against invaders
It's a funny article this; maybe it's the way the Torygraph writes it? Anyway I started reading it and was thinking something like: "it's all very well for him to defend spending large sums of money to keep him in comfort and prestigiousness when there's clergy being made redundant [who could I mean?] ..." But then the article, rather late on really, says this:
The Bishop points out that he lives in a relatively modest six-bedroom apartment within the building, which also houses the diocesan offices and sits in a park open to the public. He believes most of the money raised from its sale - probably in excess of £2 million - would have to be spent on relocating him and the other offices. Plans are being drawn up to improve the profitability of the castle, which hires out rooms for conferences, events and weddings, to meet much of the building's annual £100,000 maintenance costs.

So why not say so? The actual riposte is that it scarcely costs the church commissioners anything to keep becuase the Bishop only uses a small part of it, the diocesan offices use the rest and the hire of the building pays for the the rest. Only one thing; is that really the case? A few paragraphs later we are being told that it is costly. I have to say that if it comes to a contest between keeping a castle for a bishop to live in and paying for mission ... keep the castle, no - sorry, do the mission.

In the last paragraph Bish Tom says:
"The question is whether this house actually enhances the ministry of the bishop or impedes the ministry of the bishop. In my view, it enormously enhances the ministry of the bishop."
Okay, I think that we need to agree what counts as enhancing here. It has to be said that Bishop Auckland is not the most accessible place in the world which is a disadvantage for a diocesan office centre, and take that away and does it really make sense? It's hard not to think that all the wrong signals about power, prestige, out-of-touchness, misaligned priorities etc compared with gospel values of humility, service, focus on the glory of God etc. I have a lot of time for Bishop Tom, I just wonder whether in this case, understandably, he's just a little bit unhappy at the prospect of having to move.

Six Brilliant Megawatt Ideas

NRDC: OnEarth Magazine, Spring 2004 - various ideas for saving electricity: a system for improving air con efficiency; a home voltage regulator that save on power entering the home; better designed compact flourescent ligtbulbs [we're already benefitting from this]; a new way of getting DC leccy from AC; smarter standby devices; and a clever idea for cooler roofs in warmer climates.

looped hybrid housing

STEVEN HOLL ARCHITECTS|COMMERCIAL An interesting design for Beijing which would allow for energy re-use ....

Fair pay is fair play

Guardian Unlimited | Economic dispatch |: "The same directors who have been awarding each other huge double digit increases for years are not prepared to see their own workers earn more than a splutter above �4.85p an hour. That is not a lot of money."
Got a point. I've no quibble with people being able to enjoy the rewards of their labour or of their ideas or of their investments, but I do have a quibble with the gall of using unequal power to exploit some and over-compensate oneself. Such pay differentials offend natural justice; the only justification is that some people have the power to extract that money [because they are directors] and some people don't. It would be a fair question to ask who is puttting in the most effort.

Chinese generation game

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'My mother always wants to save money - I want to spend it': "Feng was 26 when she married (her husband, Lilian's dad, is an engineer and away working) and they had two children. Lilian was 29 when she married Richard and her parents are prepared for the possibility that she will have no children. In the future, says Lilian, every Chinese young person will be expected to support four to six oldies; she figures that they will have enough on their plates without children, too."

Hmmmm! Gives substance to the UN report predicting an aging global population.

Older fathers

Guardian Unlimited Money | News_ | Money worries delay fatherhood, says survey:
This is an important thing to note in terms of the big impact it could have on church life. Let's just tease out some possibilities on that. There's issues in the CofE related to Christening enquiries. My research shows that men are least likely to think that Christening in whatever form is something that they are wiling to publicly identify with and as their confidence grows with age I suspect that this could feed even more into the diminishing figures recently published. On the other hand, it is likely that they are going to be having children when mid-life is making them ask questions of meaning of life and which having children is likely to exacerbate. There may be opportunities though I think that pitching our response in terms of what kind of world we create for our children may be the most fruitful rather than an Alpha approach.

Also given new interest and entitlements to involvement in parenting it could be that the whole mother and toddler thing will look increasingly different.

Articulate, reasonably financially secure, wanting more involvement in their children's upbringing and perhaps less willing to let the mother's interest in spiritual things be the default position on matters pertaining to spirituality: that's the likely kind of way it looks. MAybe these guys are into midlife issues but do they really see anything in the churches or the lives of Christians around them that make them think that Christ has something helpful to speak into their lives? Remember these are people who may well also be used to various kinds of training stuff that has a vaguely spiritual link [usually new agey].

I may be running way ahead of the facts here, but I would be surprised if some of it didn't check out.

One thing though:
"'The concept of children knowing their grandparents could disappear within a couple of generations if those trends continue,' said Jason Wyer-Smith, of Virgin Money Life Insurance."
Seems to be an issue of not taking into account the bigger picture: when I do funerals for people who've died in old age they have often died in their late 70's or in their 80's or older. Their children are in their 50's and 60's; their grandchildren are teens or twenties or thirties, they often have great grandchildren. Life insurance people haven't been linking up their actuarials with this factoid!

Australian water crisis: preview for the west

BBC NEWS | World | Asia-Pacific | Australia in grip of water crisis:

It looks to me as if Australia is having to endure a foretaste of things to come for the developed world in thinking about water as a result of recent drought. For example in Sydney

"each resident was allowed to use up 150 litres per day, the equivalent of three 5-minute showers. He has warned that without significant rainfall Goulburn's supplies will reach a 'critical level' by July 2005. 'The goal would be for the community to fundamentally change the way it uses water,' Mr O'Rourke said."



So it could be too that Australis pioneers a differnet way with water and we can learn from it. Watch that space.

soya -from saviour to villain?.

The Observer | Food monthly | Originally hailed as wonderful, soya can be bad for your health. It looks like soya has a bigger downside than first thought. the most worrying thing is that is is a vitim of its own success and that success is making it a part of the global problem rather than the solution. It needn't be so but the way business works globally ....

Energy and the global future

A good if short article on where we're are globally up to in terms of energy. Sobering reading and without fuller discussion of things like whether hydrogen really is the answer.

"Practically, the energy crisis is soluble. But reaching the broad sunlit uplands will mean a drastic mental gear change for policy-makers and consumers alike."

Don't panic!

Dylan's lectionary blog:
In the light of what I blogged a few short hours ago about the end of the world as we know it, it was a word in season to read Dylan write: "
... in the face of human destruction. Don't panic about wars and rumors of wars. Don't panic when the sky itself shows troublesome portents."

It doesn't, of course, take away the need to think about such things and to try to take responsible action [for God will surely ask of us what we did knwing that things were as they were] but it does helpfully relativise it. The lamb wins by redemptive sovereignty not by might or naked power; at least that is the message of Revelation as I see it.

My post-apocalyptic picture includes taking a leaf out of the book of the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon churches in Britian; establishing colonies of justice and compassion and learning amidst the wars rumours of wars, grred and naked ambition around them ... My next issue is how do I prepare my children to prepare their children?

Gap and labour standards

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Gap pledges not to 'cut and run': For me the interesting thing here is that clearly promoting good labour practices as opposed to promoting cheap labour has clearly started to come of age:
"Gap had noticed some nations beginning to use higher labour standards as a way of selling themselves to companies for investment in factories located in export zones. He pointed to the example of Cambodia, which has an ILO (International Labour Office) monitoring system in place to try and guarantee higher working standards."
Which looks like good news to me. Read the article and see what you think.

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

A bit more info on wind turbines and the possible climatological effect. Iportant to know beofre the antis get a hold of it. Keep it in proportion folks:

"The “but” is the fact that wind farms would alter the climate, the “yes” is the paper's preliminary estimation that if wind power produced one-10th of today's energy, its climate-altering effects would be only one-fifth that of the carbon dioxide it would replace."

Fair trade outsourcing?

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Ethical Outsourcing There's an argument to be had here that gets beyond the "ousourcing bad -takes away our jobs and I can't understand them anyway" and "outsourcing=good -our customers get services cheaper" ....

LAnguage learning made as easy as it can be

coljac.net - How to Learn a LanguageBrits are bad; they expect everyone to learn English. If you feel guilty about this and feel that you should make the effort or if you have the sneaky [and true!] feeling that learning a language and being able to at least start to communicate with people in their own mother tongue is good, fun, and a way to make friends and influence people ... then this site is a good place to start. Sensible and without offering non-existant magic bullets.

Mandatory solar panels in Spain

Spain have taken the plunge to really drive forward solar power -if it should work anywehere you'd think Spain would be it eh? One interesting point of criticism:

"critics of the Government’s plans say that the installation of solar panels would increase construction costs by between €1,100 and €1,400 per dwelling."



Which is no doubt true but what is the truer equation -ie; how much does it save in power costs and how quickly do those savings pay for themselves? It's a bit like criticisning building regulations for stipulating that certain safety features should be mandatory in buildings; yes it costs more at the point of purchase, but that's not the point

An Open Letter to George Bush

ICTHUS: An Open Letter to George BushDefinitely worth reading. Just how I feel, and, oh, if only he would take it to heart!

The end of the world as we know it

As befits heading into a season characterised by reflection on death [Hallowe'en and Rememberance day gone and Advent to come],
I've been doing some very sobering reading lately which pretty much makes a lot of talk about emerging church, postmodernity, human interaction with technoogy etc etc look like arranging deckchairs on the Titanic or whistling in the dark at best. I knew that we were running out of oil. What I hadn't yet grasped was the implications of that. I had forgotten or failed to factor into my thinking just how much of what we routinely do is powered by oil: our agriculture relies on fertilisers and pesticides mmade from ... oil; our food is transproted huge distances by ... oil; much of what we by is made from plastics in whole or in part and plastics are mostly made from ...oil. Our constructions and even manufacture of energy alternatives is dependent on oil. Oil is woven into our lives in countless ways some signiificant, some trivial, alll eating away at a non-renewable resource whose production has just peaked or is about to. To catch a sense of where my sobering has come from read this:
"Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the 'crash' that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the 'soft landing' that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter"

I am contemplating how our preaching and worship can give a greater sense of urgency about the voluntary change alluded to above and to the removal of consumerism from our day to day thinking. One of the things that impressed me about the Nine O'Clock Service was the utter seriousness about this issue. And in all the developments in Alternative Worship and emerging church since then, we have not really recovered that strand -and it's about time we did.

Then there is the urgency of developing ways to commend and make possible the peace transitions that will be required. How can we create the preconditions and conditions for justice and peace for aocieoties where scarcity and the consequent heavy temptations to bullying violence are in the ascendant? Is peacemaking practical politics in a world of scarce energy?

Wired News: Patron Saint of the Nerds

Wired News: Patron Saint of the Nerds: I'm not into asking felow Christians who happen to have shuffled off this mortal coil for their prayers [I don't see any reason why they should be listening to me -especially if someone else were talking to them at the same time and in any case if they're outside of time the issues of co-ordinating their reality and my present place and time seem to go off the map of unknowing].. Anyway, I may not be into 'praying to saints' but I am interested in popular religious culture, so I was surprised that I'd never heard of this.
"A different version of the same story is told in New Orleans. Supposedly, the church of Our Lady of Guadeloupe received a big shipment of assorted saint statues. Only one didn't have a proper label on the case identifying the saint whose statue was contained within. But the crate did have an 'Expedite' label on it, so the locals decided that must be the saint's name.

A century and a half later, according to the story, they found out there was no saint called Expedite. However, a little research turned up the obscure St. Expeditus, whose status as a possible Armenian martyr gave the Expedite myth legitimacy."

Fatal protest inflames anti-nuclear issue

Guardian Unlimited | World dispatch | :

It's a commonplace on this blog that nuke power's a bad idea because of the security issues. And this incident shows how easy it would be for a hijack to take place and it also reminds us of the possible consequences of accidents -another factor; it's not only power station accidents or leaks that need to be factored in.



"Activists said the accident showed how difficult it was to guarantee the security of the cargo as it travelled along the nation's rail network.

'A train could hit something at any moment, and there's nothing that the SNCF nor the organisations which are meant to provide security can do about it,' the local Green leader, Serge Billon, said."

grAttitude

Good to be reminded of theimportance of gratitude and this practical article encourages us to cultivate it. There is much truth in the observation that gratitude fundamentally changes our outlook and has a knock-on effect into the rest of our life.



The artilce states: "Gratitude can never be solicited. It can only be freely given." and this is true. The parent's demand of the child to 'say thank you' often produces a grumpy verbally correct reply which is evidently not heart-felt and so not really an expression of thanks.



However, I did wonder whether there is a contradiction, or at best a paradox in this article and, indeed in exhortations to give thanks: it runs the risk of reproducing that child's response; an un-heart-felt appearance of gratitude. So perhaps it is that the third suggestion in this is sometimes the most important: "consider what you possess rather than what you lack. ". The childs formalisitc response is still driven by the fundamental focus on what they do not have or have been denied. The way out of the impasse of being albe to freely give thanks to order is probably to cultivate the habit of focusing on what we have or what there is that is good and on noticing our appreciation for those things and giving them expression. This creates a habit of mind which begins to be more aware of what there is to appreciate.



I think too that doing so makes us less prey to the blandishments of marketting and less controlled by the consumerist agenda. Gratitude is an act of resistance in a society intent on stirring up discontent in order to monetarise it by transforming discontent into desire for objects or services that are portrayed as fulfilling in themselves.



Eucharist, ='thanksgiving, is the central act of Christian corporate worship. It is also potentially life changing individually as we seek to make it a central feature of our thought life and so to shift our attitudes and perspectives.



The only quibble I really have with this article is that it doesn't note how 'hallowed be your name' in the Lord's prayer implicitly carries a payload of thanksgiving. God's name is hallowed as we recall God's blessings in common and saving grace.

enamore

creative hemp based clothing Clothing with conscience and a design cachet.

Fat Accompli

| Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine Never thought of this angle before; higher average weight of passengers means higher carbon emissions. Fat is an environmental issue! Presumably this applies not just to aircraft but to all transport, to some degree. Just that it'd be more pronounced in aircraft.

Post Romantic?

maggi dawnMAggi, to avoid more hate-comments is having a comment holiday on her blog; so I'm reflecting here on this post.

In it she says: "we compared the Romantic setting to the postmodern,"
Been thinking about that a bit since we spoke briefly at GreenBelt. I realised I knew a bit more than I knew in that I have studied bits in foreign languages [French mainly]. I was putting this together with the observation that a lot of contemporary cultural artefacts [ie film, TV etc] seem to exalt in something rather like bits in Falubert's Madame Bovary where Flaubert is both using a romantic style and then -as if he can't quite take it seriously- puts in some 'back down to earth' details. Very resonant with what I keep noticing in contemporary culture of late. So While I think that it is true that there is a good deal of Romantic reprise in pomo, I wonder whether we are seeing something else happening; the reprise to the post-Romantic reaction?

Deserves some further thought, not least to gather some instantiations of this 'post-Romantic' come-down.

The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Just a place-marker for this idea of trying to steer between technophobic and free-for-all approaches to the possibilities of human technological enhancement.

Clean Power Estimator

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Clean Power Estimator We could do with something like this in Britain....