Glaciers and the Future of Cities

If in fact glaciers are melting at faster and faster rates, i.e. faster than even the gloomiest forecasting scientists predicted, then maybe it is in fact likely that our oceans will at some point in the next couple of dozen to hundred or so years flood the low lying areas. We'll all be, at our coastal edges, Holland or New Orleans.

If this happens, however, and ocean rise will be due to glacial water that once was ice, that water will be fresh water, not salt water, pushing up that rise.

Based on other predictions, this may be happening as fresh water becomes in less and less supply, due to rapidly growing urbanization and suburbanization, which is swallowing up ecosystems and watersheds, while putting increasing human demand on fresh water supplies.

Which may mean that technologies which desalinate fresh water may also give birth to technologies which can pull the fresh water from glacial melt out of the oceans.

After all, fresh water in oceans is going to affect the balance of life there. The salt water ocean life isn't going to need the fresh water, but people will. And people won't need the extra water inundating our coastal areas. So maybe this is an opportunity in disguise. Imagine the industries that could grow up around pulling that fresh water out of the rising oceans, restore the salt-fresh water balance in the oceans,

However, if this scenario is at all feasible, what will be the power behind the mechanisms that can pull excess fresh water from oceans to restore salt-fresh water balance and make glacial melt from oceans available for human use?

Will it be fossil fuels? As this scenario unfolds, fossil fuels will become less and less viable due to increasing global warming and concerns about global warming, and due to less and less availability of fossil fuels due to Peak Oil.

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First Organic Distributor in US Gets Solar System

"Veritable Vegetable, a San Francisco-based company that has distributed organic produce since 1974, has just gotten an upgrade that will promote its sustainable agenda even further: it's had a 560-panel, 106 kilowatt solar electric system installed on top of its main warehouse in the city. And it's poised to help make one of the first green voices in the American business community even greener.



"Along with supplying a steady stream of renewable electricity, the solar system will have the added benefit of saving the company around $60,000 a year. Which means the system should pay for itself in 5 years, and supply free electricity for at least an additional 25—good news for Veritable's bottom line." Oldest Organic Produce Company in the US Gets a Solar-Powered Upgrade

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Car Sharing, Ride SharingZipCar, GoLocoMESH Wireless Networks, Congestion Pricing

TED Talks Robin Chase: Getting cars off the road and data into the skies - with Ad Hoc, Peer-to-Peer, Self-Configuring Wireless Networks, aka MESH

Robin Chase on Wired

ZipCar

GoLoco



Congestion Pricing

Congestion Pricing on Wikipedia

Ray LaHood - Conservative Republican from Peoria, HQ of Caterpillar, Embraces Racial Idea of Mileage Tax, Which Obama Nixes

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Renault-Nissan, "A Better Place" andNEC Tokin (Li-ion Car Battery Manufacturer)Partner for EV Cars, Infrastructure

A Better Place is an Israeli company building EV infrastructure
Project Better Place & Renault-Nissan to Electrify Israel ~
Head of Renault-Nissan Opens YouTube Video from AutoChannel January 2008:



Israeli car company A Better Place -
Dafna Berezovski, sales and marketing manager - May 2008:



Nissan and NEC to clean up electric car market with more powerful Li-ion cells - 2007



Israel Will Be First Country to Mass Market Electric Car - Target 2011
Anticipation of Decreasing Israeli Coal Use by 50%:



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Town Totnes, Reimagining Money, Social Finance

Founder of Odwallah with the Founder of Visa International:

Reimagining Money, writing by the Organizational Culture director at RSF Social Finance:

Transition Towns like Totnes, Devon, UK and Sebastopol, CA, US:

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Bank "Stress Tests";Private Equity Down 15-50%;Wall Street Journal Writer on "End of Wall Street As We Know It"

"Big investors like pension funds and endowments, licking their wounds from miserable returns last year, are bracing for more.

"In the next few weeks, private-equity firms -- which buy companies, take them private, restructure and resell them -- will report declines of 15% to 50% for the fourth quarter of 2008 amid the deep economic recession, analysts and investors say. Two big private-equity firms already have reported sizable declines in the value of their hard-to-price holdings.

"Those drops in turn will further batter the performance of public pension funds, foundations and endowments. These institutional investors had barreled into private-equity investing ..." Big Investors Face Deeper Losses As Private-Equity Shops Revalue Assets, Institutions Brace for Worst - Mar 2009

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"'I don't think there is a pass-fail on the stress test,'" a government official said. "'This stress test is not a test for who is insolvent or not.'"

"Rather, government officials say the tests will be used to gauge how much extra capital big banks might need as a buffer to continue lending through the economic downturn. The Treasury Department said Tuesday that it would invest an additional $100 billion and $200 billion into banks on top of the $250 billion it has already said it would put in.

"Lawmakers, analysts, and some bankers argue the banking system is worse off than many acknowledge. David Burg, a portfolio manager at Alpine Mutual Funds in Purchase N.Y., said a severe stress test could show that 98% of banks "need a lot more capital." Reviews, 'Stress Tests' May Reveal Deeper Bank Troubles - Feb 2009

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"Written by seasoned financial writer Dave Kansas, The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It makes sense of the madness, revealing how the crisis is affecting our financial lives and what steps we should take to inform and protect ourselves. This comprehensive, practical and accessible book delivers:

  * An inside look at the financial wizardry, easy money and overconfidence that drove the subprime crisis, credit crunch and market meltdown

  * An analysis of the New World Order—the banking behemoths, the government's role—and how it will affect Main Street

  * A look at what's safe: a rundown of which investments are protected and which aren't and how fund protection has changed

  * Individual investor strategies: stocks, bonds, retirement and real estate (and whether you should think seriously about 'the mattress') ...

"Dave Kansas is Editor at Large of FiLife.com, a new online personal finance joint venture between Dow Jones and IAC Corp. Prior to that, Kansas spent four years as editor of The Wall Street Journal's Money & Investing section and was editor in chief of TheStreet.com during its formative years, and he is the author of two previous books, The Wall Street Journal's Complete Money & Investing Guidebook and TheStreet.com Guide to Investing in the Internet Era. He and his wife, Monica, live in New York City." The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time--and How to Survive It (Paperback)

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When economy bottoms out, how will we know?

"... the economy always recovers. It runs in cycles, and economists are watching an array of statistics, some of them buried deep beneath the headlines, to spot the turning point. The Associated Press examined three markets — housing, jobs and stocks — and asked experts where things stand and how to know when they've hit bottom.

"None of them expects it to come anytime soon." When economy bottoms out, how will we know?

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