Earth


"Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents.
It was lent to you by your children."
  
                                                                --Kenyan proverb
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged
by
the way its animals are treated."
  
                                                                --Gandhi

Home
About us
Cultural Creatives
Being Peace
Nonviolence
Elections
Transforming World
Cost of war
Oil & war
Corporations & War
Bush Agenda
Doublespeak
Withdrawing Consent
News & Articles
Humor
Kudos
Inspirations
Woman's Womb
Earth
Sacred Feminine
Equality for All
Events
Stories
Expressions
Action Alerts
Album
Afghanistan
Palestine/Israel
Face of Iraq
Veterans & Troops
Links
Mailbox
Contact us

International Rivers
N etwork

Eco Sistemas

E Magazine

Earth Rainbow Network

ACTERRA: Action for
a Sustainable Earth

Green Belt Movement

Grist - Enviro News

Environmental
Defense

Apollo Alliance

Foundation for Global
Community

Tribe of Heart

Life After the Oil
Crash

Bioneers

National
Environmental Trust

Global Issues
Resource Center

Environmentalists
against War

Save a Barrel

California Wild

Eco Equity

EarthJustice

o.s. Earth
Global Simulations

Center for Biological
Diversity

 

* * * An Inconvenient Truth * * *

Terrific News!!!

In a historic move, the European Union has adopted a resolution calling for a ban on all trade in harp and hooded seal products. This is a crucial step toward achieving legislation that will save millions of seals from a horrible fate.

Humane Society of the United States


March 2007.
The car of tomorrow is here today

August - September 2006.
Saving the Last Frontier - Douglas and Kristine Tompkins fight to save the wilds of Chile and Argentina despite local opposition
Hear a real story about an artificial tail - Japanese sculptor to speak in San Francisco of labor of love
WATER SIGNS - Miniature rock glaciers. Drying meadows. Warming lakes. High-elevation studies try to predict the impact of climate change.
Greenland's ice cap is melting at a frighteningly fast rate

January - March 2006.
Sun's next 11-year cycle could be 50 pct stronger
Intense sun cycle likely
A Warming World: The Difference a Degree Makes

October - December 2005.
Daring rescue of whale off Farallones. Humpback nuzzled her saviors in thanks after they untangled her from crab lines, diver says
Diane Wilson, Texas shrimper, turns outlaw over chemical plant pollution
The Big Scoop Series #6: OIL - The Global Addiction Killing Our Planet

July - September 2005.
Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai and Son of Executed Nigerian Activist Ken Wiwa Discuss Oil and the Environment
Global cooling - Seven steps you can take to fight warming of planet
Paris Tilton -- Squirrel with what animal rescuers suspect was a near-fatal dose of pesticide
U.S. must learn to think the unthinkable -- Storm damage shouldn't have been a surprise
Toxic Soup: The Deadly Floodwaters of New Orleans
"Katrina's Real Name is Global Warming"
Arctic Oil / THE LAST REFUGE - Caribou migration, drilling plan symbolic of battle between oil and environment
A sheltered life? Harsh reality at pounds - Workers offer pointers on how animals' tragedy could be averted
Good grief, Snuppy
Greenpeace: A Tiny Fish in Mighty Big Trouble -- Take Action!

January - June 2005.
World Environment Day - UNEP
Stray Dog in Kenya Saves Abandoned Baby  -  Follow-up
Nicholas Wilson: The Judi Bari Bombing Revisited
Nick Parker/Karl Beitel: Monsanto's Big Deal
On the Right Track - New Republican leaders emerging in battle against climate change
Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow
A Warm Unwelcome - Seabirds suffer as climate change unravels North Sea food web

October - December 2004.
Germany shines a beam on the future of energy - Nation gambles on amped-up push for renewable power
Road to hydrogen cars may not be so clean - Environmental peril in making, containing fuel
Vegan Shopping: Making a list, checking it twice -- no cashmere sweaters, no silk ties, no leather jackets -- but lotsa style
Wangari Maathai: Trees for Democracy
Organic home for the free-range
Anuradha Mittal: Hunger in America
Bill Moyers: On Receiving Harvard Medical School's Global Environment Citizen Award
Fighting for the future of food - Deborah Koons Garcia's film documents how genetically engineered foods slipped into our supply
Glenn Scherer: The Godly Must Be Crazy - Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment
Tempting trash foils wild condor breeding effort - Filled with bottle caps and metal, chicks die in nest

July - September 2004.
Plans to drill Wyoming forest for gas on hold - Environmentalists, politicians, ranchers unite for wilderness
Rusting museum of our attempted suicide survives in the desert
Fight to keep Kenya's wildlife off dinner tables
UCSF animal research called top 'lawbreaker' - 51 federal citations
Imperiled mammal threatened by U.S. plan for Okinawa base
         More information at EarthJustice
Unbridled compassion - Pam Berg to receive award for saving horses
Where did all the pelicans go? - Birds abandon chicks, eggs at refuge
U.S. to open more forests to logging - New rule to reverse Clinton decision
What's bugging the whales? Concerns over naval sonar raised

A woman watches a pod of about 200 melon-headed whales swim in tight circles, obviously in distress, Hanalei Bay, Hawaii. Photo:Dennis Fujimoto

April - June 2004.
S.F. Zoo elephants ready to retire to one of two U.S. sanctuaries
Smart dog does more than just sit and fetch - Rico has scientists asking if canines can reason like tots
Organic Food Fight - Outcry over rule changes that allow more pesticides, hormones
Earth takes a dark slide: Less sun reaching land
Recycling Plutonium: How the EPA Plans to Disburse Toxic Waste from the Lowry Landfill to the Sewage System and into CO Farmlands DemocracyNow!
The High Price of Cheap Food
FBI to pay $2 million in Earth First suit - Activists were arrested, called eco-terrorists after bomb exploded in their car
Hybrid buyers are waiting in the wings - Environmentally conscious line up to buy most fuel-efficient cars
Activists denounce research on animals - Cops stop shovel protest above UC's underground labs
Mill Valley's Mother Goose
Without a genetic fix, the banana may be history

January - March 2004.
Toxic America - Tracking the hazardous chemicals that seep stealthily into our bodies
Shelter sued by animals' friends - County accused of untimely killing of dogs and cats
Willliam G. Myers III is Hostile to the Environment
Marybeth Holleman: The Lingering Lessons of the Exxon Valdez Spill
Percy Schmeiser - David to Monsanto's Goliath
Healthy sea lion heads to freedom - Chippy released
Miraculous Messages from Water
Carol Browner: Safe wetlands, safe water
Pentagon-sponsored climate report sparks hullabaloo in Europe
Ted Glick: Global Warming
New kind of mad cow disease - 2nd form may cause illness in humans
Scientists focus on global warming at Seattle conclave
Foie gras flap spreads -- bill would ban duck dish
Hydrogen-fueled cars won't hit highways soon, panel says
What does it mean to eschew all animal products? Three animal rights ideologues on their moment of conversion
Central Park Zoo's gay penguins ignite debate
Bush bench choice irks environmentalists
Hunt is on for polar bear mate
Ruth Rosen: In praise of open space
Take Action! Limit destruction caused by mountaintop removal mining
Dire warming warning for Earth's species - 25% could vanish by 2050

2003     

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The car of tomorrow is here today

Spencer Quong
March 21, 2007

This is the car the automakers refuse to make.

Five years ago, the auto industry was issued a challenge. That was when California passed a law requiring the industry to reduce global-warming pollution from its cars and trucks. Since then, 10 other states have adopted that standard. Together, these 11 states represent one-third of the U.S. auto market. Instead of rising to this challenge, the automakers filed lawsuits in California and two other states to kill the standard -- even though they have the technology today to surpass it.

Before joining the staff of the Union of Concerned Scientists, I worked as a consultant for the major automakers, so I know first-hand that they can do better. Working with other UCS vehicle experts, I recently designed a "virtual" vehicle that combines a number of pollution-cutting technologies under one hood. Our blueprint, which we call the Vanguard, is not a hybrid. It doesn't use fuel cells. It merely puts together conventional off-the-shelf technologies that can already be found piecemeal in more than 100 vehicles on the road today. Installing these technologies in everything from two-seaters to SUVs could cut their global-warming pollution by as much as 40 percent. Adopting the Vanguard "package" in California alone would be the equivalent of taking 19 million of today's vehicles off the road.

Not only would the Vanguard package help save the planet, it would save Americans millions of dollars annually. The minivan package, for example, would pay for itself in less than two years and deliver $1,333 in savings over the vehicle's lifetime. From 2009, when the standard is supposed to take effect, to 2030, California drivers would save $2.6 billion.

OK, that all sounds almost too good to be true, but what would it be like to drive? Not to worry. The Vanguard would be just as fast, safe and reliable as today's vehicles. In fact, the Vanguard package actually would give you a smoother ride than the car you're driving today.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's a look at some of the key features of this cleaner car:

Transmission: The Vanguard has a six-speed automatic-manual transmission that delivers a smoother ride and allows the engine to operate at top efficiency. There's no clutch: You switch gears by simply pushing a button on your dashboard. If you don't want manual control, the car will do the shifting for you.

Engine: Cylinder deactivation will give you muscle only when you need it, saving you money and cutting pollution. If you're cruising down the highway with no passengers, two of the six cylinders will shut down seamlessly. When you lean on the gas, go up a hill, or load your car with six kids headed to soccer practice, the extra cylinders will kick back on.

Electrical system: Electric power steering will let you change direction with an electric motor instead of a hydraulic pump, providing faster, more responsive steering and consuming less energy.

Ethanol: Building cars that can use as much as 85 percent ethanol from plants would help cut global-warming pollution. Corn ethanol can cut pollution 10 to 30 percent compared to gasoline, while cellulosic ethanol from switchgrass, wood chips and other materials would cut pollution by as much as 90 percent. As more gas stations offer ethanol, you will be able to fill your car with homegrown, clean, renewable fuel.

Aerodynamics: The Vanguard is streamlined to use less energy fighting air resistance. In some models, the updated design would provide more space for passengers and storage.

Air conditioning: The Vanguard's cooling system would keep the planet cool, too. Tighter hoses and cleaner refrigerants would keep global-warming pollution out of the atmosphere, while more efficient air compressors wouldn't tax the engine as much.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hear a real story about an artificial tail
Japanese sculptor to speak in San Francisco of labor of love

Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Coming to San Francisco from Japan tonight is a touching tale about a tail.

A bottlenose dolphin named Fuji caught a mysterious disease that cost her 75 percent of her tailfin, a tragedy akin to a boat losing most of its propeller.

The Okinawa aquarium where she lives cured the disease but couldn't replace her tail. So it called upon the world's biggest rubber and tire firm, Bridgestone, to make an artificial one.

Bridgestone's tires may be very good, but the fake tail didn't work.

The Okinawa Chiraumi Aquarium then turned to an Osaka sculptor who crafts acrylic dolphins. Could he help make a tail for the dolphin named after Japan's most famous mountain?

Kazuhiko Yakushiji felt he owed his happiness to dolphins. He said yes and worked three years. This past July, the new tail was done.

Fuji could not only swim again, she could jump out of the water.

"Fuji couldn't swim," the artist said in an interview Monday as he recalled meeting the dolphin for the first time. "She seemed really depressed. I thought Fuji might die if nothing was done."

The problem was that Bridgestone had made a generic dolphin tail, said Yakushiji, who at age 38 is one year older than Fuji.

"Each dolphin is different," said Yakushiji, who will give a talk with illustrations tonight in San Francisco, the first time he's told his story outside Japan.

"I found out that Fuji and her family have a special curve in their tail," said Yakushiji, who had studied dolphins at Florida's Dolphin Research Center. Together, he and Bridgestone crafted a rubber-composite prosthetic fin with the proper curve for Fuji.

Yakushiji's devotion to dolphins began a decade ago, when he was running a small energy firm inherited from his father.

"My heart and soul were exhausted," he said. He went away for a swim-with-dolphins excursion at Ogasawara islands.

"I met a wild dolphin, and that changed my entire life," he said.

At first, he had been too tired to jump in with the other swimmers, but he finally took the plunge alone on the other side of the boat. The life-altering dolphin swam up and played with him.

"That dolphin completely healed me," he said. The encounter moved him to quit his job and realize his life's wish to become an artist.

Dolphins became a dominant theme. "I wanted to show my gratitude," he said.

San Francisco Chronicle

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Global cooling

Seven steps you can take to fight warming of planet

Jonathan Curiel, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, September 18, 2005


Within days of Hurricane Katrina, it erupted into a national debate. Conservatives. Liberals. Radicals. Moderates. All of them (including Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken) were talking about a subject that usually ranks low in the media food chain (behind Iraq and Martha Stewart) but that now was on everyone's minds: global warming. Was it in any way to blame for the ferociousness of the weather system that devastated New Orleans?

Scientists disagree about whether there was a connection (was Katrina more intense, for example, because of Gulf of Mexico waters heated by global warming?).

Regardless, the tragedy has forced many people to rethink the threat -- and to ask how to combat a silent scourge that, like a slow-motion Godzilla, threatens to destabilize everything in its path.

Until now, global warming has been an abstraction to most Americans. Yes, the polar ice caps are melting. Yes, ocean waters are heating up. Yes, species of birds are altering their migration and breeding patterns because of climate changes.

But such shifts are undetectable to the average person. In a poll for ABC News in July, 66 percent of those responding said global warming will not affect their lives.

A year earlier, a Gallup survey found that nearly half of Americans worried "only a little" or "not at all" about global warming or "the greenhouse effect."

These views have consequences. The United States accounts for 4 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its energy use.

Disproportionately, Americans are adding to the problem of global warming, and disproportionately, Americans are blase about combating it. While 81 percent of Britons say their country should adhere to the Kyoto Protocol, which sets limits on greenhouse gas emissions, only 42 percent of Americans support Kyoto, according to Gallup.

"The difference is night and day," says Camille Parmesan, a professor of ecology, behavior and conservation at the University of Texas at Austin.

"Talking to people (in Europe) who are labor workers, taxi drivers, whatever, everyone knows that global warming is happening, and it's due to humans causing changes in the atmosphere. When I give public lectures in the United States, even when the audience is supposedly educated -- not necessarily scientists but medical doctors and businesspeople -- they still believe that global warming is being debated in scientific circles and that there's no agreement as to what's happening or why."

Residents of the Bay Area may congratulate themselves for being more environmentally savvy than their fellow citizens.

Yet it's always been easier to sport a bumper sticker or sign an online petition or critique the Bush administration's lackadaisical environmental record than to make individual sacrifices that could make a tiny but tangible difference.

Hurricane Katrina, the experts say, could be a catalyst that changes Americans' viewpoints about the effects of environmental degradation -- and helps change private behavior as well.

What's not in doubt: Global warming is being exacerbated by carbon dioxide emissions spewed by cars, airplanes and factories. If Americans want to minimize it, the biggest thing they can do is cut back on the gas they use for transportation.

This can be difficult in an America where convenience, time pressures and other burdens encourage wasteful habits. Still, experts say, changing even one habit can be beneficial not just for the environment but for the pocketbook.

What follows are seven measures that nearly any adult can use to combat global warming. Some readers may already have made these changes.

Two-thirds of readers who responded to a query from the paper's Two Cents pool said they already were taking steps to neutralize global warming. One even lambasted Al Gore as a hypocrite for not flying on airlines that use soybean oil as fuel. Soybean fuel? That's another measure for serious consideration.

1. Ditch the SUV. Ditch any car, in fact, that doesn't get at least 30 miles to the gallon. "The biggest single step we can take to cut our global warming emissions -- both nationally and individually -- is to drive a vehicle that goes farther on a gallon of gas," says Brendan Bell, associate Washington representative for the Sierra Club's Global Warming & Energy Program.

"Every gallon of gas that we burn in our cars and trucks creates 28 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution. That's 19 pounds directly from the tail pipe and 9 pounds from refining and transporting the fuel around and all that.

"So, driving a Toyota Prius over the lifetime of the vehicle is going to create 32 tons of global warming pollution. But if you drive, say, an average sedan like a Chevy Malibu, you're going to create 83 tons of global warming emissions. If you drive something like a Chevy Suburban, you're creating 134 tons of carbon dioxide pollution. Better fuel economy can make significant reductions in how much global warming gases you're creating personally. If you're not driving at all, you're not creating any emissions."

2. Buy local, local, local. Purchasing food and other items made locally means buying products that have used less gas to be taken to stores. "The major sources of emissions in this country are transportation and electricity production," says Bell. "If you're eating locally grown food, there's less transportation involved in taking that food to you."

3. Use a clothesline, not a dryer, which needs gobs of electricity to do its job correctly. "In Europe, no one has dryers," Parmesan says. "They wash their clothes, and they hang them on a line. Even the wealthiest people do this. They turn to me and they say, 'Why do you guys dry your clothes in a dryer? This is ridiculous. What's the matter with the sun?' "

4. At home, wear sweaters during the winter, shorts in the summer. Heating and air conditioning are unnecessary when you dress appropriately indoors, says Parmesan. It can mean the difference between a $100 electricity bill and a $50 one. "I say (to people), 'How about being a little more uncomfortable in your house -- having it be a bit cool in the winter and a bit warm in the summer? And dressing accordingly so you can adjust to that?' " Parmesan says.

5. Install solar paneling. Although expensive at first, solar paneling saves money (and energy) in the long term -- to the point that consumers can actually make dollars by selling their excess energy to the city in which they live. Consumers with solar paneling still have their regular electricity lines that are connected to their city's power grid, so sunless stretches don't mean being cut off from electricity.

"My wife and I put (solar panels) on our roof and that generates some, though not all, of our power," says William Schlesinger, dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences. Installing a solar-panel system can cost more than $20,000, but it can save hundreds of dollars a month, which adds up to that same $20,000 within a short time period.

"It's not that expensive anymore to put solar panels all over your house roof," says Parmesan. "It's not better advertised because it's not something that's a corporate interest, so people don't think of it as much as perhaps they should."

6. Change your lightbulbs. Switching regular bulbs with compact fluorescent lights uses a quarter of the electricity of regular bulbs -- and fluorescents last 10 times longer than regular bulbs, according to the Sierra Club.

7. Be a newshound, follow the issues, vote for those who'll make a difference, and hang out with others who feel the same way you do. It's one thing to think about global warming, another to coordinate with others about electing people who'll make a difference at a local, state or national level.

The Internet has groups built around connecting people who want to befriend other environmentally conscious people: Call them global warming clubs. At meetup.com, for example, people from Oakland, Petaluma and Santa Rosa have posts saying they want to meet others who are passionate about combating global warming.

These seven suggestions aren't exhaustive. Planting a tree in a garden (trees cut down on carbon dioxide) or buying an energy-efficient washer could be just as important. This isn't to say that saving the environment is a snap. Some of the experts interviewed admitted that they struggle with keeping their own advice.

"A lot of universities in Europe don't have air conditioning, which personally I find quite uncomfortable," says Parmesan.

"But I was really scoffed at when I complained one time in Montpellier (France, where she worked briefly), in the middle of the summertime, when it was 95 degrees. I was told, 'You soft American. What's the matter with being a little hot?' Energy is more expensive there. ...

"I do run air conditioning in the summertime in Texas, I have to admit. I try to keep it warmer, though. I try to keep it around 82 (degrees) rather than 65. I dress very lightly in the summertime, and I drink a lot of iced tea. It's fine, but I have to admit that I can't completely go without (air conditioning)."

So, there you go. It's easier said than done, even for those who know the science of a problem that's only getting worse as time moves on.

--------------------------------------------------------------
1 Ditch any car that doesn't get at least 30 miles to the gallon.

2 Buy local. It reduces the amount of gas used to transport products.

3 Use a clothesline, not a dryer.

4 At home, wear sweaters during the winter, shorts in the summer.

5 Install solar paneling.

6 Switch to fluorescent light bulbs.

7 Follow the issues, and vote.

E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.

San Francisco Chronicle

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

U.S. must learn to think the unthinkable

Storm damage shouldn't have been a surprise

Eamonn Kelly
Sunday, September 11, 2005

Nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf Coast, we remain haunted by the images of hungry, homeless and ill Americans in scenes of abandonment and helplessness. The word that still comes to mind is "unbelievable."

Yet, both the magnitude of the damage caused by the catastrophe and the extent to which it came as a surprise are entirely predictable. The real failure is that we still have not learned first to think the unthinkable and then believe it.

The catchphrase "thinking about the unthinkable" isn't new. It originated in 1962 with a book by that title from the pioneering futurist Herman Kahn. Kahn broke new intellectual ground when he argued that the United States needed to systematically imagine a future after the unthinkable -- nuclear war -- and then prepare for survival.

Just as we learned to think the unthinkable about nuclear war, especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we now need to face up to the new realities of today's challenges -- whether they're natural disasters like Katrina and the Asian tsunami or terrorist attacks like Sept. 11 and the London bombings.

But as we've learned again and again, it is painfully difficult for human beings to think this way. Cognitive bias distorts our ability to prepare for and respond to events of the magnitude that struck New Orleans. For instance, President Bush said three days after the hurricane hit, "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," when planners, academics, government officials and journalists had been predicting that exact scenario for about four decades.

As everyone now knows, countless hours were spent developing scenarios, writing articles and creating disaster-response plans about what might happen in New Orleans, but it seems that not enough people in government were able to believe the unthinkable enough to take sufficient action to prepare.

Of course, there are always tradeoffs to manage, and it's easy to be wise about events in hindsight, but we need to move beyond such blind spots. This is especially critical because three mutually reinforcing factors are significantly raising the stakes of our continuing inability to believe the unthinkable.

Infrastructure: The nation's infrastructure has reached the breaking point, most vividly demonstrated by the breakdown of New Orleans' 350-mile-long network of levees, canals and pumps. New Orleans represents, in fact, an infrastructural tipping point.

All over the country, highways, airports, schools, railroads, ports and hospitals are suffering from growing usage, inadequate investment and natural aging. One-third of all bridges in the United States are dilapidated or too weak to bear traffic. As the 2003 blackout on the East Coast demonstrated, the nation's electric grid is outdated and vulnerable.

This year, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's infrastructure a grade of D and estimated that $1.6 trillion needs to be spent over the next five years to fix the most serious problems.

Our failure to invest in adequate infrastructure is symptomatic of our inability to believe the unthinkable about the aftermath of a major infrastructure collapse. The levee breaches could have been prevented with $18 billion in repairs to the New Orleans system before the hurricane, according to Army Corps of Engineers. It will now cost an estimated $100 billion to rebuild a shattered region.

Historically, Americans are much better at creating infrastructure than maintaining it. We hate to pay higher taxes to cover maintenance even if they are the best way to share the burden of such beneficial public goods.

And we're finding it increasingly disruptive and expensive to fix systems that are in use. For instance, rebuilding the eastern span of the Bay Bridge is now $5 billion over initial estimates and four years behind schedule.

It's critical that we be realistic about the need for adequate funding for investments in infrastructure and maintenance -- an essential and appropriate role for government to play -- while also moving beyond pork-barrel politics in distributing these scarce resources. We don't need more roads to nowhere in Alaska. We do need public investments that will save our lives and defend our lifestyles.

The environment: Nature is extraordinarily powerful and volatile, and despite our technological advances, is still largely unpredictable. But we know with great certainty that there will always be natural disasters. If people build their houses on a 100-year flood plain, eventually their houses will be flooded. If we live in earthquake country, eventually the big one will hit. We know these risks, yet we still can't seem to prepare adequately.

We also know that natural disasters will most likely grow worse because of humans' impact on the Earth's environment and climate. The evidence suggests we need to temper our hubris. The planet does not belong to us; we belong to it.

Demography: Over the last century, the world's population has nearly quadrupled to 6.5 billion people. By 2050, the number will reach about 9 billion. More than 80 percent of Americans and more than 50 percent of the world's population now live in cities. Many of these cities are in coastal areas, further increasing the risk of destruction from natural disasters like hurricanes, tsunamis and flooding.

We know that the dangers are increasing, simply because of where the world's growing population is settling, but still we fail to believe the unthinkable about the consequences of our choices.

Over the centuries in New Orleans, residents increasingly settled in historic flood-plains below sea level, which the original settlers of the city avoided. Tragically but predictably these residents included the very poorest, who were least able to escape when the time came.

Because the levee system protecting these low-lying areas was built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane, planners had repeatedly called for strengthening it to withstand even worse catastrophes. But over the course of several decades, insufficient investment was made to prevent a breach when the inevitable worst case occurred.

Then when disaster struck, emergency planning appears to have been woefully inadequate. Local emergency officials and police battled looting and managed disaster relief for days without significant federal assistance.

There seems to have been an inability to believe in and prepare for an unthinkable scenario in which a heavily populated coastal city must be entirely evacuated, its residents not able to return for months because of widespread flood damage.

We are now all aware of the need to do better. However, we must resist the obvious temptation to centralize responsibility, for example, by appointing a czar of natural disaster. Certainly, we need shared plans, good communication and real co-ordination, but we desperately need the capability to make strong, decentralized decisions. San Francisco learned this lesson after the 1989 earthquake when it instituted a decentralized response system for national disasters that will be coordinated by neighborhood.

When we don't invest in believing the unthinkable, even when these unthinkable events are inevitable, we're bound to be surprised by the consequences. The likelihood of a large terrorist attack from al Qaeda on established targets like the World Trade Center was well understood, yet the Sept. 11 attack took most Americans by surprise. The only real surprises are that it did not come earlier and that it has not been followed up with a meaningful second strike inside the United States.

We do not need to be as creative as sci-fi writer Michael Crichton or films like "The Day After Tomorrow" to imagine the future's disasters and do what is necessary to prepare for the inevitable.

We can learn to think the unthinkable. It requires a systematic suspension of disbelief about what's possible and a thorough examination of worst-case scenarios. It demands we acknowledge we have cognitive biases that tell us "it won't happen here," or that history is a reasonable guide to the future. And it requires us to think imaginatively about new ways to mitigate the risks we identify.

We already know that our ability to believe the unthinkable can produce results. Low-lying Maldives built an entirely new island to save its other islands from rising sea levels due to global warming. The new island largely escaped damage during last year's tsunami.

What is the next unthinkable event we should be imagining?

Scientists know that the world is overdue for a major event like the 1918 flu pandemic, which probably killed as many as 50 million people. We know that it is just a matter of time before today's widening avian flu outbreak becomes a full-blown global epidemic that could kill as many as 50 million people, according to the World Health Organization.

But governments, businesses and individuals are not prepared. They are not ready for the day when all air travel comes to a halt, when cities are quarantined, when life as we know it ceases. What strategies should governments develop now, what contingencies should businesses put in place and how will we all manage with our lives? Not doing something now about the coming avian flu epidemic is simply irresponsible.

After Hurricane Katrina, it's too easy to play the blame game and point fingers at missed opportunities and failed policies. What's hard is correcting the failure of imagination that led to these outcomes.

Perhaps this latest disaster will serve as a wake-up call for Americans to once again learn to think the unthinkable, and then to plan for that day. It could very well be our climactic Sept. 11.

Eamonn Kelly is CEO of Global Business Network (www.gbn.com), a consulting firm in Emeryville. He is the author of the forthcoming book, "Powerful Times: Rising to the Challenge of Our Uncertain World." Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

San Francisco Chronicle

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A sheltered life? Harsh reality at pounds

Workers offer pointers on how animals' tragedy could be averted

Eileen Mitchell, Special to The Chronicle
Saturday, August 20, 2005


It's not for the faint of heart, this book. But "One at a Time: A Week in an American Animal Shelter" addresses a subject that people need to know about: the harsh realities of dogs and cats who are surrendered to shelters or wind up there as strays. These are realities that most people either aren't aware of or simply choose to ignore.

Until I read this book, I was among those who had no idea of the shocking statistics: 6 million to 8 million animals enter shelters each year. Nationally, only 20 percent of dogs and cats in homes are adopted from animal shelters. Only 1 animal in 3 has a home that lasts their entire lifetime. Less than 2 percent of stray cats are reunited with their guardians. Every 9 seconds one animal is euthanized.

Count to nine. There, an animal is dead. Count again. There, another dead. And it's all the more heartbreaking because it's so preventable, say co- authors and former shelter workers Marilee Geyer and Diane Leigh. They spent one week in a typical shelter in Northern California and randomly selected 75 animals to photograph and profile. They also documented each animal's final destiny. In a phone interview, I asked why they had left their shelter jobs to write such a difficult book.

"We wanted to put faces on these statistics so people understand that these aren't just numbers, but beautiful, precious, unique beings," Leigh said. "Each animal has a life, a history. If we can make it more personal, it has more power and more impact."

"I worked in shelters for nearly a decade and was almost destroyed when I left," Geyer revealed. "For me, this book was born out of the incredible grief and sadness that shelter workers go through. I channeled that sadness into something educational and to pay tribute to the millions of animals that we'll never see."

Both Geyer and Leigh believe that change begins with facing the truth, no matter how hard that may be. Indeed, this book induced a plethora of emotion in me, ranging from amazement to tenderness to tears. But mostly, I felt anger. Anger at the indifference, selfishness and lackadaisical attitudes of people who invite animals into their homes, then relinquish them with nary a thought.

Like the woman who refused to pay a $20 reclaim fee when Kelly, her older golden husky mix, slipped out of the yard. She figured Kelly, whom she claimed was "a great dog," would get out again, so she surrendered her for adoption. Was safeguarding the yard ever a consideration? Kelly wasn't adopted, a dilemma often faced by older pets, and was euthanized.

Then there was the person who surrendered Pearl and her newborn kittens, citing on the release form, "unable to care for them." Why wasn't Pearl spayed to begin with? Pearl was euthanized.

Someone else dumped Kelli, a terrified little terrier mix, on a busy highway. Another dog euthanized.

Then there were Duke and Lady, active blue tick coon hounds who had been tethered to their doghouses for their entire lives. A concerned neighbor finally called the shelter, and the dogs were confiscated after the guardian refused to correct their inadequate conditions.

Some people give more thought to their pizza-topping selections than they do in deciding to get a pet. Are they prepared for the changes that will take place when they invite a pet into their lives, such as vet bills and new feeding and exercise schedules? Have they considered potential allergy problems? Will other household pets be compatible with this new addition? If the prospective guardians are renters, how stable are their living arrangements?

"Each (shelter) animal's situation could have been prevented," Leigh said. "It's hard for people to wrap their minds around. They understand how adopting saves lives, but it's a little more indirect to see how prevention helps as well." She's referring to constant themes in the book, which address the need for spaying, neutering and pet identification. Also cited is the sorry fact that 96 percent of dogs surrendered to shelters were given no training by their guardians.

"These are lifesaving acts, but it's hard for people to understand because prevention is more intangible and indirect," she said. "We want to help people realize that it's not just about saving animals once they get into the shelter, but saving them from entering the shelter in the first place."

It was difficult to read about something I'd never heard of: "kennel stress," a condition to which even the most loving animals often succumb. Caused by noise, unfamiliar smells, fear, continual confinement and lack of human contact, kennel stress eventually results in irreversible emotional trauma. Some animals become depressed, lethargic and lose weight. Others become hyperactive and start exhibiting extreme behavior problems.

As Leigh and Geyer write, "Finding a new home for an animal is always a race against time: Shelter workers know they must get an animal out before kennel stress sets in. At the least, a depressed, withdrawn animal is less likely to be chosen by adopters. At worst, an animal that has become aggressive cannot be placed at all."

Even happy endings, which the book includes, involve "an invisible victim. " This is because a crowded shelter might have to euthanize one animal to save another.

"When I worked in the shelter I always wanted to show people how things play out," Leigh said.

That can be what eventually happens when they an animal they are wholly unprepared for. Or when they let their cat have a litter so their kids can witness "the miracle of life" while kittens are dying in shelters. Good people don't think they're contributing to this tragedy, but they don't understand how their actions affect their community shelter.

So "One at a Time" may not be a favorite among book clubs, and it's unlikely that the film rights will be purchased, with Meg Ryan starring as the bighearted shelter director who manages to save every Lassie and Winn-Dixie. Still, it's a book that animal lovers should read.

Because awareness creates change. And change might mean fewer dogs and cats dying.

No Voice Unheard is a nonprofit organization. Its Every Nine Seconds campaign asks people to log on to www.novoiceunheard.org and submit a photo of an animal that has touched their lives. In honor of that animal, the authors will donate a copy of their book, "One at a Time," to a designated shelter for use as an educational resource.

San Francisco Chronicle

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good grief, Snuppy

Jennifer Fearing
Wednesday, August 10, 2005


Amid all the fanfare and smiling portraits heralding the birth of Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, there is a dark and unsettling side to animal cloning that even the scientists involved readily admit, but which gets far less attention than it deserves.

Glossed over with language like "inefficiency" and "high failure rates," scientists roundly agree that animal cloning leaves a lot to be desired. Managing large numbers of animals over long periods of time to yield "success rates" of between 0.5 percent and 4 percent isn't anyone's idea of a good investment. At the low end of this range, this means that it can take more than 200 animals surgically impregnated to yield a single clone birth.

Along the way, in each of these grand experiments, these 200 animals are housed in laboratories and subjected to multiple invasive surgeries, to say nothing of the very few they actually give birth to -- clones whose lives are often short and painful.

According to their findings published in the journal Nature last week, the scientists involved in Snuppy's production surgically implanted 123 surrogate dogs with embryos that resulted in only three pregnancies, two deliveries and one puppy surviving the first month of life. The only other viable puppy succumbed to pneumonia at 22 days, after suffering respiratory distress throughout his short life in the laboratory.

And while some see animal cloning as an opportunity -- albeit grotesquely inefficient and arguably immoral -- to advance animal or human health, others are engaged in the effort strictly as a for-profit venture to reproduce people's pets. The wholly unregulated company that sold the cat Little Nicky as a clone for $50,000 in December is aggressively marketing its gene-banking services to veterinarians and to pet lovers across the country through direct mail and ambitious public-relations strategies. Despite having produced only a handful of cat clones and no dogs, this company, based in Sausalito, will happily take your $1,395 (plus $150 a year in storage fees) along with Fido's or Fluffy's DNA, on the off chance you can one day afford to pay the remaining $30,000 to order up your clone. All this while, millions of healthy and adoptable cats and dogs die every year only because there are not enough homes.

I'll admit to being especially fond of animals, but I don't know any pet lover who would willingly comply with a process that caused the pain and suffering of hundreds of animals to clone his or her favorite pet. Once people really understand that the odds are better than not that the clone will not act and possibly not even look like the animal they hope to replace, most are turned off. They're among more than 80 percent of the American public who are opposed to pet cloning, according to a poll commissioned by the American Anti- Vivisection Society. Those who fall for cloning's false promise are being misled, blinded by the grief of losing their beloved companion, or are more interested in vanity and novelty than they are in what it means to be a companion in the first place.

It is out of these concerns that we formed Californians Against Pet Cloning last year and introduced Assembly Bill 1428 to ban the retail sale of cloned and genetically modified pets. While the bill got held up in committee this session, we will continue to press policymakers to address the serious ethical, consumer protection and animal-welfare concerns that are raised by for-profit and trivial animal experimentation.

Don't be fooled by the cute photos. For every one of those kittens and puppies that they bring out into the light, there are hundreds more who suffered to make that photo op possible. The "promise" of pet cloning isn't humane -- to either the animals or the humans involved. It is a consumer fraud and an animal welfare atrocity.

Jennifer Fearing is president and CEO of Sacramento-based United Animal Nations, a national animal protection organization. More information about pet cloning can be found at www.nopetcloning.org.

San Francisco Chronicle

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Moyers: There is no tomorrow

Bill Moyers

Published January 30, 2005

One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

Remember James Watt, President Ronald Reagan's first secretary of the interior? My favorite online environmental journal, the ever-engaging Grist, reminded us recently of how James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back."

Beltway elites snickered. The press corps didn't know what he was talking about. But James Watt was serious. So were his compatriots out across the country. They are the people who believe the Bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index.

That's right -- the rapture index. Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the "Left Behind" series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious-right warrior Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans.

Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre (the British writer George Monbiot recently did a brilliant dissection of it and I am indebted to him for adding to my own understanding): Once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the antichrist will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon.

As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to Heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 -- just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of God will return, the righteous will enter Heaven and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist Glenn Scherer -- "The Road to Environmental Apocalypse." Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half the U.S. Congress before the recent election -- 231 legislators in total and more since the election -- are backed by the religious right.

Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. They include Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Conference Chair Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Policy Chair Jon Kyl of Arizona, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Whip Roy Blunt. The only Democrat to score 100 percent with the Christian coalition was Sen. Zell Miller of Georgia, who recently quoted from the biblical book of Amos on the Senate floor: "The days will come, sayeth the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land." He seemed to be relishing the thought.

And why not? There's a constituency for it. A 2002 Time-CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the book of Revelations are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks. Drive across the country with your radio tuned to the more than 1,600 Christian radio stations, or in the motel turn on some of the 250 Christian TV stations, and you can hear some of this end-time gospel. And you will come to understand why people under the spell of such potent prophecies cannot be expected, as Grist puts it, "to worry about the environment. Why care about the earth, when the droughts, floods, famine and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the rapture? And why care about converting from oil to solar when the same God who performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes can whip up a few billion barrels of light crude with a word?"

Because these people believe that until Christ does return, the Lord will provide. One of their texts is a high school history book, "America's Providential History." You'll find there these words: "The secular or socialist has a limited-resource mentality and views the world as a pie ... that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." However, "[t]he Christian knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's earth ... while many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

No wonder Karl Rove goes around the White House whistling that militant hymn, "Onward Christian Soldiers." He turned out millions of the foot soldiers on Nov. 2, including many who have made the apocalypse a powerful driving force in modern American politics.

It is hard for the journalist to report a story like this with any credibility. So let me put it on a personal level. I myself don't know how to be in this world without expecting a confident future and getting up every morning to do what I can to bring it about. So I have always been an optimist. Now, however, I think of my friend on Wall Street whom I once asked: "What do you think of the market?"I'm optimistic," he answered. "Then why do you look so worried?" And he answered: "Because I am not sure my optimism is justified."

I'm not, either. Once upon a time I agreed with Eric Chivian and the Center for Health and the Global Environment that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that -- it's just that I read the news and connect the dots.

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:

• That wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the government to judge beforehand whether actions might damage natural resources.

• That wants to relax pollution limits for ozone; eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport-utility vehicles and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment.

• That wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public.

• That wants to drop all its new-source review suits against polluting, coal-fired power plants and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies.

• That wants to open the Arctic [National] Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend $9 million -- $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council -- to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study.

I read all this in the news.

I read the news just last night and learned that the administration's friends at the International Policy Network, which is supported by Exxon Mobil and others of like mind, have issued a new report that climate change is "a myth, sea levels are not rising" [and] scientists who believe catastrophe is possible are "an embarrassment."

I not only read the news but the fine print of the recent appropriations bill passed by Congress, with the obscure (and obscene) riders attached to it: a clause removing all endangered species protections from pesticides; language prohibiting judicial review for a forest in Oregon; a waiver of environmental review for grazing permits on public lands; a rider pressed by developers to weaken protection for crucial habitats in California.

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer -- pictures of my grandchildren. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice?

What has happened to our moral imagination?

On the heath Lear asks Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" And Gloucester, who is blind, answers: "I see it feelingly.'"

I see it feelingly.

The news is not good these days. I can tell you, though, that as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free -- not only to feel but to fight for the future we want. And the will to fight is the antidote to despair, the cure for cynicism, and the answer to those faces looking back at me from those photographs on my desk. What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma -- the science of the heart ... the capacity to see, to feel and then to act as if the future depended on you.

Believe me, it does.

Bill Moyers was host until recently of the weekly public affairs series "NOW with Bill Moyers" on PBS. This article is adapted from AlterNet, where it first appeared. The text is taken from Moyers' remarks upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

 

© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

 

 

 

 

Slide Ranch

Biofuel

ALEC Watch

Mothers for Peace

Journey to Forever

Pacifica Radio

      K P F A
Free Speech Radio


~Watch on Real Player

Friends of the Earth

Space for Peace

Astronomy Picture
of the Day

Mexico Weather

"Until he extends his
circle of compassion
to include all living
things, man will not
himself find peace."

    --Albert Schweitzer


Vote to impeach
   Vote to impeach

 

All articles reprinted
under the Fair Use
doctrine of
international

copyright law
(
http://www4.law.
cornell.edu/uscode/
17/107.html
). All
copyrights belong to
original publisher.

 

 

 

 

 

Rusting museum of our attempted suicide survives in the desert

Jon Else
Sunday, August 22, 2004

An enormous Mosler bank vault sits abandoned and forgotten on the dry lake bed of Frenchman Flat, Nev. It is ugly and rusting, a big cookie jar from hell -- yet it now exists as one of America's greatest monuments to clear thinking.

That giant safe is a relic of an Atomic Energy Commission experiment in 1957 ("Response of Protective Vaults to Blast Loading"). Filled with stocks and bonds, cash and insurance policies, it confirmed that our official valuables, contracts and financial instruments could survive nuclear war. The test must have seemed like a good idea at the time, a masterpiece of steel-and- concrete realpolitik.

Safes had tested well, quite by accident, at Hiroshima in 1945, when four Mosler vaults in the ruined basement of the Teikoku Bank near ground zero were discovered with their contents miraculously intact. In fact, American troops entering Hiroshima some weeks after the bombing reported hundreds of small safes resting in the city's ashes.

All that remains of the vault's reinforced concrete "bank building," specially constructed for the test, are a few shards of blasted concrete and a tangle of rusting, arm-thick steel reinforcing rod, swept back like so many cat's whiskers in the wind.

Just before dawn on June 24, 1957, a 37-kiloton fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, was suspended from a helium balloon about half a mile from where the big safe stands. In the path of Priscilla's shock wave, the Atomic Energy Commission had built its own tiny city.

Priscilla rocked that mini-civilization at the Southern Nevada test site with twice the explosive force of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Its flash - - far brighter than the sun -- was reflected back off the moon. Soldiers covering their eyes in trenches 2 miles away claim they could see the bones in their hands.

Domed shelters of 2-inch-thick aluminum alloy were flattened like so many soda-pop cans stamped flat on a job site. The shock wave hammered reinforced concrete shelters, industrial buildings, cars in an underground parking garage, community shelters, a railroad trestle, a 55-ton diesel locomotive, parked airplanes, and a manmade pine forest rooted in concrete on the desert floor.

Anesthetized Cheshire pigs in little protective suits were roasted alive in Priscilla's thermal pulse. We'll never know for sure, but Priscilla's heat must have instantly incinerated unsuspecting ravens in mid-flight. Later that morning, the fallout cloud drifted eastward, where in the months to come, it mingled with residual radioactive products from other atmospheric tests and eventually dispersed around the globe. Today, anyone in the world born after 1957 carries in his or her bones at least a few atoms of Strontium-90 fallout from Priscilla.

On that June day 47 years ago, at about the moment that human self- extinction first became a possibility, many policy-makers already believed all- out nuclear war with the Soviets was inevitable. In fact, some of those planning the Priscilla shot, assumedly curious to discover whether stock and insurance certificates could survive it, must have known that full-scale nuclear war held the potential to end all life on Earth.

In 1957, hardly a decade after the atomic bomb had been but an exotic laboratory device, it was already a commodity. Priscilla was just one of 6,744 nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile. The Soviets had 660.

At Frenchman Flat, we rehearsed our failed attempt at global suicide. It would have been a grand, charismatic gesture, spectacular pornography -- the human species going out with a great bang, nothing dreary and plodding like AIDS or global climate change. It would have been visible throughout the solar system. But, as Priscilla illustrated, our valuables, safely locked away, would have survived us.

The Nevada Test Site, a particularly desolate thousand square miles of the Great Basin, was chosen in 1951 for our nuclear tests partly because it's ringed by low mountains, naturally shielded from the prying eyes of the outside world.

Today, if you stand amid the charmless wreckage at Frenchman Flat, another thing is clear: It is also impossible to see out of the basin. The place is disconnected from the rest of Nevada, from America, from civilization itself. It is a lifeless, humorless, Planet of the Apes location. These could have been the ruins of a future we stopped in its tracks -- the ruins of Las Vegas, Vienna, Tokyo, your town or my town, bombed back to the Stone Age.

Today, as we sweat over whether North Korea has four bombs or six, or whether Iran has any at all, remember that in 1957, only 12 years after the Trinity test -- the first nuclear explosion in history took place at Alamogordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945 -- the United States was manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs per day, 3,000 fission and fusion bombs every year. The largest deployable weapon in our '57 arsenal was the 5-megaton Mark 21, powerful enough to flatten 400 Hiroshimas (or Fallujahs or Oaklands) at a pop.

Filling that Mosler vault with stocks and bonds in 1957 now seems a surreal gesture of hope. Imagine the bomb's survivors -- a hairless, sterilized post-nuclear Adam and Eve, dry heaving (like the radioactive feral dogs that roamed the deserted streets of Chernobyl) -- crawling toward the bank vault in their bloody rags, trying to remember the combination, praying for their Chrysler stock, or Grandpa's gold watch, or their Prudent