Food Crisis - NY Times

This is an alarming excerpt from the New York Times about the current and upcoming food crisis.

Food Crisis
NY Times

Food prices are soaring to record levels, threatening many developing countries with mass hunger and political instability. Finance ministers of the Group of 20 leading economies discussed the problem at a meeting in Paris last week, but for all of their expressed concern, most are already breaking their promises to help.

After the last sharp price spike in 2008, the G-20 promised to invest $22 billion over three years to help vulnerable countries boost food production. To date, the World Bank fund that is supposed to administer this money has received less than $400 million.

Food prices are now higher than their 2008 peak, driven by rising demand in developing countries and volatile weather, including drought in Russia and Ukraine and a dry spell in North China that threatens the crop of the world’s largest wheat producer. The World Bank says the spike has pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty just since June.

In 2008, 30 countries had food riots. That has not happened, at least not yet. Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, has benefited from improved agricultural productivity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warns that Mozambique, Uganda, Mali, Niger and Somalia are extremely vulnerable to instability because of rising prices, along with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Asia, and Haiti, Guatemala, Bolivia and Honduras in Latin America.

Misguided government policies could make matters worse. Some countries are stockpiling food. When India did that last year, food ended up rotting in storages. Others are imposing agricultural export bans, which discourages investment in production. The world’s wealthier nations must press them to rethink these polices and back that up with real help.

The Obama administration has proposed worthy initiatives, but even when Democrats controlled Congress it had a hard time getting the money. The administration has committed $570 million toward its pledge of $3.5 billion between 2010 and 2012. A World Bank fund that got $66 million from the United States will only administer part of the global aid effort.

It is now asking for $408 million for the fund — part of a $1.64 billion request for its Feed the Future initiative, which aims to bolster poor countries’ food production capabilities. Congressional Republicans are determined to hack as much as they can out of foreign aid. The continuing resolution passed by the House cuts $800 million out of the food aid budget — bringing it down to about $1 billion, roughly where it was in 2001.

The White House needs to push back hard. This isn’t a question of charity. It is an issue of life or death for millions of people. And the hard truth is that if the United States doesn’t keep its word, no one else will.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 30, 2011

An editorial on Feb. 25 about rising food prices misstated the amount of American aid to help poor countries boost food production. It has committed $570 million toward its pledge of $3.5 billion in new aid between 2010 and 2012. A World Bank fund that got $66 million from the United States will only administer part of the global aid effort.

INFRASTRUCTURE & MONETARY INSTABILITY - Videos

Total Economic Collapse, Death of the Dollar, Impoverishment,
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"This is end of world type Stuff" - An Interveiw with David Amenduri

This is an interview with Daniel Ameduri (Future Money Trends) by John Williams (Shadow Stats). Economist John Williams lays out a grim picture of how we got here and the impact we’ll soon experience in every facet of our lives.

This is an interview that shouldn’t be missed. it is very I opening.

One of the leading experts on statistical analysis and economic theory in our country is giving us an outline of what’s coming. Listen well

[excerpts follow - see video above for full interview]

Williams: We’re in a no win situation. This is end of the world type stuff.I hate to say that.

Go back to September of 2008. The system was on the brink of collapse. That was in the end of the world as we know it – the financial world. They pulled out every stop-gap measure that they could. They graded whatever they had to do to keep the system afloat. That’s the type of environment we’re dealing with.

We’ve been living through some replays of that, nothing quite as serious. The end of the line fundamentals are not getting better. You’re in a situation now where the rest of the world increasingly has lost its confidence in the US dollar.

Ameduri: When you’re looking at this hyperinflation, when you’re preparing, how long are you actually expecting the chaos part to last?

Williams: I can’t tell you how long it’s going to last. I can tell you it’s likely going to be very disruptive to our lifestyles because we don’t have any backup systems to the dollar.

Ameduri: Are utility workers going to show up for work when if we’re in hyperinflation? Their checks are going to be worthless…

Williams: It depends how creative people get. You also have a chance of seeing disruption to supplies to grocery stores. And if food’s not on the shelves, it’s one of the fastest ways of turing to civil unrest.

What I would look to do is have a backup supply of at least several months of the basic commodities you need to live with – canned food, toilet paper, as well as barter items…

You want to be able to be prepared as you might be for a natural disaster…I think people should have supplies not only for natural disasters, but man-made disasters. And just to keep rotating your stock.

In this type of environment where nobody can get a safe return on their money within the United States that beats the official rate of inflation, buying canned foods and such is actually a better investment than a Treasury bill.

Ameduri: What’s the breaking point where we actually see that loss of faith in the currency?

Williams: Well, I think we’ve already passed it. We’re not seeing heavy dollar selling right now, but if you look at the global market response to what was being done in Washington, that was a loss of confidence…. They’re not going to let a systemic collapse happen so long as they can get away with what they’re doing and the markets allow them to do it.

Moving further down the road to the hyperinflation, it buys them time. That’s all it does. They don’t have a solution.

…Eventually you’ll see a collapse here of the dollar where the dollar becomes worthless. For people living in a dollar denominated world that means that the purchasing power of their primary currency is going to disappear. They need to protect themselves or to protect the purchasing power of their assets.

The proximal trigger for the big problem we have ahead, I believe, will be a massive sell off of the dollar. I can’t tell you exactly when it’s going to happen. It can be triggered by any number of things from a resolution of the Euro crisis to the next round of Fed easing whatever that will be.

We’re moving in a direction that clearly indicates you don’t want to be in the US dollar.

When the Grid Goes Down, You Better Be Ready!

This is a very interesting article on the grid instability by Tess Pennington

When the Grid Goes Down, You Better Be Ready!
by Tess Pennington

It is a fact that our country is more reliant on electrical power today than at any time in its history. Our way of life – from everyday conveniences and the security of local emergency services to commerce and communications – is contingent upon an always on, always available flow of electricity. But an aging infrastructure coupled with a rise in natural and man-made disasters threatens our entire modern day digital infrastructure. According to many experts from the private and public sector, we’re just one major catastrophic event away from a complete meltdown of life in America as we know it today.

So, what happens if and when the grid goes down for an extended period of time? Aside from the aggravation of not being able to determine what is happening through traditional media channels, for the Average Joe, his problems have only just begun. Our dependency to the grid doesn’t just stop at lack of electricity in our homes to power our appliances or an inability to charge our cell phones; it is much broader and affects every aspect of our lives.

We are regularly inundated with news reports covering outages that last several days or weeks resulting from inclement weather like snow storms or hurricanes, or heat waves in southern states that threaten to overload the system. During those times, when entire metropolitan areas or regions experience black outs, we get a glimpse into what a truly widespread emergency might look like. It is often the case that the first thing residents of affected areas do is rush to grocery and hardware stores hoping to acquire critical supplies like food, water, batteries, flashlights and generators. And while these supplies acquired at the onset of crisis may provide short term sustenance, any long-term grid-down situation that lasts for many weeks or months will prove dangerous, and perhaps fatal, to the unprepared.

Consider, for a moment, how drastically your life would change without the continuous flow of energy the grid delivers. While manageable during a short-term disaster, losing access to the following critical elements of our just-in-time society would wreak havoc on the system.

• Challenges or shut downs of business commerce
• Breakdown of our basic infrastructure: communications, mass transportation, supply chains
• Inability to access money via atm machines
• Payroll service interruptions
• Interruptions in public facilities – schools, workplaces may close, and public gatherings.
• Inability to have access to clean drinking water

Neil Swidey, in his article What If The Lights Go Out?, indicates that the grid may be ill-equipped to meet all the enormous challenges it faces in this day and age.

The last widespread outage in the Northeast, the great blackout of August 2003, showed how intimately interconnected and alarmingly fragile our power grid is. How else to explain the way a problem starting in northeastern Ohio quickly cascaded into a blackout affecting 50 million people across the northeastern United States and parts of Canada? How quickly? Between the moment a power surge came rushing out of Ohio and the moment Manhattan began to go dark, exactly 10 seconds had passed.

..

If our society is more reliant on power than at any time in history – without it, we’ve got no commerce, no communications, no clean water – and if power becomes less reliable in the future, the big question is: Will we be able to hack it?

..

THE TROUBLE with the future of power isn’t that there is one big problem that could croak us. It’s that there are a host of them, any one of which could croak us.

Neil Swidey has grouped these potential grid-down antagonizers into three categories:

1. Extreme Natural Disasters

This includes earthquakes, hurricanes, snow storms, thunderstorms as well as massive solar storms that have the potential to seriously damage the electrical grid. You don’t think it could happen? In the article provided above, the author states, “It took just 90 seconds for a 1989 solar storm to cause the collapse of the Hydro-Quebec power grid, leaving 6 million Canadians without power for up to nine hours. A 2008 NASA-funded report noted the risk of significant damage to our interconnected grid in light of the forecast for increased solar activity. The 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in 2013, and just two weeks ago we saw one of the biggest solar-radiation storms in years.

2. Acts of Terrorists

This category includes, but is not limited to a physical attack on the bulk power system, either at its source of generation or somewhere along its transmission route, cyber attack on the computers controlling our interconnected grid, electro-magnetic pulse, or EMP, weapon. Have you read One Second After by William R. Forstchen? EMP’s will create long-lasting damage that would incapacitate electronic systems across the country and forever change our way of life. Cyber-threats are another concern and someone with serious hacking skills could easily take out computers, networks or information stored therein to cause lasting damage to our way of life.

3. The Ailing Grid

Our ailing power grid is almost as sick as our failing economy. With one malicious event, be it man made or by natural means, it is down. Swidey compares the grid infrastructure to being as old and stooped as a pensioner. As it is upgraded and its capacity is expanded, our rapacious need for more electrical power races to max it out once again.

A wide-spread emergency, such as a massive power surge, solar flare or rogue electromagnetic pulse (EMP) detonation have the capacity to render our entire power infrastructure useless. Transformers and other key elements on which the grid depends could be permanently damaged as a result of massive electric surges.

In an event such as this our immediate problem will be finding a way to order, manufacture and take delivery of the components needed to replace the faulty ones. Most of the parts made for our electrical grid are made in China – and many are decades old. According to Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who recently warned people to get their families out of major cities because of concerns about the stability of the grid, it would take months to get the parts shipped to this country and replaced.

During the outage, millions would be adversely affected, with some like Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, suggesting that within a year 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead from starvation, disease and violence.

Ladies and gentleman, if there’s one thing that can cause the veritable “S” to hit the fan, this is it.

So how do we remedy and/or prepare for a grid down scenario? Think retro – like pioneer retro- and by that we have to go way back to when we were not so dependent on the luxury of on-demand energy in its various forms. When preparing for a grid-down scenario, we must comprise different contingency plans for short-term and longer-term issues. That being the case, we have to admit to ourselves that it could last longer than we expect and much more than just a minor inconvenience. Therefore, the best way to prepare is to start with your basic needs. That is the need for light, heat, water, and food. Some preparedness items to stock up on are:

• Alternative fuel sources such as solar and diesel, wood for burning.
• Food preservation supplies – dehydrators, canners, smokers, fermenting/pickling supplies. To learn more, click here.
• Bulk food – Canned, freeze-dried, dehydrated or dry goods.
• Water filtration supplies, rain harvesting supplies and large quantities of stored water.
• Light sources: Lanterns, flashlights, candles and matches and alternative light sources
• Batteries and chargers
• Emergency stove – solar oven, rocket stove, camping stoves, etc.
• Wood burning fire place – Central air heating systems, even if they use natural gas or propane, depend on electricity for the blower that will circulate the heated air. When the grid is down, this system will not work. Having a wood burning fire place is an alternative to central heating systems.
• Cash money and/or silver or gold currency.

The vulnerability of our grid is nothing new to preppers. Some have seen this problem coming for a long time and changed their entire ways of life by going off-grid. They have found alternative sources such as solar, wind and diesel to power their homes and machinery. A majority of us, who have not gone off-grid, are making a concerted effort to avoid dependence on this ailing infrastructure and preparing for life without it. That being said, all we can do is stay the course, prepare accordingly and continue on.

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This article has been contributed by Tess Pennington of Ready Nutrition.

NASA Explains What Would Happen if the 1921 Solar Flare Hit Today

This an excerpt from a 132-page NASA funded report titled Severe Space Weather Event - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts, suggests that the right magnitude storm could be devastating:

The problem begins with the electric power grid. “Electric power is modern society’s cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend,” the report notes. Yet it is particularly vulnerable to bad space weather. Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours.

According to the report, power grids may be more vulnerable than ever. The problem is interconnectedness. In recent years, utilities have joined grids together to allow long-distance transmission of low-cost power to areas of sudden demand. On a hot summer day in California, for instance, people in Los Angeles might be running their air conditioners on power routed from Oregon. It makes economic sense,”but not necessarily geomagnetic sense. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging “cascade failures.”

To estimate the scale of such a failure, report co-author John Kappenmann of the Metatech Corporation looked at the great geomagnetic storm of May 1921, which produced ground currents as much as ten times stronger than the 1989 Quebec storm, and modeled its effect on the modern power grid. He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power. The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with “water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on.”

“The concept of interdependency,” the report notes, “is evident in the unavailability of water due to long-term outage of electric power–and the inability to restart an electric generator without water on site.”

What if the May 1921 superstorm occurred today? A US map of vulnerable transformers with areas of probable system collapse encircled. A state-by-state map of transformer vulnerability is also available: click here.

The potential for major disruptions to our lives and our modern day just-in-time delivery systems could lead to total chaos in affected areas:

“A contemporary repetition of the Carrington Event would cause an extensive social and economic disruptions,” the report warns. Power outages would be accompanied by radio blackouts and satellite malfunctions; telecommunications, GPS navigation, banking and finance, and transportation would all be affected. Some problems would correct themselves with the fading of the storm: radio and GPS transmissions could come back online fairly quickly. Other problems would be lasting: a burnt-out multi-ton transformer, for instance, can take weeks or months to repair. The total economic impact in the first year alone could reach $2 trillion, some 20 times greater than the costs of a Hurricane Katrina or, to use a timelier example, a few TARP

NASA on Solar Flares

What is a Solar Flares?:
Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, high-speed solar wind, and solar energetic particles are all forms of solar activity. All solar activity is driven by the solar magnetic field.
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The sun is a magnetic variable star that fluctuates on times scales ranging from a fraction of a second to billions of years. Credit: NASA

A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours. We typically see a solar flare by the photons (or light) it releases, at most every wavelength of the spectrum. The primary ways we monitor flares are in x-rays and optical light. Flares are also sites where particles (electrons, protons, and heavier particles) are accelerated.

A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours. We typically see a solar flare by the photons (or light) it releases, at most every wavelength of the spectrum. The primary ways we monitor flares are in x-rays and optical light. Flares are also sites where particles (electrons, protons, and heavier particles) are accelerated.
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The Sun unleashed a powerful flare on 4 November 2003. The Extreme ultraviolet Imager in the 195A emission line aboard the SOHO spacecraft captured the event. Credit: SOHO, ESA & NASA

What is a Solar Prominence?
A solar prominence (also known as a filament when viewed against the solar disk) is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface. Prominences are anchored to the Sun's surface in the photosphere, and extend outwards into the Sun's hot outer atmosphere, called the corona. A prominence forms over timescales of about a day, and stable prominences may persist in the corona for several months, looping hundreds of thousands of miles into space. Scientists are still researching how and why prominences are formed.
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A solar eruptive prominence as seen in extreme UV light on March 30, 2010 with Earth superimposed for a sense of scale. Credit: NASA/SDO

The red-glowing looped material is plasma, a hot gas comprised of electrically charged hydrogen and helium. The prominence plasma flows along a tangled and twisted structure of magnetic fields generated by the sun’s internal dynamo. An erupting prominence occurs when such a structure becomes unstable and bursts outward, releasing the plasma

What is a Coronal Mass Ejection CME?
The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields. Where these fields are closed, often above sunspot groups, the confined solar atmosphere can suddenly and violently release bubbles of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections. A large CME can contain a billion tons of matter that can be accelerated to several million miles per hour in a spectacular explosion. Solar material streams out through the interplanetary medium, impacting any planet or spacecraft in its path. CMEs are sometimes associated with flares but can occur independently.
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A coronal mass ejection on Feb. 27, 2000 taken by SOHO LASCO C2 and C3. A CME blasts into space a billion tons of particles traveling millions of miles an hour. Credit: SOHO ESA & NASA The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields. Where these fields are closed, often above sunspot groups, the confined solar atmosphere can suddenly and violently release bubbles of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections. A large CME can contain a billion tons of matter that can be accelerated to several million miles per hour in a spectacular explosion. Solar material streams out through the interplanetary medium, impacting any planet or spacecraft in its path. CMEs are sometimes associated with flares but can occur independently.

Does all Solar Activity Affect the Earth? Why or Why Not?
Solar activity associated with Space Weather can be divided into four main components: solar flares, coronal mass ejections, high-speed solar wind, and solar energetic particles.

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A closeup of an erupting prominence with Earth inset at the approximate scale of the image. Taken on July 1, 2002. Credit: SOHO, ESA & NASA

• Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth. Because flares are made of photons, they travel out directly from the flare site, so if we can see the flare, we can be impacted by it.
• Coronal mass ejections, also called CMEs, are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction, and then continue on in that direction, plowing right through the solar wind. Only when the cloud is aimed at Earth will the CME hit Earth and therefore cause impacts.
• High-speed solar wind streams come from areas on the sun known as coronal holes. These holes can form anywhere on the sun and usually, only when they are closer to the solar equator, do the winds they produce impact Earth.
• Solar energetic particles are high-energy charged particles, primarily thought to be released by shocks formed at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through the solar wind, high velocity solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they must follow the magnetic field lines that pervade the space between the Sun and the Earth. Therefore, only the charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect the Earth will result in impacts.

What are Coronal Holes
Coronal holes are variable solar features that can last for weeks to months. They are large, dark areas (representing regions of lower coronal density) when the sun is viewed in EUV or x-ray wavelengths, sometimes as large as a quarter of the sun’s surface. These holes are rooted in large cells of unipolar magnetic fields on the sun’s surface; their field lines extend far out into the solar system. These open field lines allow a continuous outflow of high-speed solar wind. Coronal holes tend to be most numerous in the years
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The dark shape sprawling across the face of the active Sun is a coronal hole, a low density region extending above the surface where the solar magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary space. Credit: SOHO EIT, ESA/NASA

What is Solar Maximum and Minimum?

Solar minimum refers to a period of several Earth years when the number of sunspots is lowest; solar maximum occurs in the years when sunspots are most numerous. During solar maximum, activity on the Sun and the effects of space weather on our terrestrial environment are high. At solar minimum, the sun may go many days with no sunspots visible. At maximum, there may be several hundred sunspots on any day.
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Eleven years in the life of the Sun, spanning most of solar cycle 23, as it progressed from solar minimum to maximum conditions and back to minimum (upper right) again, seen as a collage of ten full-disk images of the lower corona. Of note is the prevalence of activity and the relatively few years when our Sun might be described as “quiet.” Credit: SOHO EIT, ESA/NASA

What are some of the Real World Examples of Space Weather Impacts?
Aurora are a well-known example of the impacts of space weather events. Credit: University of Alaska

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• September 2, 1859, disruption of telegraph service.
• One of the best-known examples of space weather events is the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power network on March 13, 1989 due to geomagnetically induced currents (GICs). Caused by a transformer failure, this event led to a general blackout that lasted more than 9 hours and affected over 6 million people. The geomagnetic storm causing this event was itself the result of a CME ejected from the sun on March 9, 1989.
• Today, airlines fly over 7,500 polar routes per year. These routes take aircraft to latitudes where satellite communication cannot be used, and flight crews must rely instead on high-frequency (HF) radio to maintain communication with air traffic control, as required by federal regulation. During certain space weather events, solar energetic particles spiral down geomagnetic field lines in the polar regions, where they increase the density of ionized gas, which in turn affects the propagation of radio waves and can result in radio blackouts. These events can last for several days, during which time aircraft must be diverted to latitudes where satellite communications can be used.
• No large Solar Energetic Particles events have happened during a manned space mission. However, such a large event happened on August 7, 1972, between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 lunar missions. The dose of particles would have hit an astronaut outside of Earth's protective magnetic field, had this event happened during one of these missions, the effects could have been life threatening.

What is our Current Capabilities to Predict Space Weather?
NASA operates a system observatory of Heliophysics missions, utilizing the entire fleet of solar, heliospheric, and geospace spacecraft to discover the processes at work throughout the space environment. In addition to its science program, NASA’s Heliophysics Division routinely partners with other agencies to fulfill the space weather research or operational objectives of the nation.
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The Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO) showing current operating missions, missions in development, and missions under study. Credit: NASA

Presently, this is accomplished with the existing fleet of NOAA satellites and some NASA scientific satellites. Space weather “beacons” on NASA spacecraft provide real-time science data to space weather forecasters. Examples include ACE measurements of interplanetary conditions from the Lagrangian point L1 where objects are never shadowed by the Earth or the Moon; CME alerts from SOHO; STEREO beacon images of the far side of the Sun; and super high-resolution images from SDO. NASA will continue to cooperate with other agencies to enable new knowledge in this area and to measure conditions in space critical to both operational and scientific research.

To facilitate and enable this cooperation, NASA’s makes its Heliophysics research data sets and models continuously available to industry, academia, and other civil and military space weather interests via existing Internet sites. These include the Combined Community Modeling Center (CCMC) and the Integrated Space Weather Analysis System (ISWA) associated with GSFC. Also provided are publicly available sites for citizen science and space situational awareness through various cell phone and e-tablet applications.

Beyond NASA, interagency coordination in space weather activities has been formalized through the Committee on Space Weather, which is hosted by the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology. This multiagency organization is co-chaired by representatives from NASA, NOAA, DoD, and NSF and functions as a steering group responsible for tracking the progress of the National Space Weather Program.

Sun Facts
The Sun is a magnetic variable star at the center of our solar system that drives the space environment of the planets, including the Earth. The distance of the Sun from the Earth is approximately 93 million miles. At this distance, light travels from the Sun to Earth in about 8 minutes and 19 seconds. The Sun has a diameter of about 865,000 miles, about 109 times that of Earth. Its mass, about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. Less than 2% consists of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon, iron, and others. The Sun is neither a solid nor a gas but is actually plasma. This plasma is tenuous and gaseous near the surface, but gets denser down towards the Sun's fusion core.
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The image gives a basic overview of the Sun’s parts. The cut-out shows the three major interior zones: the core (where energy is generated by nuclear reactions), the radiative zone (where energy travels outward by radiation through about 70% of the Sun), and the convection zone (where convection currents circulate the Sun’s energy to the surface). The surface features (flare, sunspots and photosphere, chromosphere, and the prominence) are all clipped from actual SOHO images of the Sun. Credit: NASA/SOHO

The Sun, as shown by the illustration at right, can be divided into six layers. From the center out, the layers of the Sun are as follows: the solar interior composed of the core (which occupies the innermost quarter or so of the Sun's radius), the radiative zone, and the convective zone, then there is the visible surface known as the photosphere, the chromosphere, and finally the outermost layer, the corona. 
The energy produced through fusion in the Sun's core powers the Sun and produces all of the heat and light that we receive here on Earth.

The Sun, like most stars, is a main sequence star, and thus generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 430–600 million tons of hydrogen each second. The Sun's hot corona continuously expands in space creating the solar wind, a stream of charged particles that extends to the heliopause at roughly 100 astronomical units. The bubble in the interstellar medium formed by the solar wind, the heliosphere, is the largest continuous structure in the Solar System.

Stars like our Sun shine for nine to ten billion years. The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old, judging by the age of moon rocks. Based on this information, current astrophysical theory predicts that the Sun will become a red giant in about five billion (5,000,000,000) years.

20 Signs That A Horrific Global Food Crisis Is Coming

This is an excerpt from the site Economic Collapse

20 Signs That A Horrific Global Food Crisis Is Coming

Most Americans are so accustomed to supermarkets that are absolutely packed to the gills with massive amounts of really inexpensive food that they cannot even imagine that life could be any other way. Unfortunately, that era is ending.

There are all kinds of indications that we are now entering a time when there will not be nearly enough food for everyone in the world. As competition for food supplies increases, food prices are going to go up. In fact, at some point they are going to go way up.

Let's look at some of the key reasons why an increasing number of people believe that a massive food crisis is on the horizon.

The following are 20 signs that a horrific global food crisis is coming....

1. According to the World Bank, 44 million people around the globe have been pushed into extreme poverty since last June because of rising food prices.
2. The world is losing topsoil at an astounding rate. In fact, according to Lester Brown, "one third of the world's cropland is losing topsoil faster than new soil is forming through natural processes".
3. Due to U.S. ethanol subsidies, almost a third of all corn grown in the United States is now used for fuel. This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.
4. Due to a lack of water, some countries in the Middle East find themselves forced to almost totally rely on other nations for basic food staples. For example, it is being projected that there will be no more wheat production in Saudi Arabia by the year 2012.
5. Water tables all over the globe are being depleted at an alarming rate due to "overpumping". According to the World Bank, there are 130 million people in China and 175 million people in India that are being fed with grain with water that is being pumped out of aquifers faster than it can be replaced. So what happens once all of that water is gone?
6. In the United States, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl".
7. Diseases such as UG99 wheat rust are wiping out increasingly large segments of the world food supply.
8. The tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis in Japan have rendered vast agricultural areas in that nation unusable. In fact, there are many that believe that eventually a significant portion of northern Japan will be considered to be uninhabitable. Not only that, many are now convinced that the Japanese economy, the third largest economy in the world, is likely to totally collapse as a result of all this.
9. The price of oil may be the biggest factor on this list. The way that we produce our food is very heavily dependent on oil. The way that we transport our food is very heavily dependent on oil. When you have skyrocketing oil prices, our entire food production system becomes much more expensive. If the price of oil continues to stay high, we are going to see much higher food prices and some forms of food production will no longer make economic sense at all.
10. At some point the world could experience a very serious fertilizer shortage. According to scientists with the Global Phosphorus Research Initiative, the world is not going to have enough phosphorous to meet agricultural demand in just 30 to 40 years.
11. Food inflation is already devastating many economies around the globe. For example, India is dealing with an annual food inflation rate of 18 percent.
12. According to the United Nations, the global price of food reached a new all-time high in February.
13. According to the World Bank, the global price of food has risen 36% over the past 12 months.
14. The commodity price of wheat has approximately doubled since last summer.
15. The commodity price of corn has also about doubled since last summer.
16. The commodity price of soybeans is up about 50% since last June.
17. The commodity price of orange juice has doubled since 2009.
18. There are about 3 billion people around the globe that live on the equivalent of 2 dollars a day or less and the world was already on the verge of economic disaster before this year even began.
19. 2011 has already been one of the craziest years since World War 2. Revolutions have swept across the Middle East, the United States has gotten involved in the civil war in Libya, Europe is on the verge of a financial meltdown and the U.S. dollar is dying. None of this is good news for global food production.
20. There have been persistent rumors of shortages at some of the biggest suppliers of emergency food in the United States. The following is an excerpt from a recent "special alert" posted on Raiders News Network....

Solar Flare Effects on the Grid

Newly discovered evidence by NASA predicts that a super solar storm coming in mid-May 2012, which occurred on Earth in 1805, could occur again and knock out all electricity on the planet, taking us back 100 years.

Prior to 2006, researchers at NASA and other similar think-tanks discovered strong evidence that a solar storm is coming–and this week the most intense solar maximum in fifty years has been detected. The facts are starting to grow.

The prediction has been issued by a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Dikpati’s prediction is unprecedented.

According to Dikpati “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the next solar maximum forecast for 2012 would be a global catastrophe–second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958 and 1805."

However, in 1958 and 1805 humans didn’t rely as much on technology as we do now. The entire economy and communications network of the world is dependent on these technologies–in a nutshell a solar flair would cripple us.

To seed where we are now, go to The Daily Solar Flare Daily Update window to the left. Also go the the Home page to find out how to prosper during the solar maximum this year.

NASA''s Concerns over the Solar Minimums

This is an excerpt from NASA's site: NASA Science News: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum/

Deep Solar Minimum

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Above: The sunspot cycle from 1995 to the present. The jagged curve traces actual sunspot counts. Smooth curves are fits to the data and one forecaster's predictions of future activity. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/MSFC. [more]

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years: plot.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet—and here it is," says Pesnell.

But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:

A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites.

Above: Space-age measurements of the total solar irradiance (brightness summed across all wavelengths). This plot, which comes from researcher C. Fröhlich, was shown by Dean Pesnell at the Fall 2008 AGU meeting during a lecture entitled "What is Solar Minimum and Why Should We Care?"

A 55-year low in solar radio emissions: After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955: plot. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."

Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.

In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected.

To seed where we are now, go to The Daily Solar Flare Daily Update window to the left. Also go the the Home page to find out how to prosper during the solar maximum this year.

This next excerpt is again from the NASA site about what you just read has to do with the level solar flares yet to come.

Solar Maximum
&
Solar Minimum

Solar Maximum

The solar storm works in approximately an 11 year cycle. There is solar minimum (the least amount of solar storm) and solar maximum (the greatest amount). The last solar maximum was in 2001 and the last solar minimums was in 2006. The next solar max is predicted for 2012.

An article was published on NASA’s website in 2006 (during the last solar minimum) titled Solar Storm Warning . This article by Science@NASA’s Dr. Tony Philips explains that the 2012 solar max will be the greatest since 1958 (when the Northern Lights were visible in Mexico).

“The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one.” Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

The solar maximum image credit is to Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Lab, Yohkoh SXT and Kitt Peak National Solar Observatory.

Solar Flare Size Classifications

The Classification of X-ray Solar Flares
or "Solar Flare Alphabet Soup"

A solar flare is an explosion on the Sun that happens when energy stored in twisted magnetic fields (usually above sunspots) is suddenly released. Flares produce a burst of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays. [more information]

Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms. There are 3 categories: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.

This figure shows a series of solar flares detected by NOAA satellites in July 2000:

Each category for x-ray flares has nine subdivisions ranging from, e.g., C1 to C9, M1 to M9, and X1 to X9. In this figure, the three indicated flares registered (from left to right) X2, M5, and X6. The X6 flare triggered a radiation storm around Earth nicknamed the Bastille Day event.

FEMA, MSB, NOAA, Solar Fare Simulation Summary

It's a rather long report, here are some of the condensed findings. http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=4270

Tom Bogdan, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colarado, and Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA …they want to get prepared for this one) got together for a little “tabletop” experiment. They simulated what they think would a “worst-case scenario” solar storm. Disaster quickly ensued. This is the public report that came out of the ‘tabletop exercise that FEMA, NOAA, and the MSB performed

Managing Critical Disasters in the Transatlantic Domain

The Case of a Geomagnetic Storm

The United States (U.S.) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) planned and hosted The Workshop on Managing Critical Disasters in the Transatlantic Domain – The Case of a Geomagnetic Storm in Boulder, Colorado, on February 23-24, 2010. The overarching goals of the Geomagnetic Storm Workshop were to allow senior government officials and representatives of both public and private entities from the U.S., Sweden, and the European Union (EU) to compare and contrast the current plans, policies, and procedures used to prepare for and respond to a widespread disaster in the U.S. and EU. The workshop also provided a means to discuss communications between the U.S. and EU in the event of a catastrophic disaster with Transatlantic implications. http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=4270

Page 1
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is pleased to have had the opportunity to partner with the European Union, European Commission, Swedish government, U.S. National Weather Service (NWS), and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) to discuss readiness for a widespread, catastrophic disaster—a geomagnetic storm. Unlike natural hazards that we have faced in the past, disasters caused by abnormal solar activity could pose a worldwide threat and disrupt energy supplies, air transport, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure.

Page 7
The FEMA, MSB, and NOAA planning effort identified the following specific objectives for the senior participants in the Geomagnetic Storm Workshop:

• Emphasize supporting transatlantic ties at leadership levels in preparing for and responding to a widespread disaster.
• Improve U.S.-EU systems for communicating during a response to a disaster.

Most of the disruptions caused by space weather storms involve technology. Susceptible technology is quickly growing in use. Satellites, for example, carry weather information, military surveillance, TV and other communications signals, credit card and pager transmissions, navigation data, and cell phone usage. With the rising use of technologies, vulnerability to space weather events has increased dramatically.

Page 8
Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events. Earth-directed CMEs pose a grave threat to earth’s technological infrastructure. If a CME impacts earth causing a geomagnetic storm, the rapidly changing geomagnetic field caused by the CME can induce powerful electrical currents that disrupt and disable transformers, capacitors, and other critical equipment leading to the collapse of power grids. On March 13, 1989, in Montreal, Quebec, 6 million people were without commercial electric power for 9 hours as a result of a geomagnetic storm. Some areas in the northeastern U.S. and in Sweden also lost power. Geomagnetic storms also disrupt navigation and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and threatens satellite operations.

The list of consequences grows in proportion to our dependence on burgeoning technological systems. The subtleties of the interactions between the sun and the earth, and between solar particles and delicate instruments, have become factors that affect our well being.

The exercise included 2 scenarios in which these were some of the projected outcomes.

Page 9
Significant electric power grid problems occurred, and a massive power fluctuation affected the transmission grid. Within one hour, cascading power outages were reported throughout the eastern and mid-Atlantic U.S. and eastern Canada.

Power stations reported numerous generator step-up transformers and transmission transformers out of commission, with projected replacements and repairs taking weeks and even months. This raised immediate concern of a critical infrastructure collapse with loss of water distribution, sewage disposal, hospital care, phone service, and fuel resupply. Satellite outages were reported, and cell phones experienced significant service disruptions.
Significant problems were also reported in Northern Europe. Power outages were reported in large areas of southern Sweden, Scotland, Northern England, and the upper tip of Northern Europe. The power outage's effects on international air transport and financial markets were widespread.

The extreme geomagnetic storm lasted for 24 hours, ending late on February 26. Full recovery of the U.S. power grid is expected to take six months. Many populated areas are expected to be without power for weeks or months.

Page 13
Workshop participants highlighted the need to assess the vulnerability of technological systems that could be impacted by space weather conditions. They raised concerns that, in many cases, both the private and public sectors do not fully understand the level of interconnectivity between various infrastructures and therefore do not grasp the extent of the space weather threat.

Page 14

Prioritization of Scarce Critical Resources in the International Domain

During the workshop, participants discussed the prioritization and allocation of scarce critical resources in the aftermath of a severe geomagnetic storm. For example, a geomagnetic storm can destroy large electrical transformers which are expensive and time-consuming to replace. Because of the cost, most electric companies do not keep spare transformers on-hand. Even if an electric company is able to locate spare transformers, transportation and installation would take at least three weeks. New orders for replacement equipment can take up to 18 months or even longer to fulfill. If Sweden, Great Britain, and the United States all suffered transformer damage from a geomagnetic storm, it would be difficult for equipment providers to prioritize which countries should receive replacement parts.

Participants discussed not only the scarcity of equipment, but also the scarcity of technical experts needed to solve major electrical system problems. Individuals with electrical grid expertise have become centralized in a small number of global firms. During a space weather crisis in which electrical grids are compromised in a number of countries, these experts could become over extended in their efforts to restore the system. Additionally, if a crisis strikes, it is reasonable to expect that utility workers will ensure the safety and security of their families before they focus on utility operations.

Population centers have limited food and commodity inventories on hand. Hospital supply systems, for instance, operate on a just-in-time replenishment cycle. Generators are seldom installed and are often intended to be used for a very short period. Major electrical outages would wreck havoc with the supply chain management system for these and other critical supplies. Replenishing these supplies requires operable telecommunications systems, data processing capability, and the fuel to transport shipments.

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By definition, high-impact, low-frequency events like solar storms do not occur with sufficient regularity to instill experience-based awareness.

For Solar flair updates go to the update widow to the left of this window. For the solution to prospering during these events go to Home page and contact us.

What Is Comprehensive Sustainability

Under Construction

Elecrtical Grid Vulnerability

Under Construction

Solar Flares

Economic Insability

Under Construction

Infastructure Instability

Under Construction

Sacred Geometry

The study of sacred geometry has its roots in the study of nature, and the mathematical principles at work therein^[3]. Many forms observed in nature can be related to geometry, for example, the chambered nautilus grows at a constant rate and so its shell forms a logarithmic spiral to accommodate that growth without changing shape. Also, honeybees construct hexagonal cells to hold their honey. These and other correspondences are seen by believers in sacred geometry to be further proof of the cosmic significance of geometric forms. These phenomena can be explained through natural principles.^[4]

W.W.O.O.F.ers

Under Construction

Glossary

Bamboo Construction

• In its natural form, bamboo as a construction material is traditionally associated with the cultures of South Asia, East Asia and the South Pacific, to some extent in Central and South America and by extension in the aesthetic of Tiki culture. In China and India, bamboo was used to hold up simple suspension bridges, either by making cables of split bamboo or twisting whole culms of sufficiently pliable bamboo together. One such bridge in the area of Qian-Xian is referenced in writings dating back 960 A.D. and may have stood since as far back as the 3rd century B.C., due largely to continuous maintenance.^[18] Bamboo has also long been used as scaffolding; the practice has been banned in China for buildings over six storeys but is still in continuous use for skyscrapers in Hong Kong.^[19] In the Philippines, the nipa hut is a fairly typical example of the most basic sort of housing where bamboo is used; the walls are split and woven bamboo, and bamboo slats and poles may be used as its support. In Japanese architecture, bamboo is used primarily as a supplemental and/or decorative element in buildings such as fencing, fountains, grates and gutters, largely due to the ready abundance of quality timber.^[20 Various structural shapes may be made by training the bamboo to assume them as it grows. Squared sections of bamboo are created by compressing the growing stalk within a square form.^[21] Arches may similarly be created by forcing the bamboo's growth with the desired form, and costs much less than it would to assume the same shape in regular wood timber. More traditional forming methods, such as the application of heat and pressure, may also be used to curve or flatten the cut stalks.Bamboo can be cut and laminated into sheets and planks. This process involves cutting stalks into thin strips, planing them flat, boiling and drying the strips, which are then glued, pressed and finished.^[23] Generally long used in China and Japan, entrepreneurs started developing and selling laminated bamboo flooring in the West during the mid 1990s;^[23] products made from bamboo laminate, including flooring, cabinetry, furniture and even decorations, are currently surging in popularity, transitioning from the boutique market to mainstream providers such as Home Depot. The bamboo goods industry (which also includes small goods, fabric, etc.) is expected to be worth $25 billion by the year 2012.^[24] The quality of bamboo laminate varies between manufacturers and the maturity of the plant from which it was harvested (six years being considered the optimum); the sturdiest products fulfill their claims of being up to three times harder than oak hardwood, but others may be softer than standard hardwood. Bamboo intended for use in construction should be treated to resist insects and rot. The most common solution for this purpose is a mixture of borax and boric acid.^[25] Another process involves boiling cut bamboo to remove the starches that attract insects.

  Bamboo has been used as reinforcement for concrete in those areas where it is plentiful, though dispute exists over its effectiveness in the various studies done on the subject. Bamboo does have the necessary strength to fulfil this function, but untreated bamboo will swell from the absorption of water from the concrete, causing it to crack. Several procedures must be followed to overcome this shortcoming.^[26]

  Several institutes, businesses, and universities are working on the bamboo as an ecological construction material. In the United States and France, it is possible to get houses made entirely of bamboo, which are earthquake and cyclone-resistant and internationally certified. In Bali, Indonesia, an international primary school, named the Green School, is constructed entirely of bamboo, due to its beauty, and advantages as a sustainable resource. There are three ISO standards for bamboo as a construction material.
  

  In parts of India, bamboo is used for drying clothes indoors, both as the rod high up near the ceiling to hang clothes on, as well as the stick that is wielded with acquired expert skill to hoist, spread, and to take down the clothes when dry. It is also commonly used to make ladders, which apart from their normal function, are also used for carrying bodies in funerals. In Maharashtra, the bamboo groves and forests are called VeLuvana, the name VeLu for bamboo is most likely from Sanskrit, while Vana means forest.

  Furthermore, bamboo is also used to create flagpoles for saffron-coloured, Hindu religious flags, which can be seen fluttering across India, especially Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, as well as in Guyana and Suriname.

  Bamboo is used for the structural members of the India pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The pavilion is the world’s largest bamboo dome, about 34 m in diameter, with bamboo beams/members overlaid with a ferro-cement slab, water proofing, copper plate, solar PV panels, a small windmill and live plants. A total of 30 km of bamboo were used. The dome is supported on 18-m-long steel piles and a series of steel ring beams. The bamboo was treated with borax and boric acid as a fire retardant and insecticide and bent in the required shape. The bamboo sections are joined with reinforcement bars and concrete mortar to achieve necessary lengths.^[27]

Paramagnetic

• Paramagnetism is a physical force. It is the driving force behind Structured Water, the KIVA Lights and the Purple Plates. Not a hard-to-grasp spiritual essence, but a force that is identified and detailed in every physics handbook in the world. The knowledge of this force by the ancients is indisputable.
  

Exactly what in plain language, does this definition of paramagnetism mean?

First we must define the term magnetic moment. If you spin a fixed magnet in the center of a loop of wire, you generate electricity in the wire, creating an electric generator. Magnetic moment is the ration between the maximum torque exerted on a magnet or current-carrying coil, or the charge in a magnetic field, and the strength of the field itself. Since atoms and molecules spin, rotate, and vibrate in all kinds of predictable directions depending on their makeup, they are in effect, little dynamic generators displaying both field strength and torque (torque = rotating power in a mechanism). In summary, magnetic moment is the ratio of the strength of the magnetic field to rotating power.

It is obvious that the earth and cosmos itself has a magnetic moment since it has a low-energy magnetic field of about ½ gauss. Gauss is the CGS unit of magnetic flux. CGS means Centimeter, Grams, Seconds. Put quite simply, if you have one gram of a substance, on centimeter from a magnet, in what part of one second will it move to the magnet? Put another way, what weight of a paramagnetic material will move one centimeter to a magnet in one second?

Any substance, including soil or rock, that will move toward a magnet is paramagnetic. If you can measure the CGS of a substance then you will know the measure of its attractance force to magnet. CGS is known as susceptibility because it is obvious that if a substance moves to a magnet, then it is susceptible to a magnetic field. Other ways to say it are that the substance is attracted to magnet field, or resonating to the field or grabbed hold of by the field, or even loves the field!

If a paramagnetic substance is placed in a strong magnetic field, all of the field lines will eventually line up, as illustrated:

In nature, all substances are in a weak cosmic magnetic field, which is the earth's ever-present ½ gauss, therefore they are aligned thus:

They are then not completely random, or, as mathematicians might say, in a complete chaotic arrangement. That is why chaotic mathematics is so important to a study of paramagnetism. Take heed chaotic mathematicians. Once place in a strong magnetic field like the electromagnetic coil of a CGS meter, they become more aligned. The measure of the more aligned is the measure of the paramagnetic force, or the CGS measure.

Now that we know that paramagnetism is the alignment of a force field in one direction by a substance in a magnetic field, then we must ask, what is diamagnetism? The Dictionary of Chemistry defines diamagnetism as follows: "Diamagnetism is the magnetization in the opposite direction to that of the applied magnetic field, e.g., the susceptibility is negative away from the magnetic field." Actually all substances are diamagnetic, but it is a weak form of magnetism and may be masked by other, stronger forces, for instance a magnetic field.

Diamagnetism results from changes induced in the torque by bits of electrons that oppose the applied magnetic flux. There is thus a weak negative susceptibility to the magnet. Most organic compounds, including all plants, are diamagnetic. If plants are diamagnetic and good growing soil paramagnetic, then we must be dealing with the yin and yang of Chinese and Japanese geomancy, or the energy put forth by the crane and turtle rock formation.

Why are the crane and turtle rock important? Simply because most of the ancient Zen gardens that I have observed over the years appeared to be both paramagnetic/crane and diamagnetic/turtle! This was observed and documented in the Secret Book of Gardening. The diamagnetic properties of the flattened turtle rock are visually obvious by the amount of white quartz in it. One does not chip pieces of beautiful Zen garden rock to study its CGS properties, but most quartz is not only recognizable by sight, it is also either neutral or weakly diamagnetic.

The Nanzen-en stroll garden of the Kamakura period has several high granite and low quartz boulder arrangements as does the Ryogen-en garden designed by Soami. The diamagnetic/paramagnetic, or yin/yang arrangement is most often seen in the double crane and turtle configurations. There is also a triple configuration that has a central granite standing rock and two smaller granite paramagnetic lower rocks. Tentoku-en, the landscape garden of the Momoyama period, has a high crane basalt rock and low turtle limestone rock. Around these rocks an arrangement of Chinese bellflowers grows in profusion. Interestingly enough, they grow to the left of the tall basalt crane rock and on the right side of the flatter turtle rock.

By positioning such rocks in relationship to the sun and to each other, one can control plant growth. Apparently the ancients knew about this yin and yang, diamagnetic/paramagnetic phenomenon and utilized it in their Zen gardens. That such knowledge is now lost is demonstrated by the fact that the crane/turtle arrangement found at the elegant restaurant where my friend and I had dinner was composed of stones that were both paramagnetic and not paramagnetic/diamagnetic.

Before we move on to a discussion of atmospheric ELF radio waves, it is important that we also define magnetism (ferromagnetism). Ferro means iron. Magnetism occurs in ferro-magnetic substances because it is a characteristic of certain metals, particularly iron, at certain temperatures. Below a certain temperature, called the Curie point, an increasing magnetic field applied to iron, or any ferromagnetic substance, will cause increasing magnetization to a value so high that it becomes saturated and remains permanently stored, aligned magnetic moment. It is analogous to a stored DC battery.

Magnetic substances are extremely rare in nature, the best known being the mineral magnetite. Because of the rarity of magnetite, it is not apt to be the growing force of nature. That does not mean that magnetism is unimportant in the scheme of life.

In this regard, there is one last point that should be made. Even though magnetism is a fixed force, it does vary slightly. There is no such thing as flat line DC - everything in nature alternates, at least slightly. The simple fact is that the magnetic field of the cosmos and the earth alternates far more than the field of a fixed DC magnet. It is this alternating earth/cosmic field to which volcanic soil and volcanic rock resonate, or to which both are susceptible.

As in the case of plants, water is diamagnetic. The atmosphere, because of the oxygen, is paramagnetic. Some of my preliminary experiments at night, during the full moon, indicate a paramagnetic/diamagnetic, plant, moon, water and soil relationship in nature. We know that the moon, which is highly paramagnetic, has a very strong effect on tides, which are of diamagnetic water. The many volcanic and/or meteorite cones indicate a paramagnetic moon body even though I could find no data on this subject from moon rock measurements.

It has long been known that certain Indian tribes planted by the full moon. There is little doubt in my mind that the American Indian knew more about good agriculture techniques than modern agriculturists! As the Sioux brave remarked while watching a farmer turning under virgin prairie grass, "wrong side up!" (in Altars of Unknown Stone by Wes Jackson).

Sacred Geometry

• The study of sacred geometry has its roots in the study of nature, and the mathematical principles at work therein^[3]. Many forms observed in nature can be related to geometry, for example, the chambered nautilus grows at a constant rate and so its shell forms a logarithmic spiral to accommodate that growth without changing shape. Also, honeybees construct hexagonal cells to hold their honey. These and other correspondences are seen by believers in sacred geometry to be further proof of the cosmic significance of geometric forms. These phenomena can be explained through natural principles.^[4

  The golden ratio, geometric ratios, and geometric figures were often employed in the design of Egyptian, ancient Indian, Greek and Roman architecture. Medieval European cathedrals also incorporated symbolic geometry. Indian and Himalayan spiritual communities often constructed temples and fortifications on design plans of mandala and yantra.

  Many of the sacred geometry principles of the human body and of ancient architecture have been compiled into the Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci, itself based on the much older writings of the roman architect Vitruvius.

  A contemporary usage of the term sacred geometry describes assertions of a mathematical order to the intrinsic nature of the universe. Scientists see the same geometric and mathematical patterns as arising directly from natural principles.

  Among the most prevalent traditional geometric forms ascribed to sacred geometry are the sine wave, the sphere, the vesica piscis, the torus (donut), the 5 platonic solids, the golden spiral, the tesseract (4-dimensional cube), Fractals^[5] and the star tetrahedron (2 oppositely oriented and interpenetrating tetrahedrons) which leads to the merkaba.

Solar Flares

• A sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 10²⁵ joules of energy^[1] (about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second). The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day or two after the event.^[2] The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.

• Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, chromosphere, and corona), when the medium plasma is heated to tens of millions of kelvins and electrons, protons, and heavier ions are accelerated to near the speed of light. They produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays, although most of the energy goes to frequencies outside the visual range and for this reason the majority of the flares are not visible to the naked eye and must be observed with special instruments. Flares occur in active regions around sunspots, where intense magnetic fields penetrate the photosphere to link the corona to the solar interior. Flares are powered by the sudden (timescales of minutes to tens of minutes) release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. The same energy releases may produce coronal mass ejections (CME), although the relation between CMEs and flares is still not well established. X-rays and UV radiation emitted by solar flares can affect Earth's ionosphere and disrupt long-range radio communications. Direct radio emission at decimetric wavelengths may disturb operation of radars and other devices operating at these frequencies. Solar flares were first observed on the Sun by Richard Christopher Carrington and independently by Richard Hodgson in 1859 ^[3] as localized visible brightenings of small areas within a sunspot group. Stellar flares have also been observed on a variety of other stars.
• The frequency of occurrence of solar flares varies, from several per day when the Sun is particularly "active" to less than one every week when the Sun is "quiet", following the 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). Large flares are less frequent than smaller ones. Flares occur when accelerated charged particles, mainly electrons, interact with the plasma medium. Scientific research has shown that the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection is responsible for the acceleration of the charged particles. On the Sun, magnetic reconnection may happen on solar arcades – a series of closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of force. These lines of force quickly reconnect into a low arcade of loops leaving a helix of magnetic field unconnected to the rest of the arcade. The sudden release of energy in this reconnection is in the origin of the particle acceleration. The unconnected magnetic helical field and the material that it contains may violently expand outwards forming a coronal mass ejection.^[4] This also explains why solar flares typically erupt from what are known as the active regions on the Sun where magnetic fields are much stronger on an average. Although there is a general agreement on the flares' causes, the details are still not well known. It is not clear how the magnetic energy is transformed into the particle kinetic energy, nor it is known how the particles are accelerated to energies as high as 10 MeV (Mega Electronvolt) and beyond. There are also some inconsistencies regarding the total number of accelerated particles, which sometimes seems to be greater than the total number in the coronal loop. We are unable to forecast flares, even to this day. Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X according to the peak flux (in watts per square meter, W/m²) of 100 to 800 picometer X-rays near Earth, as measured on the GOES spacecraft. Each class has a peak flux ten times greater than the preceding one. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9 (multiplicative factor), so an X2 flare (2 x 10⁻⁴ W/m²) is twice as powerful as an X1 flare (10⁻⁴ W/m²), and is four times more powerful than an M5 flare (5 x 10⁻⁵ W/m²). The more powerful M and X class flares are often associated with a variety of effects on the near-Earth space environment. This extended logarithmic classification is necessary because the total energies of flares range over many orders of magnitude, following a uniform distribution with flare frequency roughly proportional to the inverse of the total energy. Stellar flares and earthquakes show similar power-law distributions.^[5]Another flare classification is based on Hα spectral observations. The scheme uses both the intensity and emitting surface. The classification in intensity is qualitative, referring the flares as: (f)aint, (n)ormal or (b)rilliant. The emitting surface is measured in terms of millionths of the hemisphere and is described below (The total hemisphere area A_H = 6.2 × 10¹² km².)