Recent Changes

Welcome to Weeks Three and Four
Overall grade: Dear Patrick, I really appreciate your active participation in the directed study. You have done a lot of work and been well engaged throughout. Well done. Almost all the work is either A or A- level. I get the impression that you have gained the kind of overview on Global Sustainability that the course seeks to give. It's a pity you missed the class offering as I am sure you would have got a lot more out of it. Never mind. Overall I feel it's a borderline case for an A or A-. On a content basis I would probably make it an A-. But when taking into account your level of engagement and the volume of work I'll make it an A. Well done. JC.
Final Presentation: You did a general review of Plan B rather than some specific deeper research items related to each chapter topic, so I'm not sure how to grade this. In terms of the general review it was well balanced; maybe more hard facts would be good as per the book itself. But a great effort. 90
Post you work here, preferably cut an pate for word docs, thanks. JC

Plan B 4.0
thus far. You seem to have run out of steam! 85 JC
It take 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain
70% of world water use devoted to irrigation

Welcome to Weeks Three and Four
Final Presentation: You did a general review of Plan B rather than some specific deeper research items related to each chapter topic, so I'm not sure how to grade this. In terms of the general review it was well balanced; maybe more hard facts would be good as per the book itself. But a great effort. 90
Post you work here, preferably cut an pate for word docs, thanks. JC
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human uses Thanks for this review. I was hoping you would point on the compelling economics as we move down the experience cost curve (as explained by Bradfield). But you hit on many good points. 92
This is the good news and the bad news. It is bad news because it is likely that most carbon based energy sources on planet Earth by now have been nearly exhausted. Fuel for the burgeoning automobile population on the planet and fuel for outdated centralized electricity generating plants, and fuel for agriculture and military applications and the transportation industry too the world to the brink of collapse.
All the while, this occurred in the bright light of day. Daylight. Supplied by the Sun. An endless source of constant energy the streams onto the planet each day. And the good news is that humans are not suffering from loss. As a matter of fact, the air is cleaner than in generations because fossil fuels are no longer burning day and night, three hundred and sixty five days a year. This happens time and again in the history of people-kind; when, under the greatest pressure and strain, the greatest innovations emerge.
Innovations such as these with tremendous government backed financing finally brought the critical mass to the industry that was needed to make solar power capabilities ubiquitous. While electricity generating utilities would continue to argue and fight for control of centralized electrical power on the planet, they fell far behind because of an aging, failing outdated power-grid configuration that was no longer economically feasible especially on more remote parts of the planet. Localized power to individual homes and businesses would become the norm as government regulation required all new structures to included integrated solar power generating capabilities with a means for offloading excess generating capacity to local municipal grids. With the simultaneous advances in battery storage technologies for storing electricity generated during daylight hours for use at night, this once “quaint” system of power generation, thought to be perhaps little more than a dreamer’s dream, allowed it to become the dominant power source for all human uses.
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on POLICIES Good effort 90 JC
Policies Enhance Creative Intelligence
Policies that Inhibit Creative Intelligence

Week Two
global sustainability." Nice review. Your essay might have worked better if you had given your answer at the beginning and then gone on to explain that answer. As i understand it you are saying 'In theory yes; but can it be done is not so clear.' Fair enough. 93
How do you create global sustainability? Does such a thing exist? Does it not exist? If it exists, does it need to be expanded and grown? Or if it does not exist, should it? What has to happen to see it created? The underlying assumptions seem to be that some level of awareness and action toward global sustainability does exist but not widely enough to save the planet before man destroys everything.
Throughout the week’s course, a variety of sources and opinions are introduced along the common theme of man’s awakening consciousness. That awakening consciousness tends to occur along a continuum. Part of the exploration delves into those ways in which some who experience what is described as this awakened state of being, may tend to think and act differently from those not as far along the continuum quantitatively.
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Friday 3/9
Maharishi videos 89 A mixed bag of work. The first two are pretty good then you sort of stopped answering the question. When you say about Maharishi plugging TM it makes him sound like a cheap salesman. I hope that isn't your intention. What he always emphsized is to open awareness to the transcendent. TM is his preferred route. But his motivation isn't to 'make a sale' like that. It's to reduce suffering in the world.
#1 The Environment - Nicely done.
All the work, the knowledge, the systems are already there. Where do we want to be? What kind of environment do we want? It is all completely available to any man; he must make a choice. He can accept it or he can remodel it.
A man can have the environment he likes. Every thought, speech, and action affects his environment. These create a wave; it touches and influences – negatively, positively, or neutral, although it is never really neutral – everything you touch.
The higher meaning imparted to the student of this course from this video might be the advice that to create and to live in a global sustainable environment, the highest recommendation is to practice that meditation that connects to the highest absolute source of all knowing; "develop an expanded mind to be most creative." Then we may begin to live in accordance with the advice that Krishna gives to Arjuna in The Bhagavad Gita: “...you should be free from the action of the gunas, established in eternal truth, self-controlled, without any sense of duality or the desire to acquire and hoard.” (2:45) “Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself—without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.” (2:48).
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Will vs. DeterminismDeterminism. Pretty good effort. One other key point is that the degree of free will depends on the level of development of CI in an individual.
From SCI, a good man is using full creative intelligence. Other kind is yet on the way to unfolding.
you reap. Whatother way round! What you sow
The present is structured on the actions of the past. Actions of the past are structured on free will. Natural laws are fixed; in favor of evolution; toward more and more; toward the infinite value of life.
Patrick’s Commentary: In the context of Global Sustainable Environment, Maharishi advises that we need to transcend to fully embrace and understand creative intelligence and to come into alignment with natural law. Only when people have risen to higher states of consciousness can they then experience the full value of life. Only when they experience the full value of life do they then utilize their free will to takes actions in the world with the support of nature that are beneficial for people and the planet together. This is sustainability.
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that quality so what are the implications for global sustainability?
Spontaneous ability of finer perception as appreciation grows love increases and finer perception is more charming. The object of perception is more charming, more fascinating; there is more ability to love and this develops the heart. This increases along with more perception; is more charming; more attractive.
Celestial perception is the finest perception. When one is in cosmic consciousness one is free from stresses; enjoys life in freedom due to release of stress. The digestive system starts to produce more valuable substance than before.
Patrick’s Commentary: Here, Mahesh talks about how we can improve ourselves at the individual level. How we can and should seek to function at the finest level of perception which is the level of celestial perception. Stress release he says is most important. The suggestion is that one who is carrying stresses can not reach the ultimate goal of perfection as a human. This perfection would be defined as both on the physical level of how the body is functioning as well as on the level of consciousness.
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to Growth - So what are the implications for global sustainability?
Growth is unlimited. Progress depends on creative intelligence. It is unlimited when that potential becomes lively in the individual. And then it is unbounded and limitless. This is the experience of creativity.
Patrick’s commentary: This very brief video was a question and answer session with Maharishi where he offers his insights in response to questions from a small panel. I think the question had to do with if there were any limitations to growth. Maharishi’s answer was probably the shortest, most succinct I’ve heard yet in any of the videos at MUM. Growth is unlimited. The message of course is a plug for TM and the benefits one gets by practicing TM, such as lively potential and unbounded and limitless possibilities in ones life.
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posed - ie what is his proposed method to cultivate an ecological conscience? He describes what such a conscience would be but what about the how? He describes how it happened to him. But what about the rest of us? 91
Before one even gets into the text of the book the author offers thoughts that inspired and informed the work. “Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.” From the last paragraph of the Earth Charter, www.earthcharter.org.
In large measure, this statement seems to sum up the major foundational message offered in the Global Sustainable Environment course; that this new reverence for life in this time of awakening can only be possible when the conscience and consciousness of the collective finally reaches a state whereby these truths become the rule, not the exception. yes, that's my central thought.

Patrick’s commentary: This very brief video was a question and answer session with Maharishi where he offers his insights in response to questions from a small panel. I think the question had to do with if there were any limitations to growth. Maharishi’s answer was probably the shortest, most succinct I’ve heard yet in any of the videos at MUM. Growth is unlimited. The message of course is a plug for TM and the benefits one gets by practicing TM, such as lively potential and unbounded and limitless possibilities in ones life.
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L. Kirschenmann I think you have done a great job summarizing the books thinking - not an easy task. But I'd like you to have given a clearer answer to the question I posed -
Before one even gets into the text of the book the author offers thoughts that inspired and informed the work. “Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.” From the last paragraph of the Earth Charter, www.earthcharter.org.
the exception. yes, that's my central thought.
The author spends time sharing his reflections on the divine and the deeper meanings in our own lives revealed in relationships with the whole of the biotic community; and part of the evolution of an ecological conscience.
Only by a rededication to organic farming, rebuilding soils, producing food that is more nutritious will true sustainability be achieved. Contrasts the owner-operator farm with rising absentee corporate ownership shows two very different mindsets and goals. Advocates for a soil-depletion allowance subsidy the same as oil companies get with their existing oil-depletion allowance, which of course while a great idea, probably has no support from those who could make it law.
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Thursday, 3/8
universe a machinemachine? - ExcellentThanks Patrick. I didn't mean a machine literally. That was a metaphor for an inert, physical system. Anyway, I agree with your conclusion. 94I think the elaboration of your conclusion from the MVS camp would be the self-referral dynamics of consciousness. But maybe you have studied this much. 90
6. Write 300 words on 'Is the universe a machine that has leaned to think or a thought that has learned to make a machine.' You may find these two documents useful. But use all your SCI knowledge and reference sources.
It is difficult imaging the universe as some sort of “machine.” Certainly it has many moving parts. And certainly those parts have been honed to a fine precision. However, reflecting on the dictionary meaning of the word, “machine,” one finds it defined as, “An apparatus using or applying mechanical power to perform a particular task.” My personal sense is that the universe is neither.

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Thursday, 3/8
a machine - Excellent conclusion. 94
6. Write 300 words on 'Is the universe a machine that has leaned to think or a thought that has learned to make a machine.' You may find these two documents useful. But use all your SCI knowledge and reference sources.
It is difficult imaging the universe as some sort of “machine.” Certainly it has many moving parts. And certainly those parts have been honed to a fine precision. However, reflecting on the dictionary meaning of the word, “machine,” one finds it defined as, “An apparatus using or applying mechanical power to perform a particular task.” My personal sense is that the universe is neither.
Jai Bhagwan.
Wednesday, 3/7
All Life Well done. Glad you enjoyed the book. With reference to your last comment, I guess both barbarism and grace are there and we can either turn the the 'dark side' or go for the light. 94
Kinship for All Life is a great story of consciousness awakening, primarily from the view of the author. It also offers vivid illustrations through the stories about others who have demonstrated a deeper understanding of nature’s intelligence and mankind’s connection to the natural world through intention. Mr. Boone’s encounter with the innate intelligence in the German shepherd dog, “Strongheart,” and how they came to communicate, know and trust each other is nothing short of illuminating. Boone describes how he needed to overcome his own “wrong beliefs about dogs” and overcome his ingrained feeling of superiority. He said in learning these lessons from the dog, he could become "a better companion for him and a better citizen of the universe.”
Over time, a “mental bridge” formed in the bond between them and thus they were able to share through a silent language he called “the Mind of the Universe that is constantly speaking through all life and for the greater good of all life.”

Another quality of the dog that seemed nothing short of amazing was not so much that the dog had been trained but, rather, educated. Over time with careful perception and gentle technique, the dog came to exhibit a quality the author describes as an “imprisoned splendor.” That is, a quality of character, talents, and even grace.
In the example of Grace Wiley at the Zoo for Happiness working with a large rattlesnake as a new-comer to her and her “gentling room,” the point is made that Miss Wiley “had again demonstrated the fact that regardless of appearances, good is latent in every living thing, and simply need to be called into active expression through the gracious application of respect, sympathetic understanding, gentleness and love.” This stands in stark contrast to statements made in Century of the Self by the narrator who described attributes of Americans as a, “… savage barbarism that lurked just under the surface of normal American life.”
Tuesday, 3/6 I thought you would sharpen your teeth on this one, although I didn't ask for a critique, just a summary of what the claim is. I could spend all day on this, but I'll just make a couple of comments. The reason Maharishi was open to and even keen on scientific research was that Indian philosophy and practices were held in such low esteem in the West. He hoped that research would show that TM does have value for the practical modern man. My second point is that this research paper is breaking into a new area of integrating the fields of neuroscience and pshychology with higher states of consciousness. I agree the study has weaknesses and one study doesn't ever really prove anything. You need a decent body of research to establish credibility. I see it as a start on an interesting journey, Anyway, well done. 91.
Movement Study Review: "Psychological and physiological characteristics of a proposed object-referral/self-referral continuum of self-awareness." Fred Travis, et. al.
(You may want to correct your notes but the study is not called "Consciousness and Cognition." That is the name of the journal it )was published in; #13, (2004).Thanks JC

Tuesday, 3/6
Movement Study Review: "Psychological and physiological characteristics of a proposed object-referral/self-referral continuum of self-awareness." Fred Travis, et. al.
in; #13, (2004). (2004).Thanks JC
The study attempts to validate a state of consciousness or self-awareness called "self-referral." Self-referral is being contrasted to a state identified as "object-referral." And the two are examined as opposing states of consciousness measured along a range of variables identified as the "continuum of self-awareness." The study involved fifty-one subjects with varying ranges of experience in the practice of Transcendental Meditation, from zero years through about twenty-five years of practice. Later in the study an allusion is made to "different meditation and spiritual traditions" but none of those were shown in the data for this study.
Curiously, throughout the study, the self-referral state became described as one of pure, self-referral consciousness. There was no mention of why the qualitative adjective referencing 'purity' was attached to that state except that the researchers showed a particular personal bias toward this state of consciousness. "Pure" as compared to what?
The conclusion of the study states that "research can investigate the outcomes of different meditation and spiritual traditions," and that, "This line of research could dramatically impact our understanding of the possible range of human development and could help promote a more unified understanding of diverse spiritual traditions as different roads to the same goal--a more extensive development of human brain integration and unfoldment of our full human potential." Statements like "dramatically impact our understanding" seem sensationalist and speculative at best. The researchers go further in asserting that, "The implications of these data are that enlightenment may be operationalized". On balance and in fairness to the general scientific population, the researchers point out that "many scientifically minded people may consider enlightenment either imaginary, impractical, or simply outside the boundaries of scientific investigation."
Suggesting that one can or should reduce the goal of other spiritual traditions to "unfoldment of a state of full human potential, brought on by a more extensive development of human brain integration" would present as odious to practitioners of other traditions. In Catholic school, my teachers weren't particularly concerned with my "brain integration." While Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, "The way to gain acceptance of transcendental meditation would be through science. " (Merv Griffin interview), very few spiritual traditions would share this view. Perhaps there is wisdom in the suggestion to keep to the data and avoid the confusion and mixed message that occurs when making casual yet unclarified references to "different meditation and spiritual traditions."
3/5/12 --- A really excellent effort on the first installment. Sorry you were put off the second half. I'll review it myself and give you a 95 for part one. The whole thing is pretty interesting isn't it? I think Simund F was her Dad by the way.
Century of the Self
Are people like Bernays and Anna Freud partly responsible for diminished global sustainability in the 20th century?
Then he started in on American military in World War II saying that in the "middle of fierce fighting the second world war, the American army was faced by an extraordinary number of mental breakdowns among its troops. 49% of all soldiers evacuated from combat were sent back because they suffered from "mental problems."
I'm going to get mental here and show this guy a little savage barbarism! The reaction his opening comments had on me was, "What kind of propaganda is this film intended to be, anyway?" The footage that is supposed to be of actual soldiers being screened by psychoanalysts is obviously staged and the personalities are actors. I guess I was half asleep during the first part and missed the underlying message.
Win Campaigns: Well done 93
Communications campaigns are most effective when told in a story type format.
Pictures and images are more powerful than words.
Each react very differently to campaigns, campaign propositions, and campaign mechanisms.
Campaigns needs to communicate differently for each group to gain support across groups.
ECOMIND I like you assessments. Excellent work. 93
Moore-Lappe says answers to the problems of global sustainability are “right in front or our noses.” And if so many people do care, then what is the problem? Too many people feel powerless. By and large people blame big companies having too much political clout and that powerful lobbyists and political action committees set the political agendas. Yet there is only one force strong enough to keep society creating a world we abhor and that is the emotional power of our own ideas to trap us or to free us. That fears of being without and fears of separateness, scarcity, and stasis (three S’s) keep us from making the change we need to make.
Limiting premises are trapped in a dominant frame of lack and separateness. Moore-Lappe believes each of these limiting premises or “mind-traps” need to be reframed in a way so as to free those who are trapped to find their power to create the world they really say they want.
7. It’s too late. Author: She begins by quoting the professors and scientists who are proponents of this thought trap. That we have failed to meet nature’s deadline. She says our most worrisome deficit is “hypocognition,” the absence of a key concept a society needs to thrive. She says, agreeing with Al Gore, that “in order to solve the environmental crisis we have to solve the democracy crisis.”
-------My position is it is either too late, or it’s not. Do all you can and see what happens. I don’t believe that society at large can ignore all the warnings. And I do not believe that we will. Will enough be done fast enough to satisfy all of the “The sky is falling The sky is falling!” club? No. For four decades that I am aware of and probably longer, the western world has cried about human rights injustices in China yet human rights abuses still take place there. If anything, we began abusing human rights ourselves, at least from the Bush era onward. I’m don’t fully agree with Moore-Lappe that the flourishing of life depends on democracy attuned to all we now know of our nature. I do not see any one-government world or any global country of world anything taking place of the disparate governments the world has today. So we just have to keep pushing through authenticity and integrity, identifying what seem to be threats and advocating for solutions to those threats at ever possible turn.
Thanks for this great effort. You certainly covered food climate and polulation pretty throughly. You could have also spelled out the implications of sea level rise for loss of valuable delta crop land and climate population dislocation. I gather from their absence that you do not see genetic engineering as an issue. Maybe you are right. I hope so. I'm not bothering to correct typos by the way. Great effort. 92
Executive Summary: Challenges to Global Sustainability
Purpose of this paper
Plan B 4.0 author Brown shares a vivid illustration that drives home the point of the danger of exponential growth:
"The French use a riddle to teach school children the nature of exponential growth. A lily pond, so the riddle goes, contains a single leaf. Each day the number of leaves doubles--two leaves the second day, four the third, eight the fourth, and so on. "If the pond is full on the thirtieth day, at what point is it half full?" Answer: "On the twenty-ninth day.""
half empty. Though population growth is no longer exponential; neither are carbon emissions.
The opposite of exponential depletion would be that of linear depletion, such as when one is driving in ones car and the fuel tank reaches half-empty, one still has some distance to travel. Whereas in the illustration above, too often in environmental depletion, when we reach the half way point, then the end or zero point is too often within one cycle away.
This gives rise to a “food bubble economy,” where once the pumping of aquifers exceeds the natural recharge capacity, we face ecological overshoot and collapse. Around the globe, thousands of villages have been abandoned over time. With water gone and soil gone, the people are gone. Where do they go? Mass migrations of people from once rich agricultural regions are forced to become food nomads and refugees. This has played out time and again. These then become what have been called “failing states” and the data is being tracked by organizations such as the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine in an index that is update annually.

Plan B 4.0
Excellent work thus far. JC
It take 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain
70% of world water use devoted to irrigation

Plan B 4.0
It take 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain
70% of world water use devoted to irrigation
2.2 billion tons of carbon released into atmosphere annually from shrinkage of forests in tropical regions
75 million children worldwide not in school