Jeffrey Richelson: Defusing Armageddon

Summary
Relying on recently declassified documents, Jeffrey Richelson, Senior Fellow with the National Security Archive, reveals how NEST operated during the Cold War and how the agency has evolved.
Richelson also describes its current efforts to reduce the chance of a nuclear device decimating an American city.
Jeffrey Talbot Richelson - Jeffrey Talbot Richelson is an American author and academic researcher who studies the process of intelligence gathering and national security. He has authored ten books and many articles about intelligence, and has directed the publication of several of the National Security Archive's collections of source documents.
Michael Shuster - Mike Shuster is a diplomatic correspondent and a roving foreign correspondent for National Public Radio in the United States.

What We Still Don't Know Documentary

Part 1 - Are we alone?

Hear the word ‘alien’ and what might spring to mind is something approaching HG Wells’ vision of a warlike Martian invader from War of the Worlds. His fantastical dreams of dumpy aliens sporting octopod tentacles and camouflage coloured skin have long been inclined to place the topic of alien life well beyond the realm of intelligent discourse and into the world of weird and wacky belief.

But no longer. In this documentary film - Are We Alone?, Martin Rees puts paid to the flights of fantasy and takes us on a journey of unsettling consequence.

Seth Shostak is one of SETI’s (Institute for the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) leading investigators. He is utterly convinced that there is someone out there. The most compelling evidence is simply in the vast scales of space. There are 10,000 billion billion stars visible from Earth’s telescopes alone, and a conservative estimate places orbiting planets around one in ten of them. Would it not then be very strange if Earth were the only planet out of so many boggling billions to have been a cradle for life?

Peter Ward is a paleontologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. He’s an expert biologist and not given to inventing weird alien creatures. But even he has to admit that life elsewhere is more than likely: ‘When you think there are 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and there are billions of galaxies, we now think that virtually every star has a planet, more than one planet, you’re going to have abodes for life almost everywhere. It’s ridiculous to think it happened on this planet and this planet alone. Life is definitely out there.’

Part 2 - Why are we here?

Philosophers and theologians have long debated our purpose in the universe. We have always assumed that there is some higher purpose for humanity, but the universe it seems may have other ideas.

In Why Are We Here? Martin Rees explains how scientists have had to revise long-held beliefs about the very nature of the universe, and in the process re-evaluate our place here. To do this, Rees presents some of the most fundamental questions about the universe and our own origins: What was the beginning? What is the nature of life? What is the future of the cosmos and the nature of reality?

The answers may not be what you expect. Empty space is not so empty after all. Most of the universe is made up not of atoms, as previously thought, but of a mysterious and elusive substance called ‘dark matter’. Without it the universe simply would not exist.

But working against dark matter is an even more mysterious force that threatens to tear the universe apart – ‘dark energy’.

Part 3 - Are we real?

All life on Earth is nothing more than an elaborate facade created by super-intelligent beings. Humans now exist in a computerized version of the world – a simulation that keeps us happy, while our powers are drained by our creators for use as fuel in their campaign for dominance in the ‘real’ world. This is the premise of the cult sci-fi thriller The Matrix.

‘The simulation hypothesis, that we are currently living in a computer simulation, should be understood literally, it’s not just in a metaphorical sense whereby one could view the universe as a simulation, but literally we would be living in a simulation created by some advanced civilization in a computer they built in their universe. And everything we see and our brains themselves would just be parts of this simulation.’ Oxford University philosopher Dr Nick Bostrom echoes the thoughts of sci-fi writers and scientists alike. The simulation hypothesis is not sci-fi, it’s serious academic thought.

In Are We Real? Martin Rees navigates the extraordinary territory between science fact and science fiction. He reveals the logical steps that have led cosmologists and philosophers to the shocking conclusion that The Matrix scenario cannot be safely relegated to our storybooks. Whether it’s true or not, and it might be, here is a story that is altogether more serious and more deeply disturbing than any sci-fi fantasy could ever be.

Cosmologist Professor Max Tegmark from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warns us that ‘We humans have undergone a series of demotions, a series of blows to our ego.’ Prepare yourself for another.

Last Days on Eart - ABC 20/20 Special

20/20 Last days on earth - The seven deadliest treats to humanity - 1:22:22

How smart are we as a civilization? Smart enough to control our destiny and avoid the cataclysms that may end life as we know it? For thousands of years, different religions have warned Earth about Armageddon and the final days. We are now living in an age where scientists are adding their voices and their evidence in support of end-of-the-world possibilities.

Gapminder Google Talks Conference - Presentation of human development, the reality of income distribution, etc.

Google TechTalks
March 7, 2006

Amazing presentation of human development, the reality of income distribution, etc.

Ola Rosling
Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Johan Nystrand

GapCasts - Human Development Trends, Globalization, Bangladesh Miracle - Gapminder.org

Gapcast #3 - Human Development Trends
With Staffan Landin. A short overview of the trends in Human Develompent from 1960 to 2001. From Gapminder Foundation.



GapCast #4 - Globalization
How has the Global Economy effected the income of people across the world?Although the percentage of poverty has gone down, the number of poor people is still very high. Still, the percentage of people living in extreme poverty has gone down from around 40 percent 30 years ago to todays number of around 20 percent
The good news is that the eradication of poverty is within human range.




Gapcast #5 - Bangladesh Miracle
Have you heard about Miracle that has happened in Bangladesh over the last 30 years? No? Bangladesh has the highest population density among the worlds big countries, today, Bangladesh has more people than Russia. But the area is smaller than Florida.
So what is the Miracle? In 1970 an average women in Bangladesh gave birth to 7 children, and on of four of them died before the age of five. But after independence from Pakistan in 1971 things has improved. See Hans Roslings GapCast to see how much.

What I worry about, what I'm excited about: Bill Joy on TED.com

Technologist and futurist Bill Joy shares several big worries for humanity -- and several big hopes in the fields of health, education and future tech. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, California. Duration: 19:02.)

CBC - Global Warming Doomsday Called Off

CBC - Global Warming Doomsday Called Off - 43:59 -
Apr 21, 2007

A documentary about the causes of global warming. More controversy.

1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse

1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse - 1:14:18 - Jan 5, 2008

An extremely powerful programme, this documentary focuses on 8 November 1983, a date now recognised as one of the most dangerous moments in ...all » An extremely powerful programme, this documentary focuses on 8 November 1983, a date now recognised as one of the most dangerous moments in the entire history of the Cold War. On this near-fateful day, a series of accidents nearly unleashed the Third World War. Senior figures in the Soviet Union had convinced themselves that they were about to come under nuclear attack from the West, and the vast Soviet nuclear arsenal of missiles, bombers and submarines were put on maximum alert, ready to launch a full nuclear retaliatory attack on Western Europe and the US. Armageddon beckoned. This documentary tells the dramatic story behind this sequence of events when Soviet fingers hovered perilously over the nuclear button. The intelligence communities in the US, Europe and the former USSR have never before admitted to the scale of this crisis.«





1983: The Brink Of Apocalypse

Samantha Power on a complicated hero | TED.com

About this talk
Samantha Power tells a story of a complicated hero, Sergio Vieira de Mello. This UN diplomat walked a thin moral line, negotiating with the world's worst dictators to help their people survive crisis. It's a compelling story told with a fiery passion.
About Samantha Power
Samantha Power studies US foreign policy, especially as it relates to war and human rights. Her books take on the world's worst problems: genocide, civil war and brutal dictatorships.




Samantha Power on a complicated hero | Video on TED.com

Richard Muller on Physics for Future Presidents

Book Passage
Corte Madera, CA
Aug 11th, 2008

Richard Muller talks about his book Physics for Future Presidents.

Learn the science behind the headlines. How do we know — not just by relying on TV’s talking heads — if Iran’s nascent nuclear capability is a genuine threat to the West, if biochemical weapons are likely to be developed by terrorists, and if nuclear power should be encouraged? Muller offers some surprising information - Book Passage

James Nachtwey fights XDR-TB | Video on TED.com

"About this talk
Photojournalist James Nachtwey sees his TED Prize wish come true, as we share his powerful photographs of XDR-TB, a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis that's touching off a global medical crisis. Learn how to help at http://www.xdrtb.org
About James Nachtwey
Photojournalist James Nachtwey is considered by many to be the greatest war photographer of recent decades. He has covered conflicts and major social issues in more than 30 countries."



James Nachtwey fights XDR-TB | Video on TED.com:

Irwin Redlener on surviving a nuclear attack | TED.com

About this talk
The face of nuclear terror has changed since the Cold War, but disaster-medicine expert Irwin Redlener reminds us the threat is still real. He looks at some of history's farcical countermeasures and offers practical advice on how to survive an attack.

About Irwin Redlener
Dr. Irwin Redlener spends his days imagining the worst: He studies how humanity might survive natural or human-made disasters of unthinkable severity.



Irwin Redlener on surviving a nuclear attack | Video on TED.com

Peter Schwartz and Ralph Cavanagh, Nuclear Power, Climate Change and the Next 10,000 Years

The Long Now Foundation
The Herbst Theater - San Francisco, CA
Jan 13th, 2006

The Long Now Foundation presents a discussion between Peter Schwartz and Ralph Cavanagh: Nuclear Power, Climate Change and the Next 10,000 Years
It is the threat of "abrupt climate change" that converted him to support new emphasis on nuclear power, Schwartz said. Gradual global warming is clearly now under way, and there is increasing reason to believe that human activity is driving it, mostly through the burning of coal and oil. If warming is all that happens, it will be an enormous problem, but some regions of the Earth would gain (Russia, Canada) while many others would lose.
In the event of abrupt climate change, though, everyone loses. The most likely change would be a sudden (in one decade) shift to a much colder, drier, and windier world. The world's carrying capacity for humans would plummet, driving human population from the current 6.5 billion to as low as 2 billion, with most of the losses from war. It would be a civilization-threatening catastrophe. From research Schwartz has led for the Pentagon as well as from his own training in fluid dynamics, he thinks that continuation of the current warming is very likely to trigger the kind of radical climate instability that has been the norm in Earth's past, except for the last 10,000 years of uncharacteristically stable climate. Therefore everything must be done to head off the shift to climate instability.
Meanwhile, Schwartz said, world demand for energy will continue to grow for decades, as two billion more people climb out of poverty and developing nations become fully developed economies. China and India alone will double or quadruple their energy use over the next 50 years. We will run out of oil in that period. That leaves coal or nuclear for electricity. Conservation is crucial, but it doesn't generate power. Renewables must grow fast, but they cannot hope to fill the whole need. Nuclear technology has improved its efficiency and safety and can improve a lot more. Reprocessing fuel will add further efficiency - Stewart Brand, The Long Now Foundation







FORA.tv - Peter Schwartz and Ralph Cavanagh

Paul Collier: 4 ways to improve the lives of the "bottom billion" TED | Talks | (video)

About this talk
Around the world right now, one billion people are trapped in poor or failing countries. How can we help them? Economist Paul Collier lays out a bold, compassionate plan for closing the gap between rich and poor.
About Paul Collier
Paul Collier’s book The Bottom Billion shows what is happening to the poorest people in the world, and offers ideas for opening up opportunities to all.
Why you should listen to him: Paul Collier studies the political and economic problems of the very poorest countries: 50 societies, many in sub-Saharan Africa, that are stagnating or in decline, and taking a billion people down with them. His book The Bottom Billion identifies the four traps that keep such countries mired in poverty, and outlines ways to help them escape, with a mix of direct aid and external support for internal change.
From 1998 to 2003, Collier was the director of the World Bank’s Development Research Group; he now directs the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford, where he continues to advise policymakers.
"Collier sheds much light on how the world should tackle its biggest moral challenge. [He] shows, too, how far western governments and other external actors are from currently giving the sort of help these countries desperately need."
Martin Wolf, Financial Times





TED | Talks | Paul Collier: 4 ways to improve the lives of the "bottom billion" (video)

Naomi Wolf: The End of America FORA.tv -

attered Cover Book Store
Denver, CO
Oct 9th, 2007

Naomi Wolf talks about The End of America

Naomi Wolf, the bestselling author of The Beauty Myth, Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How It Will Change The 21st Century, Promiscuities: The Secret Struggle for Womanhood, and others, will discuss and sign her new book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. This book cuts across political parties and ideologies, and warns us - with the straight-to-fellow-citizens urgency of one of Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlets - that we have little time to lose if our children are to live in real freedom. - Tattered Cover



FORA.tv - Naomi Wolf: The End of America

Cost of Our Oil Addiction

Cody's Books
Berkeley, CA
Nov 2nd, 2006

Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction.

A special advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger, former head of the California EPA, and co-founder of The Riverkeeper Alliance with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Terry Tamminen explores the price we pay for each fill up at the pump: the health care costs, government subsidies, economic costs, and environmental devastation, plus the wars and backhanded dealings all to keep our supplies pumping. Tamminen points out that we've made a deal with the devil to stay supplied - but it's time for that to stop, just as our oil reserves will in the next thirty to fifty years. Using tobacco-style litigation against oil and auto industries, Tamminen proposes to use the legal proceeds to help pay for the switch to hydrogen fuel cell energy within a decade, just as California efforts to do just that are beginning - Cody's Books

In the summer of 2003, Terry Tamminen helped Arnold Schwarzenegger win the historic recall election and become Governor of California. He became Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency in November 2003 and was promoted to Cabinet Secretary, Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor, in December 2004.



FORA.tv - Cost of Our Oil Addiction

MIT World » : Energy in a Global Context

Energy in a Global Context
SPEAKER:
Susan Hockfield
MIT President
Professor of Neuroscience
SPEAKERS:
Susan Hockfield: MIT President
Hockfield's MIT biography

Nazli Choucri: Professor of Political Science MIT
Choucri's website

ABOUT THE LECTURE:
As Susan Hockfield recounts, MIT presentations on disruptive energy research at the most recent World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, provided the single glimmer of optimism for a Time Magazine correspondent. Paraphrasing him, she says, “What MIT is good for: a dose of reality-based hope that we can address in a real way the most serious of the world’s great challenges.”
MIT has committed body and soul to helping solve the problem of sustainable energy. Hockfield describes an “overwhelming call” from staff, students and alumni to pursue this issue in the coming decades. Reaching across all schools, demanding new forms of collaboration and interdisciplinary effort, MIT has launched an Energy Initiative to address three main themes: new technology for a cleaner future; improving today’s energy systems for changes in the near term; and addressing challenges posed by emerging economies.
Hockfield says researchers seek no silver bullet but that MIT is committed to a “portfolio of solutions.” She sees this vast academic enterprise providing the “same kind of catalytic inspirational effect that the Apollo program had on my generation” and triggering a cycle of innovation that will help strengthen the nation’s economy.

Nazli Choucri situates the current energy crisis in global reality. She describes how the legacies of the 20th century frame expectations and politics in the 21st century around energy supply, demand and distribution.
A rising world population (in general) and mass migration create pressure, as does a rapidly rising quality of life in developing nations. World trade has led to a “shifting structure of economies and societies,” including the somewhat hopeful evolution of economies involving knowledge creation and internet based interactions.
Choucri sees as well the emergence of a “dark side” in the 20th century: unstable or hostile nations controlling energy resources; more countries in conflict or under threat due to climate issues, as dependence on fossil fuels expands; and environmental dangers (such as big storms) multiplying. Also, new players sit at the table -- more multinational corporations, more sovereign states, NGOs -- with unpredictable or competing agendas.
Choucri believes we also gained some useful advantages during the last century, including a better understanding of the connections among energy, environment and the economy. But the world has yet to figure out a new politics for managing these issues. She says that global volatility means greater difficulty achieving “a politics of consensus” around global energy strategies, and we “now must push the envelope on collaboration,” finding “new strategies for negotiation,” assuming we can first find a national consensus.

NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:30:56.

MIT World » : Energy in a Global Context

Children of the Secret State - North Korea

Children.of.the.Secret.State.-.North.Korea.avi

Evolution of Climate Models

Mid 1970s
Early climate models were limited. They only included carbon dioxide, heat from the sun (radiation) and rain, but not clouds.




Mid 1980s
Clouds, land surface and ice were added into the mix in the 1980s. Different types of land behave differently; deserts and ice are more likely to reflect radiation, and forests are more likely to absorb it.




1990 - IPCC’s first report
A simple model of the oceans now joins the picture, as the first IPCC report comes out. To begin with, only the top layer of the sea was modelled.




1996 Second Assessment Report
More sophisticated models of the ocean are added. Volcanoes are also shown. Their eruptions throw particles into the atmosphere, which can block sunlight and temporarily reduce global temperatures.




2001 Third Assessment Report
By bringing the carbon cycle into the picture, the different ways C02 is stored and released into the atmosphere gives greater realism to climate models. Understanding of the oceans is deepened.




2007 Fourth Assessment Report
Chemical reactions in the atmosphere join the climate models; they are now produced using computing power 256 times more powerful than that available in the 1970s.

Baghdad: A doctor story - Documentary

Baghdad A doctor story
38 min 53 sec - Nov 5, 2007
Filmed exclusively by an Iraqi doctor, This World reveals the terrible conditions of a civilian emergency room in Baghdad Al Yarmouk Hospital is in the most dangerous area of Baghdad. Sectarian violence is tearing the city apart and ambulance crews go from one dangerous mission to another.
Talking on camera is dangerous, but here patients and doctors speak out. Wherever they go, the doctor is there with his camera. "People don't know what is going on in Iraq," he says, "they can't hear the Iraqi people screaming." In the constant stream of news reports from Iraq, the voice of ordinary people seems to have been lost. In this film, we hear from them directly... and get a harrowing insight into everyday life in Baghdad.



Baghdad A doctor story