Daryl's Journal

What Happened Today? Flew to Fort Lauderdale. Mark picked me up. Heavy traffic. We called on Somay and Highlander. Dinner at a Cuban restaurant.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

136. One billion over affluent people enjoy lifestyles that impose a grossly disproportionate pressure on our planetary ecosystem.

137. This consumerism is powered in turn  by a sudden expansion in technological knowhow, enabling us to use and misuse ever-greater stocks of natural resources– even to use them up.

138. In fact, rather than a “population crisis” or a “resource crisis”, we should speak of a single over-arching crisis: the crisis of humankind.

139. The shadow stems from all of us, and it will darken all our lives.

140. On land, we plough up virgin areas, even though most of them are marginal at best.

What Happened Today? Stormy, rainy morning. No walk. Meeting at Coronado Paint with Alberdingk-Boley. Good session. Received bid sheet for epoxies. Kay switched living room around. Lost my sleeping spot.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

131. Today, the rise of human numbers casts a shadow over planet Earth.

132. We have reached a total of five and a half billion people, and we are plainly failing to feed, house, educate and employ many of these in basically acceptable fashion.

133. Worse, the human community is projected to reach at least 10 billion before the population explosion fizzles out into zero growth early in the 22nd century.

134. The problem does not lie only in a sheer outburst of human numbers.

135. It lies also in an outburst of human consumerism.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. All Day training session with Alberdingk-Boley. Dinner with Mike O’Shaughnessy.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

126. Exponential growth is one of the most important concepts we shall encounter in this book.

127. It is growth that is not simply additive (two plus two equals four and another two makes six); rather it is a self-compounding (two multiplied by two equals four, multiplied by two equals 8).

128. Very few people realize its implications for our future existence on Earth.

129. If Africa, for example, maintain its present three percent growth rate until this time next century, its current 630 million people will increase to 9.5 billion.

130. Evolution: Revolution- We stand at a unique point in evolution, when planet-wide changes are proceeding faster than ever before.

What Happened Today? Wrote an article for Prudy who is having a hip replaced. Drove to the Largo Library. Watched a tape of the race at Bristol, won by Jeff Gordon. Kay and I went to Antonio’s for dinner.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

121. Now, however, we at eon the verge of widespread exploitation of the sun’s energy through solar cells– potentially as marked an advance for Earth’s course as that of photosynthesis itself. 

122. Similar breakthroughs include domestication of wild species and genetic engineering: quantum leaps to match the evolution of sexual reproduction.

123. Among the greatest advances of all our ability to control disease, and thus to increase our numbers.

124. Within the last 150 years, the human population has grown from around one billion in 1830s, to two billion in the 1930s, to four billion in 1975, and to five billion in 1987, with a further increase to 6.25 billion projected by the end of the century.

125. Herein we witness the phenomenon of exponential growth, a process that marks not only our increasing numbers, but also our consumption of energy and resources, our accumulating knowledge, and our expanding communications network.

What Happened Today? Reading day. Set record for CD’s. Listened to radio and computer. Read 1120 pages which is not a record. Set record for daily total.. 166. Fun process. Tampa Bay Devil Rays lose again. Stock market above 9000.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

106. After The Dinosaurs: the dinosaurs ruled the planet for some 160 million years, as land life flourished and diversified. 

107. Their decline opened the way for primitive animals.

108. The last 45 million years, on hundredth of our planet’s history, have seen the emergence of most of the flora and fauna we know.

109. Enter Homo Sapiens: Only in the last 0.01% of Earth time did our own species emerge.

110. With the taming of fire and early humans attempt to shape our Earth.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Dinner with Vince Necrelli form ISP. Everything is fine. Tampa Bay Devil Rays lose to Baltimore again.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

101. Life On Earth: the solar system formed some 4.6 billion years ago, Earth’s oceans about 4.4 billion years ago. 

102. Self-replicating molecules emerged some 300 million years later.

103. Fossil cells date form 3.6 billion years ago.

104. Free oxygen began to accumulate about 2 billion years ago, and complex cells with nuclei appeared abut 1.5 billion years ago.

105. Then the protective ozone layer formed: life on land, as we know it, occupies only the last 10% of our planet’s unique history.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. Left early for a blood test. Tampa Bay Devil Rays lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the 9th inning.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

96. Life on Earth begins around 8 PM, the first vertebrates crawl on to land at about 10:30 PM at night. 

97. Dinosaurs roam from 11:35 PM until four minutes to midnight.

98. Our ancestors first walk upright with 10 seconds to go.

99. The Industrial Revolution, and all our modern age, occupy less than the last thousandth of a second.

100. Yet in this fraction of time, the face of this planet has changed almost as much as in all the eons before.

What Happened Today? Feather Sound walk with Kay. Drove to the Tampa office. The air conditioning is not working in my car. Got caught up all the salespeople. Cleared all the paperwork from my desk. Bought a book on 100 ways to play Solitaire to have more variety when visiting Chris.

GAIA- Planetary Management:

91. Over nearly four eons, the experiments, the increasing diversity and complexity continued until, as the life-support systems of our planet stabilized, a still higher order of complexity emerged– intelligence and conscious awareness.

92. Throughout its 15 billion years, the pace of the universe’s development has been accelerating, each new wave of innovation building up to trigger the next, in a series of “leaps” up to further levels of diversification and change.

93. Compress this unimaginable timescale into a single 24-hour day, and the Big Bang is over in less than a ten-billionth of a second.

94. Stable atoms form in about four seconds; but not for several hours, until early dawn, do stars and galaxies form.

95. Our own solar system must wait for early evening, around 6 PM.