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andygatesIt's a week for systems being poked out of whack.
In southeast England Bluetongue is causing farmers a big scare - it's actually deadly, unlike foot & mouth, but it's carried by midges. Most of those midges are north African - Bluetongue is endemic there - but as the Med warms up, the disease has been migrating north. Other beastie-borne diseases are bound to change their distribution as their beasties move to enjoy pastures new. Brace for malaria.
Arguably the political system in Burma was out of whack already, held in a stress position by the junta. They show no signs of easing up their grip on power, though, despite the monks' continued protests. The monks look determined to get massacred to tiny fragments, or break the will of the police and army first. Could you fire on a vicar? I wonder if Than Shwe has shipped cops from one city to another the same way Maggie did during the miners' strike.
Burma isn't going to fizzle out; it's going to be either a hideous bloodbath or a touching affirmation of the humanity of the guys with the guns. My money is on minced monk: I'm waiting for a newspaper to quote some unit commander saying, "They believe they will reincarnate. Let's help them along," before opening fire. Of course, if that happens, it will be a complete bloody riot across the board. Talk now, junta boys, or you'll be strung from a lamp-post soon.
The lesson here is that there is no longer such a thing as a news blackout; you can find candid reportage wherever you look (including the 40,000-strong support group on Facebook). Recording devices are tiny and ubiquitous and easy to use, and connectivity is simple and fatal: there's no recalling a Torrent or Youtube video in time.
The last perturbed system is the scariest: the climate. When James Lovelock says "tweak it", you know he's scared. Jimbo came up with the "Gaia" self-regulating system hypothesis for climate, and he knows better than most that you don't tweak a running, complex system without unforseen consequences. It's no secret that Jim favours the "catastrophic tipping point" camp of climate science and published Gaia's Revenge pushing this view; I guess what spooked him was the consummate lack of any actual progress in emissions reduction worldwide. But I can't help feeling that left to itself, the world would end up with tweaks and huge factories running in parallel, a sort of horrid Geidi Prime of a world.
Arguably the political system in Burma was out of whack already, held in a stress position by the junta. They show no signs of easing up their grip on power, though, despite the monks' continued protests. The monks look determined to get massacred to tiny fragments, or break the will of the police and army first. Could you fire on a vicar? I wonder if Than Shwe has shipped cops from one city to another the same way Maggie did during the miners' strike.
Burma isn't going to fizzle out; it's going to be either a hideous bloodbath or a touching affirmation of the humanity of the guys with the guns. My money is on minced monk: I'm waiting for a newspaper to quote some unit commander saying, "They believe they will reincarnate. Let's help them along," before opening fire. Of course, if that happens, it will be a complete bloody riot across the board. Talk now, junta boys, or you'll be strung from a lamp-post soon.
The lesson here is that there is no longer such a thing as a news blackout; you can find candid reportage wherever you look (including the 40,000-strong support group on Facebook). Recording devices are tiny and ubiquitous and easy to use, and connectivity is simple and fatal: there's no recalling a Torrent or Youtube video in time.
The last perturbed system is the scariest: the climate. When James Lovelock says "tweak it", you know he's scared. Jimbo came up with the "Gaia" self-regulating system hypothesis for climate, and he knows better than most that you don't tweak a running, complex system without unforseen consequences. It's no secret that Jim favours the "catastrophic tipping point" camp of climate science and published Gaia's Revenge pushing this view; I guess what spooked him was the consummate lack of any actual progress in emissions reduction worldwide. But I can't help feeling that left to itself, the world would end up with tweaks and huge factories running in parallel, a sort of horrid Geidi Prime of a world.
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Date: 2007-09-27 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-27 02:48 pm (UTC)Admittedly, it's a very, very slow rush.
Fancy a game?