Will ''experts'' and scientists accept the idea of polar cities for survivors of climate chaos in 2500 or sooner?

A science fiction novelist, well known, bestsellers and movies to his name, offers his take on POLAR CITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE ideas about
polar cities for future survivors of climate CHAOS in 2500 or so...maybe sooner:

Dear Sir

I cannot promise to look at your
''polar cities project'' webpage now, but I can spare some
thoughts.

First, I note you know about the new popularity of the Northwest Passage
route as an ice free sea lane from the USA to EUROPE and RUSSA, etc, and the rush for sub-sea resources.


What you need to consider, however, is this:


1) Canada .....(and northern Alaska, away from Ring of Fire earthquake
zone in Juneau / Anchroage regions) .....is the oldest geological "craton" of
extremely solid volcanic rock on Earth. Much of it without any
faults, meaning there's little geological activity.


2) Much of Canada [and northern Alaska] has almost no topsoil. The
same holds for much of Siberia. An expanded growing season and new
farms do not automatically translate into productivity.


3) No matter how warm summers get, you'll have just one growing
season.. The equatorial lands we'll lose had two.


4) Much of the tundra and taiga contain massive amounts of methane.
If these soils warm much, there will be floods of new greenhouse
gases.


I am sure you have considered the effects of 6 months of night. It
propels high suicide rates in Scandinavia.

Sincerely,

[A well-known light of reason living in Seattle]

Climate-change scepticism must be 'treated', says enviro-sociologist Kari Norgaard -- and she is right!

Scepticism regarding the need for immediate and massive action against carbon emissions is a sickness of societies and individuals which needs to be "treated", according to an Oregon-based professor of "sociology and environmental studies". Professor Kari Norgaard compares the struggle against climate scepticism to that against racism and slavery in the US South.

Prof Norgaard holds a B.S. in biology and a master's and PhD in sociology.

"Over the past ten years I have published and taught in the areas of environmental sociology, gender and environment, race and environment, climate change, sociology of culture, social movements and sociology of emotions," she says.

She was recently in London at the momnt for the "Planet Under Pressure" conference, where she presented a paper dealing with how best to do away with the evil of scepticism and get the human race to focus all its efforts on saving the planet.

The discussion, she said, is comparable to what happened with challenges to racism or slavery in the U.S. South.

Professor Norgaard considers that academics such as herself must stand shoulder to shoulder with the actual real climate scientists who know some math in an effort to change society and individuals for their own good. It's not a new idea: some in ye olde Blighty and the US have lately called for a "science of communicating science" rather reminiscent of Isaac Asimov's science-fictional "Psychohistory" discipline, able to predict and alter the behaviour of large populations*.

BRAVO Kari Norgaard!

'Spy-F'i with a Twist: ''Arctic Rising'' by Tobias Buckell

Stefan Raets writes:

 Whether you call it climate change or global warming, by the time Tobias Buckell’s long awaited new novel Arctic Rising gets started, the results are obvious: the Arctic ice cap has melted down, and the Northwest Passage has opened completely for shipping. Companies are rushing into areas like Greenland to take advantage of the abundant natural resources that are much more easily accessible now all that pesky ice is no longer in the way.

At the same time, nuclear electricity generation has become even more indispensable due to the dwindling fossil fuel reserves, and illegal dumping of its toxic waste is rampant. Anika Duncan is an airship pilot with the United Nations Polar Guard who monitors the Northwest shipping lanes for possible offenders. When she approaches a ship with suspiciously high radiation readings, it suddenly opens fire on her airship. After she is rescued, she tries to investigate the incident, but it looks like everyone is trying to cover up what happened — including even her superiors. This sets off a far-reaching plot that will involve the highest levels of power and affect the future of the Arctic and the Earth’s climate....

Don’t let the the synopsis on this novel’s cover turn you off. Actually, I strongly recommend not reading it at all, because for some reason it includes major plot elements that you’re much better off discovering by yourself, when they’re revealed late in the novel. (In other words: spoilers.) However, if you do happen to read it, the strong environmental message and names like “Gaia Corporation” may turn you off. It sounded a bit preachy even to me, and I’m as green as they come. I’m here to tell you: please don’t let it turn you off, because even though Arctic Rising does incorporate an environmental message, it’s also a well-written, exciting and action-packed novel that’s part science fiction thriller, part secret agent spy novel, and all fun. I’m glad I gave it a try despite the cover blurb, because it’s a great read.

The setting Tobias Buckell has created for Arctic Rising is, as it is so often in great science fiction, an extrapolation of current events. Right now, many countries are jostling for the rights to the previously unattractive polar region, because it’s clear that they are the next great untapped source of mining and drilling revenues. As Arctic Rising gets started, the area has been open for business for a while. As a result, it has become the 21st century’s version of the Gold Rush. On Baffin Island, where most of the early parts of the novel take place, multiple nationalities mix in an atmosphere of borderline lawlessness, all jockeying for position to make a profit. All those workers need food, drink and entertainment, and because the area is relatively young, the businesses providing them often operate on both sides of the law. Other parts of the vastly changed Arctic have turned into autonomous regions with unique government systems, allowing them to create their own laws.

In this setting, we meet Anika Duncan, the Nigerian-born UN pilot who accidentally gets sucked into a series of events that are more far-reaching than anything she bargained for. She’s an amazing character: a kick-ass female protagonist with a complex, hair-raising personal history who initially almost gets overwhelmed by the forces who are trying to cover up the evidence of her discovery. Later, in an unforgettable scene, she musters the resolve to fight back with a ferocious vengeance. Her “I bow to no man” attitude is amazing to witness and makes the novel a pleasure to read. Anika is helped in her quest by Vy, the Arctic region’s foremost supplier of legal and less-than-legal drugs, and Roo, a roaming Carribean special agent who uses his impressive catamaran as a base of operations for his spy missions. Character-wise, Anika would be enough to make Arctic Rising a winner, but combined with Vy and Roo there’s really a lot to cheer for here. I wouldn’t mind reading another novel set in the Arctic Circle with any of these three as the main character.

To make matters even more interesting, Arctic Rising takes an surprising turn along the way. The novel starts out like a fairly straightforward near-future environmental SF thriller, but as you continue reading, the references to spy/secret agent novels and movies become more and more apparent. There are a few scenes that are obvious winks to fans of Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum and John le Carré. After a while, it starts to feel like Tobias Buckell is using gadgets, characters, and plot devices that wouldn’t be amiss in something like a Bond movie, but rather than writing a standard spy-fi novel, he’s subverting them in ingenious ways. Even the spectacular conclusion of the story is, in a way, the mirror image of what you’d expect to see in a standard spy flick. Tobias Buckell tells a great SF story in Arctic Rising, but it also feels like he’s nudging reader while he’s playing with the tropes of another genre.

Arctic Rising achieves something that’s not as easy as it may sound: it delivers an environmental message without getting too preachy. It does this by telling its story from the point of view of a no-nonsense heroine who you can cheer for, adding some excellent supporting players, placing them in a unique setting, and then letting the spy-tale-with-a-twist plot do the rest. Secret agents, drug dealers, soldiers, strippers, governments, and big corporations all play a role in a story that balances environmental change against political advantage and big bucks. Arctic Rising is a tight novel that doesn’t waste any time getting up to speed and doesn’t slow down until the very end.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stefan Raets reads and reviews fantasy and science fiction whenever he isn’t distracted by less important things like eating and sleeping. His website is Far Beyond Reality. .

Carbon footprints with deadly consequences

RAY BATES writes:

CLIMATE CHANGE: Climate Wars: What People Will Be Killed for in the 21st Century

By Harald Welzer, translated by Patrick Camiller. Polity Press, 214pp

SINCE THE THREAT posed by global warming first gained widespread public attention, about three decades ago, a large and diverse literature has grown up on the subject. The first statement by climate scientists alerting the public and policymakers to the dangers of uncontrolled greenhouse-gas emissions was the 1979 report Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment, issued by the US National Academy of Sciences. That slim volume, known as the Charney report, after its main author, warned that if the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were to double relative to its preindustrial value, as foreseen to occur well before the end of the 21st century – and with no further increase in carbon dioxide after that – the globe would probably warm by about three degrees.

The Charney report has been followed by the increasingly voluminous reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued at intervals of about six years since 1990, with the most recent appearing in 2007. These, and the mainstream scientific literature in the interim, continue to affirm the main conclusions of the Charney report while extensively documenting ongoing developments.

By now the atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration has risen to 40 per cent above its preindustrial level and continues to rise at an accelerating rate. The global-temperature curve, though not following the carbon-dioxide curve monotonically year by year because of natural climate variability, shows a global warming of 0.8 degrees over the past century. The latest models continue to project several degrees of further warming before the end of this century.

Among the early general books arising from the climate scientists’ warnings, Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance, from 1993, became a bestseller. James Lovelock’s apocalyptic volumes, culminating in his most recent, The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (2009), have presented graphic visions of possible global catastrophe unless urgent action is taken to curb greenhouse-gas emissions.

Harald Welzer’s new book, translated from German, considers the issue of climate change from the perspective of a social scientist. Welzer is profoundly concerned with the potential for violence and for the breakdown of world order inherent in the pressures that climate change will generate. He sees Sudan as the first case of a war-torn country where climate change is unquestionably one cause of violence and civil war. Over the past 40 years, the desert in northern Sudan has moved 100km towards the once-fertile south. The causes are, on the one hand, steadily decreasing rainfall linked with global climate change and, on the other, the overgrazing of grassland, deforestation and ensuing soil erosion that makes the land infertile.

Welzer provides a framework for his vision of the future by chronicling mankind’s propensity for violence, emphasising the wars and genocides of the past century. His focus includes not only the dictatorships but also the former colonial powers, whose “democratic amnesia” allows them to distance themselves from the consequences of their earlier activities in Africa and elsewhere. Extrapolating from the historical record, he argues that climate change will lead to violence on a large scale, first within the poorer countries that are most directly affected and then, as waves of environmental refugees look for a better life elsewhere, in the affluent countries that try to keep them at bay.

Considering the question of what can be done to avoid the worst, Welzer presents two scenarios. The first, “for the optimists”, envisages a cultural change that would permit an escape from the logic of unstoppable growth and limitless consumption, a society in which people demand a radical worldwide reduction in resource use as a positive good. The second, “for the pessimists” (a category in which Welzer includes himself), foresees a world in which efforts to control climate change fail and the western world’s concern for its own security and self-preservation lead it to abandon the values of freedom and democracy by which it has come to define itself.

Developments since Welzer wrote this book will not change the views of those who are pessimistic about the prospects for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Canada’s recent withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol and President Obama’s acknowledgment in his 2012 state of the union address that the US Congress is too divided to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change do not bode well. The EU seems likely to push ahead with its own plans, motivated to reduce fossil-fuel consumption by the additional imperative of energy security, an issue that is much more pressing on this than on the other side of the Atlantic.

Only time will tell if a global low-carbon economy will emerge in time to check the accelerating increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and its likely consequences for Earth’s climate. Those who are concerned with these and related issues will find this book by Harald Welzer a thought-provoking if uncomfortable read.

Ray Bates is adjunct professor of meteorology at University College Dublin. He was formerly professor of meteorology at the University of Copenhagen and a senior scientist at Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Putting Alaska in center of new sci fi book: mission accomplished

When I scoured the internet over the past 5 years looking for a sci fi
writer to write
a novel I had in mind about climate change and climate refugees in the
future, I stipulated one main item in all my help-wanted ads and
online author searches: the book had to take place in Alaska.

A year ago, I found Jim Laughter in Mounds, Oklahoma, and he agreed to
write the novel. Only his name
appears on the cover of "Polar City Red" -- published on Earth Day
2012 -- and the entire plot, the cast of
characters and the theme is his and his alone. Jim wrote the book, all
24 chapters. If all goes well, he'll write
two more books in the series to create a trilogy, and again, they'll
be his books, his plot, his characters, his time frame.

I served as a kind of book producer/book packager on "Polar City Red"
-- with all book royalties going to the author alone -- and
all I contributed to the package was the location (Alaska!) and the
suggested title, which Jim graciously agreed to keep. I lived
in Alaska for 12 years in the latter part of the 20th century, and my
days in Juneau, Nome and Fort Yukon made a big impact on me.
When I started working on my Polar Cities Project in 2006, I always
had Alaska in mind. With "Polar City Red" out now in paperback
and in ebook editions, survival in a future Alaska remains the focus
of the ''cli fi'' novel.

And this just in: Jim has already had some nibbles from
Hollywood producers looking to take an option on his book for a movie
deal. Think: "The Day After [The Day After Tomorrow]" and ''Mad''
Max'' meets "The Road."

I asked Jim Laughter, a grandfather of four who just turned 59, a few
questions about his book and this is what he told me:

"Up until 2011 when I was first approached about writing a family
drama about climate chaos and set in a future time period in Alaska,
global warming was a term I’d only heard about in passing or on nature
documentaries. Politicians and Greenpeace environmentalists rattled on
about stuff that I didn’t understand. But now that I’ve had a chance
to dig into the cause and effect of global warming, I’ve grown to
realize that this old world is in trouble and we’re to blame.

"I spent hour after hour on the internet reading everything I could
find about global warming and the effects it is having on the polar
caps and Greenland ice sheets. I didn’t realize that only a three or
four degree increase in air temperatures can serve to melt ice that’s
been frozen for millions of years. Of course, I didn’t know carbon
dioxide from carbonated water when I started, but it didn’t take long
for me to realize that fossil fuel emissions are the culprit behind
the whole mess.

"But even though I learn quite a bit about global warming, I’m not a
scientist. I’m a storyteller. So I had to figure out a way to create a
good story around a serious problem. I knew I needed characters that I
could wrap the seriousness of global warming around without boring
readers with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo that neither of us would
understand. I think I got pretty close with "Polar City Red".


"My technical writing in the US Air Force had very little to do with
weapons, operations, or hardware. I was a supply and training NCO for
20 years. I dealt with people on a one-on-one basis, working in
customer service, training, etc. I didn’t carry a weapon even though I
was a weapons sergeant for a while. Then again, I was also a security
sergeant for a while in charge of top secret material. But if you know
what you’re looking for, that kind of information isn’t hard to find.
As for the science, I figured if I did good research and stuck to the
facts, I’m a good enough storyteller that I figured I could weave a
good story around it. But as we say in writing, if you don’t know what
you’re talking about, talk about it anyway. There’s always a critic
out there somewhere that will eventually contact you and tell you what
you did wrong.



''My grandchildren are very important to me. Every parent wants their
children to have it better than they had it. As a child, I knew I
would have opportunities that my parents never had. We were small town
people living in a big world. But that was in the 50s and 60s. The air
was clean and the streets were safe. Neither of those things apply
now. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where they can be
happy and prosper, a world where conservation isn’t a cliché, and a
world where business and politicians watch out for the future of the
planet instead of the next balance sheet or election result.

''I wish I had a crystal ball that I could look in to and see the
future. I’d like to know if fifty years from now we’d have a habitable
planet or not. I’m a student of history, so I know that people who
fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. I turned
59-years old this month, so by the time global warming overtakes this
planets, I will have already shuffled off into eternity and my ashes
will be helping young things grow. But for the people alive at the end
of this century, I believe they will face a hostile world that has
turned its back on humanity and is looking for a fresh start. It may
take 100,000 years for the Earth to regain its balance, but it’s been
around for 4 billion years and has learned patience. I only wish we
could learn to respect her wishes and treat her with the dignity she
deserves.''

Brin and Bear It

Someone I know of in the broadly-defined ''polar cities community'' regularly consults with various branches of America's “protector caste”... from the military services and homeland security to several unnamed “agencies.” He says he is naturally ''encouraged by the fact that some of the most serious-minded men and women on the planet are very interested in well-grounded projections of diverse possible futures'' - not only his ideas, but those of several other "science & sci-fi people, male and female.

He recently shared an interesting observation:

 

''Absolutely all of the top-elite officers of these services appear to be convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, about Human Generated Climate Change (HGCC). All of those I have met consider it to be both real and one of the greatest challenges of our time.


Ponder this: the US Navy is striving with great intensity to prepare for an Arctic Ocean that is nearly ice-free for large parts of the year. Canada is shifting most of its military budget northward.


The Russians have moved an entire division to the Siberian northern coast. The Russian Navy’s top priority? Their pride-and-joy? SIX brand new, double-hulled, nuclear powered icebreakers they recently put in service.




A year or so ago, the Northwest passage opened so wide that a flood of cargo vessels raced through it from China to Europe.




What do all of these groups share in common? They cannot afford to let their view of reality be warped by willful delusion, just-so stories, Beckian rants and denialist dogma, They don't have the time for denialism. ''

''Earth'' by David Brin -- published in 1990

Earth

Publication date -- 1990
Media type -- Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages 601

Earth is a 1990 science fiction novel written by David Brin. The book was nominated for the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1991.

Set in the year 2038 A.D. post Jesus Christ, the book is a cautionary tale of the harm humans can cause their planet via disregard for the environment and reckless scientific experiments. The book has a large cast of characters and Brin uses them to address a number of environmental issues, including endangered species, global warming, refugees from ecological disasters, ecoterrorism, and the social effects of overpopulation. The plot of the book involves an artificially-created black hole which has been lost in the Earth's interior and the attempts to recover it before it destroys the planet. The events and revelations which follow reshape humanity and its future in the universe. It also includes a war pitting most of the Earth against Switzerland, fueled by outrage over the Swiss allowing generations of kleptocrats to hide their stolen wealth in the country's banks.

The scope of the story expands vastly as the plot gradually reveals itself, bringing into question the future course — and even the survival — of humanity.

Brin set this novel 50 years in 2038 in the future from the time he was writing in 1990, using the book as an opportunity to predict what technologies might — at that future date — be taken for granted day to day. Three technologies he predicted came to pass within only 8 years of the writing, include a media-centric, hypertext Internet, e-mail spam, and the proliferation of personal video recording devices.

Brin claimed at least 15 predictive hits in Earth including:

1 Global warming associated sea level rise and severe storm seasons.

2 Crisis habitat arks for endangered species, with a view to later restoration to the wild.

========================================

In Earth .......it's 50 years from tomorrow...2038........A microscopic black hole has accidentally fallen into the Earth's core and the entire planet is in danger of being destroyed within two years. A team of scientists frantically searches for a way to prevent the ultimate disaster. But while they look for an answer, others argue that the only way to save the Earth is to let its human inhabitants become extinct: to let the million-year evolutionary clock rewind and start over.

BRIN WRITES: ''It's been more than a decade since Earth was first published in 1990........Since then, some things have eerily come true. [He started writing the book in 1987].




As for Global Warming, a looming refugee crisis, the need for young people to demand a place amid an aging population, the desperate struggle to preserve species and all the rest... even the notion of a micro-black hole as an ultimate "environmental threat"... none of these originated with me....


As writers go, I suppose I'm known as an optimist. So it seems only natural that this novel projects a future, (now less than forty years from now), where there's been just a little more wisdom than folly... perhaps a bit more hope than despair.



In fact, this is just about the most encouraging tomorrow I can imagine right now. What a sobering thought.

Video trailer for Jim Laughter's new climate thriller titled POLAR CITY RED

http://youtu.be/zxmtHvIzuQY

How to deal with bad news about the planet, when dealing with it is part of our daily lives? If your job is to help make the transition to sustainability, then your job inevitably requires staying up to speed on a continuous stream of bad news about the state of the planet. Reading blogs like DOT EARTH at the New York Times, and books like Cormac McCarthy’s ”THE ROAD” and Jim Laughter’s ”POLAR CITY RED”.

It’s no fun; but as you know all too well, it is your responsibility.

Actually, it’s everyone’s responsibility, but a relatively small percentage of people seem to have the stomach for staying updated on climate change, species extinction and the like. As a neighbor commented once (and this really did happen), “I’m so glad you are involved in trying to solve all these global problems, so that I don’t have to.”

To be fair, we don’t really know how bad things are for the planet; after all, had there been no mass extinctions in the past, we would not be here to know about them. But we know that these problems are bad news for Nature-as-we-know it, and for us.

But there’s also this fact: not all the news is bad, especially from a human perspective. The United Nations recently announced, for example, that the world’s Millennium Development Goal for providing safe drinking water to most of the world’s people had already been reached — several years early. Over 2 billion more people now have access to water, people who did not have that access twenty years ago.

Human economic development is truly bringing benefits — but it is also bringing costs. And thanks to those costs, the environmental news is simply bad, and getting worse.

Consider the recent statement put out by the winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a kind of Nobel for global environmental science. The list of winners is truly impressive. Their statement is truly depressing. “The current system is broken,” they say, meaning the whole human social-economic system and its interactions with the global environment. They detail the problems, as well as the solutions, amid a stew of sad reflections like these:

“… humanity’s behavior remains utterly inappropriate”
“… civilization is faced with a perfect storm of problems”
“… changes in the environment … likely to have even more severe
consequences”
“… society has no choice but to take dramatic action …”

Their joint paper is titled “The Imperative to Act,” and phrases like “we must act” show up in every second paragraph — implying that we have not acted.

Of course, we have been acting. Most of us working in this business we call sustainability have been working double overtime, for many years. And fortunately, there are many more of us to do the work now, compared with twenty years ago. The problem is still the scale of the problems, and the speed of their growth, compared to the speed of our growth, and the speed at which the solutions we are trying to promote are adopted and implemented.

Readers of POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter very well understand that the climate problems our descendants will face in the future will eventually catch up with us, just before the problems curve crashes down, carrying civilizations with it.

Regardless of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist about POLAR CITY RED, a sci fi novel that goes where no other book has ever gone before, take heart, we can call on hope to see us through. Someone once asked famed global researcher Lester Brown, in a small seminar setting, how he maintained his optimism, considering all the bad news he spent his time studying and communicating. “I have a one-word answer for that,” he said. “Bourbon.”

Lester’s joke (his real strategy is to work double overtime to promote solutions) says something important: we do have to deal with the emotion and even pain caused by reflecting on the state of the world. Yes, working on solutions, and staying informed about the astonishing pace of change (the rapid spread of renewable energy, the exploding numbers of young people wanting to work on sustainability, etc. etc. etc.), is a serious source of hope. And having hope, working for hope, is important.

The race against time is winnable, because we’ve won it in the past — and here I really wish to honor the memory of F. Sherwood Rowland, who died recently, and who helped save the world from ozone depletion, and got us to act “just in time”.

If one scientist, working with one partner (Mario Molina), managed to save the world from a serious, deadly, global environmental threat, just think what all of us — the millions of us, the ones who are willing to know what’s going on, and willing to work together to address it — can accomplish.

As the poet Rilke wrote, when confronted with the enormity of it all … “Just keep going …”

So JUST KEEP GOING and read POLAR CITY RED this summer. Put it high on your list of summer reading lists.

The 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People In Terms of Speaking Up for Saving Humankind from the Future Ravages of Climate Change and Global Warming

March 2012

(MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- Here is this blog's list that features the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People -- In Terms of Speaking Up for Saving Humankind from the Future Ravages of Climate Change and Global Warming: Find them, talk to them, learn from them.

1. Dalai Lama
2. Eckhart Tolle
3. Thich Nhat Hanh
4. Margaret Atwood
5. Paulo Coelho
6. Elizabeth Gilbert
7. Iyanla Vanzant
8. Ken Wilber
9. James Redfield
10. Jim Laughter
11. Alice Walker
12. Nelson Mandela
13. Wayne Dyer
14. Doreen Virtue
15. Michio Kaku
16. Peter Kubicek
17. Alejandro Jodorowsky
18. Mantak Chia
19. Nina Munteanu
20. Alex Grey
21. Peter Russell
22. Byron Katie
23. Baba Richard Alpert Ram Dass
24. Esther Hicks
25. Bernie Siegel
26. Richard Bach
27. Brian Weiss
28. Andrew Cohen
29. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
30. Robin Sharma
31. Steve Taylor
32. Z'ev ben Shimon Halevi
33. Andrew Harvey
34. Marianne Williamson
35. Lisa Williams
36. Francis Chan
37. Don Miguel Ruiz
38. Masaru Emoto
39. Gregg Braden
40. Andrew Weil
41. Erich von Daniken
42. Adyashanti
43. Krishna Das
44. Sonia Choquette
45. Joseph Ratzinger
46. Louise Hay
47. Amma
48. Vladimir Megre
49. Ervin Laszlo
50. Elaine Pagels
51. Jeff Foster
52. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
53. Neale Donald Walsch
54. Drunvalo Melchizedek
55. Pema Chodron
56. Diana Cooper
57. Bruce Lipton
58. Dan Millman
59. Karen Armstrong
60. Graham Hancock
61. David R. Hawkins
62. Jack Canfield
63. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
64. Sogyal Rinpoche
65. Swami Ramdev
66. Philip Berg
67. Caroline Myss
68. Michael Newton
69. Daisaku Ikeda
70. Vadim Zeland
71. John Bradshaw
72. Richard Bandler
73. Jean Houston
74. Starhawk
75. Daniel J. Siegel
76. James Lovelock
77. Judy Hall
78. Gary Snyder
79. Patrick Holford
80. Oberto Airaudi
81. Dr Azmayesh
82. Mother Meera
83. Rabbi Michael Lerner
84. Lynne McTaggart
85. Michael Beckwith
86. Satya Narayan Goenka
87. Satish Kumar
88. Paramahamsa Nithyananda
89. Rowan Williams
90. Prem Rawat
91. Mooji
92. Stanislav Grof
93. Grant Morrison
94. Jon Kabat-Zinn
95. Emily Huang
96. Gangaji
97. Shakti Gawain
98. Claudio Naranjo
99. Mastin Kipp
100. Marion Woodman

100 Spiritual List Statistics:
Male: 72%, Female: 28%
Oldest: Nelson Mandela at 93 years old
Youngest: Emily Huang at 10 years old

U.S. Intelligence Report Sees ''Polar Cities'' Coming, Global Water Conflict Risks Rising

U.S. Intelligence Report Expects More Conflicts Over ''Polar Cities'' Admissions, Administration by 2100

-- Headline follows arc of new cli fi novel by Jim Laughter titled POLAR CITY RED, due out on April 22, EARTH DAY

by Staff Writer and Agencies

WASHINGTON -- Fresh water and fresh food supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing the likely need for so-called ''polar cities'' to accommodate a global flood of climate refugees by 2075, as political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, impacts the world, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment.

The report by the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that areas including South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa will face major challenges in coping with water problems that could hinder the ability to produce food and generate energy. The report said that a “water war” was unlikely in the next 10 years, but that the risk of conflict would grow with global water demand likely to outstrip current sustainable supplies by 40 percent by 2030.

“Beyond 10 years we did see the risk increasing,” a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters. “It depends upon what individual states do and what actions are taken right now to work water management issues between states.”

The official declined to discuss the risks for billions of climate refugees seeking refuge in far-north UN-administered ''polar cities'', but admitted there were problems and issues there.

Administration of such polar cities, if not planned out well in advance, could lead to rebel governments
taken over the polar cities franchise and running the world from those far-flung outposts post-2100, the un-named official said.

"It's going to be a big problem then," he said. "Who will administer these polar cities and who get it, and who will be kept out?"

The U.S. State Department requested the report, which is part of an effort by the current administration to assess how long-term issues such as climate change may affect U.S. national security.

Win some, lose some and some you don't play at all: Part 15

Dear Tundra Tastemonger editor or whoever you are:

Thank you for your seventeen hundred (so far) emails and voicemail on my cellphone. I'm a little puzzled at your somewhat eccentric late night approach late on a Saturday night in the US to whatever it is you are pitching to me. With respect, none of the emails make a great deal of sense to me - if I've deciphered them correctly it seems you feel strongly about the dangers of global warming in terms of rising sea levels, and when you were not able to interest the mainstream media in your ideas you decided instead to fictionalize your theories in the form of a novel, and you found a veteran sci fi writer named Jim Laughter, who wrote the book, to be released next month. But with all the excessive capitalization and incomplete sentences in your emails, Danny, I can't be totally certain. Slow down. You type too fast. And typos and incomplete sentences galore. Are you high on something, sir? Ritalin? Lipitor? Xanax?
If you are seeking some publicity for your book launch, can I respectfully request that you send me another email with a succinct two or three-paragraph summary of what the book is about and the message it's trying to convey, with details of the publisher, price point and so on, and a few details about the author and his background. I can then approach book page editors to see if they would be interested in the possibility of publishing a review. If they are, you could then provide an advance review copy and we could take it from there, as is customary when book publishers are seeking publicity for new releases.

If I've missed the point and you're telling me something else, then I'm afraid I've missed it and maybe you could enlighten me in clearer terms?

As a freelance reporter who has written about rising sea levels worldwide, I'm happy to listen and help if I can.
Please let me know if I can help further.

With best wishes, I am

YOUR NEW FRIEND IN THE GLOBAL MEDIA
Peter Gladstone

PETTER ADDED TO HIS FIRST LETTER ABOVE THIS NOTE LATER WHEN HE LEARNED MORE ABOUT MY UNORTHODOX AND TYPOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED M.O.:

''Thank you for your second and new clearly typed email, and earlier reply. It's late here in the USA, as I've mentioned, so I can't really look at this further tonight but I will revisit it all on Monday morning when I'm back at my desk and have a little more time. I'll get back to you in the early part of the week.

Have a good weekend, or what's left of it.''

In ''THE HUNGER GAMES'' books and movie, the call for a strong moral message goes completely unansweered

While THE HUNGER GAMES have been getting huge press in the print and online media, both the book series and the MOVIE, there is one side to the
HUNGER GAMES MEME that has not been discuissed very much, and it relates well to the way Jim Laughter in POLAR CITY RED, a new cli fi novel,
has indeed tacked the issue of giving his book a strong moral message. In fact, POLAR CITY RED is more than a mere sci fi or cli fi novel. There is a powerful
moral messaage in his book, and it this message that makes it stand out from the current crop of pop culture apocabooks.

In THE HUNGER GAMES books and movie, the call for a strong moral message goes completely unanswered. There is no moral message that comes through, not for the characters and not for the readers.

Said one reader of the HUNGER GAMES books, Dana Leigh:

"I read and read, waiting for the characters to develop, to come to understandings, to break through and open up and help us, the readers, realize along with them that even if things are bleak and wretched there can be hope, we can still maintain our dignity and humanity and compassion. We can learn from our mistakes. We can be the better person. We can overcome.
But no. Author Suzanne Collins instead makes the reader part of the audience to a sad and violent reality show where we're super excited and horrified to see who's gunna git killed next. The story is dark and depressing and shallow. And poorly written.


''The crazy-hard moral dilemma of our would-be heroine Katniss - in which she must kill or be killed - should REALLY bring out some character-building, impossibly complex ethical predicaments, right? Again, no. When Katniss kills another child in the arena, we always feel that he really deserved it. He was an a-hole. He was dangerous. We all love us some good old fashioned black-and-white characters. Bad guys are always easy to kill. When Katniss begins to like one of her opponents and frets over the "one of us is going to have to kill the other" situation, the other character is killed off by one of the bad guys. Whew. Glad we didn't have to face that one. How convenient. And how horribly shallow and irresponsible.


''Ugh. I just wanted these books to be so much more. But they weren't."




"I did make it through all three books, because yes, they are fast-paced and super compelling to read. But. But! Easy to read does not neccesarily make a good book."


''The setting of a dystopian society wherein children are pitted against one another to the death in an annual melee ABSOLUTELY BEGS for a strong moral message. A message of humanity, hope, compassion, the darkness AND the lightness in each person, forgiveness, sacrifice, redemption... And the call is completely unanswered. There is no moral message that comes through, not for the characters and not for the readers.


I read and read, waiting for the characters to develop, to come to understandings, to break through and open up and help us, the readers, realize along with them that even if things are bleak and wretched there can be hope, we can still maintain our dignity and humanity and compassion. We can learn from our mistakes. We can be the better person. We can overcome.


Nope! Suzanne Collins instead makes the reader part of the audience to a sad and violent reality show where we're super excited and horrified to see who's gunna git killed next. The story is dark and depressing and shallow.''

http://plogspot101.blogspot.com/2012/03/polar-city-red-by-jim-laughter-raises.html

What if someday Hollywood got interested in the polar cities ideas generated on this blog and especially Jim Laughter's sci fi novel titled POLAR CITY RED? Would anyone come calling?

If something like that happened, and of course, highly unlikely, basically impossible, like finding a needle in a haystack, but IF such an thing was to happen.........

''Polar City Red'' cli fi novel debuts for a warming world

''Polar City Red'' cli fi novel debuts for a warming world

Here’s a Dot Earth “Postcard” from Mounds, Oklahoma where sci fi
author Jim Laughter, 59 and a grandfather of four, has recently
published "Polar City Red" a climate
thriller about life in a desolate
polar city set in Alaska in 2075. [VIDEO HERE]

The book idea came from longtime Dot Earth commenter Danny Bloom,
whose global campaign about
and interest in "polar cities" goes back
to late 2006 and my Dot Earth post in March 2008, but the novel itself
belongs completely to Laughter (his real name, by the way, not a pen
name). It's his story, his theme, his cast of characters. In remarks prepared
for his Dot Earth postcard and accompanying video, Jim explains how the book
came to be and how his own thinking evolved as he wrote:

"Up until 2011 when I was first approached about writing a family
drama about climate chaos and set in a future time period in Alaska,
global warming was a term I’d only heard about in passing or on nature
documentaries. Politicians and Greenpeace environmentalists rattled on
about stuff that I didn’t understand. But now that I’ve had a chance
to dig into the cause and effect of global warming, I’ve grown to
realize that this old world is in trouble and we’re to blame.

"I spent hour after hour on the internet reading everything I could
find about global warming and the effects it is having on the polar
caps and Greenland ice sheets. I didn’t realize that only a three or
four degree increase in air temperatures can serve to melt ice that’s
been frozen for millions of years. Of course, I didn’t know carbon
dioxide from carbonated water when I started, but it didn’t take long
for me to realize that fossil fuel emissions are the culprit behind
the whole mess.

"But even though I learn quite a bit about global warming, I’m not a
scientist. I’m a storyteller. So I had to figure out a way to create a
good story around a serious problem. I knew I needed characters that I
could wrap the seriousness of global warming around without boring
readers with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo that neither of us would
understand. I think I got pretty close with "Polar City Red".


"My technical writing in the US Air Force had very little to do with
weapons, operations, or hardware. I was a supply and training NCO for
20 years. I dealt with people on a one-on-one basis, working in
customer service, training, etc. I didn’t carry a weapon even though I
was a weapons sergeant for a while. Then again, I was also a security
sergeant for a while in charge of top secret material. But if you know
what you’re looking for, that kind of information isn’t hard to find.
As for the science, I figured if I did good research and stuck to the
facts, I’m a good enough storyteller that I figured I could weave a
good story around it. But as we say in writing, if you don’t know what
you’re talking about, talk about it anyway. There’s always a critic
out there somewhere that will eventually contact you and tell you what
you did wrong.



''My grandchildren are very important to me. Every parent wants their
children to have it better than they had it. As a child, I knew I
would have opportunities that my parents never had. We were small town
people living in a big world. But that was in the 50s and 60s. The air
was clean and the streets were safe. Neither of those things apply
now. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where they can be
happy and prosper, a world where conservation isn’t a cliché, and a
world where business and politicians watch out for the future of the
planet instead of the next balance sheet or election result.

''I wish I had a crystal ball that I could look in to and see the
future. I’d like to know if fifty years from now we’d have a habitable
planet or not. I’m a student of history, so I know that people who
fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. I turned
59-years old this month, so by the time global warming overtakes this
planets, I will have already shuffled off into eternity and my ashes
will be helping young things grow. But for the people alive at the end
of this century, I believe they will face a hostile world that has
turned its back on humanity and is looking for a fresh start. It may
take 100,000 years for the Earth to regain its balance, but it’s been
around for 4 billion years and has learned patience. I only wish we
could learn to respect her wishes and treat her with the dignity she
deserves.''

MY DOT - Jim Laughter talks about how he came to write POLAR CITY RED

"Up until 2011 when I was first approached about writing a family
drama about climate chaos and set in a future time period in Alaska, global warming was a term I’d only heard about in passing or on nature documentaries. Politicians and Greenpeace environmentalists rattled on about stuff that I didn’t understand. But now that I’ve had a chance to dig into the cause and effect of global warming, I’ve grown to realize that this old world is in trouble and we’re to blame.

"I spent hour after hour on the internet reading everything I could find about global warming and the effects it is having on the polar caps and Greenland ice sheets. I didn’t realize that only a three or four degree increase in air temperatures can serve to melt ice that’s been frozen for millions of years. Of course, I didn’t know carbon dioxide from carbonated water when I started, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that fossil fuel emissions are the culprit behind the whole mess.

"But even though I learn quite a bit about global warming, I’m not a scientist. I’m a storyteller. So I had to figure out a way to create a good story around a serious problem. I knew I needed characters that I could wrap the seriousness of global warming around without boring readers with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo that neither of us would understand. I think I got pretty close with "Polar City Red".

"My technical writing in the US Air Force had very little to do with weapons, operations, or hardware. I was a supply and training NCO for 20 years. I dealt with people on a one-on-one basis, working in customer service, training, etc. I didn’t carry a weapon even though I was a weapons sergeant for a while. Then again, I was also a security sergeant for a while in charge of top secret material. But if you know what you’re looking for, that kind of information isn’t hard to find. As for the science, I figured if I did good research and stuck to the facts, I’m a good enough storyteller that I figured I could weave a good story around it. But as we say in writing, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, talk about it anyway. There’s always a critic out there somewhere that will eventually contact you and tell you what you did wrong.



''My grandchildren are very important to me. Every parent wants their children to have it better than they had it. As a child, I knew I would have opportunities that my parents never had. We were small town people living in a big world. But that was in the 50s and 60s. The air was clean and the streets were safe. Neither of those things apply now. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where they can be happy and prosper, a world where conservation isn’t a cliché, and a world where business and politicians watch out for the future of the planet instead of the next balance sheet or election result.

''I wish I had a crystal ball that I could look in to and see the future. I’d like to know if fifty years from now we’d have a habitable planet or not. I’m a student of history, so I know that people who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. I turned 59-years old this month, so by the time global warming overtakes this planets, I will have already shuffled off into eternity and my ashes will be helping young things grow. But for the people alive at the end of this century, I believe they will face a hostile world that has turned its back on humanity and is looking for a fresh start. It may take 100,000 years for the Earth to regain its balance, but it’s been around for 4 billion years and has learned patience. I only wish we could learn to respect her wishes and treat her with the dignity she deserves.''

An interview with Jim Laughter, author of POLAR CITY RED, to be published on April 22, EARTH DAY

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: for media reporters and book readers. Questions from Danny Bloom, all answers by Jim Laughter. Media may use answers for quotes with correct attribution.

DANNY BLOOM: You've said elsewhere that when you first started writing the
initial chapters of POLAR CITY RED, your new novel, that in the
beginning you were not so convinced that global warming was such a big
problem for mankind, but that as you wrote more of the book
and did more online research about the issues involved, you become
more and more convinced that global warming and climate change
are very important issues for humankind to face now, before it is too
late. Can you tell me more about how this process evolved in your mind
as you worked on your novel over a 7-month period?

JIM LAUGHTER: Up until last year when I was first approached about writing this book, global warming was a term I’d only heard about in passing or on nature documentaries. Politicians and Green Peace environmentalists rattled on about stuff that I didn’t understand. But now that I’ve had a chance to dig into the cause and effect of global warming, I’ve grown to realize that this old world is in trouble and we’re to blame.

How did this process evolve in my mind? Wow, that’s a loaded question. I spent hour after hour on the internet reading everything I could find about global warming and the effects it is having on the polar caps and Greenland ice sheets. I didn’t realize that only a three or four degree increase in air temperatures can serve to melt ice that’s been frozen for millions of years. Of course, I didn’t know carbon dioxide from carbonated water when I started, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that fossil fuel emissions are the culprit behind the whole mess.

But even though I learn quite a bit about global warming, I’m not a scientist. I’m a storyteller. So I had to figure out a way to create a good story around a serious problem. I knew I needed characters that I could wrap the seriousness of global warming around without boring readers with a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo that neither of us would understand. I think I got pretty close with Polar City Red.

DANNY BLOOM: The title of your book is POLAR CITY RED. Can you tell us the
significance of the color RED in the title? Why red? Does it have
any significance to the story or is it just a color?

JIM LAUGHTER: I think I’ll let two of the characters in the book answer this question. Dr. Alexi Romanov is a Russian scientist in the city and Carson Moore is a college professor recently rescued along with his family while escaping the chaos on the lower continent. In this scene, Dr. Romanov is giving Moore his first tour of the city. Jerky is a screwball old character that people are going to love.

No one else in the city knew more about the history of the city or how to keep it working. He was the last of the original population. He knew his time was limited and that he was getting old. He would need to find a replacement soon. Perhaps this young man that Jerky had found out on the tundra could be just the man he’d been waiting for.

“Polar City Red is designation,” Romanov began. Moore turned and faced the scientist, inching closer to the old man so he wouldn’t miss any of his words.

“A designation, sir?”

“Yes, designation,” Romanov repeated. “Other cities scattered across northern hemisphere as part of 21st century science experiment. Eight city total. Each city given color designation. This one red.”

QUESTION:  You've created a story and a cast of characters based around Jerky
and Dr. Romanov and the Moore’s and Nona and Daniel. How did you
create these characters and where did they come from? Did you work
from an outline or did the characters take on a life of their own as
wrote the novel? And do you yourself have a favorite character and why him or her?

JIM LAUGHTER:   I work from a basic outline but nothing I can’t get away from if the story takes a turn in a different direction. I generally have a pretty good idea about the characters I need, but never a clear picture of who they are until they introduce themselves to me. Jerky just stepped out of the dark and set the pace for the rest of the story. He’s a rough, no nonsense old hunter with a crossbow in one hand and heart of gold beneath his tunic. I guess if I have one favorite character, it would be Jerky, mainly because he and I speak the same language; screwy. I also identify with Carson Moore because he and I think a lot alike and share a lot of the same values when it comes to family, responsibility, and other very core issues

.
QUESTION:  Polar City Red contains a lot of technical details about military
hardware and operations, and scientific terms too. Did you earlier
career as a technical writer in the USAF help you as you wrote the book?

JIM LAUGHTER:   No, my technical writing in the Air Force had very little to do with weapons, operations, or hardware. I was a supply and training NCO for twenty years. I dealt with people on a one-on-one basis, working in customer service, training, etc. I didn’t carry a weapon even though I was a weapons sergeant for a while. Then again, I was also a security sergeant for a while in charge of top secret material. But if you know what you’re looking for, that kind of information isn’t hard to find. As for the science, I figured if I did good research and stuck to the facts, I’m a good enough storyteller that I figured I could weave a good story around it. But as we say in writing, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, talk about it anyway. There’s always a critic out there somewhere that will eventually contact you and tell you what you did wrong.

QUESTION: You’ve said elsewhere that you wrote the book for your four
grandchildren in Oklahoma. What did you mean by that?

JIM LAUGHTER:  My grandchildren are very important to me. Every parent wants their children to have it better than they had it. As a child, I knew I would have opportunities that my parents never had. We were small town people living in a big world. But that was in the 50s and 60s. The air was clean and the streets were safe. Neither of those things apply now. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a world where they can be happy and prosper, a world where conservation isn’t a cliché, and a world where business and politicians watch out for the future of the planet instead of the next balance sheet or election result.

QUESTION:  As a father, a grandfather, and as a human being living in the
early part of the 21st century, how do YOU feel about the future fate
of mankind, in terms of these climate and global warming issues that
confront us today? What's your prognosis for the future? Are you
hopeful or pessimistic about mankind's capacity to solve these
problems before things get so bad there is no escape?

JIM LAUGHTER:  I wish I had a crystal ball that I could look in to and see the future. I’d like to know if fifty years from now we’d have a habitable planet or not. I’m a student of history, so I know that people who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. I turned 59-years old this month, so by the time global warming overtakes this planets, I will have already shuffled off into eternity and my ashes will be helping young things grow. But for the people alive at the end of this century, I believe they will face a hostile world that has turned its back on humanity and is looking for a fresh start. It may take 100,000 years for the Earth to regain its balance, but it’s been around for 4 billion years and has learned patience. I only wish we could learn to respect her wishes and treat her with the dignity she deserves.

Night Eagles: will they survive in Alaska's tundra when the time of POLAR CITY RED comes true?

While waiting to get seated, I heard a strident screech above (listen here). I looked up and saw two Savanna Nightjars circling overhead. Quite impressive birds. Although they are roughly the same size, they seem larger and louder than our Common Nighthawks, probably because they spread their primary feathers during flight like some raptors. My friend says the locals call them Night Eagles.

http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/70674/autoplay

''POLAR CITY RED'' by Jim Laughter -- Call it Sci fi...or Sci-fi ....or SF (or sf)?

THINGS YOU MIGHT WANT TO REFLECT UPON AS YOU READ JIM LAUGHTER's new sci fi novel POLAR CITY RED:

Rewind to early 1950s: Forrest Ackerman used the term sci-fi (analogous to the then-trendy "hi-fi") at UCLA in 1954.

As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction. Hmmmmm.

By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science.

fPeter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers".David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre. The abbreviation SF (or sf) is commonly used instead of "sci-fi".

How will the reading public and the newspaper media community treat POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter? As science fiction or speculative fiction or climate fictiion, also known by its nickname of CLI-FI.

Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. It is similar to, but differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).



The settings for science fiction are often contrary to known reality, but most science fiction relies on a considerable degree of suspension of disbelief, which is facilitated in the reader's mind by potential scientific explanations or solutions to various fictional elements. Science fiction elements include:

A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record. Such as POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter.

A spatial setting or scenes in outer space (e.g., spaceflight), on other worlds, or on subterranean earth. Such as some parts of POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter.



Technology that is futuristic (e.g., ray guns, teleportation machines, humanoid computers). Such as POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter.

Scientific principles that are new or that contradict known laws of nature, for example time travel, wormholes, or faster-than-light travel. Such as some parts of POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter.



New and different political or social systems (e.g. dystopia, post-scarcity, or a post-apocalyptic situation where organized society has collapsed). Such as POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter.

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible (or at least non-supernatural) content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities. Exploring the consequences of scientific innovations is one purpose of science fiction, making it a "literature of ideas".

Bad News About Climate Chaos in Future is Opportunity to Fix the Problems Now

by Staff Writer,
Hat tip to Sweden's Cassandra and the Hope Graph

How to deal with bad news about the planet ... when dealing with it is part of your job?
If your job is to help make the transition to sustainability, then your job inevitably requires staying up to speed on a continuous stream of bad news about the state of the planet. Reading blogs like DOT EARTH, and books like THE ROAD and POLAR CITY RED.

It's no fun; but as you know all too well, it is your responsibility.

Actually, it's everyone's responsibility, but a relatively small percentage of people seem to have the stomach for staying updated on climate change, species extinction and the like. As a neighbor commented once (and this really did happen), "I'm so glad you are involved in trying to solve all these global problems, so that I don't have to."

To be fair, we don't really know how bad things are for the planet; after all, had there been no mass extinctions in the past, we would not be here to know about them. But we know that these problems are bad news for Nature-as-we-know it ... and for us.

But there's also this fact: not all the news is bad, especially from a human perspective. The United Nations recently announced, for example, that the world's Millennium Development Goal for providing safe drinking water to most of the world's people had already been reached ... several years early. Over two billion more people now have access to water, people who did not have that access twenty years ago.

Human economic development is truly bringing benefits — but it is also bringing costs. And thanks to those costs, the environmental news is simply bad, and getting worse.

Consider the recent statement put out by the winners of the prestigious Blue Planet Prize, a kind of Nobel for global environmental science. The list of winners is truly impressive. Their statement is truly depressing. "The current system is broken," they say, meaning the whole human social-economic system and its interactions with the global environment. They detail the problems, as well as the solutions, amid a stew of sad reflections like these:

“… humanity’s behavior remains utterly inappropriate”
“… civilization is faced with a perfect storm of problems”
“… changes in the environment … likely to have even more severe consequences”
“… society has no choice but to take dramatic action …”

Their joint paper is titled "The Imperative to Act," and phrases like "we must act" show up in every second paragraph — implying that we have not acted.

Of course, we have been acting. Most of us working in this business we call sustainability have been working double overtime, for many years. And fortunately, there are many more of us to do the work now, compared with twenty years ago. The problem is still the scale of the problems, and the speed of their growth, compared to the speed of our growth, and the speed at which the solutions we are trying to promote are adopted and implemented.

Readers of POLAR CITY RED by Jim Laughter very well understand that the climate problems our descendants will face in
the future will eventually catch up with us, just before the problems curve crashes down, carrying civilizations with it.

Regardless of whether you are an optimist or a pessimist about POLAR CITY RED, a sci fi novel that goes
where no other book has ever gome before, take heart, we can call on hope to see us through. Someone once asked famed global researcher Lester Brown, in a small seminar setting, how he maintained his optimism, considering all the bad news he spent his time studying and communicating. "I have a one-word answer for that," he said. "Bourbon."

Lester's joke (his real strategy is to work double overtime to promote solutions) says something important: we do have to deal with the emotion and even pain caused by reflecting on the state of the world. Yes, working on solutions, and staying informed about the astonishing pace of change (the rapid spread of renewable energy, the exploding numbers of young people wanting to work on sustainability, etc. etc. etc.), is a serious source of hope. And having hope, working for hope, is important.

The race against time is winnable, because we've won it in the past — and here I really wish to honor the memory of F. Sherwood Rowland, who died recently, and who helped save the world from ozone depletion, and got us to act "just in time".

If one scientist, working with one partner (Mario Molina), managed to save the world from a serious, deadly, global environmental threat, just think what all of us — the millions of us, the ones who are willing to know what's going on, and willing to work together to address it — can accomplish.

As the poet Rilke wrote, when confronted with the enormity of it all ... "Just keep going ..."

So JUST KEEP GOING and read POLAR CITY RED this summer. Put it high on your list of summer reading lists.

Is Global Warming Hotting Up Hollywood for some future ''POLAR CITY RED'' action?

You know the movie "The Hunger Games" – that violent, post-apocalyptic take on Coal-Miner’s Daughter based on the young adult science fiction novel by Suzanne Collins. But please read Alyssa Rosenberg’s post over at Think Progress about two new projects with climate change themes. And be sure to read Jim Laughter's new novel titled POLAR CITY RED, a sci fi book set in 2076 in Alaska. It would make a great movie, too.

First up is J.J. Abrams' ''Revolution'', which was just picked up by NBC TV. Described as a new “high octane action drama . . . following a group of characters struggling to survive and reunite with loved ones in a world where all forms of energy have mysteriously ceased to exist.”

An early PR logline for ''Revolution'' describes it like this, “In this epic adventure thriller, a family struggles to reunite in a post-apocalyptic American landscape: a world of empty cities, local militias and heroic freedom fighters, where every single piece of technology – computers, planes, cars, phones, even lights – has mysteriously blacked out . . . forever.” Hmm. Sounds a little like ''Lost'' meets Cormac McCarthy’s ''The Road''. Jim Laughter's POLAR CITY RED is like this, although his book is more like MAD MAX meets THE ROAD.


Another project is ''Snow Piercer'', an indie science-fiction flick set to star Tilda Swinton and Octavia Spencer. According to The Hollywood Reporter, ''Snow Piercer', is set in “a future where, after a failed experiment to stop global warming, an Ice Age kills off all life on the planet except for the inhabitants of the ''Snow Piercer'', a train that travels around the globe and is powered by a sacred perpetual-motion engine. A class system evolves on the train but a revolution brews.”

Interesting that this is another “global warming ends in an Ice Age” movie – the previous one being ''The Day After Tomorrow'' released in 2004. I guess, psychologically, ''Ice Ages'' must resonate as more unpleasant to the reptilian part of our brain. Oh, and as for that “sacred” perpetual-motion machine, we already have two – they’re called the sun and the wind.

Of course, movies with science and climate themes can be tough to tell. Back in a 1999 essay in the journal ''Science'', Michael Crichton cautioned scientists that “showing the scientific method presents genuine problems in film storytelling. The problems are insoluble. The best you will ever get is a kind of caricature of the scientific process.”

I’d like to think that our best storytellers, like Jim Laughter in POLAR CITY RED, are able to show complexity without falling back on caricature. After all, at the heart of scientific discovery sits fundamental questions about how we might live together on this increasingly crowded planet without destroying it in the process.

In any event, maybe the people working on these projects will connect with scientists via groups like The Science & Entertainment Exchange – a program of the National Academy of Sciences that “connects entertainment industry professionals with top scientists and engineers to create a synergy between accurate science and engaging storylines in both film and TV programming.”

Here’s to seeing some science (fiction) on the big screen . . . and the little one, too! And just wait: POLAR CITY RED may very well be coming to a theater near you, in 2020 or so. Meanwhile, read the book. You will never quite see the world the same way again. Jim Laughter's that good!

Climate Refuge in Polar Cities? Sci-fi author Jim Laughter seems to think it could happen, and soon!

Jim Laughter thinks it’s time to figure out how to build self-sustaining cities in the polar regions because climate change will eventually make most of the Lower 48 and the rest of the Earth uninhabitable. Perhaps as early as 2075, which is when his new sci fi book POLAR CITY RED is set. In Alaska. Get ready. Meanwhile, read the book, if nothing else.

These polar cities may be “mankind’s only chance for survival if global warming really turns into a worldwide catastrophe in the far distant future,” Laughter says. His novel is just fiction, of course, but it's based on some very strong facts. Not everyone agrees. Some people thing global warming is a hoax created by Al Gore. Not Jim Laughter. He knows better. His cli-fi book tells a gripping tale of survival and solidarity in the face of climate change.

Jim Laughter isn’t a scientist or any other kind of expert. A U.S. citizen in his late fifties living in Oklahoma, he’s lived all over the world as a USAF technical writer. And now, a devoted grandfather of four, Laughter wants to shake people out their everyday indifference to the great emergency of our age: climate change.


“The inactions of others can make us underestimate threats to our own safety,” British writer Camilla Cavendish once wrote in the Times of London.

Cavendish cited studies that suggest a kind of herd mentality. If climate change is a problem, then people would be doing something about it. Since they’re not, then there is no problem. However, once people are aware of this dangerous tendency to follow the herd over the cliff, we can break away and forge our own more sensible path, she wrote.

Jim Laughter wants people to realise that the world is on a path that could possibly lead to a future where just a few hundred million people survive in specially-designed cities in the Arctic. His novel is set in 2075. But some scientists say it could happen far sooner than that.

Laughter has done his research. POLAR CITY RED is based on the work of hudnreds of scientists, experts, reporters, and many others around the world. A few years ago, a Google keyword search for “polar cities” would have produced no results. Today, there are nearly 3,000 sites that feature or offer comment on the idea which is central to POLAR CITY RED, including one with a series of possible polar cities illustrations.


Jim Laughter Quixotic quest to write a sci novel about climate change and polar cities began less than a year ago. Having heard various conflicting news reports about climate change, Laughter decided to research the subject as thoroughly as he could. The genesis of POALR CITY RED comes from a dire op-ed by the eminent British scientist James Lovelock in January 2006 in the Independent newspaper.

Lovelock wrote that the Earth will heat up far faster than any scientist expects due to many positive feedbacks such as melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice. “… Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable,” he wrote.

Lovelock’s viewpoint was widely criticised as excessively pessimistic fear-mongering by many experts. No stranger to controversy, Lovelock first proposed the “Gaia Hypothesis” of Earth as a single highly complex organism in the 1970s. In 2007, with many leading scientists listening, he reiterated his claim that “global heating” is progressing very fast and was likely to produce an apocalyptic six-degree C. rise in the global average temperature before the end of this century.

POLAR CITY RED takes its cue from Lovelock's work. Read it and weep. But also read it and take action now to change the apathy all around us vis a vis climate change. The fate of mankind is at stake. Jim Laughter's book says it all in a quiet, page-turning work of pure fiction. But it might turn out to ne true 60 years from now. Pay attention. Then again, don't pay attention. It's up to you.

''Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs'' By GREG SMITH -- does this oped have anything to do with runaway and unchecked global warming and climate change?

OPED by Glen Smith, a mensch originally fm South Africa, with the conscience of the best of men. BRAVO!

TODAY is my last day at Goldman Sachs. After almost 12 years at the firm — first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years, and now in London — I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it.

To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for.

It might sound surprising to a skeptical public, but culture was always a vital part of Goldman Sachs’s success. It revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients. The culture was the secret sauce that made this place great and allowed us to earn our clients’ trust for 143 years. It wasn’t just about making money; this alone will not sustain a firm for so long. It had something to do with pride and belief in the organization. I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm for many years. I no longer have the pride, or the belief.

But this was not always the case. For more than a decade I recruited and mentored candidates through our grueling interview process. I was selected as one of 10 people (out of a firm of more than 30,000) to appear on our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006 I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut, out of the thousands who applied.

I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.

When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.

Over the course of my career I have had the privilege of advising two of the largest hedge funds on the planet, five of the largest asset managers in the United States, and three of the most prominent sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and Asia. My clients have a total asset base of more than a trillion dollars. I have always taken a lot of pride in advising my clients to do what I believe is right for them, even if it means less money for the firm. This view is becoming increasingly unpopular at Goldman Sachs. Another sign that it was time to leave.

How did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.

What are three quick ways to become a leader? a) Execute on the firm’s “axes,” which is Goldman-speak for persuading your clients to invest in the stocks or other products that we are trying to get rid of because they are not seen as having a lot of potential profit. b) “Hunt Elephants.” In English: get your clients — some of whom are sophisticated, and some of whom aren’t — to trade whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like selling my clients a product that is wrong for them. c) Find yourself sitting in a seat where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Today, many of these leaders display a Goldman Sachs culture quotient of exactly zero percent. I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. Over the last 12 months I have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as “muppets,” sometimes over internal e-mail. Even after the S.E.C., Fabulous Fab, Abacus, God’s work, Carl Levin, Vampire Squids? No humility? I mean, come on. Integrity? It is eroding. I don’t know of any illegal behavior, but will people push the envelope and pitch lucrative and complicated products to clients even if they are not the simplest investments or the ones most directly aligned with the client’s goals? Absolutely. Every day, in fact.

It astounds me how little senior management gets a basic truth: If clients don’t trust you they will eventually stop doing business with you. It doesn’t matter how smart you are.

These days, the most common question I get from junior analysts about derivatives is, “How much money did we make off the client?” It bothers me every time I hear it, because it is a clear reflection of what they are observing from their leaders about the way they should behave. Now project 10 years into the future: You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about “muppets,” “ripping eyeballs out” and “getting paid” doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen.

When I was a first-year analyst I didn’t know where the bathroom was, or how to tie my shoelaces. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them, learning how they defined success and what we could do to help them get there.

My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.

I hope this can be a wake-up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm. And get the culture right again, so people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care only about making money will not sustain this firm — or the trust of its clients — for very much longer.


Greg Smith, a vertibable mensch who speaks truth to power,  has resigned as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Born in South Africa in a Jewish family, educated at Stanford, a Rhodes Scholar, his oped above
has gone viral around the world and BRAVO!

========================================

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on March 14, 2012, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs..

1,234,372 Comments
.

John RileyAtlanta, GANYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I don't think you attack on Mr. Smith is called for.

It takes a long time for people to come to the painful realization that the place you have dedicated your career to is morally bankrupt, and not worthy of your time or energy. Mr. Smith realized this, and left in a way where he would expose much of the misaligned culture, and hopefully bring about resolution. That takes courage.

In my view, if he, regardless of the company as a whole, worked in the interests of his clients, then he should be entitled to his bonuses. I would agree that the company as a whole is too money-focused, and that many of the wrong people are getting lavish bonuses, but he just committed career suicide. I would say Mr. Smith can keep his. Additionally, Goldman Sachs has also repaid their entire TARP loan, so there is no need for him to "repay the taxpayers".
In reply to Paul CohenMarch 14, 2012 at 8:41 p.m.Recommended645Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..BantyUpstate New YorkNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..These problems proliferate due to ubiquity. If the clients know that the firm down the street has the same practices, there's no place to go. These firms routinely benchmark against each other (there is a whole industry devoted to that kind of report) to know what their latitude is, and make sure they aren't leaving a penny on the table.
In reply to BrennanMarch 14, 2012 at 8:42 p.m.Recommended236Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..LucaCheltenham, EnglandNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I have found that epiphanies usually occur after the youngest sibling has successfully negotiated her/her expensive college and/or the appropriate share package has matured.
In reply to Paul CohenMarch 14, 2012 at 8:42 p.m.Recommended177Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..amcCincinnatiNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Congratulations, Greg!

I resigned from more than one company where integrity was seriously lacking. In my first position, I was ordered to help clients lie on financial statements and change invoices - the partner actually handed me a bottle of white out! I was ordered to be a part of hiding a pension shortfall that I discovered and was walked out for refusing to go along.

I have paid a price for walking away from these 'great opportunities', but I sleep well at night. You are brave to take a stand for your clients and for your own integrity. I applaud you for walking away and for speaking out.
March 14, 2012 at 9:59 p.m.Recommended1116Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..GT LaBordeBirmingham, ALNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Thank you, Greg for speaking out. I have been a Goldman client since 2006, and have been trying to get my money out for several years now, to no avail. My money was placed in proprietary funds that have under-performed other similar investments and were clearly designed to maximize Goldman's profit at my expense. I am not allowed to get money out of these investments, in some cases for up to 8-10 years, without a significant "haircut" (hmmm, I wonder if Goldman partners profit from the haircut??).

In one of these investments (which has lost 35% of its value since 2008), Goldman even refuses to provide basic information, like estimates of income or expenses for tax planning purposes. I literally have to guess the income my K-1 will show when I file my taxes in April, because Goldman won't even give me an estimate (much less quarterly or annual commentary or disclosure by the fund managers). In many years, the fund shows substantial interest income (on which I have to pay taxes), but none of that income is ever distributed to me and the NAV of the fund simultaneously goes down. Where did the income go? When asked, Goldman refuses to provide specifics (even though I am a limited partner of the investment partnership and have a right to this information).

It is amazing how little Goldman cares about its customers. Goldman exists for the sole purpose of enriching its partners.
March 14, 2012 at 10:00 p.m.Recommended1450Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..payaegerViennaNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..A moral decision is to be commended regardless of circumstance; coming of age in a culture that prizes the making of money to the exclusion of everything else makes reaching such a decision doubly difficult. Mr Smith is to be congratulated for his personal revelation.
However, the survival of the company pales next to the slow-motion chaos into which this behavior - by no means confined to GS - plunges the real world on a regular basis. Of course it's very clear that those responsible are not the least bit interested, for reasons mentioned in the article.
If Mr Smith is interested in clearing his conscience, he might consider working to advance real regulation of the industry - at the very least.
March 14, 2012 at 10:01 p.m.Recommended696Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..TonyLxNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I find that these testimonials are important to help change the corrupt and rotten financial culture that surrounds our society. The sad part is that a company like Goldman Sachs has far too much power and controls not only the wealth of the wealthier, but also the wealth of independent countries. After the 2008 collapse, independent States all over the world have injected huge amounts of tax payers' money to cover for the blatant mistakes and greed of Goldman Sachs (and others). Now the people of the more vulnerable States, which little industrial and productive power, are being sacrificed so that this spiral of lunacy can continue. As a citizen of one of these countries that is being sacrificed - Portugal - I demand that my elected leaders stop pampering for these lunatic companies like Goldman Sachs and stop imposing harsh austerity measures that will lead us nowhere and will only destroy the social fabric of our country. However, I fear that this will not happen, because as we saw in Italy and Greece, when elected leaders stop cooperating with these powers they are simply replaced by former Goldman Sachs executives...sad world we are living in.
March 14, 2012 at 10:07 p.m.Recommended382Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..John WoodsMadison, WINYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I have long felt and written about the purpose of an organization: it is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between itself and those that it serves. Whenever an organization does not do this, it undermines its long-term survival. Another thing I am sure of is that profit is a way to measure the quality of service to others because you have created a lot of value for them. Losses measure the same thing. GS is very profitable, but apparently this is because it manipulates the system and exploits its customers for its short-term gain. This is a formula for its eventual demise.

I hope this article is a wake-up call for Goldman's clients and management. If I had money with this place, I'd get it out now. If management focuses on profit rather than service, it is doing exactly the things to bring about its downfall. I seriously doubt that the current management of this place can make the changes necessary to turn this firm around. Their heads are in the wrong place. They have created this toxic culture to which their employees are adapting. I hope the board throws them out and brings in those who understand the first sentence of this comment.

Organizations are part of the larger environment and society in which they operate. They look out for themselves by looking out for that of which they are a part. GS seems to be doing all it can to destroy that environment and take itself down at the same time. Thanks to Greg Smith for calling them out.
March 14, 2012 at 10:48 p.m.Recommended261Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..Christopher DeloguLyon FranceNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..John from Philadelphia praises you as a "brave man," ok maybe, but I can't help thinking of Olympia Snowe's recent decision to leave the Senate for similar reasons of conscience and disgust with the dominate culture and thinking that her and your departures from your organizations leave a hole that is likely to be filled by someone who is more extreme and has more conformist instincts and less conscience than you. You have become such a big cheese at GS and yet feel that you, you of all people in the organization -- not exactly the junior cog -- would rather quit 'em since you claim to not be able to beat 'em, is that it? This is a sad confirmation of Tocqueville's fears about the omnipotence of the majority and the tendency of whistleblowers to be either drowned out or, as in your case, to drown themselves (Democracy in America, vol 1, part 2, chapter 7). I hope some of your GS associates who share your views stay on the job, otherwise it's just more tyranny of the majority and group polarization full speed ahead. Yikes!
March 14, 2012 at 11:30 p.m.Recommended133Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..dprCaliforniaNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I believe the change in culture you've seen at Goldman Sachs is just a reflection of the change that has taken place in our national culture over the last few decades. When I was growing up, no one considered a person's wealth to be an absolute measure of his or her worth to society. Now, for a large part of our culture, that has changed; the acquisition of wealth is seen as good, no matter how it is achieved.

Money-grubbing behavior is rewarded, and victims of such behavior are considered fair game, not just at Goldman Sachs, but everywhere. My cable company charges huge fees out of proportion to what it delivers, but fails to adequately staff customer service to field complaints. My bank has added ridiculous fees for just about everything except were expressly prohibited by law. I am put on hold for large swaths of time to get just about anything fixed. There is a fervor for ever more tax cuts for the wealthy, paid for on the backs of the middle class.

Our whole attitude about what is important has changed, and in my opinion, not for the better.
March 14, 2012 at 11:34 p.m.Recommended860Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..THMNNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I don't think things have changed that much at GS in the last 12 years. He must have joined right after the internet bubble collapsed, which GS was a big part of, hyping companies that had no real business plan. And then they moved right on to double-dealing toxic mortgage products. So the only thing that might have changed in the last 12 years isn't GS' culture but Mr. Smith's assessment of that culture.
The thing that really changed GS is the change from a partnership to a public company in 1999, just before Mr. Smith joined. Suddenly, the risks are off-loaded from leadership to shareholders, quarterly earnings become the focus, and management is free to wheel & deal any way they want to with little consequence to them. That has created a huge moral hazard and nothing is being done to control that.
March 15, 2012 at 12:03 a.m.Recommended367Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..NERONYCNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..It seems to me that before GS removed its computers from their preferential physical presence within the exchanges where they apparently had an advanced view of all trades and were able to use the information through computerized flash trading, and were they were able to make ungodly amount of money based on the information that everything was happy and peaceful there. Once they had to compete on a level plane 2 years ago they found that making money was very much harder, and the infighting among the parasites got nasty. Several heads of the computerized trading department have been forced to leave, and the derivative desk was obviously impacted. As long as they were making very easy money everybody was friendly, but now the knives are out.
March 15, 2012 at 12:09 a.m.Recommended98Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..RalphNorwich, NYNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Unfortunately, with the decline of pensions in America, most workers are forced to invest in 401(k) and 403(b) structures that abuse the customer. Most of the funds that are available to workers within these 401 and 403 plans are high cost, low performing mutual funds. One of the plans that we were in, did not even list all of the companies in their mutual funds. They called it “proprietary information”. How is that for arrogance and distain for the customer?

My wife and I were in different pre-tax pension plans for decades and none of the funds provided account statements that made it easy to calculate capital gains. It would have been easy for them to do, but they didn't want us to know the numbers. Most of our growth in equity was from our contributions, rather than from capital gain.

When we finally changed to IRAs in order to gain control of our investments, the mutual funds fought our efforts to move money from their funds. They set up roadblocks and threatened us with tax consequences. It takes a lot of work, discipline and research to manage one's investments. Mr. Smith confirms some reasons why retail investors have left the stock market.
March 15, 2012 at 1:42 a.m.Recommended199Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..AJMBrooklyn, NYNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Sadly, with a few minor changes to the text, this letter could be used by many employees engaged in spirit crushing activities for companies who appear to have a clear mission, yet practice muddy and murky methods.
March 15, 2012 at 1:58 a.m.Recommended128Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..JamboTehachapi, CANYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Mr. Smith has identified a basic shortcoming of many American businesses. They lack purpose, vision, and values. If the corporation stands for anything its individual leaders decide is desirable, it is sure to go in many directions. Where once Mr. Smith felt like the client was supreme, he now see significant erosion in this as a core value in Goldman Sach's culture.

I admire his courage here and the leadership of Goldman should take this as the wake up call of the the 21st century. I believe that the clients of Goldman will immediately begin to question the motives of their bankers. The board of Goldman had better consider the impact of this culture immediately. Mr. Smith may seem like an ungrateful alien to them now. But, he may be the savior of the company if the banker- client relationship can be reestablished.
March 15, 2012 at 1:58 a.m.Recommended79Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..Young BankerUSANYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I'm a few years out of college working in an entry-level role for one of Goldman's competitors. I can already relate to many of Mr. Smith's grievances. While I really believe in the inherent usefulness of capital markets to society, I also understand that incentives are not always aligned with my firm's mission and that conflicts of interest--no matter how thoroughly disclosed and disseminated--are often at the heart of the matter. This is particularly true for the more well-compensated and visible "front office" that are the principal revenue-initiating arms of the bank. Like Goldman, my firm espouses to "do what's best for clients" and I can honestly say that building relationships with clients is the most deeply satisfying part of what I do. However, as I look to the future, I see that performance reviews at the higher levels rely not on customer satisfaction, sound leadership, and communication skills, but on the ability to bring in assets. One might argue the two are connected--that the ability to attract, retain, and build revenue is evidence of these skills. But as Mr. Smith's article points out, there are certainly ways to drive growth without holding a high level of integrity. At my office, such examples abound. Many of our managing directors are good people, but a notable few (including our office's top performers) have considerable character concerns that aren't addressed because the focus is money first, integrity second.
March 15, 2012 at 2:09 a.m.Recommended194Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..GeorgePalo Alto, CANYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Dear Greg,

Thank you for your honest, heartfelt column. I find it particularly distressing because I am a Stanford student, as you once were, about to embark on my summer analyst internship at Goldman.

Maybe things are different at the top, but during my interviews, I certainly did not talk about working only to make money off the client. I knew what I was supposed to say, and to be honest, I meant it. I do want to serve clients. That is what I have done at every job I have had up until now, and for me, there is no greater satisfaction than doing a good job for someone else. We can all work for ourselves, but working for others requires a belief in a cause and deep, selfless motivation. Unlike the trash-talkers in the comments here, I do believe there is an important purpose to investment banking and finance in general, and I accepted the internship for this summer so that I could see it for myself, learn the skills that Goldman teaches so well, and decide if it was for me.

Granted, I know how much obsessing goes on in finance about who gets paid what bonus, and where people get promoted, and who has the most swagger. Yet I do not think these attributes are unique to finance. It just happens to be a magnet for ambitious people. If they have been led so astray, as you say, then I can only hope someone more visionary and ambitious will lead them back.

Now I must return to my IR paper. It's 5:30am here, and I'm still getting ready for those ibanking hours.

Best,
George
March 15, 2012 at 2:16 a.m.Recommended45Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..CrookedCEOsAndPolsBoston, MANYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..It is not easy to resign on principle - and so publicly to boot, with the likely intention of alerting the world to the need for a company or other institution to change. Taking such a stand ought to be more common, but most people have neither the means nor the staying power to make the transition to their next job. The business world does a terrific job of "shunning" the principled one, a la certain religious and other groups. Such a principled action ought to be more common, but especially in this time and world of straitened circumstances and more limited employment possibilities, working people, including and perhaps especially professionals, fear for themselves, their families, lives and livelihood.Coming out so so bravely and publicly often means that one will "never eat lunch in this town again." Bravo for your courage and principles, Sir. The road onward may well be rocky, but presumably you have assets and have planned for a prolonged "siege" until you "land" your next professional position, start something of your own or join a more principled organization that values ethics and the ethos of putting the customer first. I wish you Godspeed and will keep you and your family in my thoughts and prayers. With best regards and all hope for you and your (now) future life.
March 15, 2012 at 2:24 a.m.Recommended105Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..MMNew YorkNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Mr Smith, admittedly a beneficiary of the GS largesse, largesse created from the very folks victimized by GS, has taken substantial risk here. A risk he should be applauded for. Why applauded? Because he will a person marginalized by the GS marketing machine and their fellow cohorts at the other comparable institutions. He will be visited by throngs of regulators and criminal authorities seeking his voluntary deposition, and if it isnt voluntary than through compulsory grand jury subpoenas.
His life going forward is going to be a different life than he had, and all because he took the brave and wholly voluntary step of coming forward with his story. We can criticize the money he may have made, but we shouldnt for a moment ignore the fact that he traded his comfortable life for the voluntary acceptance of the GS attack and a visit from an army of regulators and prosecutors.
March 15, 2012 at 2:32 a.m.Recommended158Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..Jeff McClureSalado, TexasNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..I have been in the securities business for 30 years and Mr. Smith's comments unfortunately ring true, not only of Goldman Sachs, but of much of the rest of the brokerage/ "financial adviser" community.

When I first entered the business as a fledgeling retail stock-broker I heard again and again about the "three-legged stool." The three legs were, the customer, the company, and the rep. All three needed to do well or we all would "tumble down." More recently when I questioned the push to sell illiquid, ultra-high commission, non-tranparent "alternative investments" I was told in no uncertain terms to stop questioning as these were "profit centers" and the key to retaining "high-producing" sales groups in the company.

At some point along the way we stopped being "brokers" or "representatives" or even "account executives" and were given two titles. From the company's perspective we became "producers" (of revenue for the company) and when portrayed to the public "advisors." Note that a careful delineation was made between "adviser" as in "investment adviser" (meaning fiduciary) and "advisor" (meaning salesperson). Even when the broker/dealers started their rush into a dual role as "investment advisers" I heard it argued again and again as a "revenue enhancer" rather than the advertised role of working in the clients' best interests.
March 15, 2012 at 2:33 a.m.Recommended125Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..David DavidNYCNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..Oh it must sting to be sitting in the GS HQ and to read Mr. Smith's letter just now. I left a great position to join GS some years ago, mostly out of curiosity. The firm had interviewed ~28 people for the position and thought I'd give it a shot. I drank the Kool-Aid, but wondered if the firm lived up to its ideals. In the four years that I was there, I found that it did not. When commenting to management about having observed how my colleagues would accomplish important projects at far higher costs than necessary, I was advised of two things: 1) Be more humble as I was violating the firm's "corporate culture" by being seen as "bragging" about the commercial efficiency of my transactions and enumerating the value of the cost savings achieved when compared to the decisions made by my colleagues (sometimes in the $M's). My manager would refer to these funds as inconsequential, "a rounding error" on our balance sheet; 2) That I should not worry, because "GS isn't and will never be the low cost provider of services." In doing the best that was commercially possible, my behavior wasn't consistent with the developing Goldman culture, and after four years, I was laid off. Thank goodness!
March 15, 2012 at 2:39 a.m.Recommended103Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..AndrewSouthborough, NYNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..All service providers have a conflict of interest with their customers - do they sacrifice their own profit for their customer, even potentially take a loss ? The lawyer who could end a case but files more paper, the plumber who could do the job in five minutes but can extend it to an hour. I remember when the old American Express financial advisers were reward based on selling certain products, not the best products, they totally ripped off my father with the schemes moving money around to boost commissions. Solution - rename the firm, forget the past, get a prominent paid spokesperson to make you feel good again. Isn't that just part of being human? Can we expect any more? Maybe one cannot do enough deals where both parties win. Or maybe the risks are not calculable ahead of time or they were acceptable.

When a provider can align with the interest of their client it makes the news - see, the system works! But when it doesn't they do the deal and hide the details.

For those savvy enough to know to protect their interests - bless them. But what about the vast majority of people who don't have the information or skills to weight the options and risk? We all should have the freedom to become shills or fools, otherwise what fun would life be without any risk?
March 15, 2012 at 2:53 a.m.Recommended21Share this on FacebookShare this on Twitter.
..pjuNYNYT Pick
Report Inappropriate Comment. Vulgar . Inflammatory . Personal Attack . Spam . Off-topic ..SubmitCancel .
Flag
..In 2008, I worked for JPMorgan Chase, albeit at a lower level than Mr. Smith. I spent a year trying to tell managers that there were all kinds of abuses going on with respect to disclosures about mortgages and home equity loans. All paid me nothing more than lip service. They couldn't have cared less about the client; it was all about their bottom line. Then the housing market crashed. Surprise.

I wrote a letter to Jamie Dimon, expressing my concerns. I got a call from one of his flacks in personnel. And instead of saying we'll look into this and fix it, her question was "Well, what do you want?": corporate speak for "What do we have to do to shut you up?"

Ultimately, I left of my own accord, and permanently said goodbye to any kind of "financial service" enterprise. It may sound quaint, but I'll take my personal ethics over the almighty buck any day; it beats feeling like you need a perennial shower.