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No Olympics in Boston

7/27/2015

I just learned that Boston's bid to host the olympics in 2024 has been dropped. Some people are sad, and some are glad.

I have listened to details about the proposals and the arguments against it, and I realize that I'm a bit angry about what has happened. I wish the people who wanted to host them here had been more open, worked better with the public, and provided some real alternatives to the problems the olympics have caused in other cities in the past.

People working with huge amounts of money seem to end up doing strange things, such as forgetting that the olympic games are a community event. They forget that secrecy and back room deals are only going to alienate that community - the people who live in the city doing the hosting.

But when I step back, I see that perhaps I'm expecting too much. After all, business has a tradition of competition, rather than collaboration. So it may just be a bit too difficult for people who are used to pressuring for deals from others to turn around and open up, drop the pretenses and level with the public at large.

But beyond that, I see much larger forces at work here. I may sound like I'm harping on this a lot these days, but the fact is that we now have over 7 billion people on the planet! I strongly believe that this has an major impact on everything, even this.

That's because the more people who want to see (in person) or watch (on TV) the olympic games, the greater amount of money is involved in hosting the games and providing coverage around the world. And the more money is involved, the more money becomes the central focus of the olympics, rather than the athletic achievement.

It's like a layer cake where the cake is the money and the athletics is the frosting. It's not being done for the athletics anymore, it's being done for the money, the jobs, the economic stimulus, the reputation of the hosting city as a place for economic investment, etc.

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Mother Nature's Economy

7/25/2015

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Yesterday, I heard the news that commodity prices had dropped significantly in the past few months. Prices for Gold, Copper, and other metals had lost value, in terms of dollars, with significant drops in price. Copper was almost $5 per pound a few years ago. Now it's down to $2.50.

To investors in those markets, this is bad news, perhaps. After all, they effectively bought something that's now worth about half of what it was back then.

But my first thought was of news stories that reported on political wrangling over plans to start new copper mines in Michigan and Alaska a few years ago. The impact of these mines is not just in the excavation of the land to reach the copper ore, but in the by-products of the mining process. Since the ore weighs many tons more than refined copper, the first major step in refining it takes place right at the mine site. This produces vast quantities of waste, a major component of which is sulfuric acid. This waste is a liquid, which accumulates in huge ponds, created for the purpose. The waste just sits there indefinitely, as there is no cost effective use for it, or practical means to recycle it. When the ponds leak or their banks break open, which inevitably happens, this waste spills out and kills all life in its path.

So, rather than feeling sad about lost profits, Mother Nature is likely to be much happier. She can take a breather from the relentless attack that we humans seem to be waging. That's because it's now less likely that these mines will be started, given the reduced economic benefit of doing so. The waste won't be generated, and the natural surroundings will be less at risk of a horrible death.

I am fascinated by the idea that, yet again, although political pressure may have helped delay the start of the mines, the more effective force stopping them is the economy overall. That in turn, is largely driven by demand. If people are slowly becoming less and less fascinated with accumulating material possessions, and instead saving energy, and buying more things made locally, then demand for these commodities shrinks. In the long run, I see this as the best way to cut back on how fast we destroy the surface of this planet.

In other words, in addition to saying "No" to industry and elected officials, we are saying "Yes" to a new way to live. It means we're living more in harmony with Mother Nature. And if Mother Nature is happy, then I'm more likely to be happy as well.

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Welcome

7/19/2015

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I'm at a major turning point in my life. Last year, I decided to write a book and by now, I've written over 100 pages. A photograph of a prototype of the book appears under the "Our Products" menu on this web site.
For years, I've engaged in discussions on many topics on Facebook. Over the past few years, I began to realize that I wanted my posts there to reach a wider audience. But it became clear that:
• A lot of people are not subscribers on Facebook, partly because the medium does not suit them, and partly because it's so easy to spend a lot more time logged in than they may have anticipated (!)
• Very few people on Facebook ever see what I have written there. Perhaps 100 or so, maximum, for any individual post. Many things I write are in response to other's posts, and are often seen by fewer than a dozen others.
So, at this point, I am starting this blog, here at Message Rain. Of all the sites I manage, this one seemed to be the right place to do this. After all, my goal is to write about those things that come to my mind often from an unknown place. Literally, the 'rain of messages' that seem to drop out of the sky into my head.

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No Olympics in Boston

Mother Nature's Economy

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