Debt, Growth & Linear Cities

8/3/2019 Debt, Growth & Linear Cities

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/debt-growth-linear-cities 1/26

Food, Energy, Transportation, Urban Design, Climate for an Eternity without Oil!

Debt, Growth, Linear Cities

And 100% SustainabilityPumping the Iron of Paradigm Change

We live our short lives, mindful of the efforts of our foreparents, but how

much have we done in the 100 generations since AD 0, especially if it is only 20

times the 5 generations that we will have met in our own families since that time?



It can be argued that the components of the genes that make us also made

our foreparents in the Year 0, and will make all of our descendents, just in adifferent combination or recombination of the human pool of those components.

Can we not then argue that those components are “eternal”, that a notion of our

own eternity will be carried by our children, grandchildren, etc. off into the wild blue

yonder of eternity on this planet?With, or without that being the case, had we not better plan for the future of

those components in the Years 4000 and 100000, especially when we face the

challenges of both Global Climate Change and the End of Petroleum right here and

now?

If it is our children, and the women who produce our children, who are the

bridges to our own personal eternity, why are these 2 groups also the most abusedon the planet?

That said, I would like to prime the pump of brilliant designs that can lead

the world toward the only viable conclusion that I have reached about the future –

spending every minute from now until its creation on the design and construction of the world’s first 100% sustainable global infrastructure for the provision of energy,

food and transportation! And, I would like to have vigorous disagreement andcontrasting proposals at every step of the way toward that goal!

Petroleum and coal are both the result of the sun’s conversion by plants and

animals of the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, in combination with oxygen and

minerals from our soils into the complex hydrocarbons that compose all of life and,eventually, what dead organisms leave behind – coal, oil, natural gas etc. We

humans are successful in so populating this planet because we have learned to

exploit what was an almost limitless resource!

But, the limits of both the resource in carbon, and the results of

converting/burning it back to carbon dioxide are very quickly approaching, with a

large global population that depends on the energy that it provides, and on a stable

supply and climate to produce that other great necessity – food!There is an end to both hydrocarbons and to climates that have provided all

that we have used to prosper – scientists are presently measuring how much time

we have left before both become inconducive to human life! So, we can easily seethat, on the present course, humanity will run foul of degrading weather – heat,

drought, hurricanes, tornados, floods, etc. and of the effects of much steeper

energy prices as the petroleum runs out! What can we do now to enable us to avoid

those convergent trends for the benefit of the components of our genes for the rest

of eternity?

Problems on this scale inevitably lead to the appearance of many

suggestions, opinions, and demands, some of them much more selfish than others!But, history has always shown that solutions that benefit the maximum number of

people inevitably prevail, so we can immediately discount all solutions that smackof selfishness. What does that leave? And, what might science advise us to do?

In the end, we will have zero fossil fuels, so conclusively we must driveimmediately toward solutions that require none at all, so that we can use the high

energy density of the remaining fossil fuels to construct an infrastructure that is

immediately 100% sustainable!Wow! How do we do that? Is it even possible? Let’s pump the iron of

paradigm change and see what we can find!



1. We will have life on Earth for as long as the sun shines as it does now,

so let’s build an infrastructure that relies only on solar energy.2. Wind is the most powerful and economical form of solar energy, so let’s

also base our infrastructure on wind, in areas where it’s force is both

strongest and most consistent. The world’s current infrastructure is

much more based on where explorers first arrived and expanded theirexplorations. We now have the quantitative data that can be used to

determine where, how and when we can build the world’s first 100%

sustainable infrastructure!

3. Food, energy and transportation provision will all have to be

revolutionized, as they all depend highly on petroleum, which will

disappear and cease causing the potentially catastrophic global climatechange that is currently running away with the future of the components

of our genes. What does that revolution look like?

Engineers and designers throw away your computers, because this future is “outside the box”! We really cannot imagine using any more petroleum, because its

continued use will warm the planet catastrophically, and we will very quickly findourselves in the same position as the Easter Islanders, building monuments to our

own extinction!

I have had my own “outside the box” experience when my heart stopped for

10 minutes while I was under a general anesthetic to have my forehead suturedfollowing a car accident in Kenya in 1980. Wow! Imagine waking up to find that you

had no more memory, and that you couldn’t do any of the things that you had

learned as an infant, including walk, speak, play tennis, etc.! It’s been a long road

back from there!

Let me take a very short detour and recommend that all those who suffer

head injury and brain anoxia undertake as much vigorous physical activity as

quickly as possible, as the 3.6 miles home from the job that I got within 7 monthsof the accident, that I covered 92 times within the first 2 years of the same

accident, literally put me back on my feet, and gave me tons of ideas for the

construction of the world’s first 100% sustainable global infrastructure!



There I was, hanging by the tips of my fingers slipping off a narrow wet

ledge, miles above any safe refuge as I arrived in a new country as an immigrant ina wheelchair in 1980. But, Hope (and Design) Spring Eternal, even in the most

dismal of circumstances, and I rapidly converted my disabilities into the designs for

a 100% sustainable future, below, at every step of the way in the 330+ miles that I

staggered.

The seas are rising around the Linear City above, which is linked to another

one across the straits. People are enjoying some sailing in some vintage craft as awhale shark glides by, unseen. Optimism builds a much stronger future than does

greed and pessimism!

Everyone can walk from where they live into fields to grow their own food

without the petroleum that is required for 95% of our current food production, all

are served by high-, medium-, and low-speed trains that use only 1/3 of the

energy/passenger mile of modern cars and aircraft, and that can also be poweredby the ducted wind turbines, in green, along the roofline! Please, please, please

design me a more sustainable infrastructure than this one!

It is my belief that, currently, financiers and Republicans, who are all paid

much more than the rest of us, have the tools to look into this future that is bereft

of petroleum, with the Sword of Damocles of Climate Change hanging over us all.That is why they are currently socking away all that they can grab to protect their

families – laudable, except that it leaves 90% of the population to die as crops fail

and energy costs rise!



Why not consider that we are all subject to the same storm-tossed seas – theEaster Islanders were, after all? Why not pool our brain-power to create the world’s

first 100% sustainable power, and spring off the platform of Linear Cities that can

provide all that we need from the bedrock of solar energy alone? If any one or two

of the people in the lifeboat above tried to save themselves above all the rest, do

you think that the boat could ever make safe haven?

So, how do Linear Cities work?

They would be built north to south, as indicated by the blue lines on the mapabove, to connect our existing cities, and to supply those cities with food aspetroleum becomes increasingly expensive. We would start 1) with the construction

of wind turbines along windy stretches of our north to south freeway network,

followed 2) with the installation of high-, medium, and low-speed rail lines, and

induction tracks in the freeways to overcome the range problem of the electricvehicles shown. Finally 3) we would construct the Linear Cities themselves, in any

number of configurations and designs!



The illustration at B) above depicts an East – West oriented Linear City. They

could be built along waterways to take advantage of sail-powered transportation,

below, because we won’t be flying anywhere, and will enable all residents to grow

their own food, also below:



Everyone can walk from where they live to their own fields to grow their own

food organically and cooperatively:



Transportation without any Petroleum!

I have discussed the use of wind turbine driven high-, medium- and low-speed trains above, but that still leaves most of the country, and most of the world

without transportation. What can we do for the children of AD 4000 for more local,

and overseas transportation, without the petroleum that currently fuels 95% of our

transportation needs here in the USA? And, while the solutions are critical for those

2000 years from now, will they be any less critical within 20 years?

The car above uses a gas turbine – flywheel hybrid that will burn any

gaseous or liquid fuel, that serves as a gimbaled gyroscope to keep the car level,

and is equipped with the profile illustrated just above to attenuate the shockscaused in collisions from almost any angle, to save the lives of the passengers. In

addition, the flywheel delivers power to all 4 wheels electrically using traction

control to avoid any wheel spin, and absorbs that power without locking the wheels(a form of ABS) to make the flywheel turn faster, thus saving energy that is lost in

almost all cars.



Transportation over Water!

Just as land transportation without petroleum will experience changes in the

paradigms used, transportation over large bodies of water will have to change

dramatically! Again, we must optimize our use of the wind, with new and surprising

technologies, as below:

The Blimpfoil illustrated at the top has tethered reverse hydrofoils that also

deploy reverse train bogies that are channeled into/under rail I-beams in coastal

cities so that the Blimpfoil can fly from Kansas City to Moscow non-stop, for

example!

All these craft benefit from both GPS and weather satellites, so that they canbe directed to fly or sail any number of miles to the north or the south to take

advantage of higher speed and more favorable wind streams. The foils can also beequipped with sonic alarms and buzzers to encourage whales and large fish to avoid

their path!



The history of civilization is perhaps 4000 to 10,000 years old, of which

we are most familiar with the last 2000 years, which is an incredibly short

time! If you divide that 2000 years by the 20 years that is roughly the period

of the “average generation” according to the variety of definitions that areavailable, we have 100 generations back to the year 0, a date and year that

we in the West know well.

Most of us know 5 generations in our own families, from grandparents

to grandchildren, including ourselves. If you divide 100 generations by 5, you

get 20, so it is only 20 times the generations that we know personally in our

own families back to the year 0, which is absolutely incredible! It is only 20

times the generations that we know in our own families that include almost all

of reasonably recorded history.

We have done an incredible amount in a very short time, from the first

sailing ships on the Nile 4000 years ago, the first cuneiform writing in

Mesopotamia in 3500 BC, and marks on tortoise shells from China dating from

6000BC, the last of which makes all of human history only 80 times the

generations that we know in our own families!

And, if we were to measure in lifetimes of 50 years rather than in

generations of 20 years, that multiple would drop from 80 to 32, only 32 times

the lifetimes of those that we know in our own families back to the dawn of

civilization, and they didn’t even realize what they were starting, just as we

don’t, as we look forward into a future without petroleum and the start of

potentially catastrophic global climate change. Those who cannot dream,

cannot advance, cannot survive!

This discussion of generations is important because we can quickly see

how important, how crucial, each of the generations in our families is! If one

person in that chain had failed to live past the age of 15, we simply wouldn’t

be here, as are the “ghosts” of those who failed to reproduce.

We cannot cry over our own history, or that of those who are not here,

but we can plan for the success of the generations that will follow ours so that

they can enjoy life to the full! What can you do for your children and

grandchildren to give them both confidence and joy to face their own futures?

What insights can you give them from your life so that, at an early age, they

can make plans to make their lives and those of their children the most fruitful

and enjoyable?

Where will we be when we fall back to the same levels of fossil fuel

energy inputs that prevailed 100 years ago? Where will we be in 2000, 4000,

and 10,000 years when we haven’t had access to petroleum for 99% of that

time? The time to act is now, this very minute. Everyone must look up from

what they are doing and consider what their great great great great great



great great grandchildren might be able to do if we do nothing, in the absence

of any systems to provide for energy, food, jobs, housing, civilization,

education, and a future for our genes, every one of them!

PS. The following is a comparison between the number of pages referencedby Google for the combination of “Wall Street” and “food production”, and

“Wall Street” and “Oil Production”, and the Dow Jones Industrial Averages

for the past decade. It seems that there is a reasonably close correlation

between all 4! Let’s get some grad students onto this to see whether we

can make Wall Street more transparent, so that fewer people lose their

shirts there!



What may be interesting in examining the above is that a high occurrence of

sites that mention “Wall Street”, and “oil production” and/or “food production” inthe same article came after the crash in 2002-03, whereas it continued and

preceded the crash this time, to rise far higher still after the crash. So, perhaps

Wall Street learned just how important “oil production” and/or “food production”

are to world economies, and has done its best to safeguard its own money, and the

transfer of others’ money into their own accounts to “safeguard” that as well?

Many, if not most, observers of stock markets have said that as the oil

supply picture becomes more troubled, market trends will become more volatile. If

this is true, then the last 2 very volatile weeks in August, 2011 on Wall Street maybe an indicator that the, “lack of new significant oil discoveries confirm that there is

an impending oil crisis that will hit the global economy. This would further drive up

already accelerating oil prices making it all the more difficult for the US economy to

keep the stock market from crashing without preamble. Peak oil prices are set to

cause the largest tumble down in the history of the economy.” (http://www.oil-

price.net/en/articles/rising-oil-prices-predict-economic-recession.php).

Inevitably, the world will have to move away from oil as a source for

anything. The sooner that we achieve that the easier and least expensive that will

be! What will happen to global populations that quadrupled with the support of oil

in the last century if we fail? If we can render energy supplies and food production

more predictable, steady, and subject to democratic influence, perhaps the worldwill be able to support more people with less waste and volatility, more predictably,

forever!

Therefore Linear Ecocities because, in the end, we must imagine how to

manage without a single drop of the oil that accounts for 95%+ of our

transportation fuels and food production! As outlined, Linear Cities can more thanadequately resolve the inevitable supply problems that energy, food and

transportation will very soon see. Do we want to guillotine the prospects that we

can offer to our great grandchildren by doing nothing?

I have constructed this model as a goal at the end of the first curve in anoval racecourse. I challenge anyone to provide a better, more sustainable model! At

the same time, I am also happy to predict that all of us will not be living in Linear

Ecocities like those that I illustrate in 1,000 years and 10,000 years. Just as car,

medical and communications technologies have evolved rapidly, the Linear Ecocitywill also be subject to rapid evolution, including paradigm change! At least, I hope

so!



Appendix – Further Details1. Before the age of the automobile in 1900, 60.4% of the American population

was classified as rural, and were reasonably able to walk into fields to cultivatetheir own food. Now, only 4% of rural residents make their living farming, the last

time most Americans lived on farms was in 1880 and the last time the majority

lived in rural communities was in 1920. We will have an enormous challenge tofeed, clothe, employ and transport Americans when there is no more oil! We must

use the most energy efficient transportation, trains, the only feasible long-term

energy sources, the renewables that run from the nuclear fusion in our sun, and the

close proximity of all residents of new buildings to food production areas, which isonly possible using linear-form cities!

The “No Oil Era” is on our doorstep! Without intelligent action on the

part of all who plan the future, we are condemning the babies of tomorrowto an almost certain death, as global populations shrink from their current

level of 6.85 billion to the 1.6 billion that existed in 1900, or less with thepresent loss of valuable farmland to over-fertilization, over-salinization

from irrigation, over-asphaltization, and the conflicts that inevitably ariseas all populations shrink!

It may be noted that North Africa and the Middle East have witnessed

significant drying trends in the last 10,000 years – the Sahara was once a savannah

that was lush enough to support the workforce that built the pyramids, and what

happened to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Fertile Crescent, the

birthplace of modern agriculture – are they the most peaceful areas in the worldtoday?

2. Please see below for more details of the challenges, research and otheractivities that are necessary for this new paradigm to take flight or run along atrack at 250 miles/hour!

o We will see the end of petroleum within 60 years, the most critical fact for

the lives of our grandchildren, which our media has avoided despite its

importance! It may also be noted that Iraq is the country with the greatest

remaining reserves of petroleum. Could our absolute dependence on oil fortransportation (99%) and food production explain why we are there, and why

the president did a U-turn to stay there once elected? We need to face the

future squarely and design systems that require no oil, before we have

none at all!

o Global climates are very likely to seriously deteriorate, inundating coastlinesdue to rising sea levels and destroying life for more than 50 percent of the

Americans who currentlylive in 772 coastalcounties. By 2025, nearly 75percent of Americans are projected to be living near a coast, withpopulation

density doubling in some areas such as Florida and California. Furthermore,

globally about 60 million people live within 1 meter of mean sea level, anumber expected to grow to about 130 million by 2100! What will their lives,

homes, and jobs look like then?



o With the end of petroleum, we are very likely to see the end of the

coordinated, efficient and compact food production systems that allowAmericans and global citizens to eat affordably today. In that vacuum, what

are the chances that law and social order can be maintained, especially if the

police themselves are deprived of petroleum? Even now, the US Defense

Department is the world’s largest single consumer of oil! How can acountry that has only 2% of the world’s oil on its territory, but

consumes 20% of the world’s supply continue to live in peace with

all other nations!

We must find and develop both a paradigm and an infrastructure for where wecan get plastics (a reduced number, all from plants), energy (all from renewables

except, for the time being, from nuclear), food (from 100% organic production) and

transportation (as outlined here and below)!

I. Land, Population, Transportation and Food without Petroleum:World and American populations are dispersed across the continents roughly as

indicated in this satellite image of Earthlights at night, bearing in mind that we inthe USA consume about 5 times the energy/person of those in Europe and 22 times

those in the rest of the world!

The low-lying areas along the East and West Coasts, and Mississippi River

Valley and Gulf Coast could all easily disappear under rising sea levels, to say

nothing of European, Asian and Indian populations in low-lying areas!

This is a mathematics problem: how to supply over 4 times the world’s

people on land and energy supplies that are likely to dwindle even more than theyare now, and were in 1900!

There are ways to sail around this problem as sea levels rise, however, using

modern technologies in novel ways, as follows:



Why live in a long ribbon, linear city when you can live in something as

exciting as the Burj Kalifa, for example? The answer comes down to simple, 7th

grade mathematics: lines have a far greater perimeter than circles, which have the

minimum that is mathematically possible.

Please compare the 2 figures below that have roughly the same area but

vastly different perimeters - - - - - - :

These differences are compounded when you stack the circles on top of each

other to create the building on the right above, which is superb in the views andsense of power that it creates, but poor when all its inhabitants must walk into

fields to grow their own crops because there is no more petroleum to produce the

food and bring it to where people can eat it! Please consider too that all of ourcities are circular, not linear, forms

that give few people access to fields

to grow crops. Please see the image

of Los Angeles on the right!

Why should this make adifference? After all, technology has

been directing us toward theheights for at least a century, the

same century that has been

coincidentally driven largely by

petroleum, and the mobility that it

has given us.



I therefore propose linear cities

like that on the right, where everyonecan walk from where they live into

open fields, both to grow their own

food, and to supply those who are still

stuck in existing cities, and towers likethose above!

The orange tunnel bordering

the fields contains high-speed rail,

along with medium and low-speed

lines, which are the only form of

transportation outside of bicycles,ships and electric cars that can be

driven by wind. Everyone lives within a 10 minute walk of their own field, chickens

and fruit trees, and all can very rapidly reach the existing cities using the high-

speed rail link, which uses only about 1/3 of the energy/passenger mile that carsand aircraft use.

The wind turbines (below between nos. 2 and 3) along the edge of the north

to south linear city capture the energy of the prevailing westerly wind that has been

accelerated as it passes over its 3 – 5 stories. Expressways/railways can be used to

deliver building materials to build linear cities just alongside, as below, and we canstart by installing conventional wind turbines first 1), followed by both high-speed

rail and “high temperature” superconducting induction tracks in the roadway to

drive electric vehicles, giving them unlimited range 2), followed by the construction

of the linear cities themselves 3).

The sketches below show the same process, with the intermediate stage of elevated

platforms a) for quick-change battery pit stops for autonomous electric vehicles. All

residents are within walking and cycling distance of fields, as below:



The Linear Cities follow the expressways in the middle above, and go more directly

between the existing cities on the right above. They run north to south, at rightangles to prevailing westerly winds as mentioned, except for B) below, and can be

built into hillsides, onto land that becomes flooded, and along watercourses as in

the aerial view on the left above.

With the forthcoming certainty of the End of Oil, and a global food crisis

looming, there are more and more who advocate much greater reliance on organic

farming methods. Organic farming methods however are labor intensive, as

mandated by the low-petroleum era, and resolved by the much greater proximity to



the land that Linear Ecocities provide. This is one of the only ways to get the hands

into the fields, as 80% of us now live in cities, far from food production areas! As

Linear Ecocities run through cropland, all hands are either a 10-minute walk from

where they may work for the day, or a short or long train ride from the field and

seasonal crop that must be tended.

There will be many who argue that our current concentrated cities/

megalopoli are the engines of economic growth, but that is an old argument from

the cave-dwelling age before the Internet! Until the Internet, people did indeed

need to meet each other face to face, to do business, to exchange ideas, to initiate

romantic exchanges as well.

Currently, we all have circles of acquaintances that we physically contact with

some degree of frequency. But, that will change drastically, both as food supplies

become more critical without petroleum, and as we continue to do what we have

always done, make friends with those that we have contact with, either in existing

cities, or in Linear Cities.

The infrastructure paradigm detailed above can move toward supplying all of

our food, energy and transportation needs, but cities do not yet span large bodies

of water, nor filter into the deep countryside. Therefore, we also need new 100%

sustainable technologies to accommodate these 2 situations, and many others,

once there is no more oil! Because of its imminent disappearance, we will be forced

to abandon its combustion and resultant global greenhouse effects, but we must

not replace it with any other fossil fuels/coal!

Therefore, please view below projects to create gas turbine/flywheel/battery

hybrid cars with 4-wheel drive and regenerative braking that will burn practically

any fuel and protect their occupants much better in

accidents, please see the variety of accident scenarios

below. In head-on collisions, the more rigid, pointed

central chassis is very unlikely to meet point to

point with the opposing car. The front bumpers

act as triggers to detach the front “A-arm”

on that side, and the front fenders are

also mounted to slide to the rear on the

appropriate side, thereby reducing the

deceleration felt by the occupants of

both cars.

Similarly, the rear and side

undersides are sloped so that the impacted

car is thrust upwards and its occupants pressed into their seats, with which they

already have contact. This is both automatic and passive, does not depend upon



fallible technologies to work, and can cut the g-forces felt by all occupants, thereby

saving many lives!

The front “A pillars” on either side of the windshield are greatly reinforced to

keep the roof from collapsing as the impacting car slides under the impacted car!

That still leaves the oceans as poorly crossable once there is no more

petroleum to fly aircraft or power ships. How can global passenger and cargo trips

continue without petroleum? That may be easier than we currently realize! All we

have to do is to build kite-sail hydrofoil hovercraft ships to rapidly cross the oceans

when we can no longer fly across them.

We must design and build much more rapid sailing ships that get all or

most of their energy from renewable sources, and quickly eliminate the

highly polluting ships burning “bunker crude” of today that will not be able

to sail due to lack of fuel, in any case, soon.

1. With the imminent demise of our fossil-fueled economy, we must already, this

minute, rapidly develop a 100% sustainable transportation, energy and food

producing infrastructure! The land-based paradigms are discussed above, but

we must also consider what to do about transportation at sea, especially if weare unable to fly conventional aircraft after the end of petroleum, and to

transform what is the dirtiest form of transportation in terms of high-nitrogen

and high-sulfur fuel use, the dumping of “black”, “grey”, and bilge water that

can contain invasive species, into much cleaner and attractive forms of

transportation.



2. Currently, “Seagoing vessels are responsible for an estimated 14% of emissions

of nitrogen from fossil fuels and 16% of the emissions of sulfur from petroleum

uses into the atmosphere. In Europe ships make up a large percentage of the

sulfur introduced to the air, …as much sulfur as all the cars, trucks and

factories in Europe put together. By 2010, up to 40% of air pollution over

land could come from ships because the fuel used in oil tankers and container

ships is high in sulfur and cheaper to buy compared to the fuel used for

domestic land use. “A ship lets out around 50 times more sulfur than a truck

per metric tonne of cargo carried.” 6

3. The Hovercat uses an aluminum,

composite or steel catamaran

hull, with hovercraft capability

between the hulls to lift them out

of the water so that the kites can

pull the ship forward fastenough to enable the hydrofoils

to work. All the kite sails are

computer controlled and are

attached to “domes” that double

as elevated air intakes for the hovercraft.

The dark blue tinted glass bridge is movable from port to starboard to permit

more accurate maneuvering in close quarters and small ports. As cargo and

passenger vessels, they are roll on/roll off with fail-safe bow and stern closures,

light weight, high maneuverability and speed, and fun!

4. The Hexcat again uses the hovercraft and hydrofoil technologies, with a novel

kitesail launching & deployment

arrangement that can put many

kites into the sky, both to

increase the traction of the

available wind, and to reach

winds that may be stronger, or in

a more favorable direction

further aloft. As with the

Hovercat above, the hydrofoils

are retractable so that both

ships can launch from and return

to beaches and concrete launching aprons. Both are envisaged for use as cargo

ships, passenger ships, or both at the same time.



5. Why not harness this technology

to make transoceanic journeys even

more efficient by linking many craft

together? Please see the illustration

below for a caterpillar configuration

that may just become the monarch

of the seas!

I don't think that the weight of

the sails/kites and rigs is an issue

as kites now have helium filled

bladders in their leading edges to get

them out of the water and into the air.



This concept has 2 launching

masts in carbon fiber that pull the kites

out of a launching chute at the bow

(orange above, yellow below). The top

illustration shows an existinghovercraft that is capable of carrying 3

Hummers and substantial containers

with equipment. As existing kite sails

are capable of pulling kite boarders

completely out of the water, see the

illustrations below,

one of the functions of the hydrofoils is to keep the craft in the water and not

launched to a height where the landing could be damaging!

I am sure that the day of the end of petroleum is coming soon and, even if it is

not soon, we need to keep the maximum amount of petroleum unburned both

to preserve the atmosphere and for use in the production of sails, plastics,

pharmaceuticals, fertilizer and pesticides, so that we can continue to eat!

Why not extend this concept to wind-

driven flight using recycled and lightened

aircraft fuselages, after there is no more fuel to

power them? This concept uses tethered wing

keels that also have wheels to roll directly onto

rails for continued trans-continental journeysonce the trans-oceanic part of global voyages

is finished – eg. New York to Moscow non-stop!



The history of civilization is perhaps 4000 to 10,000 years old, of which

we are most familiar with the last 2000 years, which is an incredibly short

time! If you divide that 2000 years by the 20 years that is roughly the period

of the “average generation” according to the variety of definitions that are

available, we have 100 generations back to the year 0, a date and year that

we in the West know well.

Most of us know 5 generations in our own families, from grandparents

to grandchildren, including ourselves. If you divide 100 generations by 5, you

get 20, so it is only 20 times the generations that we know personally in our

own families back to the year 0, which is absolutely incredible! It is only 20

times the generations that we know in our own families that include almost all

of reasonably recorded history.

We have done an incredible amount in a very short time, from the first

sailing ships on the Nile 4000 years ago, the first cuneiform writing in

Mesopotamia in 3500 BC, and marks on tortoise shells from China dating from

6000BC, the last of which makes all of human history only 80 times the

generations that we know in our own families!

And, if we were to measure in lifetimes of 50 years rather than in

generations of 20 years, that multiple would drop from 80 to 32, only 32 times

the lifetimes of those that we know in our own families back to the dawn of

civilization, and they didn’t even realize what they were starting, just as we

don’t, as we look forward into a future without petroleum and the start of

potentially catastrophic global climate change. Those who cannot dream,

cannot advance, cannot survive!

This discussion of generations is important because we can quickly see

how important, how crucial, each of the generations in our families is! If one

person in that chain had failed to live past the age of 15, we simply wouldn’t

be here, as are the “ghosts” of those who failed to reproduce.

We cannot cry over our own history, or that of those who are not here,

but we can plan for the success of the generations that will follow ours so that

they can enjoy life to the full! What can you do for your children and

grandchildren to give them both confidence and joy to face their own futures?

What insights can you give them from your life so that, at an early age, they

can make plans to make their lives and those of their children the most fruitfuland enjoyable?

Where will we be when we fall back to the same levels of fossil fuel

energy inputs that prevailed 100 years ago? Where will we be in 2000, 4000,

and 10,000 years when we haven’t had access to petroleum for 99% of that

time? The time to act is now, this very minute. Everyone must look up from

what they are doing and consider what their great great great great great

great great grandchildren might be able to do if we do nothing, in the absence



of any systems to provide for energy, food, jobs, housing, civilization,

education, and a future for our genes, every one of them!

This article is dedicated to the components of the genes that we all

carry, and that we have all shared throughout our history. Long may they live,

100% sustainably!

Please contact Mr. Kim Gyr at: [email protected] ,

231 392 6511, or at 10057-3 Michigan Street, Empire, Michigan 49630-8505,

and see many more details both on my website at: www.greenmillennium.eu

or in any of the many chapters and essays that I have written by sending a

request to any of the above contacts.



PS. The following is a comparison between the number of pages referenced

by Google for the combination of “Wall Street” and “food production”, and

“Wall Street” and “Oil Production”, and the Dow Jones Industrial Averages

for the past decade. It seems that there is a reasonably close correlation

between all 4! Let’s get some grad students onto this to see whether wecan make Wall Street more transparent, so that fewer people lose their

shirts there!

What may be interesting in examining the above is that a high occurrence of sites that mention “Wall Street”,

and “oil production” and/or “food production” in the same article came after the crash in 2002-03, whereas it

continued and preceded the crash this time, to rise far higher still after the crash. So, perhaps Wall Street

learned just how important “oil production” and/or “food production” are to world economies, and has done



its best to safeguard its own money, and the transfer of others’ money into their own accounts to “safeguard”

that as well?

If we can render energy supplies and food production more predictable, steady, and subject to democratic

influence, perhaps the world will be able to support more people with less waste and volatility, more

predictably! Therefore Linear Ecocities because, in the end, we must imagine how to manage without a single drop of oil!

And, we will more easily reach the goal of 100% sustainability the sooner that we start, and the quicker we

progress!

I have constructed this model as a goal at the end of the first curve in an oval racecourse. I challenge anyone

to provide a better, more sustainable model! At the same time, I am also happy to predict that all of us will

not be living in Linear Ecocities like those that I illustrate in 1,000 years and 10,000 years. Just as car,

medical and communications technologies have evolved rapidly, the Linear Ecocity will also be subject to

rapid evolution, including paradigm change! At least, I hope so!

Documents

Debt, Growth & Linear Cities