LifeItself

 Dear Friend, I do not mention your name, for you can be anyone on the whole Earth. You could have any color of skin, and belong to any tribe and clan. You could give offerings to any Gods and believe in any myths. In modern impersonal terms, you could be of any race, nationality, religion and political creed, and be of any sex whatsoever.  It took us a million years to develop that big, complex brain of ours. Some 100,000 years ago, in the harsh, frigid climate of Europe and Asia, there were perhaps a few hundred of us left on the brink of extinction.  But we did not go extinct then and here we are, my friend and brother, all 7.8 billion of us. Gregory, John Walter 1896 - 1968, The Great Rift Valley. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. This Sketch by Gregory from his expedition to East Africa in 1892-3. shows "Mount Kenya from the Kapte Plains west of Machakos". Learned people say that we must have come from Africa, mostly from the Great Rift Valley : "Our species, Hom...

On Friday, 06 May, 2011, Professor David Summers posted on OilPrice.com an oddly emotional article,  A Look at the Serious Energy Shortages in India and Pakistan . Dr. Summers correctly points out that severe shortages of coal supply in India and Pakistan will not be quenched by imports from Australia, because China will outcompete anyone for the same coal imports. From our analysis it follows that China's coal production will be difficult or impossible to maintain at the current high level. And China's coal demand is skyrocketing despite attempts to reign in coal burning by their most inefficient industrial enterprises. Dr. Summers then goes on to say that the folks like Tad Patzek and Dave Rutledge have it wrong anyway, when they talk about the global peak of coal production and inability to satisfy demand that follows.   Well, here we are: Too much demand worldwide, and not enough supply. The coal price goes up, way up, and still not enough supply.  How does o...