Enrico Orlandini
Sep 6, 2006
Have you ever wondered just how bad things could get? Well, I've lived long enough and traveled far and wide enough to know that things can always get worse. As most of you are probably tired of hearing by now, I've lived and worked in Peru for the better part of thirty years. During that time I've seen and experienced just about everything imaginable... inflation, terrorism, attempted coup d'etate
, self-imposed coup d'etate 1, riots, strikes, war, and corruption. You name it and Peru has experienced it. Here's an example - from 1988 to 1990 we spent twelve hours a day, everyday, without light and water. Then there was the inflation of the late 80's. It was so bad at one point that if you received a check in Inti's at 11 am, then went to the bank and presented it to the teller by 12 noon, it would be worth 1% to 2% less in dollar terms. You want to talk about a bear market in housing? In 1989 people were selling their house for twenty cents on the dollar and glad to get it. Once desperation sets in, no price is too low.
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http://www.321gold.com/editorials/orlandini/orlandini090606.html
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The End of Eden
James Lovelock Says This Time We've Pushed the Earth Too Far
Through a deep and tangled wood lies a glade so lovely and wet and lush as to call to mind a hobbit's sanctuary. A lichen-covered statue rises in a garden of native grasses, and a misting rain drips off a slate roof. At the yard's edge a plump muskrat waddles into the brush.
"Hello!"
A lean, white-haired gentleman in a blue wool sweater and khakis beckons you inside his whitewashed cottage. We sit beside a stone hearth as his wife, Sandy, an elegant blonde, sets out scones and tea. James Lovelock fixes his mind's eye on what's to come.
"It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn."
Why is that?
"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return."
Sulfurous musings are not Lovelock's characteristic style; he's no Book of Revelation apocalyptic. In his 88th year, he remains one of the world's most inventive scientists, an Englishman of humor and erudition, with an oenophile's taste for delicious controversy. Four decades ago, his discovery that ozone-destroying chemicals were piling up in the atmosphere started the world's governments down a path toward repair.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101800.html