Polyface Farms

Thursday, May 28, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will continue with food sustainability by looking at Joe Salatin's of Polyface Farms, made famous by Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma, HERE is an excerpt. Salatin has employed the methods of using cattle grazing to enrich the soil and capture carbon. He also uses other animals, chickens, turkeys, rabbits and pigs in a symbiotic "dance" to improve the yield of his farm. Salatin is a colorful speaker of is farming methods and his philosophy of life, HERE is an example. He definitely has a conservative libertarian bent, but he believes that climate change is real.

We will also show the TED Talk that we did not have time for last week, on us eating insects. While we may not be ready to eat insects, insects can be used as animal feed as is being on on Salatin's farm.

No Cows, More Cows and Insects

Thursday, May 21, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In the last meeting, we learned how GMOs can address the sustainability crisis. In the next meeting, we will review three TED Talks which offer other solutions for sustainability, two of them involving cows. There is a movement to eat less or no meat, primarily beef, to promote health and improve sustainability. This theme has been incorporated in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, DGAC, report, and is its most controversial recommendation of many controversial recommendations.

The primary argument against the DGAC recommendation is that the issue of sustainability was outside its charter and expertise. Focusing just on the efficiency of plant based diets ignores the role that animals, especially cattle, can play in soil management. The real problem are the concentrated feedlots, not animals in our diet. Many believe that grazing animals will play a major role in food sustainability and removing carbon from the atmosphere.

The third solution for sustainability, eating insects, is really a serious suggestion but is often considered a joke. Rather than explaining it here we will let the TED speaker make his case.

Environmental Heresies, Redux

Thursday, May 14, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will revive our March 5th meeting that was snowed out about the environmental heresies of Stewart Brand. Brand was a famous environmentalist known primarily for the Whole Earth Catalog, but has since changed his opinion on long standing environmental beliefs. His TED Talk covers four such heresies about third world urbanization, nuclear energy, genetically modified crops and climate engineering.

Norm will be leading the discussion, but there is a lot of material. So please take the time to study the material presented by Brand and tell us at the meeting if your agree or disagree with him.

Commencement Address

Thursday, May 7, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We typically send our college grads into the world with words of optimism, but is this really a wise choice. Since the world is cold, wouldn't it be better to tell them what really to expect. Here are two talks which take opposite approaches. The first talk is Steve Jobs'  address to Stanford during his fight with cancer. He explains how his closeness to death made him only settle for excellence. This is considered to be one of the most inspiring commencement addresses ever given. Yet we know that Jobs eventually lost his battle with cancer.

The second talk is from TED, and takes a more pessimistic tone. This is not a real commencement address, and after you see it you will know why. So in your opinion, which talk would be more useful to college grads?

In the Pan portion of the meeting, we see a TED Talk by our old friend Hans Rosling. He will answer Al's question of why the world population will level off.

Sports

Thursday, April 30, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will discuss sports, what is means to you personally and what it means to society. Bill will be leading the discussion. Instead of a video to provide background, he will have a live person.

I hate to miss the meeting, but I will be in Ann Arbor for my niece's graduation.

From Bill:

Herb Hartnett retired a few years ago from the University of Maryland after a career in public relations for the athletic department and university.  He came to Maryland from the University of Pennsylvania at the time of the Len Bias matter.  He seems to have been everywhere and to have know everyone in college athletics and has some opinions on the subject. I propose this format:  

1.  Herb will have 20 minutes to talk and discuss sports and society.  

2.  Since everyone seems to have some experience in sports, I propose letting each person in turn discuss his or her experiences and thoughts on the meaning of sports uninterrupted for say 3 minutes.  

3.  General discussion of the ideas brought up. 

Earth Day

Thursday, April 23, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

The day before our next meeting is the 45th celebration of Earth Day, which has special meaning this year due to the upcoming Climate Summit in Paris in December. We have talked about environmental issues in previous meetings, but we have not yet talked about the oceans. For the Zoom In, we will review this classic TED Talk by Sylvia Earle which summarizes all the environmental problems facing the oceans. We will then focus on the ocean plastics problem and a solution proposed by a teenager which has gotten serious attention.

In two weeks, I will be away and Bill will lead the group in a discussion about sports. I found this interesting TED Talk about why athletes are continuously improving, which would serve well as an appetizer for Bill's meeting. It will be shown for the Pan portion of the next meeting.

Helping Us to See

Thursday, April 16, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Another topic that came out of the "reboot" meeting, was new imaging technologies like the one in this TED Talk about detecting micro movements. While the technology had a lot of potential for good, it could also be used for surveillance, which had privacy implications. This problem is hardly unique.

For the Zoom-In, we will look at three other new imaging technologies, which also have potential in surveillance. The first video shows how an array of satellites can keep the entire earth under constant watch. The second video, shows how a tether can be used to circumvent laws which limit the use of aerial drone photography in public places. The third video shows how a camera that was designed to study the motion of light, could be used to look around corners. Another possible title for this meeting might be, "Nowhere to Hide".

There may not be enough time to show all three videos. So if you only have time to watch one video before the meeting, watch the third one.

For the Pan, we will watch this video about some iconic photos which changed the world. Oddly, all three of the new technologies, presented above, were inspired by iconic photos. Do you think that any of the new technologies will create their own iconic images?