Sunday, November 21, 2010
Are You Programmed For Success...Or Failure?
It's almost as if they have a certain "presence" that gives off positive vibes.
Not everyone is this fortunate, however. There are people who are faced with low self worth, they struggle to maintain positive relationships and often feel resentful towards people who are better off than they are.
So what's the difference? How can one person be so incredibly successful while another person constantly struggles just to get by?
The answer lies in what I call your "Invisible Lifestyle." Your Invisible Lifestyle is what made you into the person you are today. You were literally "programmed" with the habits and beliefs that you follow today (or refuse to follow).
So who were the programmers?
Look no further than your very own parents or guardians.
It's true. Your parents unknowingly rogrammed?you to become the person you are today. The reason I say 'unknowingly' is because your parents raised you the best they could based on how their parents raised THEM.
Because of the "brain wiring" of your original programmers (your parents), as an adult, you are duplicating the way they lived when you were young.
For example, let's say you were raised in a household where both of your parents were always there for you. They took an interest and encouraged you in everything you pursued.
You grew up seeing your parents work hard every day, take interest in you and treat each other with respect. As a result, you grew up to have a successful career and a happy marriage because you worked hard and treated your spouse with respectust like your parents.
Now let's look at another scenario?
Imagine a life where you grew up in a neglectful household. Your parents never encouraged you or took an interest in anything you didVER.
Your father had a negative outlook on life because of HIS traumatic childhood so all he knew how to do was raise YOU the same way that his father raised HIM.
As a result, you grew up with a negative outlook on life (just like your dad), and you have low self esteem because nobody took the time to encourage you and take an interest in you as a child.
Is this YOUR fault? NO! Of course not!
You did not ask to be "dropped" into your parents' household. That is the and?you were dealt in life and now, as an adult, you're living out the consequences.
In these two scenarios, you're living out what I call "Invisible Lifestyle A".
A stands for "ALWAYS"
"What you didn't notice your parents doing as a child, you are faithfully reproducing today, and you don't have a clue you're doing it."
But there IS one exception to this phenomenon?
Let's say you grew up in a bad neighborhood with an alcoholic father. Everywhere you looked, you saw poverty, crime and hopelessness. As a child, you couldn't wait to move out of the house. You saw your parents' lifestyle and were DETERMINED to not only be successful, but be NOTHING LIKE YOUR PARENTS.
While you were growing up, you took the necessary steps to put yourself through school and as an adult; you have a positive self image and do everything within your power to remain financially stable.
This is known as Invisible Lifestyle B.
B stands for "BUCKING"
"What you couldn't stand your parents doing when you grew up; you won't stand for in your relationships today."
Those who embrace the "B" Lifestyle, do so in defiance of their family's values. The B Lifestyle can create the "black sheep of the family" and that goes for highly troubled families or very successful ones.
Invisible Lifestyle B has taken place when an inner city boy or girl goes on to pursue a successful career as a lawyer while each of their siblings end up in jail. On the other hand, a child from a wealthy family could go against his parents' values by recklessly spending and eventually filing for bankruptcy as an adult.
Now I'm not telling you to place BLAME on your parents. Your parents raised you based on everything they knew at the time. It's ALL they knew. It's not their faultt's NOBODY'S "FAULT".
The key is to understand and accept the fact that the negative values you absorbed from your parents (i.e., fear of failure, low self worth, jealousy) are programs literally "wired" into your brain.
And if you have enough discontent with these, it is very possible to change that programming in your adult life.
But simply knowing this is not enough.
You must find these programs and learn how to "decommission" them. In other words, you need to know what to do and how to do it, especially if these programs seem to dictate your behavior.
Do you do things over and over that other people might call "self sabotage"?
Are you attracted to a certain type of person you know you shouldn't be around, yet you can't help but feel attracted to?
The source of this behavior is one or two negative programs from your childhood.
These programs will prevent you (or your loved ones) from a better life.
If your parents' programmed you with some negative values that are causing you problems in your life todayt's NOT your faultut it IS your responsibility to do something about it.
You can start by thinking about how each situation in your life today is directly affected by your Invisible Lifestyle.
The more you discuss your childhood memories of the way things were, the more you become consciously aware of them and the easier they will be to "decommission".
Over an entire lifetime, most people will not make the connection between their behavior as an adult and how their parents lived during their childhood.
They will accept their parent's values without questioning anything, never knowing the REAL reason they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
But now YOU know better than that. Don't live your life with a blindfold on. Create a better future by first identifying and then eliminating the values from your parents that are causing you trouble today.
-- extraordinarymindset.info
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Friday, October 15, 2010
I Wipe My A$$ With $100's! What Do You Wipe With?
There are a lot of ways to make money online, but not all of them will work out the way that you want. You've probably already tried to earn some quick cash online yourself, but have not gotten very far. You might even be thinking of giving up and going back to work in the "real world" and getting another boring, low-paying, dead-end job.
Fortunately, there are affiliate websites available that will not only help you to make a legitimate income, but will also pay you for doing almost nothing.
While everyone else is sweating and laboring, all you have to do is tell people about your websites. Marketing is one of the easiest ways to make money because everyone is being benefited. It's also an enjoyable experience. You'll not only like the money you make, but you'll also love your job.
Internet marketing is more popular now than it's ever been, especially because it works. There is a lot of proof that internet marketing work, all you have to do is read. Type in the terms, "internet marketing" and "affiliate marketing" into your search bar and see what comes up. If it didn't work, it wouldn't be around.
One of the biggest problems people have is that they believe that marketing businesses sound too good to be true. A lot of people may wonder, "all you want me to do is tell my friends, and that's it? You'll pay me for that?". The truth is that yes, in the marketing business world, people are paid huge commissions for simply spreading the word. What's even better is that the main company does all the work for you. It's true that you are helping to make them money as well, which is how everyone comes out happy in the end.
Unlike other ways of making money online, you are not paid a simple $2 or 3 bucks, but more like hundreds and thousands of dollars within months. It's hard to believe that this is possible because those figures are so big. The only way a person can know whether or not affiliate marketing really works is to try to make money online themselves. You can read all you want to about the success previous marketers have experienced, but you'll never have that experience yourself unless you take the risk.
Why would there be so many people who claim to have had big success in the marketing world if it wasn't a real way to make money? One has to wonder, how are they making their money? It has to be by some means, and if they have no job and all they do is market, then there is your proof. It's absolutely okay to be skeptical about it at first, that is what will make you a believer. If you're looking for a way to make money online quickly (within days and weeks, not months and years), internet marketing may just be what you are looking for.
Here's the program I chose to change my life:
Click Here
It may just change yours too.. It Works!
Kickin' It Up A Notch!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Don't miss out on this… Mobile Monopoly
Mobile Monopoly is the first real "game changer" for affiliates I've seen in a long time (totally gets rid of the hurdles that come with the usual stuff like SEO and PPC because it works so FAST and it's so cheap to break into and make it big)…
… so it's a "no brainer" to get in on this right now.
Don't wait and miss out, because the biggest profits in mobile are going to go to the people who start TODAY.
Get in on the action right here, while it's on your mind: Mobile Monopoly Secret
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Monday, October 4, 2010
[Facebook Hyper Traffic] Finally Revealed: The $119k Facebook conspiracy!
Marketing as an activity is all about reaching the right customers with the right products, and the result sought is delighted customers who are more than willing to open their purses wide enough to boost your revenues. For many years, marketers stalked their target customers through various means and by trying to get their message across to spread awareness about their wares.
Traditional Means of Communication
Traditionally, marketing communications were conducted via print, broadcast and such traditional media through disruptive advertising, where advertisements appear in between the content of interest for the customer.
Traditional media does give a large reach to a marketer with its programming of mass appeal. However, the wastage is equally high, since a large portion of the audience would belong to a different segment than the one that is to be targeted by the marketer.
Enter Social Media and the Internet
The revolution stirred by the internet as a medium took place because of the fact that it is highly personalized and provides more content on-demand than any other available medium. Social sites proliferated far and wide in their usage for a few simple reasons:
The power to create and distribute content is equally available to every user, irrespective of him/her being a customer or a marketer. In the earlier forms of media, that power rested with the editorial staff of the channel or the advertiser, but hardly ever with the user.
The medium is completely personalized, and a user can create or join groups and further create content based on what he/she likes.
Opinions are free and fair. This is one reason why social media is of utmost concern to marketers, since buying decisions are no more influenced as much by advertisements. The traditional word-of-mouth marketing approach has grown leaps and bounds on social networks.
Facebook – At the Center of Social Media
With 500 million (and growing) unique users worldwide, Facebook is the number one social networking site in terms of activity and subscriptions. What started as a garage initiative by Mark Zuckerberg has now become the biggest phenomenon on the internet.
A user interface that allows for quick communication and the ability to create fan pages and groups at the click of a mouse button are what make Facebook extremely popular. Another important reason for its immense popularity is the wide variety of social applications that have been developed and made available within the Facebook environment.
These applications can allow users and friends to do joint activities like playing games that run endlessly, sharing photos, videos, and web links, and many more.
How does this help a marketer?
Traditionally, media plans were drawn to include television channels, publications, or any other media that can grab maximum eyeballs and effectively reach a selected target audience. The science of segmentation and targeting has become only more accurate in the case of social media.
Facebook provides a wide variety of avenues to communicate with the audience, which opens up an entirely different world of possibilities to have a fruitful dialogue with customers. Some of these methods used popularly by marketers are:
Advertising: The first opportunity, which is the most obvious one, is advertising on Facebook. The difference, however, is the fact that you can create your own advertisement in a matter of minutes and also specify the details of your target group in terms of demographics and types of discussions where you want your advertisement to appear
Fan Pages: Facebook allows every brand, as well as individual users, to create fan pages for their favorite celebrities and their own homegrown businesses. Large brands have also created their official pages on Facebook that have a huge, immediate fan following around the world. The fan page has immense utility to convey first hand information about the brand and also to collect immediate and frank feedback from your customers.
Branded applications: One of the most effective ways to engage a user toward your brand is by creating an application; this could be a game or a contest, with your branding coming across subtly through it.
What makes Facebook even more exciting is the way it allows you to target your communication sharply just to the customer segment you want to attract. It also provides analytics and page insights that give good feedback and measurement on the activity done.
The options provided by Facebook can be creatively explored and used judiciously for bringing about maximum benefits to any brand.
However, while doing all this, you need to be aware of the fact that customers have an equal say and have the ability to respond immediately to any of your actions with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Availing the service of a social media consultant to work out a social media strategy may be required so that your efforts will not be in vain.
Get more information here for the best Facebook training available: http://vur.me/s/Hyper-facebook-Trfx
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Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Auto Blog Samurai Software Introduction -
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A Media Social Event: How to reach customers using social media
- Look. Let your inner Sherlock Holmes channel through and do some investigating and assessing of the current situation.
- Listen. When you're all signed up, it is best to go through bulletins and forums where you can get useful information.
- Join In: When you're all loosen up and everything is doing ok, feel free to join in and after a while, slowly get down into business.
- Start: If you have established a closely knit relationship, you have an option to come up with your own forum where you can have it focus on your business and the products and/or services you offer. Similar to Ebay's live customer care program.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
This roadblock almost KILLED their Facebook success...
Friday, September 10, 2010
Guided Meditation To Make You Whole
-- Get The Original Law of Attraction Blueprint, "Working with the Law"
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Help Pakistan - drop the debt
Whilst tens of millions struggle to survive the flood devastation, 30% of Pakistan's budget revenue will be sent abroad to foreign creditors for massive loans made to dictators years ago. Sign the petition to stop Pakistan's crippling debt:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Are All Of Us Cruel In Some Way?
Friday, August 20, 2010
Why I think PayDotCom is the Best Affiliate Marketplace on the Net!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Future of Search Engine has Arrived!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Water or a Keg Stand? Weight Loss and College
Are You an Achiever or are You an EXCUSIOLOGIST?
Whether you are searching for a new business, a new opportunity, a part-time income or even a lotto system it all stems from one source - dissatisfaction of present circumstances.
Now you might already be quite successful at what you do, so you might be coming from a position of boredom. Nevertheless, what you are seeking is change. Let me tell you a little secret...
There will be NO change in your life until there is a change in YOU.
Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher said, as far back as the sixth Century BC, "It is in changing that things find purpose."
Do you want to change or do you want to keep driving a Volkswagen and pretending it is a Porsche? You are the only person who can make it happen.
Basically, if you want more out of life you have to put more into life. A fundamental way to do this is to start educating yourself.
How can you expect more in the ensuing years when the operating system in your brain is the same one that you left school with?
Everything changes all the time.
Maybe you need to change also. Re-invent yourself. Start a new exciting phase in your life. Time waits for nobody.
There are many people who I speak with who have never read a single book or attended any sort of learning experience since they left school. I actually think that's rather sad but some of them are even proud of it. Yet when the conversation continues out pours all their problems, all their hard luck and "woe-is-me" stories.
If you're still with me I want to ask you three questions but I would like you to think a little bit before you answer. It will probably take you a short while to answer the first question with a degree of accuracy.
So here it is, the first question: "How much time did you spend last week feeding your stomach?" Your answer doesn't have to be exact but you should be able to work out some sort of reasonably accurate figure. Jot the answer down somewhere.
Second question: "How much time did you spend feeding your brain?" Most people will not need anywhere near as long to answer this question. Unfortunately, for many, the answer to question two will be ZERO.
So here is my third question and it's a pretty simple one. "Why? Why do you spend so much time feeding your stomach and so little time feeding your brain?"
These questions are not meant to belittle anybody. Rather, I just want you to think about the issue.
Thinking intensely about things will often lead to action and when action is taken your world can change. That is what you want, isnt it?
Non-achievers are the excusers of society. By default they become excusiologists. They spend a lot of time and effort making excuses for poor performance. The crazy thing is that all that time and effort which was wasted on achieving nothing could easily have been used doing something positive.
You can easily recognise an excusiologist by their language.
"I'm not smart enough!" Rubbish. You don't have to be a genius to achieve. You just have to be willing to learn. Are you willing to learn?
"Nobody in my family has ever been successful." Great. Here's a chance to show them something new. Break the family trend.
"I've never had any luck." Really? Maybe God thinks you don't need it. The harder you work the luckier you will get.
Be careful about what comes out of your mouth. What do most people say when you ask them how they are?
Question - "How are you?" Answer - "Not bad." When you think about it, isn't such a reply rather negative and silly? Not bad compared to what? It's trash. Get rid of it. Try something innovative. Try this: "Outrageously well. Thanks so much for asking!" That will surely raise a few eyebrows.
So, getting back to what this article is all about. How much longer are you going to waste the most precious commodity you have? - TIME.
Stop making excuses and start taking action. Do something. Do it now. You could easily start educating yourself.
Good knowledge will give you potential power. Acting on good knowledge gives you power.
Try reading some good books. They can really make a change. Not sure where to start? Easy. Try try your local bookstore. Look in the "motivation - self help - personal development - success" area. There you will find dozens of books literally packed with good earthy, positive information. Most of them will contain references for even more information on these subjects. You could even enrol in a course.
After undertaking these measures there will be no excuse for being an excusiologist. I have just offered you some suggestions which will allow you to change.
Of course, you can always stay as you are. That's your choice. But if there is dissatisfaction in your life and you want to make improvements, for heaven's sake, do something about it!
You only get one chance at the life you are living. Make it grand. You don't have to accept what has gone before as the template for what is to come.
Change your operating system. Gather knowledge. Expose yourself to new ideas and ways of thinking and doing things.
You have probably heard this before but it is so pertinent I will put it before you again...
There are basically three types of people in this wonderful world of ours.
1 - There are people who make things happen.
2 - There are people who watch things happen.
3 - There are people who say "what happened?"
If you have traditionally placed yourself in groups 2 or 3 by not being willing to learn new techniques and obtain the knowledge that successful people seek, then there is a very simple remedy. But you have to be prepared to do three things:
1 - invest in yourself
2 - learn some new knowledge
3 - apply that knowledge
You can make a decision today to better yourself or you can ignore my advice. It's your choice.
Remember, there is nothing so important in your life than investing in yourself. Even if a book or seminar can teach you only one thing out of the hundreds of ideas and special pieces of information they present, it will be worth it for you. Don't you think so? That one thing might be just the piece of knowledge that can make such a huge difference to your future.
Are you worth investing in?
If, in the past you have been prone to making excuses you have the opportunity right now to do something about it.
If you read the newspapers, watch the TV and listen to the radio you will see how much negative permeates our senses. We are flooded by it every minute of every day. Studying success principles has the power to block all that negative out of your life. It can teach you how to concentrate only on what you want.
When you learn how to shield yourself from negative you will then be free to concentrate on all the good that can come into your life.
Just look around you - this world is in desperate need of more achievers. Heaven knows we have enough negative thinkers and excusiologists. They are everywhere. My advice to you is "don't add to their growing number."
Join the achievers who have success thinking as their power base.
Excusiology is a chapter you will find in a subject called Failure 101. Make the decision today to become an achiever.
Whatever you decide I wish you all the best for your future.
Monday, August 16, 2010
A Sports Bra Could Stop Your Breasts From Becoming Saggy And Unsightly! !
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Climate Change – What is it?
Climate Change – What is it?
In the current day lexicon of scientists, climate modification isn't really a term of use anymore. The reason for this is that we have come to understand that the effect of the changes we make to our environment will increase the temperature in many locations on the planet, but will also cool a few places. In light of this, the thing you know of as climate modification is actually referred to as global climate change. Over all, however, the world is definitely warming.
We need a simple definition for climate change in relation to the warming of the planet, one that gets the gist without excluding the simplicities. The simplest and most accurate definition is that climate change is the effect greenhouse gases have on the earth's climate. Greenhouse gases include, but are not limited to, carbon dioxide and methane. While this sounds like a simple definition, there are a couple of key things to realize.
First, climate change is both a natural phenomena and one created by man. Put another way, greenhouse gases are a natural part of the biosphere and would exist if man did not. Indeed, they are a critical component to the existence of life on this planet. If greenhouse gases didn't exist, the temperature on planet earth would average zero degrees! Naturally occurring gases, however, keep the temperature at a much more livable 59 degrees.
So, if climate change occurs naturally, what is the big panic about? The problem we are facing is the volume of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These gases act as thermal blankets for the atmosphere. The more gas in the atmosphere, the thicker the blanket and the less heat escapes. Over the last 80 years, we have been pumping massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the sky. At the same time, we have been reducing forestation around the planet, the primary plant collection that sucks greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. This double whammy is starting to show negative results, the increased heating of our world.
The ultimate question with climate alteration is what will happen as the planet heats up. We are already seeing signs with the retreat of the glaciers. Glacier National Park, for instance, is going to have to be renamed since it has already lost 65 percent of all of its glaciers! While the exact end result of these environmental changes is not clear, we can expect major climatic changes over the next 80 years.
Are You Being Lied To?
This book is filled with many techniques you can use in difficult situations to get other people to do what you need them to do.
His methods are based on many years of research into human behavior. He has written a previous book on how to tell when people are lying to you.
I will just briefly present some of his ideas on how to tell whether or not another person is telling you the truth. This is a problem we all face from time to time, so it is helpful to have a few tips.
If you think his advice is useful, you may wish to check out more about David J Lieberman's other books on human behavior. They are fun and easy to read, and contain a lot of practical, useful information.
You might get the suspicion that the other person is not telling you the truth. Sometimes we feel this suspicion because we are naturally suspicious and have a hard time trusting anybody. But sometimes we are suspicious because we sense that something is wrong, and that the other person is lying to us.
How can we tell when someone is lying to us about such a matter? Usually, when we try to ask questions of a person who has decided to lie to us, they will continue sticking to their story.
David Lieberman suggests that sometimes we can flush out a lie by introducing a made up "fact" related to the other person's story. Make the "fact" you introduce sound like a plausible story. That means, it sounds as if it could have really happened, but it didn't. Then watch how the other person reacts.
For example, if the other person says "I was at the Royal Theater for the six o'clock movie" you can say, "I heard on the news there was a big accident outside the Royal Theater just before six."
If the person was really there, he will immediately tell you, "No, there wasn't an accident" and will appear quite calm about it.
However, if they weren't really there, they are likely to become flustered and confused, because they don't know what to say next. They might say something like "Oh, right, well, that certainly was a bad accident." If they seem to hesitate and act suspiciously, this will confirm to you that they weren't really there, because they are trying to come up with another made up story.
I'm not a big fan of this technique because I don't believe in trying to catch a liar by becoming a liar, but sometimes we feel desperate to know whether or not someone is lying to us about something important, and this kind of technique can at least let us know what kind of situation we are dealing with.
How to Tell is a Person is Trying to Bluff You
Bluffing is a word that means someone is pretending to be confident when they are in a difficult situation and they are trying to get away with something. They want desperately to manipulate you into believing they are confident and have a lot of power and advantage when really they don't.
They are hoping that if they pretend to be confident, you will be fooled and back away or give in.
For example, in a game of playing cards, especially when betting is involved, a person who has a terrible handful of cards will often bluff. He will try to act very confident., as if he actually had very good cards in his hand.
By this show of confidence, he tries to intimidate the other card players into backing down so he can win. So, he will try to look confident and happy as he looks around the table.
And often, this technique will work, because the other players will believe, "If he is acting so confident, he must have good cards. I should just give up now, before I lose too much."
But as David Lieberman points out, if a person truly had a handful of very good cards, he would not be trying to act confident. Why? Because he has no real need to try to make the other players back down.
A person who truly has a good hand of cards would probably try to act quite neutral so others couldn't guess that he was happy. Or he might even decide to pretend he is worried and anxious to cover up the fact that his cards are actually very good.
A player only needs to put on a show of confidence when his hand is quite poor.
So very often, a show of confidence is actually a sign that a person is bluffing. Because a person who truly has a powerful advantage doesn't need to try to act confident.
All people who are bluffing have one thing in common – they want you to think that they have some powerful advantage so they try to convey this by acting confident.
Very often, they try too hard. Remember, that when a person is truly confident of their position or their power, they don't need to try too hard to convince you they are confident.
A Better You: Your 7 days program to self-improvement
There are many ways to lose your sense of self-esteem despite of how trivial it could get. But whatever happens, we should all try not to lose our own sense of self.
So what does it take to be a cut above the rest? Here are some of the things you can think and improve on that should be enough for a week.
1. Know your purpose
Are you wandering through life with little direction - hoping that you'll find happiness, health and prosperity? Identify your life purpose or mission statement and you will have your own unique compass that will lead you to your truth north every time.
This may seem tricky at first when you see yourself to be in a tight or even dead end. But there's always that little loophole to turn things around and you can make a big difference to yourself.
2. Know your values
What do you value most? Make a list of your top 5 values. Some examples are security, freedom, family, spiritual development, learning. As you set your goals for 2005 - check your goals against your values. If the goal doesn't align with any of your top five values - you may want to reconsider it or revise it.
The number shouldn't discourage you, instead it should motivate you to do more than you can ever dreamed of.
3. Know your needs
Unmet needs can keep you from living authentically. Take care of yourself. Do you have a need to be acknowledged, to be right, to be in control, to be loved? There are so many people who lived their lives without realizing their dreams and most of them end up being stressed or even depressed for that matter. List your top four needs and get them met before it's too late!
4. Know your passions
You know who you are and what you truly enjoy in life. Obstacles like doubt and lack of enthusiasm will only hinder you, but will not derail your chance to become the person you ought to be. Express yourself and honor the people who has inspired you to become the very person you wanted to be.
5. Live from the inside out
Increase your awareness of your inner wisdom by regularly reflecting in silence. Commune with nature. Breathe deeply to quiet your distracted mind. For most of us city slickers it's hard to even find the peace and quiet we want even in our own home. In my case I often just sit in a dimly lit room and play some classical music. There's sound, yes, but music does soothe the savage beast.
6. Honor your strengths
What are your positive traits? What special talents do you have? List three - if you get stuck, ask those closest to you to help identify these. Are you imaginative, witty, good with your hands? Find ways to express your authentic self through your strengths. You can increase your self-confidence when you can share what you know to others.
7. Serve others
When you live authentically, you may find that you develop an interconnected sense of being. When you are true to who you are, living your purpose and giving of your talents to the world around you, you give back in service what you came to share with others -your spirit - your essence. The rewards for sharing your gift with those close to you is indeed rewarding, much more if it were to be the eyes of a stranger who can appreciate what you have done to them.
Self-improvement is indeed one type of work that is worth it. It shouldn't always be within the confines of an office building, or maybe in the four corners of your own room. The difference lies within ourselves and how much we want to change for the better.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Nuclear Energy - The Green Solution
The United States with less than 5% of the world's population consumes roughly 25% of the world's energy. Some might argue that this is egregious, while others would say that it is simply a yardstick by which the world's largest economy is measured. But for whatever the reason for our vast consumption of energy, the fact remains that in order to consume you first have to produce. And as most of our energy comes from burning fossil fuels- which wouldn't be too bad except that:
(1) burning vast amounts of fossil fuels in this county alone dumps millions of pounds of earth warming greenhouse gasses into, what appears, is a fragile atmosphere, every day. Just warming up the atmosphere a couple of degrees on average has significant impact. Look no further than last year's hurricane season. The worst on record. And...
(2) let's not forget its close cousin; smog pollution, which adds to respiratory problems and other health conditions, not to mention the visual blight hanging over our cities as well. In addition...
(3) have you filled your tank recently? Paid the heating bill? The cost of all fossil fuels, even coal has increased significantly. As other emerging economies such as China and India vie for ever more limited resources, all bets are that the costs will continue to climb over the long haul. Moreover...
(4) as we import most of our oil nowadays- we are increasingly held hostage to an unstable supply from a number of countries that we, for whatever reasons, are increasingly unpopular with. The end game? If our supply of oil is not first arbitrarily cut off, as it becomes increasingly scarce the price will rise until our growth is strangled. In either case we will feel impelled to engage in war with other rising powers to secure our supplies.
The bottom line: Fossil fuels are not only hazardous to our health (and the planet's) but may in fact be hazardous to the American way of life.
But if energy is the lifeblood of our economy what are we to do? Wind? Solar? While anything we can do other than consume fossil fuels will help, these sources of energy are relatively diffuse and inconsistent. In other words, their "cost to calorie" ratios are not efficient and they are not always dependable. As James Kunstler points out in his intriguing book The Long Emergency, one of our best options out of these dilemmas is to do an "Apollo Project" type effort to develop additional, new nuclear energy capability. As it turns out, it just may be the greenest, viable alternate we have.
The U.S. currently produces about 20% of its electrical power from nuclear power. The advantages are; that there are no greenhouse emissions into the atmosphere, no visual pollution, it is cost relatively cost effective, quiet and we have sufficient supply of uranium here at home for the foreseeable future to provide for a major portion of our energy needs. Historically, at least, the problem with nuclear energy has been primarily two fold. First, the "China Syndrome" problem of a meltdown of a reactor which could release a large amount of radioactivity and second, what do we do with nuclear waste material that has a half-life of over 25,000 years! The perception of these two significant obstacles might doom a new nuclear drive and stand in the way of an energy-independent United States.
However, there are new technologies in this field that, like the cavalry, have come to our rescue- and none too soon. First, there is a new class of nuclear reactors that have their nuclear fuel so structured that they cannot do a melt down. Turn off the cooling to this new nuclear reactor and it only gets a bit hotter. No big deal. Turn the cooling back on and it runs more efficiently. Okay, one down. But what about all that radioactive spent reactor fuel? Let's see if we can put some perspective on it. If you gathered all the spent nuclear fuel in this country under one roof it would fill a typical high school gym. Not too unmanageable. Moreover, the spent fuel is encapsulated in super strong glass beads, which in turn are embedded into hardened concrete inside steel drums. This makes the waste product "transportable" and is designed to withstand the elements for 10,000 years. Nevertheless, even in it's tomb it is still relativity radioactive. Most of these drums are stored in water as radiation cannot penetrate more than about 3 feet of water. However, no one seems anxious to have it in their back yards. A political hot potato to be sure.
But while our politicians don't have the answer, the earth does. The answer lies in the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific. It is the deepest place in the ocean (over seven miles) and one of the fastest moving subduction plates on earth. If the drums of waste were placed in the bottom of the trench, they would, within a few hundred years, be swallowed up into the bowels of the earth and blend into the earth's core where heat and pressure (caused in part by radioactive substances contained within the earth) rendered insignificant.
Given the current geopolitical situation, which only seems to be working to our disadvantage, limited resources for cheap fossil fuels, not to mention the environmental impacts we are starting to experience, it is time we take drastic measures to get us off our fossil fuel addition. Let's hope we are not too late.