Finding New Value ...

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Driving to work today, I heard a report from one of the gardeners at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew , speaking of the fear that as many as 20% of all plants are facing extinction, majorly because of human intervention in their habitats.

The person in the interview was obviously passionate about plants and attempting to evoke in us listeners a value for the part plants play in our lives. He went through a number of 'uses' from building to musical instruments to medicines, clothing and so on....and yes, one can only marvel at the multiple uses people have made of the natural worlds.

However, I couldn't help feeling that if we are to find a re-newed value in the world around us, perhaps it needs to start not in what plants do for us but in their own intrinsic special part in the planet's Eco system ..their own inherent beauty, and the laws of nature which underpin their existence.

*Photos copyright of Claire Zeevi

'Solar Maxima'

It's a fascinating feature of life today that there is so much information in the press about what we might expect over the next few years, whilst at the same time very little clarity about the ramifications of the 'predictions'.

A recent example is the news item about expected solar storms ...some solar physicists, like David Hathaway of the National Space Science and Technology Center having predicted them to begin around 2010-11. Others like Mausumi Dikpati of The National Center for Atmospheric Research, in the news this week, predicting 2012 as the most likely time for the major storms. ( 2012..that year again??!!)

Both, however, are agreed that we can expect the most intense 'solar maximum' in fifty years. The next sunspot cycle is likely to be 30-50% stronger than the last one in 1958 which caused disruptions and increased Aurora Borealis sightings. With so much more technology of a sensitive electrical nature today, it's not clear just how disruptive the solar activity might be but it is expected to affect cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other 'modern technologies'...quite what that encompasses is unclear ...and one wonders just how much of an effect it might have on computers systems which play such a central role in every aspect of our society from finance, business, education, defence as well as health and social services.

Few aspects of Western society could run smoothly if we had glitches in the world of computing and technology.

For more details of the 'coming storm', as well as very interesting and readable info about the cycles of the sun check out http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwarning/

Note: diagram above from the Nasa Science article