Fuel Ghoul

The Rise of Technocracy

When our ancestors reflect back on the first decade of the 21st century, they will remember how Al Gore led a campaign against global warming that was championed by millions of people in a new age of awareness and connectivity; some might even identify this as the birth to a new system of government, technocracy. Fuel Ghoul believes people will say ‘Thank God for the internet, that was our most important weapon.’

Buckminster Fuller would have been Impressed with the web's growing power as a communication medium (and marketing tool) and Fuel Ghoul himself signs forum posts with Bucky's favourite line ‘If the people lead, the leaders will follow’; he recognizes that although online social networks have millions of members, they are still in their infancy. But these are the seeds of the first mechanisms of technocracy. What’s technocracy you ask? Technocrats desire a zero growth socio-economic system based upon conservation and abundance, as opposed to scarcity-based economic systems like capitalism. Technocracy is also closely allied to universal connectivity (web 3.0), and some experts believe it will only happen when national referendums occur every weekend, with minimal cost to the system.

Members inside organizations like Lime.com, TreeHugger.com, and Wondercafe.ca are just beginning to collect real political power as their memberships continue to grow and impediments fade.

Canadians, like the citizens of most other nation states, can now do more than ever before to help their elected leaders govern their homeland. Of course many citizens will still choose to silently believe their leaders’ promises, but more responsible voters can now effortlessly interact with new management teams, and more importantly everyone can now interact with each other. Voters can and will eventually join into cohesive constituencies that can’t be ignored by politicians hoping to hold seats.

Some organizations already use their solidarity to affect policy change. Greenpeace is so powerful it can affect this nation's election platforms. Greenpeace Canada does it right – they are marketing geniuses! This member financed organization stages sensational protests and creates news worthy events across the nation, and then campaigns for donations (and new members) on the streets of Canada’s largest cities. Fuel Ghoul has twice encountered Greenpeace representatives with clipboards and brochures standing in the shade of the mulberry trees on the south east corner of King St and John St (upwind of the hotdog vendor).

As a member, I will advocate, the Greenpeace action plan really works. I admire most how Greenpeace Canada can now harnesses the political clout of a cohesive membership to send angry messages to Canadian politicians. Check out this email campaign against Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan regarding Liberal Premier Dalton McGunity's broken promise to close the coal plant in Nanticoke.  Avaaz.org is perhaps even more of an internet success story - check out Avaaz.org media here.

 

Election Campaigns should change the reality of day to day life – the citizens of every nation should see improvements in their communities within two years of electing new officials. That’s because appealing to millions of people is no easy feat, and the more pressure that’s applied to these schmucks, the more positive change Canadians can extract from wealthy corporations and big polluters.

 
With the 2006 release of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, there came a small glimmer of hope that politicians might be ready to heed the warnings of our human impact on the world. But don't be fooled - nothing is going to happen without a fight. Now is the time to come together and demand change!

 
The Ontario general election of 2007 is scheduled to be held on October 10, 2007 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, Canada. Its August and already the environment has moved to the front of the issues in each candidate ’s platform. Because of the internet, our politicians know they must do more than just talk a green campaign, they must act environmentally friendly too.

Ontario politicians have adopted some interesting ideas on how to travel across the province this fall. The Liberals will be using buses that produce low sulphur emissions, while the Progressive Conservatives plan to run their vehicles on biodiesel. The New Democrats are eliminating the party leader's bus altogether; Howard Hampton will travel in a hybrid SUV.

 
Green Party Leader Frank de Jong will tour the province in a biodiesel vehicle, while also campaigning largely on public transit and on a bicycle for a few stops, the Green party said. All four parties will be buying what are called carbon offsets for the greenhouse gases they do emit.

 
Carbon credits can also be recognized by technocrats as the currency of the next age. They provide a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by giving them a monetary value. A credit gives the owner the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide. Carbon credits are generated as the result of an environmentally positive project that will result in emissions reductions such as reforestation, fuel switching, and carbon capture and storage.

 
Fuel Ghoul would like everyone to read Buckminster Fuller's Utopia or Oblivion.

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NAFTA could force Canada to sell water to the USA

Fuel Ghoul is drowning in water disputes this summer!  First it was the lunacy of letting Coke and Pepsi bottle our public water, and now its become clear that the US government is plotting to capture a large percentage of Canada's fresh water supply using the North American Free Trade Agreement! This discussion on WonderCafe.ca serves to educate everyone on the perversions of certain US political organizations and their thirst for this most precious Canadian resource.

Travis Lupick, a reporter for an online newspaper called The Straight wrote on August 16, 2007 about a noisy demonstration outside the Westin Bayshore hotel in Vancouver two days earlier. It seems this dispute is the latest in a growing campaign of resistance to the proposed Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America.

Police kept protesters out of the Vancouver hotel on August 14, where international trade representatives from Canada, the US, and  Mexico  were holding talks. Apparently the SPP meeting was focused on the possibility of bulk-water sales and diversions of fresh water from Canada to the US.

Do you feel like demonstrating? On August 20 and 21, the SPP will host a North American Leaders' Summit in Montebello, Quebec. Peter Julian, MP for Burnaby–New Westminster, believes that Canada's fresh water will once again be on the table.

The NDP has obtained a "concept paper" prepared by an American think-tank involved in the SPP. It emphasizes Canada's relative abundance of fresh water and proposes rewriting transboundary water­-management agreements for the North American continent. The author, Armand B. Peschard-Sverdrup, is director of the Mexico Project for the Washington, D.C. based Centre for Strategic & International Studies.

There is something wrong with our politicians - they are weak! Fuel Ghoul predicts that everyone living north of the border can now expect our water to enter into the same power struggles that characterize energy and softwood-lumber negotiations. "Decisions around forestry policy aren't made in Victoria or Ottawa, they're made in Washington" Peter Julian told Travis Lupick, "We could be seeing the same type of thing for water policy if the SPP continues."