Superthreat: Power Struggle

Video Transcript

In 2019, we’re all caught up in the alternative fuel wars as the world fights over what will take the place of oil.
Hardest hit: oil exporting nations, coal plants, auto workers, consumers everywhere.
GEAS volunteers report from the front lines of the power struggle superthreat.
GEAS volunteer CooperB is commemorating the third anniversary of the defeat of The Madrid Renewable Energy Accord [video: The Madrid Accord on the United Nations Global Renewable Convention. September 2016] which would have set alternative energy standards for energy technologies. It was three years ago today that the leading BiOPEC nations of China, Russia and Brazil faced off against the wind and solar powers, and The United States and The EU to throw the world into an energy stalemate.
CooperB writes, “We could have chosen to work together. Instead, we’ve got competing industries building technologies, products, and infrastructures that just aren’t compatible. And today we’re paying the price.”
Superstruct challenge: How can our competing industries and nations work together to break the grip of energy chaos?

GEAS volunteer CarlaAcosta updates us on the looting in Caracas. Several thousand youth have been reeking havok in the streets of the Venezuelan capital all week after they were turned out of the government’s oil revenue funded safe harbour schools. The school closings represent the abrupt discontinuation of a major social experiment in poverty alleviation. Meanwhile child poverty continues to climb in the disrupted economies of Equador, Nigeria and Iran.
CarlaAcosta says, “We know we can’t count on oil wealth to feed our poor and fund our schools anymore. So what’s next for the children in countries like ours?”

Superstruct challenge: How can we create safe harbour for children around the world without depending on oil revenues?

GEAS volunteer jschiffer reports from Lusaka (map reads Lusaka, Zambia). This month the millionth ethanol automobile will roll off the Zambian assembly line. Meanwhile China, which invested in the Zambian plants, has just rejected Daimler Tesla’s bid to build manufacturing plants for electrical vehicles across China. The joint plan could have reduced automobile fuel emissions worldwide by 10% over the next ten years but would have weakened the ethanol industry and China’s interests in Africa. Jshiffer says, “The Zambians chose short-term gain at the expense of more global waste. Shouldn’t they, and the Chinese, have to do something to offset those emissions?”
Superstruct challenge: How can we act together to hold nations accountable for their waste?

GEAS volunteer britneychu reports from the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana where three people died in this morning’s violence at a makeshift camp for migrant wind farm workers. These migrants, many from the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas sought their fortunes in the region known as the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’. But angry locals say that the green wind jobs belong to them.
Britneychu blogs, “From where we stand, the energy economy isn’t keeping its promise. We need more green jobs, and we need them now.”
Superstruct challenge: How can we create a stronger green energy economy and reduce unemoloyment from our fading carbon energy industries?

GEAS volunteer linjr reports from Singapore that the docks at Pasir Panjang are eerily quiet today. Shipping giant Hans Circle Logistics unexpectedly shut down its engines just hours ago, another victim of Wallmart’s price war with local handling (?) services. As a result, billions of dollars worth of oil, as well as electronic energy monitors, hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels, and other high tech energy products stand effectively embargoed on Singapore’s docks.
Linjr writes, “This is a country where the entire economy depends on shipping. Workers of every stripe will now struggle to put food on their tables.
Superstruct challenge: How can workers worldwide protect themselves against the cascading collapse of industry giants?

Power Struggle SuperStructs

Annotated (P) for sole focus, (S) for shared focus, or (G) for shared focus among three or more threats.

• (S) ANON was only the beginning - "An organization using dispersed anonymous, decentralized legal attacks to topple corrupt systems." (currently 9 members)

• (G) ARK:NSA - "No Starving Artist (All Human Beings Are Artists)" (currently 23 members)

• (P) Australian Solarthermal Powerdome - "Empowering Australians" (currently 3 members)

• (G) Collecting the Future - "How can we document and preserve the stories and artifacts of the crisis?" (currently 9 members)

• (G) Community Access Educational Service Centers - "You Can Teach, We Can Help" (currently 3 members)

• (P) CRADLE 2 CRADLE - remaking the way we make things, so that in the end our WASTE = FOOD - "We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." (currently 12 members)

• (G) ECO-MEAL - "Energy means Food." (currently 24 members)

• (P) EmergentNRG - "From simple actions emerge energy efficient households and communities" (currently 6 members)

• (G) Facilitators - "Actively connecting Superstruct to Superstruct." (currently 19 members)

• (G) Greenblip - "An Organic Co-Op Zone" (currently 7 members)

• (G) Homestead-In-A-Box - "For when you really, Really want to live by yourself" (currently 10 members)

• (G) IRC Chat - "real time communication - live chat" (currently 16 members)

• (G) Kill your Television! - "How many useful thinking hours are consumed by your television hobby?" (currently 7 members)

• (G) Mathematical Models, Inc. - "Let us help solve your problems." (currently 8 members)

• (G) New World Order - "We Are The Future Of Society, We are A Reformed Goverment Of The People, By The People, For The People" (currently 3 members)

• (G) Open Source Scientists - "Paid for thinking, not for thoughts" (currently 46 members)

• (G) Organizing Ideas with Reddit - "Share and rate stories, discussions, and structs" (currently 4 members)

• (G) ped.alic.ious - "Bicycles solve problems." (currently 1 member)

• (P) Places Worth Caring About - "Sustainable Citycraft toward energy efficiency" (currently 2 members)

• (P) Power generation in every neighborhood - "Roofspace is power space!" (currently 7 members)

• (S) Saving our Heritage 2019 - "The key to our future lies in our past—save America’s museum collections" (currently 10 members)

• (P) Science and Design Trading Card Games - "Gotta Learn Them All! (... ok ... provisional :-)" (currently 7 members)

• (P) SERS - Solar Energy Retrieving System - "The energy is out there. Just collect it!" (currently 10 members)

• (G) Superstruct Classifieds - "Who needs what?" (currently 25 members)

• (G) The 2019-2042 Visualization Project - "Uniting Superstruct Efforts Through Collaborative Visualization" (currently 6 members)

• (S) The Screaming 3D Bootstrappers (S3DBers) - "Immersively connecting remote problem solvers with people facing local problems" (currently 3 members)

• (G) The Unplugged - "We Stand Together On Our Own Two Feets" (currently 9 members)

• (S) Trustnet - "trust, but verify" (currently 9 members)

• (G) Zombie Squad - "If you are prepared for the undead, you are prepared for anything" (currently 17 members)