{"id":4278,"date":"2021-12-05T12:47:25","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T17:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=4278"},"modified":"2021-12-05T15:08:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-05T20:08:31","slug":"morning-explorations-5-december-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oook.info\/blog\/?p=4278","title":{"rendered":"Morning Explorations, 5 December 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s interesting to trace a stream of morning activity, if only so that I might be able to get back to sources too briefly examined, and of course it’s useful to dip a toe into the slipstream of my Attention from time to time.<\/p>\n

\nI’ve been reading Mark Arax The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California<\/b><\/a>, on the recommendation of Robert Glennon, and got wondering about all the concrete that went into the aqueducts, then recalled reading a New Yorker article about sand<\/b> (May 22 2017) … which inevitably led to the google for other bits of the Tale of Sand. Here’s some of what I found:<\/p>\n

\nSilica sands \u2013 Supply shortage, 2022 demand outlook<\/a><\/p>\n

\nHigh-quality sand is in short supply<\/a><\/p>\n

\nSand Shortage 2021: Is The World Running Out of Sand?<\/a><\/p>\n

\nSand shortage: The world is running out of a crucial commodity<\/a><\/p>\n

\nSand and Sustainability<\/a> (pdf of the 2019 UN Environmental Program report)<\/p>\n

\nVince Beiser – black market sand<\/a> (author of The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization<\/a><\/b>, now queued up on the Kindle)<\/p>\n

\n The truth behind stolen beaches and dredged islands<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe world is ‘running out of sand’, and it’s fuelling murders, mafias and ecological devastation<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe world is running out of sand \u2014 there\u2019s even a violent black market for it<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


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\nAnd then along came this: Visualizing the Accumulation of Human-Made Mass on Earth<\/a> (via Bruce Sterling’s blog<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\n…the mass embedded in inanimate solid objects made by humans that have not been demolished or taken out of service—which is separately defined as anthropogenic mass waste.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nGlobal Biomass: the dry weight of all life on Earth 1120 Gt <\/p>\n

\nAnthropogenic mass: “everything the human population has created since 1900, to 2020” — 1154 Gt, incremented by 30 Gt\/year<\/p>\n

549 Gt Concrete
286 Gt Aggregates (clay, sand, gravel)
92 Gt bricks (ca. 15 billion bricks\/yr; 85% from Asia
65 Gt Asphalt
39 Gt Metals
23 Gt Other (wood, glass, plastic [8 Gt of that]…)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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…and that led to further exploration of the Visual Capitalist<\/a> website, which offered Visual Capitalist: Maps<\/a>, full of enticing rabbit holes…<\/p>\n

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\nAnd so a bit of cleaning up of recent explorations, consequent upon recent reading of Termination Shock<\/b><\/a> and The Ministry for the Future<\/b><\/a>, it occurred to me to wonder about the current state of Climate Fiction<\/a> (Wikipedia has a lot to say, of course).<\/p>\n

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\nThen I found these links on the Desktop, which I’d meant to follow up further after encountering this in Ursula Le Guin’s Tao Te Ching:

The Aleph: if you see it rightly, it contains everything.<\/center><\/p>\n

\nThe Aleph: an analysis of Borges’ masterpiece<\/a> <\/p>\n

In September 1945, the short story “The Aleph” was published in the Argentine journal “Sur”. It is written by Argentine writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges to narrate his fictionalized character\u2019s experience as he saw the Aleph, a point in space where all points in the universe can be seen<\/b>. Reprinted as the title work of Borges\u2019 1949 collection “The Aleph and Other Stories” … a matter of literary craftsmanship to explore “infinity”. With its varying theme, the literary piece argues that the universe is ineffable, time is inexorable, experiences shape perception and rationality. … According to the narrator, the Aleph is a “small iridescent sphere with unbearable brilliance” where all places on Earth can be seen from every angle without distortion or confusion, simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\n…the Aleph or “Alef” is the Hebrew alphabet\u2019s first letter and in Jewish Kabbalah, it is the “En Soph” that signifies the nameless being called “YHWH” who created the world.
\n(and\/or)
\nIn his first set theory article in 1874, Georg Cantor outlined that the Aleph is the representation of transfinite numbers.<\/p>\n

\n…Aleph is a representation of how unpredictable, indescribable, and unconscious life can be for the human-animal as unseen forces move him\/her.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n