The following is an excerpt from an article by Peggy Fletcher Stack which originally was published in the SLTrib on Feb 13th, 2009:
(Daniel) “Fairbanks (associate dean at UVU in Orem) believes with most biologists that evolution is the unifying theory in the field. . . .
According to Time Magazine, the 17th best invention of 2009 is: “The Planetary Skin.”
“What happens to Earth when a forest is razed or energy use soars? We don’t know because environmental data are collected by isolated sources, making it impossible to see the whole picture. With the theory that you can’t manage what you can’t measure, NASA and Cisco have teamed up to develop Planetary Skin, a global “nervous system” that will integrate land-, sea-, air-, and space-based sensors, helping the public and private sectors make decisions to prevent and adapt to climate change. The pilot project–a prototype is due by 2010–will track how much carbon is held by rain forests and where.”
This is the type of effort I would like to see on a river-basin scale.
I feel strongly that members of the human race are co-creators of the Earth with God. That we will be held accountable for the impact we have on this planet. The creation was not a static event, but very much a dynamic event. The earth is evolving even as I write.
I’ve always been impressed with real-time monitoring and control technologies and their ability to improve conditions on the earth. But I had never fully thought through where these technologies might be headed long-term. One possibility is: they are paving the way for sophistricated forms of geoengineering. The whole idea of geoengineering is starting to get buzz in the popular press.
The King Follett Discourse, delivered by Joseph Smith in the latter part of his life, has always been a favorite doctrinal exposition of mine. But recently the Mormon Church has backed away from some the doctrine elucidated in Smith’s funeral address. I think this is to accommodate the Christian Right, many of whom feel Mormons are not Christian because of their belief that man may become like God, a doctrine commonly referred to in Mormon circles as “eternal progression” or more recently as the “plan of salvation.”
The first river basin in Utah to move toward sentience is the Sevier River Basin. In the 1990s, the Sevier River Water Users Association (SRWUA) with an assist from the Bureau of Reclamation, began a systematic program to instrument and automate their river basin. Automation equipment, most of it solar pwered, was installed on all major water control structures, including 3 major reservoirs, 3 re-regulating reservoirs, and 15 diversion structures. Additionally over 15 real-time river and canal monitoring sites and 4 weather stations were equipped with telemetry. All this data is brought back hourly to an unmanned data collection facility (the developing “brain” of the Sevier River network). In 1997, the water users teamed with a local consultant to establish a website (www.sevierriver.org) for the distribution of their real-time and historic information on streamflows, canal diversions, reservoir levels and releases, snowpack, and weather conditions. All these steps constitute the river basin’s first furtive steps toward sentience.