Why am I running for Governor of California? I believe it is my civic duty as a citizen to reveal what I think is the BEST vision for the state, the country, and the Earth, and I believe that California should be the leader into the future. In my vision every individual will have an unalienable right to a quarter-acre floating island interlinked with 10 billion other islands and encircled by a commercial “ring of fire” free enterprise zone. Each island will be designed to extract the essentials of survival from its equatorial location on either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. Each island will be interlinked with a state-of-the-art electric-drive transportation system designed for high-speed, magnetically-levitated transport of people, goods, and services, and it will be designed with a zero tolerance for collision. Why the equator? There’s enough area on the Atlantic and Pacific equatorial open ocean to accommodate more than ten billion people with a quarter-acre of floating territory. No hurricanes ever exist within eight degrees north or south of the equator, no floods since we’ll be floating, no earthquake effects since we’ll be floating on an ocean of natural hydraulic fluid, no tsunamis, no forest fires, no landslides, no tornadoes, no blizzards, no mosquitoes, ants or termites, no rabies, and it's easier and more efficient to build the state-of-the-art transportation and telecommunication system when everything is level and near sea level. What material will we use to build this future infrastructure? Primarily polyethylene because it’s abundant, renewable, and relatively inexpensive. There are enough petroleum resources currently available to build ten billion quarter-acre islands along with community islands and the floating commercial zones. Polyethylene must be protected from ultraviolet radiation from the sun to prevent degradation, but there are simple engineering techniques that will allow the use of marine growth to shield the structural polymer. Entropy is an engineering term that describes the amount of energy no longer available to do work. Automobile tailpipe exhaust is a good example of petroleum having its entropy maximized. By instead using petroleum for polymer manufacture we dramatically reduce the rate of increase of entropy and if we protect the polymer from U.V., humans can use it virtually forever. Will we have electricity? We will have available all of the currently used sources of electricity, wind, wave, solar, nuclear, fossil but we will also have the opportunity to develop the much coveted and solar renewable ocean thermal energy conversion source (OTEC). See http://www.seasolarpower.com for more information. Will construction of this new infrastructure be environmentally friendly? It depends on how responsible we are and how seriously we protect the environment as we extract and transport the necessary construction resources. After construction, marine life density at every level of the food chain within our structure will increase significantly. I’m sure we will want to study the long-term environmental effects of what we construct and act responsibly on the data. What are chinampas? Chinampas are floating islands made of built up layers of mud and reeds that pre-Hispanic Americans used to grow food. They were self-irrigating and could be moved like barges. See http://www.agnr.umd.edu/howard/mg/schfloa.htm. What do you mean by “extraction of essentials”? Water, food, energy, stimulation, identification, and security. Water from solar vapor condensers for desalinating seawater for abundant freshwater.See Solar Still Basics. Food from the sea beneath our islands attracted by the protection provided by the submerged section of our islands and the nutrient rich sub-thermocline seawater pumped to the surface to artificially duplicate rich fishing grounds in areas of natural upwelling that exist off Canada and Peru. More food from plants that we grow under the equatorial sun on our islands. Energy from solar sources. Identification as a free, territorialized, and responsible individual. Robert Ardrey, in his once-controversial book, The Territorial Imperative, gives a great description of the power of territory on the individual human psyche. Stimulation from the aqua and agricultural cultivation of our individual quarter-acre islands, snorkeling, diving, and working and recreating with others we meet using the safe high speed transportation and telecommunication systems. Security by design with authorization protocols for transporting to an island belonging to someone else. The doorbell to any other island is in our island but the doorbell to our island is in every other island and nobody gets to the door until they get permission. Where will we work and what will we do for a living? Most people will probably work in the free enterprise, “ring of fire” commercial zone that encircles the islands we inhabit. It also will be floating and it will be the place where individuals establish or transfer businesses, factories, studios, stores, galleries or workshops. The ring of fire in the Pacific will be huge with elliptical dimensions of approximately 1200 miles wide and 4000 miles long positioned between Galapagos and Jarvis. The commercial zone in the Atlantic will have a non-elliptical shape due to different geographical limitations. Each ring of fire will be equally divided among citizens and there will be no such thing as tenants and landlords. All corporations will be required to rent if their function requires more than its corporate owners' territory to operate. Also, this plan allows those who desire to opt out of work, in the traditional sense, to do so without burdening those who don’t. What will we do with waste? We will extend our infant toilet training into adulthood and train to treat our waste responsibly as individuals. Treatment by composting and reutilization in non-food bearing plants. No waste will be dumped. Some have likened the oceans to giant toilets and people living in the toilet are less likely to foul it. What if I don’t want to grow my own food or catch my own fish? You’re free not to by purchasing whatever you desire from free markets, but you’ll also have the pleasure of knowing that regardless of what happens to the economy, you’ll always have a place to live and a way to acquire the essentials of life without the need to appeal for assistance from others. What if I don’t want to live at the equator? Nobody is required to do anything. Although an island will be built and endowed to you, occupancy is not required. People can stay on land if they want although as the popularity of island life grows, more will measure their riches by the amount of continental land they’ve deconstructed and placed into conservation. People may someday be able to hike across the current territory of California and the United States in a wild, pristine condition with the best camping spots reserved for humans and where all large predatory animals are tagged and satellite tracked to control interaction with humans. Isn’t it hot at the equator? Won’t we cook down there? It can get hot but we won’t be hot because we will simply and benignly cool our habitations and other areas with cool subthermocline seawater pumped to the surface that also performs double duty as a source of marine nutrients for sea life at the surface. What about sharks? The architecture of the island beneath the ocean surface is as important as the architecture above. We will design it to prevent any large dangerous predator from entering the area we use. What if I don’t know how to swim? Each island will be designed so that we can control and change the depths of the ocean pools within our island habitations. Will I get seasick? Seasickness is motion sickness caused by problems in the inner ear. The islands will be floating on a non-moving fluid surface. Each island will be stationary and interlinked in a huge grid of stabilizing transportation tube conduit. No waves? Waves are a wind driven phenomenon. If we block the wind or cover most of the surface of the ocean where we live with islands to prevent exposure to wind, no waves will be generated. Will I be able to select whom I live near? Yes, and we should also establish variable covenant communities. Not everyone is the same. Some like noise some loathe it. Some are extroverts and some introverts. We want the best living environment that is reasonably possible and we would like everyone to have access to the type community they most want so that everyone has the opportunity to reveal their best. How much will it cost? Very much but possibly less than you might think. Also, it will cost less to build this new system than to rebuild the inferior infrastructure we currently use on land as it deteriorates. I’ll have better numbers to report once we establish a final design but how much are you willing to spend for the best possible world? It must be potentially affordable to every human born on the planet. The price of a product normally decreases as the quantity manufactured increases. With a production line of potentially 10 billion islands, I predict a remarkably low price. Why should the Governor of California lead this project? Because the President of the United States on the east coast is preoccupied with a war strategy. The People of California can ease the burden by proactively leading the peace strategy and hopefully delivering the grand prize of an exit strategy for our soldiers and all soldiers engaged in territorial conflicts. As if there were any other kind! If you support my vision and want me to win the election, please forward this website to other California voters.

Thank you. Email Neil at neil@oceanchinampa.com © 2003 All rights reserved. Images by Luis Zuzunaga

