Blue Island Almanack

one small proposal for gettting from here to there

2010-07-31T18:51:00.002+01:00

Our earth is undergoing measurable global climate warming that has a significant anthropogenic component, with the primary anthropogenic contribution to warming coming from the steady increase in CO2 emissions from the use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Moreover, warming that has already occurred over the past century and warming that is certain to occur in the next century, have had and will have recognizable negative impacts on the health of human beings and human societies. Those impacts include, but are not limited to, rises in sea level and loss of shoreline, changes in plant and animal populations (declines, increases, shifts in range) including changes in disease vectors (such as West Nile Virus and Malaria carrying mosquitoes), increasing drought with its impact on food crops and human water supplies, and increasing extreme precipitation events with concomitant flooding.

Among the scientific community there is debate and need for continuing research on how much warming and how fast future warming will occur, and the regional patterning of impacts, but there is general consensus on the basic facts of warming and its causes and its consequences. Recent polling of the general population in the United States shows that about three quarters of the American population accept the scientific consensus on the reality of global warming and the anthropogenic causes of that warming. However, there is a decided lack of consensus both within the scientific community and the general population on exactly what should be done to address the problems posed now and in the future by global warming.

Just because people agree that a problem exists and that something should be done, has never meant that they will agree on what to do about that problem. This has always been true. There are lots of good sociological and psychological reasons for this lack of agreement. From a psychological perspective immediate, present threats to one's livelihood and material well-being are more salient and real than predicted future threats no matter how real we consider those future threats to be. A parent will always be more concerned about the present day need to keep a roof over their children's heads and food on the table today, than they will be about the availability of housing and food for those children in 20 years.

From a sociological perspective we have organized our economy around the need to maintain very short term current profitability to retain investors, rather than around long term future. The structures, rules and practices of business decision-making and investor decision-making, make it difficult for either business managers or investors to forgo current profits in exchange for long term sustainability.

For a utility company currently generating most of its electricity from coal fired plants shifting to solar or wind generation has many economic drawbacks. If a utility simply purchases "green" power from another electricity producer who is already invested in wind, solar or hydro-power, the primary profit from power production goes to the actual producer not the utility company purchasing the power. To make any profit, they have to raise the cost of that power to the customer, making it more expensive than the coal generated power, and thus less attractive to consumers of electricity. Such a move also introduces greater inefficiencies -- the further electricity is transmitted the greater the loss, so purchases power from a distant provider means that you get less power for your buck as well.

On the other hand, if a utility company decides to themselves begin producing electricity from wind, solar or hydro sources, there is the huge upfront capital investment that must be made. While this may have great long term profit potential (once constructed one never has to pay for sunlight or wind unlike coal), it has tremendous short term costs that affect profitability and investor satisfaction. If a utility attempts to pay for this by raising utility rates up front, there is substantial customer dissatisfaction, and in states (like Kentucky) with strong political incentives to protect coal, little political interest for public utility commissions to support such rate increases. Additionally, the construction of a centralized solar or wind generation plant requires huge acreage, that may not be readily available to a utility company near its customer base.

Finally, another reason that utility companies become nervous about discussions, is that the idea mode of generating electricity from solar energy is a pattern of dispersed, household level or building level generation, where solar panels sufficient to the needs of a particular housing unit or office building are placed on the building itself. This eliminates two problems: first, all the extra land that would be needed for centralized solar generation, and second, the problem of electricity losses due to transmission over distance. However, since currently housing unit and office building solar electricity generation is financed and operated by individual families or businesses it represents a loss of revenue for the utility company, and certainly not something they really want to encourage.

Moreover, from the point of view of the individual, family or business, the cost of constructing small localized solar (and wind) generation is quite large (at least $20,000), and far beyond the reach of the median household. While such household level solar (and wind) electricity generation does pay for itself over twenty to twenty-five years (the vast majority of the costs are in the initial hardware and installation and after that the electricity itself is essentially free), the upfront costs are prohibitive for all but the most affluent and most environmentally committed.

Now, finally to my proposal. I acknowledge up-front, as a person who is uncomfortable with the power of utility companies now, this is not my ideal solution, but it is a means of decreasing the input of CO2 into the atmosphere, to ameliorate future extent of global warming and its impact, while dealing with many of the problems outlined above. My proposal is that electric utility companies currently heavily invested in their own coal-fired generation consider adopting the model used by Bell Telephone in the 1950's. In exchange for a modest installation fee (say a few hundred dollars that could be prorated over a period of time) well within the budgets of middle and working class families with "green values," the utility company would deliver and install solar panels on the consumers home -- but, and here's what I think is a new idea (at least as applied to electricity generation) the utility company would retain ownership of those panels in perpetuity, and charge the consumer a monthly fee for the electricity consumed from those panels.

Here's the details -- the one's that I think would make this idea appealing to both the consumer and to the utility company. The individual solar installations would 1) be large enough to provide for ordinary, peak daylight hours electricity use and 2) would be tied into the grid allowing for both inflow and outflow. The utility company would benefit, because all excess electricity generated would flow into the grid for use by other customers (and unlike the situation where a household customer owns the solar installation, the utility company would own that excess flow outright and not be paying the customer with the installation for it). With each household or business that added solar generation, the electricity generating capacity of the entire grid would be expanded. The capitalization costs would be spread out over time -- no huge up-front investment in generation capacity years before any new power can be generated. Moreover, following current phone company and cable company practices, the utility company could charge a very small (a few dollars) monthly maintenance fee to consumers, to cover costs of periodic maintenance and repair.

The consumer would benefit in two ways: they would have the assurance that in the absence of sunlight they would still have electricity, and conversely, during widespread power outages due to downed transmission lines they would also still have their locally generated power. Indeed, if several households in a neighborhood had contracted with the utility for solar panels, the entire neighborhood circuit might be protected from electricity loss during a widespread outage.

In the beginning only middle income and upper income families that are highly committed to environmental, "green" values would participate. I know I would. I would be very willing to pay a reasonable premium in installation costs just to be assured that while I was sitting at my computer typing away I was using electricity generated by solar power rather than by coal obtained by scalping the mountains around me. Overtime, as people begin to notice, that one of their neighbors still has electricity after a storm has knocked out everyone else, the appeal of solar panels might spread. If the utility made the cost of electricity generated in situ from the solar panels marginally less expensive (say 1/2 cent per KWH) compared to electricity pulled from the grid, this would increase the appeal of participation.

From the utility company's perspective, they are able to gradually expand their generating capacity, using "green" sources, with small, periodic expenditures of capital that can be partially charged to the customer (installation fees), and also recouped by feeding all excess electricity generated into the grid. Customers without the panels who depended solely on the grid would pay the standard rate for their electricity. By dispersing solar generation through out the households served by a utility, there would be a substantial increase in efficiency, as electricity would be consumed closer to where it was generated, reducing the losses to long distance transmission. Most of all this idea allows utility companies to make the transition to renewable electricity generation gradual and incremental, and thus less painful and more acceptable.

So there is my idea -- somebody tell me what's wrong with it!

weather is not climate, but....

2010-07-24T21:07:00.003+01:00

The Weather Channel's website has a number of nifty new features. One of which provides you with lots of information about how your current month (and previous month) stack up against historical weather patterns. I've captured the screen shots for my zip code 41825, for June 2010 and July 2010.
Notice that for both June and July the "highest temperature recorded so far" is higher than the historical record for that month -- so we broke the all time temperature records for both June and July in Eastern Kentucky. Notice also that the total rain fall amounts for both June and July are well below the average. June's precitipation total was 1.05" below the average. Of course July isn't over yet, but let's hope we don't get 3.65" of rain in one week. While the July total rain is more than three and a half inches below normal, eastern Kentucky did get one whale of a gully-washer, to the great dismay and anguish of hundreds of folks in Pike county.

While it is important to remember that weather is not the same as climate, and unusually hot days occur periodically, as do droughts and floods, overall warming of the climate as is currently occurring on planet earth, does give rise to more frequent extreme heat, more common droughts, and paradoxically more frequent intense rain events like that seen in Pike County this month.

Where are the global warming deniers?

2010-07-05T22:37:00.003+01:00

The first thing to remember is, as any competent climate scientist will tell you, weather and climate are NOT the same thing. A snow storm or a heat wave are weather. Climate is a decades long pattern made up of millions of weather events. Climate has predictable patterns, that can be modeled by computer simulations with some accuracy over decades. Weather is far more variable, and accurately predictable only several days at a time.

There is, of course, a connection between climate and weather. Climate is the long term accretion of weather events. More rainy days, with more inches of rain create wetter climates. And wetter climates create more rainy days with more inches of rain. However, even in the rain forest (climate) it is dry sometimes (weather), and even in the desert (climate) it rains sometimes (weather).

During the midst of the heavy snow storms, the deniers of the reality of global warming, happily confusing weather and climate, were loudly crying "where are the global warming supporters?" "Where is Al Gore?" Ignoring (of course) that models of global warming actually predict an increase in extreme precipitation events including extreme snow storms. But now the worm or at least the weather has turned. See the CNN article: Blistering heat expected in Northeast - CNN.com and a heat waves of historic proportions are gripping the U.S. this summer.

Some very hot summer days are not proof of global warming any more than some very snowy winter days are disproof. But as the climate warms, the frequency of both very hot summer days and very heavy precipitation events (winter and summer) tend to increase. The likelihood of each new summer producing new records for heat increases as climate warms.

So my question is, where are you, global warming deniers? How do you account for this? Do you only recognize the difference between climate and weather when it is convenient for you to do so?

ice watch

2010-06-18T18:11:00.002+01:00

Since the summer of 2007, when Arctic ice extent hit an all time measured low, I have developed an ice watch fascination that generally sets in when the summer heat does in June.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center Sea Ice Index, provides a daily snapshot of the extent of ice in the Arctic Ocean. Both in map form and in a graph. The gray line is the average ice extent from 1979 to 2000, the green dotted line was the ice extent in 2007, the lowest ever measured. Right now, in June 2010 (blue line), the extent of Arctic ice is well below that of the recorded minimum from 2007 -- less ice, more open water, less reflected sunlight, more absorbed heat. This does not automatically mean that we will set a new record in 2010 for the smallest ice extent, because Arctic winds and storms can retard ice melting (and increase it); but a new record low ice extent does seem to be possible this year.

Obama blames Gulf oil disaster on breakdown at BP | Reuters

2010-05-22T23:30:00.005+01:00

Below is one of today's headlines from Reuters, and a link to the article. Unfortunately, the President is 100 percent wrong. What happened at BP was not any type of "breakdown", but an example the way capitalism works without genuine government regulation and oversight. This is not an example of "bad people" but of a a flawed system.

Businesses in a pure "ideal" capitalist economy are beholden to their owners only and to required to produce profit for their owners. Period. Businesses are not beholden to the public, to their customers (except to the extent that they need customers to make a profit for their owners), and most especially businesses are not beholden to "the environment" or to the human species. The only thing that can change this is "interference" by government, in the form of laws and regulations, regular inspections and oversight, and fines, penalties, and in extreme cases shutting down operations when laws and regulations are not followed.

If our government does not provide this type of "interference" there is no reason on earth for a manager or executive in any business to spend money for safety measures, tests and retest, safety equipment, etc. The logic of a capitalist business is to cut costs wherever costs can be cut, to produce the greatest profit possible.

Obama blames Gulf oil disaster on breakdown at BP | Reuters

Photo: Bands of oil are seen near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana May 21, 2010. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Lee Celano

If you don't like all this snow, join the fight against climate change!

2010-02-27T21:01:00.001Z

In 2003, seven years ago, the Union of Concern Scientist published the following article: "Early Warning Signs of Global Warming: Downpours, Heavy Snowfalls, and Flooding." This article states:

"Climate models predict an increase in average precipitation in winter at high latitudes due to poleward transport of evaporated moisture from lower latitudes. There is also an increase in the expected frequency and areal extent of intense precipitation over the continents."

An "increase in average precipitation in winter" means more snow!

Look at all the problems created by the snow storms in the U.S. this winter. Transportation systems disrupted. Power systems disrupted with millions of people losing electricity. Lost revenue to retailers and other businesses. Schools closed, government services disrupted. This is exactly why climate scientists have been warning about global climate change. When climate scientists say that not fighting climate change is going to cost us more in the long run than making changes to our economy, energy and economy now, this extremely snowy winter is part of what they are talking about. Among the other things they are talking about it is more frequent, more drastic alternating periods of drought and heavy rains in the other seasons.

People who want our government and economy to take steps to reduce the extremes of climate change (stopping it altogether is not possible), want to prevent even more extreme disruptions of society than we are currently dealing with this winter.

global warming models predict extreme snow events

2010-02-13T14:52:00.002Z

The piles of snow blanketing the mid-Atlantic states have inspired global warming deniers in politics and the media to gleefully declare the demise of global warming...and a number of great comic responses, like this one by Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Unusually Large Snowstorm

www.thedailyshow.com

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Full Episodes

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Comedy aside, folks, heavy -- even apocalyptic snow falls -- are predicted by global warming theories. This is not a case (as suggested by folks like Glen Beck) of proponents of global warming seizing on every passing weather condition as it occurs and declaring it a result of global warming. The likelihood of increased extreme snow fall events arising from global warming have been predicted well in advance of this years snowmaggedeon, as the following excerpt from an article in a referred scientific journal supports:

“To assess possible future snowstorm conditions, the relationships of the storm frequencies to seasonal temperature and precipitation conditions, both estimated to undergo future changes, were defined for 1901–2000 using data from 1222 stations across the United States. Results for the November–December period showed that most of the United States had experienced 61%–80% of the storms in warmer-than-normal years. Assessment of the January–February temperature conditions again showed that most of the United States had 71%–80% of their snowstorms in warmer-than-normal years. In the March–April season 61%–80% of all snowstorms in the central and southern United States had occurred in warmer-than-normal years. The relationship of storm incidence to precipitation in all three
2-month periods of the cold season showed that 61%–85% of all storms occurred in wetter-than-normal years. Thus, these comparative results reveal that a future with wetter and warmer winters, which is one outcome expected (National Assessment Synthesis Team 2001), will bring more snowstorms than in 1901–2000. Agee (1991) found that long-term warming trends in the United States were associated with increasing cyclonic activity in North America, further indicating that a warmer future climate will generate more winter storms.” page. 1149
Stanley A. Changnon, Changnon Climatologist, Mahomet, Illinois; David Changnon,
Northern Illinois University, De Kalb, Illinois; and Thomas R. Karl, National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolin. (2006) “Temporal and Spatial Characteristics of Snowstorms in the Contiguous United States.” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology Vol. 45, August 2006. The American Meteorological Society. (Manuscript received 17 May 2005, in final form 30 December 2005).

Read the real science at http://ams.allenpress.com/archive/1558-8432/45/8/pdf/i1558-8432-45-8-1141.pdf

dangerous beauty

2009-12-23T22:56:00.002Z

Just before the power went out, I spent an hour tromping around documenting the snow fall. Notice how much snow is on the telephone and power lines!

This is the most snow we gotten since we've lived in eastern Kentucky (now 13 years). And its the second major snow before Christmas -- a highly unusual occurrence. For those in the know, this is just another example of the weather weirding that results form over all global warming. Here's the explanation:

The unprecedented melting of arctic sea ice the past two summers has undoubtedly had a significant impact on the early winter weather over the Northern Hemisphere. Several modeling studies presented at the December AGU meeting showed that sea ice melt on this scale is capable of injecting enough heat into the atmosphere to result in a major shift in the jet stream. Dr. Overland [Jim Overland of NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory] remarked that the early cold winter over North America this winter, and the exceptionally cold and snowy early winter in China last winter, were likely related to arctic sea ice loss. The sea ice loss induced a strong poleward flow of warm air over eastern Siberia, and a return flow of cold air from the Pole developed to compensate. Thus regions on either side of eastern Siberia--China and North America--have gotten unusually cold and snowy winters as a result. Source: Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Not all signs of global warming are warmer days, instead what we see are important shifts and changes in the weather patterns.

seeing beauty versus photographing it

2009-12-17T22:30:00.002Z

I live in a beautiful place. There is certainly some ugliness -- mostly in the form of strip-mines, but also a lot of litter on the road sides -- but overall this is a beautiful place. Hills and mountains close in around the narrow valleys and hollers, where communities form like Christmas lights strung along the creeks and streams, and narrow ribbons of asphalt thread among the houses.

Every day, as I drive to and from work, or go out to run errands and go shopping, I see beautiful, inspiring scenes that make my heart sing with joy. Yet when I contemplate photographing this beauty I run up against rarely discussed, yet nonetheless existing "rules" about what makes a beautiful photograph.

For example, electrical wires, light poles, transformers, and other such things are not suppose to "mar" a beautiful photograph of nature. Yet, almost every view I have of the mountains, forest and sky has such things within it. Over the last several years, as I've done more and more photography, I've thought a lot about this.

The human eye in daily life, looks past things like wires and poles, street lights and traffic, and is inspired by the natural landscape beyond them. In our minds we edit out these things, they do not distract us from the view. But the literal eye of the camera locks these trappings of modern industrial society into view, creating images that do not conform to social conventions of natural beauty.

Some man-made objects are acceptable in nature photographs -- the older the better! Old barns, old fences (at least wooden ones), old houses, antique cars (not your old rusted clunker on cinder blocks), old wagons, old tools hand tools (not old rusting mining equipment!). But the kinds of man-made structures (untidy utility poles, trailers and double-wides, pick-up trucks, gas stations and Dollar General Stores) that often end up in one's view around here don't qualify as acceptable backdrops or foregrounds for nature photography.

The biggest problem with this disparity between people's daily experience of nature, and social standards for natural beauty as represented by nature photography, is that it can lead to degradation of the environment. Places like this are often viewed by those with the power to make such decisions as not beautiful or scenic enough to be worth saving.

Between 1976 and 1982 as I did the research for my masters thesis and doctoral dissertation in the nearby mountains of southwest Virginia, I observed a distressing scenario unfold. The United States Forest Service was developing the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and had selected the theme "Rural Americana" for their development. To achieve the idyllic rural vistas that the Forest Service desired for tourists, they decided it was necessary to obliterate several existing rural communities, such as Fairwood, condemning property through eminent domain and bull-dozing homes and outbuildings. Real rural Americans were "rural" enough for the Forest Service.

It is this type of mindset that also leads decision-makers to say, "what's one more strip-mine?" in eastern Kentucky? How can it matter to anyone whether yet another mountain top gets denuded of forest and turned into rubble. But it does matter.

I live in a beautiful place -- for now.

Friends of Coal

2009-09-30T15:50:00.003+01:00

There is a sociologically and politically interesting phenomenon sweeping the coal fields of Kentucky (similar things are happening is West Virginia) called the Friends of Coal.

Friends of Coal is the brainchild of a coal industry organization Kentucky Coal [note the nearly identical websites]. The Kentucky Coal Association central membership is coal companies and associate members comprised of businesses related to coal mining such as engineering firms, equipment firms, (even law firms) and individuals employed in the coal mining and related industries.

Friends of coal began as an exercise in what political pundits call "AstroTurfing" -- industry sponsored and supported activity posing as grassroots organizing -- but it has become a genuinely popular organization garnering membership, support and funding from thousands of Kentuckians from all walks of life. This may be a political first, a popular movement in support of a particular industry, not by its workers, but by a wide cross section of individuals and families living within the communities where an industry operates.

Not only does one see the bumper stickers, window stickers, yard signs, pins and t-shirts declaring "Friends of Coal" in eastern Kentucky. But most intriguingly, the Friends of Coal organization proposed a special issue Kentucky license plate (see photo at top taken at a stop light in Letcher County), which has been wildly successful and can be seen on cars (and especially trucks) everywhere in eastern Kentucky.

This may be the first time in the United States that an industry actively engaged in whole series of major political battles (over the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions, mountain top removal, and fly ash storage) has been able to get the general public to voluntarily help fund their public relations battle through a official state sponsored tax (license plate fees). Usually industries have to use their own monies (albeit coming from customers) for legitimation advertising and activities.

The average person in eastern Kentucky who sports a "Friends of Coal" sticker or license plate views supporting "the coal industry" as identical to supporting "coal miners." A view which flies in the face of the very long record of industry abuses of the health and safety of miners, and successful efforts to undermine unionization of coal mining.

Supporters of Friends of Coal fear that new environmental regulations will bring a sudden and abrupt end to all coal employment in the mountains. They lack awareness that the coal industry has done quite well on its own to cut coal mining employment despite many decades of special treatment and tax advantages from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Employment in coal in Kentucky has dropped by two-thirds from a high of about 48,000 in 1981 to 17,893 in 2006. [graphic from MACED based on data from CoalEducation.org].

Exercise

2009-09-18T18:57:00.002+01:00

This morning I fired up the tractor, hitched the trailer to it, tossed in the chainsaw, and headed out into the forest. I went to a section containing a lot of downwood -- trees that have fallen of their own accord or that I have cut down because they're dead. They were all small Douglas Firs log, averaging eight inches in diameter. I cut them up into pieces weighing fourty to eighty pounds and then piled them into the trailer. It was hard work; even thought the air temperature was about 60ºF, I was soon sweating profusely. It was also rather dirty work, hauling those log segments around. They don't fall conveniently close to the tractor trail so each one has to be carried 50 to 100 feet to the trailer. When I was done, I drove back to the woodpile and heaved the logs onto the ground. I'll cut them into firewood-sized pieces (18" long) later.

Why do I subject myself to this labor? Primarily for exercise. I've long felt that there's too much artificiality in our lives, and that applies to our exercise. Most people get their exercise on "exercise machines". The very concept seems silly to me. Our bodies were built to DO things, not sit on exercise machines. Such machines concentrate effort on a specific set of muscles. That's stupid; it's like developing your touch-typing skills so that your left hand can type 100 words per minute while your right hand can type only 20 words per minute. It won't do you any good if your biceps outlive your trapezoid muscles. It's your whole body that needs to be healthy, not just a few selected parts.

I've held this belief for many years. While still a teenager, I advocated the "TV dinner that fights back". The concept was that eating is a primal activity, something involving our entire bodies. We shouldn't sit down at a table with napkins and delicately nibble our meal with tiny bites. No, when the meal is cooked, it should leap out of the oven snarling and we should have to chase it all over the house, finally pinning it down and dispatching it with a bite behind the neck. Then we should rip and tear great gobbets of food from the body of our artificial critter, wolfing them down with a possessive growl. THAT's what I call a proper meal.

The same thing goes for exercise. These namby-pamby people esconced in exercise machines, pumping their legs or their arms in mindless repetition, are losing out on the fundamentals of exercise. It's not a matter of merely contracting and relaxing muscles. It requires the entire body and mind to be unified in a single process. Dancing is good exercise. Sports are good exercise. Rote exercise is no more effective than rote learning.

That's why I head out into the woods and fight with logs. It's tough work, but it exercises my entire being. I have to think, move, act, and work. It's not neat work; I trip or stumble, drop things, scratch myself (my wife wonders why my hands, arms, and legs always bear scratches or cuts) and curse occasionally. There's always the chance of serious injury if I'm not careful -- but that's part of the process, too: thinking ahead, planning how to approach tasks in a safe manner. I'm all alone out there in the forest. There's nobody to call 911 if I break a leg. I just have to crawl home in such a case, and I don't like that idea. So I think as I move, something users of exercise machines don't do.

There's more to it, though. There's something about working in the forest, about being there among the trees, and working to improve the forest's health. One doesn't see the effects anytime soon, so it's mostly an appreciation built cognitively. It's constructive labor of the best kind. Sure, I could be writing essays for the Internet or helping people in other ways, but this, this is solid, undeniable betterment of the world.

There are other reasons as well. These forest floors have evolved to adapt to fire. In the natural setting, fire sweeps through the forest floor every thirty to fifty years, clearing out all the deadwood. We humans have blocked that process, so the deadwood builds up such densities that, when a fire does manage to slip past our guard, it explodes to monster size, feeding on a century's worth of accumulated fuel. To prevent that, we must manually cull the fuel, removing the biggest chunks and stomping down the slash (bits of branches and other small stuff) so that it rots faster during the rainy season.

A third reason for all this work is to provide fuel for my fireplace. Now, plain old fireplaces are actually energy wasters: they pull in so much cold air from the outside that their net effect is to cool a house. However, my fireplace has a big iron insert with two fans blowing air over it, and a high chimney that is exposed to the interior of the house. Its overall effect is to heat the house substantially. In winter, once I get the fireplace going, the electric heat pump turns on only to redistribute air around the house. I estimate this saves us about $1000 in electricity each year. Of course, to get that savings I probably invest several hundred hours of work, meaning that my labor is earning me only a few dollars per hour. But saving money is a tertiary goal. My primary goal is healthy exercise; fire safety is the second goal and saving money is the third goal.

Summer Reading, Part 1

2009-07-04T19:55:00.004+01:00

Each Fall Semester I teach a course, SOC260 Population, Resources and Change, that examines the interrelationships between human societies and the environment, focusing on modern industrial societies. Consequently each summer, I try to read a couple of new (to me) books on the general topic of the environment and society. This summer I thought I would post reviews of books as I finish them -- with the thought that this might prompt me to finish more! The first book I will discuss is The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Brian Fagan, Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Let me begin by saying that The Great Warming has lots of fascinating information about the interplay between climate and society, drawing upon research on dozens of societies on eight continents across thousands of years of human history. It is well researched, entertaining and lively and worth reading. Each of the stories shows the importance of climate in both the making and the breaking of humans societies. However, the book does not live up to its title, nor does it deliver on the basic premise set forth in its preface.

Fagan's thesis, as set out in the preface, is that the "Medieval Warm Period" was a global warming event affecting the entire planet, and that the primary lesson to be drawn from this global event was that global warming (even when it is on a lesser scale than the anthropogenic warming of the present day), creates devastating drought across much of the world.

The term "Medieval Warm Period" refers to the higher than average temperatures, documented by several forms of temperature proxy research, in Europe between approximately 800 AD to 1300 AD. Proxy methods for establishing past temperature regimes include: ice cores, deep sea an lake sediment cores, coral records, and tree rings. Through out the book, Fagan refers to the period between 800-1300 AD as either the "Medieval Warm Period" or more generally as the "warm centuries;" but when he gets down to the specifics the regional temperature proxy information he presents often indicates prolonged centuries of colder climate for regions such as Eurasia, the Sahara/Sahel in Africa, the Andes of South America, and the middle and south Pacific.

We know, in the present day, that an overall warming of the earth, is consistent with the occasion pattern of cooling in specific regions. Not every location on earth, experiences a constant, upward warming pattern. Present day climate change research emphasizes statistical averages and the global pattern while recognizing local variation. Fagan does not produce sufficient evidence to support a claim that the overall earth's temperature rose during the period 800-1300 AD, only that some widespread regions experienced warming and that equally wide spread regions experienced cooling. Perhaps that evidence exists, but it was not presented in this book.

Moreover, although Fagan's primary aim is to show the connection between warmer climate and drought, many of the examples of drought come from regions where temperatures were cooler, or where there are no proxy measures of temperature available, only measures of rainfall. For example, drought in the Sahara/Sahel during the 800-1300 AD period is primarily related to cooler temperatures. Cooler temperatures over the Pacific during these centuries is also associated with drought on the west coast of California, and in the South American Andes.

Other examples of drought come from regions such as India where both warming and cooling occurred in different regions, and even shifted from time period to time period as the oscillation between El Nino/La Nina shifted the timing and location of the monsoons. With China, Fagan's evidence of warming comes from eastern China, while the evidence of drought comes from Huguangyan in south China where lake cores indicated cooler climate (during the early part of the target period) and the northern Tibetan highlands (during the latter part of the target period).

If one ignores Fagan's attempt to build a grand argument about global warming, much can be learned in this book about the importance of climate, and especially the impact of flood and drought, in the course of human history from the specific evidence about particular societies.

Reforestation in a dry environment

2009-06-19T18:21:00.002+01:00

My East Coast colleagues don't have to worry much about reforestation; leave the land alone and it will reforest itself naturally. You might want to select what is allowed to come up, and perhaps plant species that you prefer, but even then it's usually "plant and forget".

Out here in the West, it's much more difficult. In the first place, you seldom get natural reforestation, at least not at anything approaching an acceptable time. The rough rule of thumb in the West is that it takes about a thousand years for a devastated patch of land to return to its aboriginal state. Of course, that time period depends crucially on the amount of rain. In the rainy Pacific Northwest, regeneration can complete in about a hundred years; in the Nevada desert, it can take millennia. In my environment, we get about 22 inches of rain per year, which is pretty good by West Coast standards but still well below the 50 inches that is common on the East Coast and the 42 inches that is typical for Eugene, Oregon, just 200 miles north of us.

When an area of forest is cleared, the recovery is carried out in a sequence. First come the manzanita, a scrub brush that burns hot in fires. A few oaks, madrones, douglas first, and ponderosa pines will eventually sprout in the soil and grow slowly (because they're underneath the faster-growing manzanita). After several decades some of these will start overtopping the manzanita, enabling them to grow somewhat faster. They'll also spread more seeds and acorns, restarting the process. However, the manzanita has deep roots and is long-lived, so once it has been established, it can take centuries for it to die out so that the forest reaches its climax stage.

The best way to accelerate this process is to plant seedlings and clear the immediate area. Usually, however, we don't bother clearing -- we just plant the seedlings in areas that have sunlight. There are enough openings to make this a viable strategy.

Before you can plant seedlings, you have to obtain them, and that's a problem. We used to have a state nursery in Oregon that sold seedlings of all kinds. The Ponderosa Pines that we use ran about $0.70 apiece in quantities of one hundred. But the commercial nurseries complained bitterly about the competition from the government, so the state government closed the state nursery. When I asked around at the local nurseries, the price of Ponderosa Pines was around $4.00 apiece. There's definitely something fishy here. Moreover, I couldn't get Ponderosa Pines suited to my altitude.

So I took a different tack this last planting season (December-January). I harvested some of the numerous seedlings that volunteer all over my land and replanted them in new locations. To do this, I just dug around the seedling with a shovel and then lifted a shovel-sized hunk of soil containing the seedling and its roots. Then I carried the seedling to its new already-dug hole and planted it there. This might seem like a simple enough task, but it's a lot rougher when you're carrying a ten pound hunk of soil 600 feet to its new home -- and doing it over and over with dozens of seedlings. But I was determined, and I got a bit more than 40 seedlings planted this last January.

Now, however, comes the real test: keeping them alive through the summer. There's no rain at all from June through November, and this is the period when trees die. Seedlings are especially vulnerable because their roots have not set properly; it takes a full year for the roots to re-establish themselves after replanting.

If you want to water trees, you just use a hose, right? Well, yes, but it's a bit different. It's about 800 feet from the closest water tap to the furthest seedling. That's a long, long way. We have enough hose to handle the problem -- over the years we have acquired lots of hose. The problem is that the furthest seedling is a good deal higher than the tap, and between the pressure loss and the resistance of 800 feet of hose, I get very little flow: perhaps 1 gallon every five minutes. With 40 seedlings to water, you can see the problem.

Fortunately, a solution was at hand: crank up the well pump that feeds the tap. I went to work and cranked it up to about 40 psi (standard household water pressure is about 30 to 25 psi -- but we're on a well and we keep the pressure down around 25 psi to save electricity. With a cranked-up pump, I could get about a gallon a minute.

There are still problems: if I water in the afternoon, the water in the hose is scalding hot (from all that inadvertent solar water heating) and would surely kill the seedlings, so I must either throw away all the water in the hose (perhaps 10 gallons, which takes a while) in order to reach the cooler water, or water at other times of the day.

And then there's hose management. When you're maneuvering hundreds of feet of hose, you spend a lot of effort just moving it around. I use a system in which the hoses are laid out along the general line of trees, but disconnected. I connect each hose in turn as I work my way further out. On the next watering run, I disconnect hoses as I move closer to the tap.

One other trick: I plant my seedlings in deep holes; the seedling ends up about eight inches below the ground surface. Why? Three reasons: first, it provides a small amount of shade for the seedling part of the day, which reduces its water requirements. Second, it gives the seedling access to deeper soil, which holds water longer. And third, the pit holds two or three gallons of water that will soak straight down.

If I do everything right, I might get 90% survival rate. If I underestimate the water needs of the seedlings, that might easily go down to 50% survival rate. And if I don't water at all, the survival rate will be less than 10%. If I get the seedlings through this summer, then I can leave them to nature and they'll sit quiescent for two or three years, getting their root systems big enough to handle growth. Sometime around the fourth or fifth year after planting, they'll start growing vigorously.

That's what it takes to reforest land in southern Oregon. It's a lot of work, and I can only handle maybe a hundred trees per year -- and that's only if I devote a lot of time to the task. And my land could probably hold another thousand trees easily.

Gimme shelter

2009-06-18T12:38:00.001+01:00

Category: Places for Cover
Required points: 2
Suggested sources: Wooded Area • Bramble Patch • Ground Cover • Rock Pile or Wall • Cave • Roosting Box • Dense Shrubs or Thicket • Evergreens • Brush or Log Pile • Burrow • Meadow or Prairie • Water Garden or Pond

The Places for Cover credit requires a little explanation to differentiate it from the Places to Raise Young credit (to be described in a future post). National Wildlife Federation describes the cover credit:

Wildlife need places to hide to feel safe from people, predators, and inclement weather. Native vegetation is a perfect cover for terrestrial wildlife. Shrubs, thickets and brush piles provide great hiding places within their bushy leaves and thorns.

Bat box: Bat boxes are rather like bird nesting or roosting boxes, only entry is through the bottom. A typical bat box also includes some parallel interior walls. Bats don't need much personal space, but they do need a surface to cling to. I picked-up my bat box, ready-made at Lowe's, for about $20. Installation was a matter of a stepladder, a cordless drill to bore a pilot hole and start the screws, and fifteen minutes of my time. My then 12-month-old son was enthralled by this process.
Alas, no bats have yet taken-up residence in my bat box. In fact, I haven't been certain that I've seen a single bat all season. What troubles me is that I don't think that this is simply a matter of probability and the fact that getting my son ready for bed means that I spend less time outside in the evening than I used to. I'm concerned that this is indicative of white nose syndrome, the fungal plague that is apparently decimating Eastern bat populations. It seems that there just aren't any bats around.

Evergreen trees: Since I like to exploit some of the features that were already in my yard before I started gearing-up my habitat, I'm leaning on the two (likely exotic) evergreen trees that crowd the west wall of my home for one of my Cover points. Evergreens provide a place for birds to roost and evade predators, year-round.

trying to be a good environmental citizen

2009-06-03T03:15:00.004+01:00

Twelve and a half years ago our region suffered a destructive mid-winter snow and ice storm that knocked out power to a wide area for three days. It was our first winter in our house and our only alternative source of heat was an open fire place. It kept us from freezing, but it was a very unpleasant three days. So early the next fall we invested in a large size kerosene heater and a five gallon drum of kerosene.

However, we did not have another winter time power outage until this year, which lasted two days, but they were unseasonably warm days despite being in February, and we only needed the fireplace in the evening to take off the chill. So here we are twelve years later with five gallons of kerosene which have taken on moisture and gone bad, and cannot be safely burned in our kerosene heater.

I started calling all over our county trying to find someone who would accept kerosene for environmentally sound disposal. Everyone was very quick to say "no" -- some even vehemently, including the major distributor of kerosene in the area. I got discouraged and stopped searching for a while.

Last week, I decided to try the web, and ended up with Kentucky's state department of hazardous waste. I sent an e-mail, and got a quick response telling me that they would refer me to the regional hazardous waste office. Two days later, I got an informative e-mail from the regional office. The regional official said that "most" places that accept used motor oil will also accept kerosene, and he provided me a list with phone numbers of four or five locations within 40 miles of my home that accepted motor oil. I called all of them and each of them said, in no uncertain terms "NO," they only accept used motor oil, and would not accept kerosene.

One person I talked to suggested that I use the kerosene up by burning brush on my property. [First I don't have that much brush, and second we try to leave brush in place to provide habitat for wild critters.]

Back, by e-mail, to my regional office. The response was quick and informative -- kerosene can be disposed of in a properly contained landfill, but only after it is "solidified" by mixing it with something like kitty litter, and leaving it open to the air to evaporate. Only when it is totally dry can you dispose of it, and only in properly lined and sealed landfill. Since I am not yet certain we have one of those, I'm still not certain whether I will be able to dispose of my ancient and contaminated kerosene.

The point of my narrative is this: how can citizens be the solution and act in environmentally responsible ways with toxic wastes if there is no one within any reasonable travel distance who will accept those wastes? I now have at least a smidgen more sympathy for the local oil distribution company that has just been stacking old diesel fuel tanks on an empty lot -- with the not too unexpected outcome of leakage into the regional water supply.

fiscal crisis and higher education

2009-05-29T20:34:00.006+01:00

I recently spent 10 days in California. My visit coincided with the special election on ballot initiatives intended to generate new revenues -- these initiatives were soundly trounced by voters (except for the one to prohibit raises for legislators in years with a deficit). The failure of the ballot initiatives was followed by many public pronouncements about the cuts that would have to follow.

The causes of California's fiscal crisis is multi-faceted and stems from circumstances both unique to California and its political culture and from the broader economic recession that has impacted all the states. This is not an attempt to analyze those causes, or even sketch a few of them. It's a comment on narrow aspect of California's budget that caught my eye while I was there.

While I was perusing a local SF Bay Area newspaper, I saw an advertisement encouraging students to enroll for summer classes at a local community college. It was a fairly typical assortment of general education and technical courses being offered. What caught my eye was the "fee" -- not tuition -- charged. The cost to students was $20 (yes, twenty) per credit hour.

Do not get me wrong, as a community college professor, I'm an ardent supporter of access to higher education for all interested in pursuing it. Maintaining reasonable tuition costs at community colleges is an important part of enhancing educational access. Some would say that Kentucky's Community and Technical College's $125 per credit hour (for Fall 2009) is pushing the upper end of the envelop, but that is far lower than tuition at Kentucky's four year colleges and Universities.

My point -- California could easily double their $20 per unit fee and still fall at among the nation's cheapest tuition for community colleges. Low income students in California could obtain Pell Grants to offset the increased fees. California's 110 community colleges enroll more than 2.5 million students most of whom are part-time, or 1 million full-time equivalent students. That's 1 million times a full-time load of 12 credit hours multiplied by and extra $20 per credit hour, which would create an additional $240 million in revenue. That could go a long, long way to prevent cutbacks in courses and enrollments currently proposed as the means to deal with the state's financial crisis.

How good is college access if college are cutting back on offerings, and projecting that thousands of students will be unable to obtain the courses they want, or in some cases find any courses in which to enroll?

Putting the rain to work

2009-05-12T12:40:00.001+01:00

Category: Water sources
Required points: 1
Suggested sources: Birdbath, Lake, Stream, Seasonal Pool, Ocean, Water Garden/Pond, River, Butterfly Puddling Area, Rain Garden, Spring

My little lot is not blessed with a pond, a stream, a spring, or beachfront, so it's necessary to add a built element to meet NWF's water requirement. I've no interest in attracting mosquitos, so birdbaths and similar standing-water features are off the table. A water-feature that wouldn't attract mosquitos required a little thought.
A few years ago I was on a backpacking trip as part of a literature class (think Thoreau, Emerson, Ed Abbey, Gretel Ehrlich, Linda Hogan, Annie Dillard, &c), when I had the most remarkable encounter with butterflies. Eight of us, or so, were hiking part of the C&O Canal Towpath near Harpers Ferry. It was the first week of July. It was hot. It was humid.
We stopped on a sandy, shaded bank of the Potomac to have lunch. Just beyond the shade, where the lean river had receded to expose a large patch of mud, hundreds of little white butterflies were mulling around on the ground. After a moment, they noticed us and swarmed us. They landed all over our clothing, unfurling their curly butterfly tongues.
The butterflies were cabbage whites, and the reason for their interest in us was salt- more or less the same reason they had been mining the river bank. As it happens, butterflies need to ingest minerals and salts that they can't get out of plants. Instead, they seek it out in exposed mud, bird guano, and even dried sweat.
We can give butterflies a hand by creating a feature that offers them the salts or minerals they need. One of the simplest ways to do this is to create a butterfly puddle by burying a bucket or other impervious container in the ground, up to its rim, and filling it with soil. When it rains, the soil in the container becomes saturated quickly, and the impervious walls keep the water in place. Since the container is ultimately full of mud, rather than standing water, mosquitos can't lay their eggs in it. Any overflow recedes into the surrounding soil fairly quickly.
In keeping with the goal of a self-maintaining system, I buried a rectangular 2-gallon plastic tub at the place where my downspout empties into my yard. I added little pea-gravel to the hole I surgically dug, so that it'll be easier to move the tub if adjustments are necessary. Most of the soil went directly back into the plastic container (where it will provide the minerals the butterflies are after), while the small amount of excess soil (and a few annelid worms) have found a new home in my composter. Now, every time it rains even a little, the puddle is recharged, and the impervious tub keeps the little patch muddy for a few days.
The plastic tub was an extraneous denizen of my basement, so I'll call its cost $1, since that's about what I'd expect to pay for such a thing at a yard sale. To buy a new one would be a few dollars more, though a variety of disposible plastic containers (read "free") or containers made from more benign materials would do the trick.
Again, if the rain ever stops when I'm at home, I'll update this with a picture from my own yard. For now, enjoy these puddling swallowtails, courtesy of Western Kentucky University.

It's for the birds (and butterflies, and preying mantis, and squash bees, and chipmunks...)

2009-05-08T14:51:00.005+01:00

Category: Food sources
Required points: 3
Suggested sources: Seeds from a plant, Berries, Nectar, Foliage/Twigs, Nuts, Fruits, Sap, Pollen, Suet, Bird Feeder, Squirrel Feeder, Hummingbird Feeder, Butterfly Feeder

The National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat program begins with food sources, no doubt because this is the first thing most people think about when considering ways to support wildlife.
For my part, I prefer systems that require little outside intervention. Rather than committing to constantly correcting or maintaining something, I prefer to create something that naturally does what it’s intended to do. I also dislike wasting things, even those things I could replace with something that’s a little more environmentally-friendly. With that in mind, this is how I’ve solved the food problem:
Eastern purple coneflower and gloriosa: These native flowers are well-suited to local soil, moisture, and water conditions and provide a food source for some smaller birds (notably goldfinches) and a couple of butterfly species. They stop flowering and producing seed in the fall, when the migratory birds start to leave. I also happen to like the way they look and appreciate the fact that they don’t require much attention.
Planted from organic heirloom seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, these collectively cost me about $9.
Some kind of exotic honeysuckle: They’re not native trees, but they’re mature and they bear berries that several bird species eat. They were already here when I bought the place, so they incur no added costs to meet the certification requirement.
Traditional seed feeder: This is an exception to my low-maintenance principle. As much as I like to restore natural systems and let nature do its thing, I’m cognizant of the fact that many of my neighbors aren’t doing this. I feel motivated to pick-up a little of the slack. Also, I plan to participate in Cornell’s winter bird census for my young son’s benefit, which means I’ll need a feeder anyway. More on that in the fall.
I picked-up my feeder for about $20 from Lowe’s, but one can find them at local hardware stores, wild-bird centers, garden centers, craft stores, &c. If you have some scrap wood sitting around, it’s also fairly easy to make one. Plans are available at your local library and all over the Web. If you have more time than I did this spring, I encourage you to buy local, or build one yourself.
Worth noting, I’ve also designated a corner of my backyard as a wild area. I’ve pulled out some exotic plants and transplanted a healthy Canada thistle that the birds introduced earlier into my front yard. I will remain vigilant about exotic plants (my neighbors seem to have lost some decisive battles in the War on Kudzu), but will generally let nature take its course there. I expect to see some pokeweed, more thistle, and perhaps some coneflower or gloriosa that the birds carry from elsewhere in my yard.
I’ll update this post with some pictures, if it ever stops raining.

Take a hike (and fix-up a trail)

2009-05-04T16:17:00.001+01:00

National Trails Day is just over a month away. On Saturday, June 6, organizations all over the country will be working to build and maintain hiking and biking trails, and trail shelters along the way. Scout troupes, conservation groups, state and local governments, the National Park Service, and hiking clubs are looking for individuals and groups interested in serving their communities.
As someone who has volunteered with this sort of work in the past, I can tell you that it's tough but rewarding. Perhaps the most important outcome of doing this is the sense of ownership that trail stewards develop as a result of taking brief responsibility for a piece of land that lots of people enjoy. Jones Mountain Cabin, in the wilds of Shenandoah National Park, seems like an old friend after that long weekend of cleaning out the fireplace, replacing the railings on the front porch, and maintaining the hand tools. There was a lot of hiking, eating, drinking 50 degree spring water, and playing music too, that June weekend. (This image more likely pictures October.)
Many trail clubs and other organizations leading Trail Service Day events accept volunteers with no experience. And (unlike the 2.5 day event I mentioned), most of these service events simply run from the morning to around lunchtime. However, if you have serious landscaping or construction experience, some groups also have projects for those looking for something more involved.
If you're interested in pitching-in, the American Hiking Society offers an event finder:
http://www.americanhiking.org/NTD.aspx

Image: Jones Mountain Cabin, Shenandoah National Park, VA, shamelessly ripped-off from some hiker's flickr page

Where the wild things are

2009-04-28T17:36:00.011+01:00

Among the commitments and self-appointed tasks that have kept me away from the blog over the last few weeks has been making some changes to the Dunhill home. While I’ve undertaken a variety of green upgrades and renovations since Mrs. and I moved-in back in the fall of 2006, wildlife issues have been especially on my mind this spring.
The ways people have built and developed cities, suburbs, agricultural lands, and mine lands, particularly over the last century or so, can be very disruptive to plant and animal life. Even if we ignore any possible responsibility to care for nonhuman species for their own sake, these species provide important benefits to people. Native birds, for instance, are important for replanting native trees, which support communities of other plants and animals, which collectively contribute to clean water that people depend on. For a simpler example, houses with mature trees and flowers around them have higher average sale prices and spend fewer days on the market.
The National Wildlife Federation has a great program to encourage people to make their homes more wildlife-friendly. The Certified Wildlife Habitats program provides guidance on how to reduce negative impacts and realize positive impacts on wildlife. To become certified, participants need points in five areas: Food sources, water sources, places for cover, places to raise young, and sustainable gardening.
Most of my solutions are driven at least in part by the amount of time I have to devote to this project. Between family, work, school, and community commitments, I generally have to sacrifice on cost in order to actually get these things done. However, many of these solutions can be accomplished at little or no cost if you have the time and the inclination. I’ll let you know how I’m faring and how I’m solving each of the issues outlined in the certification program.

Image sources:
National Wildlife Federation
Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History

Earth Month irony

2009-04-23T15:04:00.005+01:00

Here it is April, Earth Month, and this blogger has been silent for weeks. What gives? No, E.R. Dunhill has not been afflicted by white-nose syndrome as a result of installing a bat-box (just so there’s no confusion, that’s a joke, not an actual risk to people), nor have I fallen into my new composter.
Like a lot of committed environmentalists, I’ve just been über busy. I’ve been up to my beard in getting ready for an Earth Day event, developing and delivering a Sunday school class on green ministry, writing a term paper (on oxidative enhancement of bioremediation, using Oxygen Release Compound, since you asked), and taking some steps toward getting my yard set-up as a wildlife habitat. Now that the light at the end of the tunnel is coming into view, I’ll have an opportunity to take a breather and blog a little about some these activities. (And yes, Honey, I'll plant the herbs and vegetables.)
For the moment, I’d like to wish everyone a happy and productive Earth Month. Keep at it- we’re in this together.

Time for Nukes

2009-04-05T16:51:00.003+01:00

I was given extensive schooling on the issues related to nuclear power back in the 1970s. I was delivering an educational program about energy for the University of California. It was funded by the local utility, but they knew that they needed the credibility of the University for it to have any value, so they took a hands-off approach. The training program itself was organized by a strongly pro-nuclear group, Oak Ridge Associated Universities, based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, home of major nuclear facilities. Fortunately, the University of California knows how to handle such situations, and I was protected from pressure from ORAU. There was only one confrontation: a speaker from the utility that suffered the Brown's Ferry cable tray fire refused to answer my questions about the peak core temperature, and I pressed him hard to produce the number. Afterwards, my ORAU hosts sat me down for a little "attitude adjustment" session. It was ended by a call to my boss, who hearing both sides and figuring out what was happening, instructed me over the phone to look abashed and embarrassed and say "Yessir" many times. He then told my tormentors that he had set me straight and that they should allow me to contemplate the seriousness of his instructions. When I returned to Davis, he congratulated me for standing up to them.

Anyway, all of this serves to justify my claim of being objective AND knowledgeable about the nuclear power issue. I got the opportunity to talk to some of the top people in government and industry, to visit a number of power plants of every type (I'm one of the small number of people who've actually been inside the containment structure at Diablo Canyon, as well as going inside oil burners, the geothermal facility at The Geysers, two coal burners, and several coal mines). I also benefited from the fact that the Davis campus of the University of California, where I worked, was designated one of the technical repositories of all the energy-related technical materials produced by the Federal government, so I had direct access to every technical report on everything.

So when I claim that anti-nuclear fears are baseless, I know what I'm talking about. The arguments against nuclear power are bullshit. For example, the canard about waste disposal -- that issue was settled thirty years ago with the release of the API report on radioactive waste disposal. Since then we have gathered mountains of data on actual performance of the test sites, and the data has supported all the conclusions drawn thirty years ago. There have been no surprises, no disappointments. If you read the anti-nuclear propaganda closely, you'll discover that they don't claim that rad waste disposal is technically impossible; they claim only that there is no operational rad waste disposal site in the country. And why isn't there a site? Because they've whipped up the fears of citizens so that NIMBY factors, not rational decision-making, control the policy. Basically, their argument boils down to the statement that people are too irrationally frightened by rad waste disposal to permit it.

Safety factors are an even more egregious canard. People point to the Chernobyl accident as an example of how dangerous nuclear plants are. What they don't point out is that the graphite reactors at Chernobyl were never seriously considered in any of the Western nations because they bristle with safety problems. Worse, Chernobyl had no containment structure. Western reactors are kept inside huge concrete and steel domes with walls ten feet thick. The Chernobyl reactors were inside a flimsy building that offered no resistance to the release of radiation.

What about the Three Mile Island accident of 1979? That was, if anything, a demonstration of the effectiveness of the overall safety designs. There were multiple failures in that accident: maintenance failures, equipment failures, and operator mistakes. The reactor itself was reduced to intensely radioactive slag. Even so, the containment structure held. There were several releases of radioactive gases, but intense monitoring of the air and the soil in the immediate aftermath of the accident, as well as the health of the nearby population, has demonstrated that there were no statistically significant effects. Indeed, one calculation showed that the greatest threat to public health was the flight of people away from the accident; there were some automobile accidents attributable to the heavy traffic, and a few deaths.

Compare all this with the lengthy track record of nuclear power over the last 30 years. The French get 80% of their electricity from nuclear, and they have never had a single significant accident. The Japanese get a smaller share, and they've had a few minor coolant spills, but nothing serious. And in this country, in the thirty years since Three Mile Island, we've had enormous amounts of electricity generation and no serious problems. The anti-nuclear doomsayers have been proven wrong. The technology works safely.

By the way, there were two substantial arguments against nuclear power in the 1970s: capital intensity and proliferation. The capital intensity argument observed that a big nuclear program would sponge up lots of capital, driving up interest rates for the entire economy. This argument is no longer significant; although at this grim time for the economy, there's no free capital, in general the economy now is large enough to capitalize lots of reactor construction.

The proliferation argument was the most serious, but nowadays the cat is out of the bag. Short-term geopolitical advantage has at every point trumped long-term anti-proliferation discipline, and time and again the anti-proliferation rules have been bent to keep friendly nations on our side. When even a podunk nation like North Korea can build nukes, we have to admit that our anti-proliferation efforts have failed.

Countering all this is the increasingly desperate situation arising from global warming. It is no longer a mere desideratum that we limit carbon releases; it is now an imperative. And we continue to build new coal plants in this country. Every nuclear plant that we build saves us from building a coal plant. The choice is not between nuclear and solar or between nuclear and wind; it's between nuclear and coal. Yes, we want to build as much wind and solar power as we can; but we're still going to be building coal plants and anything we can do to reduce that building program is to our benefit.

Lastly, we must not forget that the supply of fuel for nuclear power is nearly infinite. All the studies show that even one-pass fuel cycle has plenty of fuel to work with, and if we employ some fuel-reprocessing technologies, we can increase the effective supply of fuel by an order of magnitude. Beyond this beckons the seductive possibility of breeding fuel. A peculiarity of nuclear technology is that it is possible to breed more fuel than you burn while operating a power reactor. In other words, a nuclear power plant can be designed to create more fuel than it consumes -- LOTS more fuel. This is the technology that opens of up the possibility of near-infinite supplies of nuclear power.

There is a catch, of course: the technology originally conceived for doing this -- the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor, or LMFBR -- is completely unacceptable in terms of safety. The first big prototype, the Clinch River Breeder Reactor project, was killed by the Carter Administration, and everybody now agrees that it was the right decision. Using liquid sodium a as coolant is not a good idea, because sodium bursts into flame in the presence of oxygen. Imagine what would happen if the coolant in your car engine would burn if there were a leak. Not a happy thought, that.

Fortunately, there are some new reactor designs that, while not as efficient as an LMFBR, are still capable of breeding fuel, and can do so safely. We'll need to put them through lots of testing before building a bunch of them, but they could extend the life of nuclear power -- and completely eliminate the need for fossil fuels -- by mid-century. Don't you think that eliminating our dependence upon fossil fuels would be an excellent goal to reach?

So let's put aside the irrational fears and consider nuclear power as an alternative to coal.

The future of farming?

2009-03-31T22:06:00.004+01:00

Our modern day methods of producing food in advanced industrialized nations like the United States, require inputs of 10 calories of fossil fuel for every 1 calorie of food we produce. This is not only highly inefficient, but it is unsustainable given the contribution that fossil fuel use makes to climate change, and the expectation that sometime in the next five to 30 years that the production of fossil fuels will peak and then decline steadily, creating shortages and pushing prices far higher than their 2008 peaks.

Google Video has made available full-length documentaries through video streaming. The video below by Rebecca Hosking for the BBC's Natural World series, explores the question of what may happen to farming and our food supply in the future and what alternatives exist to fossil fuel based agriculture.

"Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key." BBC - Natural World

How many roads must the US economy walk down?

2009-03-31T16:12:00.007+01:00

Various news outlets are reporting on a couple of major stories in wind power today. Australia's AGL Energy has signed a deal with Suzlon Energy (an Indian firm) to buy about a quarter of a billion dollars with of wind turbines, while Germany's Wetfeet Offshore Windenergy GmBH is buying over nine hundred million dollars worth of new turbines from the French Areva SA. This raises some questions that I'll but to the reader:
Why aren't these high-value engineering and manufacturing contracts being awarded to US firms? Does domestic energy policy impact the US's ability to respond successfully to contracts of this nature? What's required of entreprenneurs, big business, utilities, and governments to make the US more competitive in the global energy industry? How many times are we going to retread this path (energy crises, missed opportunities to exploit a new energy market, or both)?

Image source: Department of Environment, Government of Maharashtra, India

It's like watching MacGyver work

2009-03-20T13:46:00.002Z

It's not really. It's a brick. Or, it's a jar, or something else that displaces water. You've no doubt heard it before, and many readers are already doing it. However, for those who have never encountered this eons-old water conservation measure:
You can convert just about any existing toilet into a low-flow unit without ever getting your hands dirty*. Booting-up your computer probably takes longer than this will.
Simply take the lid off the tank, and place a brick, a concrete paver, or a clean jar (filled with water and tightly closed), and put the lid back onto the tank. Done.
Now, every time the tank refills, the brick (or whatever you've used) will displace some water. The result is that every time the toilet is flushed, it uses that much less water. Depending upon your home's usage and how much water you can effectively displace, this can easily save gallons every week. For reference, it you use a spent 20 oz soda bottle to displace water, that translates to about a 10% savings for many units.
This saves you and your community water and energy. Keep in mind that in virtually every US home, all of the water entering the house is potable water. That means that it has been thoroughly treated to the point of being safe to drink. And, of course, it must be pumped (both treating the water and moving it require energy) before it gets to every fixture in the house, even if that fixture is only used for washing clothes, spraying-off a lawn mower, or flushing a toilet. You're paying for drinking water for all of those uses. And, of course all of that wastewater has to be treated after it leaves your home. You pay for that, too.
Save some water, save some money.

*Author's note: Since this post specifically names bricks (which are often dusty or dirty) and jars (which have to be thoroughly cleaned), E.R. Dunhill's statement that you will never get your hands dirty is probably patently untrue. Also, the author would have written the usual emphatic Be the solution in this post, but as quick as the actual recommendation is, it seemed like a waste of time. Nuts. I've just written it.

It’s kind of like ZipCar for books

2009-03-18T12:59:00.003Z

Remember libraries? They’re like book stores, only you don’t pay for the books, and no one minds if you just sit around and read without taking anything home. (Remember book stores? They're like Amazon.com, but with other people.)
Libraries are regaining their relevance, after an inevitable ebb. With so many regional and local economies suffering, free opportunities for recreation and no-cost access to information to hone skills and find jobs are important. While it may not be immediately obivous, they’re a great place to interact with real, live people. (Take that, Internet!) Libraries also offer the benefits of group ownership: I can read the book, my neighbor can read the book, my wife can read the book, and some guy named Doug can read the book- but as if by magic, it’s still just one book. It’s only manufactured once, but it’s used many times by many different people. What a creative, thrifty, and environmentally-friendly idea. It seems like something Benjamin Franklin would have dreamed up.
My local library happens to be adjacent to a few local stores, several restaurants, and (my personal favorite) an ice cream shop, all of which surround a courtyard with benches, tables, grassy areas, a fountain, and a little pavilion for performances. There’s even a movie theater and a coffee shop nearby. People meet, interact, support local businesses, read, and borrow books, all in a central place that’s about a five-minute walk from the local Metro station. It’s a wonderful and natural synthesis of public and private space, one I’d love to see replicated more.
Whether or not your local branch is as hip as mine, a library is a great way to build community, learn, and save money with minimal impact on the environment. Be the solution

Clean coal: Holding the wolf by his ears

2009-03-12T12:30:00.002Z

I've written in the past about objections to the use of coal for generating electricity. Its mining, its use, and its disposal all have significant negative implications for human and environmental health. I've also written about why "clean coal" is a poor option for generating electricity in the United States. However, I write now in defense of research (and ultimately commercialization) of clean coal technologies.
The US has a wealth of options for generating electricity through technologies that can be used to phase-out coal. With an economy that, even while struggling continues to support a high standard of living and is central to the global economy and to new technology, we have the means to do this. I like to think we also have the will to innovate and do things better.
This is not true everywhere, though. China and India, two economies surging to a degree never before witnessed, are coal-rich and are wanting for electricity. China's coal, in particular, is high in sulfur, which results in smog and acid precipitation. And, of course, burning any coal introduces carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As these economies snowball, they will continue to demand energy at an accelerating pace. Coal is available to them now and into the future, and it is accessible by means of established, lower-capital technologies.
Coal is unhealthy. Coal is dangerous. But, coal is available. The result is that while the US forges ahead with more sustainable technologies for producing energy, we have to recognize that others will use renewable energy sources to supplement, rather than supplant coal.
This at once creates a need and an opportunity for the US. The need is clear: Pollution doesn't stay put. Many people outside of India and China (including Americans and others who impact US economic and military security) will suffer the ill effects of nations who prioritize old-fashioned means of economic development over long-term needs and human and environmental health. Coal is a mess that we have to deal with, whether we contribute to the mess or not.
The opportunity is equally clear: There is a massive potential market for clean-coal technologies in the developing world. If US scientists and engineers innovate, and US firms commercialize this innovation, this will create US jobs and US wealth.
"Clean coal" remains a misnomer. Coal, in general remains a poor fuel choice in the long run for a number of reasons. However, the real-world strategy to pollution control and prevention must recognize that others will use coal.

Image source: National Archives and Records Administration, ARC Identifier 556411

A hurried, half-considered question to the reader

2009-03-11T16:12:00.004Z

There's been a great deal written about Ponzi schemes over the last few weeks, as the case against Mr. Madoff (and potentially others) unfolds. In very brief (for those unfamiliar with Mr. Ponzi's legacy), this scheme is fraud in which a financial advisor collects money from investors, does little or nothing with it (and probably spends a lot of it), and pretends to be making a killing. The financial advisor touts his fake success to attract new investors who add new money to the scheme, thereby creating the illusion that it's actually making money. Investors believe that they'd be stupid to take their money out of a "fund" that's making so much money, so they simply keep reinvesting.
The party eventually runs out when the criminal advisor dashes-off with the money, or it becomes painfully evident that the "fund" is insolvent.
So that brings me to my hastily concocted questions to the reader:
Is a growth-only economy just a giant Ponzi scheme? Is a mindset that falsely pits economic well-being against environmental and human health a Ponzi scheme? Is reliance on increasing consumption of finite resources to run the economy a Ponzi scheme? Would a sustainable economy right the books?

The best thing since sliced bread, or Car trouble revisited

2009-03-06T00:01:00.006Z

Zipcar has proved its mettle sooner than I’d anticipated. Late Sunday I learned that the following evening I’d need to attend a city council meeting and to potentially speak about an environmental award. My wife had a longstanding commitment at the school where she teaches, also on Monday.
The complications:
1. Both meetings started at the same time, which also happens to be when our son goes to bed.
2. Our son is teething, which makes him exceedingly disinclined to go to sleep.
3. We just got rid of one of our cars. The plan was that we’d sign up for ZipCar, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
4. We didn’t know this at the time, but our son was also exceedingly disinclined to go to sleep because he was coming down with the stomach flu.
There was no way I could get the ZipCard in time, but I figured that since I had a few free minutes at lunch, I’d at least go to the web site and set up an account, so it would be available for the next mini-crisis. I spent about five minutes filling out forms on the website.
Bang. Twenty minutes later, I had my ZipCard in hand. In less time than it takes to have a fast food meal, I had the power to grab a car all over (and around) DC, and several other cities should the notion take me. As it turns out, you can pick up your card from a ZipCar office moments after filling out the online forms. (You can also get the card mailed to you, but where’s the fun in that?) The entire face-to-face piece of the transaction took about two and a half minutes.
So, I got on the web, reserved my car, picked it up from the Metro station after work, did the meeting, and was back home with Junior before you can say, “Bob’s your uncle”. I got where I needed to be in a hurry, did so in a fuel-efficient vehicle, and I’m not making car payments. ZipCar’s a winner.

Green is the new purple

2009-02-18T14:02:00.005Z

I apologize upfront for the bad joke about liturgical colors. (Sadly, I still think it’s funny.) But, it does make the point that some of the traditions of Lent blend naturally (and spiritually) with ideas for green ministry.
Many of us have known people who adopt a Lenten discipline, and some of us do this ourselves. (In brief, some Christian traditions enjoin adherents to fast, take a holiday from certain vices, or add structured reading or prayers to their daily routines during the 40 days of Lent.) Among other things, this practice is intended to exchange people’s focus on worldy things for a focus on God’s grace and the reasons we need it.
This year, I plan to participate in this tradition for the first time. However, rather than the age-old practice of giving up meat (that seems like cheating, since I’m a vegetarian), or a more contemporary discipline like parting with chocolate or TV, I plan to observe Lent by giving up disposable cups and bottles, and anything made of Styrofoam. I don’t use much of these, but I get lazy sometimes, and I think there’s a legitimate sacrifce in going from few to none.
This may at first seem a little odd, but it fits the bill for a good Lenten discipline. These are conveniences I can forgo to remind me to reflect on the coming Crucifixion and Resurrection, some of the most important principles of my religion, and arguably the most important points on the liturgical calendar. In this sense, my green discipline is no different from the traditional ones. But at the same time, this helps me to be a good steward of the natural environment and a good neighbor by producing less trash.
Some other ideas for green Lenten disciplines include:
Drink tap water instead of bottled
Adopt meat-free days each week, or go vegetarian until Easter
Abstain from driving one day per week
Avoid buying new goods (with the exception of food and other essentials)
Or serve the community directly by collecting trash and recyclables once a week at a local park or roadside

The possibilities are endless. If you’re interested in doing something green for Lent, but none of these ideas strike a chord, feel free to ask me about others.

Image source: Wikipedia

Clear cutting recovery

2009-02-12T21:30:00.005Z

Today's lesson is an exercise in recovery of a forest from clearcutting. In the summer of 2001 the land adjoining my land on the east was harvested by the landower (a lumber company). They clearcut some areas and left a few other areas more lightly cut. But they did take out everything bigger than 8 inches in diameter, and most of the small trees were destroyed during the logging. All of this left the land pretty much wiped out. Now, the laws in Oregon require that seedlings be planted after harvesting the lumber, and they even specify the density required -- I think it's a hundred seedlings per acre.

The photo shows what the land looks like after eight years of recovery. You're looking down a slope. In the distance you can see uncut forest (not virgin forest, but it hasn't been logged for some decades now). There's an edge of thin-timber forest about a hundred yards downslope; apparently the loggers decided to leave that section unharvested so as not to disturb the existing trees. On the right is a large bushy pair of madrones; the original trees were cut down and thrown away, but the trees have returned from the roots and will outpace anything else. In the foreground you can see two Douglas Fir seedlings. However, I do not believe that these are the results of any reforesting efforts on the part of the timber company, because where I have seen planted seedlings, they are all Ponderosa Pine, a tree better suited to the kind of dry slopes that the timber company has created.

Oh, and that cactus-like thing on the left is just a big weed.

I walked around the property looking for some good photos but these were the best I could get. That's because the loggers worked a patchwork, completely destroying about 70% of the land, but leaving about 30% in patches containing mostly younger trees. This 30% will provide some seeding for the rest of the land. And it also makes it impossible to convey the extent of the damage in a single ground-level photo.

Here are some general conclusions:

1. After eight years, the land has shown very little recovery. There are a goodly number of seedlings scattered about, but they're all less than 12 inches high, and even they average perhaps ten seedlings per acre.

2. There has been some growth of undesirable species, such as madrone and manzanita. I estimate that, 30 years from now, at least 30% of the land will be covered by madrone and manzanita.

3. Although the loggers burned a considerable amount of slash, about 1% of the land is covered by uncleared heavy slash that impedes the growth of new trees.

4. These guys did NOT plant 100 seedlings per acre. We walked the land immediately after they left, and we saw perhaps 20 seedlings per acre. Moreover, at least half of the new seedlings are volunteers, not the results of their own planting. Thus, the results of their reforestation yielded about five trees per acre. A mature forest in this area will have about 400 trees per acre.

I own several Van Gogh paintings, some dinosaur skeletons, and Abe Lincoln’s hat - And so do you

2009-02-11T12:03:00.001Z

See something da Vinci painted. Study the bones of an eons-old giant, armored fish. Honor the memory and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Marvel at bizarre Soviet space capsules. And, leave your money at home.
Like archives (which I wrote about some time ago), museums offer opportunities for people to make use of common wealth, to learn, and to interact with each other. By sharing artifacts and works of art with other members of our community, we enjoy their benefits without having to personally bear the costs for their protection and care. (How do you clean a stuffed chimpanzee in a space suit, anyway?) This public ownership and use is also a means for creating and building value without making more stuff that will just be thrown away.
For those who want to learn more about the natural environment, its histories, and the ways that other people (past and present) perceive and relate to it, many museums have much to offer. Aside from obvious option of natural history museums, many art museums and galleries offer exhibits on landscapes or nature photography, while history museums frequently tell stories of the reciprocal influence between people and nature.
For those living in the DC area, these treasures are offered to the public virtually every day, free of charge at the Smithsonian Museums and at the National Gallery of Art. For anyone in the area interested in an outlandishly cheap* way to be the solution there are some great environment-related exhibits going on now:

Freer + Sackler Galleries:
Winslow Homer: Four Views of Nature

National Air and Space Museum:
Looking at Earth
Earth Today: A Digital View of Our Planet

National Gallery of Art:
Oceans, Rivers, and Skies: Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, and Alfred Stieglitz

National Museum of Natural History:
Dig It! The Secrets of Soil
Orchids through Darwin’s Eyes
The Sant Ocean Hall

Smithsonian American Art Museum:
Accommodating Nature: The Photographs of Frank Gohlke
George Catlin's Indian Gallery
1934: A New Deal for Artists

And, if you’re not in the area to make the trip downtown, many of these exhibits and all of these museums have online collections and exhibitions.

*The museums are free, but you’ll probably want a Metrorail fare card to get to and from the Mall. And, remember to pack a lunch to keep costs down.

Image source: Smithsonian Museum of American Art

solving the fiscal crisis in Kentucky

2009-02-08T01:54:00.002Z

Kentucky, like 44 other states, is facing a fiscal crisis. Revenue coming from taxes and fees is not enough to cover budgeted expenditures. By law Kentucky cannot do what most people do when faced with this situation which is borrow money. While this is probably a good thing, it means that Kentucky’s legislators have only two choices: cut spending or increase revenue.

Not every penny spent by Kentucky's state government is essential. Governments are run by people, and people sometimes spend money on things we don’t absolutely need. When’s the last time you bought a candy bar or a soda? We all buy things we want that aren't really necessary -- sometimes things that are even bad for us. But state governments -- Kentucky's included -- like us, spends most of its money on essentials, and budget cuts would hurt the essentials.

One of those essentials is education which accounts for nearly forty percent of total Kentucky state spending. Kentucky lags behind much of the U.S. in many areas of education already. In 2004, while less than 15 percent of people over 25 in the country as a whole had not graduated from high school (or gotten a GED), more than 18 percent in Kentucky has failed to attain that important milestone. The gap in college attendance is even greater. In the U.S. as a whole about 28 percent received bachelors degrees or higher, while in Kentucky only 21 percent had done so. Education is clearly not an area that can tolerate cuts if Kentucky wants to compete with other states and other countries for businesses and jobs.

Another essential area is transportation that commands nine percent of the annual budget in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This has to cover all aspects of transportation from road, bridge and airport construction to maintenance and repair and snow removal. Most people would certainly consider the criminal justice system -- law enforcement, courts, prisons and probation to be essential expenditures, another five percent of the total budget.

Most people are aware of the role of state governments in education, transportation and criminal justice, but they often unaware of other essential state expenditures. Another kind of essential is the state funds given to communities for water and sewer, equipment and training for fire and rescue, flood control and stream improvement, water safety testing, and infectious disease control. If residents of Kentucky were to go to their local fiscal court, town or city council, and ask, I'm sure they'd learn that their local governments depend heavily on funds from Frankfort to provide services and infrastructure necessary for safety, security and health in local communities.

Most people often do not think about the fact that state funded licensing boards to insure the quality of service people we depend upon daily – doctors, nurses, dentists, counselors, barbers, hairdressers, pharmacists, engineers and many others. The news stories about salmonella in peanut butter illustrate what can go wrong when a state (in this case Georgia) does not spend enough on adequate safety testing and enforcement of food safety standards.

The real solution to the crisis is to raise revenues, by raising taxes. In the short run this probably means raising taxes on tobacco products. Kentucky under taxes cigarettes compared to most of the states surrounding it. The increased cost would not only raise revenue, but would encourage more people to quit. But it is a tax that hits low income people harder than others. In the long run the overall structure of taxes in Kentucky needs to be modernized. More tax money has to come from those with the ability to pay more, both in taxes on luxury and business services, reinstating the inheritance tax, and more progressive income tax that raises, slightly, the percentage paid by those with the highest incomes, such as proposed in both Kentucky HB 223 and HB 257.

Currently, Kentucky income tax is essentially a flat tax of 6 percent on all incomes over $8,000. HB223 proposes that individuals (NOT families) with incomes over $75,000 pay an extra 1% (7% instead of 6%) only on the proportion of income that exceeds $75,000 up to $90,000, and individuals with incomes in excess of $90,000 pay an extra 2% (8% instead of 6%) only on the portion of income that exceeds $90,000. In Kentucky all earners pay tax individually even if married -- married couples file separately but on the same tax form. This bill would NOT affect families with incomes of more than $75,000 as long as each individual person's income was less than $75,000. Indeed, families with two earners each making $74,000 (a family income of $150,000) would not be affected by this bill. An individual with an income of $100,000 would pay an extra 1% on the $15,000 between $75,000 and $90,000 (that's an extra $150 dollars), and an extra 2% on the $10,000 between $90,000 and $100,000 (that's an extra $200 for a total of $350 dollars more than they would be paying under the current tax system).

This does not seem like an unreasonable cost given all the benefits and services that we all gain from state government. When people think about who benefits from state spending they almost exclusively focus on the poor. But affluent people benefit as much or more from government spending. Affluent people travel more making more use of highways and especially airports, they make more use of libraries and parks, more likely to go boating on Kentucky lakes. Even if the affluent do not make direct use of public schools, colleges and universities (although a high percentage do), if they are business owners or managers their success in business depends upon subordinates and workers educated in public schools.

The irony is that even the benefits that people identify as "going" to poor people, actually go to middle class and affluent people. Take Medicaid. Poor people do benefit from having a medical card. They receive medical services and medicines that can save their life and keep them healthy. But the poor do not get any money from Medicaid -- the money goes to hospitals, doctors, home health companies, and pharmaceutical companies -- in other words to middle class, affluent and even to rich people (stockholders and executives in medical and pharmaceutical corporations). The majority of money spent on social services doesn't go to poor people, it goes to middle class social workers, therapists, psychologists and other people with graduate educations. It pays the fees, their salaries and their health insurance and pension payments of these middle class workers.

The more affluent you are the more your lifestyle and your economic position depends upon publicly funded resources. So what not pay a (very) small premium for those benefits?

On the providence of car-trouble

2009-02-06T15:18:00.009Z

It’s been a long time coming. My wife and I bought a used Pontiac Aztek years ago. We needed something to get me to and from the office, and it had to be a suitable weekend ride for our rambunctious basenji hounds. The vehicle fit our need and our young married-couple budget. From the beginning, the vehicle’s fuel economy didn’t set well with me. But, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and we weren’t the first owners, so I felt good about reusing an existing vehicle.
Alas, dear Aztek is about to join the departed. After this problem with the air conditioning a couple of years ago, that problem with the alternator last year, and a recent bout of overheating on a weekend trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains that ultimately resulted in a blown main gasket, it just doesn’t make sense to get it fixed.
With one of our two cars on its way out, I started considering my options: Hybrids, small conventional cars, and fuel-efficient diesel cars. I was wearing the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” blinders.
What I realized later the same day that I started researching new cars is that my family doesn’t actually need two cars. Our home is within walking distance of shops, restaurants, several parks and playgrounds, a library, and a movie theater. Moreover, we walk past (or through) a Metro station on the way to these places, where we can catch Metrorail, Amtrak, and MARC trains and Metro and Ride-on buses. And, we can pick-up a Zipcar there.
On the latter option, I find myself playing the proverbial kind in the candy store. For those unfamiliar with this grand idea, Zipcar is an updated take on renting cars. It’s also an Internet-age version of the WWII institution of car-sharing clubs, which began to help communities to conserve fuel. With a conventional rental car one goes to a rental office, fills out a bunch of forms, and gets the car for a daily rate. With Zipcar, the driver signs up for an account (once) online, and from the web can reserve a car at an hourly or daily rate. Zipcars are available all over the place- places like Metro stations, shopping centers, town centers, &c.
The benefits to the economy of my household and to the environment are several. First, I’m not adopting a car payment for a vehicle that will mostly sit in my driveway. Nor am I paying to maintain or insure said sedentary vehicle. Instead, I’m paying a comparatively miniscule amount to effectively own a tiny share of a car (a fleet of cars, really) with a large group of people. This allows me to have a second car on the rare occasion that I need one, but I'm not saddled with its expenses when I don’t.
The environment wins, too. Again, I will share a car with other people. The significant amount of energy and raw materials that go into producing the vehicle are spread out across a group. Most of the Zipcars are also small, fuel-efficient cars, with a goodly number of hybrids among them. And since the performance of the vehicles factors into their profitability, the company has a vested interest in keeping them well-tuned.
So, my wife and I are interpreting the end of our car as a blessing. Rather than complaining about environmental problems and going on with business as usual, we’re taking this opportunity to go from two cars to one. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Image sources:
National Archives and Records Administration. ARC Identifier: 516143
Zipcar

Trapped in Trade-offs

2009-02-02T17:10:00.002Z

One of the most interesting aspects of environmental economics is the complexity of the tradeoffs involved. In most political questions, the issues are more black-and-white than grey; you seldom encounter highly-nuanced, intellectually even-handed discussions of issues such as Iraq, torture, abortion, and domestic spying. But with environmental issues, trade-offs abound. For example, we now have broad agreement that our dependence upon fossil fuels must be reduced. Yet, one of our good means of doing so, nuclear power, raises issues of its own. So we discuss, debate, and never seem able to come to a settled conclusion.

I'd like to offer a micro-version of this problem: fire safety versus carbon sequestration. I am steward to 40 acres of forest land. The land has been much abused in the past; logging goes back at least a hundred years, and it has been seriously logged at least twice in the last twenty years. Fortunately, in neither case was the land clearcut; the owners left behind a goodly number of trees. In some cases this was only because the trees in question were unmarketable. Ponderosa Pines are subject to a process by which the trunk divides in twain twenty or thirty feet up; such trees, called schoolmarms, are unusable. We have a nice collection of schoolmarms on our land; they're the only big trees remaining. Some Douglas Firs undergo a related process that makes their trunks uneven; this also saves them from the chainsaw, and again, we have a nice collection of such trees. I've also planted thousands (I do not exaggerate) of seedlings, mostly Ponderosa Pine, but also some Douglas Fir. They're slowly growing in the areas denuded in times past.

But my problem concerns the handling of excess wood. There's lots of this. Twenty years ago an owner had horses, who chewed the bark on any oak tree less than eight inches in diameter. In many cases, the horses ringed the oak, killing it. In some cases, the horse couldn't get all the way around the tree, and a portion of the cambium was preserved, permitting the tree to survive and now, to recover. But these trees have their growth curtailed by the loss of cambium, and will always be structurally weak due to the exposed heartwood. In any case, I have at least a hundred dead oak trees on the land. It is a testament to the strength of oak that only about ten or twenty have fallen; the others are still standing 15 or 20 years after their deaths.

There are also plenty of dead firs. We had a bad drought about eight years ago. The firs started dying then, and the dying continued for about four years -- in the life of trees, everything happens slowly. Most of these trees were just a little too small to harvest during the logging 15 to 20 years ago, then grew to become the next generation of big trees, but died before that could happen. Hence we have a shortage of large trees on the land.

The Doug Firs don't remain standing as long as the oaks. Their root systems are shallow and their soft wood rots quickly. Every year about a dozen dead trees come down. I generate even more deadwood by my thinning efforts, and I also clear out the lower dead branches on the softwoods. All of this generates maybe 20 tons of dead wood every year.

If I want to do my bit for global warming, I should just leave all that deadwood in place. It sequesters carbon, keeping it bound up in the wood for decades. Eventually it will return to the atmosphere, but I can delay that process in a number of ways. If I leave the tree standing, it will last the longest, because it will remain dry. If it falls to the ground, then the soil moisture will accelerate its decay. Once a tree is on the ground, I could drag it off, cut it up, and burn it. And there's plenty of slash -- the piles of dead branches and small trees that I build when I cut up dead trees or thin sections.

But there's another factor to consider: fire safety. If a forest fire swings through this area, it could do enormous damage to the whole forest, as well as my house. Fire safety demands a number of practices:

1. Clear out all the thickets, pile everything into slash piles, and burn the slash piles in the winter.

2. Cut down all dead trees and burn the wood as firewood.

3. Thin the forest into something more like an open woodland rather then a dense forest.

But all three of these practices conflict with goal of carbon sequestration. If I want to sequester carbon, I should leave the dead trees standing so that they'll hold the carbon as long as possible. Moreover, slash piles provide cover for small animals; burning a slash pile kills its resident population. Thickets provide cover for deer; dense brush is necessary for small birds.

The trade-offs, as you can see, are almost impossible to balance. I have nevertheless struck a balance of sorts:

1. I leave dead oak untouched. Whether it's standing or fallen, it's best to just leave it in place. Why? Because it holds the maximum amount of carbon (it's dense); it holds onto that carbon longer (because it rots very slowly); and it poses the least fire danger (because it also burns slowly).

2. I haul off about half of the softwood for firewood. The firewood heats my house (I have a fireplace insert whose blowers I have augmented with boosters), so there's some overall benefit from burning the firewood. I leave the down wood in place where it wouldn't contribute much to the temperature of a fire or where the soil needs some more nutrients.

3. I throw some of the slash into the creek bed. This slows water flow in the creek, reducing erosion. The creek is too deep in some places; the slash will help fix this. Also, the slash in the creek will rot faster because of the increased moisture, putting more nutrients into the water and supporting (I think) a larger insect population, which in turn will provide a larger base to the food chain.

4. I just can't bring myself to burn the slash piles, even though in a fire, slash piles are very bad news. The fire penetrates the interstices of the slash pile and burns very hot, throwing out large numbers of hot sparks that advance the fire quickly. You don't fight forest fires by putting them out; instead, you keep them cool so that they affect only the ground cover and move slowly. Slash piles burn hot. My hope is that the slash piles will slowly compact, collect loess, and solidify enough before a fire comes through to make them less dangerous. After all, forest fires are rare; the last one to come through my valley was in the 1930s.

Those are my own trade-offs. But I'll never be sure that I've hit the right balance. If a fire hits sooner rather than later, the land will burn hotter and I'll end up losing more forest and maybe even the house -- and the larger fire will dump even more carbon into the atmosphere than would have been dumped had I burned the slash piles now. It's all a calculated risk.

American Suburbs

2009-01-18T02:16:00.002Z

Newsweek just published an interesting article on U.S. suburbs and I think it is a source of many discussions.

One such discussion revolves around the idea of regionalism, which is promoted on page 2.

Essentially, academics have been calling for regionalism for some time (i.e. looking at an area not as a city but as a region, such as planning around not just Philadelphia, but its suburban areas too). The reasons for regionalism are many - government consolidation, decrease taxes, business attraction, poverty reduction, and the like.

In particular, the article points to suburbs declining in economic status, while cities still find it difficult to attract innovative industries. Can planning on a regional scale solve this? Maybe, but local governments rarely find it possible to work cooperatively, especially in home rule states like PA and NY.

Maybe the economic crisis will spur different areas to move in this direction. For example, New Jersey politicians have started to talk about government consolidation as a means to reduce state debt and provide better services.

Do you think "regionalized" policy making would be better than a more micro scale approach?

The article points out correctly that people tend to move to the suburbs to "get away" from the city, be it from crime, noise, etc. Unfortunately, the act of forming active communities seems to take place less in the suburbs - often times to the point where neighbors don't know each other - something I have come across personally and in the academic literature. Such characteristics of suburbs seem to be a defining conundrum for policy makers even slightly interested in regionalism.

As the U.S. economy reorganizes itself and policy makers begin to want to reform education, the prison system, and economic development (among others), can regionalism make matters easier? Will cultural dynamics ultimately impede such efforts? Can cities and suburbs be viewed as one?

2009-01-17T21:50:00.002Z

I present here animage representing the extent of logging in Oregon. It started off as an image from Google Earth; it represents a section of land in southwestern Oregon about 10km north-to-south and 8km east-to-west, centered on (roughly) 43º 28' N, 123º 53' W. I then spent time closely examining the terrain, and color-coding it to represent the age of the most recent logging on the land. The dark green areas represent older forest, not touched by logging in the last 50 years. The light green represents areas that were logged, in my estimate, 30 to 50 years ago. Next come the yellow areas, which I guess to have been logged 20 to 30 years ago. The light orange areas represent sections that have been logged 10 to 20 years ago. Darker orange is for sections logged 5 to 10 years ago. Red is for areas that have been logged within the last five years. Gray areas represent roads, creekbeds, areas around structures, or areas that I could not categorize.

I suspect that I have been overly generous in assigning dark green areas; some deeply shaded slopes are hard to assess. They should not be assumed to be virgin forest; there is very, very little virgin forest left in southwestern Oregon. These are probably dry areas of very slow growth, whose larger trees were taken more than 50 years ago and have not been logged since then because they are both rugged and slow to regenerate. Brown would probably have been a better color to use.

Although remote from population centers and having few roads through it, this area is not quite a typical section of southwestern Oregon; it has a greater density of red than the average terrain in that area. However, most of southwestern Oregon, if mapped in this fashion, would be similar except for having less red. But it gives you an idea of just how pristine the forests of Oregon truly are.

Religion and environment: What gives?

2009-01-07T14:13:00.007Z

Many religions and many religious organizations and communities value some kind of community service, whether that be supporting soup-kitchens, alms-giving, building homes, supporting disadvantaged families, &c. The existence of organizations like the Evangelical Climate Initiative and Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light demonstrates that believers in various faiths are beginning to recognize the connection between the natural environment and community service in a religious context. The growing list of books that focus on (or at least address) religious underpinnings of environmental action, such as Earth-Wise, God in the Wilderness, Care for Creation, This is My Father's World, A Greener Faith, and Last Child in the Woods, suggests that an increasing number of people are exploring these connections.
At the same time, the Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics still declares that environmentalism is idolatry. Less than a year ago, evangelical leader Rich Cizik was censured for advocating that his religious community make battling climate change a priority. And, in my personal experience, I've encountered dozens of people who become furious at the suggestion that there is a religious mandate for improving environmental quality.
I call upon the reader to serve as a research assistant: Why does so much anger and opposition remain on this issue? Why do religious communities avoid adding environmental action to their portfolio of community service? Would your religious community be open to studying this issue? Why / why not?

Image Source: US National Gallery of Art

Environmental Ethics?

2009-01-05T20:06:00.002Z

I take a dim view of the notion of animal rights, not because I have any disdain for animals (we have 3 dogs, 7 cats, 2 ducks, and 3 burros) but rather because I have disdain for the notion of rights. A right is a moral axiom, a fundamental declaration that is itself not derivable from more fundamental considerations. In that sense, it's arbitrary; if you wish to declare that birds have a God-given right to have their nests free from disturbance, there's no argument that can be offered for or against it; it's just a declaration.

Nevertheless, I do not take an anthropocentric view of ethics; I do not consider the world as my domain that I may dispose of as I wish. I do consider that I may kill any animal that belongs to me, or even that I truly have possession of any animal. I am its caretaker, not its owner; it is my charge, not my chattel.

So how can I reconcile these two apparently contradictory positions? The answer I have been groping towards for some time lies in two similar but still distinct considerations. The first is kin altruism. We all concede that there is a sound moral basis for treating kin with consideration, because they share genes with us. If I suffer some small loss that provides a substantial gain for somebody who shares some of my genes, then genetically, if the ratios are right, I am still genetically benefited by that action. This principle can then be extended to all life forms, and it even takes into account genetic distance. Wantonly killing a chimpanzee, everybody agrees, is worse than wantonly kill a sheep, and wantonly killing a sheep is worse than wantonly killing a fish. Our notions of genetic distance seem to neatly coincide with our notions of our responsibilities to other creatures.

But there's a flaw in this line of thinking: do we consider relative genetic similarity or relative genetic difference? A chimpanzee shares something like 98% of my genes; does that mean that I owe him 98% of the same level of moral weight that I give a fellow human being? That seems wrong. I mean, does a chimp have a right to a fair trial? That seems silly. We don't even think of a chimp as having moral thinking. Besides, how do you cross-examine a chimp?

So it doesn't seem right to base the consideration on genetic similarity. Instead, we should probably think in terms of genetic difference, which would be based on the recency of our latest common ancestors. Thus, my brother, with whom I share two immediate common ancestors, deserves a lot more consideration than a cousin who shares common ancestors two or three generations away from me. And with some other random human being my most recent common ancestors may be a thousand generations away. The chimp, then, appears to be much more distant than a random human being, because our common ancestors are probably a million generations away.

That criterion seems at least rational, but there is another criterion, based on empathy. This is not so logical, but it is undeniable. The best example here is the baby harp seal. We look into the big soulful eyes of that mammal and feel lots of empathy, only because it shares some visual parameters with human babies. Yes, it's silly -- but can we deny our feelings? (By the way, I have a nice plush doll of a baby harp seal, for which I carved a little wooden club as a kind of accessory. It's good for my more nihilistic moods.) Still, the arbitrariness of this basis of evaluation leaves me unsatisfied. I just can't accept that koalas and harp seals are more deserving of our consideration than rats or opossums. Moreover, this device fails completely when applied to flora or invertebrates. How cute is a sycamore tree? The question is unanswerable. At least the genetic distance device can be extended to all living creatures.

Conclusions? I have none. These are thoughts for your contemplation.

My name is Adam, and I am 13.7 billion years old

2008-12-30T16:39:00.003Z

I’ve been spending my free time between semesters trolling scripture for a green ministry class I’m teaching this spring. Among others, I read from Genesis a couple of chapters I’ve read dozens of times and found a remarkable lesson. In the second account of creation (the one that appears in the second chapter), we find:

7 Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The earth’s physical attributes and every living thing we find here – past, present, or future – are inextricably connected. The surface of our planet is largely covered with water, which is full of salts, leached from rocks over the eons. Water vapor also permeates our atmosphere, which is itself mostly nitrogen, with some oxygen, carbon dioxide, ozone, argon, and other bits of this and that. Much of the solid portion of our soils (as well as the cocktail of dissolved solids in soil-water) is the result of rocks being physically and chemically picked apart.
From this nonliving environment bacteria, protists, plants, fungi, lichens, and animals build soil, fix nitrogen into chemicals useful to living things, and spin carbon dioxide and water into sugars and (with those useful nitrogen bits) proteins. We see that in a literal sense, living things, including humans are made of the nonliving “dust” of Genesis, along with the “breath of life”. We’re composed of the recycled leftovers of the begininng of the universe, squashed into stars and blown apart, squashed again into our Sun and Earth, worn ragged and perfect by relentless physcial and chemical action.
But we are not an end result. We are not the owners of all of this mineral wealth that is our physical selves. Instead, as we see in Gen 3:19, we will return all of this. Implicit in the “to dust you will return” is the macabre fact that our remains will wind through the long, slow cycles to become carbon dioxide, perhaps limestone, perhaps sea salt, and certainly part of other animals, plants, and living things so insignificant, we don’t bother to learn their names. Moreover, with every breath we take from the moment of our birth until we expire, we participate in this conversion of nonliving into living, and living into nonliving.
So what do we get out of this? Another somber reminder of mortality on the eve of a new year? No, instead we see that we’re blessed with much, but that we’re only caring for these gifts for a while. We see that we are temporary participants in creation, sharing everything with other living things, and that we are not alone in this role. Our gifts and responsibilities belong as much to our grandchildren’s grandchildren as they do to us and to our ancestors. We have a responsibility to take care of them.

Image source: Freer + Sackler Galleries

Google Earth versus the bad guys!

2008-12-28T19:05:00.002Z

One of the great things about Google Earth is its ability to show the world what's really going on around the world. An excellent example was its exposure of the destruction in Darfur, with burnt villages marked for all to see.

So this morning I got the brilliant idea (about five years after everybody else) that it might be nice to examine the extent of surface coal mining. As it happens, a quick Google search shows a number of websites that use aerial photography to present compilations of environmental damage:

http://www.skytruth.org

http://www.ilovemountains.org

I'm sure that there are more, but I was unable to find them without digging through lots of unrelated material. I'd therefore like to request readers to present links to any such compilations of which they are aware.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem, I present coordinates for a number of sites that I found in a small region of central West Virginia:

Lat 38º 20' 46" Long 81º 01' 25" 6 mile diameter

Lat 38º 26' 42" Long 80º 36' 37" 2.5 mile diameter

Lat 38º 29' 13" Long 80º 35' 45" 1.0 mile diameter

Lat 38º 23' 34" Long 80º 44' 22" .64 mile diameter

Lat 38º 25' 24" Long 80º 40' 59" .25 mile diameter

Lat 38º 24' 13" Long 80º 40' 58" .25 mile diameter

This last is an older surface mine site that has been partly grown over. What's interesting is the paucity of foliage. It appears to have some grass, but little else. And once you see that and learn to recognize the pattern, you'll find sites like this almost everywhere.

Not all non-forested areas are old strip mines. There are areas cleared for farms or homes; those are identifiable by the fact that they tend to line up in the drainage valleys. The valleys are often marked with public roads; if you see a line of open ground adjacent to a road, it's unlikely to be old strip mine. Structures are also contraindicators to strip mines. You might also be fooled by logging areas, which are brown and are most easily identified by a series of parallel dirt roads on a hill slope.

But where you see open, sparsely forested land away from a road, with no structures on it, it's probably an old strip mine. I think you'll be appalled at how much land is covered by them. And this does not show all the land that's affected. A lot of the spill goes into the watercourses below.

So take a Google Earth stroll over West Virginia sometime.

Bee the solution -- grow a meadow

2008-12-27T04:00:00.001Z

Like most Americans who pay attention to the news, especially environmental news, I had heard of "Colony Collapse Disorder" that has been killing off about one in three North American honey bee colonies each of the last several winters. However, I was not aware, until watching this TED presentation by Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the Acting State Apiarist for Pennsylvania's Department of Agriculture, was that native polinators like bumble bees, and bats, are also disappearing -- bats are disappearing at an alarming rate. The majority of fruits, vegetables and nuts we eat depend upon pollination by honey bees, so this, like all environmental problems, is a human problem and an economic problem, not just a "bee" problem. Watch, enjoy, and learn!

The most interesting and valuable suggestion that Dennis vanEngelsdorp makes in this video, is to replace your lawn (or at least part of it) with a meadow. Here's a way that ordinary citizens can be part of the solution to an environmental problem. A few years ago, I heard a speech by a horticulturalist who advocated (for a variety of environmental reasons) leaving a six to ten foot radius circle around major trees in your yard. We immediately instituted that practice in our 2/3 acre lot. There's lots of benefits of this, in addition to creating more habitat for polinators -- less time wasted on mowing the lawn, less gasoline is wasted, less noise and pollution is created, less greenhouse gases created, and many more butterflies, birds, and other wonderful creatures will find their way to your yard.

We need clearer price signals

2008-12-25T18:12:00.003Z

In economic theory, price is supposed to act as a signal to consumers as to the relative scarcity or importance of some good or service. In a perfect capitalistic system, the price allows everybody to balance their values against the availability of various resources.

Unfortunately, the market in the real world falls short of the ideal in several important ways; I would like to address what I consider to be the biggest shortcoming of the market: its steep discount rate. To put it another way, the market doesn't take the future into account very well.

An obvious example of this is the market for fossil fuels. Right now, lots of people are bidding for the earth's oil. But there are also lots of people who aren't participating in that marketplace: the unborn. Fifty years from now those people will need oil, too, but they don't get to put in their bid. Because they are not represented, the price of oil is cheaper than it would be if they were bidding, and so we consumers get a false price signal: burn up the oil now, it's cheap. Which means that fifty years from now those future folk won't get as much oil to use as we have. Not very fair, is it?

This problem should, theoretically, be handled by speculators. They should be buying up oil today and saving it for the future, figuring on making huge profits fifty years from now. But that's not happening, for two reasons.

First, nobody who has the money to buy up lots of oil today will be alive in fifty years. What's the point of investing money if you won't live to see the return on your investment? The life expectancy of a human being puts blinders on our investment strategies. It forces us to plan for the short term. If there were people with life expectancies of 900 years, you can bet they'd be investing in future oil. But since nobody will live that long, we just screw future generations.

The other factor that inhibits long-term investments is the uncertainty of the market. Hey, fifty years from now, civilization might be destroyed by thermonuclear war -- your ROI wouldn't be much in such a case. They might have gotten fusion energy working by then, in which case nobody would even want your stupid oil. Or the government might have confiscated your oil in a crisis. Who knows? There are so many uncertainties, it's just not safe planning that far ahead.

This innate economic short-sightedness also undercuts our efforts to stem environmental degradation. Who gives a damn about global warming -- it sure won't be a problem before I'm dead. It's a problem for future generations -- let them deal with it. Similar reasoning subverts all other efforts to protect the environment. Why should a 2008 person suffer in order to make life better for 2058 person?

What this really boils down to is a fundamental question that every society must answer: how much do we want to pass down to future generations? How much do we want to sacrifice to improve the lives of our descendants?

Here I will indulge myself in grand hypothesis-building. We all know that civilizations rise and fall, and theories as to what forces push a civilization through that arc are a dime a dozen. So here's my own $0.0083 worth:

I suggest that one of the factors driving the rise of any civilization is its sense of destiny. A civilization that considers itself to be on the cutting edge of growth into greatness will make lots of sacrifices for its children. I believe it was George Washington (well, it was certainly one of that crowd of tricorn hat wearers) who said, "I am a soldier today so that my children can be farmers and engineers, so that their children can be artists and poets." That's the spirit of sacrifice for the future. That Roman chap who stuck his right hand into the brazier just to show off to the Etruscan king just how tough he and his fellows were was doing the same thing. Societies on the rise are full of people who have seen too much suffering and want to build a better future.

But at some point, people in a society start to wonder why they should be making any sacrifices for the future. They undergo a fundamental shift in outlook: instead of seeing the world as a place of pain and suffering, they see it as a place of pleasure and leisure. That shift dooms a civilization; once people start thinking in terms of getting theirs while they can, they stop building for the future and start eating their capital.

I believe that America has crossed that point. You can see the shift in a thousand small places. Look at the response to oil shortages -- "Drill baby drill!" That's about as short-term as you can get. Or the response to global warming issues -- "Why should we have to suffer?" Or any of a thousand other problems.

But the most compelling indicator, to me, is the expansion of the national debt. The national debt is our way of borrowing from our children, a negative bequest of wealth. The gigantic rise of the national debt in the Bush years proved beyond any doubt that this country has given up on its future and seeks only to enjoy life while it can.

It could be argued that we are already bequeathing a huge amount to our descendants. For example, kids today are much better off than when I was a kid. They have great toys to play with, cell phones of their own, and computers. Lots of high school and college kids have cars of their own -- in my generation, most people didn't get their own cars until sometime in college or after. Plenty of kids get to travel to foreign countries -- my first trip outside the country came when I was 31. And air travel -- I think I was 24 the first time I flew. So there's no question that kids today are better off than they were 40 years ago.

But that doesn't mean anything about how kids 40 years from now will do compared with kids today. Past success doesn't imply future success. You've got to keep working at it all the time. And I think Americans are losing their sense of dedication to the future.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are full of optimism and excitement about the future of their civilization. They're saving their money to help their country grow, and they're planning for their kids' futures. In fifty years, China will be the world superpower, and the USA will be like Britain is today.

Rising earth greets Apollo VIII astronauts

2008-12-24T17:13:00.007Z

While orbiting the moon on Christmas Eve, 1968, the three-man crew aboard the Apollo 8 spacecraft—Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders—offered live holiday greetings from outer space. After describing the desolation and bleakness of the lunar landscape, the astronauts read from the first ten verses from the Book of Genesis. Commander Frank Borman concluded the historic interplanetary telecast—sent to an audience of half a billion people around the world—with the message: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”

This photo, taken forty years ago, reveals the second greatest gift humanity has ever received. In this oft-repeated image, we see how small and isolated our home is. We are reminded that this is a gift that we share with every member of our human family, including all of those who have come before us as well as generations to come.

Image and caption (italicized) from the National Archives and Records Administration

Coal River Wind -- a better way

2008-12-20T16:51:00.016Z

Coal River Mountain, West Virginia is slated by Massey Coal to become the next casualty of mountain top removal strip mining. This form of mining blasts the tops of mountains with dynamite, then hauls away tons of rock and soil, dumping this overburden in nearby valleys covering up streams and habitats. The photo on the right is Marsh Fork where some of the overburden of the projected Coal River Mountain mine will end up.

On the top left is Coal River Mountain as it looks to day, before any mining commences. The photographer is standing at the edge of an existing mountain top removal strip mine of what was once Kayford Mountain, looking southwest to Coal Mountain.
The bottom left an aerial view of what is left of Kayford Mountain, WV: an 11,000+ acre Mountaintop Removal coal mining site that sits just to the Northeast of Coal River Mountain.

A.T. Massey has already received permits that would allow them to engage in mountain top removal and valley fill operation on more than 3,000 acres of Coal River Mountain, and have two additional areas mapped, that would add and additional 3,000+ acres.

Local residents concerned about the impacts on the quality of life in their communities formed the Coal River Mountain Watch, and joined with regional and national environmental groups to suggest an alternative to mountain top removal -- a wind farm that would capitalize on the strong persistent winds on these West Virginia mountain ridges.

The coalition of groups funded a four month study of the economic potential of both the planned mountain top removal and the proposed wind farm. In sum, the study found that because the power generated by wind could continue indefinitely ("forever" as the fact sheet states), while the mine would be played out in 14 to 17 years, the proposed wind farm would generate both more energy and more dollars. Moreover,

"when externalities such as public health and environmental quality are factored in, a mountaintop removal mine ends up generating an economic LOSS of $600 million over its expected 17 year life. A wind farm on the other hand would remain profitable over the life of the wind farm. This means that when the true costs of mining are considered, the wind farm option wins hands-down." Rory McIlmoil, Coal River Wind.

The Coal River Mountain Watch and its partners are asking for support from you and others like you around the country, to generate more public awareness of the problems of mountain top removal and the possibility of economically viable, clean, renewable energy alternatives. Another goal is to create support for the national Clean Water Protection Act that would drastically restrict where the overburden from mining could be dumped, which would limit the scope of strip-mining and mountain top removal substantially. You can learn more about your own personal connection to mountain top removal and what can be done about it at I Love the Mountains.

Re-use, recycle, regret

2008-12-20T03:18:00.000Z

Benjamin Franklin was truly a remarkable fellow. He was the most famous and accomplished American until the Revolution, when he was eclipsed by Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and the rest of that crowd. I've always felt that Franklin was that most honorable of accomplished people: his accomplishments were not glorious victories or the amassing of huge wealth, but instead subtle small things insinuated deep into the culture. And one of his most successful means for doing that was Poor Richard's Almanack, which he peppered with clever adages extolling the virtues of thrift, hard work, and a reserved tongue.

I've been re-reading some of the old gentleman's adages, and I have found a few that are worthy of repeating:

Death takes no bribes

One good husband is worth two good wives; for the scarcer things are the more they're valued.

The poor have little, beggars none;

the rich too much, enough, not one.

Waste not, want not.

This last has now become a standard of our extended language, and it certainly plays a large role in my thinking. I feel badly about wasting things; it seems not just dumb but out-and-out wrong. Sending something to the dump when it still has some value bothers me a lot. If I do find it necessary to throw something away, I usually disassemble it to recover any parts that might be useful. Sometimes I take this to silly extremes. I once had to replace a shattered drive shaft from the power takeoff from my tractor. The break was at one end and so, when I removed the broken part, I found that it was a good three feet long, a 3/4" steel rod weighing at least ten pounds. This I just couldn't throw away. Fortunately, with 40 acres and three outbuildings, there's plenty of space for these odds and ends. And who knows, perhaps someday I'll find a good use for a ten pound steel rod. And if I don't, after I die the executors of my will shall have an odd time figuring out how to get rid of all the junk I've squirreled away.

But today I would like to relate another tale of the dark side of recycling. Two days ago a small fan of mine failed. It has been running continuously in a corner of my house for the last five years. Why? Because that corner is a nook that holds our upright freezer, which is a little too big for its nook. Accordingly, there's very little airspace for the air to circulate around the cooling coils, which means that the deepfreeze is quite inefficient. Did you know that your refrigerator and freezer are probably the biggest guzzlers of electricity in your house (unless you have electric heating)? That's because they run 24/7. So anything you can do to improve their efficiency is a good thing. That's why I set up this little fan.

It ran well for five years, but finally it developed some sort of mechanical problem and began making noise. So I dragged it up to my workroom and took it apart. The bearings appear to have locked up, so I cleaned them out and re-oiled them. It was a rather time-consuming task, and as I worked I wondered at the wisdom of spending so much time repairing a fan that could be replaced for ten dollars. But my sense of aesthetics demanded that I continue, so I got everything clean and smooth and re-assembled it. It didn't work. More disassembly, more diagnosis. After another hour of poking around, I finally realized that an internal connection in the coil had been broken. That's where I draw the line on repairs. I could probably fix it, but a small error on my part could have made the fan a fire hazard. So I gave up. All that saintly effort was a total waste of time. Not wishing to retire from the field in total defeat, I retrieved a few screws and nuts from the thing to put into my supplies. You never know when another screw will come in handy.

I wonder about the deeper motivations for my behavior. Is it a fear of irreversibility? Am I afraid that someday I'll be kicking myself, thinking, "If ONLY I had saved that tractor PTO drive shaft, I'd be able to deal with this problem today!" After all, I can always throw it away tomorrow. Am I prudently preserving my options are am I obsessively evading the inevitable? Is this, at some deeper level, a distant echo of a fear of my own mortality? It seems that obsessive saving of things is more common among old people -- is there some sense of identification with the discarded item? "I'm old and worn out, too, but I don't want to be thrown out, either!"

I really don't know. But I think I'll put this essay into my archives.

I respectfully dissent

2008-12-19T16:37:00.004Z

Since President-Elect Barrack Obama named evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, there has been no shortage of ire. The decision has been called “Appalling” by gay-rights activists. Others in the blog lines and a variety of media sources have suggested that the choice is antithetical to the idea of an inclusive administration, or that it is divisive. While I'm on the subject of Pr. Warren's positions, I disagree with him on a few points. So, apparently, does Mr. Obama.
But, I applaud this choice. Far from “divisive”, this choice suggests a legitimate commitment to a dialog between dissenting opinions. It could also be regarded as a statement to those who voted against Obama that he plans to work for them as well as his supporters. Ending division isn’t accomplished by squashing dissentors (see US political history, 1776-present).
Only time will tell whether the Obama administration will actually part with the tradition of banishing and scapegoating those who disagree with the reigning party, and exacting four years of blind revenge on the leaders of other parties and ideologies. However, Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren suggests that the President-Elect acknowledges that a diversity of opinion and belief exists, and that disagreement on one issue doesn’t preclude cooperation on another. Moreover, this selection recognizes the plain truth that leaders from across the ideological spectrum can and must work together to realize meaningful change.

Regulating CO2 Emissions - a cautionary tale

2008-12-18T21:52:00.015Z

Last month, November 13, 2008, to be exact, the Environmental Appeals Board of the EPA, handed down an important decision [the complete text of the decision can be read here]. The decision concerned a permit granted Deseret Power Electric Cooperative, which would have allowed construction of a new waste-coal-fired electric generating unit at Deseret’s existing Bonanza Power Plant, located near Bonanza, Utah.

In 2007, the Sierra Club presented a challenge to this permit, and sought to have it reviewed on the grounds that a) EPA's Region 8's office that granted the permit " failed to adequately consider “alternatives to the proposed facility;" and b)Region 8 failed to "apply “BACT,” or best available control technology, to limit
carbon dioxide (“CO2”) emissions from the facility." The first issue (a) was set aside and not considered by the Environmental Appeals Board. It was on the second issue that the ground breaking decision was made.

The Environmental Appeals Board determined that EPA Region 8 had inappropriately dismissed the application of a BACT (best available control technology) standard out of hand. Region 8 argued that had not imposed "a CO2 BACT limit in the Permit" because "it lacked the authority to do so."

The Environmental Appeals Board essentially said that the EPA (and EPA Region 8) DID have the authority to impose a CO2 BACT limit, and therefore must consider such a limit. The Appeal decision does not require a BACT limit to be imposed in this case, only that the reasons given (lack of authority) could not justify the lack of a BACT limit. The Appeals Board decision stated:

"Accordingly, we remand the Permit for the Region to reconsider whether or not to impose a CO2 BACT limit in light of the Agency’s discretion to interpret...what constitutes a “pollutant subject to regulation under this Act.” In remanding this Permit to the Region for reconsideration of its conclusions regarding application of BACT to limit CO2 emissions, we recognize that this is an issue of national scope that has implications far beyond this individual permitting proceeding. The Region should consider whether interested persons, as well as the Agency, would be better served by the Agency addressing the interpretation of the phrase “subject to regulation under this Act” in the context of an action of nationwide scope, rather than through this specific permitting proceeding."

This ruling recommends that the EPA to develop "best available control technology" (BACT) limits for CO2 emissions that would apply across the nation to all new construction or additions to coal fired electrical generation facilities.

But what is the "best available control technology" when it comes to limiting CO2 emissions? Although "clean coal" has been bandied about by the coal and electricity industry for several years, the actual technologies this term applies to are still for the most part on the drawing board, or deployed in small scale research settings only. Short of carbon capture, some existing technologies that reduce CO2 emissions include co-generation (of heat and electricity) or recycling, and co-firing with biomass. Simply determining the minimum possible CO2 emissions of existing highest efficiency conventional coal-fired technology is a challenge that will have to be met.

Many environmental organization and blogs hailed this decision as a triumph that would put a complete stop to permits for new coal-fired electricity generation. But the decision falls far short of that. EPA Region 8 can decide against imposing BACT limits on CO2, it just cannot use the same set of reasons (lack of jurisdiction or authority to set such limits).The Appeals board only recommends (nor requires) that Region 8 consider its decisions as part of a larger national policy. While the ruling makes the development of CO2 BACT limits more likely, the imposition of such limits on any particular new construction or expansion of an existing plant must also include considerations of economic impacts.

It could take months, or even years to establish meaningful BACT limits for CO2 emissions. Environmental Appeals Board decision does not require that all new permits for coal-fired generation wait until those limits have been established, although it certainly can be seen as recommending this action. Much will depend upon how the new Obama administration decides to respond to the Appeals Board ruling.

From crappy Pampers to happy campers

2008-12-12T12:22:00.003Z

This was a tough one. I try to do my part to minimize my negative impacts on my local environment, and I make time to volunteer and undo other people's negative impacts. So every time I threw away a disposable diaper, I cringed a little. Diapers are made of plastic and paper, which means landfilling persistent waste and cutting trees. But, I cringed even more at the thought of everything you have to do with cloth diapers. I also thought about a diaper service, but this still means dealing with cloth diapers and it means the diaper van makes a couple of trips to the house every week.
As it turns out, I was dead-wrong about cloth diapers. The image that kept creeping into my head, that of trying to work origami out of a cloth square, in the dark, while wrestling with a squirming baby, is just a piece of historical fiction. Unbeknownst to me, cloth diapers had secretly become smartly designed and easy to deal with at some point in the recent past. Several vendors make fully reusable diapers, and at least one makes what I'll call "hybrid diapers" that include a disposable pad in a reusable shell. Forget big cloth squares and safety pins. The new ones are contoured, don't require a bunch of folding, and rely on Velcro.
My wife and I have been using Bum Genius diapers (one of the fully reusable types)since the baby was about 10 weeks old (he's now 9 months old), and they've been working great. They're easy to get on and off and they clean easily and completely. We haven't had any more problems with leaks than with disposable diapers. My back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit analysis tells me that we've already recouped the initial investment, even allowing for some very rough recurring costs for water and energy to keep them clean.
That said, it does take longer to change the diaper, because it has to be rinsed after use. And, once in a while, there is that moment of abject panic when I open the diaper and realize that I have to clean it. Also, this is not a solution that lends itself to being away from home for long. My wife and I still use some disposable diapers when we're out. However, we've cut our use of disposables by about 3/4.
Be aware that this involves the Fundamental Waste-Water-Energy Trade-off. When we trade a disposable product for a reusable one, this generally means that we increase our local use of water and energy to maintain the reusable product. This becomes even more confusing, when you consider all of the water and energy that goes into producing the disposable products vice the reusable one, and all of the energy (and potentially water) that goes into disposal. Of course, disposable diapers are also largely made from pulp, which is made from trees; there are some petroleum-based plastics and adhesives thrown-in for good measure...
Needless to say, a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis would be tedious and time-consuming (I might use the word "torturous"), if not impossible. So we have to use what we know about our respective situations, toss in some common sense, and make our best estimate as to whether or not this is a good choice for a particular household.
If you live in a place with water issues like Phoenix, Atlanta, or near the Ogalala Aquifer, washing lots of reusable diapers probably isn't an environmentally sound decision. In those areas, water conservation is likely a more important issue than the municipal solid waste stream. For someone like me, living on the edge of Megapolis, in an area with ample water, the reduced waste that comes with the reusable diapers is a good option.
Think about your own situation and decide whether or not this works for you. If you're not sure, ask friends who know local environmental issues, consult Google, or post some questions here.
Oh, right, "Be the solution."

Image courtesy of the author.

Some Questions.

2008-12-09T01:20:00.002Z

Here are some questions (loosely themed) that have been provoking some thought that I thought best to just propose:

1. What happened to the symbiotic relationship between employer and employee?

2. Related to above, why has society allowed this relationship to degrade?

3. Is there a happy medium between the two extremes of hyper capitalism and hyper socialism?

4. If fidelity to the prosperity of our children is a stated ideal of our morality, then why have we as a society knowingly let it slowly degrade over the past decades?

We Can Do It!

2008-12-05T12:31:00.009Z

I’ve written before about the importance of conservation, though in many cases, I’ve assumed that its impacts go without saying. I recently ran across a simple analysis that may help me to articulate why I see energy (and other resource conservation) as the crux of an energy solution, rather than icing on the cake.
Consider the example of an incandescent light bulb in a lamp in your home, powered by electricity from a coal-fired power plant. This is a typical, though somewhat simplified scenario:
Coal is a source of chemical energy. Converted to thermal energy (heat) in a furnace, we lose about 15 percent of its energy to inefficiency, limitations of insulation, moving fluids and fuel, &c. We convert this thermal energy to mechanical energy by means of a turbine that loses more than half of the remaining energy overcoming friction and other impediments. The generator loses another 5 percent, while transmission, distribution, and grid congestion claim almost 10 percent more. The bulb itself converts electricity to light with about 5 percent efficiency (95 percent of the energy is wasted). The end result is that the light from the bulb represents a more than 98 percent loss of energy from the original coal. Put another way, every unit of light energy saved conserves 60 times as much chemical energy in the form of coal. That doesn’t include the energy spent mining, processing, and transporting the coal to the power plant, nor disposing of the 1000 tons of waste that a medium-size coal-fired plant produces in a day.
It turns out that Mom was right. We really should turn out the lights when we leave the room. Evidently, it actually conserves about 60 times more energy than it seems to. How’s that for an easy way to be the solution?

Image source: Victoria & Albert Museum

Mountain streams on the losing end

2008-12-03T16:35:00.009Z

On Monday December 1, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency approved a rule change by the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) that would allow the dumping of rocks, dirt and sludge from mountaintop removal in stream areas. The rule change essential exempts mining overburden (the rock, soil, and sludge removed to access coal in strip mines and mountain top removal) from the definition of "waste" that is prohibited from being dumped in seasonal and ephemeral streams.

This rule change has been eagerly sought by the coal mining industry, while opposed not only by environmental organizations, but also by top government officials in coal mining states such as Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, Kentucky Congressman Ben Chandler, and Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen. Grassroots citizens organizations such as "I love Mountains" and "Kentuckians for the Commonwealth" which include hundreds of coal county residents among their numbers have actively campaigned against this rule change.

This change sought by the Bush administration has already been approved by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The Department of Interior, which includes the Office of Surface Mining will make the change to the rule final in December after briefing members of Congress, and it will go into effect in another 30 days -- roughly about the time that the new Obama administration is sworn into office.

Administrative rule changes like this take time to develop. This particular rule change was first introduced in 2004. A complex process of hearings, comment periods, and reviews by other agencies (such as the EPA) are required before rule changes can occur. While the Department of Interior must brief members of Congress, there is no requirement of legislative approval. Consequently, it could take as long to undo this rule change (should the Obama administration make that a priority) as it did to create it. In the meantime, thousands of additional miles of streams in central Appalachia will join the more than 700 miles of streams that have already been buried due to lax enforcement of the existing rules.

The consequences of this rule change extend far beyond the central Appalachian mountains, to all the urban and suburban areas that are dependent upon river and stream fed lakes for their municipal drinking water.

Green Friday

2008-11-26T12:11:00.001Z

Some BIA readers will no doubt plunge into the mayhem that is Black Friday. I will be laughing at you from the comfort of my home or a nearby park.
As much as I rail against consumerism, giving gifts is important. It’s part of our culture and it’s part of just about every culture. These days, it does also seem to contribute the accumulation of a whole lot of stuff that people don’t really want, or at least don't want for long. There’s also that whole awkward situation, wherein some relation or friend who doesn’t really know you gives you something for which you have no use, no room, and no interest. Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for anything someone sees fit to give me as a gift, and make a genuine effort to put it to good use.
Fortunately, there are some good ways for gift-givers to reduce their impact, which don’t involve stealing Christmas, declaring it a humbug, or being a complete ass to friends and family. Be the solution:
An event is a great way to do this. Tickets to a game or a performance are good options. Keep in mind that most restaurants also have gift certificates, as do hip local inns that serve good spätzle or have a superb collection of whiskies. Once the event is done with, there’s nothing to throw away. (Caveat, caveat, caveat.)
A carefully selected bottle of wine or small batch bourbon (or other spirit of choice) is another good option. This will be consumed, its container recycled.
Some gifts have already enjoyed a long and useful life. Antiques and other vintage goods (denim, vinyl, musical instruments, books, &c) don’t require the expenditure of new raw materials or energy to produce and they’re more likely to find another home than a trash can in the future. Similarly, works of art are gifts of enduring value with comparatively small environmental impacts.
Buy locally produced products. These gifts haven’t traveled as far, which means less energy has been used in their transport. Buying local can also avoid some of the public health and environemntal problems associated with production in countries with poor health and safety, environmental, and labor laws.
If you’re even a little unsure, give a gift receipt with your gift. And, equally important, don’t be offended if your gift is exchanged for something else.
There is of course the more esoteric stuff. For instance, know the person you’re giving the gift to, and give something that will be meaningful, rather than simply trying to rack-up dollars spent. Don’t get bogged-down in giving so much stuff. That’s not at all the point, and recipients (especially children) will learn to appreciate their gifts more if they’re not overwhelmed by volume.
Finally, keep in mind that while exchanging gifts is what we do, the important parts of the exchange are the people, not the things.

Image source: Paper Crave

Wake up

2008-11-14T14:56:00.002Z

This past weekend, my wife and I joined some friends for a pseudo-annual trip to Shenandoah National Park. This was our son’s first such excursion, though in general he is no stranger to public parks, national or otherwise.
We generally make the trip this time of year, a couple of weeks after the leaves have done their thing. We find that the Sleepwalking Masses are no less ephemeral than the pumpkin-colored xanthophylls that paint the trees for a week or two. I like it that way.
Alas, this year they seem to have hung-on longer than the leaves. Who are they? They leave cigarette butts or spent Evian bottles here and there. They everywhere talk loudly on cell phones and complain how bad the reception is in the park. They drive, no matter how short the distance, including the 0.3 mile stroll from the lodge rooms to the dining room. They make snide remarks about Virginia wines and local accents. They encourage their lethargic children look up for a moment from their horde of electronics only to throw Skittles to the whitetails. They spend more time in the gift shops than on the trails, and when they do hike, they complain about how far the falls are from the parking lot. These are the people Ed Abbey loved to hate in Desert Solitaire. The chestnut blight and the gyspie moth are less of a scourge on the park than are the Sleepwalking Masses.
Understand, I have no ire for ignorance. We are a culture blinded by consumption and suburbia. It is a sad state, but an honest one; it is a state not to be insulted, but corrected with an open mind and an appreciation for great and enduring things. I don’t begrudge a new visitor trying to make sense of the savage order of nature, anymore than I would think ill of my infant son for trying again and again to crawl and feed himself, or a student for picking up a new book.
Indeed, I was quietly gleeful to see the curtain of ignorance pushed aside: My godson momentarily befriended another boy about his age, as kindergarteners will do. The other lad hastily disentangled himself from an iPod, and they both stood grinning with bated breath at the cartoonish celerity of a chipmunk darting in and out of a woodpile. The two positively cackled when the cheeky little beast acknowledged them and instantly rendered itself invisible. Children always understand chipmunk humor better than adults do.
I don’t aim to discourage anyone from visiting a park. Rather, I want to encourage those who make the trip to actually experience the place. This means watching and listening. It means extending courtesy to the other visitors to the park, including those who have yet to arrive. It means respecting the land and the living things whose lives are woven into it for more than the length of a weekend trip. It means submitting to power of western mountains devouring the Sun or to the subtle alchemy of green shield lichens slowly, slowy, slowly consuming a boulder.
Wake up, sleepwalkers.

The Finish Line Seems So Far Away

2008-11-11T16:43:00.002Z

BIA was created to explore the intersection of the many issues facing all of society in the one and only home we have - Earth. All of these issues, at some level, require people of different cultures, sex, religion, race, and orientation to come together and find a consensus of how to move forward.

How can we expect, then, to become a sustainable society, end poverty, create an economy that aims to raise the standard of living, and establish a peace-filled Earth on all continents if we cannot come together as a people and provide equal freedoms and rights to all.

While this blog is not necessarily focused on discussing social issues, I believe it clear that the only way true and comprehensive solutions to the big issues facing us will occur is when we stand up and say ENOUGH to hatred and discrimination of our neighbors, countryman and women, and fellow members of Earth.

a modest proposal

2008-11-08T20:19:00.004Z

General Motors announced last week that they will run out of cash (liquidity) by the middle of 2009 unless the economy and sales recover or the government steps in and gives them money.

Here is an industry that has been in trouble repeatedly for the past 30 years. The American automotive industry has required numerous bailouts, loan guarantees, and other financial assistance to stay afloat since 1970. In return they have reduced their American workforces (even in good times) with automation, outsourcing, and shifts in the location of production; and they have produced huge hulking gas guzzling monstrosities that American consumers were already turning their backs on before we moved into genuine recession.

General Motors themselves have been in serious financial trouble since at least 2005, when the company announced massive layoffs of 30,000 North American employees reducing their workforce to 143,000 salaried and hourly workers by the middle of 2005.

The argument against letting the automotive industry fail (as they most certainly deserve to) has always been that it would be a death blow to the American communities where they operate and to the families of the thousands of workers employed by the automotive industry.

The size of the bailout that GM is seeking has not yet been mentioned, however, one can guess from the fact that GM burned "through $6.9 billion in the September quarter" (CNN today) that any bail out request is likely to be in the range of ten billion or more.

As stated above, in 2005 GM had 143,000 salaried and hourly workers in North America (this includes Canada and Mexico as well as the United States). In April 2008 GM laid off 3,500 workers from their 80,000 North American hourly workforce, bringing their hourly workforce down to 76,500 workers. Then in June 2008 GM pared their hourly workforce even more through buyouts of some 19,000 hourly union workers, bringing the hourly workforce down to 57,500. GM salaried workforce has also been cut back to 32,000 in 2008. So an estimate of the GM North American work force (including Canada and Mexico) is 89,500. Let's say for the sake of argument that at least 80,000 of those workers are in the U.S. Let us also say for the sake of argument that GM would only ask for $10 billion for a bailout.

Well I have a suggestion -- that will probably not be seriously considered by anyone in a position of decision-making authority. What if instead of giving that money to General Motors, we let General Motors go bankrupt and out of business and we give the money directly to each and every individual who worked for General Motors in the United States.

Ten billion dollars divides up among 80,000 workers to $125,000 a piece. Suppose we say that the federal government will replace every single General Motors employees income for two years up to $60,000 a year -- folks that make more than $60,000 will just have to suffice with that. All employees would receive two full years of income, even if they found work again before the two years was up. Moreover, let us also require the recipients to pay income taxes, but not social security taxes (which are only assessed on "earned" income any way). They would not be eligible for unemployment insurance, but the federal government would also pick up the tab for paying General Motors portion of their workers health insurance, while the former workers would pay the same premiums they did under GM. Release from social security payments would give GM employees slightly more money in their pockets for two full years, during which they could go back to school, enter apprenticeships or any other form of education or training they wished to pursue. They could relocate, and take the two years of money with them. They could start their own small businesses.

This will probably be labeled as naive, but it seems to me that this would do much more to put our economy on sound ground than to give more to a company that hasn't seemed to figure out how to do it right for decades.

Armchair Politicing

2008-11-08T18:33:00.003Z

With high hopes and the opportunity for breakthroughs on issues ranging from health care to foreign policy to the economy, every pundit, blogger, and concerned citizen seems to be offering what they would do if in President-Elect Obama's position come January 20th.

With that, I offer my own proposal - his second policy goal should deal with energy.

I think it is widely and justifiably expected that his first act will be to come up with a series of economic proposals, many of which he outlined in his first press conference Friday. Looking past his proposals of extending unemployment benefits, infrastructure projects, and the like, I believe Obama should then turn his focus to energy.

The reasons are three-fold:

(1) Currently, there is vast public support for a new national energy plan. The latest post-election poll pegs US support at 78%. With such support, passing a comprehensive energy plan would continue the excitement among voters and calls for bipartisanship that have been made both inside and outside of Washington.

(2) Within a similar context to the first reason, a comprehensive energy plan is a much easier "win" politically than other Obama-proposed reforms like health care. A consensus can be forged in Congress as long as the proposal includes offshore drilling for oil, a policy that directs oil companies to use the land they already have and don't use, as well as more directed research and development of alternative energy. Building off of that consensus can be other policies such as a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard, increasing the Renewable Fuel Standard, or the focusing of infrastructure projects on upgrading our electric grid for alternative uses.

(3) Such policies can be framed within an economic context. The fabled green economy can be realized if the US gets truly serious about alternative energy and vehicles, as well as sustainability. A huge push for energy legislation directly after implementing specific economic policies, would show the world the US is serious and provide a good framework for future work towards a new, sustainable economy.

With that in mind, many pieces of legislation have been offered in the past few months that could be the source of discussion, two of which follow:

(1) 21st Century Energy Technology Deployment Act - Introduced in both the House and Senate, CETDA would focus on upgrading our electric grid and move to further deploy many of the alternative energy technologies the US has to the market. It sets targets for the efficiency of different alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar and it charters a 21st Century Energy Deployment Corporation that would act as the vehicle for implementing future technological breakthroughs.

(2) Green Energy Production Act - Introduced by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, GEPA would create a specific green energy corporation within the Department of Energy, that would consist of both public and private members, to focus federal research and development efforts on green technologies. The corporation would direct grants to higher education organizations for R&D as well as towards projects aimed at commercializing products.

In both cases, the idea is clear. The US needs a focused effort to mobilize the, what seems like, haphazard group of federal and state R&D labs and universities working on energy efficient technologies. Such a one-two punch of economic-energy policies would move the US in a prosperous (in my opinion) direction.

Bitter Sweet Night?

2008-11-05T18:48:00.004Z

The fight against discrimination in America took a giant leap forward last night, but also a number of steps backwards. On the day the United States overwhelmingly voted in the first African American to the White House, thus taking a giant leap forward in their battle for equality and justice, they also voted to discriminate against the gay community.

In Arizona, California, and Florida voters stated their preference to not allow gay couples to marry. In Arkansas they expressed their preference to not allow gay couples to adopt.

It seems that while after decades of discriminating against African Americans, many Americans are continuing or transferring those feelings towards another cultural group.

So, while yesterday was a proud moment in the United States history it was also bitter sweet. It shows how much more work needs to be done to end unnecessary hatred, inequality, and injustice in our communities.

Image Source: Athens, Ohio Post

How do you feel?

2008-11-05T14:43:00.003Z

Image source: National Museum of American History

(I will follow)

2008-10-31T12:49:00.007Z

I set out to write about traveling on foot rather than by car. I had in my head the benefits to personal health and finance that come from walking the quarter-mile errand or parking once at the sprawling shopping center and walking from shop to shop. There is of course the environmental benefit that this practice uses less fuel, which reduces impacts from producing, transporting, and burning fossil fuels. And, there is a diagonal benefit for those people who would otherwise drive to a gym and spend time walking in place.
However, my son’s recent fascination with fallen leaves, a phenomenon he experiences now for the first time, uncovers some of the less tangible and perhaps more valuable benefits of walking. Walking takes us steps away from the built environment, and steps closer to our natural environment.
Thoreau writes in Walking, in his charmingly confrontational style,
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
Pirsig follows a related train of though in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when he describes how different it is to travel on a bike, exposed to the elements and part of the landscape, as opposed to traveling by car, where the real world is something separate and framed like an image on television.
I think Thoreau misses (or more likely avoids) the truth that people are part of both nature and society. However, focusing on the former, he offers important insight. Hidden in buildings, riding in cars, squeezed between earphones, and blocked from the real world by television, it’s no wonder we as a society don’t understand environmental problems or why they are fundamentally important to people. The world around us changes year by year, season by season, day by day, and minute by minute. But we set the thermostat to the same number, year round. We buy grapes in the dead of winter from the same shelf we do in the height of summer, oblivious to the convoluted feat of international trade that makes this possible. We turn the tap, unaware of whether the reservoir is ready to spill its banks, or if it has receded to leave expanses of dry mud. Distracted by a television, we don’t know if the geese have yet passed for the season, or that the Eastern bluebird has come back from the edge.
Even if only for a moment, taking a step out the door pushes away the curtain of our ignorance. Walking through the neighborhood reveals some sliver of all of the natural systems upon which our lives are built. A walk in a nearby wood or farm field is an opportunity to learn. The conscious walk makes clear the habits of water and wind and begins to explain the riddles of thistle and finch.
Save some gas, open your eyes, be the solution, walk away, walk away.

Image source: ER Dunhill

The great pumpkin

2008-10-31T12:36:00.006Z

Halloween was a big event at my house when I was growing up. My mother donned a tall black hat and a black cape and became a witch, attended by our two black cats. My brother and I would, weeks in advance, sketch plans for our costumes with particular attention to the faces, and get to work repairing or building moulds and pouring liquid latex. This would yield flexible scars, open wounds, heavy brows and jaws, and other ghastly bits. On the big night, we'd adhere this stuff to our faces and hands, cover it with grease paint in some putrid color, don meticulously-torn clothing amended with dirt and charcoal dust, and tour the neighborhood as zombies or ghouls.
This holiday seems to be in a state of flux, with communities pushing trick-or-treating toward more convenient days and times, many communities doing away with it all together, and people instead attending parties here and there.
I’ll put some questions to the reader and ask, “How can one be the solution for Halloween?” What are some easy ways that people can green all of the accoutrements of this most excellent holiday?

Image source: Some flickr page that I randomly looted

Redress of grievances

2008-10-27T16:12:00.003Z

As the Washington Post and several other newspapers reported Thursday, the Maryland State Police recently distributed letters to 3 members of the nonprofit group, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, indicating that the state had maintained records and gathered intelligence on those 3 individuals as suspected terrorists.
This organization seeks to educate citizens and advocate for clean energy in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. It’s based just a short Metrorail ride from my home in the MD suburbs of DC. And while I’ve never been affiliated with the group, I have known several people, mostly high schoolers in need of service learning hours, who have volunteered with them. CCAN describes itself:
“The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to educate and mobilize citizens of this region in a way that fosters a rapid societal switch to clean energy and energy-efficient products, thus joining similar efforts worldwide to halt the dangerous trend of global warming.”
A nonprofit group with an office in Takoma Park, MD, which recruits volunteers to write letters to the editor, send postcard mailers, hold peaceable rallies at the Statehouse during critical votes, or pass-out fliers about wind turbines and light bulbs, doesn’t seem like a terrorist breeding ground to me. Even recognizing that members of the organization engaged in an act of civil disobedience (several members were given citations for laying in a roadway to block access to a coal-fired power plant in MD), this is not the kind of organization that engages in monkeywrenching, let alone violent terrorism. The CCAN members on the list as potential violent terrorists have no criminal records.
I’m generally concerned that the state government seems to be indulging in the fiction that environmentalism is somehow intrinsically linked to terrorism. It’s not. That’s worth restating, in no uncertain terms: Environmentalism is not a fringe or radical movement and it is not a front for vandalism or domestic terrorism. Suggestion to the contrary is not only profoundly ignorant, but insults thousands of Marylanders who work or volunteer their time to improve their communities.
I’m concerned that the actions of the Maryland State Police may not have been this general or accidental. Among the Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s platforms has been opposition to the Inter-County Connector, a planned multibillion-dollar stretch of highway in the Washington, DC area. Pushing the ICC through was among the central platforms of Maryland’s former governor, who was in office during the period that the CCAN members were labeled suspected terrorists. This concern over abuses of power becomes more pronounced, in light of similar listing and surveillance of members of other groups that opposed the governor’s politics, such as anti-death penalty, anti-war, and pro-choice groups. The appearance that politics may have been the motivation behind black-listing these individuals is troubling.
I remind my government:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The right to peaceable assembly, the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and freedom from unreasonable searches are outlined in the US Constitution. I believe Maryland’s government owes its citizens an explanation.

So, where does that leave us?

2008-10-21T18:16:00.004+01:00

Prometheus has a very thought provoking post up on Europe's approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert climate change. Many climate change activists have pointed to Europe as a "laboratory" for climate change policy methods in much the same way that the US views the states (e.g. California passing a low Carbon Fuel Standard).

Yet, while the EU has taken a much more proactive stance against climate change than the US, results have been mixed thus far. The first graph shows change in emissions on a per capita basis, while the second shows total emissions, beginning in 1997.

In both cases, it is apparent that many European countries are not necessarily halting their share of emissions. In fact, many countries seem to be having a difficult time stabilizing their emission output. Even so, these graphs don't tell the whole story.

I think it is obvious that it is very difficult to create a portfolio of policies that reduce emissions while paying head to entrenched politicians and economic feasibility. It is so difficult that my entire thesis is based entirely on this issue. Yet, President Bush or no President Bush, the discussion on how to reduce emissions would still be filled with grandiose speeches of how much a lie global warming is or how those that want to reduce emissions are communists. It would still be filled with deal making and consensus policies. The policy levers used by the US may still not be "ideal" or those used by Europe. Behind the scenes, though, there is a much different narrative.

First, many European countries are taking the initiative to embrace alternative forms of energy. For instance, Germany is becoming the world capital of solar energy, even though it gets as much sun as say, Rochester, NY. Also, many of these countries will have an easier time to reduce emissions due to their smaller share of total global emissions. The US represents almost one quarter of global emissions - with those produce by just our passenger vehicles representing almost 5% themselves.

The focus on the US and its inaction is merited in that our path to a sustainable emissions level is much more difficult than most of these European countries. So, where does that leave us now?

So, what is it?

2008-10-21T16:52:00.004+01:00

I heard a college kid explain to her father that "...sustainability is just another term for environmentalism", as I rode home on the Metro yesterday evening. The word "sustainability" has been bandied about here and there, especially since the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development dispersed the idea in 2002. But, it seems that lots of people still don't get it.
So, what is sustainability? Is it purely an environmental idea, as our student suggests? Have sustainable ways of life ever existed? Do any exist now? If we were to shift our current way of life to a sustainable one, who would win and who would lose?

Image source: Wikipedia

On walking and chewing gum

2008-10-15T16:52:00.004+01:00

For a number of reasons, environmental issues have enjoyed a central place in policy debates and decisions, elections, business, and the public consciousness for the last few years. With troubling economic changes afoot, particularly in the financial and housing sectors, will the environment again retire to obscurity? Should leaders and communities shift their focus away from environmental issues?

A Tragedy of the Community: An Uprising

2008-10-14T02:31:00.004+01:00

I remember a few summer ago, sitting at a table eating breakfast with a group of Ph.D's before a day of talks from science policy professionals. I was the only undergraduate student present and largely remained quiet, choosing to listen and learn. In this particular morning I was feeling a little spirited and began a discussion on where and how society needs to move forward. I presented my opinion that some sort of radical movement needs to occur in order to truly mitigate climate change, make the economy more just, and so forth. The looks I received were, at the time, terrifying to me. They were followed by a backlash of how naive I was, in much the same, stuffy, elite tone of voice that should be expected of upper echelon academics.

I'll never forget that moment. Fast forward to what has occurred since then and I wish I could see them all to smile and say, "told ya so."

It seems to me and a growing number of other (well respected) thinkers, that the United States is on the cusp of a new, progressive movement. This movement began at the grassroots level and manifested itself in the netroots. It continued at the local government level as voters looked past the superficial arguments (see previous post) and started voting for progressive candidates in both primary and general elections. More and more candidates and issues oriented groups have continued the discussion on corporate greed, climate change, an unjust economy, and universal health care. A wave of progressive thinkers are beginning to fill the halls of our policy making institutions.

Coupled with an unpopular war, financial meltdown, housing crisis, credit crunch, and increasingly negative natural disasters, many in the U.S. who previously were "unwilling" to act are saying enough. An uprising has been born.

The public trust in both the private and governmental sector are at record lows. Polls show wide agreement on the need for action on a suite of issues that have been unattended to for well over a decade. Jobs are being lost, retirement accounts purged, and debt is skyrocketing, so voters are say enough of the politics as usual - this year is different.

The tragedy of the community - where broad, yet important issues have gone largely untouched due to large swaths of the population being unwilling to act - is gaining attention. Comparable uprisings occurred in much the same manner in 1932 and 1980 - bringing about long lasting changes to both liberal and conservative ideologies, so this isn't a new phenomenon.

As the media solely focuses on the Presidential election, it is important to note that the U.S.'s citizens are speaking...albeit finally. So, while the result of the election is far from certain, there are greater forces at work here. Incumbent politicians aren't safe. Corporate bosses won't be given a free ride. Important issues will no longer be brushed aside for political gamesmanship. Bill McKibben pointed out the need to mobilize the communities to move the country and world forward and it looks like it may be coming soon.

Wolf pack

2008-10-10T12:26:00.010+01:00

OK, that was a dirty trick. This has nothing to do with wolves and everything to do with packs. I simply wrote “wolf”, because they’re inherently cool, like ninjas, spy-planes, and most dinosaurs*.
Unless you’ve been living on Mars, under a rock, with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, you’re aware that those plastic bags that they hand out- well basically everywhere- clutter roadsides, streams, and parks, get stuck in trees, and fill landfills. You may have also heard that some cities and communities are so tired of dealing with them that they’re banning them from grocery stores and drugstores. IKEA and other retailers have begun charging for them, while others plan to discontinue using them altogether.
Be the solution. You, the clever Blue Island Almanack reader, can sidestep all of this bureaucratic mayhem, duck the recurring charges, and reduce the stream of trash moving into landfills and everywhere else by carrying your own bag.
Skirts, you’re way ahead of me on this one. Cats, fear not: I’m not talking about toting the ridiculous “European men’s carryall” of Seinfeld and Friends fame. Lots of vendors offer backpacks, rucksacks, knapsacks, and courier bags that are amply manly. (If you’re still a little worried, you can grow out your beard, talk loudly about contact sports, or smoke a Stogie or a pipe while you carry it.) You can compound your positive impacts by buying your reusable bag from a vendor that offers environmentally-friendly or fair-trade models.
In addition to carrying any carefully chosen odds-and-ends you buy while you’re out, this is a great way to bring along your other reusables: your Ka-Bar hobo set (or titanium spork, or lacquered chopsticks), your travel mug or water bottle, and your cloth napkin.
When you inevitably become the owner of a plastic bag or two, remember that they can be reused and recycled.

*Author's note: Leptoceratops is an example of a tragically uncool dinosaur.

Image sources:
US Fish and Wildlife Service
Simple Shoes

Seeds

2008-10-08T12:21:00.001+01:00

I wrote some time ago about the beginnings of a green ministry at my church and promised that I’d address this again in the future. On Saturday, this green ministry quietly began, as I led a group of 17 volunteers on a seed collection in suburban Maryland. The ministry will officially kick-off in the spring, with a four-week Sunday school class on stewardship beginning Earth Day Sunday and with more events. We’ll focus on learning about and showing appreciation for our gifts and we’ll work to serve others.
For now, I’m finding kindred spirits in the congregation and building interest and buzz. I’m connecting the dots that working for a healthy environment is among Christians’ responsibilities: The Father gave His people this duty in Genesis. Beyond this, we should take care of a gift for which we are grateful, especially a gift in which the Maker has expressed such pride. Moving ahead to the teachings of Christ, we see a charge to care for the physical needs of others.
This weekend, we put this theology into practice. In two hours, we learned about watersheds and native trees, and served our community by collecting seeds that will soon become seedlings. These seedlings will grow to become trees, perhaps part of a new forest. They will make for cleaner streams and rivers, improve drinking-water quality, feed and shelter local wildlife, and support the men and women who earn a living harvesting crabs and oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. Not bad for two hours spent with friends on a beautiful fall day.

just an observation

2008-10-07T21:26:00.001+01:00

One year ago, on October 9, 2008, the New York Stock Exchange -- Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its all time high closing price of 14,164.53.

Today, the New York Stock Exchange closed at 9,447.11, a decline of 4,717.42 points in one year, or a loss of 33.3 percent – one third of its value over the past year!

A Tragedy of the Community

2008-10-05T06:00:00.004+01:00

The Blue Island Almanack represents an intersection of different views, disciplines, and issues. The central theme - Earth - may be the only common characteristic that unarguably binds us all. With this in mind, I provide the final paragraph of the book "Deep Economy" by Bill McKibben.

"It's extremely hard to imagine a world substantially different from the one we know. But our current economies are changing the physical world in horrifying ways. It's our greatest challenge - the only real question of our time - to see whether we can transform those economies enough to prevent some damage and to help us cope with what we can't prevent. To see if we can manage to mobilize the wealth of our communities to make the transition tolerable, even sweet, instead of tragic."

It provides the dichotomy we all - each of the four authors and those that provide discussion - stumble around. On one hand, the actions of 6 billion people on Earth are harming the land we walk on, the air we breath, the food we eat, the water we drink, the economies that provide a standard of living, and the communities we grow in. On the other hand, the actions of 6 billion people on Earth provide some shelter to live in, clean air in some locations to breath, food to some, clean enough water to drink, economies that provide a good standard of living to some, and moderately stable communities to live in.

The tragedy of this dichotomy can be stated two fold. First, that the total community of 6 billion people, with combined wealth and effort, are incapable of fulfilling basic requirements of living to all its people. Or second, that the total community of 6 billion people, with combined wealth and effort, are unwilling of fulfilling basic requirements of living to all its people.

It is a sad story and while I did not necessarily set this post up as a debate, I hope that it provides a context for the discussions we have had or are going to have. When reading through the comments directed at whether there is an issue (e.g. climate change) or what to do about it (e.g. environment, economy, etc.), the arguments for inaction or action are normally the same.

A persons cultural values (e.g. racism), religious values (e.g. evangelical), economic standing (e.g. upper class), familial upbringing (e.g. broken home), political leanings (e.g. liberal), educational status (e.g. Professor), and living environment (e.g. inner city) all are given as fundamental reasons why or why not issues should be dealt with. It seems that, often times, we stray from the underpinning reasons for the things we, as communities, do (e.g. providing housing, jobs, food, health care, etc.). Empirically, it comes down to our capability or willingness to act, nothing less and nothing more.

On climate change, where do you fall? Poverty? Financial deregulation? Federal funding of basic research and development? Abortion? Gay marriage? Universal health care? Foreign aid?

...Which they ate with a runcible spoon

2008-10-03T12:24:00.014+01:00

The setting: It was an evening meeting of my city’s environment commission to review zoning changes. This was one of those grueling three-hour meetings that you just have to power-through, but at least the city provided us with some dinner from a local restaurant.
The players: Environmental activists, all. Two LEED-certified architects. A former environmental engineer and an environmental lawyer. Two green business gurus, a GIS expert, and one E.R. Dunhill.
The problem: As I looked around the table I noticed that we were all using plastic forks and knives, the ubiquitous accoutrements of carry-out cuisine. By the end of the evening, we would generate a heap of plastic and Styrofoam waste. There was no need for this and it just didn’t seem right.

The solution: I’d love to be able to write that the next day I happened to be leaving on a backpacking trip, and just happened upon the thing. Or perhaps I could recount that it was handed down from heaven, like Jean d’Arc’s sword. Instead, the mundane truth (the one that fits with things like three-hour zoning meetings) is that the image of my Ka-Bar Hobo Set simply appeared in my mind the moment I saw the plastic fork problem. I’ve carried the thing to every dinner meeting we’ve had since, not to mention a number of other occasions that would have otherwise produced more plastic.
For those unfamiliar with this marvel of technology, it’s essentially a pocket knife that includes a detachable folding fork and spoon. Campers have used them for eons, and something like them has been standard issue in armies from here to Timbuktu. It’s portable, reusable, and many models will go right into your dishwasher. Most importantly, it doesn’t produce recurring plastic trash.
It’s also not alone in the pantheon of quirky cutlery. We all remember the humble spork from elementary school. As it happens, Brunton makes a titanium version for grown-up backpackers, but there’s no reason that it can't follow you to work or campus. A friend of mine who taught in Australia for a while also tells of the Splayd, which is simply a Down Under variation on this theme. (You don’t have to turn upside-down to use it.)
If you’re not sure about carrying some weird piece of cutlery, if you’re just not ready to help me pretend that this is normal, you can always bring a plain old fork or spoon (or both) with you. The goal here is simply to reduce waste, particularly plastics, which are made from petroleum and don’t biodegrade for many human lifetimes. There’s no need to produce all of this trash when there are easy alternatives. Be the solution.

Author’s note: E.R. Dunhill is aware that “runcible” is a nonsense word and does not constitute orthodox nomenclature for sporks, splayds, or other hybrid utensils. However, since “spork” and “splayd” aren’t exactly the King’s English, the author doesn’t really care.
Also, E.R. Dunhill’s city government now primarily uses disposable cutlery made from potato starch, which is compostable. More on that in the future.

Image sources:
E.R. Dunhill
Brunton

Longhorns and snakeheads and bees- Oh my

2008-10-01T16:42:00.006+01:00

Over the weekend, I found a moment to peruse the Sant Ocean Hall online exhibit on the National Museum of Natural History website. I'm thinking ahead to some opportunities to get the little one to an exhibit that will catch his attention. I happened upon a page about the rapa whelk, a fairly recent exotic pest (some might say a menace) in the Chesapeake Bay region. It's been in various conservation groups' publications for a while.
What in the heck is a rapa whelk? It's a type of marine snail that has some nifty adaptations that allow it to spread itself around very quickly. Unfortunately, it's not from around here. It hails from Asia, almost certainly arrived in the bilge water of ships, preys on clams and oysters, and is a threat to the local marine snails. This presents yet another problem for the region's shellfish industry, not to mention the already badly degraded Chesapeake Bay ecology.
The rapa whelk is what's known as an invasive exotic species. This isn't a new idea. You've probably heard of many others, perhaps without realizing it: The fire ant, the Asian long-horned beetle, the gypsie moth, the zebra mussel, the European house sparrow, &c. This short list is merely the tip of the iceberg.
There are others that don't get peoples' hackles up, though: The honey bee, chickory, and the cattle egret, for instance. These pollinate many of our crops, make a proper cup of coffee for folks in New Orleans, and get rid of some of the fire ants that wouldn't have been here in the first place if we hadn't been so careless. (And, while we're at it, basically everything we eat comes from somewhere other than here.) These species are our friends, right?
I put some questions to the reader: Is it worth the effort to try to stop exotic species from invading new areas or to drive them out before they take hold? Is it appropriate to get rid of exotics that have been in an area for a long time? Does the usefulness or harm of the new species weigh on this? Should we hesitate to introduce an exotic crop? Should we simply accept that people will change the biosphere and make do with those changes?

Image source: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Sant Ocean Hall

Hidden in plain sight

2008-09-26T12:21:00.021+01:00

They’re less like National Treasure and more like The History Detectives. Their magic is less epic than cerebral, but they are subtly powerful. They are the fail-safe protection on our governments, enabling citizens to petition their officials for the redress of grievances. They are temples of secrets.
I’d venture to guess that the reader has likely passed their local or state archives or even a branch of the National Archives without realizing it. They are frequently crowded into basements, or are sometimes overshadowed by a single exhibit. Most people don’t have a good sense of what they are or what they’re for.
Archives answer questions. For those who work for the community, they are a means to understand complex issues involving our government or other institutions. Archives contain the reasons and the politics behind the establishment of a park or state forest boundary, document legal battles between citizens and government agencies, record what some parcel of land was really intended for, and chronicle how communities have succeeded or failed when faced with all manner of environmental problems. More generally, archives are home to records of the decisions an institution makes and to the evidence of the actions it takes. Sometimes they’re even a place to make a point.
Archives offer something to people who want to understand the past- their own, their family’s, and their community’s. They contain snapshots of the places people connect with the government- the ubiquitous census records, land patents and deeds, marriage licenses, birth certificates, and the oft-overlooked prison records. (Everyone wants to discover that they are descended from royalty. It’s more likely that you’re related to horse thieves and other nogoodniks.) Sometimes, you can even find a picture. These records, together with the recollections of other family members, can help you to uncover where your family is really from, where and how they lived, and even paints a picture of what they wanted out of life. Archives build a human story.
In creating and answering questions with these collections, you’re doing the impossible. You’re creating something of expanding value without expending anything. This value has the potential to grow without limit as you learn more, make new connections, and share all of this with others.
Perhaps the best part about an archive is that you get to touch most if not all of their collections. While museum objects are safely sequestered under glass, archival documents are handed-over by the Hollinger box-full. You can hold in your hands Ralph Waldo Emerson’s sermons, a century-old photograph of the wild mountains that would become Shenandoah National Park, or your grandfather’s enlistment records, revealing that he lied about his age in order to join the Marine Corps. Some archives or manuscript collections contain maps of places you know, made before you knew them, or hand written notes about the way a classic book was originally going to end. Some contain sound recordings and moving pictures. They establish a tangible connection to history and make it relevant to the present.
Obviously, this tip is more complicated than carrying a bandana to reduce the number of paper towels you use or buying local beer to save energy. But, whether you need resources to make your community a better place or you want to put stock in something of enduring value, archives offer a way to be the solution.

Author's note: The people pictured above are committing a crime. They are highlighted here not because I agree with their sentiment (I don’t think there is a constitutional basis for their assertion), but because a friend alerted me that this demonstration was unfolding at the National Archives earlier this week. It seemed fitting to include it.

Image sources:
Anonymous photographer, undisclosed stack location, Washington, DC
Veterans for Peace
National Park Service

Green Hour 101

2008-09-24T12:20:00.007+01:00

Forget the research that shows that people heal faster after surgery when they spend time in the woods, and forget the articles that highlight the link between hours spent inside and childhood obesity, diabetes, and Attention Deficit Disorder. It's common sense that people, especially kids need to spend time outside. It's equally clear that as parents and children become increasingly scheduled into structured activities and spend more and more time in cars communting to those activities, we have a lot of pressures that keep us from spending time outside.
Beyond the health and psychological benefits, spending time outside builds an understanding of how natural systems and processes work. We have a better knowledge of the relationship between plants and insects, the way water conspires with sunlight and wind to create the local weather, and all of the ways people impact their local environments, if we see these things for ourselves.
Parents have some help with this. Largely in response to Richard Louv's 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods, people all over the country have been working to address this problem through an initiative called The Green Hour. Obviously, encouraging our children to spend time outside and educating them about nature is a tall order. The Green Hour organization (and several others: National Wildlife Federation, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Take a Child Outside Week) offers some suggestions for how parents and children can experience nature together at their website.
Family walks, free play in a backyard, keeping an outdoor journal, sketchbook, or photoblog are simple ways to get started. You can check out books about bugs or birds from your local library or invest in a magnifying glass so that little ones can investigate lichens and starfish. If you don't know a tiger swallowtail from a mourning cloak, don't worry. You can learn about these things with your kids, and your own interest will encourage them.
There are opportunities for this all over the place. The local playground or the grounds of a public school or library may be bordered with grass and trees. There may be a thicket, a publicly-owned, unimproved no-mans-land, just down the street. Or, you may be fortunate enough to live close to a state or national park or a public beach.
As summer gives way to fall, this is a great time to start getting outside and observing the changes. It also happens to be Take a Child Outside Week (September 24-30) (Who knew?). Climb some trees, write about a preying mantis, watch the red-tailed hawks. Ask questions. Learn.
More to come.

Image sources: E.R. Dunhill

Creeping Socialism

2008-09-21T02:08:00.004+01:00

It would appear that the Bush administration is moving the country closer to socialism. One of the nations largest insurance companies has now been eighty percent nationalized. Since one of the insurance products of AIG is health insurance, it would appear that the Bush Administration is preparing us for socialized medical insurance.

more on that cup of joe

2008-09-19T16:16:00.006+01:00

E.R. Dunhill has offered us a great post this morning on the complexities of choosing a container for one's coffee (and I offer a photo of my personal collection of handcrafted pottery coffee mugs, the average age of which is 15 years).

Even more perplexing than the container is coffee itself. There are many good health reasons to avoid caffeine or at least to reduce substantially the amount we ingest. We can sleep better, avoid caffeine withdrawal headaches and migraines, women can avoid breast pain from fibroadenomas, and many people can solve the problem of "overactive bladder" by just cutting out that troublesome caffeine. These and other reasons are why over a decade ago I went from being an eight cup a day coffee/caffeine addict, to being a two cup of decaf a week person -- because after all the smell and taste of coffee is just too, too good to give up completely.

Then there are the environmental and humanitarian issues. Coffee, unless you live in Hawaii, comes from great distances. Unlike winter blueberries from Argentina, of course, coffee can travel by ship rather than plane to its destination, but nonetheless long distance travel in petroleum powered transport is behind every cup of coffee we drink. Coffee has traditionally been grown in partial shade of existing forest, providing an incentive to protect tropical forests. But in recent years, more and more coffee is grown in full-sun, resulting in destruction of forest cover to expand coffee plantations.

There are other issues about human welfare in how coffee plantations are owned and managed. The blurb on my morning coffee says "Coffee grown on farms that meet rigorous social and environmental standards earns the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal. The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity, protect ecosystems and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices, and consumer behavior. Rainforest Alliance certification assures that forests and wildlife habitat are protected, local waterways are kept clean, and farm families have access to education and healthcare."

Certified coffee costs more, but if you make the change to drinking less for health reasons, you can afford to pay a little more for coffee that will be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. And if you're not drinking on the run, you can invest in a handcrafted cup from which to drink your occasional cup, thus savoring the process even more.

Reduce, reuse, reuse, reuse, reuse, reuse… recycle

2008-09-19T12:20:00.013+01:00

Disposable cups and bottles are everywhere. If you’re in a city or in the suburbs, you can probably find some within a few yards of where you’re reading this. If you live in the country, you doubtless know of a heap of them (along with tires, part of an AC window unit, a broken fishing pole, and a pair of rabbit-ears) at the end of a local road. You've no doubt heard or read the caution that paper cups contribute to cutting trees and that these cups decompose to produce methane in landfills. You've also probably heard that polystyrene foam cups are a bad idea, because they're made from petroleum, they leach toxic chemicals into beverages, they're hard to recycle, and they don't biodegrade for a very, very long time. (Dunkin Donuts: Styrofoam is no good for beverage containers. Welcome to 1989.) Reusable cups can be a good solution to reduce demand for forest products and petroleum, while reducing the solid waste stream.
But be careful. Studies about the life cycle energy costs of reusable cups tell us that this is not a casual investment. That steel cup requires a good deal of energy to manufacture and a little on an ongoing basis to stay clean. One study (whose authors escape me, but rest assured that when I read it, it sounded terribly authoritative) suggests that a reusable steel cup needs around 300 uses to beat the energy usage of an analogous supply of single-use disposible cups. Not until after that magic number, are you enjoying a net-energy savings as compared to paper. If you’re prone to losing things or if the vicissitudes of fashion mean you won’t be caught dead with that steel cup in a year, stick with paper.
Be the solution. In the long run, that reusable cup does prevent waste and save and energy. (It also saves water over paper cups, but keep in mind that it’s saving water at a papermill somewhere, while using water in your neighborhood. This is important if you live somewhere with water issues.) If you have the moxie to invest in a reusable steel cup, E.R. Dunhill suggests a few tips to help you reach that lofty (and terribly authoritative) 300th use:
-Buy a quality cup. Before you purchase, make sure it seems solidly put together. Avoid plastics, because many of them degrade faster than you’d think, especially when filled with hot liquids. Besides, someone is bound to find something else toxic (phthalates, bisphenol A, partially deweaponized poisonium) in whatever polymer you choose. It’s also easier to recycle steel when that cup reaches the end of its usable life span, than a cup that could be made of several different plastics. Pay particular attention to the lid, any places where parts are joined or sealed, and any moving parts. Avoid anything with a spring-loaded closure or with a cumbersome twist-apart lid (for cleaning). These parts seem to fail a lot, and if they break, it’s almost impossible to replace them.
-Buy a container with simple aesthetics. That stencil may be hip now, but know the perils of the insidious hip life cycle: “Hip” downgrades to “popular” to “overdone” to “tacky” – then it gets better for a moment with “ironic” – then back to “tacky” and finally “what were you thinking?”. You can’t count on the possible graduation to “retro” or “vintage”. Instead, be gently boring, like E.R. Dunhill or be prepared to carry your tacky cup with pride.
-Clean your cup regularly. If you decide that your cup has cooties, you’ll stop using it. If your cup contracts cooties because you didn’t clean it regularly, get rid of the cooties and get over it.
-Bring your container with you (or, explain beverage-telekinesis* to me). Keep in mind that you can fill what is sold as a coffee cup with something other than coffee. This revelation makes your reusable cup even more useful.
-Estimate when the cup will reach 300. (No, don’t make a spreadsheet. Just use rough numbers.) If you use it instead of paper twice per week (about 100 times/year), you’ll need to have it at least 3 years. When you arrive upon your magic day, have a celebratory café au lait and blueberry bagel.

*Author’s note: E.R. Dunhill will accept and, as appropriate, publicly display a diagram or other rendering of beverage-telekinesis. Stick-figures, crayons, children’s work, and other tom-foolery are strongly encouraged. Scan it or photograph it and post a link in the comments.
Also, the author will address the other Rs, "repair", "repurpose", and "rebuy" in future posts.

Image: E.R. Dunhill's ca 2002 Einstein Brothers double-walled steel travel mug, used more than 300 times (Courtesy of the author).

Drill pickle

2008-09-18T12:41:00.001+01:00

More a matter of politics than government, the Congress is voting on a measure to relax the off-shore drilling ban in place since 1982. Under the measure before lawmakers (as of this morning), drilling would become legal at a distance of 50 miles from shore with the consent of adjacent states, or at 100 miles without such permission. The bill has already passed the House. I'm curious to see how the reader feels.
Is relaxing the drilling ban a good idea? Would lifting it altogether be better? Is the rate at which oil will be extracted too low to bother? Does the value of the oil outweigh the potential damage to fisheries and tourism? Do most people understand the issue? Should people in a landlocked state like Arizona be making this decision for people in a coastal state like Delaware?

Image source: Minerals Management Service

Number 2: The persimmon

2008-09-17T12:19:00.001+01:00

The air turned suddenly cool yesterday and the dogday harvest flies are beginning to pack up. Several days ago, I wrote about having seen school buses out and about. This of course means that we’re now standing with our toes over the edge of fall. As it turns out, it’s also a great time to get out and have fun while serving your community.
Many of us think of conservation efforts (and outdoor activities in general) as something people do in the spring and summer. After all, environmental groups, Boy Scouts, the Izaak Walton League, trail clubs and their ilk tend to mobilize people for Earth Day and in preparation of the high use seasons.
For anyone who lives in the Potomac River watershed fall is also an important time to work for clean drinking water, clean air, and healthy fisheries. Growing Native is a program run by the Potomac Conservancy that offers opportunities to collect native tree seeds for clean water. After adequate time to grow at a state nursery or volunteer grow-out station, seedlings are then planted in area parks, stream-sides, and other sensitive areas in need of more tree cover. Trees help to keep the water entering streams and rivers clean, while reducing air pollution. This in turn makes for more productive fisheries downstream.
Native trees provide a number of advantages. First, their specific water, soil, and light needs are fine-tuned to the area. This means that when planted in appropriate places, native trees often need less maintenance than hybrids or exotics. Second, native trees invite native animals and plants, which need trees for food, habitat, or cover. Encouraging native trees from a variety of sources rather than artificial hybrids or exotics also contributes to a robust genetic database of wild plants that prevents genetic bottle-necking.
If you live in the DC area or anywhere else in the Potomac River watershed, I encourage you to check out the Potomac Conservancy calendar to find a local seed collection event.

Image source: Virginia Tech Department of Forestry, after Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin

while some folks play hockey...

2008-09-13T23:59:00.011+01:00

No, that is not a reference to Governor Palin and her children, but rather a reference to the attempt to revive the controversial "hockey stick" depiction of average global temperatures by Dr. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Mann who first published his "hockey stick" curve in the peer reviewed journal Nature in 1998, published a new study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The new analysis purports to support the findings of a decade ago with additional temperature proxy data.

As it should be in the natural sciences, other climatologists are already examining the data series on which Mann has based this newest study, and asking tough questions about Mann's criteria for including and excluding proxy series, particularly wondering why some (such as a proxy series by Yamal in 2002) that have figured prominently in other research have been excluded from this study. Many kinds of proxy studies using ice cores, tree rings, deep-sea and lake sediment cores, and coral records are used to approximate temperature readings in many geographic regions around the world.

This legitimate and vociferous scientific debate focuses not on the current warming trend, which seems accepted by all participants, but on the degree and extent of warming during the "Medieval Warm Period" which affected Europe between approximately 1100 and 1300 C.E. (Common Era). How warm did it get, and how does that compare to today?

While scientists debate the interpretation of proxies, and how warm the "Medieval Warm Period" actually was, there is another kind of less ambiguous form of evidence from the period, that is of more interest to us who are not professional climatologists. Anthropologist Brian Fagan, has assembled information from written historical sources and archaeological excavations, that chronicle the social, economic and political impacts of the "Medieval Warm Period" around the world in his 2008 book The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations (Bloomsbury Press). The "great warming" referred to in the title is not the present one, but rather the one between 1100 and 1300.

Fagan looks not only at the agricultural and technological improvements in Europe, but also at the impact of drought in central Eurasia on the western push of the Mongols, the enterprising way in which Moorish traders made drought work for them and their camel caravans, and the impact of mega-drought on the native populations of the American southwest and California coast -- including the abandonment of Chaco Canyon pueblos, and much much more. A fascinating read for those interested in the way in which climate interacts with social structure and technology.

it's always something...

2008-09-13T18:13:00.005+01:00

...like Roseanne Rosannadana's grandma always said.

When it comes to making environmentally sound choices in your home, things can get quite complex.

Many people have chosen to go with new, energy efficient, low water use front loading washing machines in recent years, as a way to save money on electricity and water and be environmentally conscious. But it turns out that there's a major drawback to front loading washers and the solution uses more water and electricity.

Because the new front loading washers use less water, and are more tightly sealed, mold and mildew frequently grow in the inner tub, contributing to allergies and bad smells, some of which is transferred to the clothing. Using too much detergent or the wrong kind exacerbates the problem. Front loaders require low sudsing, high efficiency (HE) detergents, which are not as widely available nation wide as traditional detergents. [A quick review of the largest grocery store in my area found only one type of one brand specifically labeled HE].

The problem is prevalent enough to have spawned several class action lawsuits against LG, Whirlpool and Maytag.

An enterprising Minnesota appliance repairman Paul Flynn, has developed a solution "smelly washer" granules. But the catch (from an environmental and cost) perspective is that to be effective the product has to be used at the highest water level setting, and the hottest water temperature (Flynn recommends turning up your water heater to its highest "scalding" setting), at least once a week. While it is unclear from the website whether or not preventing mildew from forming can be done in conjunction with washing a load of clothes (assuming you have one that can be washed in scalding water), removing the problem after it has already occurred requires a machine empty of everything put water.

Suddenly the cost and environmental savings of a newer front loading washer begin to be eroded!

Growl.

2008-09-12T12:18:00.020+01:00

Sometimes being an environmentalist is tough. This conservation measure is not one of those times.
For those of us who like to have a beer at the backyard barbeque, Oktoberfest, while blogging (cheers, Jez), or while watching the game (as does the head of the Antioch College Booster Club), we can have a negative impact on the environment. Beer often travels a long way to get to you: from Germany or Ireland or Holland, or from the Czech Republic. Even some domestic beers (especially high-end, highbrow microbrews with wide distribution) may have a long and convoluted route to your door. In transit, energy is spent moving and to varying degrees, cooling the beer. And sometimes, particularly when we have lots of guests, we don’t recycle those bottles and cans.
Be the solution. If you live near a brew pub, you may have a particularly grand opportunity to reduce waste and use less energy, while keeping the beer flowing. Many small brewers have a variety of quality offerings, including seasonal brews and some unusual options that you can’t find just anywhere. That beer didn’t cross an ocean, but was made down the street, with filtered local water, likely from domestic, if not regional ingredients. You can pop in and fill up a reusable growler with freshly brewed draft beer. E.R. Dunhill happens to tank-up his growler with Czech Lager (2004 and 2007 Gold Medalist, Great American Beer Festival) at his local Gordon Biersch, which makes him miss Prague terribly.
Some friends suggested that a keg (or a half or quarter) is a similarly resource conservative option. (They could not be reached for further comment.) The keg produces less waste than bottles, but keep in mind that all of that heavy beer may still have been shipped a long way, whereas the brewpub suds were made on-site.
Regional or local brews can offer some quick and easy energy savings over long-distance labels, because again, the beer is simply traveling fewer miles between the brewery and your home. And, of course, you can periodically meet the gang at your local brew pub to avoid having to clean your growler.
With perqs like this, who wouldn’t want to be an environmentalist?

Author’s note: E.R. Dunhill encourages readers to “conserve” responsibly.
Also, the photo in this post in no way constitutes an endorsement of Baylor, Brown, or the U of Montana.

Image sources:
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
E.R. Dunhill

All in all, you’re just another brick in the wall

2008-09-09T19:56:00.004+01:00

The yellow buses have been back out in force for the last few weeks. This inspires me to lob some questions at the reader:
Is the prevailing model for public schools the right one? What can change? What should change? Who should decide what top educational priorities are? Are private schools better? Is home-schooling better? What about unschooling? Should students pay tuition?

Image source: National Archives and Records Administration; ARC Identifier: 541288

Urban buckaroo*

2008-09-05T12:16:00.004+01:00

Earlier this summer, I wrote a little on the subject of actions we can take and changes we can make in our local communities and in our own lives to move toward sustainable communities. There’s ample talk on the blog-lines and in the media about energy policy, horizon technologies, innovative markets, and many other visionary solutions. I feel terribly clever when I write about these things, but I don’t know how to make any of them actually happen. Unfortunately, the collective-we would rather watch the house burn down than stop playing with matches. I can however talk about some simple choices just about anyone can make (starting today) to reduce their personal impact on the environment. I fear that the solution isn’t in the hands of business leaders, inventors, and politicians who will solve problems on our behalf. We have to be the solution.
I start with the evergreen issue of paper products. We use paper towels and napkins in droves- something like 3,000 tons per day in the US. And while my local Greenpeacers get the facts wrong, they’re on the right track about one thing: We’re cutting down wild forests for napkins, paper towels, and other disposable paper products. Aside from the more ethereal values, these forests provide clean water, clean air, habitat for game, and carbon sinks. Forests provide valuable services to people. Cutting them for napkins doesn’t seem like a good deal. Moreover, when we pitch our used paper towels, they take up lots of space in landfills, decomposing to produce methane. That’s it for the harangue.
Fortunately, there are some simple solutions to this. It’s easy to use fewer paper towels and napkins. Around the house, the alternatives couldn’t be easier. Invest in some kitchen towels and some sturdy but inexpensive cloth napkins. This isn’t exactly a visionary solution.
The real aha is this: When you’re at the office, on campus, running errands, or just out for fast food, bring a bandana. It’s a paper towel, it’s a napkin. Never again will you wash your hands and then groan because the paper towel dispenser is empty. If you happen to be in a gang, it’s good for that too. (You can showoff your “political gang” with red, blue, or green.)
You can buy bandanas anywhere in any style, often for well-under $2.00 each. It’s still possible to find some made in the USA (sorry to BIA readers in the Chinese textile industry), and if you’re cleverer than I am, you can probably find them made from organic cotton. After the first wash, you can generally toss them in with other laundry, so they don’t add to your water or energy bills.
I’ve brought one to the office every day for the last three years (and have had some of them much longer than that), and I have yet to wear one out or ruin any. This is a cheap, easy way to do something green. Be the solution.

*Author’s note: E.R. Dunhill is aware that one can also be a suburban, rural, campus, wilderness, or any number of other buckaroos, vaqueros, gauchos, gaúchos, or sabaneros (or -as, as appropriate). The author would also like to emphasize that it is not necessary to dress like a cowboy to carry a bandana.

Image sources:
British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range
Texas A&M University

The Gap Widens

2008-09-04T15:46:00.002+01:00

From Prometheus,

Every year it gets harder, the rhetoric gets stronger, but the gap widens. When will there be action?

Georgia on my mind

2008-09-03T15:59:00.002+01:00

In recent days, we’ve stopped hearing much, if anything about the pseudowar in Georgia. Before Juno MacGuff became center of the media universe, the news seemed to be talking about diplomacy, official actions and reactions of national governments, and troop movements. In the dozen or so articles I’ve read in various publications since the conflict escalated a month ago, I’ve seen little discussion of the petroleum industry and virtually no mention of the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom or the several oil and gas pipeline segments that cross Georgia. This has gotten a little better recently.
For readers unfamiliar with this contentious little piece of the world, Azerbaijan and the former Soviet republic of Georgia happen to be situated in such a way as to allow for the transport of oil and gas from the productive Caspian Sea region to the Black Sea, a major transportation hub to Europe and a petroleum source in its own right. For those who don’t know Caucasian geography nor have a map in front of them, this corridor snubs Russia and its massive gas industry that supplies much of Europe. (A primer on energy in the Causasus region, if you're so inclined)
With this in mind, I put some questions to the reader:
Why is Russia supporting the break-up of Georgia? Is Russian support for the break up of Georgia at all similar to the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Is Russian support for an independent South Ossetia materially different from US support for a semi-autonomous Kurdestan? Would anyone care what was going on in Georgia or Iraq, if these countries’ major industries were fruits, nuts, hand-woven rugs, and wool?

Image source: CIA World Factbook

Deep Economy

2008-08-30T00:25:00.004+01:00

Just started reading a book called Deep Economy by Bill McKibben. While I intend to write a full review once I finish it, it brings up an intriguing question:

Should our economy (and therefore society) strive for growth as its central economic policy or should it focus on locally driven prosperity?

I don't necessarily believe the two are directly tied to one another - as our economy grows, our people prosper. It seems we have surpassed some type of tipping point, where "more" does not mean "better". More so, "more" no longer means increased happiness like it once did.

An example - the U.S. economy grew by 3.3% (as a whole) in the last quarter, even as people lost their homes, unemployment grew, income decreased, fuel prices increased, and food prices increased. The economy has also become the central issue in our next round of elections, even with growth, tax breaks, and rebate checks.

Has the economic theory of Adam Smith become less relevant as we move into another era in history?

Big request from Big Three

2008-08-29T15:31:00.006+01:00

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 authorized up to $25 billion in federal government loan guarantees to auto manufacturers in the US. It also increased the CAFE standards 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.7 mpg for trucks to a fleet-wide 35 mpg by 2020. For reference, Toyota’s Prius, Corolla, and Yaris, the MINI Cooper, Honda’s Fit and Civic Hybrid, and everything made by Smart already meet or beat this.
GM now claims that the industry needs $50 billion in loan guarantees, in part because consumers are demanding more fuel efficient cars and because CAFE standards are placing an unfair regulatory burden on the auto US industry. With Michigan and Ohio as presidential battleground states, candidates seem to think that this is a great idea.
I pose some questions to the reader: Is it appropriate to loan $50 billion in public funds to private companies? If German and Japanese auto companies can successfully build and market fuel efficient cars, why do US companies seem to struggle with this? Is this the same thing as the 1980 bailout of Chrysler (which would be valued at $3.7 bn in today’s dollars)? Is this capitalism? Socialism? Good business? Is this a matter of lobbyists exploiting an election? Is this necessary for US firms to remain competitive?

Image sources:
National Archives and Records Administration; ARC Identifier 547699
Car and Driver

The Solution to "Climate Change"

2008-08-27T14:53:00.003+01:00

The solution to so-called "global climate change" is more development and more abundant energy for every person on the planet.

Fully developed economies, such as the U.S., have the resources necessary to address issues of pollution. Less-developed countries do not.

Private property ownership increases the incentive for mitigating and preventing pollutants in the environment due to the desire for continued use of the owned resource. State ownership or "commons" ownership does not.

Lower birth rates are closely correlated to economic well-being and education. The poorest countries have the highest birth rates and the worst records on destroying the environment -- from poaching elephants to slash-and-burn agriculture. They are focused on survival. They don't have the resources, the time or the incentive to worry about the environment.

Abundant energy is one of the keys to economic development. Another key is good government based on personal property rights and individual freedoms with a free-enterprise based economy.

If you want to fix a problem you must treat the root causes -- not merely the symptoms.

Now, release the attack....

A Simple Question

2008-08-26T13:54:00.000+01:00

Why do people pollute their environment?

Progress, I Wonder.

2008-08-24T01:34:00.004+01:00

I'll stray from my typical policy/science posts to approach a very vague topic - progress.

This blog's goal is to drive debate and discussion around prescient issues and their solutions, such as those regarding science, ethics, the economy, and the like. The elementary idea being, that progress needs to be made in order to, among other reasons, move society forward, forge greater levels of peace, allow for increased prosperity, drive personal freedoms, and discover a better World for the present and future.

Therefore, is it justifiable to ask whether we are making progress? In what quantifiable manner? Are their hindrances? Is progress the correct method to measure society?

As I campaign with different candidates it is easy to note that there are voters that care, strive, and push for progress and those that don't. It may be one of the few topics that doesn't fall along political or cultural lines - so what dictates a persons need for progress? What jump starts or stops a person from wanting it?

In policy, progress is often made directly after a focusing event (i.e. Sept. 11). In science, progress is made post a scientific revolution (i.e. Einstein). Is progress ever made in ethics? Has there been any progress in economics? Philosophy? Taken within historical context, has society ever truly solved anything or just made the issue more narrow?

Too philosophical? Maybe.

A visionary solution

2008-08-22T17:04:00.002+01:00

Unless Hollywood has lied to us, we all know how much convicts like to workout. Big screen and small screen antiheros spend hours everyday in “the yard” making shady deals, bartering for smokes, plotting escape, and narrowly avoiding being disemboweled, all to the relentless clanking their fellow inmates hitting the weights. Even Edmond Dantès, better known as the eponymous brooding hero in Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, got completely ripped in prison by digging tunnels and learning fencing from l’Abbé Faria.
In the US, we have about 2.3 million people in jails and prisons. Just think of the potential resource we have if we were to synergize this population with the “Powered by YOU” program at Hong Kong’s California Fitness gym. The gym employs specially designed exercise bikes and cross-trainers to run the lights and charge batteries. Just swap penitentiaries’ existing equipment for stationary bikes, treadmills, trainers, and revamped resistance machines, and we’re in business.
A typical person can produce about 50 watts per hour on one of these special machines. If each inmate were to workout for only one hour a day, five days per week, fifty weeks per year, that would yield 28.75 gigawatts per year. That’s more than the paltry 26.47 gigawatts the US produces (combined annual nameplate capacity) from wood, black liquor, other wood waste, municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, tires, agriculture byproducts, other biomass, geothermal, solar thermal, photovoltaic energy, and wind. That’s right, prison power beats all renewables other than hydro combined. I should contact the Patent Office...
It’s a win-win, win-win-win proposition. Prisoners contribute something to society while they get into cinematic shape. Firms will enjoy high-dollar government contracts to build and install the machines, and owners of for-profit prisons get an additional revenue stream. Republican politicians and voters get to pat themselves on the back for being tough on crime and putting lazy convicts to work, making time for the real issues of getting handguns and religious education back into the public schools, where they belong. Democrats can have a warm, fuzzy feeling about creating green-collar jobs to rehabilitate offenders, while creating a renewable energy source, allowing them to get down to the real agenda of legalizing marijuana, teaching Marxism in Head Start, and stopping anyone from earning money for anything. And we, the American people, can crank up our air conditioners so high that we need to wear sweaters in July. Is this a great country, or what?

What a difference a week makes

2008-08-20T17:09:00.010+01:00

August 11, 2008

August 19, 2008 For the second year in a row the fabled Northwest Passage through the wide and deep water Parry Channel is ice free. The Parry Channel route is much farther north than the route taken with much difficulty by Amundsen in 1903 (see accompanying text at bottom of Arctic Sea Ice News page.

Anyone can follow the day-by-day changes in Arctic ice, and compare them to the satellite record back to 1979 at Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis.

The Political Spectrum and Climate Change

2008-08-20T01:29:00.004+01:00

The climate change policy debate has produced little action, but some ideas are becoming more prevalent than others, while the science behind choosing policies is becoming better. A serious debate of all of this has just been posted over at Cato and is worth a good read. I give a general summary of each viewpoint, with some quick thoughts attached.

The lead essay is by Jim Manzi, a technology executive that has advised conservative politicians. He takes a more right leaning approach and brings up some excellent points regarding the downfalls of a carbon tax and alternative energy research funding through the government. It is interesting that, ultimately, Manzi agrees that the U.S. (and other industrialized countries) need to address climate change, diverging from many other right wing politicians. I'm still not sold on only relying on the market with some, limited government involvement. He proposes the government offering small grants for businesses to produce alt. energy technologies - a good proposal - but I fear not enough by itself (I still think the government needs to take a more active role in research and development, among other programs).

LIBERAL: The first response essay is by well published, liberal climate scientists, Joseph Romm. He may be the most ardent scientist when it comes to proclaiming the negative consequences of climate change and he has some great points. The most startling is the drastic decline in the ice sheets and permafrost, which will rapidly increase CO2 concentrations due to the trapped gas in the ice. He also notes the ever debated "tipping point", that while it exists, may not be known until it already happens. Policy-wise, he is very much on the left leaning, aggressive side. He notes that the U.S. should rapidly utilizing existing clean technologies, while extensively funding those in the pipeline (i.e. CCS, hydrogen, PHEV, etc.). I question whether the government can be the sole purveyor of a new technology revolution though - where does the private sector fit in? Also, is constantly stating the negative impacts of climate change really going to bring about the change needed?

CONSERVATIVE: The second response essay is by conservative environmental expert, Indur Goklany. He takes an interesting spin on things and questions whether climate change is even that important within the context of environmental based health issues. He correctly states that currently, hunger, malaria, tainted water, and habitat changes are hugely more important to address than climate change. I think he is correct if the assumption is that mitigating climate change is an "insurance policy" for the future. Yet, I don't think it is - if we truly mitigate the core causes of climate change I think it would become easier to mitigate the issues he states as more important, while generally opening the door to greater societal advances. It would be less insurance and more societal progress, in my opinion.

INDEPENDENT: The final response essay is by independent environmentalists and founders of the Breakthrough Institute, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. Let me first say that these guys get it, in my opinion. They see the battle between liberal and conservatives and instead of waiting for better times, take it head on. They propose a comprehensive retraining of U.S. workers in the same fashion that the G.I. Bill and National Defense Education Act did. They propose annual government funding of technology investment and research that costs tax payers only a dollar or so a year - much different than the farce that is the Lieberman-Warner bill in the Senate. They even go so far as to state that society needs to focus on adaptation and our energy infrastructure, two issues that seem to get lost in the shuffle. They ultimately show why Obama has it right when it comes to oil drilling and technology, I think.

Thoughts?

Dead Sea consumerism

2008-08-18T16:55:00.008+01:00

This weekend, my wife and I took our son for his first outing to a National Park. The logistical gymnastics of navigating a stroller, managing all of the baby-paraphernalia, and wrangling two basenji hounds bent on mischief meant that the camera stayed home on this jaunt.
In between seeing thistles and aster, watching half a dozen species of dragonflies and damselflies patrol the canal, and spotting a lizard I was taught to call a chameleon (but which is almost certainly actually some kind of skink), I saw a plastic toy floating in the water. Its owners lost interest almost immediately, and despite the fact that it would not have been an enormous effort to retrieve it, simply decided that it was a loss and moved on. When it finally washes up to a bank, someone will no doubt pick it up like the plastic litter I collected there yesterday, grumble about stupid yuppies leaving trash for others to deal with, and then blog about the indignity of the situation.
Having spent the last several months reading about the supply-chains for various toys, I began to think about the general flow of all of this stuff. It begins as some kind of petroleum source-product coming out of the Arabian Peninsula or its environs, or Canada or Brasil or Russia. Here and there it undergoes some intermediate processes of change and winds up in a factory in a boomtown in China. Manufactured bits are married to other manufactured bits, and they take a long trip to a port in the land of baseball and apple pie. The toy is loved or perhaps simply accepted for a brief time- it may enjoy a second life after a stint in a thrift store- before it finally winds up in a landfill.
What begins to emerge is a picture of products (and the raw materials and embodied energies thereof) following an economic path of least resistance until they reach the US. These products move like water flowing through a watershed, small streams coalescing into larger and larger ones, collectively moving toward the same end. Unlike a watershed, there’s little analogous to evaporation and transport, the processes that keep the water cycle- well- cycling. Instead, there’s a meandering line that ends just out of site from our homes, slightly mitigated by some recycling. Instead we’re simply accumulating waste and the long term costs of owning and caring for hoards of thrown-away junk. How long can we keep this up?

campaign advertising and race

2008-08-11T03:17:00.002+01:00

Campaign advertising is an interesting art form. In just 30 to 60 seconds an advertisement wants to use images, sound, and a small amount of text to strike a chord in potential voters. Positive ads aim to provide images and words that will make viewers identify with a candidate, often by appeals to values (family, patriotism, smaller government, environmental protection, education, and so on). Negative ads aim to conjure adverse reactions to one's opposition with unpleasant images and phrases (like "higher taxes" or "soft on crime" or "liar").

Over the last week or so, I've found McCain's ad campaign curious and confusing. Never before have I seen the ads of one candidate (the ads actually "approved by" the candidate) feature positive and attractive images of his opponent so prominently, for such a large percentage of the ad time. Yet that is exactly what the McCain ads do. Yes, the big evil word "TAXES" is display prominently next to Obama's picture in one part of the ad, but for the most part the images of Obama are attractive, show him smiling, show people smiling at him. This is unprecedented in national campaign advertising, especially negative advertising where the few pictures of the candidate being slammed are generally chosen to be unflattering and appear only briefly. Which left me puzzled -- why would McCain promote these positive images of Obama?

This afternoon, while watching the Olympics my husband and I were talking about how Americans view athletes who immigrate from other countries to the U.S. and compete on our teams. My husband, a serious competitive runner, who spends a lot of time on-line on running discussion boards and blogs, has told me that many of the people on the boards have expressed negative feelings about Bernard Legat and Lopez Lomong, as "foreigners" who should have stayed where they belonged. We were watching women's gymnastics at the time, and the performance of Nastia Liukin a member of the U.S. women's team. Liukin is the daughter of a former USSR Olympic medalist in men's gymnastics; in other words she is an immigrant like Legat and Lomong. We were speculating whether attitudes about immigrants similar to those expressed in the running world were expressed in gymnastic circles about Liukin. We wondered if age made a difference. Then we wondered if race and ethnicity made a difference; do you get a pass if you are blonde and blue-eyed?

Suddenly I had a flash of an idea. What if the unspoken subliminal message of the McCain ads is "Look at this extraordinarily popular BLACK man -- he just might get to be president! Be afraid, be very afraid." What if, the McCain ads are aimed at the unspoken reservoir of racism that they know runs deeply under the surface of American life? What if the ads are just simply to visually underline the one thing that they are not allowed to actually say -- "oh, my God, this is a BLACK man."

I'd like to think it isn't true, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder. Let me be clear, I am most definitely not saying that McCain is a racist. Nor am I saying that the individuals who plan and produce McCain's ads are racists (I don't know who those people are and would not presume to attach that label to someone I didn't know well). What I am suggesting is that the people responsible for the content of the ads may be hoping to strike a chord with the racist values of some Americans, values that they know exist out there in America, and that if they can mobilize some voters around that particular value, McCain is likely to benefit. What do other people think?

Winds of Wildorado

2008-08-09T23:27:00.004+01:00

Approximately 450 ft. in height from the blade tip in top position to the ground, this windmill is one of 70 in the Wildorado Wind Field near Wildorado, Texas.

The base of the tower is anchored on almost 4 foot bolts set in a concrete pad that weighs over 350 Tons. That seems like a lot until you consider that the nacelle alone weighs about 92 Tons.

The Wildorado Wind Field is situated on approximately 16,000 acres and generates 161 MW of power. It was built in a period beginning in June, 2006 and ending April 27, 2007. The Siemens equipment was shipped from Denmark to Corpus Christi, Texas, and then trucked over 700 miles to the location just west of Wildorado which is on Interstate 40, west of Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.

Texas currently leads the U.S. with 4,446 MW of installed wind capacity. That is 5% of the world's production of wind-generated electricity. It is enough to power approximately 1.5 million homes. The cost of construction for wind-generated electricity is about $1.92 million per megawatt.

The industry has far exceeded the goals set in the state's Renewable Portfolio Standard to date because of the virtually unregulated wind-energy environment in the state.

Should siting of wind-generation facilities be regulated by state or federal law? If so, why? What might be the impact of siting regulations on landowner property rights?

Your Ideal Energy Energy Act of 2009

2008-08-06T02:34:00.002+01:00

I've had an on going back and forth with friends over solutions towards U.S. energy issues. Without stating drilling for oil (which is a separate argument and under a best case scenario only would account for an increase in 1% of oil supply by 2030), what would your ideal Energy Act of 2009 contain? Off the top of my head, I came up with the following:

1) Regulate speculation - I think the SEC is more than able and should be given a budget increase to stop the unnecessary speculation that has added over a dollar to the price per gallon of fuel.

2) The federal government will invest $30-50 billion a year in clean energy technologies (lets say, for ten years), many of those programs being in partnership with the private sector. To help get that funding, all tax breaks and subsidies to oil and coal companies would be eliminated (they don't need them).

3) All levels of government should offer retraining to any factory worker that is losing or has lost their jobs in the areas of solar, wind, geothermal, and the like. Firms should have to sign an agreement that in order to get federal or state tax breaks and subsidies they must hire within the US. This will create a community aspect to these new energies, leading to a quicker adoption of them.

4) We should target the top ten states that are on the verge of an energy crisis, such as New York, and immediately fund and put into motion the construction of nuclear power plants. I hate nuclear power and I hope that some day we can shut them all down and never have to use them again, but we will need them in these states.

5) Mandate that all new homes be outfitted with solar panels - it should have been done during the previous housing boom, but that ship has sailed.

6) Mandate all homes in the western states (many of which are growing the fastest in the country) be outfitted with geothermal technology.

7) Outfit all U.S. power plants with energy recycling technology. Currently, we waste over 50% of the power we generate. If power companies don't do it, they are fined heavily until they do. Time for playing games with them is over...

8) Major cities should institute strict conservation and sustainability codes. Portland can do it...Philly is beginning to do it...they all can do it.

These are just quick ideas...what are yours?

What does this thing mean?

2008-08-04T19:50:00.003+01:00

I ran across an article today in the Christian Science Monitor that again asks the question "what does this thing mean?" What do you think?

Image source: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History

Abortion Politics

2008-08-03T18:11:00.004+01:00

Over at the blog Prometheus, Roger Pielke, Jr., has posted a discussion on "The New Abortion Politics" of climate change. In essence, there is an emerging philosophy among climate change activists (for arguments sake, lets say it is the political left) that the only method to get action on climate change is to present those who deny or obfuscate efforts to do so are immoral. It is conceived that this is in line with how the political right has handled abortion - those that are pro-choice are not just wrong but morally bankrupt, which leads to the use of a litmus test when making choices (i.e. supreme court, President, etc.).

Pielke, Jr. lays out some examples of whom would be considered immoral:

*Not questioning any consensus views of the IPCC (in any working group)

*Not supporting adaptation [measures or policies]

*Not emphasizing the importance of significant technological innovation

*Not pointing out that policies to create higher priced energy are a certain losing strategy

Is this a winning strategy? Is it a just one? Will this shorten or lengthen efforts to mitigate the sources of anthropogenic climate change? Will it just embolden the opposition?

I think it can be argued that there has been some good to come out of the give and take between the pro and anti climate change groups (for lack of better labels). The constant questioning of scientific findings has led to better science, almost like an extra layer of peer review. An indirect example has been the ever increasing certainty of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - the most recent report stating a 90% level of certainty regarding the realism of climate change and its human-induced drivers.

The fierceness of the climate change opposition has also played a part in molding the policy discussion. Many "deniers" have pointed towards the economic ruin that would be caused by emissions reducing policies, like a carbon tax. From such discussions, policies centered on green economies through technological innovation, conservation, and increased electrical generation through nuclear sources, have become top priorities.

While each of these is still heavily debated, they have led to a progression of policy. Presidential candidates have used climate change mitigation as a solution for economic hardship, expanding the pool of voters who truly care about climate change as an issue. Up until now, those who believe we need to act on climate change have used deniers to strengthen their arguments and solutions. Yet, will a hard right turn to paint deniers as immoral actually digress recent forward thinking movement? I fear it would...