The idea of growth, that what we need is more of it, won’t work: the pie is not unlimited in size.
We have to get back to local and the reason is not an ideal, or economics, it’s physics! Local ultimately emits less CO2 into the atmosphere; on the retail side, we can walk to the market in many instances, or at the very least, drive fewer miles; on the supply side, the delivery trip from the local farm is also shorter. Sure beats shipping stuff half way around the world, especially for no other reason than to have a larger choice of things at the market.
When it is possible, raise food locally, deliver it locally, and buy it locally—sustainable agriculture.
The World Wide Web made globalization possible but economic globalization won’t work—at least as unregulated capitalism would have it. Same reason as always: unregulated capitalism only works (and then, only partially) when you can have unlimited growth and you can’t have unlimited growth for two reasons, and one of them is not negotiable at all.
The one that is partially negotiable is economics; the social science of deciding how to distribute limited resources, and therein lies the rub, the resources are limited, but so many people don’t seem to understand this.
That so many people don’t understand that the things we all need in our daily lives the world over is in limited supply, has been the backstop for capitalism since its beginning.
But the second reason, the one that will not compromise, is physics. If our carbon based industrial system is allowed to continue unabated, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to rise in an ever increasing manner until it will “cook” humans from the face of the earth, along with most other species. The planet will still be here, but we won’t.
Our legacy? From William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” :
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle,
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Please join 350.org as a way to fight back—if we act quickly and fully maybe it doesn’t have to be “…[all] sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Monday, August 23, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
A Fee on Dirty Fuel
A Fee on Dirty Fuel
A simple flat fee on all carbon fuels, collected from all fossil fuel companies at the mine, wellhead, or port or entry, then this money should be returned directly to the American consumer to be used to help offset the rise in carbon fuel prices.
But, more importantly, it would encourage Americans to conserve and search out non carbon sources of energy, which will ultimately be the better bargain.
Go to 350.org to get involved in carbon abatement.
Noble Goal Not Repaid With Success
In an August 9, 2010 story about Huang Ming, chairman of Himin Solar Energy Group, a major solar panel manufacturer based in China, accepting a symbolic gift, to the people of China from Unity College, of a solar panel once installed on the roof of the White House, Ethan Andrews wrote: “In 1979 , President Jimmy Carter had 32 solar panels installed on the West Wing of the White House as a symbolic introduction of the administrations goal of getting 20 percent of the nations energy from renewable sources by the year 2000.” But, alas, this goal was not requited with success.
Why was this noble effort not paid back with tangible results? Wouldn’t it have been nice to have all those jobs in renewable energy manufacturing for us working middle class Americans from then to now? Think about it, good paying clean safe jobs for middle class people, millions of us, instead of a few rich greedy owners and non producing speculators in dirty fossil fuel energy industries, like oil and coal. These people take for themselves such a big slice of the economic pie, while polluting our world with their filthy byproducts until it will, eventually, become unlivable. Are they so obtuse that they can’t see that they will suffer the same fate.
This group, and if you will just dwell on it for a while, you will intuitively know who they are, they are the ones who oppose any real change, those against any real progress—you can never join them (there isn’t room for you), they are not your friends and never have been.
In our U.S. system we need to oppose their, bought and paid for, legislators in government. We need to put the pressure on our representatives, after all, they work for us, to enact an equitable tax on carbon, one that will be fully refunded to all energy consumers,
An organized effort to do just that can be found at 350.org, let’s all get together there.
Why was this noble effort not paid back with tangible results? Wouldn’t it have been nice to have all those jobs in renewable energy manufacturing for us working middle class Americans from then to now? Think about it, good paying clean safe jobs for middle class people, millions of us, instead of a few rich greedy owners and non producing speculators in dirty fossil fuel energy industries, like oil and coal. These people take for themselves such a big slice of the economic pie, while polluting our world with their filthy byproducts until it will, eventually, become unlivable. Are they so obtuse that they can’t see that they will suffer the same fate.
This group, and if you will just dwell on it for a while, you will intuitively know who they are, they are the ones who oppose any real change, those against any real progress—you can never join them (there isn’t room for you), they are not your friends and never have been.
In our U.S. system we need to oppose their, bought and paid for, legislators in government. We need to put the pressure on our representatives, after all, they work for us, to enact an equitable tax on carbon, one that will be fully refunded to all energy consumers,
An organized effort to do just that can be found at 350.org, let’s all get together there.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Latent Potential
To deny, even, that global warming exists as a possibility in the face of melting ice caps and mountain glaciers, is folly writ large.
Join with other concerned citizens of the world at 350.org and remember—This planet will not be a good place for any of us to live on unless we make it a good place for all of us to live on.
Join with other concerned citizens of the world at 350.org and remember—This planet will not be a good place for any of us to live on unless we make it a good place for all of us to live on.
Saga of the White House Solar Panels
William Cockerham, Courant staff writer, wrote an article dated August 29, 1991 telling the story of how 32 solar panels, that once heated water used in the White House kitchen, were purchased by Unity College in Maine.
Unity College was, at that time, said to be the only undergraduate school in the nation that specialized in environmental sciences and natural resource development.
Some of the panels were to be used to heat water for the cafeteria and the men’s shower room at the college.
Dr. George C. Szego, a chemical engineer and founder of a pioneering solar technology company, dealt with President Jimmy Carter to install the panels on the White House. Unlike his successor, Jimmy Carter was an advocate of solar energy.
The panels were removed and put in storage by the Reagan Administration. Bad show! But it does underscore the overwhelming support the conservatives gave the fossil fuel industries over the next 28 years; which added America’s lopsided share to the world’s CO2 concentration of 390ppm; well above the 350ppm that all the smart people say is the maximum tolerable; and a long way above the 278ppm that humans lived with for millennia.
In January of 2010, after reading the article by Cockerham in a trade journal, I contacted Prof. Mike Womersley at Unity College to ask how the panels had been put to use.
He kindly told me that, indeed, 16 panels had been installed on the cafeteria roof: they were no longer functioning but they had for a long while. Others were in storage; three of them at museums; the Smithsonian, the Carter Library Museum in Atlanta, and on a traveling exhibit with the Canadian Architects Association. He said they expected to give most of the remaining panels to museums eventually.
This brings the story full circle, at least for one of the panels, 350.org is planning a Solar Road Trip in about a month: transporting one of the Carter Solar Panels from Unity College in Maine back to the White House.
Look for their blog about it at 350.org.
Unity College was, at that time, said to be the only undergraduate school in the nation that specialized in environmental sciences and natural resource development.
Some of the panels were to be used to heat water for the cafeteria and the men’s shower room at the college.
Dr. George C. Szego, a chemical engineer and founder of a pioneering solar technology company, dealt with President Jimmy Carter to install the panels on the White House. Unlike his successor, Jimmy Carter was an advocate of solar energy.
The panels were removed and put in storage by the Reagan Administration. Bad show! But it does underscore the overwhelming support the conservatives gave the fossil fuel industries over the next 28 years; which added America’s lopsided share to the world’s CO2 concentration of 390ppm; well above the 350ppm that all the smart people say is the maximum tolerable; and a long way above the 278ppm that humans lived with for millennia.
In January of 2010, after reading the article by Cockerham in a trade journal, I contacted Prof. Mike Womersley at Unity College to ask how the panels had been put to use.
He kindly told me that, indeed, 16 panels had been installed on the cafeteria roof: they were no longer functioning but they had for a long while. Others were in storage; three of them at museums; the Smithsonian, the Carter Library Museum in Atlanta, and on a traveling exhibit with the Canadian Architects Association. He said they expected to give most of the remaining panels to museums eventually.
This brings the story full circle, at least for one of the panels, 350.org is planning a Solar Road Trip in about a month: transporting one of the Carter Solar Panels from Unity College in Maine back to the White House.
Look for their blog about it at 350.org.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
An Important Time Wasted
An Important Time Wasted
I’m sad that the twenty-eight years, with Reagan and the return of the conservatives, were not used to address the very serious problem of global warming.
I have written in a previous blog that “We certainly can’t afford to waste another twenty-eight years—in fact, it is very possible that we didn’t have the luxury of the last wasted period…”.
CO2 in the atmosphere was at 339ppm in 1980 and the government had programs in place to reduce our use of fossil fuels: in fact I was personally involved in some government funded solar heating projects in the late 70’s.
Rhetorically, I ask, where would the CO2 concentration be today if the short sighted voters had allowed the progressives to remain in charge—certainly not 390ppm and very possibly below 350ppm.
I’m sad that the twenty-eight years, with Reagan and the return of the conservatives, were not used to address the very serious problem of global warming.
I have written in a previous blog that “We certainly can’t afford to waste another twenty-eight years—in fact, it is very possible that we didn’t have the luxury of the last wasted period…”.
CO2 in the atmosphere was at 339ppm in 1980 and the government had programs in place to reduce our use of fossil fuels: in fact I was personally involved in some government funded solar heating projects in the late 70’s.
Rhetorically, I ask, where would the CO2 concentration be today if the short sighted voters had allowed the progressives to remain in charge—certainly not 390ppm and very possibly below 350ppm.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Global Warming's Robin Hood
“Take from the rich and give to the poor”
Global Warming’s Robin Hood:
Tax the rich carbon energy producers and give all the proceeds, equitably, to all the energy consumers.
If we don’t do this, these greedy corporations (created by humans, by the way) will destroy our world—theirs too but that, however, is little or no comfort
Global Warming’s Robin Hood:
Tax the rich carbon energy producers and give all the proceeds, equitably, to all the energy consumers.
If we don’t do this, these greedy corporations (created by humans, by the way) will destroy our world—theirs too but that, however, is little or no comfort
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Inlander: May the person who lives on the beach move in with you when his house is under water?
Do you believe in physics, the science that deals with the properties and interrelationships of matter and energy?
If you do, then you must agree that, on our earth, a liquid (such as water) flows freely, assumes the shape of its container, seeks its own level, and its elevation is everywhere the same.
And, if you do, then you must also agree that a substance that is not a liquid or a gas is a solid; a substance that has length, breadth, and thickness (such as water ice).
In the absence of enough heat energy the substance, water, will accumulate as a solid (water ice) and in this state it will not easily flow.
But what happens if you add enough heat energy, more than our earth has seen for ten thousand years: you cannot deny; since we have, above, assumed that you believe in physics; that this water ice will become liquid water and eventually flow down to the sea and raise its level everywhere the same.
Now since you do believe in physics, you must also believe in the greenhouse effect: the excessive accumulation of heat and water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere caused by increased presents of pollutants which retain more solar radiation. You must also agree that carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of these pollutants; since the effect of its going from 278 parts per million, where it was for ten thousand years, to 390 parts per million, where it is today, is causing the earth’s temperature to rise. And this temperature rise is causing the arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland’s ice caps to melt along with hundreds of glaciers—this phenomenon is visible to the naked eye: its denial cannot be, rationally, supported.
Even if you insist that the increase in CO2 is being caused naturally, does it not make sense for humans to not add to it.
A tax on carbon emissions is the only truncheon stout enough to inflict the painful change needed.
If you do, then you must agree that, on our earth, a liquid (such as water) flows freely, assumes the shape of its container, seeks its own level, and its elevation is everywhere the same.
And, if you do, then you must also agree that a substance that is not a liquid or a gas is a solid; a substance that has length, breadth, and thickness (such as water ice).
In the absence of enough heat energy the substance, water, will accumulate as a solid (water ice) and in this state it will not easily flow.
But what happens if you add enough heat energy, more than our earth has seen for ten thousand years: you cannot deny; since we have, above, assumed that you believe in physics; that this water ice will become liquid water and eventually flow down to the sea and raise its level everywhere the same.
Now since you do believe in physics, you must also believe in the greenhouse effect: the excessive accumulation of heat and water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere caused by increased presents of pollutants which retain more solar radiation. You must also agree that carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of these pollutants; since the effect of its going from 278 parts per million, where it was for ten thousand years, to 390 parts per million, where it is today, is causing the earth’s temperature to rise. And this temperature rise is causing the arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland’s ice caps to melt along with hundreds of glaciers—this phenomenon is visible to the naked eye: its denial cannot be, rationally, supported.
Even if you insist that the increase in CO2 is being caused naturally, does it not make sense for humans to not add to it.
A tax on carbon emissions is the only truncheon stout enough to inflict the painful change needed.
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