If you read this little story long enough, you’ll find a really neat idea for making your home very energy efficient at a very small cost. The cost can be as low as $100. When I get to that part, I’ll come back and tell you how far in I’ve put it. (It's nine paragraphs down.)
As a career advocate for sustainable living and a building specialist, I never tire of encouraging friends, relatives, associates, and almost anyone else I meet, to make their homes, businesses, institutions, and tax recipients energy efficient. When asked why, I frequently answer that this is a matter of fiscal responsibility.
Now I use this answer for friends and relatives who complain about not having enough money. The average homeowner spends about $2,400 a year for home energy. Since there’s excellent data to demonstrate that at least half of this expense and energy, is wasted, my average friend or relative could have an extra $1,200 in their pockets every year for sending the kids to college, buying an energy efficient appliance to further cut their expenses, or fix the car. That’s about $100 a month or $25 a week. (I’d never turn down a raise of that magnitude.) The more important number, I think, is the ten-year total, which is $12,000 at today’s energy costs.
The cost of energy is rising, and it’s beginning to look exponential. Between peak oil (not running out of oil pseudo peak oil) and exponentially rising demand, the ten-year cost outlook could be more than $15,000; according to some, $20,000. This is the argument that I used on myself, or, that my wife encouraged me to consider when we decided to try to prepare for retirement by getting off the “grid”.
Funny though, when I used this line of reasoning with others, like a county commissioner I tried it out on once, or with township supervisors more interested in the theoretical political appearance of cutting energy costs, it doesn’t work. It also doesn’t work well on my friends, relatives, and associates who either have a lot of money or not enough money. They seem to have their reasons.
It’s my friends with too little money that pains me most in that conversation. I’ve tried diatribe, cajoling, mega-data downloads, humour, and other strategies rarely with the desired effect. I’m a trained home energy analyst and have occasionally offered my services without charge, which is often helpful to them. But I usually find more remediation than they can afford to remediate.
As measured by the limits imposed by programs established in other places, somewhere between $3,000 (a figure that I find ridiculously low in this region) to as much as $35,000. I said that I’m a trained analyst and know that you can probably get a lot of work down for $15,000., assuming that there isn’t a lot of deferred maintenance. You can probably get to a 60% reduction in costs or better with that kind of investment.
In the past, when doing an audit or evaluation, I spent a lot of time coaching my clients in how to parlay the savings from an investment in compact fluorescent light bulbs into $10,000 worth of energy work. It’s not too tricky to do that but requires exceptional discipline and a lot of time. Of course, there are quite a few who understood the benefits and were able to make that investment without my help.
So, on November 10, last year, along comes EnergyWorks, (http://ecasavesenergy.org/energyworks) an outgrowth of the Pennsylvania Keystone Help program (http://www.keystonehelp.com/). Although not highly publicized, and unknown to most consumers it is the best thing going that I’ve found in this region. (Please let me know if you know of something better.)
“EnergyWorks is a comprehensive energy solutions program for home and commercial or industrial building owners. It is a program of the Metropolitan Caucus, a coalition of Commissioners and Council members from Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties, and the Mayor of Philadelphia, supported by a $25 million grant from the US Department of Energy's Better Buildings Program. EnergyWorks helps owners find ways to reduce their building's energy use, and EnergyWorks' below market, low-interest loans help them pay for the upgrade.”
“The initiative aims to generate more energy efficient upgrades in existing homes and buildings as well as new construction and hopes to issue more than 2,000 loans in the next three years. The program will also create new jobs for building auditors and inspectors and increase opportunities for local contractors with expertise in green building/energy efficient installations.” (P.R. Newswire)
Keystone Help gives you 2.99% through 8.99% financing for a variety of different measures. Not bad, but I can do better than 8% these days on the open market. So can many of my clients. I’m not knocking Keystone Help because there is a lot that can be done with 3% financing, but there are way better programs out there like Long Island Green Homes (ligreenhomes.com).
EnergyWorks, although imperfect, is a program with 0.99% financing and has made my job much easier. First of all, I can enter a clients home for an hour or two, educate them, get them started and charge them less than $100. I don’t have to lug a blower door and duct blaster, buy $10,000 worth of infrared equipment, and another bunch of testing gear. I don’t have to buy a hybrid SUV to ferry it around. And the client can get very good service with known source of low-cost financing and a minimum of cost.
So much for my investment in becoming a RESNET HERS auditor, but I do understand the process well enough to teach a client about it. In fact, although I hesitate to say it, with knowledge of the program a client doesn’t need me at all. Not that I can’t provide valuable services. But you don’t need me to call EnergyWorks at (888) 232-3477 [AFC-First, ECA’s lending partner]. By the way, ECA, the Energy Coordinating Agency, is a non-profit and, as far as I can tell, no-one there is getting rich on this.
EnergyWorks for commercial buildings and non-profits, including municipalities, is accessible through TRF, The Reinvestment Fund, with offices in Philadelphia. http://www.trfund.com/misc/index.html
OK, so, how can I help YOU? If you want me to make a presentation to your large extended family and friends, to your church, social group, your workplace, or your municipality, give me a call, send me an email, or go to: http://www.sustaianabletransitionsus. I have been doing public education programs, with a variety of fascinating and thrilling videos and power point presentations for years. I have about a hundred and there’s surely one for you.
If you are a do-it-yourselfer who can make most of the improvements I can be your coach and guide dog. If you’re a self-starter with a desire to learn and an appetite for the assignments and homework, an hour of my time and the ability to call me back if you get stuck will probably be useful.
I’ve been college-trained, graduated from that, and I’ve passed a national certification exam as a Sustainable Building Advisor. (NaSBAP: sbainstitute.org and, check out: http://www.bucks.edu/academics/coned/sust-bldg-advisor/ if you want more information or want to be one. Check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUo-3Cz8p0g. Be the first to see it.
If you are too far away from me to make it worthwhile, I can put you in touch with others who won’t waste any fuel coming to visit you. It’s getting expensive, as you may have noticed and we all want to do our part.
By the way, we all know how advanced they are on the West Coast, don’t we? The NaSBAP was started there and came east to Bucks County straight from there. By the way, I work with other professionals who are expert on the Passive House and Net-Zero standards as well as the unparalleled Living Building Challenge. If your interest is as wide as ours, we can satisfy your need to know.
Sustainable Transitions US is not just another home energy company. Through my association with the Delaware Valley Green Building Council http://www.dvgbc.org/) and other local and national groups like The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) (aspo-usa.com) and the Post Carbon Institute (http://www.postcarbon.org/) I can provide a wide variety of fascinating programs on energy, the environment, and the economy. I’m also a trained Transition Town facilitator and can help you start one: (http://www.transitionus.org).
According to the US Department of Defense, in a stunning report, (http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/pa031510.html -) (see page 29), the Department of Energy, NASA Goddard, and other highly credible sources, the next ten years will make us or break us. I do what I do because I take their advice seriously. If you doubt that, see The Crash Course, (http://www.chrismartenson.com) and argue what’s left of your point with Dr. Martenson.
When it comes to fiscal responsibility, I know that my energy costs will determine whether I can retire with a modicum of comfort or become a ward of the state. If my sources are wrong about energy and the environment, at least I’ll have the comfort of knowing that I’ve managed my finances pretty well. To me, that’s the best immediate reward.
And if my sources are correct, I’ll be able to look my great-grandaughter in the eye and tell her that I did my best to make her world a better place.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Lingchi: Howling at the Thunder Moon (the death of nature?)
"The scholarly book, "Death by a Thousand Cuts investigates the use of slow slicing or lingchi, a form of torture and capital punishment practised in mid- and late-Imperial China from the tenth century until its abolition in 1905."
"Lingchi involved repeatedly slicing the convict's flesh beyond the point of death. By the time of the final imperial dynasty, the punishment could be meted out for an offence as simple as striking a teacher."
"The authors argue that this was more than a physical punishment,… but about denying the victim "somatic integrity"… and denying them any hope of a life after death which, the authors argue, caused them to feel shame."
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/legal/lingchi.htm (Brook, Bourgon, and Blue)
The End of Nature? A Death by a thousand cuts.
DEEP CUT: Recent NASA reports say that the Arctic could be completely ice-free by the fall of 2012. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztz3ZdPbdKo
For sailors like me, this would be good news because a Northern sea route from the Pacific, specifically the Orient, to the Atlantic would cut thousands of miles off the trip and save a lot of money. This would favor owners of large vessels like tankers, freighters, bulk carriers, passenger ships, and naval vessels. When they begin to traverse a certain route, especially in such inhospitable waters, it makes it safer for the smaller vessels that I'm used to working with.
The Northwest Passage, as it's known, is the legendary route that was thought impossible until the beginning of this millennium when we began to really notice a thinning and melting of the Arctic ice cover. In 2005 Roald Amundsen won the holy grail of sailing when he made it completely through after a three-year effort.
As Stan Rogers brilliantly wrote:
Ah for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI (still, no video, but the whole song)
Rogers never lived to see the passage open. He died in an aircraft fire in Cincinnati in 1983, two years after he wrote that famous song. That "warm line" he wrote about has spread across the entire region and threatens to make us nostalgic for the old days, dry feet, and traditional summers.
CUT: Those of us who are well versed in climatology and global climate change know the fundamentals. First of all, there will be scientific uncertainty and the definitive answers we seek today will only be known when humanity's massive experiment with atmospheric and planetary homeostasis is too far underway to stop. Traditional weather patterns will be disrupted. That is a long-term challenge because the conclusions we seek won't be available during the experiment. From the data that's already been collected we know that fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record since 1850 have occurred in the last fourteen years. http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/
CUTS: "While it is impossible to establish a direct causal link between greenhouse gas accumulation and individual, relatively short-term climatic events, it is certain that we have been experiencing increasing numbers of climatic events unprecedented in the human experience. It is worth noting that the reduced sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean, the retreat of mountain glaciers, reduced ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, increased droughts and fires, increased severity of storms and flooding have all occurred with a warming of only 0.75oC (1.3oF). It is also certain that many of the greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane, have lengthy residence times in the atmosphere, and that we will continue to be affected for years or even centuries to come by the atmospheric burden we are creating today."
(Woods Hole Research Center - http://www.whrc.org/resources/primer_fundamentals.html)
CUTS: The effects of rising greenhouse gasses will make warming most pronounced at the higher latitudes, the polar regions of the Earth. Storms will become more intense. Insurance claims for storm damage have already skyrocketed. Patterns of rainfall and drought will shift and the possibilities of numerous positive feedback loops could cause what's known as a runaway greenhouse effect. This is the environmental metaphor for mutual assured destruction MADness that began during the cold war. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/.../5...effects-of-global-warming/27...
That MADness, too, has not abated although we haven't overtly played chicken with thermonuclear toys since Kennedy and Cuba. This is an important point today because we are involved in several oil wars and Americans and others are dying as you read this. It would not take much of a miscalculation to escalate an oil war, and any of a dozen or two possibilities could lead to rapid escalation. There is a great deal at stake in securing access to the last of the oil. Moreover, players with little to lose have a big hand in shaping that struggle. Many including:
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-henderson240207.htm)
CUT: By some estimates, the carbon footprint of the Gulf Wars, Iraq, and Afgahnistan have negated any improvements in carbon reductions in our homeland.
"Amory Lovins, the world-renowned energy consultant, agrees that the US military has a "fat fuel-logistics tail" and believes that this is a "very teachable moment for the military" on reducing its immense fossil fuel consumption.
"And it is indeed immense: according to a report in Energy Bulletin earlier this year, the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of oil in the world. If the Pentagon was a country, it would be the 36th biggest consumer of oil. The US military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day, but this total only includes "vehicle transport and facility maintenance". What about the 130,000 US contractors in Iraq rebuilding the ruined infrastructure?
Lovins estimates that about a third of the military's oil is used to run generators, the vast majority of which power air-conditioning units. And compared with the second world war, the military in Iraq and Afghanistan is using 16 times more fuel per soldier, according to a Pentagon report published this year." What about Co2 footprint of the munitions used and fires started by conflict, including gas tanker fires?
Ultimately, the question posed is unanswerable, but what is known is that one thing war is good for is dramatically increasing a nation's fuel use."
by David le Brocquy http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/27/ethicalliving.carbonfootprints
CUT: There are still an estimated quarter of a million refugees from the American Gulf coast and New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Those storms decimated the region in 2005, as Amundsen was completing his historic voyage. If sea levels rise by one meter, as predicted for this century by the UN IPCC and others, there could be a billion refugees from lowlands like Mauritious, Bengaladesh, Holland, South Florida, South Jersey, a bunch of airports, seaports, and our favorite beaches. According to the Stern Review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/30/economy.uk) mitigation will likely cost 1/20th, or 5%, of the cost of adaptation, but the costs rise with every year of inaction. The Sierra Club recently reported a one meter sea level rise could overwhelm the world's economies to cope.
CUT: The Tuesday (6/12/11) New York Times front page headline proclaimed, Drought Spreads Pain From Florida to Arizona: Crops and Livestock Suffer in canSwath of 14 States. "The heat and the drought are so bad in this southeast corner of Georgia that the hogs can barely eat." (http://www.timesizing.com/)
CUT: At the same time, residents in Canada, and in over a dozen US states from the Dakotas and Illinois to Louisiana and Mississippi are beginning the recovery from one of the largest and most damaging floods recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Mississippi_River_floods
CUT: According to Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the long-suffering nations in the Horn of East Africa are enduring the worst drought conditions in more than half a century, and are at risk of "massive famine." "In its most recent update on the crisis, USAID declared the food and water shortage in East Africa "the most severe food security emergency in the world today." (Huffington Post) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/famine-in-africa-usaid_n_897644.html
CUT: After suffering the worst drought in 1000 years Australia yesterday announced it will give $11.2 million in food aid to countries in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. Earlier this year, Australia's worst floods caused as much as $20 billion of damage to their eastern states. http://www.positiveuniverse.com/Places/Africa.html -
CUT: A different type of flooding, sea level rise, has been spreading across the world like mold across a damp basement. This involves entire nations and will be in the forefront of a refugee phenonenum that is only beginning to attract the attention and concern of the world. Although we care what happens to "them", only the Dutch seem to be aware that "we all live in the same polder". A polder is what they call an area that's below sea level. A third of Holland is below sea level and it's lowest city is seven meters below the level of the North Sea. www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm I haven't found out what they've already spent to increase the country by more than a third, but it's been estimated that to continue will cost, "about $1.5 billion a year for the next 100 years." So, who cares? Now that you know, you probably do.
CUT: The polar bears and the seals probably care too, but what do they know? The populations of Beluga Whales are down to 300 in some areas, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2255 and threatened in many others. There are a lot of people in the Northeast who don't give a rat's ass what happens to Polar Bears and seals. Some do, but we seem to prefer Penguins. One reason may be that they live at the other end of the world and we don't have Penguin refugees crowding the beaches at the jersey shore. Maybe we also like them because they dress nicely and have "happy feet".
CUT: With Arctic Amplification well established in 2009, our friends at the National Snow and Ice Data Center recently said, "The decline of summer sea ice in the Arctic punctuates a long warming trend that is amplified in the north. While some scientists study the loss of sea ice and its effect on climate patterns, other scientists have been monitoring ground that was once permanently frozen. It is also thawing, with both local and global consequences." nsidc.org/monthlyhighlights/february2011.html
This is known as a positive feedback loop with negative consequences for humans. This is especially true for those of us in the US Northeast where the effects of sea level rise is more pronounced than in other parts of the world.
CUTS: In the 20th century there has been about a foot of sea level rise in the nation's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. What landscape amnesia has hidden from us is the fact that in 1900 Maryland was the center of the American maple syrup trade. Although today, Vermont is acknowledged to be the capital, Vermonters and Canadians are aware that it continues to move northward across the border. Smith's Island, the last of Maryland's thirteen inhabited islands in the bay is slowly going under and the inhabitants, including the refugees from the other islands are now debating whether or not to abandon it. http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=164
CUTS: The list of nations most threatened by sea level rise, once short and tragic, has now grown to a list too long for this article. But it may be accessed at: http://www.globalislands.net/news/newsdeskitem.php?newstype=Special&newsid=4660&mfxsr=8
CUT: According to the International Energy Agency, global greenhouse gas emissions soared to the highest level on record last year. The increase was about three percent higher than the previous year and a sign that we're still digging the hole deeper. Us emissions were reported to be climbing in spite of our best efforts at conservation and efficiency. So much, so far, for American ingenuity. http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959
CUT: Today's local paper announced a Pew Research Center study that finds Western Europeans say China will overtake the US. Many of them seemed to think it would be a good thing. I always wondered how the Brits took the news that the sun was setting on their empire. It was reported that they were among the last to notice that it happened. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576442400450218990.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
CUT: When I started writing this I didn't realize how easy it would be to find the places where Nature was suffering all of those cuts. But it's also impressed me with how often the scalpel is cutting both ways. With the end of cheap oil behind us, and a rising demand from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and (yes) China) cutting across the falling Hubbert Peak Oil supply bell curve, I wonder if China will find the fuel to overtake anyone. At the same time, Western nations, long dependent on the availability of cheap energy, may just collapse economically as a result of their fiscally irresponsible use of that natural resource in the last century. Virtually every recession in the last century was preceeded by a spike in the price of oil. http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-systematic-monetary-polic...
CUT: What is most remarkable is that we're barely through the first decade of this Millennium. Those of us watching this kind of news are probably wondering when I'll mention "water". Here's Wikipedias take on that: "Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts .."
CUT: Water may be for fighting, but so is oil. The first major attack in the global wars for oil occurred in 2001, the first year of the Third Millennium. Most of us were expecting some major calamity in 2000, the beginning date for the mathematically challenged. In 1995, when many were beginning to fret about the Milliennium and Y2K, I (among many others) predicted that if something of human origin occurred it would likely be in 2001. Like Arthur C. Clark, I remembered my grade school math. imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980902d.html
CUT: Yet it could be said that the war over oil began as far back as 1979 when Iranians, pissed off at the US for reinstalling the Shah (among other things), seized the US Embassy and gave the 52 remaining hostages to Ronald Reagan as an inauguration present. http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/oilsk.htm
23 CUTS. From Beirut in 1983 to the first world trade center bombing in 2001, The United States has been absorbing numerous cuts and slashes. http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology.html
CUT: According to Dick Cheney, when he was nominally the President and the Vice President, we are in a war without end. Of course it's not about oil. We all know that we attacked Iraq because they were plotting to overthrow the United States with weapons of mass destruction. I wonder how the US economy would be faring without the burden of a $3 trillion set of wars. I know the troops are starting to come home but how long will Blackwater, Dynacorp, and Triple Canopy stay behind to take care of our assets and interests? What will that cost?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/.../americaswarwithouten
CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: A more complete listing of Gaia's wounds would quickly get boring and overwhelming. Over a year later, oil is still washing ashore while the Gulf of Mexico is trying to recover from the April 2010 BP Macondo well blowout and oil spill. Prince William Sound is still struggling from its 1989 encounter with the Exxon Valdez. The pollution in the Niger Delta, along with the oppression of the Ogani people is said to be far worse than both. And what is China doing to the atmosphere and the oceans in their quest to provide a western standard of life for over a billion of their citizens? Whales and dolphins are still threatened, the glaciers are nearly gone in most parts of the world and a billion people depend on that for their water supplies. I mentioned water at least twice. And, see how easy it is to expand this list?
CUTS TO COME: If our military has done its usual good job in outlining the likely threats to the United States in the last Joint Operating Environment Report (2010), 2012 will likely see events that will overshadow and overwhelm what's on this list. http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
Please don't download it from the web because you might blame me for your nightmares. And as he-who-must-not-be-named-scalpel-hands gets warmed up, the cuts will come faster and deeper. And we will bleed, along with our troops coming out of The Hurt Locker. Don't worry, it's only a movie. http://www.thehurtlocker-movie.com/
CUT: Many bleed real blood in Iraq and Afghanistan and they feel the pain. Estimates of the death toll fluctuates wildly between 120,000 and a million. The number of wounded far exceed that and the final tally will be mind boggling if it's ever accurately counted. Our thirst for oil, diesel, and gasoline we are apparently paying our enemies for their war expenses. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq -
http://www.daveedgr.com/news/the-high-cost-of-oil-dependence/
THE MOST PAINFUL CUT SO FAR: Roughly 25% of US petroleum imports come from that region. A Pew Research Center report on July 13, 2011, indicates that America's image does not fare well in that region. According to Rocky Mountain Institute, Americans waste between 50% and 90% of the energy we use. This fact is well known to energy analysts and auditors who survey our buildings. A 25% reduction is very doable and 50% is within our reach. Yet, although that precise fact eludes me at the moment we Americans spend billions annually for a commodity that is killing our troops and that we essentially waste. There is something pathological about this. Many Americans and Iraqui's are dying and being maimed for oil we essentially don't need. Our balance of trade is out of whack, and these wars run up the national debt Washington crisis du jour.
Freeing America From Its Addiction to Oil
DOD’s Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity
APATHY: The children of the sixties and the seventies put their bodies on the line to try to stop the senseless slaughter. We died and were martyred in protest and created a vibrant cultural movement that endures.. but mostly in our memory.
en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...
I want to know when the people, the voters, the citizens, the people of conscience, the faithful, and the outraged, here in the West, begin to lead? When will we stop financing insanity? When will we stop complaining about the waste in Washington and become fiscally responsible for ourselves and our families? Have we all been bought off with a little comfort, bread and circus, and a "little temporary safety"? (ref.: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/science/earth/18prof.html
Do the bones that you're chewing on taste that good? Have we all taken leave of our senses, or are we living in the Age of Stupid? I ask you, "How do you want to be remembered?" If you have children, and if they survive, they will judge you.
http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid
We need a Western spring to match and surpass the one that the Arabs are inventing. Yes, we are complicit in the cutting, but like Lysistrata, we too, are able to withhold our cooperation with what some call the white male power structure. http://drama.eserver.org/plays/classical/aristophanes/lysistrata.txt
If we have the will and the gumption, we can stop being docile "consumers" and go back to being human beings.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Postscript: The final cut
The End of Nature (also, book by Bill McKibben: http://www.billmckibben.com/end-of-nature.html)
An article from the year-end issue of the International Herald Tribune Magazine.
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Published: December 2, 2010
"The big ecological disasters of 2010 fit into the ancient cosmological model, in which the universe is made up of four basic elements: AIR, volcanic ash clouds from Iceland immobilizing airline traffic over Europe; EARTH, mudslides and earthquakes in China; FIRE, rendering Moscow almost unlivable; WATER, the tsunami in Indonesia, floods displacing millions in Pakistan.
Such recourse to traditional wisdom offers no true insight into the mysteries of our wild Mother Nature’s whims, however. It’s a consolation device, really, allowing us to avoid the question we all want to ask: Will more events of such magnitude turn up on nature’s agenda for 2011?"
"While science can help us, it can’t do the whole job. Instead of looking to science to stop our world from ending, we need to look at ourselves and learn to imagine and create a new world."
Bravo, Slavoj! (Ed.)
Full article at: (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/global/02iht-GA12zizek.html
"Lingchi involved repeatedly slicing the convict's flesh beyond the point of death. By the time of the final imperial dynasty, the punishment could be meted out for an offence as simple as striking a teacher."
"The authors argue that this was more than a physical punishment,… but about denying the victim "somatic integrity"… and denying them any hope of a life after death which, the authors argue, caused them to feel shame."
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/legal/lingchi.htm (Brook, Bourgon, and Blue)
The End of Nature? A Death by a thousand cuts.
DEEP CUT: Recent NASA reports say that the Arctic could be completely ice-free by the fall of 2012. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztz3ZdPbdKo
For sailors like me, this would be good news because a Northern sea route from the Pacific, specifically the Orient, to the Atlantic would cut thousands of miles off the trip and save a lot of money. This would favor owners of large vessels like tankers, freighters, bulk carriers, passenger ships, and naval vessels. When they begin to traverse a certain route, especially in such inhospitable waters, it makes it safer for the smaller vessels that I'm used to working with.
The Northwest Passage, as it's known, is the legendary route that was thought impossible until the beginning of this millennium when we began to really notice a thinning and melting of the Arctic ice cover. In 2005 Roald Amundsen won the holy grail of sailing when he made it completely through after a three-year effort.
As Stan Rogers brilliantly wrote:
Ah for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVY8LoM47xI (still, no video, but the whole song)
Rogers never lived to see the passage open. He died in an aircraft fire in Cincinnati in 1983, two years after he wrote that famous song. That "warm line" he wrote about has spread across the entire region and threatens to make us nostalgic for the old days, dry feet, and traditional summers.
CUT: Those of us who are well versed in climatology and global climate change know the fundamentals. First of all, there will be scientific uncertainty and the definitive answers we seek today will only be known when humanity's massive experiment with atmospheric and planetary homeostasis is too far underway to stop. Traditional weather patterns will be disrupted. That is a long-term challenge because the conclusions we seek won't be available during the experiment. From the data that's already been collected we know that fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record since 1850 have occurred in the last fourteen years. http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/
CUTS: "While it is impossible to establish a direct causal link between greenhouse gas accumulation and individual, relatively short-term climatic events, it is certain that we have been experiencing increasing numbers of climatic events unprecedented in the human experience. It is worth noting that the reduced sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean, the retreat of mountain glaciers, reduced ice sheets in Greenland and West Antarctica, increased droughts and fires, increased severity of storms and flooding have all occurred with a warming of only 0.75oC (1.3oF). It is also certain that many of the greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and methane, have lengthy residence times in the atmosphere, and that we will continue to be affected for years or even centuries to come by the atmospheric burden we are creating today."
(Woods Hole Research Center - http://www.whrc.org/resources/primer_fundamentals.html)
CUTS: The effects of rising greenhouse gasses will make warming most pronounced at the higher latitudes, the polar regions of the Earth. Storms will become more intense. Insurance claims for storm damage have already skyrocketed. Patterns of rainfall and drought will shift and the possibilities of numerous positive feedback loops could cause what's known as a runaway greenhouse effect. This is the environmental metaphor for mutual assured destruction MADness that began during the cold war. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/.../5...effects-of-global-warming/27...
That MADness, too, has not abated although we haven't overtly played chicken with thermonuclear toys since Kennedy and Cuba. This is an important point today because we are involved in several oil wars and Americans and others are dying as you read this. It would not take much of a miscalculation to escalate an oil war, and any of a dozen or two possibilities could lead to rapid escalation. There is a great deal at stake in securing access to the last of the oil. Moreover, players with little to lose have a big hand in shaping that struggle. Many including:
http://www.countercurrents.org/cc-henderson240207.htm)
CUT: By some estimates, the carbon footprint of the Gulf Wars, Iraq, and Afgahnistan have negated any improvements in carbon reductions in our homeland.
"Amory Lovins, the world-renowned energy consultant, agrees that the US military has a "fat fuel-logistics tail" and believes that this is a "very teachable moment for the military" on reducing its immense fossil fuel consumption.
"And it is indeed immense: according to a report in Energy Bulletin earlier this year, the Pentagon is the single largest consumer of oil in the world. If the Pentagon was a country, it would be the 36th biggest consumer of oil. The US military officially uses 320,000 barrels of oil a day, but this total only includes "vehicle transport and facility maintenance". What about the 130,000 US contractors in Iraq rebuilding the ruined infrastructure?
Lovins estimates that about a third of the military's oil is used to run generators, the vast majority of which power air-conditioning units. And compared with the second world war, the military in Iraq and Afghanistan is using 16 times more fuel per soldier, according to a Pentagon report published this year." What about Co2 footprint of the munitions used and fires started by conflict, including gas tanker fires?
Ultimately, the question posed is unanswerable, but what is known is that one thing war is good for is dramatically increasing a nation's fuel use."
by David le Brocquy http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/sep/27/ethicalliving.carbonfootprints
CUT: There are still an estimated quarter of a million refugees from the American Gulf coast and New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Those storms decimated the region in 2005, as Amundsen was completing his historic voyage. If sea levels rise by one meter, as predicted for this century by the UN IPCC and others, there could be a billion refugees from lowlands like Mauritious, Bengaladesh, Holland, South Florida, South Jersey, a bunch of airports, seaports, and our favorite beaches. According to the Stern Review (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/oct/30/economy.uk) mitigation will likely cost 1/20th, or 5%, of the cost of adaptation, but the costs rise with every year of inaction. The Sierra Club recently reported a one meter sea level rise could overwhelm the world's economies to cope.
CUT: The Tuesday (6/12/11) New York Times front page headline proclaimed, Drought Spreads Pain From Florida to Arizona: Crops and Livestock Suffer in canSwath of 14 States. "The heat and the drought are so bad in this southeast corner of Georgia that the hogs can barely eat." (http://www.timesizing.com/)
CUT: At the same time, residents in Canada, and in over a dozen US states from the Dakotas and Illinois to Louisiana and Mississippi are beginning the recovery from one of the largest and most damaging floods recorded along the U.S. waterway in the past century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Mississippi_River_floods
CUT: According to Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the long-suffering nations in the Horn of East Africa are enduring the worst drought conditions in more than half a century, and are at risk of "massive famine." "In its most recent update on the crisis, USAID declared the food and water shortage in East Africa "the most severe food security emergency in the world today." (Huffington Post) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/famine-in-africa-usaid_n_897644.html
CUT: After suffering the worst drought in 1000 years Australia yesterday announced it will give $11.2 million in food aid to countries in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. Earlier this year, Australia's worst floods caused as much as $20 billion of damage to their eastern states. http://www.positiveuniverse.com/Places/Africa.html -
CUT: A different type of flooding, sea level rise, has been spreading across the world like mold across a damp basement. This involves entire nations and will be in the forefront of a refugee phenonenum that is only beginning to attract the attention and concern of the world. Although we care what happens to "them", only the Dutch seem to be aware that "we all live in the same polder". A polder is what they call an area that's below sea level. A third of Holland is below sea level and it's lowest city is seven meters below the level of the North Sea. www1.american.edu/ted/ice/dutch-sea.htm I haven't found out what they've already spent to increase the country by more than a third, but it's been estimated that to continue will cost, "about $1.5 billion a year for the next 100 years." So, who cares? Now that you know, you probably do.
CUT: The polar bears and the seals probably care too, but what do they know? The populations of Beluga Whales are down to 300 in some areas, http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2167/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2255 and threatened in many others. There are a lot of people in the Northeast who don't give a rat's ass what happens to Polar Bears and seals. Some do, but we seem to prefer Penguins. One reason may be that they live at the other end of the world and we don't have Penguin refugees crowding the beaches at the jersey shore. Maybe we also like them because they dress nicely and have "happy feet".
CUT: With Arctic Amplification well established in 2009, our friends at the National Snow and Ice Data Center recently said, "The decline of summer sea ice in the Arctic punctuates a long warming trend that is amplified in the north. While some scientists study the loss of sea ice and its effect on climate patterns, other scientists have been monitoring ground that was once permanently frozen. It is also thawing, with both local and global consequences." nsidc.org/monthlyhighlights/february2011.html
This is known as a positive feedback loop with negative consequences for humans. This is especially true for those of us in the US Northeast where the effects of sea level rise is more pronounced than in other parts of the world.
CUTS: In the 20th century there has been about a foot of sea level rise in the nation's largest estuary, the Chesapeake Bay. What landscape amnesia has hidden from us is the fact that in 1900 Maryland was the center of the American maple syrup trade. Although today, Vermont is acknowledged to be the capital, Vermonters and Canadians are aware that it continues to move northward across the border. Smith's Island, the last of Maryland's thirteen inhabited islands in the bay is slowly going under and the inhabitants, including the refugees from the other islands are now debating whether or not to abandon it. http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/pages/page.cfm?page_id=164
CUTS: The list of nations most threatened by sea level rise, once short and tragic, has now grown to a list too long for this article. But it may be accessed at: http://www.globalislands.net/news/newsdeskitem.php?newstype=Special&newsid=4660&mfxsr=8
CUT: According to the International Energy Agency, global greenhouse gas emissions soared to the highest level on record last year. The increase was about three percent higher than the previous year and a sign that we're still digging the hole deeper. Us emissions were reported to be climbing in spite of our best efforts at conservation and efficiency. So much, so far, for American ingenuity. http://www.iea.org/index_info.asp?id=1959
CUT: Today's local paper announced a Pew Research Center study that finds Western Europeans say China will overtake the US. Many of them seemed to think it would be a good thing. I always wondered how the Brits took the news that the sun was setting on their empire. It was reported that they were among the last to notice that it happened. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303678704576442400450218990.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
CUT: When I started writing this I didn't realize how easy it would be to find the places where Nature was suffering all of those cuts. But it's also impressed me with how often the scalpel is cutting both ways. With the end of cheap oil behind us, and a rising demand from the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and (yes) China) cutting across the falling Hubbert Peak Oil supply bell curve, I wonder if China will find the fuel to overtake anyone. At the same time, Western nations, long dependent on the availability of cheap energy, may just collapse economically as a result of their fiscally irresponsible use of that natural resource in the last century. Virtually every recession in the last century was preceeded by a spike in the price of oil. http://www.businessinsider.com/ben-bernanke-systematic-monetary-polic...
CUT: What is most remarkable is that we're barely through the first decade of this Millennium. Those of us watching this kind of news are probably wondering when I'll mention "water". Here's Wikipedias take on that: "Fresh water is a renewable resource, yet the world's supply of clean, fresh water is steadily decreasing. Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts .."
CUT: Water may be for fighting, but so is oil. The first major attack in the global wars for oil occurred in 2001, the first year of the Third Millennium. Most of us were expecting some major calamity in 2000, the beginning date for the mathematically challenged. In 1995, when many were beginning to fret about the Milliennium and Y2K, I (among many others) predicted that if something of human origin occurred it would likely be in 2001. Like Arthur C. Clark, I remembered my grade school math. imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980902d.html
CUT: Yet it could be said that the war over oil began as far back as 1979 when Iranians, pissed off at the US for reinstalling the Shah (among other things), seized the US Embassy and gave the 52 remaining hostages to Ronald Reagan as an inauguration present. http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv8n1/oilsk.htm
23 CUTS. From Beirut in 1983 to the first world trade center bombing in 2001, The United States has been absorbing numerous cuts and slashes. http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/chronology.html
CUT: According to Dick Cheney, when he was nominally the President and the Vice President, we are in a war without end. Of course it's not about oil. We all know that we attacked Iraq because they were plotting to overthrow the United States with weapons of mass destruction. I wonder how the US economy would be faring without the burden of a $3 trillion set of wars. I know the troops are starting to come home but how long will Blackwater, Dynacorp, and Triple Canopy stay behind to take care of our assets and interests? What will that cost?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/.../americaswarwithouten
CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: CUT: A more complete listing of Gaia's wounds would quickly get boring and overwhelming. Over a year later, oil is still washing ashore while the Gulf of Mexico is trying to recover from the April 2010 BP Macondo well blowout and oil spill. Prince William Sound is still struggling from its 1989 encounter with the Exxon Valdez. The pollution in the Niger Delta, along with the oppression of the Ogani people is said to be far worse than both. And what is China doing to the atmosphere and the oceans in their quest to provide a western standard of life for over a billion of their citizens? Whales and dolphins are still threatened, the glaciers are nearly gone in most parts of the world and a billion people depend on that for their water supplies. I mentioned water at least twice. And, see how easy it is to expand this list?
CUTS TO COME: If our military has done its usual good job in outlining the likely threats to the United States in the last Joint Operating Environment Report (2010), 2012 will likely see events that will overshadow and overwhelm what's on this list. http://www.jfcom.mil/newslink/storyarchive/2010/JOE_2010_o.pdf
Please don't download it from the web because you might blame me for your nightmares. And as he-who-must-not-be-named-scalpel-hands gets warmed up, the cuts will come faster and deeper. And we will bleed, along with our troops coming out of The Hurt Locker. Don't worry, it's only a movie. http://www.thehurtlocker-movie.com/
CUT: Many bleed real blood in Iraq and Afghanistan and they feel the pain. Estimates of the death toll fluctuates wildly between 120,000 and a million. The number of wounded far exceed that and the final tally will be mind boggling if it's ever accurately counted. Our thirst for oil, diesel, and gasoline we are apparently paying our enemies for their war expenses. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/19/iraq -
http://www.daveedgr.com/news/the-high-cost-of-oil-dependence/
THE MOST PAINFUL CUT SO FAR: Roughly 25% of US petroleum imports come from that region. A Pew Research Center report on July 13, 2011, indicates that America's image does not fare well in that region. According to Rocky Mountain Institute, Americans waste between 50% and 90% of the energy we use. This fact is well known to energy analysts and auditors who survey our buildings. A 25% reduction is very doable and 50% is within our reach. Yet, although that precise fact eludes me at the moment we Americans spend billions annually for a commodity that is killing our troops and that we essentially waste. There is something pathological about this. Many Americans and Iraqui's are dying and being maimed for oil we essentially don't need. Our balance of trade is out of whack, and these wars run up the national debt Washington crisis du jour.
Freeing America From Its Addiction to Oil
DOD’s Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity
APATHY: The children of the sixties and the seventies put their bodies on the line to try to stop the senseless slaughter. We died and were martyred in protest and created a vibrant cultural movement that endures.. but mostly in our memory.
en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...en.wikipedia.org/.../Opposition_to_the_U.S._involvement_in_the_...
I want to know when the people, the voters, the citizens, the people of conscience, the faithful, and the outraged, here in the West, begin to lead? When will we stop financing insanity? When will we stop complaining about the waste in Washington and become fiscally responsible for ourselves and our families? Have we all been bought off with a little comfort, bread and circus, and a "little temporary safety"? (ref.: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/18/science/earth/18prof.html
Do the bones that you're chewing on taste that good? Have we all taken leave of our senses, or are we living in the Age of Stupid? I ask you, "How do you want to be remembered?" If you have children, and if they survive, they will judge you.
http://www.spannerfilms.net/films/ageofstupid
We need a Western spring to match and surpass the one that the Arabs are inventing. Yes, we are complicit in the cutting, but like Lysistrata, we too, are able to withhold our cooperation with what some call the white male power structure. http://drama.eserver.org/plays/classical/aristophanes/lysistrata.txt
If we have the will and the gumption, we can stop being docile "consumers" and go back to being human beings.
Wouldn't that be nice?
Postscript: The final cut
The End of Nature (also, book by Bill McKibben: http://www.billmckibben.com/end-of-nature.html)
An article from the year-end issue of the International Herald Tribune Magazine.
By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Published: December 2, 2010
"The big ecological disasters of 2010 fit into the ancient cosmological model, in which the universe is made up of four basic elements: AIR, volcanic ash clouds from Iceland immobilizing airline traffic over Europe; EARTH, mudslides and earthquakes in China; FIRE, rendering Moscow almost unlivable; WATER, the tsunami in Indonesia, floods displacing millions in Pakistan.
Such recourse to traditional wisdom offers no true insight into the mysteries of our wild Mother Nature’s whims, however. It’s a consolation device, really, allowing us to avoid the question we all want to ask: Will more events of such magnitude turn up on nature’s agenda for 2011?"
"While science can help us, it can’t do the whole job. Instead of looking to science to stop our world from ending, we need to look at ourselves and learn to imagine and create a new world."
Bravo, Slavoj! (Ed.)
Full article at: (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/opinion/global/02iht-GA12zizek.html
Monday, July 4, 2011
Reading the handwriting on the wall: Another warning about the coming "perfect storm", and a call to action.
The precautionary principle may turn out to be one of the most important ideas from the last century. http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html
"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998
Of course, the Boy Scouts of Amerca simply sums it all up in two words: "Be Prepared!"
People have recently begun asking me how I come to be accurate in my predictions for the future of our society. It seems like a dumb question, but I rarely say that. I also rarely wonder why so many people fail to notice what I find obvious. So, here's my try at an answer.
"Sit, be still, and listen, because you're drunk and we're at the edge of the roof." Rumi
Drunk?! you might exclaim. "I'm a sober as a judge!" I could rest my case right there. Judges, like almost everybody in our culture are toxically addicted to oil, as "43" once famously acclaimed. And he should know!
That established, I asked myself how I came to be accurate, in order to better understand what seemed to be obvious. I know that my interest is probably rooted in some really obscure personal trauma, perhaps even in a past life. I don't want to enter into that kind of speculation since it quickly becomes absurd; as absurd as I find that few others seem to be able to do it.
I wasn't always like this. But I've been a player in the survival, environment, energy, and sustainability game for several decades because of enlightened self-interest. I love living and I have a great-granddaughter. They are two more great possibilities.
I have occasionally likened what humans are doing to the world to a game of Russion Roulette with a revolver that has half of the chambers loaded. We spin the cylinder and point the barrel at our grandchildren.
We point it at my grandchildren. At the least it is fundamentally unfair. At most, it's a crime against humanity. On another scale it's a crime against the planet. It's certainly a crime against my grandchildren and a cause for my strong reaction.
Since the perfect storm might break in my lifetime my survival instinct has me paying close attention. I'm continuing to learn as much as I can. I've noticed handwriting on the wall and I try to make sense of it. I think I love to write about it to test my power of observation and conclusions. I also love to exclaim, "lookit, look what someone wrote on the wall!". It's likely that some of my wounds haven't yet healed. Two more reasons why.
I hereby confess the obvious. None of my most fundamental conclusions are original. I've done a few original things with them and filled in a bunch of blanks. There are still a lot of missing pieces in this puzzle. But a picture is emerging that is recognizable. As time passes I notice that I'm not the only one reading the wall or coming to the same conclusion. Perhaps we're reaching a critical mass of readers. If so, it may be in the nick of time.
Aside from "the wall" I use the work of geniuses, living and dead as baseline sources. People like Albert Einstein (E=you know what), R. Buckminster Fuller (Utopia or Oblivion), The Dalai Lama ("Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity."), M. King Hubbard (Peak Oil bell curve), Freud (psychology), Jung (the human shadow, archetypes), Rachael Carson (DDT), John Todd (Living Machines), Sylvia Earle (The World is Blue, Mission Blue), Chris Martenson (The Crash Course), and NASA Goddard's Jim Hansen (Storms of my Grandchildren). Each has a written a sentence or more on the wall. Each sentence relates to the others. I find it hard to argue with the likes of Einstein and Carl Jung, Hansen and Todd.
Of course I read the papers, and listen to news on the radio, TV, on the street. I don't usually buy the Thursday New York Times, I prefer the Tuesday edition. Last week , though, a headline above the fold caught my eye.
It said, "A Perfect Storm? Investors Grab Silver Linings: On Off Chance of a Total Collapse, a Little Insurance." On the "Off Chance " of WHAT?? On the front page of the New York Times? ABOVE THE FOLD??? A business and economics lead story?
I'm not waiting for it to get to the front page of our sleepy, pretentious, local papers. Like most US papers, they're still running an unbalanced stable of right-wing climate denying, "business as usual" columnists like Phyllis Schlafly, Walter Williams, George Wills, and Cal Thomas.
In the body of the article it says, "Investment professionals have a new pitch: The sky could soon be falling." While Greece took a step back from the brink on Wednesday, the possibility of a default remains a fear. Europe's debt crisis, as well as natural disasters and political uprisings, are prompting investors both big and small to seek out investments to protect their portfolios in the event of economic Armageddon." Lookit! Look what they wrote on the front page of the New York Times!
Armageddon! Protecting portfolios in the face of any Armageddon is an oxymoron. Just notice the lead photo above the article in question. Bloodied Greek demonstrator in chokehold administered by a Grecian Imperial Storm Trooper. Where is the reaction and response to this? I can't even find the original article when I Google it today, although I could last week.
When this kind of handwriting on the wall moves to The Times, it's time to do something about it. It's probably time to get out of Dodge. Yet even with familiar crises like a hurricane, one in four say they will ignore warnings. A significant percentage of Katrina victims stayed behind and according to some accounts, over 4000 people died .
An unfamiliar crisis like a global economic meltdown will require a more complex response than a simple coastal evacuation. The percentage ignoring warnings could be much higher. Coastal evacuations are generally led by people who remember how bad a category five hurricane could be. The number of people alive today that were adults during the "Great Depression" is vanishingly small. They would have to have been born in 1908 to be 21 when it hit.
Add to that, an exponential crisis that approaches slowly and requires a novel, timely, community wide response and the temptation to ignore it until it is too late. The toll then rises higher.
This perfect storm is a "Black Swan". It's three crises coming together all at once: the economy, the environment, and energy. Two of them are Black Swans in their own right. The world has never before had to deal with the end of cheap oil. Once it happens, the survivors will likely never have to do it again. It's vaguely like being downtown in a big city when a plane crashes on top of a train wreck during a magnitude 9.1 earthquake at rush hour. The impact of the highly improbable can be devastating when it occurs. Not everyone is hardwired to respond appropriately.
I am alive today because my family saw the handwriting on the wall in the late eighteenth century. They got out of Western Russia and Eastern Europe while the getting was good. They didn't wait to pull a Warsaw Ghetto or Masada ploy. I admit that deep down I usually prefer comfort of the consensus trance to having the bejesus scared out of me. But my interest in survival trumps all that. I've already survived a couple of events that few get to face.
There's nothing complex here beside my interest in discovering what's going on, and where it can lead. I leave a little room for miracles and surprises. As I move through time I test prior hypotheses against reality and adjust. Viola! Never certain, but increasingly sure, it comes in handy when making plans for tomorrow. And I never make just one.
If there is a point to this, I think that most of us are capable of doing the same. We, who are alive at this moment in history, are the progeny of survivors of eons of evolution. If we can't do it it can't be done. If we don't do it there will likely be a great pruning of the gene pool. We've already squandered a half century of warnings. We've had enough good data for two decades and the best option, strategies of fiscal responsibilities, will save us a lot of money even if Armageddon doesn't come. We managed Y2K.
In terms of planning for the future, isn't it better to be planning for a probable future than for a future based on a consensus trance? As Amory Lovins said, "It's better to be approximately accurate than precisely wrong." That most don't seem to care, or are afraid to face their fear, may, be a symptom of the kind of thinking that got us in this situation.
If there's another point here it's that I don't want to be the only survivor. I want as much company as possible. I need as many people, talents, memories, and ingenuity if I hope to survive with a minimum of dislocation and discomfort. I will need doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs, masons, machinists, and carpenters, chemists, ministers, actors, and zoologists.
Anyone who has taken Chris Martenson's Crash Course will attest there is ample evidence that humanity is headed into terra incognito. The belief that the next twenty years will be anything like the last twenty is as untested as it is an unproven assumption. It's the same as the belief that cheap oil would be available forever or that the ocean's fisheries were inexhaustible. The current assumptions are just as dangerous, if not far more so. For they are the same as the assumptions faced by the people who could quickly galvanize us all, but have ignored all the others. According to psychiatrists and psychologists, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is a definition of insanity. Let's not follow the crazies. We've been doing it for too long as it is.
The Titanic provides us with a powerful lesson on hubris and the consequences of ignoring the precautionary principle. This especially true where waters are uncharted and the weather forecast is for dense fog. If we fail, these times will likely be remembered as "the age of stupid."
Predictions, as Mark Twain’s one-liner says, are especially difficult if they are about the future. That's a better reason to attempt prediction, and to enlist the help of those with a proven track record. Of course, the kings and queens of this technique, besides John Naisbit, (Megatrends, etc.) and Nassim Taleb, (The Black Swan), Chris Martenson (The Crash Course), are Donella Meadows, Jorgan Randers, and Dennis Meadows (Limits of Growth: The 30 Year Update).
Here's what Jim Motavalli, editor, E/The Environmental Magazine and editor of Feeling the Heat: Dispatches From the Frontlines of Climate Change, says. "Confirming many of the trends outlined in The Limits to Growth three decades ago, we are now 20 percent above the Earth's carrying capacity, and on a collision course with unsupportable population growth, biodiversity loss, runaway climate change and global food and water shortages. With even the Pentagon warning that global warming could pose more of a threat than terrorism, it's time we paid serious attention to the sustainable prescriptions outlined in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Global Update.
Although first written mainly to an American readership, Megatrends proved to be true in anticipating major shifts for the whole world. Christoph Keese in the Financial Times said it well. "Once a decade, sometimes more often, a book about the economy is published that becomes a bestseller immediately and changes the relationship of people to economics. His predictions were astoundingly precise."
Megashocks is a successor based on 36 global risks identified by the World Economic Forum in 2009, from which (they) have identified eight risks particularly important from a science and technology perspective. “These include oil and gas price spikes, pandemic influenza, biodiversity loss and extreme weather events related to climate change.” Good grief! Can it all be said more plainly?
Taleb's title, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" almost tells it all. It's summarized on page xviii of the prologue. You can read it on Amazon. The internet is a Black Swan. And, it's only beginning to evolve. We ain't hardly seen nuthin' yet!
In conclusion, there is a lot of handwriting on the wall, and a prudent person would do well to pay close attention to what it says. There are vocal deniers and their assertions and beliefs must be tested against existing data. Sometimes I pray they are right, but I don't believe our leaders can pull the hat out of the rabbit. The usual tricks won’t work this time around.
Yet denial is the first and most powerful human response to catastrophic news. Denial is not simply the province of the lumpenproletariat. Very few of us are immune. One reason is that to make an appropriate response requires the kind of effort that rises to being a royal pain in the ass. It's not like going into the storm cellar and hoping your house and barn will survive the tornado.
This kind of news, when understood, usually requires immediate action and the abandonment of previous concerns and distractions. Doing that is rarely much fun. Besides, humans have a lousy track record on responding to long-range threats.
But acting in response to legitimate warnings is rewarding. Just look at the videos of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Look at faces of the people who survived. Look at the videos from Banda Ache. It's not about the death toll, horrific as it was. It is in the survivor toll where the lesson of the precautionary principle comes to life.
It's appropriate to repeat that sage meme. "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998.
In June 2003, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco became the first government body in the United States to make the precautionary principle the basis for all its environmental policy. A decade later, with far supporting more data in, it seems appropriate for all of us to adopt that wise and prudent policy. The future of our grandchildren is at stake. Although I'd gladly die to save them, I'd prefer to live and do the best I can for as long as I can do anything at all.
I call on and unite with all of the grandparents of the world to act in the name of our children's children. I especially call on the grandmothers, who have long sensed this coming. I call on all of you who are contemplating having children or are already pregnant. And I call on you who understand what a pain in the ass acting appropriately will be, but are mature and responsible enough to get involved anyway.
And to the rest, just don't get in our way.
###
"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998
Of course, the Boy Scouts of Amerca simply sums it all up in two words: "Be Prepared!"
People have recently begun asking me how I come to be accurate in my predictions for the future of our society. It seems like a dumb question, but I rarely say that. I also rarely wonder why so many people fail to notice what I find obvious. So, here's my try at an answer.
"Sit, be still, and listen, because you're drunk and we're at the edge of the roof." Rumi
Drunk?! you might exclaim. "I'm a sober as a judge!" I could rest my case right there. Judges, like almost everybody in our culture are toxically addicted to oil, as "43" once famously acclaimed. And he should know!
That established, I asked myself how I came to be accurate, in order to better understand what seemed to be obvious. I know that my interest is probably rooted in some really obscure personal trauma, perhaps even in a past life. I don't want to enter into that kind of speculation since it quickly becomes absurd; as absurd as I find that few others seem to be able to do it.
I wasn't always like this. But I've been a player in the survival, environment, energy, and sustainability game for several decades because of enlightened self-interest. I love living and I have a great-granddaughter. They are two more great possibilities.
I have occasionally likened what humans are doing to the world to a game of Russion Roulette with a revolver that has half of the chambers loaded. We spin the cylinder and point the barrel at our grandchildren.
We point it at my grandchildren. At the least it is fundamentally unfair. At most, it's a crime against humanity. On another scale it's a crime against the planet. It's certainly a crime against my grandchildren and a cause for my strong reaction.
Since the perfect storm might break in my lifetime my survival instinct has me paying close attention. I'm continuing to learn as much as I can. I've noticed handwriting on the wall and I try to make sense of it. I think I love to write about it to test my power of observation and conclusions. I also love to exclaim, "lookit, look what someone wrote on the wall!". It's likely that some of my wounds haven't yet healed. Two more reasons why.
I hereby confess the obvious. None of my most fundamental conclusions are original. I've done a few original things with them and filled in a bunch of blanks. There are still a lot of missing pieces in this puzzle. But a picture is emerging that is recognizable. As time passes I notice that I'm not the only one reading the wall or coming to the same conclusion. Perhaps we're reaching a critical mass of readers. If so, it may be in the nick of time.
Aside from "the wall" I use the work of geniuses, living and dead as baseline sources. People like Albert Einstein (E=you know what), R. Buckminster Fuller (Utopia or Oblivion), The Dalai Lama ("Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity."), M. King Hubbard (Peak Oil bell curve), Freud (psychology), Jung (the human shadow, archetypes), Rachael Carson (DDT), John Todd (Living Machines), Sylvia Earle (The World is Blue, Mission Blue), Chris Martenson (The Crash Course), and NASA Goddard's Jim Hansen (Storms of my Grandchildren). Each has a written a sentence or more on the wall. Each sentence relates to the others. I find it hard to argue with the likes of Einstein and Carl Jung, Hansen and Todd.
Of course I read the papers, and listen to news on the radio, TV, on the street. I don't usually buy the Thursday New York Times, I prefer the Tuesday edition. Last week , though, a headline above the fold caught my eye.
It said, "A Perfect Storm? Investors Grab Silver Linings: On Off Chance of a Total Collapse, a Little Insurance." On the "Off Chance " of WHAT?? On the front page of the New York Times? ABOVE THE FOLD??? A business and economics lead story?
I'm not waiting for it to get to the front page of our sleepy, pretentious, local papers. Like most US papers, they're still running an unbalanced stable of right-wing climate denying, "business as usual" columnists like Phyllis Schlafly, Walter Williams, George Wills, and Cal Thomas.
In the body of the article it says, "Investment professionals have a new pitch: The sky could soon be falling." While Greece took a step back from the brink on Wednesday, the possibility of a default remains a fear. Europe's debt crisis, as well as natural disasters and political uprisings, are prompting investors both big and small to seek out investments to protect their portfolios in the event of economic Armageddon." Lookit! Look what they wrote on the front page of the New York Times!
Armageddon! Protecting portfolios in the face of any Armageddon is an oxymoron. Just notice the lead photo above the article in question. Bloodied Greek demonstrator in chokehold administered by a Grecian Imperial Storm Trooper. Where is the reaction and response to this? I can't even find the original article when I Google it today, although I could last week.
When this kind of handwriting on the wall moves to The Times, it's time to do something about it. It's probably time to get out of Dodge. Yet even with familiar crises like a hurricane, one in four say they will ignore warnings. A significant percentage of Katrina victims stayed behind and according to some accounts, over 4000 people died .
An unfamiliar crisis like a global economic meltdown will require a more complex response than a simple coastal evacuation. The percentage ignoring warnings could be much higher. Coastal evacuations are generally led by people who remember how bad a category five hurricane could be. The number of people alive today that were adults during the "Great Depression" is vanishingly small. They would have to have been born in 1908 to be 21 when it hit.
Add to that, an exponential crisis that approaches slowly and requires a novel, timely, community wide response and the temptation to ignore it until it is too late. The toll then rises higher.
This perfect storm is a "Black Swan". It's three crises coming together all at once: the economy, the environment, and energy. Two of them are Black Swans in their own right. The world has never before had to deal with the end of cheap oil. Once it happens, the survivors will likely never have to do it again. It's vaguely like being downtown in a big city when a plane crashes on top of a train wreck during a magnitude 9.1 earthquake at rush hour. The impact of the highly improbable can be devastating when it occurs. Not everyone is hardwired to respond appropriately.
I am alive today because my family saw the handwriting on the wall in the late eighteenth century. They got out of Western Russia and Eastern Europe while the getting was good. They didn't wait to pull a Warsaw Ghetto or Masada ploy. I admit that deep down I usually prefer comfort of the consensus trance to having the bejesus scared out of me. But my interest in survival trumps all that. I've already survived a couple of events that few get to face.
There's nothing complex here beside my interest in discovering what's going on, and where it can lead. I leave a little room for miracles and surprises. As I move through time I test prior hypotheses against reality and adjust. Viola! Never certain, but increasingly sure, it comes in handy when making plans for tomorrow. And I never make just one.
If there is a point to this, I think that most of us are capable of doing the same. We, who are alive at this moment in history, are the progeny of survivors of eons of evolution. If we can't do it it can't be done. If we don't do it there will likely be a great pruning of the gene pool. We've already squandered a half century of warnings. We've had enough good data for two decades and the best option, strategies of fiscal responsibilities, will save us a lot of money even if Armageddon doesn't come. We managed Y2K.
In terms of planning for the future, isn't it better to be planning for a probable future than for a future based on a consensus trance? As Amory Lovins said, "It's better to be approximately accurate than precisely wrong." That most don't seem to care, or are afraid to face their fear, may, be a symptom of the kind of thinking that got us in this situation.
If there's another point here it's that I don't want to be the only survivor. I want as much company as possible. I need as many people, talents, memories, and ingenuity if I hope to survive with a minimum of dislocation and discomfort. I will need doctors, lawyers, Indian Chiefs, masons, machinists, and carpenters, chemists, ministers, actors, and zoologists.
Anyone who has taken Chris Martenson's Crash Course will attest there is ample evidence that humanity is headed into terra incognito. The belief that the next twenty years will be anything like the last twenty is as untested as it is an unproven assumption. It's the same as the belief that cheap oil would be available forever or that the ocean's fisheries were inexhaustible. The current assumptions are just as dangerous, if not far more so. For they are the same as the assumptions faced by the people who could quickly galvanize us all, but have ignored all the others. According to psychiatrists and psychologists, doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is a definition of insanity. Let's not follow the crazies. We've been doing it for too long as it is.
The Titanic provides us with a powerful lesson on hubris and the consequences of ignoring the precautionary principle. This especially true where waters are uncharted and the weather forecast is for dense fog. If we fail, these times will likely be remembered as "the age of stupid."
Predictions, as Mark Twain’s one-liner says, are especially difficult if they are about the future. That's a better reason to attempt prediction, and to enlist the help of those with a proven track record. Of course, the kings and queens of this technique, besides John Naisbit, (Megatrends, etc.) and Nassim Taleb, (The Black Swan), Chris Martenson (The Crash Course), are Donella Meadows, Jorgan Randers, and Dennis Meadows (Limits of Growth: The 30 Year Update).
Here's what Jim Motavalli, editor, E/The Environmental Magazine and editor of Feeling the Heat: Dispatches From the Frontlines of Climate Change, says. "Confirming many of the trends outlined in The Limits to Growth three decades ago, we are now 20 percent above the Earth's carrying capacity, and on a collision course with unsupportable population growth, biodiversity loss, runaway climate change and global food and water shortages. With even the Pentagon warning that global warming could pose more of a threat than terrorism, it's time we paid serious attention to the sustainable prescriptions outlined in Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Global Update.
Although first written mainly to an American readership, Megatrends proved to be true in anticipating major shifts for the whole world. Christoph Keese in the Financial Times said it well. "Once a decade, sometimes more often, a book about the economy is published that becomes a bestseller immediately and changes the relationship of people to economics. His predictions were astoundingly precise."
Megashocks is a successor based on 36 global risks identified by the World Economic Forum in 2009, from which (they) have identified eight risks particularly important from a science and technology perspective. “These include oil and gas price spikes, pandemic influenza, biodiversity loss and extreme weather events related to climate change.” Good grief! Can it all be said more plainly?
Taleb's title, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" almost tells it all. It's summarized on page xviii of the prologue. You can read it on Amazon. The internet is a Black Swan. And, it's only beginning to evolve. We ain't hardly seen nuthin' yet!
In conclusion, there is a lot of handwriting on the wall, and a prudent person would do well to pay close attention to what it says. There are vocal deniers and their assertions and beliefs must be tested against existing data. Sometimes I pray they are right, but I don't believe our leaders can pull the hat out of the rabbit. The usual tricks won’t work this time around.
Yet denial is the first and most powerful human response to catastrophic news. Denial is not simply the province of the lumpenproletariat. Very few of us are immune. One reason is that to make an appropriate response requires the kind of effort that rises to being a royal pain in the ass. It's not like going into the storm cellar and hoping your house and barn will survive the tornado.
This kind of news, when understood, usually requires immediate action and the abandonment of previous concerns and distractions. Doing that is rarely much fun. Besides, humans have a lousy track record on responding to long-range threats.
But acting in response to legitimate warnings is rewarding. Just look at the videos of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Look at faces of the people who survived. Look at the videos from Banda Ache. It's not about the death toll, horrific as it was. It is in the survivor toll where the lesson of the precautionary principle comes to life.
It's appropriate to repeat that sage meme. "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also involve an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action." - Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle, Jan. 1998.
In June 2003, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco became the first government body in the United States to make the precautionary principle the basis for all its environmental policy. A decade later, with far supporting more data in, it seems appropriate for all of us to adopt that wise and prudent policy. The future of our grandchildren is at stake. Although I'd gladly die to save them, I'd prefer to live and do the best I can for as long as I can do anything at all.
I call on and unite with all of the grandparents of the world to act in the name of our children's children. I especially call on the grandmothers, who have long sensed this coming. I call on all of you who are contemplating having children or are already pregnant. And I call on you who understand what a pain in the ass acting appropriately will be, but are mature and responsible enough to get involved anyway.
And to the rest, just don't get in our way.
###
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