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.
###
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Is the environment going through exponential change?: Fiver's Third Blog
I'm a long-term follower of a distinctly ordinary news source called Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet by Steve Newman (http://www.earthweek.com). Although not comprehensive or infallible he seems to spend a lot of time finding out what's going on and saves me from searching and researching important news on the environment. I once spotted an error and he was very open to my feedback. I respect that.
I recently noticed that most of his lead items seemed to confirm the predicted exponential growth of a number of trends I've been following. On May 27, the following headline was typical: Arctic Sprouting Trees Farther North Faster Than Expected. On June 3rd he reported on a greenhouse gas surge noted by the International Energy Agency (EIA) surpassing previous records by a whopping 1.6 gigatons. Lord Stern (The Stern Report) forwarded the conclusion that "the prospects of keeping greenhouse gasses from warming global temperatures less than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit are now becoming very bleak".
On June 10th, in an item labeled "Hot Summers Ahead" Newman reported on research concluding that "many tropical regions in Africa, Asia, and South America could see the "permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat" in the next two decades".
And last week's report on Ocean Extinctions said, "A new report cautions that the world's oceans are undergoing changes that threaten to wipe out marine species at a far faster rate than earlier feared".
These are added to a host of other "far faster", "more extensive than", "further (or greater, more rapidly, etc.) than previously estimated". These, and other similar events seem to be early indicators of exponential climate change. Every UN IPCC reports in recent years have disclaimers that indicate rates of sea level rise may be greater than the figures in the report indicate.
The prestigious National Snow and Ice Data Center, another one of my favorite sources, participated in an important webinar yesterday regarding an important "peer-reviewed report. With contributions from 368 scientists in 48 countries, it updated many global climate indicators and examined notable weather and climate events from last year. 2010 was one of the two warmest years on record and saw a number of weather and climate extremes.
I haven't seen the rushes because it just happened but the last time I noticed one of these gatherings the scientists were all freaked out because the data on changes in the cryosphere (those are the icy places of the world) were accelerating so much that they thought they'd soon be out of a job because "their stock in trade was vanishing".
When I went to college there were no courses or majors in "sustainability". In fact, I don’t think the word was invented until 1987. It wasn't a discipline. Now any school that noticed we're not just in the 21st Century, but in the Third Millennium, has a major in sustainability.
In another few years, if the the current pace of accelerating change keeps up, cryosphere research will become history. If so, the "history" of the cryosphere will begin to be studied and documented by "Gaian" anthropologists at Penn and UCLA. That discipline may vanish before humanity realizes it's value. That extinction will rival the loss of species during this current period.
In the geological history of the Earth, there have been five periods of great natural extinction that have happened because of geological changes and huge disasters. But now, thanks to humanity's influences, the rate of species' extinction has exponentially increased to 1,000 times that of ancient period. Earth is coming into the sixth extinction period, according to Beijing Daily's report. On average, one species would disappear per hour.
According "Nature," more than 1 million species will disappear from this planet 50 years from now, and one species will be extinct per hour on average because of human activities. Of course, I won't have to worry about this because between the environment, the end of cheap oil, and the economy, I'll be long gone before it gets that bad. It is likely, according to the Department of Defense's Joint Operating Environment Report for 2010, that I'll have more company where I'm going than anyone left behind.
I admit it's possible that anyone who has the required billion or so dollars to create, supply, and defend a survival compound for a couple of decades will still be here. And they'll be the ones to repopulate whatever is left over. Thanks to landscape amnesia, their grandchildren will never notice what they lost. And that will set the stage for another go at destroying the best of the most beautiful planet we will ever know.
Fiver: A small rabbit; his Lapine name is Hrairoo, which means "Little-thousand". His visions of the destruction of the Sandleford warren lead him to leave, along with his brother Hazel and several other rabbits. His visions are almost always centered on Hazel, saving him from the snared warren and dying from a gunshot wound. He also gives Hazel a vision that inspires Hazel to set up the release of the Nuthanger Farm dog to save the Watership Down warren from General Woundwort. In the TV Series, Fiver's visions come in rhymes, and he often feels responsible for foreseeing terrible things, blaming himself for their outcome.
I recently noticed that most of his lead items seemed to confirm the predicted exponential growth of a number of trends I've been following. On May 27, the following headline was typical: Arctic Sprouting Trees Farther North Faster Than Expected. On June 3rd he reported on a greenhouse gas surge noted by the International Energy Agency (EIA) surpassing previous records by a whopping 1.6 gigatons. Lord Stern (The Stern Report) forwarded the conclusion that "the prospects of keeping greenhouse gasses from warming global temperatures less than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit are now becoming very bleak".
On June 10th, in an item labeled "Hot Summers Ahead" Newman reported on research concluding that "many tropical regions in Africa, Asia, and South America could see the "permanent emergence of unprecedented summer heat" in the next two decades".
And last week's report on Ocean Extinctions said, "A new report cautions that the world's oceans are undergoing changes that threaten to wipe out marine species at a far faster rate than earlier feared".
These are added to a host of other "far faster", "more extensive than", "further (or greater, more rapidly, etc.) than previously estimated". These, and other similar events seem to be early indicators of exponential climate change. Every UN IPCC reports in recent years have disclaimers that indicate rates of sea level rise may be greater than the figures in the report indicate.
The prestigious National Snow and Ice Data Center, another one of my favorite sources, participated in an important webinar yesterday regarding an important "peer-reviewed report. With contributions from 368 scientists in 48 countries, it updated many global climate indicators and examined notable weather and climate events from last year. 2010 was one of the two warmest years on record and saw a number of weather and climate extremes.
I haven't seen the rushes because it just happened but the last time I noticed one of these gatherings the scientists were all freaked out because the data on changes in the cryosphere (those are the icy places of the world) were accelerating so much that they thought they'd soon be out of a job because "their stock in trade was vanishing".
When I went to college there were no courses or majors in "sustainability". In fact, I don’t think the word was invented until 1987. It wasn't a discipline. Now any school that noticed we're not just in the 21st Century, but in the Third Millennium, has a major in sustainability.
In another few years, if the the current pace of accelerating change keeps up, cryosphere research will become history. If so, the "history" of the cryosphere will begin to be studied and documented by "Gaian" anthropologists at Penn and UCLA. That discipline may vanish before humanity realizes it's value. That extinction will rival the loss of species during this current period.
In the geological history of the Earth, there have been five periods of great natural extinction that have happened because of geological changes and huge disasters. But now, thanks to humanity's influences, the rate of species' extinction has exponentially increased to 1,000 times that of ancient period. Earth is coming into the sixth extinction period, according to Beijing Daily's report. On average, one species would disappear per hour.
According "Nature," more than 1 million species will disappear from this planet 50 years from now, and one species will be extinct per hour on average because of human activities. Of course, I won't have to worry about this because between the environment, the end of cheap oil, and the economy, I'll be long gone before it gets that bad. It is likely, according to the Department of Defense's Joint Operating Environment Report for 2010, that I'll have more company where I'm going than anyone left behind.
I admit it's possible that anyone who has the required billion or so dollars to create, supply, and defend a survival compound for a couple of decades will still be here. And they'll be the ones to repopulate whatever is left over. Thanks to landscape amnesia, their grandchildren will never notice what they lost. And that will set the stage for another go at destroying the best of the most beautiful planet we will ever know.
Fiver: A small rabbit; his Lapine name is Hrairoo, which means "Little-thousand". His visions of the destruction of the Sandleford warren lead him to leave, along with his brother Hazel and several other rabbits. His visions are almost always centered on Hazel, saving him from the snared warren and dying from a gunshot wound. He also gives Hazel a vision that inspires Hazel to set up the release of the Nuthanger Farm dog to save the Watership Down warren from General Woundwort. In the TV Series, Fiver's visions come in rhymes, and he often feels responsible for foreseeing terrible things, blaming himself for their outcome.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
LIVING AS IF WE REALLY UNDERSTAND GLOBAL WARMING
Environmentalists who often complain about business' and governments trashing the environment rarely talk much about the stuff they themselves are doing to lessen their impact on Mother Earth. Sure, we're all doing something but are we doing enough? Are we living as if we really understand just how serious our situation is?
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "We face a true planetary emergency," said Gore, who called the climate crisis "a moral and spiritual challenge". And, although an environmentalist, he got the Peace Prize because humanity is already experiencing resource wars for oil, water, and arable land. Are environmentalists contributing to those problems?
Sea-level rise is probably the most disastrous effect of global warming. 2007's summer Arctic ice melting inspired a New York Times headline: "A Melt So Vast and Rapid It Unnerved the Experts." Scientists, once skeptical of cataclysmic melting, are "much more open to the idea that we may have passed the point where it's becoming essentially irreversible".
That condition occurred and was reported in the NSIDC Monthly Highlights for August 2009. Mark Serreze, with NSIDC colleagues Julienne Stroeve, Andrew Barrett, David Kindig, and Andrew Slater, analyzed observations and model simulations to look for the signals of Arctic amplification. Their conclusion: it has arrived."
NOAA's Arctic Report Card for 2010 confirmed that Record high temperatures across Canadian Arctic and Greenland, a reduced summer sea ice cover, record snow cover decreases and links to some Northern Hemisphere weather support this conclusion. "
We often ignore the connection between the environment, energy, and the economy. However, it can be easily argued that any waste of energy is fiscally irresponsible. With the age of cheap oil over, and the economy in the worst shape since the 1929 Great Depression, energy waste can also be called "insane". The massive amount of waste in western culture, especially in North America, is so ubiquitous that many will foolishly argue that waste is minimal and will always be present. To those who know better it sounds eerily like the denial of addicts and alcoholics trying to defend their insanity.
"Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil."
-- (President George W. Bush, State of the Union, January 31, 2006.) Serious, indeed! It is serious enough to potentially make life in 2050 unrecognizeable to adults who are alive today. If there was ever need for the "Precautionary Principal" to be made into universal law, it is now. (http://www.sehn.org/precaution.html)
What will it take for those of us who notice these historic earth changes to make appropriate lifestyle changes? Does the seashore have to move to Philadelphia and Washington, DC, and swamp lower Manhatten before we take serious action? If the power of example is as effective as studies suggest, dear reader, your personal response to climate change and peak oil is an essential part of the solution. And ending cognitive dissonance is essential to a well-balanced mind.
Now that we know how thin the ice we're on is, stepping out of the problem requires knowing exactly where we stand. Who is up-to-date on the news of this extraordinary situation? Important energy and climate news is often absent from US sources. The Energy Bulletin regularly gathers the latest energy news (file://localhost/ttp/::www.energybulletin.net:) The BBC (at http://www.bbcamerica.com with links to the IPCC, the Stern Report, and the Hirsch Report on the economics of climate change, consistently does a better job than most US news sources. For online eco-news Grist does a good job at http://www.grist.org. There are many other fine sources but if you want to be reassured by the great denial machine, go to: http://www.foxnews.com/.
Few among us know how much CO2 we put into the air and fewer know how to calculate their carbon footprint. The folks at NativeEnergy do and you can access their calculator online at http://www.nativeenergy.com. They even sell carbon credits, the environmental version of indulgences. The Sierra Club has published a report on the top CO2 and energy use calculators in their magazine. (I don't have that link, but you can rate a host of them collected by Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com/carboncalcs who posted 80 of them in September of 2009.)
After finding out how many renewable energy credits you'll need to offset your footprint you can log on to http://www.powerscorecard.org or http://www.GoCleanEnergy.comto compare the products offered by the various electricity providers. Then, you can choose a provider and sign up. It's relatively inexpensive and good for relieving any guilt feelings that occur after calculating your carbon footprint.
You can reduce your footprint by choosing energy-efficient appliances. The American Council For an Energy Efficient Economy (http://www.aceee.org), and Consumer's Union (http://www.consumerreports.org) can help with that. They have some of the latest information on energy efficient appliances and techniques. The U.S. government does a pretty good job with their Energy Star program (and a new water saver program) athttp://www.energystar.gov
You can reduce your footprint by choosing energy-efficient appliances. The American Council For an Energy Efficient Economy (http://www.aceee.org), and Consumer's Union (http://www.consumerreports.org) can help with that. They have some of the latest information on energy efficient appliances and techniques. The U.S. government does a pretty good job with their Energy Star program (and a new water saver program) athttp://www.energystar.gov
If you are only ready to do one thing give up eating red meat. In "Diet For a New America", author Jon Robbins shows how this is the single best way to live lightly on planet Earth at http://www.foodrevolution.org/.
Getting rid of our gas hog and replacing it with a high-mileage car will help when gasoline hits $10 a gallon. With oil hovering around $100 a barrel and gasoline hitting $4 a gallon for the second time in three years, this will be sooner than later. At least we'll be able to afford the drive to the grocery store. Our media ignores peak oil stories but you can Google them online at http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=3&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=peak+oil+news&oq=peak+oil. The gas money you save may help you afford the groceries.
Another simple step to be part of the solution is replacing our incandescent light bulbs with highly efficient compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs. Lighting can be as much as 20% of our household energy bill and incandescent bulbs waste 70% of that. CFL's have become easily available and many are priced well under a dollar.
Although California has already outlawed the manufacture and sale of incandescent light bulbs, the federal government will be outlawing the 100 watt lamp by 2012, with the rest following in fairly quick succession.
Another simple step is turning down the thermostat a bit in the winter and up in the summer. Turn it down more when you leave the house. A good digital seven-day programmable thermostat, such as the ones Consumer Reports rated "best buy" (http://www.luxproducts.com/thermostatscan help. If you or the kids can't remember to turn off the lights when leaving the room occupancy sensors will also help.
Once you've done this much you will likely discover what to do next. You're now an example to others and part of a growing legion of earth-friendly Americans who are making the exponential shift to sustainable living.
There are many occasions besides the winter holiday season when gifting is appropriate and traditional. Why not give gifts that keep on giving? A compact fluorescent light bulb can save the user as much as $75 over the life of the bulb. Not bad for something that often costs less than $1.
LED holiday lights use a tenth of the energy consumed by conventional ones and are available from http://www.gaiam.com/realgoods. In fact, since LED lamps are becoming more affordable, their 90 percent reduction in energy use is a must for lights that are on for much of the time. Be sure to purchase good quality lamps because there are a lot of cheap ones on the market that have burned out in months instead of the 50,000 to 80,000 hours that well made LED's are rated at. In 2011, the CREE Lighting Company was one of the standards for commercial and some residential lighting http://www.creeledlighting.com/ but the majors, like Phillips, Sylvania, GE, are putting out moderately priced quality LED lamps.
Those of living in certain areas of the country can take advantage of government sponsored home energy efficiency programs. A whole house systems approach offers the best chance for large savings. With between fifty and ninety percent of the energy used in North America wasted for lack of efficiency and conservation the average homeowner can save more than $1,200 a year. In the Delaware Valley, the Metropolitan Caucus, which covers the five county region including Philadelphia, has initiated a program that offers up to $15,000 for home energy retrofits and improvements with unsecured loans at under one percent interest. More information is available at: ecasavesenergy.org/energyworks.
With all of these measures you might even save enough to splurge on a couple of bottles of 2002 vintage Dom Perignon champagne for News Years Eve or another special occasion. That's at http://www.moet.com; enjoy!
By Larry Menkes © 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
A Plan to Prevent (Some) Wars
I wrote the first draft of this a few years earlier than '03 to help a local Green Party candidate form his energy policy. It's still relevant today and has been echoed by some more popular writers than I. There's a great cover story that carries this idea forward in the June 27 (2011) edition of Newsweek. Go to: ttp://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/19/it-s-still-the-economy-stupid.html
THIS IS A PLAN TO HELP PREVENT SOME WARS
2/23/03
I have a plan to prevent and/or end some wars (and U.S. temptations to dominate weaker oil rich countries). It is based on proven research that demonstrates that if Americans employ most of the energy efficient devices and tactics available today, it would do more than end our need for any foreign oil or exploiting new domestic sources. It starts with 3 simple steps.
It tried this with my family and my home and it’s doable. Quite a number of my friends are now doing it. I know of others who are doing it or already have done it. Businesses and institutions that I’m connected with are doing it. It makes so much sense that eventually it could involve almost everyone in America. It isn't an instant thing except in places closest to your home and mine. But it can work.
It saves everyone involved well over half of his or her current energy bills. (It frees up money for making more protest signs and the use of mass transportation to get to demonstrations. It involves starting with putting some of our money where our mouths are, and walking our talk. For some of us it may represent a different way of taking action than we’re used to, so it may involve a slight change of habits. But, it’s easy enough to get started today, right now, and it shouldn't hurt.
Step 1. Count the number of incandescent light bulbs in your homes and businesses, churches, mosques, synagogues, clubhouses, organizations, etc. Note the wattage and replace them as fast as you can afford with comparable compact fluorescent light bulbs. (It’s not necessary to pay more than $5 per bulb except for dim-able bulbs, 3-ways and 150 watt equivalent bulbs.)
When you are finished say, "I am now using and paying for 75% less electricity for lighting than I was, and I'm only causing 1/4 of the air pollution associated with the electrical generation". You can add, "I will not have to replace these bulbs until the time after 10 of the old fashioned bulbs would have burned out." You can also add, "I'll get the money back for the additional costs of these new bulbs within about a year but I'm helping the environment right away." (You might be able to confirm the money part by reviewing at least one year's worth of your past electric bills and doing a comparison.)
In 2011 the new strategy is to use LED lamps. A bit more expensive than CFL's, they save 90% of the electricity they use and by the time you have to replace them (assuming you bought good brand-name lamps and not cheap knock-offs) you won't be able to remember what year you installed the original. There is a liquid fuel savings for doing this but a lighting retrofit is good for improving air quality and reducing the pace of climate change.
If you want to go a bit further, put occupancy sensors on light switches in rooms where people have a habit of leaving unneeded lights on. (If you want to go a step further, replace any older style straight fluorescent fixtures with T-8 or T-5 units and reap an additional 30% savings there.)
Step 2. Tell everyone you know that you are doing this and why. Ask them if they'd be willing to do the same. Give bulbs to friends and family for presents. Note that for every incandescent bulb we Americans collectively replace with (LED's) a compact fluorescent bulb, one large American power plant can be taken off line. I found 32 bulbs in my house, many of which are on for more than 4 hours a day.
Step 3. Check your gas mileage in your vehicle and compare it to the gas mileage of today's most efficient vehicles. Depending on how close yours is to what it could be, make that much of a commitment to replace your current vehicle with one of the ones that get top mileage. Base your decision on when to replace it by the difference between the two and the number of miles a year that you drive. If you drive less than 5000 miles, it doesn't matter very much. 5000 miles a year comes to less than 11 miles a day so you might be able to skip this step. If you drive over 15,000/year you might want to get a super efficient car ASAP. (If your car is not getting the gas mileage it’s supposed to get, tune up the engine.) You can now get a combined $3500 PA/US tax rebate for SULEV vehicles like hybrid cars. (NO longer valid: new incentives exist - see: www.dsire.org for current info.)
Since that time, we got a Honda Civic hybrid: my wife commutes 46 miles a day, round trip. After more than 100,000 miles we saved a lot of gas and GHG emissions. The money, at $4 a gallon has more than paid back the slight extra cost for the car and we did get rebates and tax credits that helped. It's also fun to get better than 45 mpg on road trips to see family in Ephrata, PA and Waynesboro, VA.
After you have done all that you can say, I have done a lot to change my behavior and made a good start toward saving energy, a lot to prevent war, and a lot to help the environment. You coulsd also say, I'm saving quite a bit of money, and that feels pretty good.
If you have made a commitment to do all this and want to do more, get the book, HomeMade Money (by Richard Heede and the Staff at Rocky Mountain Institute- www.rmi.org). It can tell you how to cut your home and business energy costs further. (there are better books out there today, along with some great online and TV resources.)
If you are still motivated to do more, and you are making good progress on your own work, I invite you to contact me and I'll suggest effective, easy, proven ways to get the rest of your town moving on this project. Or, maybe by then you'll have already figured it out.
Larry Menkes
Coordinator: 3rd Millennium Project at Pebble Hill Church and
Earth Charter Initiative working group on Energy and Climate
www.earthchartercitizens.org (now: Alliance for a Sustainable Future)
www.libertynet.org/pebble (3rd Millennium Project) (dead link, don't try it)
I can be reached at: mailto:larry@sustainabletransitions.us and (215) 328-9128
Additional useful links and sources of my data, etc.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Meditation on a Black Swan
MEDITATION ON A BLACK SWAN
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| See "Images" at Google:"Black Swan" I'll insert my | original as soon as I learn how. |
Few Americans have ever seen a Black Swan (Cygnus astratus) and more than a few might say there's no such thing. With the publication of Nassim Taleb's classic book of the same name the term leapt into our common language http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com. Its greatest contribution outside of economics may be as a metaphor for the environmental and sustainability movement.
As a topic of concern in a spiritual community, environmentalism is noticeable but hasn't hit stride. Generally, faith communities have yet to take up the banner of sustainable living. Issues of doctrine, economics, justice, power, and more vie for attention from leaders and congregants.
Since sustainability is metaphorically a Black Swan in North American culture it's understandable that it doesn't rank high on the list of concerns of most congregations. Bill McKibben, a prominent Methodist, leading activist, and environmental writer (Eaarth, The End of Nature, etc.) recently said, " So far climate change hasn't been a central concern of any faith communities, but that may be starting to change."
I've had the opportunity interact with a number of churches and faiths as an energy consultant and haven't seen much evidence of that change. From the perspective of an energy auditor it's easy to notice that virtually every one of their buildings waste a lot of energy whatever values they espouse. I'm not surprised since no one alive has ever witnessed the collapse of a global civilization. Yes, we've heard about Easter Island, the Incas, and the Anasazi, but we're still here, aren't we?
Although there don't seem to be more than about a million environmental deaths a year we're still here. And, given the deaths of roughly eleven million children a year from easily preventable diseases, another million from environmental causes is (I cringe to say) a drop in the bucket.
But those familiar with climate science and exponential math see evidence that our global civilization is like a "dead man walking". It may take divine intervention to get the planet and humanity out of this mess unscathed. McKibben's assessment forces us to ask, "If the world's religions act together, will it be in time to prevent the worst of the predicted calamities?"
Of course, there isn't much evidence that level of cooperation has ever occurred. Of course, there's no order of difficulty in miracles. With over ninety percent of American's expressing a belief in a higher power and around forty percent claiming to go to church regularly, the ability of organized spiritual groups to influence cultural behavior seems great. As evidence, look at the influence in religion on population control. Population is the gigantosaurus in our global living room. Anyway, there will soon be seven billion of us in the global bucket.
No one knows for sure what the carrying capacity of Earth is, since there are many variables. The primitive carrying capacity is different from an industrialized civilization's carrying capacity. Some estimates place it as low as two billion humans. Since humanity is arguably in "overshoot", there will likely be the usual die-off that species in overshoot experience. For a while, the body bag and funeral industry will experience exponential growth and prosperity.
It seems noteworthy and illogical that cooperation between the faiths hasn't already occurred since sustainability may be the core issue facing religion and humanity today, Logic is not a strong suite in many faiths. Just because most of us, especially around the Northeastern United States, are ignorant of the precariousness of our global situation and of survival prospects of our species is doesn't make it untrue.
The Empty Bell, a publication dedicated to Christian/Buddhist dialogue says, "At this moment in history there are many arenas of unnecessary suffering and justice that call for the focused attention of Christian contemplatives. None are more important than the pressing reality of global climate change. If we destroy life on our planet home, we have destroyed the context for all arenas of justice-making."
The Black Swan of a perfect storm of crises, of environment, energy, water, and the economy, places us in a deciding role in the future of the species. The way we live today and tomorrow will determine the outcome. We've squandered the best part of a quarter century ignoring warnings and words to the wise. As a species we've basically ignored them. Though it's easy to shift blame to big polluters and global corporations we're all responsible. It's only a matter of scale.
It's an accepted fact among energy specialists that between fifty and ninety percent of all the energy we use is wasted by lack of efficiency and conservation. That means more than half of our greenhouse gas emissions can be profitably eliminated.
There's the possibility of a real shift if merely a third of Americans, those who are among the regular churchgoers - ostensibly the most pious and spiritual among us - eliminated that waste. It wouldn't be the end of the problem, but it'd be a good start. It may be enough to buy humanity time for more comprehensive solutions.
Aside from an alien invasion, if ever there was a crisis that could unite all faiths, all nations, and all peoples, saving our collective environment (i.e. our collective butts) is the one. What holds us back? What are we waiting for? Has our species become psychotic?
Do the faithful have the faith, the spiritual will, and the courage to save humanity? It shouldn't be that hard to change our behavior when our children and grandchildren's futures hang in the balance. This is especially true when it's so profitable to root out our personal energy waste.
McKibben told me, "I'd point out that the place we really need interfaith action is less in retrofitting churches than in strong political involvement. We're getting a lot of that at 350.org, thank heaven!"
Now that you've seen the Black Swan, it cannot be denied. As the Elders Oraibi of the Arizona Hopi Nation said over a decade ago, "We are the ones we've been waiting for". (http://www.spiritofmaat.com/messages/oct28/hopi.htm)
By our works will we be known, and remembered.
Our epitaphs are being written by our actions today.
What will they say?
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Pulling the "D" ring"
Fiver's second blog:
A few days ago I went to Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia to experience the latest Delaware Valley Green Building Council's presentation on the latest green building standards. The presenter, Laura Blau, called it Apples to Apples and did a quick comparison of three of the best of the high-performance building standards now on the market. They were the USGBC's LEED standards[1] They were compared to Passive House[2], and the very stringent Living Building Challenge[3].
At the discussion after the powerpoint presentations I was able to ask the the panel the first question. That was, "Why are we concerned with high performance building?" The answer o0f course was that the environment demanded it. That answer mentioned the idea that "green building" was so radical at the time it could only gain influence if introduced incrementally in the United States.
The standards too were becoming incrementally more strict as each evolved. I was reminded of Sam Walton's quote on incremental change but I didn't get the last question in. I wanted to ask, "Do we have time for incremental change?"
Unsurprisingly Sam Walton once espoused incremental change[4] but according to Hunter Lovins, Walton now says, "The time for incremental change has passed. What we need is a revolution". If it comes, will it come in time?
I had taken the train in to Philly and had time to read a recent issue of Newsweek. Sharon Begley's cover story title was superimposed on the picture of a tornado. It read, "Weather Panic: This is the new normal (and we're hopelessly unprepared"). I come from a scouting and disaster planning background and I wondered how we could become prepared.
Given what I've learned about the triple threat of Environment, Energy, and the economy, it would certainly require a comprehensive and rapid approach if we hope to stop our slide off the edge of what we call normal today. I don't see that happening. I suspect there is a wishful thought among most Americans and many Europeans, that with some luck everything will return to what we used to call normal or at least stabilize where we are now.
At least one European, James Lovelock, arguably one of the best climate scientists alive today, has long said that it's too late. In a Guardian interview about a year ago he said, "Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change.[5]" Since another years worth of data continues to confirm that climate change is already happening he seems to be spot on. They even made an interesting movie about that called "The Age of Stupid"[6].
I've occasionally been asked how it must feel to be stupid. Since I only got serious about preparing for climate change just before the millennium I admit that it feels in turns pretty much like I feel now; sad, ashamed, angry, and hurt. I also feel happy that I've made progress in making my home sustainable and that the end has yet to come. But that last part may be an illusion. Anyway, I don't think about it much since I'm busy doing the best I can to be part of the solution, even if that outcome turns out to be another illusion. As yet, there is no way to know[7].
I haven't met anyone familiar with the data that believes that a completely comprehensive and rapid approach to prevention is in the works. I think that mitigation may be a better strategy. It will likely take disasters greater, and/or more frequent than what's already happened to cause enough of a perception shift to get enough people to demand that we begin to focus on this perfect storm of storms. It's not just the climate, but also energy[8], and the economy[9] that's in danger. And help from the top won't come soon.
According to Vicky Arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center[10] "There are no true adaptation experts in the federal government, let alone states or cities." Yet, Van Jones[11], and others know that energy efficiency, conservation, and intelligent consumption constitute a viable bridge strategy[12]. A comprehensive program can help the environment, the economy, and social equity. Carbon neutral and net zero buildings could be a significant part of any adaptation strategy.
It deserves mentioning that what we now see of climate change is a reaction to what has happened roughly two decades ago[13]. Climate reaction isn't like getting hit by a bus. It's more like jumping out of a high-flying airplane. Having done a bit of "leaping" I can report that there is almost no feeling of falling. However, it's inescapable that there are limits to how long the fall will last and a well-known consequence for not using a parachute.
According to the Pew Center for Global Climate Change's Judi Greenwald, "You can no longer say that the climate of the future is going to be like the climate of today, let alone yesterday. In all of the plausible climate scenarios we are going to have to change the way we do things in ways we can't even predict."[14]
Our civilization has been flying pretty high on cheap fossil fuel, cheaper buildings, a relatively stable climate, and exponential growth[15]. If you were busy shopping online or picking your nose when you fell out of the plane you might be able continue those activities for a while before you noticed that something was different, maybe even wrong. If you could still see the horizon when you noticed this you might think everything was fine and go back to what you were doing.
Ground rush is a phenomenon that is only noticeable near the end of the fall. The best definition I've ever found is in the first paragraphs of an essay called "Ground Rush"[16]. Although a bit Christian and preachy, it captures well the experience of ground rush. Tim Chambers' eschatological opening question "How long does a skydiver have to open his parachute?" is funny. It would be more accurate if the answer added ("Almost") the rest of his life". If he was legit he would have mentioned that it would be better to pull the "D" ring and open the main 'chute above 2000 feet, not 500 where the reserve 'chute would barely have enough time to open to prevent crashing and burning[17]. I guess this holds true when going down the Rabbit Hole.
Chambers wrote that apocalyptic piece in 1996 in anticipation of millennial end-times. If there is such a thing, it could conceivably unfold in just this way[18].
Since Jacqui has arrived home for dinner and I'm hungry, I'll try to wrap this up by saying that I'm doing my part to get my parachute ready for the last thousand feet, and my body positioned to deploy it properly.
Wouldn't it be nice if our leaders were like jump-masters? They could have ordered or cajoled us into become well prepared and practiced for emergencies. We can fly our bodies and blow our minds but it's irrelevant if we don't live to tell the tale. Otherwise it's just another form of suicide. Note that the word the word "ecocide"[19] entered the American Heritage Dictionary well over a decade ago, just before the millennium[20].
I'm not sure where the horizon is at the moment, it's pretty hazy and hard to tell where the sky ends. Anyway, I had a nice nap on the way down and only know that the gauges say that we're getting close to the ground. I'm too scared to look and, anyway, too busy making the right moves to get my parachute open and working properly.
Auf wiedersehen; hope to see you on the "pea"[21][22].
1280 words
[1] (Actually four graduated certifications - and the acronym stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1988).
[7] Caught between complacency and despair E. F. Schumacher thought it advisable "to leave these perplexities behind us and get down to work" http://www.davidworr.com/more.php?articleid=17
| e-co-cide n. Heedless or deliberate destruction of the natural environment, as by pollutants or an act of war. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
[22] Skydive Terminology: Peas - Pea gravel, used in the landing area as a target ...http://www.kturby.com/skydive/terms.htm
Fiver: A small rabbit; his Lapine name is Hrairoo, which means "Little-thousand". His visions of the destruction of the Sandleford warren lead him to leave, along with his brother Hazel and several other rabbits. His visions are almost always centered on Hazel, saving him from the snared warren and dying from a gunshot wound. He also gives Hazel a vision that inspires Hazel to set up the release of the Nuthanger Farm dog to save the Watership Down warren from General Woundwort. In the TV Series, Fiver's visions come in rhymes, and he often feels responsible for foreseeing terrible things, blaming himself for their outcome.
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