New REPOWER Campaign Video

Al Gore and his REPOWER Campaign people have come out with another video.

Studies show that the resource potential of solar energy is so vast that a parcel of land in the Southwest, 96 miles on a side, could power Americas entire electricity system.

Join the campaign and help make it happen.

Before a joint session of Coget your baby dressed up for the coming halloweenngress last week, President Obama expressed strong support for growing our

economy by repowering America, calling for American leadership and innovation in clean energy technologies

and for a national energy policy that shifts emphasis away from the dirty fuels of the 20th century.

We invented solar technology, but weve fallen behind countries like Germany and Japan in producing it,

President Obama said. It is time for America to lead again.

Call on your elected officials to lead again, join the Repower America campaign.(via)

I was having a conversation with a coworker yesterday about how silly modern society is about the use of oil, coal and natural gas.

If you think about it, gas, oil and coal are are millions of years of stored solar energy (plants grow, plants die, plants get buried, millions of years, wallah! oil). Nothing else on the planet rivals it in energy density, or portability, or usefulness. And what do we do with this amazing, precious, and highly limited substance. How do we treat this marvel of nature? We burn it in our cars so we can get our fat asses to and from work. We make plastic bottles out of it and then throw them in the ocean. We use one of the most potent, but limited, energy sources on our planet, to keep the lights on at night. Consider this waste against the fact that there is enoughireland birthplace of halloween wind solar and geothermal energy on this planet to handle everything we need (and it will never run out).

Our coal oil and gas deposits should be saved for a time when there is a real emergency. It has taken the planet millions of years to store up these energy reserves and we are wasting them at such a rapid clip that they might soon be gone. It would be comforting to know that we have a large amount of stored energy safely below ground in the event that we really need it (asteroid is coming got to get off the planet, aliens invade need to build death laser, giant earth quake floods mid-west need to build giant pump, you know important things).

Not to mention, that burning this energy is causing our planet to become inhospitable to human life, funds terrorist loving oppressive regimes, promotes inequity between the rich and poor, is turning our oceans acidic, melting our ice caps, destroying our mountains, and has been the cause of more than a few wars…I could go on.

In short fossil fuels are too precious to be wasted on mundane business like transportation and powering our homes. That is the job for renewable energy. Fossil fuels should be used (and used carefully) for the VERY FEW applications that require high amounts of energy density in a low weight package.

The plains Indians used to rely on buffalo for almost every part of their lives. They ate them, used the skins to make shelter, made items from the bones, they used almost every part of the animal. They understood the importance of this one species to their lives. They worshiped the buffalo and treated them with the utmost in respect and reverence.

We currently use oil for almost every part of our lives, from the food we eat (fertilizers), to the cloths we wear (synthetic fabrics), to the homes we live in, the cars we drive, the roads we drive them on, almost every made object in our world, our communications systems, our medical field, not a thing in our life is untouched by the influence of oil/gas/coal. However we have no complicated religious rituals around oil, we don’t think about oil (unless it is the price of gas), we don’t revere oil, we don’t respect oil, we don’t care at all.

What does that tell you about how detached we are from the important things in our world? I say it’the legend of jack o lantern and jack o lantern halloween costumes time we start treating fossil fuels with the respect they deserve, and the first step in that is leaving them in the ground where they belong. Safely waiting for a time when we might really be in a jam.

To paraphrase a great poet, Save some oil, build a solar farm.

A Tale Of An Apartment Dwelling Eco-Enthusiast

This is a guest article by Cali Duncan

So, I don’t own my own home. I can’t build a roof of solar panels, install bamboo and cork flooring or purchase all new EnergyStar appliances. Good excuse not to go green, right? WRONG! According to the Green Consumer Index, over 52% of households with a high GCI score are apartment renters (free map download at www.ruf.com/green). That means millions of common folk like myself are in the same residential boat and still keep their mind and habits on the environment.

After learning that my rent will be going up—again—in June, I decided to make a checklist to aid me in finding the perfect green apartment:

(1) Is the building green?—Many great apartments are being built ground-up in sustainable ways. Check the LEED certification on buildings of interest. Those such as the Kalahari in Harlem offer:

• Fiber optic internet service

• Green roofs

• Filtered air systems

• Low VOC materials

• Bamboo flooring

• Solar and windlooking forward to harry houdinis return on halloween power

• Bosch low energy washer and dryers

• Hall windows for natural light

(2) Good energy score?—Many local power companies offer apartment complexes a metered rating program that shuts off airget your baby dressed up fireland birthplace of halloweenor the coming halloween conditioners after so much usage. While I can’t say this is the most fun way to live, it does help on the bills and energy usage during hot months. Also, make sure the heating and cooling appliances are up-to-date and the most energy friendly available.

(3) Travel-friendly?—Choosing a location close to grocery stores, shopping centers, entertainment and even work can reduce your transportation needs. Plus, think of how cute you will look walking home from the grocery store with your multi-use grocery bags (I prefer those at ecosumo.com). If shopping centers aren’t an option, consider your location to a public transportation stop.

(4) On-site recycling?—This is a tough find. Most apartments don’t offer an on-site recycling program, but they can always help in small ways. Check to see if there are recycling bins around public areas such as the pool and fitness centers. Any help they offer their surroundings shows they value the cause.

Remember, the habits of the apartment dweller are just as important as those of the complex. Replace burnt bulbs with EnergyStar bulbs, keep your lights and faucets turned off and use energy efficient curtains.

Happy renting!

Why James Lovelock Is So Wrong

From memory, Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth came out on 1978. I didn’t read it until 1990, when I was studying for a Geography degree, then it hit home how little I knew about the world, and how little I was likely to ever know. James Lovelock has always been there at the back of my mind as a dominant figure, an intellectual giant who was responsible not only for bringing to wider humanity the concept of a self-regulating global system that would be able to take care of itself during even the darkest of times (and yes, Daisyworld was just symbolic, but a bloody good symbol at that), but also alerting us to the terrible dangers of CFCs, and the horrible potential of positive feedback loops in taking us towards climatic catastrophe. He is the public face of environmental scientific radicalism.

No wonder then, that when he speaks, we take note: even when he makes life difficult for himself in avowedly supporting nuclear power, or just making statements that are plain wrong. No one is perfect, and some people can be forgiven the odd quirk more than others.

Proposing a series of heavily-defended climate refuges, in which Industrial Civilization can remain, locking out the billions who failed to live in the “right” parts of the globe, is not a quirk.

In his latest book “The Vanishing Face Of Gaia”, Lovelock sees the world as already having passed the climatic point of no return - he may be right; in fact he is most definitely right, but only in the context of Industrial Civilization remaining as the dominant cultural influence on Earth. Whether we will definitely see the predicted loss of billions of humans, and the desertification of half of the Earth’s landmass, whatever we do, is another question entirely, but one that Lovelock is seemingly unable to contemplate.

I posed a difficult question to him (via an interviewer) on BBC Radio 5Live last week:

“I have been a follower of your work for a long time, and watched your views harden and become more apocalyptic in recent years. In many ways this is welcome, especially to warn people of the likelihood of catastrophic change, and also to ridicule the ideas of the mainstream environmental movement, who still think we can tinker around with civilization to make things better. I was wondering, though, whether you welcome the views of people like myself and Derrick Jensen, who see Industrial Civilization as the cause, and the removal of Industrial Civilization as the solution to our current predicamenget your baby dressed up for the coming halloweent?”

The key point was the last one, which would reveal whether Lovelock could see beyond civilization into a world in which humans lost all pretence of domination over the Earth, and instead accepted that only true sustainability would allow humanity to continue as a going concern.

His response can be heard by clicking on this link.

His response is factually wrong: Industrial Civilization is an extreme way of living, and other ways of living are not “stone age” they are just non-industrial; whether hunter-gatherer, kitchen garden, permaculture or a hybrid of these, or any other way of life that is fundamentally sustainable. These ways of life can easily support as many people as are currently on the Earth, but with far less impact.

It’s difficult to explain to someone who is so cast in a civilized mould, that everything they believe about civilization may be wrong: even more difficult to convince them of this. After all, when you are civilized, surely that makes you the epitomy of what it means to be a fully developed human being - Homo sapiens sapiens civitas - and so anything else is a step down from your current position. Step down or not, it is surely not a morally defensible position to suggest that you can carry on living in much the same manner as you have become accustomed to - providing you have been lucky enough to have been born in the right place, at the right time, to the right people (you don’t really think everyone living in a Lovelock “Life-Raft” will be allowed to stay, do you?).

But we continue to defend this way of life, and this Culture of Maximum Harm, because it is all we have ever known: we are blinded by our lack of perspective, and are thus prepared to support this behemoth, even though we problooking forward to harry houdinis return on halloweenably know it will end up kiscary halloween costumes on all saints evelling most of us; just as it has started killing so much life already. No other way of life is more destructive than Industrial Civilization.

Your choice: do you follow Lovelock and the rest of the civilized world into a future where we live in city states, ringed by gun turrets, thronged by the bodies of the unlucky millions; or do you make the leap into a way of thinking that may be alien to you now, but which - when you have a chance to contemplate it - is really the only logical conclusion.

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Keith Farnish is the author of “Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis.”

www.timesupbook.com

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Download audio file (bbcfivelive_jameslovelock_kfquestion_240209.mp3)

Perspective Testing - Who Killed John Doe?

Read this scenario then follow the directions at the bottom. We did this as an exercise in class (on coming to a group consensus), but it seems to me that it also offers a glimpse into how people view their world.

Who Killed John Doe?

Read the information below and then complete the sentence at the end.

John Doe, age 54, was dead on arrival. His wife drove him to the Emergency Room at 2 a.m., but even before she pulled into the driveway, his tortured breathing had stopped. Successive attempts by the hospital staff to revive him failed.

John’s doctor said he was sorry. He could not make house calls, because there is a shortage of doctors, and he is putting in an 80-hour week as it is. Besides, Mrs. Doe had called at 1 a.m. on Christmas morning. The doctor told her to rush John to the hospital.

The hospital administrator was sorry. When the patient had asked to be admitted earlier that morning, his condition was not acute. The patient had used up his insurance benefits for the year and had no other resources. The hospital had exhausted its charitable reserve funds and was required to limit admissions to paying patients or those whose conditions required acute and emergency care.

The caseworker from the Department of Health and Social Services was sorry. She had explained to the patient that the State health program would cover him only after hethe tradition of wearing costumes on halloween had incurred one hundred dollars in medical bills. If he entered the hospital before incurring that amount in medical bills, the entire hospital stay would be disallowed for coverage by her office by law.

The lget your pets dressed up on halloweenegislators who made the law said they were sorry. They had to balance the state’s budget at a time when highway costs and educational expenses were going up. Originally the bill to establish health benefits would have cost the taxpayers an estimated eighty million dollars a year. By strategic amendments, such as the one that discouraged John Doe’s admission, they saved the taxpayers three-fourths of the cost of the original bill—nearly $6 million.

The people who elected the lawmakers were sorry. They had not wanted their taxes raised, so they voted for the candidates who promised to contain expenses and reduce waste in government spending. When a few political leaders announced that taxes would have to be increased to continue human services, the voters wrote letters and sent telegrams to their representatives protesting such tax increases.

Mrs. Doe was sorry. She was sorry that her husband died on Christmas morning, and she was also sorry that they had not saved more for their old age or joined the more expensive comprehensive insurance plan offered by the union. She especially regretted: (You complete the sentence)
________________________________________________
(Charles A. Hart, University Associates, Annual for Facilitators, Trainers, and Consultants)

OK, so that was the easy part. Now, considering what you have read, rank the following list from most responsible (1) to least responsible. Post your answers in the comments (copy and paste) and we'll discuss the decisions you make. There is no right or wrong, so please be as honest as possible.

__ Caseworker
__ Hospital Administrator
__ John's Doctor
__ John Doe
__ John's wife
__ Legislator
__ People who elected the lawmaker


Tags: culture, society, personality running through corn mazes lost and scared on halloweenquizzes, Perspective, Test, Who Killed John Doe?, doctors, death, rankings