Haynesville

http://www.youtube.com/haynesvillefilm



Release Date ::
Available now on DVD at www.HaynesvilleMovie.com OR on iTunes
Genre ::
Documentary
Studio ::
Three Penny Productions
About ::
Three lives. A nation's thirst for energy. And the find that could change it all.


PLOT OUTLINE ::

"Haynesville: A Nation's Hunt for an Energy Future" is a documentary chronicling the discovery of the largest natural gas field in the United States (and maybe the world - valued at $1.75 trillion dollars). The film examines the historic find in the backwoods of Louisiana, a formation called the "Haynesville Shale," from the personal level as well as from the higher perspective of the current energy picture and energy future.

As the Haynesville boom erupts, we cover three personal stories directly affected by the find: A single mother taking it upon herself to become an activist and environmentalist for her community, an African American preacher who believes that God delivered the Haynesville to make him and his budding congregation rich and a salt-of-the-earth outdoorsman finding himself conflicted as he weighs losing his land because an oil company wants to make him a millionaire.

From the higher perspective, we look at the current energy situation and what something the scale of the Haynesville (170 trillion cubic feet or the equivalent of 28 billion barrels of oil) could mean to the energy picture.

Environmentalists, academics and oil and gas folks explore the idea of trying to find cleaner energy sources and how this natural gas could possibly bridge the country to a renewable energy future.

Directed By ::
Gregory Kallenberg
Produced By ::
Gregory Kallenberg, Mark Bullard

Here Comes The Sun

When Earthly vexations vex, something like this comes along to put me in my place and give me new perspective.

Up in Buffalo, New York, Alan Friedman makes greeting cards by day, and is an amateur astronomer and astrophotographer by night.

Greeting card maker, amateur astronomer and astrophotographer.

Seems to me to be a gross understatement, when one man, of the seven plus billion on the face of the planet, can bring us images such as these to gaze upon and ponder in wonderment.

Note that you can buy blank cards with some of his amazing images on them.


Have a beautiful, sunny day my friends.
























http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

10-10-10 October 10, 2010 + 350ppm

Yes, that's 10/10/10, representing today's date, October 10, 2010 and it's all about 350ppm or 350 parts per million.

Huh? Blah blah blahblahblah. Yadda yadda yadda.

I'm just going to give you the bullet points.

350ppm is the scientifically based target sustainable level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

From the 350.org website:

What is 350?

350 is the most important number in the world—it's what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Three years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.

Everyone from Al Gore to the U.N.’s top climate scientist has now embraced this goal as necessary for stabilizing the planet and preventing complete disaster. Now the trick is getting our leaders to pay attention and craft policies that will put the world on track to get to 350.

What is 10/10/10?

10/10/10, today, is a day of "work parties" around the world - in theory doing something concrete to help in the war on CO2 - in reality, largely symbolic to get the word out about the problem, both to world leaders and the citizenry, and the urgency of working towards solutions.

There will be around 7,500 "work parties" today in 188 countries.

I'm reading a great book on the subject. It's titled "Getting Green Done" by Auden Schendler, the Director of Sustainability for Aspen Skiing Company. It may be the best I've read on the subject.

And lastly, here is the gist:

American represent 5% of the world's population, yet we use 25% of the world's resources. Americans burn more fossil fuel per capita than any nation on earth - nearly 1 million btu's per person per day, equivalent to 100 pounds of coal, 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 8 gallons of gasoline, or 1 lightning bolt of energy per person per day.

The fact is, this is not sustainable. Not in the long term, and possibly not even sustainable in the next twenty years.

The fierce urgency of now. On a global scale.

Combined with a huge dose of hope. But here is my definition of hope:

"Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable." [Rebecca Solnit]

Have a beautiful Sunday!

Flickr Link: http://blog.flickr.net/en/2010/10/10/help-record-101010/

And up from the ground come a bubblin' crude...

Oil that is, black gold, Texas Tea.

Lately I've had the occasion to be stuck in a few stock-still traffic jams on The Capital of Texas Highway aka Hwy 360. I've been largely silent about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but it's not that I haven't been thinking about it. On a daily basis. My "Alex is absolutely fucking livid again" tag doesn't even come close to how I feel about this spill, which in its present scope and scale alone, is beyond Biblical proportions. The spill is a symptom of a much larger problem - which I don't have the time or room or energy to go into right now.

So, I'm sitting in these traffic jams thinking about how much oil is spewing from that hole in the flesh of our Mother Earth. Wondering how to quantify it in terms that I (and hopefully others) can get my head around. I came up with trying to figure out how many miles of roadway that crude oil would cover.

Cover in a thin film. Like throw a gallon pail of crude oil on the concrete or asphalt. I'm assuming it would cover about 100 square feet, about a 10 foot by 10 foot area - as if you threw a can of paint out of its can. I realize crude oil is more globby/yucky and wouldn't likely spread like thin paint, but this is simply an order-of-magnitude estimate on my part.

So, I better wrap this up before I lose you. I won't delve too deeply into the math. Simple math really.

First, in this exercise I'm looking at total U.S. "Crude Oil" consumption (not just gasoline) per day :: 19,498,000 barrels per day @ 42 gallons per barrel = 818,916,000 gallons per day.

The Interstate Highway System of these United States of America is 46,876 miles long in total (as of 2006). That's almost twice around the Earth - the circumference of the Earth is plus or minus 24k miles at the equator.

So here it is:

The total U.S. crude oil consumption would cover the entire Intestate Highway System (46,876 miles) with a thin film of crude oil.

Not just once.

But four and a half (4.5) times. Both sides of the highway.

Four and half times. Every day. Three hundred and sixty five days a year.

Year after year.

Estimates put the daily rate of the BP Oil Spill at 30,000 barrels per day.

That amount would cover roughly 314 miles of Interstate Highway every day. That's about a third of the way across Texas on I-10.

And up from the ground come a bubblin' crude.

Earth Day 2010 :: What is your Eco-wish?

[Foto by Alex.Tango.Fuego]


Today is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day! Wow, a time-warp all the way back to 1970.

When I opened up my computer just now, the first thing I really noticed was this Eco-Wish piece from Vanity Fair Magazine. So I'll roll with that. I had planned to lead up to today with various environmental posts - and then have something that I could really be proud of to post today. But I've been busy these days.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/04/earth-day-video2-201004

Here's VF's "Green Archive".


My wish for the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day is the same as actress Marion Cotillard [in the video above], for "Awareness, good sense, and love, because it is the only energy that will change things."

And Deepak Chopra's, that "we renew our relationship with our Mother Earth"...

And Dr. Steven Chu [U.S. Secretary of Energy], that "people around the world, will come together and begin take action with regard to energy and climate change..."

My wish is that people will begin to realize that recycling, ending their use of plastic bottles, increasing their use of compact fluorescent light bulbs, and turning down the thermostat, while these are a good start - that they are only a start, and the true answers to our problems lie in rather dramatic change in the Western way of life. And a huge part of that change is...

My wish is for the pace of this life to slow down, to temper our frantic, frenetic, arrogant and relentless pursuit of the dollar, so that we can appreciate and intimately know our magnificent Mother Earth, return to the deeper extended family relationships of the past, and have more time in our daily lives to come together in order to design and implement and forge a new, sustainable lifestyle based in love and tolerance, and not profit...

My wish is for human kind to acknowledge that we live on a planet with finite resources, and an ever-increasing population will only continue to tax our vital renewable resources such as clean air and water, arable land, nutrient-rich topsoil, forests, marine and fresh water fisheries, and ocean ecosystems to the breaking point - that we will acknowledge this, and begin to address the challenge of over-population...

My wish is that John Adams [The Series]; Food, Inc.; Baraka; The Beautiful Truth; Flow, For Love of Water; Coal Country; (and a few other documentaries) would all be required viewing in high school...

My wish is that we direct our resources - financial and human capital - into the solution of core problems, and less and less on the symptoms of those problems, all while ignoring the core cause of those symptoms...

My wish is that we focus more of our [human] energy and resources into education, and more K-12 education about the Earth and her miraculous systems - the earth and environmental sciences of Ecology, Biology, Botany, Hydrology, Water Resources, Renewable Energy, Climatology, Oceanography, Soils, Agriculture - all with an emphasis on sustainability...

My wish is for more people to turn off their televisions, read more, listen to NPR on a daily basis, and when they do have to turn it on - to watch PBS and the various nature/environment channels more...

My wish is for people to become aware that we are running out of fossil fuels in the next 20-40 years, that even coal and yellow cake (the raw material for uranium for nukes) are finite and will eventually run out...and...

My wish is that "Green" becomes less of a marketing gimmick for the few, and more of a real, substantial, sustainable lifestyle for the many...

My wish is for the people, through the government, will escalate research and development into renewable, sustainable, alternative energy and transportation technologies...

My wish is for the U.S. to embark on a nation-wide mass transit infrastructure development initiative...

My wish is for people to begin to understand that we need to be figuring out ways to use LESS energy, not create MORE energy...

My wish is for corporations not to have the same rights as citizens under the U.S. Constitution, and that they be held accountable for the true, full-life-cycle costs of their activities, especially as it relates to environmental degradation, globally...

A choice is before us today. We can choose to be remembered as the (few) generations who despoiled the planet within 200 years, for profit. Or, we who are alive today, and our children, and their children, can be remembered 100 or 500 or 1,000, or even 5,000 years from now, as the five generations who were able to come to grips with what our current path is doing and will continue to do to the planet, stop and take notice, begin taking the steps towards change, and holding our governments and world leaders accountable in the process, towards a sustainable and beautiful future.

That was one helluva run-on sentence. Five generations. That's what I see it will take - starting from today. Those who are alive today - the great-grandparents (get to sit back and watch), the grandparents, our parents, us (we, The Baby Boomers), our children, their children and their children's children - the next 100 years will tell - but we have to start today.

Go out today and grab a handful of dirt, rub it between your fingers, smell it. Crunch some leaves or grass up and smell that. Or smell a wildflower. Ride a bike. Sit under a tree and watch the branches and leaves sway in the breeze. Go to the nearest ocean and dip your toes into the water. Paddle a canoe on your closest river or lake. Look up at the sky. Experience our Mother Earth. Smell her, listen to her, lay your eyes upon her, and love her - today, and every day. She is our Mother, and she's all we've got.

Five generations. One hundred years. Starting today.

"Awareness, good sense, and love, because that is the only energy that will change things."
[Marion Cotillard, Actress]

Tango in the Dark :: Earth Hour 2010

Okay, not really. But I had to pull in my tango readers to another one of my environmental posts. Plus, Earth Hour 2010 [tonight, March 27, 8:30pm local time wherever you are] is too early in the evening for us to actually dance tango in the dark. Dancing tango in the dark/absence of light would be disastrous.

But this statement makes me wonder if there are not, in fact lots of people dancing tango in the dark, figuratively speaking. But that is a subject for another post.

Earth Hour is largely symbolic - in theory, millions of people coming together across the Planet Earth to turn the lights off. Symbolic of climate change, which for me translates into energy usage, or energy over-usage. It seems no one, especially not any world leader, has the balls to say something like "humanity is currently using levels of energy (from all sources) that are unsustainable over even the next one hundred years". In fact, most world leaders only talk about how we can/must produce MORE energy.

I don't want this to turn into a diatribe, or "troglodytical rant", so I'll leave it at this: One hundred years ago the world at large barely even had electricity - let's call it zero energy - unless you want to count horses and oxen as energy. Today, with the flip of the switch or a tweak of the T-stat, we don't even think about the energy we are using, much less the effects of burning those hydrocarbons on the planet. We can't even comprehend life without limitless energy. We can't even comprehend live with a 25% reduction in our energy use through conservation. People actually used to live without refrigerators and air conditioning in the not too distant past.

I'm not advocating this as a solution. I'm advocating it as a conceptual trigger to get us to start thinking about something between zero energy usage and current energy usage. Sustainability is the key word.

Sustainability. Energy Frugality.

How we get there is the subject of another post.

For now, turn out the lights for an hour tonight at 8:30pm. From then on, be aware of your own energy usage around the house - lights & t-stat mostly. There are other conservation measures we can all take - weatherstripping, caulking, additional insulation, sun shading, bring back the screen doors - again, lots of stuff that is the subject of yet another post.

You might also want to check out my post from last fall - "Brother can you spare 22 terawatts?" - where I tried to get my head around the energy usage/capacity/requirements for the entire planet.

Here's the text from the "About Earth Hour" page: https://www.myearthhour.org/about

Note that you can "join" the movement to show your support.

On Earth Hour hundreds of millions of people around the world will come together to call for action on climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour. The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations. Learn more about how Earth Hour began, what we’ve accomplished, and what is in store for 2010.



Here's another cool image I ran across in my search for the one at the top of the post - a composite image from NASA showing the sunset over Western Europe and Africa, with the night city lights showing. Keep in mind one would never see something like this with the naked/nekkid eye, as it is a composite of many satellite images.

Okay, I gotta get my head around this...

Another blog post from my PickensPlan profile...trying to get my head around what Mr. Pickens is proposing - was proposing - when the PickensPlan first appeared on the horizon about a year ago.


Photo by AlexTangoFuego

This appears to be a useful resource :: EIA :: Energy Information Administration :: Official Energy Statistics from the U.S. Government ::
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html

Total U.S. electricity generation capacity is currently at about 4,065 million megawatt hours [MWh].

Here's the breakdown ::



According to PickensPlan (info gleaned from the home page), wind turbine power is currently at about 48 million megawatt hours [MWh] or 1% of total U.S. power production. Doing the math, that would put the figure at 4,800 billion kWh.

So, for argument's sake, let's say total current capacity is at 5,000 billion kWh.

First and foremost, which I don't ever hear anyone talking about, is the concept of maximum energy production. Under the current state of "affluenza", it's all about more, more, more. We need MORE power, more this, more that. But we don't. Can we all agree that we can't continue building power plants and extracting finite resources infinitely for ever and ever until the end of time?

We need to come clean with the concept of using less energy, figuring out how to live the American dream consuming LESS energy.

So, given that, let's say 5,000 billion kWh is our max - the concept that we should never need more power than that.

Also according to the PP home page, the average American household uses roughly 10,000 kWh (per year). I backed into the figure by using the statement that "4,800 billion kWh is enough power to supply 4.5 million households...".

Keep in mind though, that infrastructure, commercial and industrial power needs are in the 5,000 billion kWh figure.

Now moving on to the dollars.

Pickens says $1.0 trillion for enough wind farms to bring the wind power proportion to 20% of total. Plus $200 billion for the electrical distribution/power grid.

So, corporate sponsorships with little decals on the blades of the turbines aside, let's start talking about where we are going to come up with $1.2 trillion dollars. Or let's say half that as a start - $600 billion.

The momentum of this movement will solve the land challenges - that is the easy part to me.

$600 billion...plus the manufacturing capacity to build millions and millions of turbines.

According to this article on Wikipedia - "Wind Power in Texas", "The Wildorado Wind Ranch is located near Amarillo and consists of 161 MW of wind turbines (70 Siemens Mk II turbines each with a rating of 2.3 MW). These turbines have the capacity to meet the electricity demand of more than 50,000 households."

I'm not sure of the conversion from MW to MWh, but if it's linear, that would mean it takes seventy one [71] 2.3 MW turbines to generate 161 MW of power. It seems to me from driving by Wildorado, that there are more than 71 turbines, but let's go with that figure.

We need 10% from wind (remember, I am going with half of the 20% figures to start out) - so 500 billion kWh. 161 MW = mega is 1,000,000 right? Kilo is 1,000. So 161 million kWh?

I'm lost now. Any engineers out there care to help?

I'm trying to figure out how many 2.3 MW turbines it will take to provide 500 billion kWh....? Let's just say that's a lot of turbines that need to manufactured - not to mention the manufacturing facilities that need to be built to do it. I'm sure the production capacity is not there right now.

Also, to get your head around the dollars involved, a $250 million dollar construction project is huge - like Coors Field (baseball stadium) in Denver. $4.8 billion is the final cost of the Denver International Airport - and I think it took 10 or 12 years to build it. So, $600 billion dollars is huge - the equivalent of building 125 huge airports.

So, now I have my head around the problem...did this help you at all?

Brother, can you spare 22 terawatts?

I'm dredging up some old blog posts from my PickensPlan profile...

I just ran across a good article on ReasonOnline by Ronald Bailey "Brother, can you spare 22 terawatts?" - with great "big picture" figures from Daniel Nocera, a professor at MIT. He looks at current figures, and extrapolates them out to the year 2050 with a global population base of 9 billion.

He also compares world energy consumption at three levels: 1] U.S. levels; 2] Western European levels; and 3] Indian subcontinent levels. I find this very useful in getting my head around the "quality of life" and "living standards" issues.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

However, Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, writes a sobering analysis of the challenge of supplying adequate energy to the world in 2050. In his article, "On the Future of Global Energy" in the current issue of Daedalus (unfortunately not online), Nocera begins with the amount of energy currently being used on a per capita basis in various countries and then extrapolates what that usage implies for a world of 9 billion people in 2050. For example, in 2002 the United States used 3.3 terawatts (TW), China 1.5 TW, India 0.46 TW, Africa 0.45 TW and so forth. Totaling it all up, Nocera finds, "the global population burned energy at a rate of 13.5 TW." A terawatt equals one trillion watts.

Nocera calculates that if 9 billion people in 2050 used energy at the rate that Americans do today that the world would have to generate 102.2 TW of power—more than seven times current production. If people adopted the energy lifestyle of Western Europe, power production would need to rise to 45.5 terawatts. On the other hand if the world's 9 billion in 2050 adopted India's current living standards, the world would need to produce only 4 TW of power. Nocera suggests, assuming heroic conservation measures that would enable affluent American lifestyles, that "conservative estimates of energy use place our global energy need at 28-35 TW in 2050." This means that the world will need an additional 15-22 TW of energy over the current base of 13.5 TW.

Here is Ronald Bailey's conclusion:

Maybe Nocera is right that solar power is the way to go, but history teaches us to scrap the Apollo Project model for technology R&D. Federal bureaucrats are simply not smart enough to pick winning energy technologies. Instead, eliminate all energy subsidies, set a price for carbon, and then let tens of thousands of energy researchers and entrepreneurs develop and test various new technologies in the market. No one knows now how humanity will fuel the 21st century, but Apollo and Manhattan Project-style Federal energy research projects will prove to be a huge waste of time, money and talent.

I agree, we need to keep the Federal government out of this. They haven't managed to come up with a comprehensive energy policy, and they have managed to screw up virtually every aspect of "government".

Easy Like Water

Easy Like Water is a feature documentary about floating schools, solar power, and the fate of the earth.

In Bangladesh, solar-powered floating schools are turning the front lines of climate change into a community of learning. As the water steals the land, one man's vision (Architect Mohammed Rezwan) is re-casting the rising rivers as channels of communication, and transforming peoples lives.

More info at www.easylikewater.com

For me, stories like this give me hope that humanity can rise above the floodwaters of petty squabbling and full blown military action, eschew the politics of power for the power of the sun and the wind, and eventually find that the profits of lives and lifetimes lived are about community and family and friends, art and music and creativity, literature and education, and not about capital gains and living the luxe life. Human endeavor is not about money.

I, for one, remained convinced that capital gains and profiteering remain the root source of the largest environmental challenge this planet and its occupants will ever face. I hope that three billion of us can figure that out very soon, for then, the tides will change. Spread the word my friends.

Come to think of it, see if you can get the documentary shown in your community. Here is the trailer.

Urgent Press Release :: Oppose the House Climate Bill

Our House of Representatives is in the process of screwing the pooch on energy and climate. Friends of the Earth is asking that we all contact our Representatives - they make it easy for you with a zip code lookup - just a few buttons to press and you're done.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people. The 4th of July is upon us. Remember that famous document our forefathers wrote? It's called The Declaration of Independence. I feel you all must get tired of my preaching, but really, we all must become more active in our own governance. Most don't realize it yet, but it's a different world out there. There is no "back to normal". Okay, I'm preaching again.

Pick your cause. Pick a few causes. Become active in them. Join. Send them a little bit of money. Volunteer locally to help them. I know, believe me, I know it's a pain in the ass and none of us has time for this. But we all have to make the time. The alternatives are a much, much bigger pain in the ass. Real pain.

Thanks in advance. Here is the press release:

* Global Warming
* Energy

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Nick Berning, 202-222-0748
Erich Pica, 202-222-0739

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Friends of the Earth launched an advertising campaign today against the energy and climate change bill that is expected to come to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives later this week.

The progressive environmental group's ads will run on a variety of progressive and environmental blogs and websites. The ads call attention to the fact that the bill is based on a blueprint written in part by polluting corporations like Shell Oil and Duke Energy, which has undermined the ability of the bill to solve the problems it is intended to address.

Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder had the following statement:

“Corporate polluters including Shell and Duke Energy helped write this bill, and the result is that we’re left with legislation that fails to come anywhere close to solving the climate crisis. Worse, the bill eliminates preexisting EPA authority to address global warming—that means it's actually a step backward.

“Last November, the American people voted for change. Unfortunately, while the party in power may have changed, the process through which this bill was negotiated makes it clear that the overwhelming influence of corporate special interests has not. This exercise in politics as usual is a wholly unacceptable response to one of the greatest challenges of our time, and it endangers the welfare of current and future generations. Speaker Pelosi and congressional Democrats simply must do better. We are calling on them to vote against this bill unless it is substantially strengthened. If the ‘political reality’ at present cannot accommodate stronger legislation, their first task must be to expand what is politically possible—not to pass a counterproductive bill. This is the message carried by the ad campaign we are launching today.”

The initial ads that are running in the campaign can be viewed at: http://www.foe.org/new-ads-opposition-house-climate-bill.

Friends of the Earth is urging citizens to send messages about the bill to Congress, and has set up a web page where they can take action at http://action.foe.org/t/8815/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1117.

###

Friends of the Earth (www.foe.org) is the U.S. voice of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, with member groups in 77 countries. Since 1969, Friends of the Earth has been at the forefront of high-profile efforts to create a more healthy, just world.

Heads Must Roll

Let's face it. Our government is impotent. Think Hurricane Katrina - the slow response after the storm, the formaldehyde laced trailers for temporary living quarters, the lack of funding for rebuilding. No, excuse me, the funding is there, there is just no way to get at it through the briar patch thickets of red tape. I recently drove along the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. There's not much going on there. City halls and banks and libraries are still operating in temporary trailers. Don't even get me started about the Katrina ice debacle.

Think "The War on Drugs" and "The War on Terror". Think about the high costs, rampant inefficiencies, and low performance of Medicare and Medicaid. Think the collapsing federal interstate highway system. Think Department of Homeland Security. Think of the lazy-assed secretary at the IRS who hasn't hit a lick in two years and then gets promoted to a G13 to get her out of the fucking office. (You can't fire her because of the union.) Think of the billions, no, trillions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars that are wasted each year. Just pretty much think the entire Federal Government and all of its activities (expenditures) across the board, coast to coast, internationally, and outer space as far as the planet Mars.

It's as though our government has evolved into a self-fulfilling entity. It exists for itself. It feeds itself on taxpayer dollars. It has ceased to be about serving the people, serving the country. They try, but they just can't be effective and efficient anymore. We throw money at our problems like no one else. No real plan - just throw money at it and the restless natives will be happy. Too big. No one in charge. Too many chiefs and not enough indians. Bogged down in their own bureaucracy. So much red tape to give the appearance of protecting the taxpayers' dollars that a hammer and a toilet seat on the space shuttle cost multi-millions of dollars. So much red tape that our money goes and goes and goes to nothing but mostly fund the government behemoth itself.

Snakebit. A bleeder. We've got a bleeder on our hands folks.

It starts at the top - in the legislature - with self-interested, special-interested, self-absorbed career politicians who are only there to line their pockets and for the killer lifetime retirement plan. To me, given the lack of performance over the past 20 plus years, and the current economic state of the world, ALL BETS ARE OFF.

All bets are off in the sense that there is no more Federal Retirement plan, or it should at least be severely scaled back, with a fucking broadaxe. No more federal holidays out the wahzoo. Get your collective federalized asses to work! What about salary reviews and pay cuts? What about firing the worthless pieceofshit sonsabitches whose only daily contribution is to be a doorstop or a doormat or a hurdle to getting things done.

We KNOW these people exist. They are only there to collect a paycheck and make it to retirement. WE, WE THE PEOPLE, have the right to change all of this. We have the responsibility to change all of this. Our very economic survival depends on our getting off of OUR collective asses and actually doing something about it. Yes, I'm talking about changing the Federal Government. Changing the way it thinks and sees and operates.

Sure, there are some recent bright spots of hope. States and local governments are realizing we can't afford "The War on Drugs". It seems I heard the Federal drug czar even saying something about this. There is talk of releasing all the non-violent drug offenders from prison - talk of treatment in lieu of incarceration. Duh. Finally.

There is talk of a national high speed rail system. Good. There is talk of revamping our educational system so that people have actually learned how to read and count change after 12 years. Good. There is talk of the greening of our energy systems - clean coal (questionable, but no other option for now), solar, wind, geothermal. Great.

There is only one problem. We are depending on the idiots in the government to accomplish all this effective, efficient, critically necessary change. We are depending on the idiots to dream up new concepts, plan, organize, draft and formalize policy and theoretically ultimately actually implement - all on our dollar. We're in for trouble people, if we believe this.

I feel for Obama. He's got the vision. He's got the drive. He's got the heart and soul. I fear he doesn't have the staff (that is, every single agency of the Federal Government) to get with it and get 'er done.

Vision, drive, ability, experience, initiative, heart and soul, or your head must roll. Or you must roll on down the road and let someone who wants to work, who wants to serve, who wants to make a difference in this beautiful country of ours take over. Lead, follow, or get out of the fucking way.

It's time. We are going to have to fix this ourselves. We can't depend on the idiots anymore. There is a movement afoot to replace all the worthless assholes in Congress with real citizens - working folk who know how to get shit done. It's called GOOOH - Get Out Of Our House. It may be a novelty and a longshot right now - but they have the right idea. They have the right idea in that our government in its present form is debilitated.

We, the people, have two choices. Option One is to peacefully take back control and operation of our Federal (and State, and county, and city) Government over the next two years, not twenty, and make substantial changes in the way things are run. We, the change agents. Option Two is revolution.

Oh, and there is always the "Do Nothing" option - people always forget about this one - and boy-oh-boy we are oh-so-good at this one. Stick our collective heads in the sand and raise our collective asses in the air. That's what the American people are best in the world at - the "Do Nothing" option with regards to our own governance. What, you want me to go to a town hall meeting? Write a letter to my representatives? But what about the game on Monday night? What about my tee time on Saturday? What about...? Hey, you know what? The "Do nothing" option is okay. Under this option, Mother Nature takes over. You might call it evolution. Perhaps mankind is destined to devolve into oblivion - to shit ourselves in the name of dollars until our Mother Earth can no longer support us. Until she refuses to support us. Until she decides to give us a wake-up call. Until she decides to kill us all off - the idiot children of Mother Earth who can't figure out how to live clean and green and sustainably and with abundant love for all of our brothers and sisters.

I'm not advocating that we all give up on rest and relaxation and recreation. I'm advocating that we all give up on the time wasting bullshit we have in our lives. You know what it is that I'm talking about. The vast majority of us have it in our daily lives - way too much of it. It's difficult, but I know we can do it. No more TV. No more Facebook. No more video games (not me, but many young and grown men alike). No more shopping for shit we don't even need. Read more. Talk more. Think more. Write more. Go to conferences and workshops and events that interest you. Go on green home/solar house tours. Grow a garden. Eat healthier. Learn a trade. Learn how to make shit with your hands. Get more exercise. Figure out how to do a water budget. Take shorter showers. Go to your city council meeting. Find a local committee or commission to serve on or volunteer for. Follow your local activist blog. I found one covering groundwater rights issues right here under where I live. The point is this - engage. Engage in life, and in your own governance.

Engage. Please. Before it's too late. Please, please purty please?

I'll leave you with this quote, attributed, I believe, to writer Edward Abbey: "True patriots must always be willing to defend their country against their government."

And this one, from the GOOOH website:
"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." Samuel Adams, 1776

On Design :: What is our intention as a species?

Here's a TED talk from Architect William McDonough on infinite, or cradle-to-cradle design. In it, he says the "design strategy" for humanity should be this:

"Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power - economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed."

Sounds good to me.



I had heard something about China burning up ALL their coal and using ALL their topsoil, simply to produce (clay) bricks build shelter to house their growing population.

I guess this is where it came from. It looks like McDonough and his team have developed and implemented a viable workaround - and moved the farm land to the roofs of the city.

It appears some of us are moving in the right direction, we just need to pick up the pace.

TED :: Shai Agassi :: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars

Oil free by 2020...sounds good to me.

His company's website:
http://www.betterplace.com/

His TED talk:

The Great Correction :: Renovatio

The Great Correction, as in the inverse of the Great Depression, as in "course correction", as in "paradigm shift". I'm still on the subject of the Vanity Fair (April 2009) article "Rethinking the American Dream", written by David Kamp.

I've finished reading the article, and I cannot express how important I think this piece is. Every man and woman and young adult aged 16 and over should read this article and begin talking about it on a daily basis.

It is only through acknowledging that a problem exists - a very large scale problem in the way we Americans think - and then talking about potential solutions to the problem, can we begin to solve it.

Here is another excerpt from the article that is a verbatim account of what I have been telling my closest friends (and ex-wives) for thirty years now - that the American Dream is flawed in its view that in each successive year, life should be better. Better job; or same job only better; more money; better car; better house; or better the current house; better vacations; better toys; better kitchen faucet; better, fancier, more provincial door mat. Better, more, faster. Each quarter, each fiscal or calendar year, each generation, we kids and our kids and their kids. More is never enough.

It is our current and trending catastrophic reality that we live in a finite world with finite resources. We are currently banging up against the inevitable ceiling of those limitations in the basic building blocks of life - water, food, shelter. The basic premises of the problem are that we are simultaneously over-populated and under-resourced. In a word, unsustainable. Our current way of life is not sustainable in the long term.

I repeat, our current way of life is not sustainable in the long term.

We all know this to be true.

Most of us are deluding ourselves that in a year or two, things will be back to "normal", and that we can go on in our individual pursuits of the American Dream - building wealth, gaining assets or at least equity. I believe that the old, resource hogging, unsustainable way of life is gone forever. I may be offering this on the leading edge of this new wave, this paradigm shift, five or ten or fifteen years too early, but the change is coming. The time to change, or at least to begin the process of change, is now. The time to acknowledge that there is a problem is now. We can no longer afford to keep our heads in the proverbial sand.

Many of us are thinking it. We have been feeling it for five or ten or fifteen years or longer. People are (or were) more successful, but are more stressed out and less happy. But everyone is afraid to talk about it. There is a fear of being branded un-American or un-patriotic or downright crazy. Let's get it out in the open and start dealing with it in a positive, proactive, forward thinking way.

Let's reinvent the wheel. Think outside the box? B.S. There is no box anymore. Think, and so shall ye be. Supposedly Jesus said that. We all need to think about how it can be. How it wants to be. How it should be. Not just re-think, but completely reinvent the American Dream. The New American Dream. A new way of life for the new century, starting with us, but for the entire planet. We need to manifest a new reality.

We put men on the moon and sent exploratory vehicles to Mars and beyond. We uncovered the secret of the atom and the quark. Decoding DNA, cellular biology and cures for diseases, and on and on. We are capable of great things. Obviously, in the past we have screwed the pooch in many, many ways. I would offer that when it is in the pursuit of profit and self-interest (or national interest), it always backfires on us. I would offer that when it is motivated by love and the common good and what is right, it can never fail. We can do this.

It should not be based on profit. It should be based on love, compassion and understanding. It should be based on the common good. It should be based on (from the article) the "freedom from want, not the freedom to want". It should be based on sustainability. It should be based on technological innovation and good science. It should be based on social responsibility to our fellow man and to our planet both. I am confident we can reinvent our civilization. It may take one hundred years, or more, but I am confident and hopeful that intelligence and love can triumph over ignorance and ignoring the problem because it is the comfortable thing to do. I am confident. I am full of hope. We don't have a choice. This has to be done. Starting now.

It's interesting that this all gelled for me on this day of renewal and rebirth - Easter Sunday 2009. I have to admit I wasn't paying attention during Easter services at St. Mark's today. (I go to church once or twice a year...) I was daydreaming, looking up at the flying buttresses and delicate arches and fine millwork, hand-hewn from walnut timber by German craftsmen in 1870 or so. I was gazing at the intricacies and vibrant color of the stained glass windows and contemplating the beauty of what man can accomplish in this world. When I awoke from my tampiquen~a and cheese enchilada induced two-hour Sunday afternoon nap, my sweetie and I threw the rubber stick to the dog. I finished reading the article, and then started this post - it is probably the fastest I have ever written a post of any merit. I had to get this out. Forgive me in advance if it's dis-jointed or generally funky prose. It flew off my fingertips as it spilled from my heart and mind - largely unedited but for a few typos.

Renovatio - Latin for "rebirth". "Renovatio", or "The New American Dream"? I'm trying to think of a name for a new blog. "The Great Correction"? Suggestions are welcome.

Oh, here is that excerpt:

"And what about the outmoded proposition that each successive generation in the United States must live better than the one that preceded it? While this idea is still crucial to families struggling in poverty and to immigrants who've arrived here in search of a better life than that they left behind, it's no longer applicable to an American middle class that lives more comfortably than any version that came before it. (Was this not one of the cautionary messages of the most thoughtful movie of 2008, WALL-E?) I'm no champion of downward mobility, but the time has come to consider the idea of simple continuity: the perpetuation of a contented, sustainable middle-class way of life, where the standard of living remains happily constant from one generation to the next."

Stealing Ghandi's words, we must BE the change we wish to see in the world. We must BE the example for all humanity. We must walk the talk. We must. We must.

Here is the link to the article again: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/04/american-dream200904 Please read it. Please forward it to everyone you know and ask them to forward it to everyone they know. This really needs to become the new national dialog. Please, please purty please.

Lastly, credit where credit is due. "The Great Correction" came from Eliza Gilkyson's song of the same name. But the real credit goes to my cool, hip, girlfriend who immediately told me about the song when I was struggling with the words for what to call this post. She is my inspiration and my muse.

Lyrics here:

down on the corner of ruin and grace
I’m growin weary of the human race
hold my lamp up in everyone’s face
lookin for an honest man
everyone tied to the turnin wheel
everyone hidin from the things they feel
well the truth’s so hard it just don’t seem real
the shadow across this land
people round here don’t know what it means
to suffer at the hands of our american dreams
they turn their backs on the grisly scenes
traced to the privileged sons
they got their god they got their guns
got their armies and the chosen ones
but we’ll all be burnin in the same big sun
when the great correction comes
down through the ages lovers of the mystery
been sayin people let your love light shine
poets and sages all throughout history
say the light burns brightest in the darkest times
it’s the bitter end we’ve come down to
the eye of the needle that we gotta get through
but the end could be the start of something new
when the great correction comes
down through the ages….
down to the wire runnin out of time
still got hope in this heart of mine
but the future waits on the horizon line
for our daughters and our sons
I don’t know where this train’s bound
whole lotta people tryin to turn it around
gonna shout til the walls come tumblin down
and the great correction comes
don’t let me down
when the great correction comes


Video here:

Deep deep doo doo

Photo by alex.tango.fuego...

For the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about an article (from 2006) I read in the New Yorker - letting it roll around up there and trying to figure out what I was going to say about it in here. Now that the scientific concept of this article is out in the media - the concept that the damage of global warming has, in effect, been done - I figured I would go ahead and write about it.

In less than one hundred years, fewer than twenty-five percent of the world's population has irreversibly changed our climate. Starting today, we could park every car, shutter every factory, and cease and desist the burning of coal and natural gas for our electricity, and it would take hundreds of years for our climatological systems to equilibrate to their natural order. The report in the media is saying one thousand years - but who really knows? It's definitely not years in scale, common sense tells us this. It's certainly not decades of recovery, but most likely centuries.

What's it to you? Some people might be tempted to say "Well, if we can't reverse the trend, then why do anything about it? Let's just keep on keepin' on." Harsher weather extremes will be the most rapidly evident manifestation. Bigger, more deadly, more frequent hurricanes born of a longer hurricane season. Spring thunderstorms that spawn more tornados. Tornadic activity in places that havent' experienced it in the past. Continued drought. These weather extremes will effect agriculture and food supplies.

Look for water rationing on the horizon, then entire cities completely running out of water. Dust bowl conditions leading to desertification of larger and larger areas. Acidification of the oceans. Continued reductions and diversity of fish populations. Melting of the Arctic ice cap. The breakup of the Antarctic ice shelf. Rising sea levels. Species extinction and the unforeseen ripples that will cause. The list goes on and on.

What struck me yesterday listening to this on NPR, is that if the industrialized world stopped everything today, it would still not be enough. The reality (which I've actually known for roughly 32 years now) is that there are too many people on this blue marble, using too many resources, producing too much waste, burning too much fossil fuel, to support a sustainable way of life. Sustainable as in the one thousand year time frame. We are short-timers, short-sighted, a short-minded bunch.

Are we so cocooned in our luxury high thread count sheets, so consumed with consuming, so involuntarily under the spell of avarice, that we don't care what happens ten or twenty or fifty or one hundred years from now?

I don't know what it all means. I don't pretend to have the solutions. I just know that somewhere in the last one thousand years, humankind collectively chose the unbalanced path. We choose the unsustainable path. We choose the path of least resistance, and highest degree of comfort, that causes the most damage. Most people are unaware. Some have their heads in the sand. Most don't or won't care. They'll continue with their pursuit of the almighty dollar and the American dream. I doubt that we can, as a global society, make the hard choice that are upon us. But then, I'm a pessimist.

Or is it evolution? Is this the natural course of things, of human existence on this planet, that we will be ultimately responsible for our own extinction?

I'm not the least bit worried about this economic crisis. We are just seeing the tip of the fiscal destabilization iceberg. What we see today is an ice cube compared to what lies ahead. It's actually a good thing. It's making us think about frugality in life. It's making us think about more important things in life.

There are bigger things that one trillion dollars to think about. There is the future of humanity...hopefully the human heart, soul and spirit will prevail...hopefully...hope...

Here is the article on MSNBC.

Here is the article, "The Darkening Sea", from the New Yorker.

Stay tuned for my "The end of life as we know it..." series.

Playing with math :: Carbon Dioxide Emissions :: MY MATH IS OFF!

THE MATH IS OFF IN THIS POST - SEE THE CORRECTED VERSION HERE

I was looking for data on total U.S. energy usage - something to validate the 5 terawatt figure I have rolling around in my head - when I ran across another troubling figure.

Annual CO2 emissions (from fossil fuels) in the U.S. are estimated this year at 5,981.5 million metric tons or tonnes. A tonne is 1000 kilograms or 2205 pounds.

I pull up a blank Excel spreadsheet to start doing the math - simple unit conversions.

So that's 5,981,500,000,000 or five trillion, nine hundred eighty one billion, five hundred million tonnes.

In pounds, that equals 13,189,207,500,000,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year. Thirteen quadrillion, blah, blah, blah pounds.

I decide to convert this into units I can get my head around.

The curb weight of one Ford Expedition is give or take 5500 pounds.

That equates to 2,398,037,727,273 [two trillion, three hundred ninety eight billion, thirty seven million, seven hundred twenty seven thousand, two-hundred seventy-three] Ford Expeditions [by weight, not volume], a figure that's still difficult to comprehend. Try writing a check out for that amount! Ha!

A Ford Expedition takes up a footprint of roughly 110.70 square feet. Those 2.398 trillion Ford Expeditions parked side to side, bumper to bumper, would cover 9,522,176 (nine million five-hundred twenty-two thousand one hundred seventy-six) square miles.

Still meaningless?

Imagine the State of Vermont covered solid with Ford Expeditions - in one layer. Or, try Travis County, Texas covered 10 layers deep with Ford Expeditions.

That's just for one year. The annual amount will continue to grow each year to 6800 million tonnes in 2030.

Just figure we are adding another layer of Ford Expeditions to the State of Vermont each year. In twenty years it would be twenty layers deep. Travis County would be 200 layers deep, or 1200 feet deep with Ford Expeditions.

That's just emissions for the United States.

Ready to reduce your carbon footprint now?

Yeah, that's it, you got it - go ahead and screw in your little fluorescent twisty bulb thingies. Bring your cloth sacks to the grocery store and don't use their plastic bags. String a clothesline. Set the thermostat to sweat in the summer and shiver in the winter. Upgrade your old fridgerator to an Energy Star model. Sell your car and ride your bike. Hell, go ahead and sell both cars. Sell your house or condo and move into a teepee, or a yurt. Erect a solar PV panel to power your computer and tiny refrigerator. Tend your energy usage to zero.

Go ahead and do it, do your part. It still won't be enough to make a difference. Why not? Because there are five billion other people on the planet who will never do it.

Houston, we have a problem.

Quest for clean energy can create big job gains right now

Apparently, I'm not the only one thinking this...

Article from Newsweek...interview with author and activist Van Jones...

Oh great. Just what we want to hear.

I've been thinking how this economic morass could be solved with new investment in alternative energy and mass transit, although the time frame to 'flip the switch' from fossil fuels to other alternatives is likely decades, not years, and especially not fiscal quarters or months.

If you read the article, everyone is saying that with low fossil fuel prices, we can't "afford" to invest in alternative energy (and mass transit, which is inextricably tied).

So let me get this straight. We can't "afford" to invest, to focus, to expand our views and thinking (and our hearts), to think outside our capitalist box, to change directions in technologies (and lifestyles) which will ensure the future of humanity for at least another couple of hundred years. We should actually be looking at a five hundred year window, when the capitalists typically look at a five year payback. There's a huge disconnect for ya. Electrical pun intended.

But we CAN afford to invest, to blindly follow, to bury our collective cabezas in the sand, to keep paying our utility bills like good little citizens, to keep enriching the wealthy, and the stockholders of energy/utility companies and automobile manufacturers, to be "safe and sound" with more of the same, worsening our environment each day, raping our Mother Earth and its future generations in our indifference, ensuring the demise of humanity on this earth. I see, YES WE CAN!

Maybe this means Circuit City doesn't have to go bankrupt. If we're not going to invest in ALT Energy Inc., then maybe we can go ahead and buy that 175 foot yacht I've been wanting.

"Hey Steve, hey good morning, it's Alex. I hope I'm not calling you too early. Hey do me a favor. Will you start working on consolidating some liquid assets for me. I need $100 million for this yacht I've been looking at. Actually just 25 for now. I'm pretty sure the salesman said that was the amount of the deposit. I can take possession with 25. I want to take the little lady for a cruise around the Med as a Christmas gift. Can you pull it together in three weeks? Pirates? There are pirates in the Med? I thought they were only around the bend in the Gulf. Oh. Better make it 30. I'll need some operating funds anyway. You know anyone over at Blackwater? No? I'll call Cheney, he'll know someone. Alright. Thanks. Talk later. [click] Hey Dick! Good morning to ya...this is Alex..."

No, I'm not that naive. I know that's not how it works. I know people can't consider investment in things that don't return that investment, plus a little something we call return on investment. ROI. Perhaps that is the ultimate question...okay, not the ultimate, but pretty high up there. Would you give money away, knowing you would never see it again, to ensure the future of humanity on the earth? Would you give money away to ensure the starving of the world could eat and be nourished? Would you give money away to develop alternate energies and mass transit? Would you give money away to ensure clean water, clean air, a safe food supply, healthy topsoil, a clean and sober society, healthy people through preventative medicine, smart(er) people through better education, more justice in the justice system, and on and on and on.

That's essentially what taxes are. We give our money away never to see it again. But for me, I see that as an investment. I want to see a return on that investment. We should all want to see a return on that investment. Huge funding, HUGE return. I don't want to see it go into the black hole of government, only to be pulled out of someone's pocket next month to pay their utility bill.

I'm headin' off to work. Got bills to pay.

Wind on wheels

On the road up and back, I saw some windmills (wind generators) being hauled on trucks - parts & pcs. These puppies are huge. "Ginormous" which is a (non-word) word I hate with a passion, but no other words suffice. Here is a little verbal detailing to help you cognitate on it.

The tower/shaft sections are so large (in diameter) you could drive a semi truck through them.

The blade base section, where it connects to the turbine thingamajigger deelybopper, is large enough for three or four people to walk into - abreast.

As far as the blade itself, length-wise, imagine a bunch of guys carrying the thing into the front door of the average American upsidedowninanadjustableratemortgage dwelling unit. First, the business edge of the blade would cut up into the ceiling and likely protrude through the roof. Then, the tip would crash through the sliding glass back door, continue across the back yard smashing the swing set, level the six foot cedar fence, continue across the neighbor's back yard, and come to rest more or less next to the BBQ pit on the back deck. Note that the heel/ass end would still be resting on the curb next to the mail box in the front yard.

Another comparison is that a single blade is more or less the size of a jumbo jet fuselage - perhaps even longer.

Big mo-fo's in other words.

Wind power is NOT an emerging alternative energy technology. It has emerged. There are wind farms stretching as far as the eye can see in parts of west Texas. Right now. Producing power today.

Accelerated Global Warming

Did I read this correctly, that the Arctic sea ice could be gone, GONE, within a decade?