Archive | May, 2011

Encyclopedia of Earth

10 May

“The Encyclopedia is a free, expert-reviewed collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other’s work. The articles are written in non-technical language and are useful to students, educators, scholars, professionals, as well as to the general public.”

Check it out. For, example, here’s the article on US Nuclear Policy Issues; the next big earthquake in Northern California: overgrazing: and Energy Transitions, Past and Future.

No More Nukes for Japan

10 May

Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister, announced that Japan will build no more nuclear power plants. Japan will “start from scratch” on a new energy policy and will “do more to promote renewable energy.”

Meanwhile, The New York Times informs us that America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission is too cozy with the nuclear power industry. Surprise surprise. Who knows, maybe one day they’ll tell us that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

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“Omnivorous Energy” – A Strategy for Local Resilience

9 May

John Robb at Global Guerrillas has a provocative pair of posts. First, on energy omnivores vs. specialists:

  1. The generalist (aka The Omnivore).   Able to consume a wide variety of energy although at an efficiency penalty.
  2. The specialist.   Able to access and consume a very narrow type of energy in a highly efficient way.

We’re in an era of change, so the specialist is vulnerable, as the specialist’s favored resources may disappear. But the omnivore can take whatever’s available and so has an advantage. Thus “we need to adopt more of an omnivore strategy in regards to nearly everything we do.” So, broaden your skill set, diversify investments, really diversify: “An omnivorous investment strategy puts resources into communities and technologies that will be there even when most financial assets are imploding.”

A second post talks more directly about energy:

One of the methods I recommend to reduce that vulnerability is to use microgrids. Microgrids are essentially a local controlled electricity network that makes it possible for communities to create dynamic local markets for electricity production and consumption that can zoom innovation and investment.   When we first began to talk about microgrids, the technologies involved were merely plans on paper.  Now, a mere three years later, we see offerings from many major technology companies (with the potential of open source projects that can open up this tech for everyone).

Moving along:

A truly resilient strategy for the local production of energy (both heat and power) should be able to consume nearly any type of fuel.  In essence, our energy consumption strategy needs to be omnivorous — it can eat anything.  Currently, the vast majority of the energy we consume is produced through purchasing and running dedicated systems — i.e. furnaces that burn natural gas, oil, or wood.  Also, these systems must be able to produce a range of outputs, from heat to electrical power as needed.

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In Transition

7 May

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14 inches, what does it mean?

7 May

The Northwest coast may see a 14-inch rise in sea level by 2050. Emma Mustich reports in Salon:

Salon spoke to professor Peter Ward, author of “The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps” (whom we’ve interviewed before), who explained that while a 14-inch sea level rise is frightening enough on its own, it’s the specter of a resulting “storm surge” — and the failure of many local authorities to plan effectively for the future — that actually worries him the most.

Better start Transition planning NOW.

Don’t Subsidize the Blood Sucking Oil Industry

7 May

The New York Times is running an editorial urging “a grown-up conversation on energy,” while observing that “what we are getting instead is a mindless rerun of the drill-baby-drill operatics of the 2008 campaign, when gas was also at $4 a gallon.”

Right. But they, and you, we, know very well why this isn’t likely to happen. Case in point:

Even John Boehner, the Republican leader, conceded in a recent ABC News interview that oil companies “ought to be paying their fair share.” When horrified aides reminded him that ending the subsidies would amount to a tax increase — anathema among Republicans — he backed off.

The obvious response to the Boehners of the world is simple: Throw the bums out! Let me repeat that: Throw the bums out! One by one, state by state, throw them out.

Meanwhile, sign this petition urging to Congress to stop subsidizing the oil industry.

Gracious Living in Jersey City

6 May

"civilization" is only 30 yards away.jpg

Why the TNT Party WILL Make a Difference

6 May

The Truth and Traditions Party will make a difference because it stands on the side of history. A simple claim, but true. We do not claim we’re alone in standing on the side of history, not at all. But we do claim that, in their allegiance to Big Money, the Democrats and Republicans have consigned themselves to the dust bins of history.

In a searching and imaginative examination of American history from colonial times to the present, William Robert Fogel, economic historian and Nobel Laureate, has argued that our history is driven by periodic revivals asserting egalitarian claims over against social hierarchy that creates increasing gaps between the rich and the poor. His book, The Fourth Great Awakening & the Future of Egalitarianism (Chicago 1999), is built on anthropological work on revivalism and on religious history.

From the publisher’s blurb:

To understand what is taking place today, we need to understand the nature of the recurring political-religious cycles called “Great Awakenings.” Each lasting about 100 years, Great Awakenings consist of three phases, each about a generation long.

A cycle begins with a phase of religious revival, propelled by the tendency of new technological advances to outpace the human capacity to cope with ethical and practical complexities that those new technologies entail. The phase of religious revival is followed by one of rising political effect and reform, followed by a phase in which the new ethics and politics of the religious awakening come under increasing challenge and the political coalition promoted by the awakening goes into decline. These cycles overlap, the end of one cycle coinciding with the beginning of the next.

Here’s the four cycles laid out in brief form. As the blurb has notes each cycle of revivalist activity lasts a century or more and goes through three phases. The American Revolution happened during the second phase of the first revival cycle and the Civil War happened during the second phase of the second revival cycle. The third cycle gave us the labor reforms, civil rights, and women’s rights movements of mid-20th century America.

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Preserving Biodiversity, Making our Food Supply Resilient

4 May

In the 19th century there were 7100 named varieties of apples in America. Now 6800 of those varieties are gone. That’s a terrible loss.

Not just for the principle of the thing – be kind of Mother Earth and all that – but because our survival depends on biodiversity. Now more so than ever because we’re entering an era of rapid and unpredictable climate change. No matter what we do to stem global warming, some amount of climate change is inevitable. If we act prudently in the next few decades we can slow the change, but we can’t stop it.

And that means the the world’s food plants are going to face new weather pattens. Is there enough biodiversity in our food crops to survive the coming changes?

Gary Fowler has been addressing the problem:

Tucked away under the snows of the Arctic Circle is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Sometimes called the doomsday vault, it’s nothing less than a backup of the world’s biological diversity in a horticultural world fast becoming homogenous in the wake of a flood of genetically identical GMOs.

For Cary Fowler, a self-described Tennessee farm boy, this vault is the fulfillment of a long fight against shortsighted governments, big business and potential disaster. Inside the seed vault, Fowler and his team work on preserving wheat, rice and hundreds of other crops that have nurtured humanity since our ancestors began tending crops — and ensuring that the world’s food supply has the diversity needed to stand against the omnipresent threats of disease, climate change and famine.

You can listen to his TED talk at this link (17 minutes). Here’s his organization, the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

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Urban Diversity

3 May

IMGP8611rd - Iris & Cab, Gaudy, Gaudy

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