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On the Spot
Hans Noeldner, Entropic Journal
Yes, it’s important that “regular folks” like Ingrid Jackson of Tennessee put Presidential candidates on the spot (debate #2). Would they boost green jobs? Would they avert climate change in time?
But putting THEM on the spot is nowhere near enough. No President will fund eco-friendly employment if 51% of voters refuse to foot the bill. No President will aggressively fight global warming if 51% of us aren’t willing to cut our own emissions without being compelled by government decree. No candidate has forgotten President Carter’s crushing defeat after he warned us to tighten our belts and live within our means – economic and ecological.
Tragically, we-the-people are still far more concerned about holding our leaders to account than demanding accountability from ourselves. Just look at the incredible discrepancy between media treatment of politicians and corporate executives versus the man on the street. Back when “pain at the pump” was headline news, did any reporter ask an ordinary citizen, “Excuse me, sir, but did America invade and occupy the Mideast for your oil?” Have you ever asked that question yourself? Great lies and greater evils flourish when such candor is taboo.
You and I need to stop waiting for Washington! Let’s create green jobs for ourselves and our neighbors – and pay for them ourselves. Let’s start a transportation revolution – beginning with 100% renewable self-locomotion via our own legs. Let’s decide how we’ll slash our CO2 emissions to safe levels by 2020 – and get down to it. And let’s stop wars for energy which are being waged on our behalf against humanity and nature – petroleum from the strife-torn Mideast, oil sands from Canada’s vast forests, and coal from beneath the pristine mountaintops of Appalachia.
Because if we don’t make this stuff happen from the grassroots up, it ain’t gonna happen at all.
(21 October 2008)
Sustainable Energy Transition
Dennis Markatos-Soriano, SET
About: Sustainable Energy Transition (SET) has been launched in the summer of 2008 to help people throughout the US and beyond free themselves from an economically and environmentally crippling dependence on oil for our energy.
… SET is dedicated to helping the public be informed citizen advocates and consumers through a daily blog published by ~3pm EST every day. We also plan to publish reports helpful for policymakers to help them make energy decisions that simultaneously mitigate the challenges of rising energy costs and climate change.
Staff: The founder, Dennis Markatos-Soriano, is starting SET from the transit-dominated community of Manhattan. Born and raised in the small town of Pittsboro, North Carolina, Dennis attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a degree in Economics and International Studies. In June of 2008, he completed a Master’s program in Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. After helping to develop the SURGE network into a successful nonprofit from 1999-2006, he plans to put his experience to use on one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Having gleaned a great deal from Princeton climate scholars such as Robert Socolow and Michael Oppenheimer, Dennis aims to share a passion for well-researched solutions that both emancipate our transportation system from oil dependence and lower greenhouse gas emissions to a climate responsible level.
(October 2008)
Society’s downward spiral must play out first
Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter #206
Society’s sad and terminal state is not an abstraction of issues or dollars. It is the wasted human potential of the intelligent, charitable individual who is stifled and hemmed in. Yet, our many wonderful members of society are creatures of artificial “comfort.” Convenience comes at costs such as cancer and heart disease that were rare diseases until the last hundred years. Forced by the present economy to be self-centered, we also suppress our creativity and innate potential for triumphing over a clear threat.
For the most part the modern human being labors in exchange for essentials handed over at whatever the market will bear. Food, shelter and clothing are not won or collected from nature, or in cooperation with helpful tribe members, but rather obtained in exchange for becoming a kind of slave. Neuroses from overcrowding are apparent, but none dare call it overpopulation.
The result of living this way, with little daily activity in healthy nature, is a weakened race unable to survive in the wild, much as a domesticated animal such as a dog would do poorly in a forest where the wolf belongs. Some humans are exemplary in capabilities and resolute spirit, but they are the small minority in a mass of humanity remarkably passive as disasters close in.
… I actually bring good tidings, even if the prophetic “doom and gloom” stereotype works unintentionally as blinders.
The barren social wasteland is on its way to complete desertification; then the deluge. Before this urban existence is washed away forever, we’re experiencing historic intensification of alienation from nature and our fellow humans. The tribe is gone, the buffalo are gone, the salmon almost gone, along with the climate. But there’s good news.
Having money and material things for security is rapidly expiring. The expiration date for consumer culture and materialism could be 2009, 2012 or later, but the exact date is not the point of this prediction. We can’t claim it’s far off if we’re honest about observable trends. So it’s time to get off our asses and separate ourselves from those who are constipated and are hopelessly in denial. The alternative is to take one’s drug of choice to the extent one can afford, and revel in gratifying consumption such as a juicy steak.
The non-money culture has to begin now. Impossible? Well, maybe for you, so you must get out of the way and be bid adieu. People have been extricating themselves from Babylon for a long time as individuals and small groups finding real community closer to nature.
(18 October 2008)
Speculation: Inept Idiots or Wise Fools
Calvin Sloan, Pursuit of Injustice
Speculation, in regards to the manipulation of oil markets, does deserve, and has received, a good deal of attention due to the recent onset of record price volatility. People have begun speculating on the role that speculation plays. We can hypothesize about such topics, but until we are given time and hindsight, we would be incorrect in assuming that our views are paramount. It is in this definition of speculation, the process of gathering information to reach an array of possible conclusions – conclusions that are still hypotheses in themselves – that this article will be devoted to. In particular, I wish to speculate on the competency of America’s leaders in the 21st century.
… Some analysts envision a century of relentless resource wars, while others believe that the Iraq war has proven that such wars are not practicable – in a sense, they are saying that these wars have a negative EROEI. As Robert Hirsch has repeatedly stated, if we look at studies like Oil Shockwave, and briefly examine the failure of Iraq or Nigeria’s oil production, we will realize how vulnerable pipelines and production are. If Hirsch is right, the Iraq war will go down in history as just another example of imperial overextension.
Why then do so many others predict a century of blood and war?
Since we are speculating, we should put all options, even the most bizarre on the table. Perhaps some believe that there is already a grand conspiracy in place in which the U.S. is siphoning Iraqi oil out of the country, and out of reach of the free market. The likelihood that this scenario is occurring is extremely low, yet it is still technically feasible.
(20 October 2008)
