Someone once asked novelist E. L. Doctorow about his routine as a writer, to which he replied: “Here’s how it goes: I’m up at the stroke of 10 or 10:30. I have breakfast and read the papers, and then it’s lunchtime. Then maybe a little nap after lunch and out to the gym, and before I know it, it’s time to have a drink.”
Speaking for most of us mortals who try to crank out a book every year, it doesn’t work exactly like that.
A number of folks commenting on my piece The New Living Large Is Living Small noted that perhaps we need a precipitating event to pull the world together, and teach us once again how to live with one another. But how realistic is this? While I believe that there is a huge probability that we’ll have even greater calamities in the next decade, wouldn’t the events of the last few years have precipitated such an Age of Aquarius if it were even a remote possibility? I would have hoped that things like the BP oil spill, Fukushima, the criminality that led to (and continues on past) the 2008 financial collapse, or the skyrocketing number of extreme weather events of the last few years could have done the trick.
Others commented that we should expect a leader to rise up and do the right thing. Sorry for the cynicism, I don’t see that either. (more…)
Here’s environmentalist Bill McKibben at his best, pointing out that we should shelve the resentment and cynicism that we feel for corruption in Congress, and start to show how we truly feel: ANGRY. He writes, “We’ve reached the point where we’re unfazed by things that should shake us to the core.”
According to James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, tapping Canada’s tar sands for the Keystone pipeline would, in the end, essentially mean “game over for the climate.” So how could Speaker of the House John Boehner insist that the Keystone approval decision be speeded up? Well, he’s gotten $1,111,080 from the fossil-fuel industry during his tenure. His Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell, who shepherded the bill through his chamber, has raked in $1,277,208 in the course of his tenure in Washington.
McKibben refers to cynicism as “a sucker’s game.” Until we demonstrate how truly outraged we are, we’ll get exactly the degree of change we deserve: none. As Frederick Douglass reminds us, “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
I hope you’ll be able to join us for our monthly webinar, in which 2GreenEnergy business manager George Alger interviews me on my new book:
Is Renewable Really Doable? Exploring Clean Energy’s Opportunities and Tough Realities
The traditional energy industry is hell-bent on preserving the status quo as long as possible – and who could possibly wonder why? These are the wealthiest people on Earth. Are we to expect that they miraculously want to cease sitting on top of the world?
But our skies and oceans are filling up with the effluent of their outmoded, damaging practices, and the warming of our planet threatens the health and safety of every living thing on the planet. At the same time, a large and growing number of us non-billionaires are crying foul, and committing ourselves to do something about it. Who will win? (more…)
Earlier today I watched this wonderful documentary, “Patent for a Pig,” outlining Monsanto Corporation’s plans to genetically modify each of the major food items, and patent the modification, enabling them to control essentially all the food on the planet, “from seed, to field, to fork” — a line from the film. (If that sounds far-fetched, you may want to check it out.)
While I watched, thinking: man, this is really well done, I realized that I’d love to do something of this quality in the field of clean energy.
But there’s a minor problem: talent. While I know a fair bit about the energy situation facing us here, I know absolutely nothing about filmmaking, and I don’t have the capital sitting around to hire a team to outsource all this.
Are there any volunteers out there who might want to partner with me on the development of such a film? There have, of course, been some very visible pieces that have touched on important aspects of the subject: Who Killed the Electric Car?, An Inconvenient Truth, Fuel, Crude, etc. But it seems that no one’s made a solid, definitive treatment of the technology, the economics, and the politics of energy.
If you have a little bit of Steven Spielberg, Ken Burns (or, dare I say, Michael Moore) in you, and a bit of time on your hands, please let me know.
Here’s a good article on the nuclear industry, suggesting that 2012 should be the year that we finally “bury it.”
Though I love the guy’s writing, I’m not sure we need the dramatics here. Nuclear is fantastically expensive – more so all the time – and thus I believe it’s buried itself. By the time a nuclear plant could be planned, permitted, built, and put online, a minimum of 8 – 10 years, the costs will be even higher than they are today, and the price of competitive solutions, i.e., renewables, will have fallen. Never mind the danger and the public outcry; no one, not even the fabulously moneyed and powerful nuclear industry, can sell a solution that is fantastically expensive.
So long.
It’s the birthday of Isaac Newton, whose book “Principia” overturned nearly everything humankind had believed about the universe up to that point (1686). I bring this up to note that perhaps we should not be so smug about “the laws of physics,” rejecting ideas out of hand that do not conform to our understanding.
I like the position that my friend, physicist and engineer Wally Rippel takes: “I have the bar raised very high for ideas that appear to violate the laws of thermodynamics or mechanics or electricity and magnetism, or quantum physics — but I do not throw the bar away.”
I’ve come to adopt this, which I translate as follows: If an idea violates the laws of physics as I understand them, I’ll need to see a working model. Do not expect to raise money – even a dime – to build a model of something that is theoretically impossible. You’d be surprised how frequently I’m forced to have this conversation.
A reader notes:
I just received Bill McKibben’s Eaarth. I read the preface and if I weren’t so old, I would be depressed. I’m looking forward to the rest.
I reply:
First, let me acknowledge that you are old, and depending on what exactly you mean by that, you’re likely to die before I do. But in the scheme of things, I’m going to be right behind you, and I submit that the fact that we’ll both be dead soon does little to change our responsibilities to leave behind the best planet we possibly can.
Second, you’re 100% correct in that what we’ve done to our planet is depressing. And that we continue to do it in ever-greater rapacity is nothing short of incredible. I find it astonishing that multi-billionaires are hell-bent on making another few billion at the expense of the health and safety of everyone and everything — living here now and tomorrow.
What type of person thinks that way? Personally, I would find it intensely difficult to enjoy my 500-foot yacht and mansions all over the world. But maybe that’s just me.
In any case, it’s incumbent on people like you and me to say, “Damn it, there will be change here. We’ve wrecked our home long enough, and we’re putting an end to this.”
Let us briefly wrap our heads around the main points of our last article Oil: The First Shock. When the first oil well was drilled, its produce could be sold for something around $20 a barrel, which corresponds to roughly $500 in today’s money. Shortly after, thousands of new rigs were built and the markets were saturated with oil, i.e., supply outpaced demand, driving the prices all the way down to $0.10/bbl. The drilling business became unprofitable and people closed their taps. The demand for oil increased significantly during the Civil War (1862-1865), and due to low supplies, prices reached $80/bbl or around $1900 in inflation-adjusted terms. After the war, demand slumped and prices eventually fell to its previous low levels.
There are two things that, in our opinion, are very important to discuss about the period between 1859 and 1865 because they will help you understand similar events that will be discussed in the future. The first point we want to make is about the oil industry in general. It requires capital, lots of it. (more…)
My wife is recovering from surgery on her shoulder, which gives us plenty of time to watch movies. Last night it was “Food, Inc.” – hardly a “feel-good flick,” but incredibly compelling.
Guess what? The food industry is really no more kind and gentle on its customers than the energy industry. Surprise!
