Water, water everywhere!

SUBHEAD: Power down your water as well energy comsumption.

By Aaron Newton on 10 February 2009 in Powering Down
http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2009/02/water-water-everywhere.html




There are some memories that are impossible to properly conjure up without the right setting. It’s tough, for instance, to accurately remember the sound of falling snow in August when it’s 100 degrees outside. Likewise the winters where I live are usually unsuitable for thinking correctly about drought; case in point this winter, during which it seems to have rained every four days for the last three months.

You won’t hear me complain because we’ve had unusually dry weather for during the past few years, but I need a truck load of soil delivered to finish up a series of raised bed planters I built last autumn. The person who is suppose to bring me my soil hasn’t had dry enough weather this winter to bring me my soil without getting his truck stuck in my yard. Its good thing I’m not in a hurry.

image above: "Blooming in the Rain" illustraion found at http://dryicons.com/free-graphics/preview/blooming-in-the-rain/
 

So it’s been hard this winter to think about how it might be too dry this summer and how hard those conditions make growing food, especially in poor soil. The agricultural extension officer in my county made an interesting comment the other day. He said that if the soil is in great shape, irrigation is unnecessary. He’d be right of course in all but the most extreme drought conditions but then again we’ve had such conditions several times here in the Southeast during the last decade.

Several years ago I was gardening in a neighbor’s backyard in soil that was not yet in prime condition. I all but abandoned the garden in August when we had 10 weeks without a single rain event. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the well runs dry, we know the worth of water.” If you’re starting a garden you’ll want to consider how you plan to provide it with the water necessary to be successful if it doesn’t fall from the sky.

I’ll talk more about soil in a future post but it’s worth mentioning here that the health of the soil and its makeup are important when considering how important irrigation will be to the success of your garden. Healthy topsoil will have plenty of organic material in it that will help hold water after it rains. If you’re gardening in the dirt that was left behind in the wake of most new home construction projects it’s likely to dry out much quicker. So it’s important to consider your soil and think about ways to improve it or even ways to import better soil from elsewhere to get your garden going.

Water for irrigation is available from four sources: ground water, municipal water, grey water and rain water.

Image above: Illustration of groundwater cross-section from http://ponce.sdsu.edu/groundwater_sustainable_yield.html

Ground water is available from springs or by drilling a well. Many parts of the country can support moderate amounts of water being drawn from underground and recharged naturally.

Some parts of the country however are already pumping water out of the ground a rate much faster than can be naturally recharged. These regions are endangering their futures. It’s difficult to gauge how much ground water is left because it’s out of sight. It is also possible that ground water can be contaminated by natural occurring high concentrates of compounds that are poisonous to humans. Have your ground water tested to be sure it’s safe. It’s also worth mentioning that in many parts of the country, drilling a well can be expensive. Contact a local well drill for more information.

Municipal water includes water that is provided by city or county governments. Often this water is pumped from lakes and rivers before being filtered and purified. The chemicals used to clean this water are harmful to soil life and often raise the pH making it less than ideal for irrigation (and arguably less than ideal for human consumption). Given a choice between letting your garden croak or irriagting with municipal water, it’s probably practical to use city/county water. One of the positives about municipal water is that in many places it is easily accessible with good pressure and is relatively inexpensive. It may also have pharmaceuticals and the residues from other chemicals used upstream but hey, nothing’s perfect.

Image above: Example of greywater reuse from http://www.huber-solutions.com/greyuse.htm

Grey water is water that has been used in sinks, showers and tubs in households. Recycling it entails diverting it to the landscape instead of directing it into the sewer or septic system. It is not water from toilets which is called black water so as to distinguish it from grey water. Using grey water in your garden can be as simple as saving water in a dish pan and pouring it on plants.

Remember that this water can have soaps or oils in it so be careful what you’re using to clean your dishes if you plan to redistribute that water into the landscape. Food or skin particles could be a source of foul smells or even disease if left to build up but for the most part, grey water is a safe way to use water more wisely. 

Some parts of the country promote grey water recycling while it is illegal in others. Those places where water is scarce have long recycled their gray water. In such parts of the country, grey water systems have developed that are more advanced and direct water and sometimes filter it as part of the plumbing of the house. Art Ludwig’s Create an Oasis with Greywater is the classic text on the subject. Here’s a good website as well http://www.oasisdesign.net/greywater/

Humans have been harvest rain water for thousands of years. If you’ve taken a vacation to a tropical island nation you’ve likely seen the systems used there for capturing rain. The water falling from the sky is likely your cleanest source depending on the quality of air in your area. It won’t have harmful chemicals in it and the pH will be very close to neutral.

The sky is the source of water that will naturally irrigated your garden as it has rained on the surface of our planet for millions of years. The catch of course is that it won’t always rain in the amounts desired to keep your garden healthy or at the times when you most need the water. Here in central NC we get more rain in the winter than in the summer and much of our summer rain comes in the form of thunderstorms that might drop 1 or 2 inches of rain within an hour. So while we get more rain annually here in Charlotte, NC than in Seattle, WA or Albany, NY (check your average annual rainfall here) we don’t always get the amount we want when we want it; and that’s without the recent drought periods factored in or droughts of the future aggravated by climate change. Harvesting and storing rainwater is an excellent way to irrigate gardens.

There are three basic types of water storage: above ground, in ground and below ground.
  Image above: Commercial above-ground rain collection and storage http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/05/07/rainpod-water-collection-system/

Above ground storage happens in tanks or other containers that hold water collected from impervious surfaces, mainly roofs. Containers range in size from 42 gallon rain barrels to tanks that hold many thousands of gallons. These containers can use pumps to push the water to where it’s needed but because they are above ground they often just use gravity to move water from storage to the garden.

It’s relatively easy to see how much water is available and set up and maintenance of such tanks is relatively simple. The down side is that the aesthetics of a series of rain barrels or a giant tank might not blend in the landscape ornaments in your neighborhood. By the way these storage systems are relatively cheap compared to the in ground or below ground storage systems.

In ground systems refers basically to ponds or lakes. If you have an existing pond on your property consider yourself blessed. This type of natural water storage system has been used for millennia as a way to store irrigation water.

It can also serve as an ecosystem capable of providing you with fish and other sources of protein as well as providing a home for nutritious aquatic plants like cattails. Ponds also serve as a necessary resource for the other animals that will call your property home. Construction of ponds can be expensive depending on size and the type that is right for you based on the soils in your area. In short a pond or lake can is an excellent resource and one that an entire class could be devoted to in terms of construction and utilization. Personally I’ve always wanted to try fresh water pawn production.

Image above: a below-ground rainwater collection system from http://www.rainwater-solutions.com/index.asp?page=0&menuid=7&subid=12

Below ground storage refers to tanks used to store water in tanks, well, below ground. The excavation necessary for installation and maintenance and the reinforced tanks necessary for such storage options make this a more expensive choice. It does get the tank out of your yard though and for people for whom space is tight this might be the only option available. A pump will be necessary to get the water back up above ground. Filtration of ingoing water will be even more important as in ground systems are much harder to clean. Brea rainwater harvesting systems is a local company I’ve dealt with in the past in researching and pricing such systems.

Resources:

The Texas Manual on Rainwater Harvest (a free PDF) is an excellent resource. I printed out a copy and it lives in my bookshelf and is regularly referenced.

Brad Lancaster has written two great books on the subject
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Volumes One & Two

Here’s an article and a video of Brad.
Abundant Skies: 8 Principles for Successful Rainwater Harvesting

This alternative also looks very interesting.

It fights in the crawl space beneath your house.

I’ve heard of similar systems used in Australia and would love to hear from any of my Aussie readers as to how well they work.

I should mention that there is another problem having to do with water that I haven’t mentioned here at all, flooding. Sharon has more experience with this than I do but it’s entirely possible to site your garden and get it completely ready this winter only to see it flooded this spring. Be sure that your garden is outside of all flood zones that fall within your property. Pay attention after (or during) heavy rains to see where the water on your property goes. This will help you not only to be able to avoid areas prone to flooding but also to know what areas might work well as places to store water.

Another aspect of water outside my area of expertise is the spring melt. For many of you living further north, snow and ice will melt in the spring and provide you with a great deal of water. This might mean flooding or it could be an opportunity to harvest water for use later in the year.

Like all other natural systems, understanding the hydrology of your particular site will require careful observation and harnessing the water available to you will take thought and improvisation.

See also:
Island Breath: Water security is critical 2/1/09
http://www.floridasprings.org/anatomy/jow/text/

Team Obama's John Holdren

SUBHEAD: Harvard’s Holdren Wields Oscar-Worthy Climate Pitch for Obama. By John Lauerman on 10 February 2009 in Bloomberg News http://www.bloomberg.com When David Letterman, the late-night TV host, needed a scientist to explain climate change on his show last April, he chose John Holdren, the Harvard University physicist who helped Al Gore earn an Academy Award. Holdren’s dire predictions about global warming, illustrated in riveting charts and graphs, helped ex-Vice President Gore win an Oscar for his 2006 documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Holdren also helped persuade Ford Motor Co. and ConocoPhillips Co. executives to accept that climate change caused by gas emissions threatened to raise sea levels and harm crops. His slide presentations pop up frequently in other people’s speeches.

image above: John Holdren at Harvard microphone. Photograph by Keith Srakocic for Bloomberg News At age 64, Holdren now is taking on his toughest assignment: getting the American public and Congress to curb fossil fuel use. Barack Obama has named Holdren as assistant to the president for science and technology as well as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, a post for which he will face a Senate confirmation hearing on Feb 12. The White House “is the place where he ought to be right now, trying to save the world,” said Paul Ehrlich, author of the “The Population Bomb” (Ballantine, 1968), a manifesto that predicted disaster from depletion of the Earth’s resources. Holdren is “absolutely brilliant,” Ehrlich said. As the head of the technology office, Holdren would also be co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, along with Harvard geneticist Eric Lander and Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning virologist who is president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. All three declined to be interviewed until after Holdren’s confirmation.

Lander, Varmus Leonard Zon, a Harvard stem cell scientist who knows Lander and Varmus and has followed Holdren’s career, said the three men are likely to recommend more federal support for embryonic stem cell research, and budget increases for the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. agency that backs the bulk of basic science conducted at academic institutions. “I know they’re very enthusiastic about stem cell biology,” Zon said.

Holdren’s areas of expertise are climate change, alternative energy and arms control. At the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, scheduled for December in Copenhagen, the U.S. will be urged to adopt carbon-dioxide limits that 183 countries accept already, said Paul Epstein, an environmental researcher at Harvard.

Kyoto Protocol Holdren may push for the U.S. to be part of a carbon- curbing treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, said Epstein, associate director of the Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, who has consulted Holdren on research.

Holdren will counsel Obama on how to cut carbon dioxide emissions. The gas has risen to a concentration of about 385 parts per million in the atmosphere, from about 275 parts per million in the early 1700s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Studies have suggested that halting levels at 550 particles per million by the year 2050 would avoid the worst effects of global warming and help avoid flooding and major crop losses. Holdren may aim for even bigger reductions, said Graham Allison, director of Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

'Genius Grant' “He believes at this stage that the world’s got to get down to no more than 550 parts per million and may have to get lower than 450 parts per million,” Allison said.

Holdren first gained public attention in December 1981, at age 37, when he won a MacArthur Foundation fellowship, or “genius” grant, for analyses of energy and arms control. He joined the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organization focused on limiting nuclear weapons, and gave an acceptance speech in Oslo in December 1995 after Pugwash shared the Nobel Peace Prize. He later served for 14 years on the MacArthur board. Those credentials haven’t immunized him from criticism. While Holdren has focused on the dangers of burning fuel, he hasn’t taken into account the possibility of diminishment of oil supplies, a factor that would reduce carbon emissions in the future, said Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School who wrote “The Skeptical Environmentalist” (Cambridge University Press, 2001). “If he can manage to get his facts right, then that’s good for his boss,” Lomborg said. “But he hasn’t on this issue.”

‘Climatic Disruption’ Soft-spoken and professorial, with a gray beard and a shaggy, full head of hair, Holdren typically begins his climate change lectures by telling the audience members they can use his slides that paint a bleak picture of the future without the need to get his permission. That’s part of his effort to spread his point of view. “‘Global warming’ is a misnomer,” he told an Aspen Ideas Festival audience of about 300 in July. “What we’re experiencing is global climatic disruption. We’re already experiencing serious harm.” During the presentation, his rapid-fire graphics showed the effect of future warming, with rising sea levels creating a map without Greenland, Florida and parts of New England. More than 100 listeners, mostly non-scientists, requested copies of Holdren’s slides after the July talk, said Kitty Boone, a vice president at the nonprofit Aspen Institute.

Responding to Crichton Despite his quiet manner, Holdren hasn’t shied away from public disagreements. In congressional testimony in September 2005, the author Michael Crichton in September 2005 questioned the severity of climate change. Speaking before reporters in February 2008 at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Holdren dismissed Crichton as a “lapsed physician turned science fiction writer.” Crichton, a Harvard Medical School graduate best known for “Jurassic Park” (Knopf, 1990), died last November.

Consensus Building Holdren has nonetheless shown talent for building the kind of consensus needed to pursue his goals, said William Reilly, Holdren’s co-chairman on the National Commission on Energy Policy. When the panel convened in 2002, Holdren helped persuade Ford and ConocoPhillips executives on the commission that climate change threatened to raise sea levels and harm crops. A December 2004 report, endorsed unanimously by members of the bipartisan commission, recommended a cap-and-trade policy for the U.S. The system would allow companies to trade the right to emit carbon dioxide. Now Holdren has to sell such a policy to Congress after two presidents spurned it. President Bill Clinton, faced with conflicting assessments of what the 1992 Kyoto Protocol would cost the U.S. economy, opted not to bring the treaty before the Senate for ratification. President George W. Bush refused to support the seven-year agreement, calling it “unrealistic.” ‘Significant Force’ “John is going to be a very significant force in the office of the president,” said Robert Stavins, a Harvard economist and a specialist on cap-and-trade strategies. “He’s not going to shy away from discussions and debates, no matter who is in the room.” Holdren and his wife, Cheryl, live in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and have two children and five grandchildren. He earned his 1965 bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge. While working toward his Ph.D. degree in plasma physics, which he received in 1970 from Stanford University near Palo Alto, California, Holdren immersed himself in environmental and population issues. He arrived at Harvard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1996. He became a professor focused on environmental science and policy, in both the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. He also directed the independent Woods Hole Research Center on Cape Cod. Fishing Technique Holdren brings the rigor of science to fishing along the Cape, said Allison, the Belfer Center director. Before the two of them set off in search of striped bass, Holdren consults a spreadsheet that he keeps to track tides, water temperature, weather conditions and currents. “He’ll look at these charts and say, ‘I’m betting you the stripers are there,’” Allison said. “He’s pretty much a scientist from when gets up in the morning to when he goes to bed.” To contact the reporter on this story: John Lauerman in Boston at jlauerman@bloomberg.net

Benedict XVI errs

SUBHEAD: Pope Offers Olive Branch, Gets Sucker Punched.

By Celestine Bohlen on 10 February 2009 for Bloomberg News http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aKCGumhQ2_GI At a time when the world is looking forward to a new spirit of reconciliation, the Catholic Church has been caught looking backward. It’s an ugly sight. On Jan. 20, President Barack Obama stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and talked about reconciling Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and non-believers. The next day, Pope Benedict XVI gave a wink and a nod to a renegade sect that, in stubborn defiance of the Church’s own teachings, is stuck in the Dark Ages, when popes had armies, Christians blamed Jews for the death of Jesus and suggestions that the Earth orbited the Sun constituted heresy. What was he thinking?

image above: Detail of caricature of Pope Benedict XVI by Court Jones found at http://www.courtjones.com

If his intention was to offer an olive branch to the schismatic movement founded by the ultra-right-wing French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, then he missed even that narrow mark. The leaders of Lefebvre’s St. Pius X Society have yet to withdraw their rejection of the Second Vatican Council, which in the 1960s, accepted such basic principles as the separation of church and state, freedom of religion and a repudiation of anti- Semitism. Worse, by lifting the excommunication of four bishops illegitimately ordained by Lefebvre in 1988, Benedict has alienated millions of modern Catholics who have been looking for tolerance in other spheres, such as divorce or birth control. All of this has only confirmed doubts among liberal Catholics about the real views of Pope Benedict, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who until he became Pope in 2005 had stood guard over the church’s doctrinal standards. Holocaust Denial The revoking of the excommunications might have gone unnoticed had one of the four bishops, Richard Williamson, not given an interview on Swedish television claiming that only several hundred thousand Jews were killed in the Holocaust. As if to say the Nazis weren’t so bad after all! Those comments set off a firestorm of outrage and disgust, particularly in the pope’s native Germany, where denying the Holocaust is a crime. Chancellor Angela Merkel, joining leaders of all faiths, called for a retraction by Williamson. The shocking thing is that it took Pope Benedict two weeks to demand that Williamson renounce his comments. And even then the Vatican, in its statement, insisted that the pope had not been aware of Williamson’s remarks when he lifted his excommunication. The excuse was that this was a “management error,” which the Vatican blamed on its sprawling bureaucracy. Pope’s Clulessness Others would say it has more to do with this pope’s cluelessness about the modern world. “Unnamed sources in the Vatican are saying that they did not know that Williamson was a Shoah denier,” wrote Thomas Reese, a Jesuit scholar and senior fellow at Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “Haven’t they heard of Google?” It really is pretty hard to imagine that Williamson’s views were a surprise to anyone, much less the pope. Followers of Lefebvre, who died in 1991, are a throwback to an old royalist Catholic tradition in France that stretches from the anti-Semitic campaign against Alfred Dreyfus in 1898 to the Vichy regime of Marshall Philippe Petain. Consider Williamson’s views on women: he disapproves of their wearing pants, and believes that they shouldn’t be permitted to attend universities. Among his stranger ideas is that the World Trade Center was destroyed by explosions, not by hijacked airplanes. Canon Law No one is suggesting that Pope Benedict endorses Williamson’s lunacies, or the political conservatism of the Lefebvrist movement. Like his predecessor John Paul II, Benedict tried, and failed to bring Lefebvre back into the Church. As for the Holocaust, John Paul II apologized for the Church’s silence in 1998, and Benedict himself has specifically condemned any “forgetting, denial and reductionism” of the Holocaust. Nor, according to Canon Law, was the lifting of the excommunications in any way a rehabilitation of the Lefebvrists or their beliefs. Rather it was a cease-fire in the Vatican’s long-standing battle against the schismatic movement, and an invitation for its members to return to the fold. But that wasn’t the message heard around the world. The reaction of Jewish leaders was one of pain and revulsion, as old feelings of bitter distrust rushed to the surface, drowning out two decades of efforts to reconcile the two faiths. Surely the biggest damage in the whole affair has been to the Church itself. Many of Lefebvre’s followers joined the movement because of its devotion to the traditional Latin Mass, dropped by the Second Vatican Council and reinstated by Pope Benedict in 2007. But in essence, the movement stands for something else -- something narrow, dark and very dated. So when the Pope opened the door of the Church to the four bishops -- even if only by a crack -- he actually was closing it on the wider, modern world where most Catholics live and worship. (Celestine Bohlen is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.) To contact the writer of this column: Celestine Bohlen in Paris at cbohlen1@bloomberg.net

Ship Of Fools

SUBHEAD: It's too late for bailouts - where are the life boats.

By Paul Craig Roberts on 09 February 2009 in The Jeff Rense Program

http://www.rense.com/general85/dhdd.htm

Is there intelligent life in Washington, DC? Not a speck of it. The US economy is imploding, and Obama is being led by his government of neconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will bring the US into confrontation with Russia, and possibly China, American's largest creditor. The January payroll job figures reveal that last month 20,000 Americans lost their jobs every day. In addition, December's job losses were revised up by 53,000 jobs from 524,000 to 577,000. The revision brings the two-month job loss to 1,175,000. If this keeps up, Obama's promised three million new jobs will be wiped out by job losses.

image above: "Playing with Fire" by Mark Bryan in 2003 from http://www.artofmarkbryan.com/playing_with_fire.html

Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that this huge number is an understatement. Williams notes that built-in biases in seasonal adjustment factors caused a 118,000 understatement of January job losses, bringing the actual January job loss to 716,000 jobs. The payroll survey counts the number of jobs, not the number of employed as some people have more than one job. The Household Survey counts the number of people who have jobs. The Household Survey shows that 832,000 people lost their jobs in January and 806,000 in December, for a two month reduction of Americans with jobs of 1,638,000. The unemployment rate reported in the US media is a fabrication. Williams reports that "during the Clinton Administration, 'discouraged workers' those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had--were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been 'discouraged' for less than a year. This time qualification defined away the bulk of the discouraged workers. Adding them back into the total unemployed, actual unemployment, [according to the unemployment rate methodology used in 1980] rose to 18% in January, from 17.5% in December." In other words, without all the manipulations of the data from a government that lies to us every time it opens its mouth, the US unemployment rate is already at depression levels. How could it be otherwise given the enormous job loss from offshored jobs. It is impossible for a country to create jobs when its corporations are moving production for the American consumer market offshore. When they move the production offshore, they shift US GDP to other countries. The US trade deficit over the past decade has reduced US GDP by $1.5 trillion dollars. That is a lot of jobs. I have been reporting for years that American university graduates have had to take jobs as waitresses and bartenders. As over-indebted American consumers lose their jobs, they will visit restaurants and bars less frequently. Consequently, Americans with university degrees will not even have jobs waiting on tables and mixing drinks. US policymakers have ignored the fact that consumer demand in the 21st century has been driven, not by increases in real income, but by increased consumer indebtedness. This fact makes it pointless to try to stimulate the economy by bailing out banks so that they can lend more to consumers. The American consumers have no more capacity to borrow. With the decline in the values of their principal assets--their homes--with the destruction of half of their pension assets, and with joblessness facing them, Americans cannot and will not spend. Why bail out GM and Citibank when the firms are moving as many operations offshore as they possibly can? Much of US infrastructure is in poor shape and needs renewing. However, infrastructure jobs do not produce goods and services that can be sold abroad. The massive commitment to infrastructure does nothing to help the US reduce its massive trade deficit, the financing of which is becoming a major problem. Moreover, when the infrastructure projects are completed, so are the jobs. At best, assuming Mexicans do not get most of the construction jobs, all Obama's stimulus program can do is to reduce the number of unemployed temporarily. Unless US corporations can be required to use American labor to produce the goods and services that they sell in American markets, there is no hope for the US economy. No one in the Obama administration has the wits to address this problem. Thus, the economy will continue to implode. Adding to the brewing disaster, Obama has been deceived by his military and neoconservative advisers into expanding the war in Afghanistan, a large mountainous country. Obama intends to use the draw-down of US soldiers in Iraq to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. This would bring the US forces to 60,000--600,000 fewer than US Marine Corps and US Army counterinsurgency guidelines define as the minimum number of soldiers necessary to bring success in Afghanistan--and less than half as many as the army that was unable to occupy Iraq.

The Iranians had to bail out the Bush regime by restraining its Shi'ite allies and encouraging them to use the ballot box to attain power and push out the Americans. In Iraq the US troops only had to fight a small Sunni insurgency drawn from a minority of the population. Even so, the US "prevailed" by putting the insurgents on the US payroll and paying them not to fight. The withdrawal agreement was dictated by the Shi'ites. It was not what the Bush regime wanted. One would think that the experience with the "cakewalk" in Iraq would make the US hesitant to attempt to occupy Afghanistan, an undertaking that would require the US to occupy parts of Pakistan. The US was hard pressed to maintain 150,000 troops in Iraq. Where is Obama going to get another half million soldiers to add to the 150,000 to pacify Afghanistan? One answer is the rapidly growing massive US unemployment. Americans will sign up to go kill abroad rather than be homeless and hungry at home. But this solves only half of the problem. Where does the money come from to support an army in the field of 650,000, an army 4.3 times larger than US forces in Iraq, a war that has cost us $3 trillion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs. This money would have to be raised in addition to the $3 trillion US budget deficit that is the result of Bush's financial sector bailout, Obama's stimulus package, and the rapidly failing economy. When economies tank, as the American one is doing, tax revenues collapse. The millions of unemployed Americans are not paying Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes. The stores and businesses that are closing are not paying federal and state income taxes. Consumers with no money or credit to spend are not paying sales taxes. The Washington Morons, and morons they are, have given no thought as to how they are going to finance a fiscal year 2009 budget deficit of some two to three trillion dollars. The practically nonexistent US saving rate cannot finance it. The trade surpluses of our trading partners, such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, cannot finance it. The US government really has only two possibilities for financing its budget deficit. One is a second collapse in the stock market, which would drive the surviving investors with what they have left into "safe" US Treasury bonds. The other is for the Federal Reserve to monetize the Treasury debt. Monetizing the debt means that when no one is willing or able to purchase the Treasury's bonds, the Federal Reserve buys them by creating bank deposits for the Treasury's account. In other words, the Fed "prints money" with which to buy the Treasury's bonds. Once this happens, the US dollar will cease to be the reserve currency. In addition, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, countries that hold enormous quantities of US Treasury debt in addition to other US dollar assets, will sell, hoping to get out before others. The US dollar will become worthless, the currency of a banana republic. The US will not be able to pay for its imports, a serious problem for a country dependent on imports for its energy, manufactured goods, and advanced technology products. Obama's Keynesian advisers have learned with a vengeance Milton Friedman's lesson that the Great Depression resulted from the Federal Reserve permitting a contraction of the supply of money and credit. In the Great Depression good debts were destroyed by monetary contraction. Today bad debts are being preserved by the expansion of money and credit, and the US Treasury is jeopardizing its credit standing and the dollar's reserve currency status with enormous quarterly bond auctions as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, the Russians, overflowing with energy and mineral resources, and not in debt, have learned that the US government is not to be trusted. Russia has watched Reagan's successors attempt to turn former constituent parts of the Soviet Union into US puppet states with US military bases. The US is trying to ring Russia with missiles that neutralize Russia's strategic deterrent. Putin has caught on to "comrade wolf." He has succeeded in having the president of Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union, evict the US from its military base. This base is essential to America's ability to supply its soldiers in Afghanistan. To stop America's meddling in Russia's sphere of influence, the Russian government has created a collective security treaty organization comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is a partial participant. In other words, Russia has organized central Asia against US penetration. To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy--Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen--are ecstatic over Obama's appointments. They don't see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney. Not only are Obama's appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran. The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year! The world has never seen such total mindlessness. Napoleon's and Hitler's march into Russia were rational acts compared to the mindless idiocy of the United States government. Obama's war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don't have one." NBC reports: "they're working on it." Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid "mission creep without clear parameters," the US "needs a clear mission." How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?

The Purse

SUBHEAD: It started with what might be called a careless accident. By Tom Teitge on 9 February 2009 groundwiretom@gmail.com He lay basking in the warm afterglow of their lovemaking; and gazed across at her chaotic hair on the pillow. He'd had many women before this; his background: the heady financial district, quick relationships, high flights of luxury, the promise of ever fulfilled dreams; and then, the flowering into yet another gray and dreary Monday. She was a different breed; no high price hair cut, no tailored garments. She was of an earthier vein. Her aspirations of prosperity were rooted in the real soil of the earth, not in abstract financial strategy. She had a grace, a glamor even, that could not be bought at even the most exclusive of establishments. Nor could it even be embellished. It shone through, raw and naked. She talked little of her past. She was evasive and laughed away attempts to ferret out historic details.

image above: "Lovers" by Zhang Yaxi from http://www.zhangyaxi.com.cn/en/sculpture_portfolio/Lover/ His thoughts wandered back to when he had first seen her; and how lovely she had looked in the downtown soft evening light. She looked vaguely out of place in the district. How had she even found a parking place? She had stepped out of an older vehicle. Even the color of its paint was somehow foreign to the surroundings here. The contents of her purse had spilled across the sidewalk. He stopped abruptly in his stride and she looked up, and their eyes met. There was a slightly bemused smile; a slight raising of the eyebrows, as if to unapologetically say, "Well, there you have it!". And from that moment, he was caught. They spoke. She laughed at herself. He had on a nice suit, and expensive polished shoes. She was open to him; but hardly charmed; just open and just barely. He made the moves. He was the acquiescent one. "Could I help you?", he begged. She could have said no; but, she would not have taken the trouble to say no; and so, this was how it all started. From that moment, he thought only of her. He sought to know her better; and slowly the relationship evolved. That was the turn in the road of his life. Now three years later, the same purse reclined in the corner of their small bedroom, resting on a chair. How happy he had been in the peace of their lives together. He had no regrets; for all he had given up for her. In retrospect, his life, with all its enviable success, had been a mad-house of confusion. The modest home, they now shared, was the antithesis of the elegance of his former area in the city. To the alarm of his high-rolling colleagues, he had effectively burned all the bridges, of his carefully constructed career. She, and the quiet countryside, and their simple home, had become his whole world. And, though the loss, or rejection of his former world had come at a price, he seldom looked back. Their lives were bounded by the work they shared and found fulfilling. At times, it still amazed him, that he had chosen a path so divergent from some previously established formula of desire; all of what he, and those around him, had aspired to. His former friends could barely cloak their disapproval, their disbelief, and when confronted by this he became momentarily confused himself. But she made it all clear. Without a word, it was she that made it all clear: a new set of values, a new perspective, a parallel universe in which, yes, sometimes he panicked briefly with doubt. But, then, there she would be. They cultivated various medicinal herbs, and sold them to a distributor. The money kept them going. Comfortably, by all measures, they led a healthy life, really. They kept a vegetable garden, as well, and she taught him cooking; simple, yet delicious. Now when his old friends came to visit, there was less and less in common. And they did not care when these visitors ceased to come. He had long since sold his Mercedes, and now drove an older Chevy pickup. And she had mentioned that the style of her old purse had a classic enduring quality, one which she was happy not to replace. She had an elegance all of her own; a richness, a true value. When she smiled and broke into laughter, there was no affectation; just a plain and simple joy; but this was accompanied with a private distance, an unstated understanding of something. What? When he tried to break down her invisible barriers, she responded with a quiet smile, a distant look, a slightly whimsical shake of her head. It occurred to him that his happiness was too perfect, and he looked with fear at any change that might disturb their lives. She rose from the bed, pulled a brush from the purse, and carelessly moved her hair back from her face. She did not hide her nakedness. Instead she wore it with no thought. Yet, simultaneously, she appeared the perfect picture of modesty. She turned to see the sun setting through the window. And as she did, she saw dust rising from their long dirt drive. She could see a car approaching. He rose and pulled on clothes. At first, she stared for an unusually long moment. Something was changing. A cloud drifted across the sun. In their time together, he had learned something of her past; her life without him, before him. She never dwelled on it. But there had been past love, past passion, and with someone of her type, how could it ever be past? Tears began to well in her eyes. And she shuddered slightly, as she quickly dressed. He looked at her with alarm. She turned and faced him. And with the quietest voice imaginable, said, simply, explaining the universe in a grain of sand: "You knew he'd be back.". Intricate spider webs of longing and commitment, of obligations and loyalties, and of hopes and desires, stretched and crisscrossed backwards, through the years. And though it was unspoken, they both knew, even in that instant, that she would return to a former life. He had been transformed from his previous life. He had found a better way. She had been his epiphany. She had been his compass star. There was something of his new life that could exist independent of her; the new perspectives, the new values; they could remain; in fact, would remain. She had laughingly told him once, half joking, that enlightenment was a one way street. It climbed upward. It did not descend. He had followed her, and now, she would return to a past; a life that had fallen from her years ago; like a purse spilling onto the sidewalk, scattering all things randomly. In that moment, as he stood next to the bed, with its scattered sheets, and as she descended the stairs; he saw, in a flash, that the spilled purse, the very miracle that had transformed his life; had been, but a careless accident.

Editor's Note: Tom Teitge, and artist, and a former resident of Hanapepe, Kauai, who now lives in Haley, Idaho.

Poverty of Imagination

SUBHEAD: The failure in the imagination of our leaders is a calamity. 

By James Howard Kunstler on 9 February 2009

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2009/02/poverty-of-imagination.html Venturing out each day into this land of strip malls, freeways, office parks, and McHousing pods, one can't help but be impressed at how America looks the same as it did a few years ago, while seemingly overnight we have become another country. All the old mechanisms that enabled our way of life are broken, especially endless revolving credit, at every level, from household to business to the banks to the US Treasury.

image above: An illustration of imagination from

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=209504130 Peak energy has combined with the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity to pull the "kill switch" on our vaunted "way of life" -- the set of arrangements that we won't apologize for or negotiate. So, the big question before the nation is: do we try to re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or do we start behaving differently? The attempted re-start of revolving debt consumerism is an exercise in futility. We've reached the limit of being able to create additional debt at any level without causing further damage, additional distortions, and new perversities of economy (and of society, too). We can't raise credit card ceilings for people with no ability make monthly payments. We can't promote more mortgages for people with no income. We can't crank up a home-building industry with our massive inventory of unsold, and over-priced houses built in the wrong places. We can't ramp back up the blue light special shopping fiesta. We can't return to the heyday of Happy Motoring, no matter how many bridges we fix or how many additional ring highways we build around our already-overblown and over-sprawled metroplexes. Mostly, we can't return to the now-complete "growth" cycle of "economic expansion." We're done with all that. History is done with our doing that, for now. So far -- after two weeks in office -- the Obama team seems bent on a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, to attempt to do all the impossible things listed above. Mr. Obama is not the only one, of course, who is invoking the quest for renewed "growth." This is a tragic error in collective thinking. What we really face is a comprehensive contraction in our activities, especially the scale of our activities, and the pressing need to readjust the systems of everyday life to a level of decreased complexity. For instance, the myth that we can become "energy independent and yet remain car-dependent is absurd. In terms of liquid fuels, we're simply trapped. We import two-thirds of the oil we use and there is absolutely no chance that drill-drill-drilling (or any other scheme) will change that. The public and our leaders can not face the reality of this. The great wish for "alternative" liquid fuels (bio fuels, algae excreta) will never be anything more than a wish at the scales required, and the parallel wish to keep all our cars running by other means -- hydrogen fuel cells, electric motors -- is equally idle and foolish. We cannot face the mandate of reality, which is to do everything possible to make our living places walkable, and connect them with public transit. The stimulus bills in congress clearly illustrate our failure to understand the situation. The attempt to restart "consumerism" will be equally disappointing. It was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and now that we're past peak energy, it's over. That seventy percent of the economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money they earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while, a lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still has value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially the malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop boutiques in these highway-oriented venues. Washington is evidently seized by panic right now. I don't know anyone who works in the White House, but I must suppose that they have learned in two weeks that these systems are absolutely tanking, that the previous way of life that everybody was so set on not apologizing for has reached the end of the line. We seem to be learning a new and interesting lesson: that even a team that promises change is actually petrified of too much change, especially change that they can't really control. The argument about "change" during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn't, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team -- but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper's $20,000 college loan, and Dad's yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan... and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place. If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there's a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don't focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don't get started on this right away, we're screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors. The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on any of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses. It's a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back again. We'll see a striking illustration of "phase change" as the public mood goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they were, but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what remains of our capital resources down a rat hole. A consensus is firming up on each side of the "stimulus" question, largely along party lines -- simply those who are for it and those who are against it, mostly by degrees. Nobody in either party -- including supposed independents such as Bernie Sanders or John McCain, not to mention President Obama -- has a position for directing public resources and effort at any of the things I mentioned above: future food security, future travel-and-transport security, or the future security of livable, walkable dwelling places based on local networks of economic interdependency. This striking poverty of imagination may lead to change that will tear the nation to pieces.

Build a bicycle trailer

SUBHEAD: Hauling the groceries without a pickup truck.

By Juan Wilson on 8 February 2009 for Island Breath -  
(http://www.islandbreath.blogspot.com/2009/02/build-bicycle-trailer.html)  

Update 12/17/11. 
Try another system! Caution! If you follow the following use of the stroller below be aware that there are real problems with this solution. The trailer will tend to wobble and can become unstable at speed. Without extra effort reducing play at the hook-up there will be instability on the road - particularly at certain speeds (harmonic to the wobble). This effect worsens at higher speeds. It seems more of a problem if there is no load on the trailer. I think this is because it tends to bounce more when empty. The symptoms you may get into trouble are that the trailer will wobble from wheel to wheel. This wobble will increase at certain speeds until the two wheels alternate bouncing into the air. If ignored this can lead to the trailer flipping. If you have a moderate load and travel at lower speeds on smooth roads and have a tight hook-up point this is not so bad a concern. However, I now consider this rig a failed experiment. Most bike trailers make the hook-up off the rear wheel axle. This is a much more stable place to hook-up to.

 How I hooked up a trailer in 2009
In poking through my garage to find a misplaced tool I came across an underutilized piece of equipment that we picked up at the Habitat for Humanity "Restore" thrift outlet in Hanapepe - a baby jogging stoller. My wife, Linda, and I picked it up for her grandson Bodhi. Bodhi lives on Oahu, so the stroller has hardly been used. Soon he'll be too big for it.

I decided to re-utilize the stoller as a trailer; one I could drag behind my bicycle. I have been trolling the Hanapepe transfer station for years and have picked up several bikes. I got two nice Hardrock off-road bikes that were identical and have used one as parts for the other.

I put a rack on the back for hauling small items, and with a bunji cord have even carted electronic gear or a briefcase around town. But I have not been able to haul bigger stuff.

I tested the idea of using the stoller as a trailer first by removing the front wheel and attempting to drag it around from its nose. I found that the front fork could only reach the back rack on the bike and that having two connected contact points would not allow turning.

I soon realized that dragging the stroller from the back made for better balance over its axle and that I could use the center of the stroller handlebar to hook it to the rack. I also found out that any connection to the rack not only had to have the horizontal flexibility for turning, but had to have vertical stability to keep the stroller handle from riding up or down and then binding up the turn option.

In a test run I found getting up to speed and following a serpentine path led to increasing instability of the trailer.

What I needed was a secure clamping method for a bike "trailer hitch". I didn't think I had the requisite hardware on hand, so I went to Ace up in Eleele. I tried a few things, but ended up returning them all. What did work was going back to the strap bikes I had on hand. There were two kinds of seating clamps that did the trick.

One was bolted down to the two back structural rods of the rack with a sawed-off leg of an steel angle (that had two convenient holes). I used a grinder to round and smooth it off. 

The other clamp was that kind of seat clamp that has a friction fit to adjust the bike seat angle.

I used a unused allen wrench as pin (note little rubberized tip for handle and securing wire). This worked well to allow horizontal turning and vertical stability while on the road. [Author's Note: It is critical to make a close tolerance pivot point for the hookup of the trailer to the bike. At certain bike speeds any free-play in this joint can cause unacceptable vibration that build like audio feedback.

This is true both of vertical and horizontal motion. Since the original connection in the photos above I have replaced the allen wrench with a larger diameter cotter-pin with washers top and bottom. This has dampened much of the free-play I experienced leading to wobbling in the trailer.]
 

The results are satisfying. I would guess the unit could haul 50 pounds or so of bulky cargo. There some netting below for carrying smaller items like oranges or printed material. To disengage the unit; simply pull the pin.

Here is the rig ready for the highway. Note, the third wheel uses quick-release hardware and can be could be easily remounted biking to jobs that require gathering items in a field away from the bike and then re-attaching and hauling on the road.

See also:
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Bicycle-Cargo-Trailer

Hammer the Mountain?

SUBHEAD: How Long Do We Hammer Away at the Mountain?

By Jan Lundberg on 08 February 2009 in Culture Change -
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=316&Itemid=1

Image above: Sisyphus on the mountain with an impossible task found at http://theimageiseverything.wordpress.com

It's time to do more than hammer away at the mountain. If we wish to remove a major obstacle, we have to use the right tools -- assuming we know what our larger goal is. Translating this principle to the global ecosystem's threat from the industrial economy -- there, we've identified the problem -- we need to know what we don't like about the dominant system and what we would like to see instead.

Any reader of meaningful news stories or surfer of progressive websites knows that crises are mounting: In addition to the ecological, we can all see that social structures and ownership issues are a story of misery for the many through inequity. What's more, people are being killed by toxins, radiation, and deprivation of basic needs and rights. We can find more and more to worry about and rail against, but there's no relief in sight.

Or is there? Do some of us not want to recognize relief because it's controversial and cannot be gobbled down with gratification right this moment? But I got ahead of myself. So anyway:

We naturally gravitate toward "solutions" and "alternatives." This is where the rubber meets the road (to use an expression unfit for an anti-car activist). We can agree on the need for saner policies, for alleviating disasters, and be more fair and constructive with public funds. However, the kinds of "solutions" and reforms that can get circulation in a corporate-funded media environment mean that censorship suppresses a wealth of myriad approaches to dealing with problems we face. The energy-intensive American Nightmare For example, we are told by the news media, government and academia that we must deal with "problems" rather than removing the system that causes them.

Those of us opposing the system and pointing the way to another way of living -- with more humane values with a biocentric basis -- may be many or few, but are seldom in the forums that the vast majority of the public gets to witness or join. Democracy means, among other things, shouting down minority views and funding the mainstream to eliminate robust dissent. We also have the democratic right of unlimited amounts of information, but action is another matter that is not favored compared to "studying the problem" or hand-wringing over more sad information.

For my offering of a Culture Change dispatch today I began reading some promising articles that clearly addressed major ecological and energy issues. However, I noticed a pattern that has plagued activist literature -- innocently up to a point in recent time -- and that is much more glaring and dangerous now. There are two reasons:

(1) The denial of the dominant system's evil traits, as we see the refusal of the vested interests to get out of the way so the Earth can live, has been convenient for keeping one's head down and maintaining the respect of the power structure. It has been permissible to be outraged and impassioned about problems such as global warming, but almost no one dares lay blame to what is behind the obvious offenders. To advocate the termination of the industrial economy and the dismantling of exploitative, oppressive society is "off the table." Some ideas are rightly off the table, if they advocate outmoded "solutions" that would only rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, or if one simply wishes to destroy and fail to nurture a sustainable culture to take over.

(2) Now that collapse is underway, and all hopes for a "recovery" of (destructive and unsustainable) growth depend on another economic bubble to feed the expanding yeast culture in the petri dish, we ought to roll with it. But no, the progressive community -- including pseudo radical leaders and writers -- prefer to be distracted by what programs and statements are coming out of the Obama White House.

While it's true the progressives are not letting up on demands for improved civil rights, environmental protection and economic fairness, they too are apparently hoping for a return to economic growth. Some do not, because they know a steady-state economy and perhaps a lower population size (oh my!) are needed. Yet, the obstacle to the meaningful changes we need, on top of the "change we can believe in," remains a mountain. It's name is the system. We can no longer ignore it or attempt to sculpt it into a benign entity. For it is self destructing and pulling all life down with it.

But it is collapsing. The disappearance of almost 600,000 more jobs in January in the U.S. is not something that can be much alleviated by the federal government or the corporations, given the downward momentum, when the whole economic system is steadily losing its financial resiliency at a fast clip. Consuming more and more was the basis of the economy for decades. In recent years the consumption -- recognized as the most important aspect of today's economy -- became completely dependent on deepening debt. Now that the house of cards is collapsing, we need to question everything. Such as "job loss." To lose a job can be like losing a disease. To gain personal time and begin more productive activity for one's survival and that of the immediate community is not a loss.

I don't mean to minimize the pain of a wrenching transition that will not be successful for many petroleum-dependent inappropriately skilled consumers. But to cling to thin air, as the materialistic economy evaporates, does not serve. Nor is it compassionate to promote the status quo when it has already left the building. Whether one prefers communitarianism or survivalism, anticipating the end of petro-civilization does not mean one likes to picture violent upheaval.

But the more society does not prepare for the future, and clings to the past century of expansion and hyper "development," the more casualties there will be from the system as it falls down upon more victims' heads. Goodbye crass commercialism bringing you mindless entertainment and false values. I resonate with Dancing On the Ruins of Multinational Corporations by eco-troubador Casey Neill, who in that foot-stomping song sings "Hello stars!"

But massive job-disappearance entails a local-economics reality that has no place anywhere, according to the agenda of the corporate news media fed by automobile advertising dollars. So this cannot be allowed by the powers that be, if possible. The trend/reversal/revolution from employment to do-it-yourself and village/tribal activity to meet essential needs means the end of growth-oriented capitalism. As long as the dying beast can throw its weight around, the inevitable socioeconomic trend is "off the table" along with culture change.

So the progressives, reformists and pseudo-radicals who don't advocate bringing down the system are silent -- even as total collapse is clearly ahead if we extrapolate and give up on the prospect of some new bubble. What we replace the system with has been explored in this column for years, but I'll just refer to the immediately preceding Culture Change Letters, #233 and #234.

I welcome your comments, and hope that you will circulate these ideas through forwarding these essays far and wide. Realizing that writing and outreach are essential, let's remind ourselves that more importantly it's raw energy and guts that are required to change the world. To wait until the food trucks stop rolling in to the cities and towns is pathetically weak and irresponsible, considering what we know and can anticipate by now. Let us appeal to solidarity and audacity to take action, instead of relying on hope.

 

Kaua‘i’s energy progress

SUBHEAD: Budding developments in local sustainable energy practices.

By Brad Parsons on 07 February 2009 in The Garden Island

http://www.kauaiworld.com/articles/2009/02/08/business/kauai_business/doc498e5d25c44a5835996986.txt

Quoting from the conservative International Energy Agency’s most recent annual report World Energy Outlook, the world’s most authoritative source on global energy trends:

“The world’s energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable... But that can, and must, be altered; there’s still time to change the road we’re on. It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the central energy challenges facing us today ... What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution ... Securing energy supplies and speeding up the transition to a low-carbon energy system both call for radical action by governments — at national and local levels ... Households, businesses and motorists will have to change the way they use energy ... To make it happen, governments have to put in place appropriate financial incentives and regulatory framework that support this.

image above: Wind energy map for Hawaiian Islands. Show potential, not activity. From http://www.state.hi.us/dbedt/ert/wwg/windy.html

”Since the 2008 Kaua‘i Renewable Energy Conference last September, much progress has happened on Kaua‘i with energy use and planning. This column seeks to review some of that and provide follow-up opportunities.

• Positive local indicators — solar power developments

Recently showing up in a number of installed solar power comparisons with leading local regions in the U.S., Kaua‘i now stands out among the Hawaiian Islands for increased large-scale private photovoltaic solar systems being installed including at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, Pioneer Hi-Bred, Costco-Kaua‘i, Longs Drugs-Kaua‘i, Grand Hyatt Kaua‘i Resort & Spa and on some county and school buildings. In recent months, KIUC has also spoken about pursuing a utility scale solar farm on the island. New utility scale wind and hydro projects appear to be a number of years off, but growing use of solar power on Kaua‘i is here and now.

Last legislative session a new statewide solar water heating law went into effect. In Hawai‘i, water heating often accounts for a very substantial amount of the total energy used in homes. There are rebate and tax incentives to assist homeowners in purchasing and installing solar hot water heaters. For more information, call KIUC energy specialists at 246-8284 and 246-8282.

Also coming up: KIUC’s Board of Director’s candidates forum, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Feb. 26, at Kaua‘i Community College student lounge. Sponsored by Apollo Kaua‘i, Kaua‘i Planning and Action Alliance, Lihu’e Business Association, KCC Student Association and Malama Kaua‘i.

• Automobiles.

More than half, and in most cases two-thirds, of all petroleum consumed by Americans are with their automobiles. In Hawai‘i, of total petroleum consumption about one-third is consumed by ground transport due to the increased portion of petroleum used by utilities in the state.

Recently, Kaua‘i County instituted more efficient bus routes, if not significantly more buses, with even Mayor Carvalho riding on and promoting the bus. Wilcox Hospital has also begun a neat incentive program for their employees riding the bus, worthy of being emulated.

Additional developments with regard to automobiles, energy use, and resource planning appear in Gov. Lingle’s recently proposed Comprehensive Six-Year Highways Modernization Plan that she will be speaking about in a few days here on Kaua‘i.

The plan proposes that the average car owner in Hawai‘i pay $170 a year more in fees and taxes. The plan further breaks that down to on average $70 more for the weight of the car, $20 more for the registration fee on the car, and $80 more for the annual gas tax increases. In total, it would nearly double the dollar amount for average annual vehicle registrations.

Given the future of energy as mentioned in the current annual report of the International Energy Agency, which is now forecasting a diametrically different energy and therefore transportation future that will be here as soon as 2020, the proposed plan with very little funding for pedestrian, bicycling, or bus systems appears to not properly take into consideration the dramatic shift in transportation needs that will take place locally and throughout the state over the next 10 to 15 years during the life and bonded commitment in the current version of the plan presented to the Legislature.

• Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative.

The Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative is a systematic effort to transform the entire state economy from dependency of close to 90 percent of its energy from fossil fuels to meeting the state’s energy needs with 70 percent clean energy (primarily with renewables and efficiency) by 2030. Currently there are a number of laws being drafted in the Hawai’i Legislature intended to provide the incentives and infrastructure to allow this to happen.

Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative and what it means for Kaua‘i: Hear more about strategic changes planned for Hawai‘i’s energy policies and renewable energy sources. National, state and local energy officials will discuss the state’s initiative and Kaua‘i’s potential to implement more sustainable energy practices.

The event is organized by Kaua‘i Planning & Action Alliance in partnership with Apollo Kaua‘i, KEDB and KIUC. From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Feb. 10, at Lihu‘e Missionary Church auditorium. Doors open at 6 p.m. For more information, call KPAA at 632-2005.