SF fen have (I think because of the demise of the mags, as a market for short stories) gotten a bit wimpy about disasters. I don’t hear the kind of dialogue that used to go on at cons, ie, how do we geeky guys save the world from—be it asteroid impact or fuel shortage or whatever.
Time for some positive thinking, people. The planet’s got plenty of energy. But sf-dom has gotten seduced by the glitzy special effects of the movies into doing too much gosh-wow and not enough how-to.
Why do I say the planet’s got plenty of energy? Because it does. Wind, tide, gravity (water movement)…all these things are there to use: the Sun minute by minute blasts enough energy for all of human history past us, and someday we’ll retrieve a fraction of that. But what hits this atmosphere and what happens as a result of tidal forces is plenty for any application. We’ve been grubbing up the muck from the destroyed forests of dino days and boo-hooing that the world is coming to an end because we’re running out of it…
Worse, we’ve let the short-term pundits infect kids with that defeatist notion, and a lot of kids shooting up and partying like there’s no tomorrow are underinformed. Way underinformed. There’s plenty of energy for the third world; there’s plenty for us. What we need to do is use it. Global warming’s become an untouchable phrase on a lot of boards because it’s (shudder) political. Well, there’s nothing political about it. The planet’s ice caps are melting. We’re continuing a melt that started 13,000 years ago, possibly hurried on by an asteroid impact, but whether or not human activity has accelerated the final stages of the melt is really a silly debate. The fact there’s ocean where there should be ice is pretty incontrovertible. And again, if we stand pointing fingers at this side and that side instead of applying our ingenuity to the question, we’re fools. It is possible—just possible—that our pollution has actually staved off a faster melt. It’s possible it’s accelerated it. We don’t know that. And it doesn’t matter at this point. The question is whether we want to bring things back to where they were in, say, the 1890’s. And can we?
Possibly we can. There are techniques like cloud-creation. There are ways in which we can modify planetary weather. We kinda want to be right when we sink all our megabucks into doing one particular thing, but personally I think we need some sf folk talking about the problems without wearing political badges while doing it: just the badge that says ‘fan’ and convention member, eh? and quit stamping red or blue on certain ideas…(American fans will know what I mean). We need to do something outrageous like pick a course of action and actually kick the planetary machinery and see if we can budge the numbers; and if we succeed in budging them, see what other numbers react. That’s my opinion.
Thank you for an excellent rant, CJ. I agree with your pragmatic and optimistic attitude. Whether or not the overall planet warming is human-caused or “natural” (what ever that might mean and we are part of nature), weather is getting warmer and likely rougher overall. How do we respond, other than winging? I think that Arisia Science Fiction Convention, here in Boston, might well be putting together its possible sessions for January right now (they never send out an announcement saying when the time is for submission of ideas, but that is another winge on my part): I’ll see if I can resurrect my member page account that I always forget exists and suggest your topic. It would be interesting to moderate, too.
You gotta emphasize “No red, no blue!” We need a Purple solution!
White, innit? All colors together… 😀
Recall what the people of Foundation had to do with their planet of limited resources. We need to change the mindset of people who think that we’ll be just fine with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future. Yes, but what about afterward? Six generations into the future, from where will the energy be taken, and where will it be used? I was thinking about the solar farms in Spain, the one in New Mexico, and there is one just northeast of San Diego that we used to see from a distance when descending Mt. Palomar.
I believe that if we can get people off the fossil fuel diet and bring them over to the alternative energy sources, perhaps we can stop raping the planet for our own temporary convenience. Even T. Boone Pickens, an oil billionaire, has advocated we stop drilling and start looking into alternative energy sources. I’d like to have a windmill here on the farm to generate extra electricity that I could sell back to the cooperative.
Solar panels have gotten better since the first selenium based models were introduced. But they’re still woefully below efficiency for widespread distribution of energy. An array covering an entire southern-facing rooftop wouldn’t supply enough energy for the house it’s resting on, much less the power grid.
I’ve been stationed on board a nuclear powered warship. The safety measures that are taken are extreme in some peoples’ opinion, but to my knowledge, there has never been a nuclear incident on board any U.S. Navy warship. I’m not a big fan of civilian nuclear power plants because they’re usually built in poorly chosen locations. The San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant north of San Diego is built not too far from some pretty major faults. I don’t know much about the Davis-Besse plant in Port Clinton, OH on Lake Erie, or the Surry Plant in Southeastern Virginia, but without the same safety controls as the Navy puts into their reactors, I’m not confident that we should be using them where they are located. I live in the most seismically active county of Ohio, we’re on a branch of the New Madrid Fault, and we had our last quake last year, about a 2.7 or so, but it’s a warning.
There are people here in W. Central Ohio who are opposed to wind turbines. It’s the NIMBY syndrome, that while they don’t want to pay high prices for electricity generated by coal or nuclear, they don’t like the appearance of the turbines, they complain they interfere with migratory bird flyways, and whatever other arguments they can call to mind.
Tidal generation of electricity would be great, especially for the 3 coasts, although I think the Pacific Coast would outshine the Atlantic and the Gulf Coast would be a distant third in production. My biggest concern with tidal generators would be damage incurred by violent storms, or by errant trawlers pulling nets where they shouldn’t, or ship’s captains who’ve been nipping a little too much at the flask and run their ships into the generator area. (Even worse if it’s an oil tanker that does it and runs itself aground, too.)
And nuclear incidents are more damaging than an oops in deep sea drilling? Probably, in duration, but it’s at least a question.
It’s not just tides, btw: we could generate more energy out of the Columbia AND and have clear salmon runs if we had river turbines right on the river bottom. Only problem is a materials problem: they tried to build one (I think) on the Hudson…one of the waterways near NYC…and the surge took it apart. Back to the drawing board on that one.
As for migratory birds, birds are more in danger from their picture windows, I suspect, than from the turbines, which turn lazily, not like a room fan. Birds are generally smarter than that. The turbines are a lovely sight when you realize the background is a pure blue sky and the stars sparkle at night.
One of the real hidden issues with photovoltaics is the location of the resources used to make them–much of the world’s supply of some of the crucial materials are only found in quantity in China… and very soon, China is going to only want to make the panels, not sell you the raw materials. Which becomes the motivation of finding SOme Other Way of making photovoltaic cells.
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IMO it’s as joe suggests: people have to accept the idea that they will have to pay more for electricity than they are now. Not that I have a lot of extra money lying about for the utilities to shovel up. But the real disgrace is that there are so many mostly-untapped energy sources that we have yet to really utilize.
Oh, and what about geothermal? The people of Iceland seem to be doing well. Perhaps the people of Hawaii, Indonesia, The Philippines, Chile, Peru, Mexico, Italy, etc., can develop efficient uses of geothermal, even if it’s just to use the hot water from the earth as a primary heat source into a heat exchanger, turning purified water to steam to run electric generators.
I liked what Kim Stanley Robinson did with this in his Forty Days of Rain trilogy. Several of his characters were at the NSF and they brainstormed constantly about what could be done, and then they got the governments of the world to DO those things, and some of them worked, and they kept thinking. It was science, not politics, but it may have been helped by the fact that the books are set a number of years into the future,when it will no longer be possible to deny that global warming exists. It was also notable that the new president, supported by the characters, ordered that the fleet of White House limos be black Priuses.
Also, don’t forget the Bay of Fundy. If that tidal surge could be harnessed we’d see a lot of energy -or at least our Canadian friends would.
rant part 2.
Anywhere a river runs downhill, a small generator could run without damming the flow or chewing up the fish. We’ve built this enormous and somewhat Rube Goldberg power grid: so rather than obsolescing the damn thing, why don’t we use it to take in minute bits of energy, sort of a thousand points of light, only in this case, the connection of all sorts of devices in every locale, pouring power into the grid to distribute it to places of heavy use. It takes invention—and the right materials, or design. I tend to like the helix shape for harvesting flow, particularly, say, atop skyscrapers and other buildings. Oklahoma, with a daily sunshine that’ll fry eggs plus a wind rarely BELOW 20 mph, could export a lot more than oil. And there’d be jobs. Used to be us kids who ran out in the lightning to secure the windmill…but you can do it from safe indoors.
And what can one person do? Talk, for one thing. Object and be the resident power-geek when somebody starts on a ‘the world is doomed’ kick. You can screw in compact fluorescents all over the house—but do be aware that there is a disposal problem for all fluorescent bulbs, namely mercury, so communities should make provision for their disposal. So far none of those costs much at all—since the cf bulbs are a ‘real deal’ when it come to paying for themselves in energy costs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp
What I do not recommend is that all of us retire to the woods with an axe and prepare to live off the land burning firewood. We haven’t got the trees to spare. A high tech future is a perfectly viable future, if we use our heads, elect responsible people, and be willing to educate our kids to do research—meaning science and engineering; and a lot of willingness to understand if we knew what we were looking for it wouldn’t be called research and if it didn’t sometimes fail it wouldn’t be called an experiment. Looking for something you don’t know exists isn’t stupid. Tucking our heads down and waiting for doomsday is stupid.
Bravo, CJ! Or should that be “Brava”? 😉
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In re: your comment above, CJ, about a thousand points of input, my house happens to be perfectly oriented for a solar array on the roof. At today’s prices, with today’s incentives, I could install a 2kW array for $30k and run my meter backwards, net–at the end of the month, it reads less than at the beginning. By law, Idaho Power must credit me the difference, and so they would–each month, more credit would pile up–but they **never**have**to**pay**off**. Ten years from now, I’d have a jillion bucks’ worth of credit, and Idaho Power–and the rest of the US–would be the better for it. If the utility simply agreed to pay me even half the wholesale rate, I and others like me would add a lot of total capacity at exactly the time it is needed the most–the hottest days of the year!
And there’s all sorts of secondary benefits. The area of my roof shaded by the array does not absorb heat, thereby lessening my cooling load, just for one example.
Legal changes could make power companies reimburse customers for power added to the grid; insurance companies to cover non-standard though sound construction; etc, etc. It’s a basic case of fair-is-fair, and if a company is told they have to do it, they will certainly do it—but nobody is popular at a corporate board room who holds up his hand and suggests the company change a policy that has never been challenged.
Squeaky wheels more than get the grease: they’re the only way corporations ever change tracks. If a lot of citizens get together and tell their local company they want wind turbines, they get noticed and policy bends. If only one says so, the company instructs some temp secretary to write a thank you letter. An energy company is always looking for routes to take to more energy (more money) that won’t encounter an even more potent opposition group, and Lord knows, the American west has plenty of sun, plenty of wind and generally positive public opinion particularly for wind energy. I think it’s the fact that John Q Citizen can *see* wind turbines working. You can’t see solar doing anything. 😉 It’s a machine. It’s moving. Ergo it works. It’ll always be popular.
If the turbines are so bad (in the opponents’ view), then the city of Montevideo, Uruguay is evil, since the harbor is lined with turbines. The north coast of Germany, Denmark, same way. Why not northern Scotland?
CJ, I tend to think that birds are smarter than people give them credit. I have had my front windows assaulted by the odd bird that thinks it’s an escape from a predator, only to end up on the ground with a broken neck. I don’t like having to drive myself to and from places, but since I live alone, and the interests I have are somewhat off the beaten path, I don’t have a lot of opportunities to rideshare, etc.
For nuclear, as I said, I’m not a big fan, even though the military uses it, I don’t like our methods of disposal of the material. Even embedded into molten glass, stored in a climate-controlled cave in Nevada (Yucca Mountain), that’s today. What about 5,000 years from now?
In Harlan Ellison’s book, Strange Wine, he wrote a series of pastiches, From A to Z in the Chocolate Alphabet. A Is For Atlantean hits just a little bit close to what you were saying about dumping, where the Atlanteans, an advanced race had artificially evolved to survive at the ocean depths. The “Inheritors” of the Earth were what killed them, with a single leaden cylinder that fell into the central square of the Atlantean city and spilled its contents into the sea.
In Sweden you can buy in in wind farms, and lots of people have placed solar cells on their roofs. Geothermal is so popular in some places there’s no way to get a new hole down. Etcetera. And it pays. But. This change is caused by popular pressure on politicians and electricity corporations, forcing policy on multiple levels – conversion to alternative energy sources are subsidized and dependence on oil is penalised, in different ways.
Popular opinion here also favours consciousness around energy usage, meaning most people understand we can’t sustain present-day levels in energy consumption. This means a lot of people try to use as little energy as possible, be it electricity or fossil fuels. That one is a key, I think, because let’s face it – we use way more energy than we need (www.worldmapper.com has some interesting maps, and http://www.gapminder.org has some interesting numbers as well).
This take has to be supported by policy, though, as there’s no way you can ditch your car if there’s no alternative ways for getting around – side walks, bike lanes, functional and safe public transport…
BTW, I think in Sweden it helps that we have no domestic oil industry, meaning the oil lobby isn’t a strong political force here. Which makes policy counteracting dependency on fossil fuels easier to enforce. And as much as I want to put my hopes on science (and science fiction) technology doesn’t matter a bit. Much of what is needed already exists. What matters is money, money and political will.
So I think it’s impossible to get a (peaceful) change without the issue turning political.
Just my 5 cents.
I think the ultimate answer IS politics, but not in the same-old same-old way as has been going on in the US since the Eisenhower administration—a legacy of protest AGAINST whatever looks likely to be implemented. The least organized lot in all of US politics is the ecologically minded: they’re busy hiking and biking and raising organic gardens, but they are not politically active in the proactive sense, only that they protest this and protest that.
But IMHO what they need to be is actively FOR something, and set their sights on a general goal of increased alternative energy usage; and they need to make some practical alliances with upper echelons of companies that are their natural allies, instead of assuming any person in a suit is a sign of evil intention: in that regard I fear they will need a new leadership within their own ranks…someone who is invested in succeeding, and NOT invested in being persecuted, and not invested in agitating and courting a membership of more anti’s. How’s that for stepping on a few toes?
Ultimately, to get something actually done about a technically involved problem, you have to make friends where the power is, without trading your objective for ANYTHING but a more efficient and focused version of the objective. If your only objective is memberships and a continual life on the fringes, you’re not going to get anything constructive done.
Aye, that’s a known (and global problem), for sure!
Here’s an interesting article about nuclear fusion for power generation.
An experimental fusion reactor is currently under construction in the south of France. It’s an international project involving several countries. The final cost is estimated to be about €13bn (~ $17bn). It’s expected to produce about 500MW, about 10 times the input power.
It will develop and refine fusion technology, and demonstrate its feasibility.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/16/fusion-power-research-funding
Now that may be the *real* solution!
I think the *real* solution is to stop waste energy, not to find elaborate ways of generating more of it 😉
No, the real solution is to generate ample energy without causing pollution, and fusion is the ideal source, if we can get it to work.
While I want to agree I with you I’m not certain there will ever be a never-ending source, a source that doesn’t affect the environment and the long term survival of this planet negatively.
While we’re on it, if what were once labelled the 3rd world is ever going to achieve close to our living standards the extra energy produced by newish tech will have to be used sustaining those levels, even as we in the Western world decrease our dependency on energy or else I forecast planet Earth going nova in no time.
I’m only half joking.
The best answer lies in lowering the temperature of what we use, increase the efficiency of what we use; decrease the recourse to problematic minerals, and enable the third world to go direct to wind and solar without replicating every step we made along the way, and without using firewood, which, for one thing, smokes, and for another, has environmental impact. Fusion would be a very good idea. The solar oven is a good bet in some climes: basically it takes sunlight which is already impacting the area and uses it to boil water and cook food with no wood. Teaching techniques such as burying non-degrading containers of water in earthen walls or building thick walls to mitigate the heat during the day —there are many, many things we have learned how to do that are not the gasoline engine. Cleaning up the industrial world’s mess in Africa is going to be spendy, but I think the countries that did it ought to clean it. Breaking down regulations that prevent sensible solutions is a good one: it would be far more efficient for a lot of Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico to build underground, using the earth for heat mitigation, and sheltering dwellings from windstorms, even an F5 tornado—but insurance hesitates to cover these, even if they would save an enormous outlay in fuel and save lives. Many of the barriers to doing better are legal and administrative, and those could be cleared.
A planet’s energy budget is amazingly steady—using solar power does not increase solar heating, which is way simple to see; and the planetary albedo (reflectivity) governs how much sun we accept as a planet; BUT digging up the accumulated solar input of millions of years and setting it all alight within a few decades actually is a disturbance to the heat budget, and it (and heavy industry) affects the albedo, as well. Which, again, we can choose to affect, where it benefits us, in ways that benefit us: it’s this item which affects the argument over whether pollution has helped or hurt us re global warming.
So being smarter, less wasteful with heat (an LED is more efficient with heat than a light bulb, but may not be more efficient to produce or dispose of—that has to be considered, too) and getting the horse and buggy regulations off the books can do a lot. Building foam houses (as Ari’s is) is within our capability; but it’s the insurance problem. “The way we’ve always done it” is great with crafts like embroidery and the like, but is not necessarily the best way to farm, the best way to build, or the best way to light our homes; and the change has to be made (forgive me) sexy, so the average person thinks of it as the way to go.
The website of the experimental fusion reactor is here:
http://www.iter.org/
It’s a collaboration between the EU, China, Japan, Korea, India, Russia and the USA.
“The Tokamak building will be the core of ITER, where fusion experiments will begin in 2018. The reinforced concrete structure will sit 5 1/2 stories underground (17 metres) and 19 stories above (57 metres). Adjacent to the main building, an assembly hall will be the location for pre-assembly of Tokamak components. Auxiliary buildings encircling the Tokamak will include cooling towers, electrical installations, a control room, facilities for the management of waste, and laboratory facilities.”
In light of the BP debacle in the Gulf, today’s Parade Magazine has a feature story on Edward Itta, the mayor of North Slope Borough in Alaska. He works with the oil companies, but they have to agree to the terms he sets. His biggest concerns are that his culture is dependent upon bowhead whales for their meat. The mayor himself “captains” a hunting boat twice a year. He is currently negotiating with Shell Oil for drilling after the presidential ban is lifted, and he is not very comfortable with the prospect. On one side, he seems to be with groups such as The Sierra Club (the hikers and bikers), and then also appears to be on the side of the oil companies. The mayor sets his objectives, and once those are met, he doesn’t pursue any further. That means when he sets his objectives, he has to know what it is that he wants, and what the impact on the environment, culture, sea life, etc., He’s not some fat cat politician holding down a chair in Barrow, AK.
Perhaps we need more Mayor Ittas and fewer people who are in bed with the petroleum companies.
For those who are interested, here is a discussion on fusion byproducts.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=121166
Looking at the question of the tidal/water based generators–read a Popular Science article that looked interesting–and different. The generator looked a lot more like a huge white plastic drill bit (the last three or so twists) than a turbine, and it did use oil, but in a closed system with no burning. Of course it’s not sitting in front of me, so large chunks of the details are missing, but it was an interesting take on the usual. The “bits” could be attached to bridge struts, etc., and there was little or no change in output from the tidal changes (this goes back to the oil inside the closed system). The immersed part of the generator could withstand no little battering, and was friendly to sea critters of all sizes. On the other hand, feasibility and actual production are some years out, if anyone takes them up on the full-scale versions.
The man who designed and built the experimental model shown has many years experience building large-scale industrial machines. Evidently he was quite well-known, but the magazine is over there (points dramatically across town) and I am over here!
For the solar cells, depends on where you are. And cost of the cells is relatively low depending one what is considered serviceable, but the rest of the stuff can get expensive–I looked recently. 🙁
Costco is now selling solar power units: we looked at them with interest, and cannot quite figure out what they would do for us without a fairly pricey kit to connect them to house power and the grid, but it is coming!
I agree that we need to change the way we produce and use energy. I also thing we need more than two main political parties, but that’s another story. But there is much more to the problem than simply energy types and use.
What saddens me greatly is how short sighted we are. Sure compact florescent bulbs save energy, but they are loaded with mercury. And let’s face it, most people are not going to dispose of them properly. Electric cars sound good in theory. But when you factor in the chemicals in the batteries and them the waste from manufacturing and disposing of them, they pollute more than any gas guzzler. Which will end up in a scrapyard or dump to buy the new electric vehicle.
In the last millennia most of humanity usually occupied a 4×4′ area for their entire lives and lived communally.
In the 30’s and 40’s most city dwellers rented a room or had a small apartment, ate in restaurants, shared bathrooms, and the main electric appliances they owned were a lamp, radio, and maybe, a refrigerator, hotplate or toaster.
Now we each live in servantless castles, filled with energy gobbling gadgets and conveniences of all sorts. Take up more and more space, consume more goods, and eat mass-produced food with less and less nutritional value and wonder why we are fat and lazy.
I just got done reading a study listing the nutritional value of heirloom fruits and vegetables vs their modern equivalents and it was scary to say the least. We are eating more and more and getting less and less out of what we eat. Mother Nature is a sneaky gal.
So until we can change the way we live, and human nature in general. All the clean energy in the universe will do us little good, for humans are experts at exchanging one set of problems for another, and if their isn’t any, we will find a way to create some.
Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, but now those who shouldn’t have lived to reproductive age without, are. As more and more ailments proliferate, we grow weaker as a species. Now I’m not condoning certain segments of the population not breeding or being eliminated from the gene pool. I’m just looking at the numbers from an evolutionary standpoint without bias.
I love people who tell me we are destroying the Earth. The Earth will destroy us looong before we destroy it. There is enough out there to safely sustain us all, we just need to figure out how to use and divide it properly. Something that has never and will never happen. Haves and have nots, left and right, it really doesn’t matter, there will always be inequality in the world even if we were all up to are chins in free food and sustainable energy.
And the domestication of Man continues unabated…
Sorry for the typo-filled tirade. This issue vexes me quite often.
Passion is no sin. 😉
Neither is thinking. Thank goodness for those who do. We are partly hampered by the power hierarchies of the 1800’s. The guy in charge of recycling ought to be able to go straight to the mayor and say, we have mercury in this kind of content. The city needs to provide bulb disposal and just tell people that the little fluorescents go with the big fluorescents, and they all need special disposal. Will this happen? Heck no, the guy in the trash recycling operation doesn’t have a hotline to the mayor. While our legislatures, who pass a lot of laws because we have them in session need them or not—pass more laws, they ought to pass some enabling legislation for a statewide recycling policy, so that one intelligent decision can proliferate downward rather than having it have to struggle salmonlike up the political river. Let the televisions run some public service announcements, the way they did when the interstates were new and they had to tell the nation how to drive on them…instead of running the same commercial for their own content 3x in the same half hour.
I’m a great optimist when it comes to the proper conduct of most people. You tell them what should reasonably be done and what is the most convenient way to do it, and MAKE it convenient, and they will do it. I agree with your density of living proposition: we sprawl too much, especially in the west. I enjoyed my ‘dense’ Baltimore neighborhood when I lived there. I enjoyed living in downtown Spokane and would likely still be there except for a greedy out-of-town fellow who decided to throw us all out on the street or make us buy our apartment for 3 times what it was worth. I say I believe in the good conduct of MOST people. And I still do. (The blighter did not prosper.)
But it does require that people who do think give the system a shove in the slats.
We try to do what we can on a small scale – only recycled paper products, fluorescent bulbs wherever possible, reusable grocery bags, a Prius, and so on on that scale. Most people don’t do any of these things. I don’t think individuals can really make a difference, i think it has to involve industry, which is the big user, and large firms all of whom leave their computers on all night to get the latest upgrade and so on. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t each do what we can, as responsible citizens of the Earth.
Well since I’m full of opinions (your description of these may vary) here’s a few innovative
ideas that will actually work.
Politics: Stop electing lawyers to office, both locally and nationally. The nature of their
job makes them the least innovative people on earth and the least reliable of advocates for
you. You’d be better off with a proven coward in the position.
Ecology: Plant trees. These are biological engines that have global effects, dimly understood
by even the so-called greens. It is not a coincidence that most of the manmade climate effect
is on a one to one correspondence with the deforestation that has made humans a moving eco-
disaster. A tree strips CO2 out of the atmosphere, sprays out O2, pumps water into the air,
stabilizes the soil, provides nutrients to the humble manufacturers of more new soil and
changes the local climate for the better. If you can’t plant at least take an elementary
biology class to become an informed voter. This will stop you from deciding CO2 has to be
classed as a “pollutant” like it was dioxin or 2-4-5T.
Solutions: We can regulate the earths temperature with a few sheets of mylar and some station
keeping gadgetry from space. The Caveat is that we had better know how things work before
we start tinkering with it. Biological solutions are self regulating processes that work by
self limiting. Just remember they don’t need us.
Debate: Science Fiction is the most innovative, speculative, and thoughtful community on this
planet and we didn’t start a war using fusion weapons because of the dire predictions of the
results. So why should we decide we’re doomed because some ice melted. The whole planet has
iced over in the past and protohumans were eating giant elephants near the glacier faces.
Morals: are a cultures survival techniques, there is nothing moral about joining the chorus
of doom and gloom while pretending to be intelligent. Intelligence solves the problems it
faces the best way it knows how. It enables you to see past the symptoms to the real problems.
Energy: The heat pump was looked on as possibly disastrous because it robbed the ambient of
energy, and the gloomy predicted it would cause another ice age. The climatologists have
been stupid enough to claim that the sun has nothing to do with the so-called global warming.
The electronics industry has quietly gone from a building sized water chiller tower to cool
computers to desktop units with tiny fans in far less than 50 years. If you convince people
like that a reduction in power usage is a good idea it will happen. A rechargeable LED light
using solar to recharge is a viable alternative to nighttime area lighting. I saw one unit
that lasted 8 hours for area light or 4 hours for reading, so simply getting off the grid
will cut the powerplant load. The coal fired powerplants in the Powder River basin are fed
by a tripletrack railroad main that has a 100 car train full of coal pass by ever 5 minutes.
We have plenty of coal so energy production isn’t the problem. The problem is that the crud
going into the air makes it hard to see through it. Modern city dwellers have always been in
this crud so they think it is normal.
Climbing down off soapbox.
GRIN
Favorite Tao Te Ching quote “The more laws and lawyers, the more thieves and bandits shall prosper.”
That was 300BC, my how little things have changed
Well, without laws no lawbreakers, but that doesn’t guarantee proper behaviour.
Laws are there for a reason – good fences makes good neighbours, as we say here.
Lawyers, now, THAT’s another thing altogether! 😉
I just fired off a letter to our own waste management people asking what about recycling and the light bulbs, and we’ll see what answer I get. Not too many people write to waste management, poor chaps.
One thing we are often stung by is the Rule of Unintended Consequences. The more complex our technology becomes, the more we have to pay attention to where-from, doing-what, and generally fixing one thing while screwing something else.
There is, for instance, the possible issue of cellphones and honeybees: some suggest the demise of honeybees worldwide, threatening the multibillion dollar fruit industry and directly impacting our friend Joe—may be due to cell phone towers disorienting the worker bees and making it impossible for them to return to their hives.
Columbium and tantalite, which improves battery life in cell phones and computers is mined out of Ruwanda, and the industry is not, apparently, an asset to the country or its natural resources…another cause of ‘we really need a substitute’ fast.