The Great Disruption

"-to grow people's standard of living in a sustainable and regenerative way." Is that a goal of the U. S.? I would love to think that it is the main goal of this country to improve the standard of living for greatest number of our citizens. If the President would just make that announcement there would be no stopping us. Everywhere you turn, in a competitive environment, you will find leaders announcing goals. That gets the people pointed in the same direction.

I commend everyone's attention to this fine interview with Severn Suzuki. http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/961/we_...

HOT...FLAT...CROWDED...AND BROKE
(Every cloud has a silver lining)

Broke...a relative term. What if your energy costs doubled while you just lost your net worth and now your job.. Hot flat and crowded ...and you are now broke ....sounds like an unemployment line or worse...a food line.

The US service economy was once full of servants and now filling up with those that need to be served.Maybe an end result will be suburbia turning into small towns and real neighborhoods ...away from the individual islands of survivors that escaped from the interaction of community life.

Just as the outsourcing to other countries brought their populations to urban life, it may, as well, also bring America back to its roots.Just as paper wealth ,the social well being of the nation was inflated and created ...like a lot of hot air ....a rising balloon of prosperity.

When I grew up in the fifties....it took a community to raise a child....not to mention all those old ladies in their social clubs that I am sure were funded by the CIA.Accountability was directly proportional to the number of people who knew you and in a true community or neighborhood...it was like the CIA was there....everybody knew somebody was watching...and cared.

Hot,flat,crowed,and broke is what built America ; and what also is building the rest of the developing world.Yes, America is a developing country....and at the same time we are trying to develop a developed world....thousand of years old.Without hot,flat,and crowded, the resources of the earth cannot be properly shared and there will be a lack of accountability.

The industrial revolution was hot,flat,and crowded ...and the masses were broke until they figured out that they only needed to hold the drivers of that bus accountable....bring them back into the community.

The financial weapons of mass destruction may be the instrument of Global Community Construction...the economic equivalent of the Big Bang....the event they look back on fifty years from now as the beginning of the new world order....global cooperation....the beginning of the end of world suburbia and the start of a Global Community... a Human Evolution...and a Green Resolution.

Maybe it is the event that stopped the economic and resource dust storm of technology and turned it into a rainbow of opportunity...the yellow...blue...and green....instead of the hazy and gray skies of today's modern world.

Maybe we all did not lose our wealth but just put a down payment on a brighter future...one where it does not have to rain to see rainbows.....we will have to call it the silver lining !

Besides... our pot of gold is on the other side of the rainbow ...created under the clouds with a silver lining .

Put on you sunglasses...the ones with the green lenses !

THE EAGLE HAS NOT LANDED

I am pragmatic by nature....something I was just born with...what if ? and why not ? is my operational compass and people I am sure think I am just critical or a little out there.

I want a sustainable house. I want a house that each year will pay a return from energy savings to the point where the savings will eventually make my house payment and eventually provide income for retirement.

We set a mission to the moon when I was 10...I heard president Kennedy`s speech....man to the moon in ten years...I was naive...I believed him !

After all... growing up with the threat of the H bomb ending the world... I was sure this was an acceptable goal, ESPECIALLY IF WE WERE GOING TO BLOW UP THE WORLD !

By the time I was 19 we had been to the moon and at the first campus Earth Day they were talking about how solar energy would be powering the cities in five years.That was 40 years ago !

Ironic the year we landed on the moon... Earth Day was launched....perhaps we appreciated our home planet a little more after seeing it from the moon ; and not turn it into a moon.

Surely if the military industrial complex can blow up the world and put a man on the moon it could advance us beyond coal fired electric plants and diesel fueled commerce.

CAPITALISM got in the way......goals have been replaced by profit...the countries goals have been outsourced to the private sector where profit has to be the primary object to use to borrow money to be solvent.

The most successful advancements of mankind were socialistic implementation of private invention and imagination...a government implementation and advancement of technological gains....a national goal !

If profit had to come first it would never get built....why do you think credit was established in the first place.....think of taxes as a loan payment because that is what they really are.a loan for a national goal.

We need an Energy Goal...a simple statement and a date.AN INCONVENIENT GOAL !

I do not want a house of cards... I want a space ship here on Mother Earth...my space that is self sufficient....it will sustain me financially not just be made of sustainable materials.

If a sustainable home is from recyclable materials... why don`t the call it a disposable home...probably hard to sell !

I am not asking for the moon.....just a return on my investment that cannot be taken away from me by weapons of mass destruction...CDS....or ICE... the increasing cost of energy.

The Green I want is more Green in my pocket...now that is Capitalism !

Create a home that is energy self sustaining and better yet energy providing...let it sustain itself...charge my car and sell electrons back to the mother ship.

Think of all the infrastructure costs they would save.

A self sustaining home would have no pipes or wires running to it...a true Architects Dream...just form and function.

I bet this could be done in less than a year if we just decided to do it.

HOW DOES THE SPACE STATION SURVIVE WITHOUT WIRES AND PIPES FROM EARTH

The infrastructure underground would be unnecessary...think of the savings.

I think it is time we we launch all this space technology from Home Depot !

What IF ? ....... Why Not !.....The men who discovered fossil fuels are now fossils and the technology from the space program was one small step for man and one giant step for mankind..... took off from the moon... but..... has not landed in my yard.

And we refer to ourselves as intelligent.

We better worry about something really important like...... WATER !

Oh Yea.......we bottled it so it could be sold at a great profit. Now the goal is what to do with all those empty bottles.

The American Dream...Marketing....it is the only thing that will turns us GREEN !

Is the Green revolution just a ploy to make some green money...now that would be marketable !

REMARKABLE !

GREEN....JUST A FEW LETTERS PAST GREED....WHAT REALLY SUSTAINS US !

If we had funded alternative fuels as we funded NASA everyone could be an astronaut with their own spaceship...a sustainable home !

Then we could just stay on Mother Earth a little longer.We need to make Earth Day and Green more meaningful....maybe a new song from .....GREENDAY....I HOPE YOU CAN SUSTAIN YOUR LIFE !

GREEN....IT IS THE COLOR THAT MEANS...PROCEED !

SOLAR ENERGY...WE WILL NEED IT TO DISTILL OUR POLLUTED WATER WAYS !

OF COURSE WE NEVER HAD OUR MOON GOAL UNTIL THE RUSSIANS PUT SPUTNIK INTO ORBIT.

MAYBE WE COULD LEAD FOR A CHANGE......THE AUDACITY OF HOPE !

WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL WE ARE HOT ,FLAT,AND CROWDED ......LIKE BEING FORCED TO CAR POOL IN A GREEN HYBRID FIAT WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING.

The US service economy was born with reduced wages but compensated with easy credit to replace purchasing power and cheaper goods provided by imports and merchandising of box stores eliminating profitable independent and regional retailers.

Once the financial weapons of mass destruction could no longer be fueled by consumer and mortgage debt ,the credit engine seized.....the wheels of commerce slowed and the consumer economy drifted into a coma.

The year the earth stood still had began....US investors as well as world investors have lost half their wealth....credit has become a premium...third world manufacturers without orders ...and politicians doing only what they know raise taxes...borrow....and spend to jump start the credit cycle.

Now ,we are l eft with a world in bankruptcy.....but no global uniform laws to equate the pain and resolutions.....so the G 20 meets to share the blame and find new rules to start the game.

The developed world built a lot of homes and the developing world sold a lot of commodities...and the Chinese have money in the bank but an expanding population with little housing or food.

The world will reset.....and the developed world will have to find away to attract capital to pay their debt and recycle their consumer economy into a sustainable green world because the shopping spree is over.

The Day the Earth Turns Green

Green Acres Is The Place To Be.......for a sustainable life.The malls of today will be the solar power plants and farmers markets of tomorrow and the consumer economy will be reestablished .... where your status will be how much stuff you have gotten rid of instead of how much you have borrowed to by more stuff.

Your stuff or lack of it will still define you.....what was once something you had to have is now viewed as a waste of resources.It will not be the cost of the merchandise but the disposal costs that will help you live a sustainable life.

Life is a terrible thing to waste....don`t waste it on stuff and the cost to get rid of it.

Green technology ....may mean.......having money in your pocket.

Maybe a Green Life can cover the current world that is in Red Ink.

Cap and Trade will replace credit and your social status will be measured by the size of your carbon foot print.

It will not be the size of your house that will impress but how much energy it can sell back to the Carbon Bank.
The Day The Earth Turns Green

The new economic factor in you life will... not be your credit score ..but... your energy credits.

Energy ....it is what stuff is made of.

Now....Go Sustain Yourself .....little green men are turning up everywhere.

Energy is neither created or destroyed....it just changes color.

Dear Mr. Friedman
I do not know whether this is the right place to mention it. This is an article I wrote.
Some media publications from India recently presented approximate break-up of expenses for the current Parliamentary elections in the country. The approximate total cost of the election, including the costs of poll machinery, print ads, canvassing and travelling, banners and posters, electronic campaign, meetings and rallies, cash-for-votes and freebies, is said to be Rs.115b (about $2.3 b). These publications have also referred to it as more expensive than the US elections of 2008. This could be due to two possible reasons: one, the population of the country and the infrastructural investment it requires and two, the number of different ideologies based on caste, religion and region and the number of political parties born out of it.

Yet, coming in the mid of a crisis so bad that only a countable few remember seeing a bigger crisis than this, the 2009 Elections are extravagant and are tantamount to being irresponsible to the society. How could we have reduced the budget of the most extravagant election anywhere in the world? One key issue here is not just the recession, but the carbon footprint left behind by a huge election.

For banners and posters, the estimated expense by all parties put together is Rs.15b (approx. $300m). Placing banners and posters in public places is banned under the current Election Commission’s model code of conduct. However, the Election Commission’s hands are full and many days pass before it can order the removal of these posters and banners. Canvassing and Travelling is estimated to take around Rs.30b ($600m) and that includes the expenses for cars, buses, helicopters and aircrafts. Politicians travel from meeting to meeting and rally to rally, leaving behind a carbon footprint that is way beyond normal.

I guess that would wipe off all the benefits we achieved through the Earth Hour 2009, a few weeks back. The problem with elections in India, or elections in most big countries, is that the government is yet to wake up to eco-friendly practices in conducting them. In India, the posters and banners are printed in sub-standard small-scale industries and they are extraordinary income for the rural masses in such times as this. But, the amount of paper spent on these printing calls for attention. The Election Commission is a powerful agency. It stops bad campaign practices and it stops discriminatory remarks from contesting politicians. Nevertheless, it is yet to form eco-friendly guidelines in the model code of conduct of Parliamentary elections. If eco-friendly practices can be implemented in elections in India, it can be implemented anywhere.

An eco-friendly election could reduce the amount of travelling. For party meetings, people from different parts of the country can be organized through video-conferencing. An eco-friendly election can compel the parties to print their banners and posters only on recycled paper. An eco-friendly Election Commission can fine the political parties, if they don’t clean up the mess created after each political rally or public meeting. The eco-friendly Election Commission can also ban the use of loudspeakers mounted on cars, which go about in every nook and corner of the country, propagating with the aid of parody songs and voiceovers. At my best estimate, at least 25% of the current expenses could have been saved with eco-friendly practices in the current elections.

The current elections close in under a month's time. The results will come out on May 16. I hope the new government will take up the eco-friendly issue closely and pave way for all elections in the future to be conducted with the environment in mind. Also, India is a country where more than 40% of her inhabitants live under the poverty line. In a country like this, any savings in expenditure could be used to bring about sustainable development in the future.
[I have read Hot, Flat and Crowded and absolutely follow what you say. I hope we all wake up soon.]
For more writings by Suhail Rasheed, visit http://suhailrasheed.wordpress.com

Tom,

Tonight (Sunday April 19) on CBS "60 Minutes" they will do a segment on "Cold Fusion". I'm fairly convinced that Cold Fusion is the solution to the energy problem we have - it will replace oil, gasoline, coal etc. Ask you technical friends to take a close look at the technology. I'm an engineer and a long time researcher in this field.

Jeff

Four out of the past five recessions followed oil shocks, and the IEA now warns of $200 a barrel oil by 2010; a global depression may follow. The U.S. needs a radically different energy policy to address volatile oil & gas prices, global warming, and a shrinking economy-- and fast. Most purported solutions are either too small to matter or have a fatal flaw.
---Hydroelectric power is low-cost, but cannot be expanded.
---Geothermal power is only available in a few spots, and likewise cannot be expanded.
---Biomass as currently practiced (ethanol or soybean diesel) produces such small gains in net-energy that no amount of farmland could contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel consumption.
---The average capacity factor for photovoltaic solar in the U.S. is 14%; wind 27%. The fatal flaw is that battery technology is not sufficient to store sporadic and unreliable power coming in off the grid for when it isn't sunny or windy.
---And finally, while the world still has a lot of coal, we have yet to demonstrate large-scale, long-term storage of CO2.
Luckily, we won't have to live in the dark or melt all the glaciers. As argued in Tom Blees's "Prescription for the Planet," one solution exists: nuclear fission. Generation IV fast reactors could provide 100-300 times the energy per ton of uranium, or even use existing energy in nuclear waste as fuel. The world desperately needs a massive source of reliable, long-lasting, low-pollution energy. And nuclear power may be 'all that stands' between civilization and its alternatives.

Tom-have you ever been near a wind-energy installation? The land is not attractive, not quiet, not usefull, and off limits to all but the workers maintaining the windmills, PERMANENTLY. (or at least as long as you want to pay extra for the power) When you figure the number of windmills needed, and experience the resistance of those who will have to live with them, you will know that wind power will shortly go the route of corn based ethanol. John Bozeman

Four out of the past five recessions followed oil shocks, and the EIA now warns of $200 a barrel oil by 2010; a global depression may follow. The U.S. needs a radically different energy policy to address volatile oil & gas prices, global warming, and a shrinking economy-- and fast. Most purported solutions are either too small to matter or have a fatal flaw.
---Hydroelectric power is low-cost, but cannot be expanded.
---Geothermal power is only available in a few spots, and likewise cannot be expanded.
---Biomass as currently practiced (ethanol or soybean diesel) produces such small gains in net-energy that no amount of farmland could contribute significantly to reducing fossil fuel consumption.
---The average capacity factor for photovoltaic solar in the U.S. is 14%; wind 27%. The fatal flaw is that battery technology is not sufficient to store sporadic and unreliable power coming in off the grid for when it isn't sunny or windy.
---And finally, while the world still has a lot of coal, we have yet to demonstrate large-scale, long-term storage of CO2.
As argued in Tom Blees's "Prescription for the Planet," one solution exists: nuclear fission. Generation IV fast reactors could provide 100-300 times the energy per ton of uranium, or even use existing energy in nuclear waste as fuel. The world needs a massive source of reliable, long-lasting, low-pollution energy. And nuclear power may be 'all that stands' between civilization and its alternatives.

In reading Mr. Friedman's works and those
of other serious environmentalists,I am
always struck by one practical and power-
ful solution to the problems of overcrow-
ding and polution that is never really
investigated. Massive desalinization would go a long ways toward improving the plan- et. About 90% of the human population lives on only 4% of the land mass. What if
it were spread out,forests planted,wild- life introduced,etc. An unlimited supply of clean water would make this possible--
and the benefits would clearly outweigh the initial high costs.

EIA: world oil shock imminent, and an even greater global depression will follow:

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/48582

Obama is aware of this, I'm sure, but doesn't want to spread panic. We're going to need a green revolution, and fast.

Our monetary system makes us compete against and steal from each other to create more interest on debt in order to create more power with interest for the controllers of the federal reserve and our corporate fascist government which has been the world's government for some time now. The monetary system is a one dimensional idea about reality and distribution of power which Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Zeitgeist addendum have some opinions about. This system has failed all of us.

The wasted energy or entropy used to create more debt and interest can be seen in all our stealing from others and energy sucking institutions: prisons, military, urban sprawl, universities and all their consuming boxes that burn the uninspired false credit or usury of oil to create the dollars of debt that power our false freedom sucking gods of reality. Please look up for a future and head towards your intuition of light and thank god for the internet - governments' successor.

Recycling cities, communities, and education, so that we can honor and respect the energy from the sun and the honesty and self-reliance it brings is the only idea that swims naturally as a steady state population controlled existence.

Let's not be sinners who will always suffer in the ignorance of victimizing consumption. A James Kunstleresque comeuppance will have to be paid in full at some point because there is no future in an illusion. And as usual we our pushed and shoved by the least most unimaginative and unskilled among us.

Light, must be our creativity at the end of this tunnel.

Tom-your a pretty ok writer but, i'm afraid. you don't realize the difference between what you say and what you do. You want to reduce CO2 ? fine, quit flying all around the world in jets. How many square feet of space/person does your family have? Extra homes? Vacation travel? You want to tax carbon? why wait for the tax law? just calculate what you think your fair share is and send it in! In the mean time, I will keep on trying to do what makes sense. If fuel is high (without artificial tax increases) I will buy a vehicle that gets better mileage. (I already have)and I won't bring any new people into the world ! (I haven't and I have helped raise two children) Take a drive out of the city and talk to some real people who make real things for a living and get back to me.

I think the problem is in the pre-supposition that we need growth. Africa needs to grow, but does Europe or the US? Isn't growth what got us into this problem in the first place?

Obviously the poor can't stay poor, but given the vast inequalities in the world, the most expedient way to raise people out of poverty is to create a level playing field through equitable redistribution mechanisms. Progressive taxation, cap and trade, intelligent subsidising, the so-called Tobin Tax, are all ways to channel the wealth to the poor without compromising anyone's lifestyle.