Thank you
Posted: 04/04/2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentI just wanted to say that I am going to be taking a break from blogging for several months; this may be the end of In A Future Age. I started this blog one year ago, and it has been a great experience. Thanks for all of my loyal readers. My work at school is taking most of my time, and I am preparing for what comes next.
The long term view on energy
Posted: 03/28/2011 Filed under: climate change, Sustainability | Tags: Electric power transmission, Energy policy, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, high voltage transmission lines, infrastructure, Sustainability, United States, United States Fifth Fleet Leave a commentWe have an energy problem in this country. Our government, like our businesses, looks to the next political quarter instead of the long term. A few weeks ago, President Obama spoke to reporters about the need to create a long-term energy strategy, and reduce our dependence on oil. Unfortunately, each of the last seven Presidents has said exactly the same thing. I personally defended Persian Gulf Oil in the Middle East, enforcing United Nations sanctions against Iraq, which amounted to an oil embargo. I saw the United States Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain, up close. I can say that maintaining a base in Bahrain does not come cheap. Why do I bring this up? Our government spends a substantial amount of money subsidizing energy. Additionally, the government does not regulate carbon, which means the external costs of the greenhouse gas emissions are borne by the general public. Finally, fossil fuels have significant health impacts. Over 10,000 people a year die from the particles emitted by coal-fired plants. Additionally, hundreds of miners die quietly around the world. As we watch the nuclear calamity that is taking place in Japan, it would be wise for us to consider the role of the Federal Government in creating this energy policy, and the failure of President after President to chart a new course for the United States with regards to energy policy.
We have an elaborate electricity grid, an infrastructure that badly needs modernized. Consumers are ignorant for the most part about where their electricity comes from, they just want to be able to flip the switch and power their gear, without having to pay too much. Unfortunately, the myth of cheap energy has Americans convinced that it is our divine right to $.99/gallon gasoline and cheap electricity. Our development in sprawled across the country, and people still pine for that isolated lot with two acres and a great view. Unfortunately, without cheap energy, our house of cards will fall apart.
The Federal Government is positioned to help bring our country into the 21st Century. First of all, our electricity infrastructure needs updated. One agency that has a big role in the energy sector is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC has jurisdiction over interstate electricity transmission, through the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA). FERC is attempting to build new, modernized high power transmission lines for renewable energy; however, they face opposition at both the state level as well as from utility trade groups like the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy. The commission represents utilities that want to make sure the costs of those lines are borne by the folks getting the power. Ultimately, between NIMBY concerns over siting new lines, and fights over who will pay, these are many obstacles to creating a new infrastructure capable of empowering large-scale clean energy production. The Federal Government can also nurture decentralized, local renewable power generation through policies like Feed-in Tariffs.
With energy consumption in transportation, our sprawled development is problematic. Government needs to encourage smart growth, as it will pay dividends on lowering per capita energy consumption. For example, in Southeastern Massachusetts, a commuter rail line is being designed to consider smart growth when planning station locations. However, transportation consumption revolves around the automobile. The Obama administration did a good job of getting automobile manufacturers to support a significant increase in CAFE standards. While it is not as progressive as Europe or Asia’s standards, it is still a significant improvement over Bush policies, and the rare effort that is supported by all stakeholders. One long-term issue for our transportation sector is what fuel will be used, and the infrastructure to use it. Right now we are invested in a gasoline infrastructure. Electricity is a more sensible step, but the authors here advocate for hydrogen. Hydrogen would require a significant investment in infrastructure; additionally, as a fuel, to provide the range expected of modern consumers, it must be highly pressurized – making it very difficult to use as a transportation fuel, especially in automobiles. Whatever route we go, it will be incumbent on the Federal Government to work with stakeholders to build the infrastructure necessary to support whatever becomes the ‘new’ fuel.
Ultimately, the main hurdle to the Federal Government charting a long-term energy policy is political will. President Clinton hit the third rail when he proposed a Carbon tax early in his first term. Both parties define prosperity around energy consumption. The Democrats frame clean energy development as “Green Jobs” but haven’t challenged the Republican Party, or the American people, to seriously confront climate change, peak oil, or the various external costs of fossil fuels. The myth of cheap energy goes on. As it does, so does the piecemeal Federal energy policy, from President to President.
Not In MY Backyard (NIMBY)
Posted: 03/17/2011 Filed under: climate change, Sustainability, wind power | Tags: Clean Energy, Coal, earthquake, Energy, external costs, Gwyneth Cravens, high voltage transmission lines, hydraulic fracturing, Japan, Marcellus Shale, Natural Gas, NIMBY, Nuclear Power, Renewable, Solar Power, Sustainability, Talk of the Nation, tsunami, Wind Power, Wind turbine Leave a commentWe have an energy problem. At the end of the day, no energy source is free. We all want energy that is readily available, reliable, and without external costs. We want to be able to cheaply power our HDTV, our car, and our furnace. We want our supply chains to be affordable, so prices will be low. In short, we want the magic elixir that will allow us to carry on in our current configuration without having to change.
Unfortunately, we are painfully unaware of the external costs of the energy we produce. Gwyneth Cravens, on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, spoke about the cost of coal:
“But I would just like to remind people that over 10,000 people a year die in the United States alone from fine particulates from coal-fired plants, which, incidentally, spew out more – it’s a low-dose radioactive material, but burning coal concentrates uranium and radon – radium, and so on. And so in the coal ash, the waste which lies around in unlined pits, there’s enough in the coal ash of one big coal-fired plant to make about six atomic bombs, uranium 235. So the – and the stuff coming out of the stacks looks – you know, you don’t see the soot anymore so much, but you see – or you don’t – what you don’t see are these invisible gases, sulfur and nitrogen gases which turn into fine particulates when they’re combined with water vapor and get into the airways of our lungs and kill people with lung cancer and heart disease. So this is an ongoing catastrophe, along with ocean acidification. As the ocean takes up more carbon dioxide, the water becomes more acidic. This is beginning to affect shelled organisms like corals. They can’t make the calcium carbonate shells in the acidic waters. And so – and about three million people a year die from fossil fuel combustion pollution worldwide. We have to think about how to provide base-load electricity – that is 24/7, around-the-clock electricity. We are witnessing in Japan what happens when you don’t have electricity and how terrible that is for people from the health point of view alone.”
In Japan, we are seeing at Fukushima Daiichi what a 9.0 Earthquake and a massive tsunami can do to the best laid plans of mice and men. Opposition to wind turbines remains strong here in New England. In Rhode Island, where I live, there is ongoing opposition to a Liquid Natural Gas terminal in Mt. Hope Bay. More broadly, opposition is growing to hydrofracking of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and across the country. Large scale renewable energy projects are challenged by environmentalists (like the large scale solar project in California) and by parents (opposition to the construction of high-power transmission lines). In individual communities, wealthy homeowners fight the construction of wind turbines and solar panels.
Does anyone else see this? We live under the myth that there is a cheap source of energy without cost out there. Our gasoline, which we import mostly, must be defended by the Fifth Fleet (in Bahrain, where Shiites are rising up against the Sunni king) and heavily subsidized. The greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles are not without cost, as much as denialists would like to believe. Because we remain under the spell of the cheap energy myth, some of us remain willing to accept the costs of hydrofracking (water) and coal (see above quote). We compare the cost of renewable energy to the cost of natural gas and coal, and ignore the external costs, and say that renewable energy is too expensive. Unfortunately, our cheap energy is simply not sustainable.
If we were smart, we would realize that 1) there is no perfect, cheap, elixir out there. We need to take into account the external costs and start planning a smart, renewable energy future. We would also realize that 2) NIMBY is the enemy of planning a smart energy future. People want to plug in their laptop or their iron, and remain ignorant of where that power comes from and how it arrives at their outlet. People want their homes to be just the right temperature in the summer and winter, and not recognize the cost of doing so. People want to live in the suburbs, and commute long distances to work, to karate practice, to visit Disneyland. Yet, people get upset when a wind turbine goes up, or when talk of a new transmission line starts. NIMBY is simply not sustainable. If we truly understood the costs of the energy we use, we would use less of it, we would be much more efficient, we would plan for the long term instead of just one quarter ahead.
What do we need? We need a smart grid, decentralized power generation, a diverse mixture of renewable energy, state of the art nuclear power, and some fossil fuels, and above all else we need to place a price on carbon. Energy will not be cheap, but we fool ourselves if we believe it is cheap today. We need to embrace the future, instead of wishing we could return back to 1890. If we don’t of course, we will eventually fall out of the cheap energy spell, but we will start kicking ourselves for not recognizing it sooner.
Prose meditations
Posted: 03/11/2011 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsThe train is rumbling south as we head for New York City, and the America I see is a rusted hulk of its former glory. Alongside the tracks, empty warehouses sit idle, as rust creeps up their backsides. Graffiti is ubiquitous, marking the territory of boredom and decades of class warfare. The angry howls of America reach out of the electronic media; USA! USA! Remembering a time when that meant something, I wonder when it all went wrong. I suppose we were always overconfident, but after several courageous fights we got soft, we expected things to be taken care of.
We built an empire of sand, which is now crumbling in front of us. Our manifest destiny, the cry of Oklahoma! Oregon! Always pushing onward, for something more. Once California was a paradise, but then we turned it into a concrete jungle. Now our Manifest Destiny is consumption, consumption, always more consumption. Corinthian leather, granite countertops, what does it all mean? Meanwhile our communities are shit, we don’t know our neighbors anymore, we don’t trust each other anymore. It has turned into a blame game, with our own vanity invested in impossible dreams, with few willing to confront the truth that USA may not be sustainable.
Exponential growth, that is what our economy is built for. If we can only find that free energy, that impossible, magical, elixir that will drive us forward, then humanity will have no limits. Of course, what of the world outside of the good old USA? Not the Continent, not Shanghai, not Australia, but what of the great unwashed in Bangladesh, Africa that will suffer only more under our changing climate? What of the real danger that we might not have enough food, energy, to keep this going? Well, the angry man cries, USA! USA! Only alarmists need question our lifestyles. There are no limits to what we can accomplish, right?
Mother always said you could become anything you wanted when you grew up. Hedge fund manager with a Swiss chalet? Now we’re talking. There is no external cost that the world does not happily bear for the greatness of USA, the angry man says. As we head south towards New York City, I wonder what my grandchildren will think? What will our history books read? Since the victors write history books, will their books be written in Mandarin?
Our President calls for America to win the future. When people are skeptical of wind turbines and solar turbines because they are too expensive, but they happily allow energy companies to pollute their drinking water with hydrofracking chemicals, I wonder if we have it in us to win anything. I think the future will be handed to us like a consolation prize, and our grandchildren will wonder how we could be so vain. The angry man will cry out into the night, USA! USA! On and onward.
Is the Earth sacred?
Posted: 03/07/2011 Filed under: Sustainability Leave a commentToday the unsustainable behavior of one species now impacts the entire planet Earth, from mountain glaciers to the depths of the oceans. We humans don’t really consider ourselves to be one species among many; rather, we consider ourselves as nations, races, ethnic groups, even economic functionaries. The Book of Genesis frames our power over other species when it states, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, sacredness is “the power, being, or realm understood by religious persons to be at the core of existence and to have a transformative effect on their lives and destinies.” The Oxford American dictionary defines sacred as “connected to God (or the Gods) and dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.” Is the Earth a sacred place, and if so, are we treating it like one?
Thomas Berry, in his essay “Earth as Sacred Community,” examines the Biblical context of the sacred and the divine, and finds that, “Within the Biblical context, the continuity of the divine presence with the natural world was altered by establishing the divine as a transcendent personality creating a world entirely distinct from itself… Only the human really belonged to the sacred community of the redeemed.” That distinction is important, because in the Biblical framework, the primary human concern is to find Eternal Salvation in a Heavenly Kingdom. The earth, then, is merely a way station on our journey to Salvation, not necessarily a place to live in a divine presence.
Within the Biblical context, we may have exercised our “dominion” a bit too far. Wendell Berry, in his essay “A Native Hill,” writes that “We have lived by the assumption that what is good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior towards the world – to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and everything living in it.”
However, can we find in our religious traditions a sacred connection to the world around us? Certainly, we can find it in various Native American and Asian religious traditions. Today, many Christians are reconsidering their view of the sacred, from the growing Interfaith Power and Light movement, to the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative. The Southern Baptist declaration reads that, “There is undeniable evidence that the earth—wildlife, water, land and air—can be damaged by human activity, and that people suffer as a result. When this happens, it is especially egregious because creation serves as revelation of God’s presence, majesty and provision. Though not every person will physically hear God’s revelation found in Scripture, all people have access to God’s cosmic revelation: the heavens, the waters, natural order, the beauty of nature (Psalm 19; Romans 1).” As we reconsider our giant footprint on the Earth, that notion of sacredness is an important part of our efforts to live sustainably.
The limits of evidence based marketing and climate science
Posted: 03/06/2011 Filed under: climate change | Tags: Climate change, Climate Science, Climategate, Denialists, Environment, evidence-based marketing, Global Warming, Seth Godin, skepticism, skeptics, Sustainability Leave a commentDespite the millions spent by the Brothers Koch to convince us that climate science is a conspiracy, I often wonder why so many people call themselves skeptics. After all, climate change denialists seem to be playing a game of Whack-a-Mole, where no matter how many times you disprove their critiques, they offer them again and again. Seth Godin talks about the limits of evidence-based marketing in his blog, offering a vision of how the tide may end up turning against the Flat Earth society. Godin infers that at this point, there is nothing that scientists can do to convince a hardened skeptic:
“Here’s the conversation that needs to happen before we invest a lot of time in evidence-based marketing in the face of skepticism: ‘What evidence would you need to see in order to change your mind?’ If the honest answer is, “well, actually, there’s nothing you could show me that would change my mind,” you’ve just saved everyone a lot of time. Please don’t bother having endless fact-based discussions…What would you have to show someone who believes men never walked on the moon? What evidence would you have to proffer in order to change the mind of someone who is certain the Earth is only 5,000 years old? If they’re being truthful with you, there’s nothing they haven’t been exposed to that would do the trick.”
Instead, Godin writes that the best tactic to convince skeptics is a necessarily slow, painful process: eventually enough of the right opinion-makers will be convinced:
“Of course, evidence isn’t the only marketing tactic that is effective. In fact, it’s often not the best tactic. What would change his mind, what would change the mind of many people resistant to evidence is a series of eager testimonials from other tribe members who have changed their minds. When people who are respected in a social or professional circle clearly and loudly proclaim that they’ve changed their minds, a ripple effect starts. First, peer pressure tries to repress these flip-flopping outliers. But if they persist in their new mindset, over time others may come along. Soon, the majority flips. It’s not easy or fast, but it happens.”
Where does that leave us? It means that we should appreciate conservatives that do have sensible views of climate science; it means that birthers and climate science denialists will make a lot of noise, but ultimately will not be swayed by reason; it means that we should continue to use reason, but expect that it will get us nowhere with certain people. It means that for the immediate future, America will continue to have a very complicated presence in climate negotiations.
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Democracy in action
Posted: 02/23/2011 Filed under: Rhode Island, Sustainability | Tags: Fisheries, Fishery, New England, Rhode Island, Sustainability Leave a commentLast night I attended a public comment hearing on some proposed fishing management regulations, and I could hear the tension that exists between our economy, reliant on steady growth, and our diminishing resources. The proposals, presented by RI Department of Environmental Management (DEM) administrators, were framed by scientific assessments of the health of fisheries. The fish were referred to mainly as biomass and resources. The hearing was attended by 50 people, mainly fishermen and women, but also citizens concerned about sustainable fisheries.
Critics of DEM regulation presented arguments about the rising cost of fuel, and the need to maintain a high harvest in order to make a profit; many of them did not agree with the DEM about their fishery assessments. Ultimately, the administrators and the fishermen seemed to be speaking two languages, much like our national political discourse. When the DEM administrator chairing the hearing referred to ‘management,’ fisherman recoiled as if the word meant ‘closure.’ The DEM assessed fishery populations scientifically, whereas the fishermen offered anecdotal evidence about days when the fish come and days when they don’t. One shellfisherman asked a DEM scientist to explain where the evidence of soft-shell clam underpopulation was.
The hearing was an exercise in democracy, one that both sides seemed familiar with. The DEM administrator chairing the hearing knew many of the fishermen by name, including several leaders of trade associations. Those trade associations take different positions on DEM regulation, but the word ‘micromanagement’ came up many times. Several members of an Advisory Panel, which worked prior to the hearing to offer recommendations to the DEM on the proposals, spoke of the long hours spent trying to identify the best path forward. Several veterans, involved with RI fisheries and regulation going back to the 1970s, spoke of the ‘give-and-take’ that happens with these regulations over time. The process itself offered by the hearing gave me some hope about the ability of our system of government to work ‘for the people and by the people.’ Ultimately, that is the only way we can move forward, especially with the great challenges we will face in coming years.