We find our entire civilization balanced precariously on a razor's edge. Wealthy, no, filthy rich people, who have guided the ship of state across the vast majority of the Earth's surface for generations have made investments in what they call "infrastructure" The military industrial complex as well as the nuclear industry, which is a tiny branch off the tree of death, have been subsidized for one hundred years. They talk about their process as if the "resources" of the Earth are only there for our exploitation of them. Digging and clawing their way through the ecosphere, their reality is stunningly arrogant, ignorant of the profusion of living that happens in natural systems. To them, their behavior is not only their right, but in a sense a responsibility. When the easiest stuff to get has made them unimaginably wealthy, they don't slow production, or go out of their way to recycle what they've "harvested", no. They expand their net, or dig up greater and greater areas.
In my county, as in most, 90% of the original wetlands were drained or filled. The soils have been hammered for the better part of a century and about 90% of the native forests are gone, virtually every acre in our entire state has been logged off, so even what appears to be mature forest is second growth and has had in it's own history, massive soil loss, erosion and sterilization from ultra-violet exposure and exposed subsoil or parent rock. Just this fact alone accounts for a one thousand fold increase in eutrophication, the rate at which Lake Michigan is filling up with soil. Mind you, perhaps it will still take ten thousand years, but every ounce of soil we lose to the big water is never to return, it's just too darned expensive to retrieve. In a brief three generations, perhaps the last sixty years, we have blown through reserves that took millions of years to create. Like the wetlands lost, no amount of conservation can get our use characteristics in line with the speed at which the Earth produces fossil fuels. Efficient use is completely justified, but to expect to stay on the coal,oil and natural gas gravy train forever is plain short-sighted. We cannot retrieve a single BTU or calorie of energy after it has been spent.
Co-generation was once at the cutting edge of technology. Back when we still had streetcars, a local paper mill offered to pump the excess heat from their processing facility through underground pipes. This would have eliminated the need for snow removal in the downtown area for as long as the heavy industry remained in their facility. Our provincial and ultra-conservative city leaders didn't even try. In addition to saving millions over time, we could have had a world class city. Instead, we are struggling to put a good face on economic collapse. Hey, the Packers are making money. Wealthy power brokers have had their way long enough. Oil has always been the most lucrative business if you look at cost of production to profit. The tables have now turned. Every barrel we take out of the ground will cost more to get than the one before it. The oil sands/shale "reserves" that are on the verge of exploitation will take billions of kiloquads (thousand, quadrillion BTUs) to extract. We can do it, but at what cost? Say that I were to tell you that I would continue to provide energy, but to make it I would require a bigger and bigger percentage of the total energy available to do it. Just do the math on that and you will find soaring costs and thus, prices.
As a parent, I learned to buy shoes a little big for my children. Shoes were a large percentage of my "disposable" income. Anyone who has been poor knows that every penny gets disposed of, whether you like it or not. It is far easier to grow into something if you know what it will be in advance. Knowing that the jig is up, just before the end situates us in a far better position than plowing headlong into the end of the age of oil. We need to regain the high ground that is required to create civilizations. The civilization that we need to create must reflect the facts of life. If we ignore the truth of our position, we are doomed to catastrophe when the chickens come home to roost. The proactive approach to these issues yields the best result. Linking areas that are high-density residential, recreational, commercial and industrial with smart high speed rail and linking these access points with walking and biking options creates jobs, a sustainable infrastructure and increases the appeal of using the system over time. The health issues associated with a more active lifestyle alone offset the cost to society of making human powered transport convenient, safe and practical. Just two generations ago, there were three grocers within walking distance, without crossing any major streets. Today, I have to go over a mile and across main streets to get to the closest one. It is within walking distance, if you revalue your time.
I purchased a vehicle that got twice the mileage of my old one. I had been driving an old VW Jetta, that got around twenty-five miles per gallon. Gas was still around two-eighty per gallon. People thought I was nuts. They asked "Seven thousand dollars for a used car? That's crazy!" Just for my own pleasure, I was thinking about getting a car that could take a full load of fuel. Think of how many fewer stops I will have to make at the fuel depot. My old car only held about five dollars worth at a shot or it would leak out of the tank, so I was in the filling station many times each month, especially if I had to commute to far away cities for work. My last tank took me over eight hundred miles. Only stopped to wash my windows a couple times over more than a month. Aside from feeling patriotic each time I do cue up to "sip" my fill, I have more money in my pocket to spend in the local economy. As I ride my bike more and walk, it tickles me all the more that my gas sipping appliance is getting infinite MPG while she sits. Imagine how many vehicles would be similarly idled if we had sensible high speed rail or even a streetcar system that would get us where we need to go.
In my own case, doubling my MPG "earned" me over $19K in avoided costs. That is about one extra year of pay every ten years! The solar panel we placed on the rental unit we own across the street "earns" us 1/3 of our heat budget and has been "paid off" in energy costs for several years now. Avoided costs of over one hundred dollars per month (each and every heating season) continue to accrue. With investment and innovation, we can easily spread these techniques and technologies across the world. The only thing holding us back is the wealthiest among us. Their incomes would necessarily falter as the technologies are not monopolized by them, the simplest technologies have been cheapest and most effective all along. Expecting major players to invest in cutting their own throats would be like having a major drug company try to sell dandelion root in an attempt to "win over" the holistic health people. My solar panel made today could cost about 1,000 dollars to build, but will provide heat nearly forever if modern materials are used to construct it. Any home installing it could reap 1/3 off their heating bill, ostensibly forever. My panel is over twenty-five years old and still has over 60% of the original heat output. If I had the panel installed on my house the whole time, it would have saved me over 15K, enough to manufacture for all the homes on my side of the block!
Next, figure in the savings of not having to remove snow, ever, as long as your town is thriving. The heat budget for the melting system provided by a local industry, power generating station or mill. We may not be able to create Utopia, but can't we just use our heads to do what is best for everyone? It seems that we are always waking up to another way that the ultra wealthy have screwed us. The legacy of their greed and waste will burden many hundred more generations and it is with the quality of our lives that we subsidize their raping of Mother Earth. In our case, the City of Green Bay itself is at fault for rebuffing the industry that was interested in supporting the public good. We need to spend money in ways that will have incremental benefits over the longest periods of time. We hear about the WPA all the time these days. That was how we clawed our way out of the Depression. Many County Parks and nearly every State and National Park bears the beautiful marks of the patriotic citizens who helped pay for the WPA's passing. Not only the sweat and blood of the individual workers is worthy of remembering, but the industrialists whose funding made the worker's toil possible.
When we finally realize that paying taxes is a luxury afforded only the most successful that we will find the path to a more sustainable and equitable distribution of resources and only when we appropriately value the gifts of creator, will we find a path to peace, equitable distribution of wealth and highest quality of life for the greatest number of people. We are working with ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. a local not-for-profit organization that teaches sustainability and gives ECO-Tours, reforests denuded areas with native trees and advocates for ecologically sensitive development, design and production techniques. If you would like to invest in this important work, donate!
In my county, as in most, 90% of the original wetlands were drained or filled. The soils have been hammered for the better part of a century and about 90% of the native forests are gone, virtually every acre in our entire state has been logged off, so even what appears to be mature forest is second growth and has had in it's own history, massive soil loss, erosion and sterilization from ultra-violet exposure and exposed subsoil or parent rock. Just this fact alone accounts for a one thousand fold increase in eutrophication, the rate at which Lake Michigan is filling up with soil. Mind you, perhaps it will still take ten thousand years, but every ounce of soil we lose to the big water is never to return, it's just too darned expensive to retrieve. In a brief three generations, perhaps the last sixty years, we have blown through reserves that took millions of years to create. Like the wetlands lost, no amount of conservation can get our use characteristics in line with the speed at which the Earth produces fossil fuels. Efficient use is completely justified, but to expect to stay on the coal,oil and natural gas gravy train forever is plain short-sighted. We cannot retrieve a single BTU or calorie of energy after it has been spent.
Co-generation was once at the cutting edge of technology. Back when we still had streetcars, a local paper mill offered to pump the excess heat from their processing facility through underground pipes. This would have eliminated the need for snow removal in the downtown area for as long as the heavy industry remained in their facility. Our provincial and ultra-conservative city leaders didn't even try. In addition to saving millions over time, we could have had a world class city. Instead, we are struggling to put a good face on economic collapse. Hey, the Packers are making money. Wealthy power brokers have had their way long enough. Oil has always been the most lucrative business if you look at cost of production to profit. The tables have now turned. Every barrel we take out of the ground will cost more to get than the one before it. The oil sands/shale "reserves" that are on the verge of exploitation will take billions of kiloquads (thousand, quadrillion BTUs) to extract. We can do it, but at what cost? Say that I were to tell you that I would continue to provide energy, but to make it I would require a bigger and bigger percentage of the total energy available to do it. Just do the math on that and you will find soaring costs and thus, prices.
As a parent, I learned to buy shoes a little big for my children. Shoes were a large percentage of my "disposable" income. Anyone who has been poor knows that every penny gets disposed of, whether you like it or not. It is far easier to grow into something if you know what it will be in advance. Knowing that the jig is up, just before the end situates us in a far better position than plowing headlong into the end of the age of oil. We need to regain the high ground that is required to create civilizations. The civilization that we need to create must reflect the facts of life. If we ignore the truth of our position, we are doomed to catastrophe when the chickens come home to roost. The proactive approach to these issues yields the best result. Linking areas that are high-density residential, recreational, commercial and industrial with smart high speed rail and linking these access points with walking and biking options creates jobs, a sustainable infrastructure and increases the appeal of using the system over time. The health issues associated with a more active lifestyle alone offset the cost to society of making human powered transport convenient, safe and practical. Just two generations ago, there were three grocers within walking distance, without crossing any major streets. Today, I have to go over a mile and across main streets to get to the closest one. It is within walking distance, if you revalue your time.
I purchased a vehicle that got twice the mileage of my old one. I had been driving an old VW Jetta, that got around twenty-five miles per gallon. Gas was still around two-eighty per gallon. People thought I was nuts. They asked "Seven thousand dollars for a used car? That's crazy!" Just for my own pleasure, I was thinking about getting a car that could take a full load of fuel. Think of how many fewer stops I will have to make at the fuel depot. My old car only held about five dollars worth at a shot or it would leak out of the tank, so I was in the filling station many times each month, especially if I had to commute to far away cities for work. My last tank took me over eight hundred miles. Only stopped to wash my windows a couple times over more than a month. Aside from feeling patriotic each time I do cue up to "sip" my fill, I have more money in my pocket to spend in the local economy. As I ride my bike more and walk, it tickles me all the more that my gas sipping appliance is getting infinite MPG while she sits. Imagine how many vehicles would be similarly idled if we had sensible high speed rail or even a streetcar system that would get us where we need to go.
In my own case, doubling my MPG "earned" me over $19K in avoided costs. That is about one extra year of pay every ten years! The solar panel we placed on the rental unit we own across the street "earns" us 1/3 of our heat budget and has been "paid off" in energy costs for several years now. Avoided costs of over one hundred dollars per month (each and every heating season) continue to accrue. With investment and innovation, we can easily spread these techniques and technologies across the world. The only thing holding us back is the wealthiest among us. Their incomes would necessarily falter as the technologies are not monopolized by them, the simplest technologies have been cheapest and most effective all along. Expecting major players to invest in cutting their own throats would be like having a major drug company try to sell dandelion root in an attempt to "win over" the holistic health people. My solar panel made today could cost about 1,000 dollars to build, but will provide heat nearly forever if modern materials are used to construct it. Any home installing it could reap 1/3 off their heating bill, ostensibly forever. My panel is over twenty-five years old and still has over 60% of the original heat output. If I had the panel installed on my house the whole time, it would have saved me over 15K, enough to manufacture for all the homes on my side of the block!
Next, figure in the savings of not having to remove snow, ever, as long as your town is thriving. The heat budget for the melting system provided by a local industry, power generating station or mill. We may not be able to create Utopia, but can't we just use our heads to do what is best for everyone? It seems that we are always waking up to another way that the ultra wealthy have screwed us. The legacy of their greed and waste will burden many hundred more generations and it is with the quality of our lives that we subsidize their raping of Mother Earth. In our case, the City of Green Bay itself is at fault for rebuffing the industry that was interested in supporting the public good. We need to spend money in ways that will have incremental benefits over the longest periods of time. We hear about the WPA all the time these days. That was how we clawed our way out of the Depression. Many County Parks and nearly every State and National Park bears the beautiful marks of the patriotic citizens who helped pay for the WPA's passing. Not only the sweat and blood of the individual workers is worthy of remembering, but the industrialists whose funding made the worker's toil possible.
When we finally realize that paying taxes is a luxury afforded only the most successful that we will find the path to a more sustainable and equitable distribution of resources and only when we appropriately value the gifts of creator, will we find a path to peace, equitable distribution of wealth and highest quality of life for the greatest number of people. We are working with ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. a local not-for-profit organization that teaches sustainability and gives ECO-Tours, reforests denuded areas with native trees and advocates for ecologically sensitive development, design and production techniques. If you would like to invest in this important work, donate!
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