Continuing on my journey, I wish to call for the greatness in people.
I was undoubtedly motivated and disturbed last night. I boarded a airplane just like I have every Thanksgiving and like always stood in long lines of families flying all over the world to see loved ones. Cars driving from all over Tri-State area to an airport, people funneling like sheep through to their gates. All just to board a plan for vacation, for the 4 day weekend at highly inflated prices. Once everyone is herded, they board a 300,000 pound plan bound for a city that is not their ultimate destination(there is so much fuel used to pick that plane up). We cut through the 30,000 altitude on a clear night. After a short conversation with my wife, I glanced out the window only to street lights for hundreds of miles. I don't believe I have ever seen such a far distance from a plane before (there was a heavy rain the night before). To look out on civilization growing for many years planned around the capabilities of car, was disturbing. There will be a lot of hurdles to cross on our path to become a more clean energy dominated economy. Almost every single neighborhood was planned in the 50's or late 90's. All when gas was cheap. Housing sprawl followed what was convenient for car commutes, based on old highway designs. Where does this take us?
Well for starters: I believe very strongly that America will rise to the greatest occasion in history and take a leadership role in growing & developing a sustainable economy based on clean & renewable energy. I believe this country has to to stay competitive throughout the world in the coming years. We can not take this for granted, we may have the greatest accumulation of brain power and in turn innovation. But, we have a infrastructure based on 1950's models. Outside of efficient commuting cities in the country (San Fransisco, New York, etc) all else is based on cheap energy to propel a car. How do we overcome such a hurdle and don't allow a country that has very innovative thinkers, a dictator in leadership (democracy is always slow to change because everyone wants to give their input), or abundant resources that have not been entirely exploited yet to step into our role? That is our challenge and the longer we wait, the harder old habits will take to overcome.
Who has suggestions?
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
A note worth reading
I decided that I needed to start this blog somehow. Of all that is going on in this world what would I start writing about? Well... How about a excellent chapter I read in my new book, Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded.
I just tackled a chapter, which title reads 'Petro-Dictatorship'. Which outlined the effects our energy consumption to unstable mineral-exporting rich countries. These nations have the luxury to be lazy in reform due to windfall profits from huge mineral deposits, in particular oil. With strong supporting information, the conclusion was that a nation will only want reform when they are forced into it. Otherwise the elite will oppress the weak and poor, financed by the large mineral exports. Oil slows reforms due to the money it provides for a country. That money allows dictators to 'silence' opposition, subsidize industries that would otherwise fail, and buy time to address real issues later on.
I have noticed over the past few months that the price of oil has been going down. Some of this was due to the past election, some from US consumers curbing their driving habits, but mostly from the loss of speculation in the market. The one and most important thing that came out of last summer's $150+ barrel price of oil was the sweeping realization that change in old habits is needed. Americans have spent the last few years propping up dictators with oil revenue. I don't know why it took so long for us to see our present economic situation brewing, or trouble ideological-oppressive religious states given there are many factors to it's stumble, the most important being our energy policy.
When I hear the words 'sustainable economic development' I think growth in moderation. Planning for unforeseen & predictable problems through strong economic policy and guidance. It is to view the world as one system, and the worlds economy as a subsystem. This means the overall health of our planet is immediately dictated by the size of the worlds economy. I believe it is inevitable that once the economy becomes X size, there will be no resources left to continue it's growth. We are talking about a closed system, size is definite, but not yet defined.
This leads me into energy policy. The harvesting of energy is essential for every economic system in place. To consume all of a finite resource, that is very efficient (oil) is unintelligent. To waste in the name growth, & hinder future possibilities of sustained growth sounds again, unintelligent. We have the resources available to us to use less of a non-renewable resource. Combining innovative & localized harnessing of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, & supplementing these with oil where they won't work is the correct direction. What would need to be done is an outlined plan for energy development, investing today to make these resources more efficient. This would curb our appetite on oil, and allow greater sustained growth of our economy by using what is abundant and free before what is limited and non-renewable.
If we use up what took mother nature millions of years to brew, how will our economy continue to flourish? We live in 1950's infrastructure developed in the direction of ZERO knowledge about oil life cycle. The more we rely on oil to fuel our economic development the harder it will be to get off of it. It is like an addict, and we are on step 1, just beginning to admit the problem. The faster we tone down that addiction to unsustainable growth, the quicker we will prepare ourselves for the next 100 years. So this becomes a call to action, most will want to call upon Barack Obama, but that is not the correct place. It has to be a call to ourselves, a call that causes us to reduce our wasteful consumption. A call to strive and be better, and a call to demand that change of our leaders. Our leaders only do what they think is most beneficial to our county, and most believe that is saving our wallets by providing cheap oil. That mindset only re-affirms the addict.
So what will you do?.... Make a pledge.
I just tackled a chapter, which title reads 'Petro-Dictatorship'. Which outlined the effects our energy consumption to unstable mineral-exporting rich countries. These nations have the luxury to be lazy in reform due to windfall profits from huge mineral deposits, in particular oil. With strong supporting information, the conclusion was that a nation will only want reform when they are forced into it. Otherwise the elite will oppress the weak and poor, financed by the large mineral exports. Oil slows reforms due to the money it provides for a country. That money allows dictators to 'silence' opposition, subsidize industries that would otherwise fail, and buy time to address real issues later on.
I have noticed over the past few months that the price of oil has been going down. Some of this was due to the past election, some from US consumers curbing their driving habits, but mostly from the loss of speculation in the market. The one and most important thing that came out of last summer's $150+ barrel price of oil was the sweeping realization that change in old habits is needed. Americans have spent the last few years propping up dictators with oil revenue. I don't know why it took so long for us to see our present economic situation brewing, or trouble ideological-oppressive religious states given there are many factors to it's stumble, the most important being our energy policy.
When I hear the words 'sustainable economic development' I think growth in moderation. Planning for unforeseen & predictable problems through strong economic policy and guidance. It is to view the world as one system, and the worlds economy as a subsystem. This means the overall health of our planet is immediately dictated by the size of the worlds economy. I believe it is inevitable that once the economy becomes X size, there will be no resources left to continue it's growth. We are talking about a closed system, size is definite, but not yet defined.
This leads me into energy policy. The harvesting of energy is essential for every economic system in place. To consume all of a finite resource, that is very efficient (oil) is unintelligent. To waste in the name growth, & hinder future possibilities of sustained growth sounds again, unintelligent. We have the resources available to us to use less of a non-renewable resource. Combining innovative & localized harnessing of wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, & supplementing these with oil where they won't work is the correct direction. What would need to be done is an outlined plan for energy development, investing today to make these resources more efficient. This would curb our appetite on oil, and allow greater sustained growth of our economy by using what is abundant and free before what is limited and non-renewable.
If we use up what took mother nature millions of years to brew, how will our economy continue to flourish? We live in 1950's infrastructure developed in the direction of ZERO knowledge about oil life cycle. The more we rely on oil to fuel our economic development the harder it will be to get off of it. It is like an addict, and we are on step 1, just beginning to admit the problem. The faster we tone down that addiction to unsustainable growth, the quicker we will prepare ourselves for the next 100 years. So this becomes a call to action, most will want to call upon Barack Obama, but that is not the correct place. It has to be a call to ourselves, a call that causes us to reduce our wasteful consumption. A call to strive and be better, and a call to demand that change of our leaders. Our leaders only do what they think is most beneficial to our county, and most believe that is saving our wallets by providing cheap oil. That mindset only re-affirms the addict.
So what will you do?.... Make a pledge.
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