March Of The Solar Powered Penguins
It’s a strange idea really, one that can only be explained if you can understand how my mind works - but so be it, the penguin has a solar panel, and this is why…
Last week I bought March Of The Penguins for my two daughters. I had never seen it before and thought it would be a nice nature documentary to entertain their eco-conscious minds, not realising that by the end of it I would be awe-struck by the incredible resilience and sheer survivability of this most exquisitely evolved creature. It’s aim is simple; to survive and create new life - by walking, sliding and shuffling 70 miles to a place where the ice is thick enough to bear the weight of the massed birds; surviving 2 months of almost motionless incubation whilst the female partner hunts for food with which to feed its new born chick; by circulating bodies in an astonishing ballet of temperature control, ensuring that no bird is exposed to the edge of the huddled mass long enough to freeze to death.
We mock the simplicity of animal lives, the “stupidity” of those creatures who have not reached the heights of our superior evolution - yet by our acts of superiority we destroy the very fragile environments which these marvels of instinctive behaviour have evolved to survive in. And the winter sun which so gently warms the eggs of the penguin to give them the energy to be born, we banish in our increasingly hot lands through our condensers, the effluent of burgeoning air conditioning in our homes, offices and cars, producing the very pollution that will cause the home of the penguins to tumble into the sea.
We squander our natural resources at our peril. That sun, beating down upon us, that is crying out to be harvested, stored and used, is just one more part of nature that has to be beaten. Yet if we had concentrated only a tiny proportion of the efforts that we have spent in exploring for oil, the technological breakthroughs in seismography, the engineering miracles that allow pipes to move through the oil bearing rocks to find the precious product of our animal past; then we could already have the ability to use solar energy as a normal part of our lives, rather than the desperate few watts that trickle into batteries from great sheets of silicon.
So let’s get on with it as a species and use the great brains we have. As a first effort, as a friend remarked to me today, let’s put solar panels on all of our cars, the very latest, most efficient types, constantly charging batteries, so that every car is effectively a hybrid. The auto-industry has the technology to move solar energy forwards decades, the lost decades spent tinkering with efficiency gains of a few percent.
If the penguins - those funny monochromatic, flightless birds - are able to use a tiny glance of the sun to bring life forth, then we should be able to use the same power to prevent life being taken. And use it NOW!
Keith Farnish
www.theearthblog.org
www.reduce3.com
And Proud Member Of The Sietch
Monday Confessional
So its Monday, and its my last day of work for my old job. A sad day because I will miss the people I have worked with for the last year. They have taught me so much, and I have been able to laugh and learn with them. It is also an exciting day because I will be starting my new job soon, and that promises to be full of adventure. Also I have set it up to give me a short period of breathing room in between both jobs. I will use this time to pack up (I am moving), get all my stuff together, and most importantly spend a lot of time with Tess. Because she is awesome. Anyway I have to get going or I am going to be late to my last day of work don’t want that now do we.
Sand Storm In Iraq
(via)
The Shane Doctrine
Over the last couple of years, observing the news, and the events unfolding on this planet I feel I have an answer to the Bush Doctrine (that being blow them up before they blow you up). I have unabashedly taken to calling it the “Shane Doctrine” but perhaps a more appropriate term would be “aggressive charity.”
It would go something like this.
1. We announce to the world that we are radically changing our response to Terrorism.
2. We let that sink in for a week or two.
3. We begin by air dropping food and water onto the poorest places in the middle east.
4. We continue this aggressive food/water drop until the local population is well fed.
5. Every time someone in that region threatens us we drop more food and water.
6. We drop all economic sanctions with everyone in the region and start selling all of our stuff to them at low cost.
7. Every time someone bombs us we drop more food and water, and ramp up our aid package to the region, if they do not bomb us, we increase the aid package by twice as much.
8. We make a law that the nations power supply must be replaced with renewable technology at the rate of 5% a year, we provide massive tax cuts to renewable energy retailers making solar panels and wind turbines almost free.
9. We mandate that any American business that wants to sell products/services in our country must give 1% of its profits to sustainable economic development of the third world.
10. We open our border to the worlds hungry and poor, take them in and give them a free education.
We pay for all this by reducing by 15% our military budget. Fighting a “war on terrorism” is like fighting a war on sadness. You can’t fight a war against a tactic, or a feeling. You have to fight the base cause of these problems. That base cause is poverty, hunger, and economic despair. If we combine a very large economic/food/aid package with a radical reduction in the amount of oil we use we will find that our interest in the middle east will shrink.
Responding to violence with food and money may seem like a foolish thing to do, but how is a radical cleric going to convince one of his followers to strap a bomb to there chest and blow up the people that are dropping food and water from the sky, and funding the roads and schools in town. Its easy to paint America as the “great Satan” because of our military actions, manipulation of governments, and our poor oil policies in the past.
It will be much harder to paint us in a negative picture if we start acting like an aggressive charity. We are going to bomb you with food/water/aid and you are going to buy our good/services for low cost, and we are going to pay for your education, and we are not going to buy your oil anymore. And you are going to like it!
As the middle east develops local infrastructure (aided by our own construction firms, and massive aid packages) we will lower our aid package, as they grow there own food we will stop dropping ours, as they stand up we will stand down!
The Constitution Article I Section 2 Clauses 3-5
Article I Section 2 Clauses 3, 4, 5
[3] [Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.]* The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within ever subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations** one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
[4] When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
[5] The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
*changed by the 14 amendment, section 2
** did you know this is the official name of Rhode Island, well now you do.
This part of the grand document sets out how many Reps will come from each state, and lays out how they will be chosen (one for every 30,000 people). It also lays out that a census should be taken every ten years, and that that number will be used to pick how many Reps a state gets. It gives the house the sole power of impeachment, and contains the infamous “three-fifths” compromise, later abolished by the 13-14-15 amendments.
Incidentally the term gerrymandering (the practice of drawing up districts so they contain all the votes most likely to vote for one party over another) comes from the efforts of Massachusetts Republicans to apportion legislative districts to favor their party in 1812. The name of the governor was Elbridge Gerry which a political cartoonist combined with the image of the mythical beast salamander to portray what the crazy districts lines looked like. Hence the Gerrymander.
This section lays out what each of the original states will have for Representatives, but does not draw the lines for the districts. That power is left to the states.
If a member of the house dies or resigns midterm the governor of that state can call for a special election, with a “writ of election” to fill that seat. Unlike the Senate where a governor can appoint a replacement no member of the house has ever served without being elected.
These clauses also authorizes the House to elect its own Speaker. The Speaker presides over its meetings or appoints another member to do so. By act of Congress the Speaker is next in line to become president if both the President and VP and unable to serve.
The power of impeachment (think of it as an indictment) requires only a simple majority in the House. A two-thirds vote in the Senate is then required to convict and remove from office the impeached official. If a president is impeached the chief justice of the United States presides over the trial in the Senate, not the VP as the VP has too much to gain and could be swayed.
Amazon Could Become Desert
How fucked are we if this happens? (via)
The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world’s climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year.
Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.
Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.
The alarming news comes in the midst of a heatwave gripping Britain and much of Europe and the United States. Temperatures in the south of England reached a July record of 36.3C on Tuesday. And it comes hard on the heels of a warning by an international group of experts, led by the Eastern Orthodox ” pope” Bartholomew, last week that the forest is rapidly approaching a ” tipping point” that would lead to its total destruction.
The research carried out by the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole centre in Santarem on the Amazon river has taken even the scientists conducting it by surprise. When Dr Dan Nepstead started the experiment in 2002 by covering a chunk of rainforest the size of a football pitch with plastic panels to see how it would cope without rain he surrounded it with sophisticated sensors, expecting to record only minor changes.The trees managed the first year of drought without difficulty. In the second year, they sunk their roots deeper to find moisture, but survived. But in year three, they started dying. Beginning with the tallest the trees started to come crashing down, exposing the forest floor to the drying sun.
By the end of the year the trees had released more than two-thirds of the carbon dioxide they have stored during their lives, helping to act as a break on global warming. Instead they began accelerating the climate change.
As we report today on pages 28 and 29, the Amazon now appears to be entering its second successive year of drought, raising the possibility that it could start dying next year. The immense forest contains 90 billion tons of carbon, enough in itself to increase the rate of global warming by 50 per cent.
Dr Nepstead expects “mega-fires” rapidly to sweep across the drying jungle. With the trees gone, the soil will bake in the sun and the rainforest could become desert.
Dr Deborah Clark from the University of Missouri, one of the world’s top forest ecologists, says the research shows that “the lock has broken” on the Amazon ecosystem. She adds: the Amazon is “headed in a terrible direction”.
But I guess we don’t have to worry because global warming is just made up by crazy scientists that need a job. I am sure these same people made up the ocean acidification scam, and the melting glacier scam, and the rising oceans scam.
The Constitution Article I Section 2 Clauses 1 - 2
Article I Section 2 Clauses 1-2
[1] The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
[2] No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of the State in which he shall be chosen.
Again pretty simple. This part sets out how the House is comprised and how the members are chosen. The members are chosen every two years by votes of each state, they have to be citizens for at least seven years, be 25 years old, and live in the state they want to run in.
It also lays out that states can not add any further controls on members of congress, such as term limits, special recall elections, etc as these provisions are not specified by the Constitution. It does allow the states to determine who is eligible to vote, as whatever requirements that are necessary to cast a vote for members of the larger house of the state legislature will be sufficient to vote for the U.S. House of Representatives.
In recent years the Supreme Court has ruled that the passage “by the people of the several states” along with parts of the 14th amendment, that each congressional district contain roughly the same number of people. This ensures that each person in America has an equal vote for a congressional election.
Justice Talking Wind Debate
Several days ago I got the chance to listen to Justice Talking tape a show here on Cape Cod. They were at the lovely Chatham Bars Inn (the first time I ever got my car parked for me). The show will air on the local NPR stations CAI/NAN on Sat, Aug 12 at 4pm.
The debate was over wind power in general, but this being Cape Cod, it didn’t take long for the debate to move over to Cape Wind.
First up was Robert Righter. A research professor of history at Southern Methodist University and a author of numerous books on environmental issues, including “Wind Energy in America: A history.” Frankly I was unimpressed with Mr Righter. He was obviously placed on the show to provide some sort of historical frame to the debate. Instead he sort of rambled on and on.
After Mr Righter was done, the real “debate” started. I say “debate” because it was more of a discussion. There was no set debate style rules as you would get in a political event. For the anti-wind side Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, and for the the pro-wind side John Passacantando executive director of Greenpeace USA and co-found of Ozone Action.
I was mostly amused by what Mr. Taylor said. He is clearly a libertarian style republican. He thinks that we should have no regulation, on anything, and that the sacred market will fix all problems. I was a little disappointed in Mr. Passacantando, he let several really easy to debunk things slide past him. He had a good grasp on the big picture of wind energy but lacked (or failed to display) knowledge of some of the more technical aspects that I thought would have made his point stronger.
The debate seemed to quickly degrade into the familiar cape wind debate. Anyone who has been living on Cape Cod knows at least some of the arguments pro and con regarding cape wind. Let me simplify it for you. One side doesn’t want the wind farm, they argue that it will ruin the sound, kill birds, wreck fishing, and if you press them, that they don’t like the way it might look. The other side wants the wind farm because they worry that global warming will ruin the sound, kill birds, wreck fishing, and they like the way it might look.
In the effort of total disclosure I have to say that I think the arguments against Cape Wind are very weak, and boil down to the view issue. I have some sympathy for these people, who doesn’t like seeing nature in all its pristine glory. However, as a young person I have to think about what the earth is going to be like in 50-100 years if we don’t start thinking about what we are doing to the planet. Our energy needs have to come from someplace, and oil and coal and nuclear seem to be worse options than solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, bio-fuels and small scale hydro.
The night was spent with the usual yahoo’s. The windstop.org guy was there and got SHUT DOWN by Mr. Passacantando. Mark Rogers and Charles Vinic were there, both had interesting soft balls to throw at there chosen debater. People asked questions and made statements. After they had lovely little things to eat that all tasted expensive. I scored some free buttons and books, and was lucky enough to talk with several of the speakers.
The real debate about wind energy on Cape Cod should boil down to two questions.
1. Do we continue to use electricity?
2. If so, how do we get it?
Question one is pretty easy to answer. We are going to continue to use electricity for the foreseeable future. Two is a little more difficult to answer.
I will be the first to tell you that wind energy has negative aspects to it. It only works when the wind blows, turbines can and do kill birds, if placed in the wrong spots they can cause navigation and travel issues. But if we are honest with ourselves will will see that the negatives of wind energy are far less negative than other energy options. With proper placement most of these problems go away. If we go with oil/gas we have to get it from some other nation, often hostile. We have to worry about global warming, oil spills, gas explosions, cancer, asthma, ocean acidification, and many other nasty things. If we use coal, we have all the same global warming issues as oil/gas (more so), but we also have to worry about mountain top removal, acid rain, cancer and even more asthma. If we go nuclear we have to worry about mining the uranium, moving it around, what to do with the nuclear waste, three mile island, Chernobyl, dirty bombs and a host of other questions about radiation cancer and other nasty problems.
Wind energy is not going to solve all of our problems, but it makes a grand first step towards solving these problems. We can use wind energy to prolong our supplies of cheap fossil fuels. Making our reserves last longer until we can figure out how to stop using them all together. In the short term wind energy can be matched with gas fired power plants so that when the wind is blowing we can turn down the gas plants, and when the wind stops we can turn the gas plants back up. We can combine wind with solar (its almost always windy when its not sunny, and sunny when its not windy). We can develop storage techniques to store energy from the wind to use when its not windy. We can use the experience gathered from near shore turbines to build deep water turbines.
In short wind energy wins this debate hands down.
Sundancer Wins Again!
These guys are like the Lance Armstrong of student solar cars. The Sundancer solar car team raced away with the Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge open division championship trophy at Texas Motor Speedway. This is the sixth consecutive year the team from Houston, Mississippi (population 4,079) has taken home first place honors at the competition.
Through the challenge’s four days and seven racing periods, the Sundancer solar car traveled more than 619 miles (413 laps), more laps than the 13 other cars competing in the race. Sundancer averaged a speed of almost 30 mph and reached a top speed of approximately 60 mph during the race.
“The competition this year was tough,” said team captain Leigh Springer. “There were several new teams at the race and some of the older teams really improved their cars. However, our redesign of Sundancer’s body, some new solar cells from SCHOTT, and great teamwork gave us the edge we needed to keep our winning streak alive.”
More Than Just a Race
The Dell-Winston School Solar Car Challenge is the largest solar car competition in the United States. In the challenge, teams of high school students from around the world design, build and race cars powered exclusively by sunlight. Dell, Inc. is the title sponsor of the annual competition.
This year’s Sundancer team is comprised of 15 high school students from the Houston Vocational Center in Houston, Mississippi. The school’s Sundancer program allows students to gain valuable engineering and business skills, all within the context of the booming renewable energy industry.
“Every time we win, it’s a joy to see the confidence and self-esteem that the kids have.” said team coach Keith Reese. “That is something you can’t teach.”
The Dell-Winston Solar Car Challenge has taught more than 3,000 participating students about technology, teamwork, problem-solving and commitment – skills they’ll need to compete in the 21st century economy – and has inspired thousands of others to get involved in long-term science projects.
A SCHOTT Winning Streak
Since switching to SCHOTT Solar photovoltaic PV cells in 2001, the Sundancer team has not lost a challenge. The 856 SCHOTT Solar PV cells used in this year’s car were manufactured at the company’s 20 Megawatt (MW) PV production facility in Billerica, Mass. SCHOTT Solar is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of PV cells, modules, and supplies.
Sundancer Specifications
Powered exclusively by solar energy, this year’s Sundancer weights 356 kg, and is 5 meters long, 1.8 meters wide and 1 meter high. Energy from the SCHOTT Solar cells is stored in nine Power Sonic batteries, which feed electricity to an 8 hp SLC150 New Generation Motor. The car was built entirely by high school students.
You can read more about the Sundancer team’s experiences building and preparing the car and at the race itself at www.sundancersolarcar.blogspot.com
Monday Confessional
Its a sad time. A lot of my friends will be moving away soon. To start new jobs, go to school, that sort of thing. Tess will still be around, and that keeps me happy. I don’t know what I would do without that girl. She is amazing.
I will be starting a new job soon. Going to be able to get my hands dirty, get out and do some good for the world. I feel like my last job was good, but I was stuck behind a desk all day. I did good for the world, but it was good by proxy. My actions were not directly involved. I am looking forward to getting things done again.
Busy busy my life seems to be so busy. It will be nice to say no to a couple of things and get back to a simpler time. Just hang out with Tess, go to the beach, save the world. You know, narrow my goals down to just a few.
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