Comments sjg has made

  • Preparing for Peak Oil and Global Warming

    I looked at the list but mostly it didn't seem to
    list actions that I personally can take.  It is
    more directed at governments.  Here is my own list
    from May 2008
    How to prepare for peak oil and global warming:

    0)  Have fewer children
        The lower the global population, the better off we will be,
      especially in developing nations.  Have fewer children than
      you think you can afford, because rough economic times are coming.

    1)  Conserve energy
     a   Drive less, bike more, get a hybrid car (mine gets 51mpg).
     b   Live in efficient housing (better insulated, compact, solar heated)
            power your house with renewable electricity (wind, solar)
     c   Eat less energy intensive food, home grown, local, organic, no
            meat or dairy from CAFOs, no bottled water.  Cook at home.
     d   Avoid wasteful consumerism, especially bulky products shipped
            long distances.  Buy durable products and repair them.
     e   Recycle glass, metal, plastic and paper.  Compost organic waste.
            Conserve water.

    2)  Build social networks
     a   Meet local farmers and ranchers and patronize them.
     b   Befriend your neighbors, trade skills and food with them.
     c   Join local organizations that encourage sustainable practices -
           public transit, food and utility assistance for the poor,
           and job training programs to ease economic changes.
     d   Vote for politicians who comprehend the major issues of
           overpopulation, peak oil and global warming and support
           meaningful action.

    3)  Prepare for difficult economic times
     a   Save as much money as possible, pay off all debts.
     b   Invest in land as well as US and international stocks and bonds.
     c   Invest in efficient housing and transportation.
     d   Develop skills that don't depend on the global economy (like
            construction, sewing, gardening, hunting, repair services).

    As you can tell, my list is for non-vegetarian
    human beings who live in a low enough population
    density that hunting is reasonable.  Rural areas
    like ours also require personal transportation,
    because there are not enough people to support
    public transportation.  I drive to work, in
    support of goal 3, and I am going to keep doing
    that as long as possible, but I've cut down the
    fuel devoted to driving as much as possible. I
    know that I have no ability to predict the future.
    But all the things on this list are fine to do no
    matter what.   Some people think that the stock
    market is down for good, we have entered a new
    economic era and all economic growth will end.  I
    doubt this, which is why I still invest, but I
    have invested in a solar house an hybrid car too.
    If this downturn is comparable to the great
    depression, I'll be fine.
                 Cheers,
                      SusannaOn Kunstler's tips to prepare for a post-oil society posted 11 months, 1 week ago 83 Responses

  • What Kunstler wrote

    Kunstler wrote in "The Long Emergency"

    "Based on everything we know right now, no combination of so-called
    alternative fuels or energy procedures will allow us to maintain daily
    life in the United States the way we have been accustomed to running it
    under the regime of oil.  No combination of alternative fuels will even
    permit us to operate a substantial fraction of the systems we currently
    run - in everything from food production and manufacturing to electric  
    power generation, to skyscraper cities, to the ordinary business of
    running a household by making multiple car trips per day, to the
    operation of giant centralized schools with their fleets of yellow
    busses. We are in trouble.

    ....

    "You can't manufacture metal wind turbines using wind energy technology.
    You can't make lead-acid storage batteries for solar electric systems  
    using any know solar energy systems.

    ....

    "Technology is just the hardware and programming for running that fuel,
    but not the fuel itself.  And technology is still bound to the laws of
    physics and thermodynamics, which both say that you can't get something
    for nothing, and there is no such thing as perpetual motion.  All of  
    this is to say that much of our existing technology simply won't work  
    without petroleum, and without the petroleum ``platform'' to work off,  
    we may lack the tools to get beyond the current level of fossil-fuel    
    based technology.

    ....

    "The Rocky Mountain region probably contains more political extremists
    and cryptoreligious zealots per capita than any other region of the
    country.  Its remote valleys and mountain keeps are home to a breed of
    of super-individualists who abhor authority and harbor paranoid
    fantasies about Jews, blacks, Catholics, foreigners, and the ``New World
    Order''.  The Long Emergency will stoke their paranoia and make the
    places that they control extremely dangerous.  Though many fancy
    themselves survivalists, they will discover the hard way just how
    dependant they actually are on fossil fuels and high technology, and
    within a relatively short period of time, an inability to grow food will
    drive all but a few out of the mountains.

    ....

    "Adolescence as we have known it could disappear and childhood will    
    afford fewer special protections.  Reestablished traditional divisions
    of labor may undo many of the putative victories of the femanist
    revolution.  In the context of new circumstances, these altered
    relations will come to seem normal and inevitable.
        These are daunting and even dreadful prospects.  If there is any  
    positive side to the stark changes coming our way, it may be in the
    benefits of close communal relations, of having to really work
    intimately (and physically) with our neighbors, to be part of an
    enterprise that really matters, and to to be fully engaged in meaningful
    social enactments instead of being merely entertained to avoid boredom.
    The idea of beauty will surely return from its modernist exile, as one
    of the few consolations in the years ahead will be our ability to
    conciously craft things for reasons other than to shock and astonish.  I
    believe that cases of what we label "clinical depression" in our effort
    to medicalize all aspects of the human condition, will be steeply
    reduced, despite universal hardship.  When we hear singing at all, we
    will hear ourselves, and we will sing with our whole hearts."

    He certainly writes glowingly of traditional societies, and he says that
    women's liberation will end, and we will have child labor.  He seems to
    be saying that very little industrial production can be done without
    oil.  That's somewhat difficult to disprove, since factories are very
    price-sensitive and tend to do things the cheapest way, whatever that
    is.   Here's a little news item that suggests it can be done:

    http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/tech-watch/g ...

    He tries to argue that renewable technologies are like a perpetual
    motion machine, they get something for nothing.  This is utter hogwash.
    Our solar panels replaced the embodied energy of their manufacture
    probably less than a year after we installed them.  I've got a study
    that showed solar panels in Holland replace their embodied energy in 2  
    years, and we have much more sunlight.  The power contained in sunlight
    striking the Earth in a year is about 7000 times as great as energy
    content of all the fuel and electricity consumed in 2005.  Admittedly,
    solar power is a bit more expensive than power from coal.  Comparing
    retail prices, it seems to be about a factor of 3.  I don't think
    spending three times as much for electricity would bring about the end
    of the world as we know it.  Wind is even cheaper.  And I think if solar
    power can run an automobile assembly line, it ought to be capable of  
    powering a wind-generator plant.
    He's got this strange idea of the entire West chock full of bigots,
    without a farmer or rancher to be found.

    The final quote suggests the author needs more human contact and
    meaningful work.  Since he is lonely, bored and depressed, he thinks all
    modern people are lonely, bored and depressed.  
    He is really looking forward to the future he predicts.  Most of us work at jobs
    that we consider meaningful, we are not professional couch potatoes.
    It's amusing how he confuses modern art with modern technology.  He must
    have no exposure to the myriad artists and craft-people alive in the
    world today who are not modernist.  It is clear that he believes that we
    won't have any audio recordings made or used in the future, and that
    implies a very drastic loss of technology on all levels.  He simply says
    nothing about life expectancy.
    On Kunstler's tips to prepare for a post-oil society posted 11 months, 1 week ago 83 Responses

  • automobile carnage

    How much carnage to cars actually cause?  I am a guilty party myself.  
    About 1.5 deaths result from every 100 million miles traveled in the
    USA.  I got that from http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx. If
    the average person travels 15,000 miles per year, then their total
    exposure is about 1/10,000 per year.   How does this compare to other          
    risks?  39% of the fatalities were alcohol-related, so that strikes me          
    as an "easy" way to cut down.  Easy for me to say, of course, since I  
    don't drink.  What is the overall risk?  One way to estimate it is to
    compute the total fatality rate in the USA, which is about 1/78, from    
    all causes.  Automobiles cause about 8 tenths of 1% of this.  Accidents
    cause 4.7% of all deaths, 6.1% among men and 3.3% in women.   I got that
    from page 21 of http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_05.pdf.
    So automobile accidents are roughly 17% of all accidents.  There are a  
    lot of other things that are bigger considerations.  It's possible that
    driving so much has caused an increase in heart disease, stroke, and
    even cancer.  Those are the things that cause the most deaths, and the
    death rate from heart disease has fallen considerably in recent years,
    much more than it would if we eliminated all deaths from automobile    
    accidents.  If we all rode bicycles instead of cars, the death rate from
    accidents would probably increase, because bicycles offer considerably
    less protection against collision, and they are inherently less stable.
    Although the exercise might reduce the risk of heart disease, it isn't a
    sure thing, and anyone who actually knows a fair spectrum of human
    beings can tell you that they couldn't all ride a bicycle.  Just as not
    everyone can (or should) drive, not everyone can ride a bicycle.  It            
    takes a certain level of fitness and coordination to ride.  I think it's        
    dreadfully unrealistic to expect everyone to give up automobiles.  It is
    about as realistic as expecting everyone to give up alcohol.  We could
    greatly reduce our risk of accidents, child abuse, homocide, heart        
    disease and liver failure if we all gave up alcohol.  It requires a
    little knowledge of humanity and history to appreciate how impractical a
    suggestion that is.  I think we shouldn't waste large amounts of energy
    trying to push for impractical things.  Now, campaigns to reduce driving
    are a whole different thing.  That really can work, almost all of us can
    drive less, save money and reduce pollution.

    James Kunstler advocates a return to pre-industrial society, with a life
    expectancy less than half of what we have now.  If you are worried about safety,
    you ought to oppose such a move.

    Cheers,
                SusannaOn Kunstler's tips to prepare for a post-oil society posted 11 months, 1 week ago 83 Responses

  • style vs efficiency

    I agree with GreenEngineer's main point.  I think that green architecture often is interpreted in artistic terms, when the best yardstick is energy consumption per person, and popularity (so you get the most people).  I think our house, described at http://strike.colorado.edu/land is the opposite of Arcosanti, it doesn't try to be stylish, it uses an utterly standard modular house that's cheap on top of a very simple variation on a standard concrete basement, and it is more efficient than most fancy architectural designs.   Our energy intensity index is around 0.5 BTU/(sq ft HDD), or 1.0 in you include all energy used  (its all solar PV).  People enjoy style, but its not necessarily related to efficiency, and it can be very expensive.  If we're going to get a lot more efficient, it has to be something the average American can afford and appreciate.

            Cheers,
                  Susanna GrossOn Bridging architecture and ecology at Arcosanti posted 1 year, 2 months ago 4 Responses

  • cruise control on mountain passes with a HCH

    Hi All,
        I agree that the effectiveness of cruise
    control depends on the driver and the car, but
    I would also like to offer my own experience
    driving in mountains with a Honda Civic Hybrid
    and using cruise control almost all the time.
    It really does save a lot of gas, even over
    mountain passes.  I average 51MPG, and I drive
    Kenosha, Trout Creek and Poncha passes every
    week on US 285 in Colorado.  My car is a manual,
    which means I need to select the right gear for
    the terrain.  With a tiny 1.3 liter engine I can
    accelerate from 35 to 50 up a 7% grade using the
    resume button on my cruise control.  I have found
    that I need to do this in third gear, but that's
    fine, the engine doesn't redline until 6000 rpm.
    It's quite possible that my battries buffer the
    hills and make cruise control more effective. and
    having a manual transmission means I can inform
    the car about the terrain ahead even with cruise
    control.
                Cheers,
                      Susanna GrossOn Umbra on cruise control posted 1 year, 2 months ago 8 Responses

  • home grown chicken

    Hi All,
        This year we're raising our own chicken.
    This is not the cheap choice, because of all
    the things we needed to buy and build to make
    it possible.  But we did that last year, and
    we are still eating the chickens we killed
    last fall.  This year the feed has gone up,
    it's about 35 cents a pound.  Chicks are
    about $3 each, and so the final product is
    going to cost us about $2/lb live weight
    and maybe $3/lb after cleaning.  That's
    closer to Trader Joe's prices than the super
    market, but it's nice to know my chicken got
    plenty of room to run around, socialize and
    hunt insects.  There isn't very much pollution
    associated with raising your own chickens
    either, they taste great, and we have lots
    of good fresh eggs to eat too.  We had to
    design an insulated brood box because our
    electrical system couldn't power a 250W bulb
    24/7.  We're off the grid, and totally solar
    powered.  A heat lamp on a thermostat did the
    trick for keeping the chicks warm.
                Cheers,
                     Susanna GrossOn What people cling to when the going gets tough posted 1 year, 4 months ago 6 Responses

  • lower cost solar

    We've made a web page about our house at
    http://strike.colorado.edu/solar.  The
    basic house was $80K, ordered from Guerdon
    manufactured homes in Idaho.  The solar
    heat comes from our solar basement, which
    is covered by windows on the south, and
    can get pretty hot.  It did cost a bit more
    than a conventional basement, because of
    the windows and extra insulation it has.
    Maybe it cost $30K more?  I am not sure,
    because our contractor did not itemize.
    The solar electricity was about $20K, and
    it doesn't have a grid intertie.  We do
    conserve electricity, although we run a PC
    24 hours a day, and we have a regular electric
    fridge from Sears.  We don't have a generator
    or any wood burning appliance.  For the details,
    go ahead and download the seminar slides in PDF
    from our website.  We have made an effort
    to quantify our solar heating system especially
    but the solar electricity is quite conventional,
    especially for our neighborhood.On Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell posted 2 years, 1 month ago 39 Responses

  • Listen to the psychologists!

    I really really agree with this letter, and I disagree with the disparaging view of voluntary action expressed in the Tidwell column.  In my own life I have seen the power of a modest initial step, first getting efficient light bulbs, and building up to a solar heated and solar powered house and a hybrid car.  I do not think my personal actions are trivial, and I think Tidwell has an overly hopeful view of political action.  I vote for the environment every chance I get but I see no point in complaining to my legislators about the environment.  They already vote the way I prefer, for the most part.  I know it's boring to read about the same small first steps in the popular media.  That doesn't matter, because you and I are not the intended audience.  I also think that having earned a doctorate in a subject in no way disqualifies a person from expressing an opinion on that subject.  I suspect biodiversivist flunked out of college and is still mad about it.   Every time you are annoyed by the same small steps advocated by ABC news, just come to the Grist and compare notes with your peers.  My house is 100% solar powered and 90% solar heated.  It didn't cost a lot to build either.  I spent $17K on a car that gets 52MPG.  That doesn't seem expensive to me.  I know where to buy beef that has never caused environmental damage, because it was raised entirely on grass, never taken to a feed lot, and it tastes absolutely great and is healthier for you.  Anyone know where to get environmentally responsible fish?  
             Cheers,
                   Susanna GrossOn Social scientists respond to Mike Tidwell posted 2 years, 2 months ago 39 Responses

  • Grass fed beef tastes great!

    I'd like to correct a small error in the post
    by synarchy.  We purchase and eat a quarter
    of a grass-fed steer each year.  It's tender
    and tastes great!  I'd agree that extra fat is
    one way to make meat tender, but it is not the
    only way.  Our Diamond F local beef is selected
    for tenderness, and the steers are never fattened
    on grain.  This makes them much better for the
    environment, health, and local agriculture.  I
    am pretty sure you can order the meat online,
    just search for it.
                  Cheers,
                        SusannaOn It's only natural posted 2 years, 9 months ago 32 Responses

  • cars are not cigarettes

    Hi JMG,
       I think I sort of see your analogy.  Since
    hybrid cars do still burn some gasoline, they
    are not 100% wonderful, and therefore they are
    bad, should be gotten rid of, not improved at
    all.  You compare them to the recreational drug
    tobacco, which causes cancer.  I don't think the
    comparison is very apt, since all recreational
    drugs are optional, and transportation is not.
    I would be delighted if there were better mass
    transit in the places I live, but I cannot create
    it by myself.  You use zero-sum reasoning too.  If
    I had no car I would have less energy/funds to
    devote to conservation, because I would have no
    job.  My resources are not zero sum it's not a
    choice between cars and activism.  I am not an
    activist and couldn't become one if I tried.  It
    would be completely unnatural to my personality.
    I guess your choice for all of us would be to be
    unemployed, so we don't consume any gasoline.
    But it's not a humanly realistic choice.  It is worth
    thinking about what car to own if one must
    own a car.   Life is full of imperfect choices,
    trade-offs that compete for our resources and
    effort.  Since a hybrid car more than pays for
    itself, it cannot be accused of wasting those
    resources.  If I had the potential to be an
    activist, owning a hybrid car would not impede
    that in any way, it would get me to those rallies
    cheaply and with less pollution.  Similarly, if I
    buy the car it lets me purchase more CF lightbulbs
    than if I had not bought the car.  There is no
    trade-off between CFs and hybrid cars.
                 Cheers,
                       Susanna  On You may be surprised posted 2 years, 10 months ago 56 Responses

  • gas mileage and economics of hybrids

    Hello fellow Grist readers:

            I am also a hybrid car owner, of a 2003 Civic with manual
    transmission.  I have some arguments with the initial post (thank you  
    leszekp), but I also agree with a lot of what has been said here.  The
    EPA is not some cheat.  I have actually exceeded their highway estimate
    with my overall mileage, and I do drive under adverse conditions some of
    the time (in the city, below zero temperatures, snowstorms, mountain    
    passes, short trips and excessive speeds).  I average 52 miles per    
    gallon over 66 tanks, when the car is only supposed to get 51 on the
    highway.  Individual tanks vary from 42 to 60 mpg, manual method, and  
    the trip odometer usually reads about 4 mpg higher than that.  I agree
    that individual gas purchases (shut-off valve, temperature, etc) can
    cause inaccuracies, but I really do think that the manual method is the
    accurate one when you average many tanks.  The miles are the same in any
    case, and the gas pumps are required to deliver gas accurately, so I
    don't think they could all have the same bias.  I get good mileage
    because I drive rural highways at very modest speeds and I use the
    cruise control most of the time.  I keep the tires at 40 PSI, and I
    don't run the A/C often.

    I purchased the Civic because I wanted a car that handled well and got
    good highway mileage (in 2003 the Prius didn't rate quite so well).  I
    also didn't want to make a fashion statement, it's just not my style.  I
    don't like extra blinky lights on the dash to distract me.  I do not  
    think we as environmentalists should get huffy about fashion statements.
    It's a wonderful thing that the Prius has become so trendy, because it
    will result in less pollution and more fuel being saved.  I also think
    it's silly to disparage hybrids as being not the single best choice.
    There are dozens of ways to reduce our environmental impact, and they  
    are not equally relevent to the diversity of people who read the Grist.
    I couldn't get such good mileage if I didn't ride my bike to work every
    day.  Almost all conservation isn't an either/or proposition.  I also  
    have a solar powered and solar heated house.  I am fortunate to be able
    to afford these things.  Part of that fortune I created myself by living
    carefully, and having no children.  The Civic replaced a 1982 Subaru  
    that I had reupholstered by hand, and painted after fixing the rust.  My
    husband drives a 1983 Subaru when he drives at all.  Our solar house is
    also a mobile home.

    My Honda got us an $1815 Colorado HEV tax credit, supposedly 75% of the
    price difference.  We also got a $2000 tax deduction.  Without those it
    cost about $2420 more.  It gets 52 miles per gallon, and a regular Civic
    gets about 38 miles per gallon.  That's a 27% fuel savings.  The regular
    Civic might be expected to use about 2631 gallons in a 100K lifetime.  
    The hybrid Civic would use 1923 gallons, a savings of about 708 gallons.
    Without any tax breaks, the break-even gas price is $3.42 a gallon.  The
    tax deduction saved us about $500.  Including the deduction but not the
    credit our break-even gas price is $2.71, and with the tax credit and  
    the deduction the break-even gas price is 15 cents a gallon.  Clearly we
    made money on the purchase, but we would not have lost much, even
    without the tax credit.  I love my car and would have chosen it even if
    it were not a money-maker.

                    Cheers,
                            Susanna
    On You may be surprised posted 2 years, 10 months ago 56 Responses