<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Psychosocial barriers to efficiency]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by stevenearlsalmony http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:24:12 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/1 Our dangerous devotion to a "business.....


...........as usual" status quo as well as our idolatry of unbridled global economic growth and outrageous per capita overconsumption could prove to be lethal for our children also to worship because these distinctly human activities could soon become patently unsustainable on a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet like the planetary home which God has blessed us to inhabit......and not to ravage as elders in my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation" have been advocating so religiously and doing so recklessly in these early years of Century XXI.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...





]]> Our dangerous devotion to a "business.....


...........as usual" status quo as well as our idolatry of unbridled global economic growth and outrageous per capita overconsumption could prove to be lethal for our children also to worship because these distinctly human activities could soon become patently unsustainable on a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet like the planetary home which God has blessed us to inhabit......and not to ravage as elders in my "Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation" have been advocating so religiously and doing so recklessly in these early years of Century XXI.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1 ...





]]> Comment #2 by markk http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/ Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:39:04 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/2 Lets talk about that cultural change

When it comes to energy consumption, America's energy future, and climate change the key word is change.  We need it.  The first step is to start discussing it and getting active in our communities.  We need dialogue.  Well you can help create town hall meetings on climate change and America's energy future all across the country.   Focus the Nation is currently enrolled in a competition of ideas at http://www.change.org.  Our idea is to hold town hall meetings on America's energy future and climate change in congressional districts across the country.  We at Focus the Nation are determined to build a bridge between the everyday voices of citizens, students, and activists and the powerful policy makers who will be deciding our energy future.  The winner of this competition will receive numerous resources including a large outreach and lobbying effort.  Please help our idea become a reality by going to: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/hold_nationwide_town_hal ...

Click vote in the upper left hand corner and then spread the word!!

FTN's last event, a national teach-in on climate change, educated nearly a million people at more than 1,900 events and catalyzed the conversation on global warming solutions with 64 members of Congress, 15 governors and countless local and state politicians. Now we are building off of that success to catalyze the shift toward a clean energy economy.

This would be a great opportunity to push clean, sustainable energy at the national level. So click the link below, and vote by clicking on the "Vote!" button in the upper left hand corner. Voting ends on Dec 31 at midnight Pacific time, so if you're interested, please make your voice heard ASAP.

]]> Lets talk about that cultural change

When it comes to energy consumption, America's energy future, and climate change the key word is change.  We need it.  The first step is to start discussing it and getting active in our communities.  We need dialogue.  Well you can help create town hall meetings on climate change and America's energy future all across the country.   Focus the Nation is currently enrolled in a competition of ideas at http://www.change.org.  Our idea is to hold town hall meetings on America's energy future and climate change in congressional districts across the country.  We at Focus the Nation are determined to build a bridge between the everyday voices of citizens, students, and activists and the powerful policy makers who will be deciding our energy future.  The winner of this competition will receive numerous resources including a large outreach and lobbying effort.  Please help our idea become a reality by going to: http://www.change.org/ideas/view/hold_nationwide_town_hal ...

Click vote in the upper left hand corner and then spread the word!!

FTN's last event, a national teach-in on climate change, educated nearly a million people at more than 1,900 events and catalyzed the conversation on global warming solutions with 64 members of Congress, 15 governors and countless local and state politicians. Now we are building off of that success to catalyze the shift toward a clean energy economy.

This would be a great opportunity to push clean, sustainable energy at the national level. So click the link below, and vote by clicking on the "Vote!" button in the upper left hand corner. Voting ends on Dec 31 at midnight Pacific time, so if you're interested, please make your voice heard ASAP.

]]> Comment #3 by Howard Silverman http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/ Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:55:59 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/3 rigidity

Great post, Dave.

I recently wrote a piece about rigidity traps:
http://www.peopleandplace.net/perspectives/60


]]> rigidity

Great post, Dave.

I recently wrote a piece about rigidity traps:
http://www.peopleandplace.net/perspectives/60


]]> Comment #4 by stopgreenpath http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/ Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:50:27 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/Change-hard/4 Big Enviros are Enabling this mess...

You look at unholy alliances of Big Enviros, looking for money, and Big Energy, looking for greenwashers, and you end up with CEERT, which is destroying California by insisting on siting 3,000 miles of new, unneeded, extremely toxic, unreliable and expensive transmission lines and hundreds of massive, remote power plants to "meet CA's RPS" while REFUSING to promote efficiency or point of use generation, in fact, denying that either can or will exist in our future, which, since they are in charge, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Add to that, they blatantly lied in their recent 200-page report, by PRETENDING that 2 extremely controversial power lines in very expensive, fragile regions are ALREADY PERMITTED AND BUILT, even though neither is even close.  By perpetuating this lie, they are suddenly able to site all kinds of pet project for their Big Energy paymasters in places that would otherwise be environmentally and economically impossible.  Isn't that sweet?  This is Sierra Club and NRDC, folks - the only voting "Environmentalists" on the committee, since anyone who supported efficiency or point of use solutions to CA's energy needs was refused membership in RETI.

Add to that, the fact that Industrial Wind starting having tantrums when the truth about it's inefficiencies and environmental devastation was included, threatened to pull their money out of the CEERT coffers, and all of a sudden, Big Wind, which destroys 35-70 acres/MW, only destroys 3% of that.  as if the desert tortoise is cool living on a new road, instead of in its burrow, eating the powerlines instead of the no-longer-existing plants.

So, maybe it's not just "big business" that is the problem. maybe it's the people we have entrusted the conservation of our fragile ecosystems to, who are betraying us and the planet for their new buddies in Big Energy.  Check out the "roadmap to renewables" at Sierra Club's website and do the math.  Roughly 4 million acres of wilderness will be permanently destroyed in their version of saving the wilderness.  

My version, of course, which focuses on point of use solutions and local generation, kills no wilderness, empowers and engages people, economically rescues property values, jobs and dwindling incomes, wastes no precious water, increases conservation (when people are getting paid feed in tariffs, they cut back more than with any other conservation program), and chips away at the monopolies which are destroying our economy and our environment.

So what'll it be?  Business as usual, with remote generation, lengthy transmission, eco-death and ratepayer hijacking, or clean power and energy independence?  it's a zero sum game...

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

]]> Big Enviros are Enabling this mess...

You look at unholy alliances of Big Enviros, looking for money, and Big Energy, looking for greenwashers, and you end up with CEERT, which is destroying California by insisting on siting 3,000 miles of new, unneeded, extremely toxic, unreliable and expensive transmission lines and hundreds of massive, remote power plants to "meet CA's RPS" while REFUSING to promote efficiency or point of use generation, in fact, denying that either can or will exist in our future, which, since they are in charge, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Add to that, they blatantly lied in their recent 200-page report, by PRETENDING that 2 extremely controversial power lines in very expensive, fragile regions are ALREADY PERMITTED AND BUILT, even though neither is even close.  By perpetuating this lie, they are suddenly able to site all kinds of pet project for their Big Energy paymasters in places that would otherwise be environmentally and economically impossible.  Isn't that sweet?  This is Sierra Club and NRDC, folks - the only voting "Environmentalists" on the committee, since anyone who supported efficiency or point of use solutions to CA's energy needs was refused membership in RETI.

Add to that, the fact that Industrial Wind starting having tantrums when the truth about it's inefficiencies and environmental devastation was included, threatened to pull their money out of the CEERT coffers, and all of a sudden, Big Wind, which destroys 35-70 acres/MW, only destroys 3% of that.  as if the desert tortoise is cool living on a new road, instead of in its burrow, eating the powerlines instead of the no-longer-existing plants.

So, maybe it's not just "big business" that is the problem. maybe it's the people we have entrusted the conservation of our fragile ecosystems to, who are betraying us and the planet for their new buddies in Big Energy.  Check out the "roadmap to renewables" at Sierra Club's website and do the math.  Roughly 4 million acres of wilderness will be permanently destroyed in their version of saving the wilderness.  

My version, of course, which focuses on point of use solutions and local generation, kills no wilderness, empowers and engages people, economically rescues property values, jobs and dwindling incomes, wastes no precious water, increases conservation (when people are getting paid feed in tariffs, they cut back more than with any other conservation program), and chips away at the monopolies which are destroying our economy and our environment.

So what'll it be?  Business as usual, with remote generation, lengthy transmission, eco-death and ratepayer hijacking, or clean power and energy independence?  it's a zero sum game...

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

]]>