Earth Hour, and a 30 terrawatt thirst

We turned the lights out Saturday at 8pm for Earth Hour. I made certain to turn off the computer and printer at the wall, disconnect the router, turn off the microwave clock, and unplug the wireless network receiver and television set. I turned down the heat.

I probably missed a few. The exercise made me realize how many appliances are actually on at any one time.

Of course Earth Hour was a symbolic act, but symbols can hold potency in and of themselves.

... human activities, in energy terms, right now are essentially a 12.8 trillion watt light bulb. Our energy thirst will probably be 30 trillion watts, or 30 terrawatts, by 2050 with the human population heading toward 9 billion.

If that energy is supplied with coal and oil, an overheated planet is almost assured.

One hypothetical (and impossible) menu for getting those 18 additional terawatts without emissions from coal and oil:

- Cut down every plant on Earth and make it into a fuel. You get 7 terawatts, but you need 30. And you don’t eat.

- Build nuclear plants. Around 8 terawatts could be gotten from nuclear power if you built a new billion-watt plant every 1.6 days until 2050.

- Take all the wind energy available close to Earth’s surface and you get 2 terawatts.

- You get 1 more terawatt if you dam every other river on the planet and reach 30.

Daniel G. Nocera, a chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, addressing the Aspen Environmental Forum last week.

He described what he said was an achievable energy future — if the world engages seriously in pursuing scientific, technological and policy advances that are needed to make sunlight into usable energy cheaply.

“If you take sunlight plus water, that equals oil plus coal plus methane.”

“With the right investments in science and the right policy you’ll have a house with shingles generating your electricity during the day when the sun’s out,” he said. “You’ll take the extra electricity and, if battery technology works, you’ll put it in batteries. Or you’ll put it in chemical fuels like I want to do." <...>

... the sun bathes the planet in 800 terawatts of energy continually. We only need 18 of those terawatts. But the current level of investment in pursuing that energy isn’t even close to sufficient.

The ethos of the New Deal is gone, part 2.

Prior to 1932 the US, despite its lofty democratic foundation, offered the mass of its citizens not a whole hell of a lot more than, say, India. More or less, people were on their own. There was a tiny overclass, a vast underclass, and a group who were actively oppressed—in some cases enslaved. They scratched out an existence on the farms or in the factories, their kids took care of them when they were too old to work, and if they were lucky, they died of “natural causes” because they didn’t have more than a country doctor to attend to minor ailments. The radical transformation of the 20th Century came with the recognition that this Darwinian existence could be ameliorated by pooling resources.

The New Deal created for the first time in history a culture of generosity. Our well-being was interconnected. The cultural benefits this produced were profound: we built a war machine that depended on an inconceivable amount of cooperation and generosity; we built the atomic bomb; we went to the moon. So much of what came to be thought of as quintessentially “American” came from this era. The admixture of democratic values, the US’s uniquely classless orientation (whatever the reality), the explosive growth of the middle class, the moral achievements of the civil rights movement, and the monumental national accomplishments of mid-century all produced a sense of a pragmatic, generous, unified country.

... from Low on the Hog

This is what my parents taught me American meant (warts and all). Where is that culture of generosity now?

I wish I could be so eloquent. I just get indignant.

The ethos of the New Deal is gone, part 1.

"The ethos of the New Deal is gone today."

"'The era of big government is over,' President Clinton proclaimed, and, with a stroke of his pen, stripped welfare from its moral underpinnings. Social Security, one of the last tangible policies of the New Deal era, has been divorced from the spirit of Roosevelt's vision.... If we reject this conservative framework, we can replace it with our own. If we argue that government has a responsibility to the most vulnerable, we can make the debate about the methods government will use to fight injustice, rather than about how small government should become. If we take this stand, not only will we fulfill the moral imperative of the New Deal, but we can, once again, build a progressive electoral majority."

-- John West of Oberlin College
the winner of a national student essay contest to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New Deal sponsored by The Roosevelt Institution and The Nation.

Is the problem really government? If so, the anarchists and the super-capitalists are in agreement: no impediments to rapacity.

Is big government really the problem? Believing so absolves our leaders and us, the citizens, of political sloth.

The ethos of the New Deal is gone, part 2.

Easter thoughts

On this day of peace and hope, please take the time to remember:

[and honor] 4,000 dead Americans. 100,00+ dead Iraqis. Two trillion in direct and indirect costs. Civil war raging. Al Qaida rallying. Pakistan destabilized. Afghanistan forgotten. Every reasonable justification for the war refuted.

from: Low on the Hog

Not guns OR butter, it's guns AND butter

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) -- Gun rights advocates say they are planning to bring firearms into some Fairfax County restaurants each Saturday in April to challenge statements by Virginia's Senate majority leader.

Richard Saslaw has said on the Senate floor at least twice in recent weeks that customers who bring guns into restaurants in urban areas of the state are asked to leave.

People can carry guns into Virginia restaurants that serve alcohol as long as the weapons aren't concealed. Concealed weapons are allowed in restaurants that don't serve alcohol, provided the person has a permit.

The rest of the story...

So, in Virginia, it's not guns or butter, it's guns and butter. You'd better hope they like the service!

A well regulated cadre of food critics,
being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to eat and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.

A nearly- Spring morning storm, in Virginia

Politics and beer

"I don't know why anyone would want to be a politician," said the person sitting on the next bar stool over. "Our democratic republic, as fragile as it is, survives because there still are citizens who do," I replied, and returned to the beer at hand.

Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries began in January 2008 when I noticed that I had been posting quite too often on matters political over at my beer blog Yours for Good Fermentables.

Here are links to some of those past cross-blog political posts.

• several here
• and Respect for Democracy here

Foul innuendo

In anonymous whispers, Senator Barack Obama has been alleged to be a Muslim. To a paraphrase a famous sotto voce Seinfeld episode: "He's a Muslim ... not that there's anything wrong with that."

First of all, Obama is a baptized Christian. In February of 2007, I wondered aloud how long it would be before his non-Anglo-Saxon name would become an issue.

And. although not true, would it really matter if Senator Obama were not a Christian?

The 1st amendment to the US Constitution says this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Has free expression of religion become an inconvenient and old-fashioned notion? Has our First Amendment been repealed?

My father

Many cherish a day that holds personal significance. Today, 1 March 2008, is mine. I celebrate the life of my father, Albert C. Cizauskas. He would have been 88 years old.

Please read more.

It holds other memories as well. If I might be forgiven the indulgence to paraphrase Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke: "I had a home in Baltimore, at the foot of Federal Hill."