Renewable Delusion?

"Green" energy is intended to address both peak oil and climate change.  But the development of renewable energy itself still depends on fossil fuels.  And there's a lot of faith put into the expectation that a technological breakthrough will "save" us.  In addition to the blog that explains it all better than I ever could, Tim Smedley also points out the questions involved with laboratory discoveries.

Thorium-powered nuclear fission, bio-gas from micro-algae, giant fuel cells, kinetic energy from piezo technology, using water salt gradients for pressure-retarded osmosis: these are all potential future energy sources. The problem, according to Professor John Loughhead, executive director of The UK Energy Research Centre is “how much of it do you want and how much are you prepared to pay for it?”

[M]any scientists believe that the energy revolution will not come from science or technology at all. “You’ve got a combination of technological suitability, the structure and nature of the energy market, and user and stakeholder acceptance – the three interact to shape what does and doesn’t happen,” says Professor William Gale, director of the Energy Research Institute at the University of Leeds.

Update (August 25):  Katherine Boehrer describes a new type of transparent solar collector. It's hard to argue new technology shouldn't be developed, but their are still questions about efficiency and what it would take to scale up to a level that would matter.

Update (September 4):  Peter Diamandis has an optimistic view of solar energy.  Again there is great potential, but also limiting factors.

Update (November 22):  Almuth Ernsting gives a sobering overview of the carbon impact of renewable energy technologies and calls for a transition to a low energy society.  Gail Tverberg discusses eight pitfalls of renewable energy and notes that green solutions only allow us to avoid the limits of a finite world a little longer.

Ferguson

There's a lot to be said about the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson on August 9.  One is the shocking report (discovered from a link by blogger Billmon) from USA Today (and picked up by Melissa Harris-Perry) that from 2006 to 2012, an average of two black people per week were killed by white police officers.

And Brittney Cooper makes an impassioned statement on our new racial low point.

I will not concede that destruction of property is equal to the taking of life. I will not answer calls to be reasonable in the face of unreasonable, unjustifiable black death. I will not believe the lie that black propriety and respectability – pulling our pants up, speaking corporate English, never, ever doing anything wrong – will save us.

These are scary times. They are times for rage. Time for telling the truth. Time for ripping the band-aids off our gaping wounds. Time to recognize that we can neither heal nor fix that which we will not confront.

Update (August 23):  Reflections at Salon on suburban poverty, white privilege, and senseless death.

Update (August 24):  Kevin Horrigan tells the story of multinational corporation Emerson Electric whose headquarters are only a mile from where Michael Brown was killed, and whose CEO threatens to move jobs out of the U.S. which have already left long ago.  Jobs that impoverished communities like Ferguson could use.

Update (August 25):  Sean McElwee explains why race still matters.

Update (November 24):  The grand jury in Ferguson has declined to issue an indictment against Darren Wilson.  My initial reaction is disbelief--the prosecutor seemed to go out of his way to explain why the eyewitnesses didn't see what they claimed to see.

Update (December 6):  It seems to be very difficult to bring charges against white police officers who kill unarmed black men.

Update (December 16):  Representative John Lewis reminds us of a speech Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave in 1967.

King describes what he calls the "other America," one of two starkly different American experiences that exist side-by-side. One people "experience the opportunity of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all its dimensions," and the other a "daily ugliness" that spoils the purest hopes of the young and old, leaving only "the fatigue of despair." The Brown and Garner cases themselves are not the only focus of the protestors' grievances, but they represent a glimpse of a different America most Americans have found it inconvenient to confront.

Update (December 17):  Yes it is true that eye-witness testimony can be unreliable, but it is also possible that testimony is totally fabricated.

Update (March 7, 2015):  Kali Holloway examines how racism is ingrained into the lives of white people.

1. College professors, across race/ethnicity and gender, are more likely to respond to queries from students they believe are white males. 

2. White people, including white children, are less moved by the pain of people of color, including children of color, than by the pain of fellow whites. 

3. White people are more likely to have done illegal drugs than blacks or Latinos, but are far less likely to go to to jail for it. 

4. Black men are sentenced to far lengthier prison sentences than white men for the same crimes. 

5. White people, including police, see black children as older and less innocent than white children. 

6. Black children are more likely to be tried as adults and are given harsher sentences than white children. 

7. White people are more likely to support the criminal justice system, including the death penalty, when they think it’s disproportionately punitive toward black people. 

8. The more "stereotypically black" a defendant looks in a murder case, the higher the likelihood he will be sentenced to death. 

9. Conversely, white people falsely recall black men they perceive as being “smart” as being lighter-skinned. 

10. A number of studies find white people view lighter-skinned African Americans (and Latinos) as more intelligent, competent, trustworthy and reliable than their darker-skinned peers.

Water Vapor

Water vapor in the atmosphere is a positive feedback that contributes a large part of the greenhouse effect on Earth.  A study by Eui-Seok Chung, Brian Soden, B.J. Sohn, and Lei Shi shows that increasing water vapor in the upper troposphere is "primarily attributable to human activities".  The observations are consistent with climate model predictions.

Broken

So, awhile back I came across Collapse of Industrial Civilization -- a theme with which I can identify.  The link refers to another post by Josh Ellis called "Everyone I Know Is Brokenhearted". Apparently, Josh lives in the same city I do.

He's got a long rant.  It touches on various aspects of modern life in the United States.  It reminded me of a snippet of conversation the other day:  "Anything exciting going on in the world?"  "Oh, there's excitement, but it's not necessarily good news."  And he nods.

So you’re haunted, and you’re outraged, and you go on Twitter and you go on Facebook and you change your avatar or your profile picture to a slogan somebody thoughtfully made for you, so that you can show the world that you’re watching, that you care, that it matters. But if you’re at all observant, you begin to realize after a while that it doesn’t matter; that your opinion matters for very little in the world.

I don't care about Twitter or Facebook.  An old friend complained it took him years to find me because I'm not on Facebook.  I use this blog to talk to myself -- with occasional flurries of activity like 20 pageviews from Turkey a couple days ago.  It seems like sometimes I just need any kind of outlet to stay sane.

And when you speak up about that — when you write to your Congressperson to say that you believe in, say, stricter control on the purchase of assault weapons, or limiting the rights of corporations to do astonishing environmental damage, or not sending billions of dollars to the kind of people who think it’s funny to launch missiles filled with flechette rounds into the middle of schools where children huddle together — you’re told that, no, you’re the fascist: that people have the right to defend themselves and make money, and that those rights trump your right to not be killed by some fucking lunatic when you’re waiting in line at Chipotle to grab a chicken burrito, and your right to not be able to light your tapwater on fire with a Zippo because of the chemicals in it, or not to end up in a grainy YouTube video while some demented religious fanatic hacks your head off with a rusty bayonet because your country — not you, but who’s counting — is the Great Satan.

And just now I read that my choice for Congress this fall is between a run-of-the-mill Republican and an asshole teabagger Republican.  It seems the best we can hope for is more gridlock just so things won't get worse.

I think like minds need to pull together and pool our resources and rage against the dying of the light. And I do think rage is a component that’s necessary here: a final fundamental fed-up-ness with the bullshit and an unwillingness to give any more ground to the things that are doing us in. To stop being reasonable. To stop being well-behaved. Not to hate those who are hurting us with their greed and psychopathic self-interest, but to simply stop letting them do it. The best way to defeat an enemy is not to destroy them, but to make them irrelevant.

It's tough.   It feels overwhelming.  But I'll bet Josh would be an interesting guy to talk to.

Perception of Inequality

A report from Standard & Poor's states that rising inequality damages the economy by making it more prone to boom and bust cycles, and by lowering the rate of growth.  Why don't voters demand that something be done?  A study at the University of Hannover in Germany suggests it's because we don't grasp the extent of inequality.

Update (August 6):  S & P's solution leaves something to be desired.

Update (November 15):  A study by Sorapop Kiatpongsan and Michael I. Norton shows that people tend to underestimate the pay gap between CEOs and regular workers.

Curiosity

In an interview, Neil deGrasse Tyson emphasizes the importance of curiosity:

[P]eople like dividing up all the problems and creating movements surrounding each one. And I think at the end of the day what we’re really missing maybe is widespread, rampant curiosity. The kind of curiosity that children have. We need more of that in adults. Because if you’re curious, then you’ll say, “Oh, I wonder why that works that way.” You didn’t have to take a class in it, your own curiosity forces you to go to Wikipedia, or get a book on it, or rent a video. And that curiosity grows the knowledge base of everyone.

But I found his conclusion a bit surprising.

So I promise on this: If all people were curious, that would just solve everything, I think. Almost everything. It’ll solve so much of what today we identify as problems that need separate solutions.

The thought occurred to me that curiosity does get shut down by dogmatism.  Marianne Elliot has a story about her father handling her religious questions--a choice between giving the "right answer" or saying "those are really good questions".  There do seem to be psychological differences between conservatives and liberals.  When you let ideology determine the facts you believe, you are cutting off curiosity.  And, yes, I'd say it's Republicans who predominately act that way.  Their political agenda on behalf of the elite determines the "right answer" for a given issue.  Curiosity has no place in that worldview.

And so it's no surprise when the National Review attacks intellectual accomplishment (or "nerd" culture)--even to the point of featuring Tyson on the magazine cover.  Being smart becomes just a way to spite the Right.  Asking, "do you think you're better than me?" works to downplay the strength of evidence.  Curiosity is actually dangerous.  Who knows where we would end up if everyone started asking important questions? Powerful careers and large fortunes might be lost--and some major problems (climate change? inequality?) just might get solved.

Renewable Urgency

Natural gas is often described as a "bridge" to a more fully renewable energy system.  For example, there has been a shift from coal to gas in electrical generation.  But Naomi Oreskes makes the case that increasing use of gas is leading to more climate change.  A major concern is leakage--even small amounts have a large effect due to the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas.  President Obama is just now taking steps to reduce pipeline leaks.  Compounding the problem is evidence that methane hydrates in the Arctic Ocean are beginning to destabilize--a positive feedback from warming that has already occurred.

A further complication is the result of a study conducted by Aarhus University in Denmark, Vermont Law School, and CNA Corporation that projects a water shortage by 2040 largely due to the cooling demands of energy production from fossil fuels.  But NASA has demonstrated what is possible with its Sustainability Base.

Update (August 6):  More on the effects of warming in the arctic.  And Brian Merchant follows up on a "tweet" from glaciology professor James Box:

"Even if a small fraction of the Arctic carbon were released to the atmosphere, we're fucked," he told me. What alarmed him was that "the methane bubbles were reaching the surface. That was something new in my survey of methane bubbles."

Update (August 26):  Jeff Spross reports on the discovery of methane bubbles in the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of the U.S.  This seems to be unexpected since that region isn't known as a methane reservoir.

Update (September 8):  Bill McKibben discusses study results indicating that natural gas leaks make methane worse than burning coal.

Update (October 19):  A study published in Nature with lead author Haewon McJeon from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory says that increased use of natural gas prevents the expanded use of renewable energy sources which are better at avoiding additional global warming.

Update (April 19, 2015):  Michael Klare is optimistic about a renewable transition.

Update (October 24, 2015):  Methane bubbles are showing up off the western coast of the United States.