Keep Moving Forward

I think it's important to remember the other reasons why we need to get away from the fossil fuel based energy economy. "Global warming" and "climate change" are, perhaps, too intangible to most people. Most people, in practice, don't really seem to care about anything but their own fat comfort. Therefore, to argue for the demise of the fossil fuel economy, we have to start with things that affect the individual first, and then the local community / ecological environment.

At the top of the list is our health, as human animals, in physical health, social/mental health, and sociological/inter-cultural "getting along with others in the world community" health aspects.

We sit too much at work and in our cars, watching the world go by on a "screen" (car windows). We are breathing too much petrol exhaust and fumes from other petroleum products, such as asphalt, rubber, and solvents. Too many people are breathing and blowing smoke. In general, one cannot teach a physical skill one does not personally possess. That is why, with each new generation of drivers, we are seeing more and more slack obesity and less and less athletic physical prowess in the average populace. They are as physically helpless as a brain in a jar, and as intellectually helpless as...

Another thing too many people are afraid to face, recognize, and admit is that many people are socially isolated from one another. Many of them are unaware of this isolation. All of their "information" comes to them via relatively "controlled" media, from the few to the many. There's not anything like as much direct communicative interaction among members of the general public as there could be if they were not isolated from one another in private rolling iron cages. Too many live inside a world of words on flat screens without enough real life direct experience to be a fair judge of whether those words admit of truth relative to objective realities...

One eminent reality is that there is certainly a finite supply of fossil fuels available for the worldwide market. Even if it's debatable whether or not "oil is renewable", certainly there is a finite upper limit to the rate of production vs the rate of consumption. Since the supply is limited, and demand is high relative to supply, there is contention over possession and use of these resources. Any time there is contention over resources, there is social conflict between the haves and the have-nots.

Interjection: Why do "we" fight a war to give the oil companies control over that resource again? Trickle down theory?

Their "realities" are built upon layers of abstractions, in terms of contracts, money and markets, rather than on direct experience of concrete reality. Their perceptions are their reality, but their perceptions are too much based on words written by other people, vs, again, direct experience of reality... Pragmatically, words cannot "accurately reflect" objective reality. They are words, not the thing they attempt to represent. The thing the writer had in mind might not be what is actually conveyed to the reader...

Words and language are but a subset of "reality", and, by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, cannot even explain themselves, much less the greater reality they attempt to shadow and describe. Yet, many people seem to be unaware of this fact about language, and will take what they read as "the world itself", and react accordingly, seeing nothing outside of "the box" created by the spells they recite from newspapers. What are those spells attempting to "prove"? Who pays to have them printed, and why?

I think that because of this, people are too obsessed with the price of gasoline, the "economy", and with "everyday realities" of working for pecuniary wages (just so they can pay the futility bills, automobile loan payments, and have enough left over to put beef on their plates). They are so caught up in it that it is next to impossible, perhaps, for them to see it for what it really is, from a potentially more objective standpoint of an outside observer. They need to see that it's not the personal vehicle that makes this all possible. It's transportation. It's not money that "drives" the economy or makes huge public work projects possible; it's food, shelter, planning, materials, labor, and collective effort...

It is time for humanity to stand up on two legs and walk out into the light. If we switched from driving personal vehicles to sharing the ride in a more social form of transportation, that would necessitate slightly more walking, and it would put people near one another more directly. Perhaps there will be more opportunities to voice and hear opinions other than those sanctioned by the capitalist-hegemony-controlled mass-media...? But likelier than that, may-bee, people will begin to see each other as other human beings, judged by something other than by what kind of "standard model" car they drive, "socio-economic" class status, or by degree of conformity to some subtle norm produced by a vague and unadvertised tradition...?

People go out to meet other people, but they can't really meet other people in traffic. On the trolley, however, they can sit across from one another in an openly social public context. We need to become two legged oxygen breathing humans again, rather than fuel guzzling and smoke blowing operators of smoke blowing, waste-heat emitting machines.

We've all heard and repeated the adage "United We Stand, Divided We Fall". But in contrast to that, they've been teaching people about "individual freedoms" to the point where perhaps 'many people' ;-) might value individualism over collectivism... We're paying tax-tribute to an allegedly democratic government that is then doling out handouts to bail out the very industry that I contend is what divides us socially... This begs the question, "Is our tax-tribute money being spent according to Law, or according to men?"

There's something wrong with that picture, especially given that the automobile industry seemed to be failing to stand on it's own... I think that the people are subconsciously "voting" with their dollars, and that the car companies were essentially being "voted out of office". That "decision" then got overruled by a relatively small number of "individuals" who allegedly represent The People.

What do the people think about providing that industry with work-fare, rather than handout-welfare? Help it to transition from what it is now to what it can become. Dictate to it what it is allowed to spend that money on, and mandate that it work to reinstate our rail transit infrastructure along with a new "Smart Grid" electrical distribution system fed by aerogeneration and solar power.

Once that new energy and transportation infrastructure is in place and The People are using it, there will be a tremendous decrease in demand for fossil fuels. This will obviously eliminate the source of contention for those resources, transitively making the world a healthier, saner, and safer place to live and breath.

Please let us not forget that people learn by example. Nobles Oblige, folks. Get off your high horse SUV fat ass gas hog and help with the planning and construction. Donate materials at cost. Work for room and board. Quit leeching off the rest of us. Contention for oil leads to warfare. Cars are loud, dangerous, air and heat polluting selfish wastes of resources. That brings danger to your own doorstep by your own doing.

So, Posse, when that rich merchant oligarch "representative" shows up with a bin laden with oil, a bin laden with coal, and a bin laden with status quo, just say no, on account 'a The Slow Decline.

Not Seeing the Lights

I was reading Green Mormon Architect's 2009/03 article about the Earth Hour delighting of the Salt Lake City LDS temple. I find it quiet aironic that for a “half”  hour on one chosen day of the year they shut the lights off at one categorically special fancy building. The shameful waist of electricity is unclouded nightly at parking garages, storefronts, and street lights on empty streets. All those showy lights are not a display of wealth. They're a show of waste.

Please do not forget that most of our electricity is still produced by coal fired generators. Hiding them out of town doesn't make them “lights” any more than a new shirt hides a fat man's belly.

We can't just expect other people to put out the lights when they leave the parking garage, can we? (Nor can we non-bee-drivers, God Forbid, expect them to simply not use cars... but even so, other people will undoubtedly continue to drive them about.) The solution becomes glaringly obvious, once you get your brain moving to the limit and then try and think about it.

Motion sensor activated lighting that shuns off automatically after a time-out can save most of the power wasted in every gleaming city on the planet every starless night. The reason for the light is so that people can see. But when there's nobody there to see anything, the light doesn't need to bee on at all.

That begs the question: How much would it cost to retrofit all of the lighting with motion sensors? Hmmmm.... don't need an advanced degree in economics to guess that answer. Golly. I bet they can “pay themselves” for that in no time at all and still have a mealtime out on the golf course! Sunday swoon they'll pay somebody else to install it. Until then, I suppose we'll have to just kick back, rinse down a double handfull of Reich's Kraken with a quart of owed-ore-charred pomgranite juice, and wait for our leaders to tell us what to do next.

Show.

Night Life — Community Garden, or Gasoline Barfen?

I had a great time last night. After watching the 9:00 news, I was angry about a proposal to put a gas station at the 9th and 9th Smith's Grocery store. They have a huge parking lot, with a lot more parking than they need. I think that it will be better put to use for community gardens than for more stupid petrol stink. We're tired of eating smog.

I packed a hike pack with some extra layers, and headed off up the mountain. I took Federal Heights up to the University Hospital, then hiked straight up the mountain to the top... the one you can't see yet until you're at the top of the one above the hospital. The city lights make it bright enough to ski... It was snowing and blowing only a little. I wish I had skis for the ride down. The snow is deep but heavy and tightly packed, like mashed potatoes.

On the way up the street, past some fancy houses, I noticed how they light them up so bright. Another topic on the news last night was about how the power company is bringing in new electrical wires to meet demand. It's more of the same... People who have enough money to afford to pollute are showing off their wealth by keeping their house lights on. They live high up on the hill, but probably can't hike up it to save their own lives. They oil drive up in big cars, and think those are their “Mormon Pioneer Wagons”. Pioneer sounds to me like “pine ear” and I think it's just that — pine cones. They are too “busy” driving around in their blood-oil sucking SUV's to go up and toss some pine cone grenades and get a decent forest started. Lazy driving slobs. Arrogance is bliss.

I think that folks should get together and seed it down up there with more things for deer and birds to eat. The landscape is too delicate to walk on unless it's frozen and covered with snow, so right now is the perfect time to sew some wild barley, oats, wheat, sunflower, flax, etc. I think that also we should put snow fence up along the barren ridges to make it drift higher there, since where the snow drifts highest, more trees grow. In those same places, some trees should be planted that will help to catch the snow. When they are established, the snow fence can be taken out again. More snow deposit means more water for longer on the slopes and below in the valley. The idea that trees bring snow is not a myth. Ask the beaver... Oh, yeah, right, I guess you'll have to just pull that out of your hats.

There was a small mule deer herd, and I followed them for a while. They have very good instincts for avoiding hunters with spears and bows, but not rifles. They always stay farther than a bow-shot, but would be too easy for someone with a gun to kill. I hope that nobody ever does that, since there's only 7 or 8 deer in the herd, since there's not much winter food here, even if we plant better summer food for them. That's something else to consider. They probably used to graze down here on this plain, since the warmth of the lake would tend to keep the snow down, so they could get to grasses underneath. I'll read up on it to see what to plant for winter browse; I bet it takes longer to establish than a factory would.

I think that the parking lot at the 9th and 9th Smith's (not yet organic) Grocery should be cut in half and the unused space turned over to Wasatch Community Gardens. It would be a crying shame to put in yet another loco-pep station when instead there can be food grown there. Try pouring gasoline on your garden. Want to eat that now? I don't. Instead manufacturing this image of them being the poisoners of the well, Kroger can instead cultivate their image as providers of healthy organic produce. I guarantee it will become an icon and bring respectful business. Oil profits are worse than dirty money. Don't help people make more smog to eat or cars to trample the could-have-been gardens flat as they scramble over one another for free gifts from above.

More about the =T=T=T= idea...

I'm not experienced with this sort of thing yet, and so have never drafted this sort of proposal before. I will try and get it together over the course of the next few weeks here. (We haven't even told the President about it yet... ;-) Check out the document linked through the title of this article to see more about what I'm talking about.

Basically, in brief, we want to form a 501.c or Public Benefit Corporation called The TTT, for “TTT Trolley Transit”. The corporate organization formed for the Portland Streetcar is the sort of thing I'm talking about... We'll need the help of a lawyer for that.

We want this thing to go nation-wide, in order to pool R&D, manufacturing, administrative, and organizational resources with other communities, while still maintaining a localized admin/control for each community.

Honestly, I'm really “just a farm kid turned cook”, without much formal training in this kind of thing, so I have to play it by ear as I go and hope I get the song right. Any assistance with forming this organization will be most helpful.

Right now, I don't need an office, but hopefully, ASAP, we'll need one, and the big green building next to the Train Shoppe (450 S 900 E) is the perfect location... in fact, it's partly why I chose this apartment, across the street from it (birch tree and birdfeeder).

I've been thinking about this kind of thing for years, and now is the time to begin forming up and getting it to really happen. What we want is wind energy powered residential service trolley in every city. We want the automobile manufacturers to retool factories and crank out wind turbines like WWII aircraft to make them plentiful and inexpensive (not cheap; Quality is Job 1). We realize that they don't necessarily already have blueprints for wind turbines, so we hope that companies who have good designs will provide $1.00 manufacturing contracts to bootstrap this. The same for companies with proven designs for trolley systems...

I've also got some good ideas to share for an Inductrack Mag-lev system that will be able to share the street with wheeled vehicles. I plan to jot and sketch those out soon and to share them upstream with the people at General Atomics + Siemens + ... consortium.

My phone is costing $0.25 / minute right now, so I can't use it too much on my present budget... It would be most awesome if Verizon would donate telephone resources for this effort.) Nevertheless, please call if you want to set up a meeting appointment.