GreenGranny

2012 -- Ready or Not, Here It Comes

Words have been eluding me lately, at least when it comes to environmental writing.  So many hopes, since this blog was established in December 2006--so little comfort about the future of our planet today.   Better activists than I am are toiling without letup, for tiny bits of progress.  At the same time, exploitation of resources, of the natural world, and of human beings seems to be gathering momentum. 

I can remember, back around 2006, thinking that the nations of the world had only a short while remaining of the degree of prosperity prevalent then, and that they needed to invest in reducing carbon emissions while they could.  Waiting until the Third World rose out of poverty wasn't going to work.  It had to rise out of poverty via a different path than fossil fuels, or at least by a variety of paths, or doom us all.   Furthermore, once the world economy falls apart, it's a different game entirely...  People will focus on survival, and so will I.   

Back then I had visions of a rich elite living in artificially cooled clean air bubbles, while the masses of humanity tried to survive extreme climate conditions as their slaves.  In a sense, that elite, that kind of social/economic stratification, exists today.  It's ready to solidify as climate change progresses.  It will be the eventual, inevitable future unless something changes that hasn't changed yet.

The Orwellian horrors of "1984" seem more applicable today than during the cold war, in a twisted and almost humorous sort of way.  I grew up fearing bombs, then terrorists, but now that we are well into the Great Recession (or Lesser Depression, if you prefer), a new suite of fears has appeared to fester in my more mature and experienced brain.  Are we going to repeat some variation of the disasters of 1930s and 40s?  Perhaps the better question is not if but how many. Over just the span of a few years, it's not so hard to understand those times, thanks to the economics and politics of today, and the poison they bring forth in people. 

Having been born during the Second World War, I grew up watching war and Holocaust films and hearing my elders speak in vague terms of life "during depression."  I marveled that most of my parents' many siblings had only one child.  What had caused that?  I did not feel free to ask such a thing.  I was a rare second child.  Obviously, there was a lot my elders were not telling me.  Whatever their deprivations or fears during the Depression or the war, they never shared that with us kids. 

It was never supposed to happen again, after all. 

The new year is about to dawn, and no doubt it will teach us many things.

 

 

Ames, Iowa Flood of August 2010

As you know, Greengranny lives in Ames, a small university city in central Iowa. You may have heard about our recent flood in the news--my California relatives reported that they did.  I'm writing today to say my home and those of family members here were all ok. 

Even our basements stayed dry.  Other family members kept watch all night as water rose around their houses and threatened to top the basement window wells, but stopped just short.  We do not have finished living space in our basement as do our relatives here, but we did have lots of bags filled with children's clothing and toys for a garage sale, and would have hated to throw it all away.  More important, like most midwesterners, our basement contains the wash machine, furnace, and hot water heater.  Dry basements are the norm here--or used to be.

Most areas that flooded in Ames have done so previously due to their location relative to the Squaw Creek and South Skunk River flood plains.  The first "big one" came in 1993.  Then 2008 saw a smaller version of that.  This year, the flood was about equal to the one in 1993. 

So much for "500 year" floods.   People tired of flooded homes, apartments, and businesses are leaving those areas, often with no compensation for property that used to be worth something.  However, some businesses have gotten building permits for new construction in that same area.  One of these is a Super-Walmart.  In 2008, some customers had their vehicles flooded in the WalMart parking lot, which was lower than the store proper.  In 2010, there was reported to be two feet of water in the store itself.  It remains closed for the time being.

Do a web search on "Ames flooding" and you'll find lots of photos of the flood zone.  Remember, most of the city remained dry, and basement seepage from saturated soil was the main concern.  Since the electricity remained on in most areas, sump pumps did their job.

The immediate result of the flood for most Ames residents was not being able to get from one part of town to another, as flood waters rose higher than bridges over streams and the river.  By the second day, water began to recede from the roads.

What effected everyone in town was the loss of drinkable water.  The flooding caused six separate breaks in water mains, including a 24 inch main and a 12 inch main.  Two of the town's three water towers emptied out quickly.  The third one, near my home, had to be shared by everyone for days and thus, we were all asked not to do laundry, bathe often, or do any outdoor water tasks like car washing.  And it wasn't safe to drink because of the several ruptures. 

Bottled water was distributed for drinking, and most people with access to home kitchens were able to boil water for drinking, washing dishes, brushing teeth, and washing hands.   The fire department had to arrange for use of water tank trucks in case of a fire, due to the lack of water pressure.  Some factories had to stop production due to the lack of water.

The weather was quite hot and humid, and we had to boil large pots of water on the stove.  We realized how lucky were were to have homes intact and working kitchens at our disposal, along with air conditioning.  Green-minded citizens may have kept their home thermostats set fairly high, but I doubt anyone who had air conditioning available was doing completely without it that week. 

It was a particularly challenging week to manage our household for my husband and me, but that's a story for another day. 

The Ames Flood of 2010 underscored several general points. 

First, the most economically marginal people tend to suffer the worst in floods.  The older parts of towns with aging housing stock and many elderly residents are nearest to rivers.  Trailer parks are built on cheap land vulnerable to floods.  Young people and college students rent the most vulnerable apartments (often  unknowingly, coming from out of town). 

Second, one problem can quickly cause others until the situation becomes ever-more difficult to cope with.  Stress builds up in people's lives and some are pushed to the breaking point.  We see in the news photos from the Haitian earthquake, Pakistani floods, and Russian wildfires--people by the millions, in despair, who have lost everything.  It seems beyond comprehension by those of us who have only been temporarily inconvenienced.  And yet for an unlucky few here in Ames, the flood caused a cascade of personal disasters to happen to them.  At least they had more fortunate people right here, around them, to render aid. 

Third, existing city and social services can quickly be stretched to their limits.  The Senior Variety Show to be held last weekend at the Ames City Auditorium was canceled so that everyone serving the elderly could focus on getting meals-on-wheels out to elderly around the county, and to maintain transportation to health services for them.   With many flooded roads, routes to get help to people were often convoluted, if there was a way at all.  I hope the show will be rescheduled, because the cast of people age 60 and above put on a great show. 

The flooding and water situation caused some children's day care centers to close, I'm sure making new complications for the parents affected.  And most Ames restaurants had to shut down also, for a few days.  Neither Iowa State University nor K-12 schools were in session when the flood occurred, or the disruption would have been more extreme.

The social safety net, normally so effective here in Ames, was initially stretched thin by fairly modest physical events (when compared to major disasters like Hurricane Katrina).  But there is good emergency response planning here in Iowa and Story County, and it made a real difference as the flood event played out.

A Permanent Change in Flood Likelihood

While this single flood event cannot be linked directly to global warming (floods happened here long ago), it is certainly the predicted weather pattern that Iowa is expected to experience as warming progresses--storms with much heavier rainfall.   As development and farming practices have drained wetlands and built up flood plains, there are many contributing factors for the recent floods our state has experienced.  I see no reason to expect fewer floods in the future.  All the variables are moving in the same direction--to having more high-rainfall storms and having more extreme floods as the land's response to excessive rainfall amounts.

   

Why we need to stop corporations like Target from huge political donations

A couple of days ago I received email notification from an activist group that Target  had become the first corporation to use the new Supreme Court ruling to influence elections, with a $150,000 contribution to one candidate for governor of the state of Minnesota. 

I immediately said I was ready to visit my local Target store to protest, and "signed" an on-line pledge not to shop at Target.  Today, Friday August 6, 2010 at noon was the time all protesters were to visit their stores and lodge a complaint with the manager. 

This morning's newspaper had an item  "Target CEO apologizes for political donation."  I looked at it with curiosity.   Apparently a gay rights group was the swiftest to make its displeasure known, for the candidate receiving the cash was strongly opposed to gay rights initiatives.  Minnesota is known as a politically progressive state.  An action such as Target took wouldn't sit well with a great many people there, gay or straight, I'm pretty sure.  However, this is not the reason I am boycotting Target.

It's not WHO they gave the money to, it was that they made a corporate donation--not from the CEO's personal wealth, not from an employee collection, but from the corporate treasury.  And there is enough money in corporate treasuries right now to overwhelm funds contributed by individuals and small organizations, enabling corporations as "entities" to buy almost any election if allowed.  Paid-for mass media would determine election outcomes, even more than it does today.  Our nation's experiment in democracy would be finished.

In the article about the apology, the CEO was reported to have said the decision for the political campaign contribution had to do with the candidate's business policies and not his social policies.  He admitted the donation affected people in ways he did not anticipate.  He said Target would set up a review process for political donations.

This example shows exactly why the dissenting justices on the Supreme Court opposed this ruling.   A corporation is not a person, not a voter, not an entity that must live with ALL the consequences of putting a certain individual into public office.  A corporation cannot evaluate the pros and cons of a given candidate, business policies versus social policies and such.   There is no conscience to tell the corporation that doing right trumps making money.  The corporation is not a moral creature.  A corporation is not entitled to human rights.   

The Target CEO should be honest.  He is going to make decisions that will make money for the shareholders.  Like the externalized costs to the environment, human misery costs are not part of the corporate balance sheet.  However, I'm sure next time he donates to a politician, he will have his public relations office prepare the proper message to the public. 

Now that unlimited financial influence has been released to corporations by the Supreme Court decision, they are going to use it.  It's been said that corporations already have so many ways to control Congress and buy elections, this added perk won't matter much.   Possibly.  Or, it may just be the last straw, the thing that causes public opinion to turn against it.

Our culture has created a monster and given it dominion over people.  This is analogous to the science fiction story theme of robots or androids who take charge and enslave us.  And we can all say together,

  "We are BORG." 

That, by the way, comes from a Star Trek script in which a machine-run spaceship colony incorporates any life forms it finds in the universe into itself, with sentient beings losing their identity--becoming a slave brain connected to the machine. 

Our fiction has experimented with various ways humans might be enslaved, from computers that would turn tables on us and take over, to invaders from outer space like BORG,  to Orwellian "Big Brother" totalitarian rule.  But corporations, with a little help from our Supreme Court,  have nearly finished that job. 

I'd like to thank Keith Farnish, environmental activist and blogger, for being the first person to enlighten me about the nature of corporations and of our failure to understand what we have enabled them to do.

USA is poised for a "Green" Revolution--So why isn't it happening?

Well it IS happening, by people like you and me and many others who understand the twin threats of climate change and peak oil, and who are doing all they can to prepare, for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

What I'm talking about in this post title is the "government/corporate establishment." 

As I peruse the news both on-line and in my local newspapers, I keep seeing these expressions:

"excess production capacity"  

"corporations are holding cash"  

"millionaires are increasing savings"

These items are matters of fact that can be verified--they are not political viewpoints.

During the recession and continuing to the present, our economy has huge excess capacity, but since so much industry has left, I'm not sure just what kind of excess capacity it is.  In our global society, the US-based corporations can't keep their US workforce at full employment if its overseas factories can't sell the stuff that they make.  So it can't put people to work either here as accountants and sales reps or abroad on the factory floor.   Eventually falling tax receipts puts teachers, police, and other public servants out of work, no matter how much their services are needed in communities.

In light of that complex global relationship, perhaps it is correct to state that the US and world's excess capacity includes video games, designer handbags, wide screen TVs, and all the other stuff  that goes under the heading "consumer goods."  Then the downward spiral affects vacations, hotel and resort occupancy, and other leisure spending.  As jobs are lost, the cycle gains momentum  until the entire economy is down the drain.

People with an income rather save a little more of  it than buy stuff they don't really need or take a vacation they could postpone.  They've come to see that the world and their position in it is less secure than they once thought.  And for the 10 percent who are unemployed, most spending on consumer goods evaporates, along with prodding their better-off relatives who are sustaining them (if they are lucky) into a truly austere spending pattern.

Isn't this a turning point we environmental activists had hoped for? 

Let's see, there is a huge supply of money saved which needs to be invested, but not in producing the same stuff as before.   

There is a huge unemployed and underemployed workforce which needs to be utilized, but not by doing the same work as before. 

And, there is a gargantuan task ahead in building a sustainable society, one that needs capital and a workforce that is used in new ways.

It's time to stop living in the 20th Century and get on with creating the 21st.

We have what we need to save our economy, our middle class, our once egalitarian democratic society, our world standing as a nation, and the habitability of our planet.  We could build  that sustainable society.

Or not.

 

Oil rig threat to Gulf Ecosystems: a timely reminder

When I first read about the explosion on the oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, my first thought was of  the tragic loss of 11 lives and of the families who lost loved ones along with financial stability--or even financial survival.   The news articles today concerning the leaking crude oil from the well head extend the catastrophe to the livelihoods of thousands of people living around the Gulf, and to many millions of creatures living in or migrating through that area.

For seven years I lived on the Gulf shore or near it.  I led high school biology students through the St. Marks Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf  just south of Tallahassee, Florida.  I saw the great flocks of migrating ducks and other birds as they made their way to or from nesting sites in the Great Plains all the way to Canada. I waded in crystal clear shore waters teeming with minnows, the young of many fish species.  I walked along white sand beaches free of the trash so prevalent on beaches  in other geographic areas.

Who will grieve with me for the damage, the loss soon to come to these beautiful places and living things?  

If we started growing complacent about the ecological safety of off-shore oil drilling when Hurricane Katrina passed them, we've just been given a reality check.  The collateral damage of extracting oil from these areas can be, and will be, beyond the comprehension of most Americans.   The people along the California and south Alaskan coasts understand this.  The rest of the nation has a very short memory of previous oil spill disasters.

Every one of us is responsible for the environmental destruction of oil spills and for the political and cultural mores than set up the willingness to ignore the threat.  Our economy runs on cheap oil.  Our military establishment runs on cheap oil.   But oil isn't cheap even when it can be made to appear so.  And, expensive oil, as it will surely become, will only accelerate the environmental destruction of ocean shores and wilderness areas having oil sands.   In the case of Gulf of Mexico pollution in particular, it translates directly into the food chain humans rely upon.

It didn't have to be that way.  

 We must lessen our dependence on oil-- foreign or domestic makes little difference in today's global economy.  Let's try to do it  before wrecking the planet.   We'll be forced to do it afterward in any case.

Earth Day 2010 in Iowa communities: this may be what progress looks like

I admit never having had much enthusiasm for "Earth Day."  Mainly, the approach of it meant I would be bombarded with all sorts of ads for "green" products, participation in actions of dubious impact, and requests for superficial or token help meant to make people feel good and keep them busy.  This year is a pleasant change.  This year, other activists in my town emailed me a list of events and activities a mile long, going on throughout the week.  I didn't have a hand in setting up any of them.  I can take my pick of interesting things to do and just show up.  So much is going on in this town of approximately 50,000 people for Earth WEEK that I couldn't manage to attend everything. 

This is as it should be--finally!  A lot of people went to a lot of work to create these occasions for learning and for celebrating the many genuinely green community actions that various groups have undertaken--actions that are ongoing all year.  While we may despair over aspects of the international situation regarding global warming, a lot is going right here in the heartland.

Plans for two pulverized coal power plants that were to be built in Iowa have been scrapped.  I do not think any others are moving forward.  Meanwhile, new wind farms are sprouting all over, and energy isn't the only good thing coming from them.   Drive across Iowa's countryside of gently rolling hills covered with row crops, and the presence of these giant windmills seems such a good fit.   They are not near woods or places where birds congregate, nor are they near human dwellings where the sound or sight might offend.  From the road, it appears that the cultivated fields go right up to the small base of the structure.  Iowa now generates a fifth of its electrical energy with the wind.

Just a couple years ago, Iowans feared that coal plants would be built here, not for our own needs, but to ship the power out of state.  Investors would make money and Iowa communities would get pollution.  It seemed like a poor town had to sell its future like that and agree to a "merchant" coal plant in order to survive economically.  Not any more.  With wind, it's a win-win situation for the communities, the investors, and the land.

Today, my Sunday newspaper contained a 24-page supplement "Green Your Life" with many examples of individuals and families doing just that.  If I were to look for people to write up as Green Senior Heroes for the companion blog to this one, www.greenseniors.org, I would have many candidates just in the Des Moines metro area, located for me by the Des Moines Register by preparing for its own spread for Earth Day. 

It really feels good to find that grassroots momentum growing, and to have so many people doing more than I'd ever hoped to do.  It's one time that being "shown up" is quite marvelous!

It could be that we're finally seeing a new tipping point, that of the pioneers transitioning into the early adapters when it comes to cultural changes that benefit our environment.  It just might be the way real progress looks.

Comment on the exhaustion of climate chiefs and need for teamwork.

Today I read that the U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, is stepping down, described as "exhausted and frustrated" after disappointment in Copenhagen. By some accounts there is no sucessor in sight, threatening the success of international climate talks coming up in Mexico five months from now . By other accounts, the change opens up new opportunities and de Boer himself wants it viewed that way.

I realize that one person has to take responsibility and provide leadership. Yet I wonder, for positions like de Boer's, if too much is demanded of one person. I wonder if teamwork is being utilized so that there are fresh players to step in when others need a break. I wonder if top talent is recruited and allowed to shadow leaders. Are there understudies?

As a retired career professional in US state government, I have been a part of teamwork at its best. I highly recommend it.

Environmental Activism: 2009 Closes With Frustration and 2010 Opens With New Determination

Are you a grandparent concerned about your grandchildren's future and the world they will have to contend with?  Are you a retired person concerned that your life's work and legacy is for naught unless global warming is addressed?   Have you made forays into environmental work in your community, with disappointing results?  Are you beyond frustration watching the way your nation and the international community are dealing with the biggest challenge the modern world has yet faced?  Then let's talk.

In the big picture, 2009 has been a catastrophe. 

It has been a magnifying lens upon humanity to show us, had we not noticed before, how flawed is modern human society in its ability to deal with the global environmental crisis.  It may be the best that humanity has ever been capable of, but so far, it's not good enough for the challenge that must be addressed. 

Whether a nation is a democracy or a dictatorship, capitalist or socialist, wealthy or poor, developed or undeveloped, all have fallen short of what reality demands of them--yes, some more than others.   I deeply appreciate every shred of positive contribution that any nation provided at the Climate  Conference in Copenhagen.    I deeply appreciate every person who stood vigil there in the cold, or read names of people around the globe pleading for action by the international community of  world citizens who understand the meaning of climate change.   Yet, the outcome was a stunning failure that many of us are still digesting.  

Change Does Not Come Easily

Recently I read about people who don't like the new LED outdoor Christmas lights.  They don't look the same as the old incandescent bulbs.  They don't evoke the same memories of Christmas traditions observed since childhood.  The cost of $200 in fossil-fuel generated electricity to run old-style holiday light displays is worth the cost, to them.  Fortunately, the transition to LED  goes rapidly onward, and they will reluctantly adapt when there is no alternative.

This example of resistance to change is interesting in several respects.  First, it shows how tenaciously people cling to old ways, simply as a way to relive  happy times in their past.   Consequences of the behavior are easily swept aside.   Everyone, in every country of the globe, has their version of old holiday lights.

We Don't Perceive Our Own Wealth

It never occurs to people that having $200 to spend on unnecessary electricity each year, or even having a home on which to drape strings of lights, is a display of great wealth on a historical and global scale.  When it's what you and your neighbors have always had, then it's not within your perception of wealth.   We accept that Wealth is possessed by royalty, despots,  movie stars, business entrepreneurs,  sports heroes, and more.  The wealthy we envy most  are those people who seem to be like us, but somehow have a lot more worldly possessions.   Why shouldn't we have what they have?   

Americans live in a wealthy nation?  Agreed, but most people think the "wealth" belongs to others,  and that what they are engaged in is a reasonable pursuit of financial security, of preparing their children to take a positive place in society, with perhaps a little acknowledgment of maintaining social status. 

Wealth and resource consumption work in synchrony.   Each level attained becomes the new norm that a person accepts as something he or she should not have to give up, and which can't possibly be morally wrong to continue. 

Almost No One Moves Downward on the Scale of Wealth/Consumption Willingly

People with less wealth can complain all they want about the selfishness of persons and nations having more wealth.  It will fall on deaf ears.  And were they to change places, they would behave the very same way.   Unless there is a secret method of changing human nature, we'd better find a solution to climate change that  works from our strengths as a species and not from our weaknesses.

There is a big difference in the psychological impact of moving upward in wealth compared to moving downward.  Americans are, of course, seeing their standard of living eroding.  People  either still have a job that pays enough to live a middle class life in this country, or they are underemployed and spiraling to the bottom, or they have already lost their job, their home, their health...   People wonder, are we next?

Most of them would gladly embrace a lifestyle of having a small and simple home that isn't upside down on the mortgage,  having a job where they are treated with dignity instead of as a consumable to exploit, then throw away.  When they are sick and hurting and miserable, they'd like to be able to see a doctor by other means than going to the ER and waiting for four hours in a crowded room.   Most of them never saw what was coming, and now it's too late.   This isn't the America that I knew most of my life, but it is increasingly the America I see.

All kinds of blame for the predicament can be laid, of course.  Our nation had some time at the top that others never got.  Life isn't fair, but if  it were, our turn as a wealthy nation should be over, some might say.  Unfortunately, were wealth actually to  shift to other nations, so would consumption and its threat to life on a planetary scale.  A new paradigm is needed for all nations.

Copenhagen - Why Was Success Even a Hope?

Given how the Kyoto Treaty succeeded for some nations and failed for many others, why was there ever hope the same strategy could work later, during a global recession at that? No nation is going to keep its promises if the temptation is strong enough.

I've pondered the ugly phenomenon of the Canadian oil sands.  The good intentions of millions of Canadians to meet the country's Kyoto obligations were circumvented by the lure of profits from oil in a world hungry for more.   They got trampled in the rush to get that oil, and to make sure the government would be on board for the natural destruction of Alberta.  So much for Kyoto.  So much for the majority of the Canadian people and their democracy.  Even the Native Americans working to extract the oil have a steady paycheck to support their families.  They aren't going to take to the streets in protest.  Survival of one's own family comes first, and I fault no one for that.

It will happen in the Arctic too, as new resources are discovered as the ice passes. 

If contemporary humans manage to (temporarily) save the rain forests, it will only be because the world power players are busy exploiting other places and think it makes a nice charity for themselves, a nice show of how much they care about the planet.

So, what are we humans going to do about all this? 

The environment tends to come in last when there are natural resources to exploit.  The environment tends to come in last when people are struggling for day to day survival.  What is remarkable is that the environment is as widespread a concern as it is, around the world.  And every day, I encounter people who try to do what they can to help the environment.  This is what we must build upon.

People, their societies and institutions, do change over time.  Culture evolves (and culture is now a recognized factor of our species' continuing biological evolution).   Are there new strategies that we can tap to address global warming in time to make a difference?   

That is the big question, but too big for most of us to get our arms around.  We at Green Seniors will continue to examine specific areas of progress as we find them, and to bring positive action down to a scale we understand.   The billions of us--of all ages--on this planet have clout.  If we act on common human goals, we can still affect global outcomes in a positive way.  And so we must move forward in 2010, any which way we can. 

As GreenGranny I am going to write about the world I see and the ways that ordinary people are making it better.  I'm going to write about green living choices, in particular those that require little cash and perhaps even help the economic crunch we're in.  And finally, I'm going to write about the ways life can be more fulfilling than many of us now experience, when we are forced to examine our lifestyle critically. 

Stay tuned in....

Required Reading for All Who Use Petroleum

Dusk gathers as I write.  The sounds of children playing on my street have quieted.  The robins are finishing their evening serenade.  As night descends,  I  turn the blinds in the new energy efficient window my husband has just installed in my office.  A CFL bulb lets me see the keyboard and softens the glare of the computer screen.  All is at peace on this street, on this night, but not all is well.

I've read yet another article that gives me a sickening feeling that our progress to save the earth environment for our descendants is far too slow, and the ways humans invent to destroy it even faster careen out of our control. 

I've just read the March 2009 issue of National Geographic Magazine that I picked up at the public library's magazine exchange.  The cover story is what attracted me-- "Saving Energy--It Starts at Home."  But it was another article that made me gasp. 

"The Canadian Oil Boom--Scraping Bottom" reveals  in words and photographs the devastation wrought by extracting petroleum from Alberta's oil sands.   As visually horrifying as mountaintop removal of coal in Appalachia, the sight of pristine boreal forest replaced by open pit mines and tailings  ponds for miles on end is a vision of how life on earth will end.   Not by an asteroid or super volcano, but by our own hand.  

I'd read recently that the United States imports more oil from Canada than from any other nation.  At the time it sounded reassuring--our money was going to a friendly nation on the same continent.  How bad could the oil sands extraction process be?  As it turns out, worse than I ever could have imagined.

In addition to complete and permanent habitat destruction, many hazardous pollutants are released into the water and air.  And extraction is a messy process involving high temperatures created by combustion of natural gas.  On the basis of total carbon emissions from the extraction process to the burning of the fuel in vehicles, the oil sands come out 15 to 40 percent worse than conventional oil wells. 

If the world economy recovers and can afford to pay the higher price tag for oil sands petroleum, Alberta is destined to become rich and destroyed at one and the same time.   Alberta's government owns the mineral rights to all the land and has encouraged the oil sands industry from its beginnings.  If Alberta citizens have second thoughts about the wisdom of prosperity by this means, it comes far too late. 

173 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil from the Canadian sands deposits are too tempting in a world that is running out of  it.  In the future, it is likely that even more of the estimated 1.7 trillion barrels in these deposits can be extracted. 

An environmental group is trying to devise a plan to save 50 percent of Canada's boreal forest.  They say that without a policy change, Canada's 2 million square miles of boreal forest could be gone in a generation.  Since the oil sands mining has destroyed a mere 150 square miles to date, they are expecting a lot of momentum to build from numerous types of incursions, and to continue.

Yesterday I worried about palm oil plantations destroying the Borneo jungle and cattle ranching destroying the Amazon rain forest.  Now I am destroying Canada by using my car.

Is there any hope for our planet?

The National Geographic article also revealed the human dilemma involved.  People have come to the Alberta oil sands to find work, to earn a living, to make a home, to raise a family.  These are basic human drives, and when they are thwarted due to environmental collapse in other areas,  people will migrate anywhere they can to find sustenance.  

My own ancestors joined millions of  "surplus people" pouring out of Europe at the end of the 19th century for just such reasons.  There was a young nation in the Americas rich in natural resources offering them a haven.   How much does the natural world have left to give our species?

The human population is considered by many to be well beyond a sustainable size for our planet.  What that sustainable population can be, as a fraction of the total earth population, is going to be shrinking as we degrade the planet further.   Human ingenuity will be tested as never before.  As human suffering increases, will we cease to care what the next generation will face?

I happen to think that even after several years of downsizing my consumption and pouring my resources into energy saving changes to my home and lifestyle, that my life is still pretty darned luxurious.  There is still room for changes that would little affect me, yet do much good.  Now that I understand the danger we face from extracting oil from such sources as the Canadian deposits,  I will renew my efforts to reduce and avoid gasoline consumption and work for public policies in that direction. 

Coal still trumps oil for carbon emissions by far, but we have to fight on multiple fronts.  For a website independent of National Geographic on this topic, go to http://oilsandstruth.org/

 I'd been lamenting the fact that I can't bicycle in cold or rainy weather, or even to the other side of town on a really hot day.    I'd meant to try out the city bus system, and this I have finally done just these past two weeks.  It runs on alternative fuels available from my own state, not ideal but for now, better than wrecking Borneo and Canada.   I will leave that experience for another post, another day. 

I will say this:   for years I had ignored a solution to reducing my oil consumption that was literally right in front of me.   Most of you are doing the same thing in one way or another.  We can't afford to stay in that rut any longer. 

I shut off my computer completely for the night.  The children and birds have gone to sleep by now.   I close the window against the coming rain, and turn off the light.  There is peace on this street tonight,  but I can't get the images of a destroyed forest  out my head.  All is not well with the world.   

Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara--An Evacuation Story

May 8, 2009

The phone in my sister's home rang at 2:30 a.m. last night. The Jesusita Fire had spread in the night, fanned by strong winds, and they were to evacaute immediately.   Earlier fire evacuees from other parts of town were already sheltering at Jean's house:  an adult daughter and grandson and their three children, a friend of the teen boys, and a friend of Jean's.  The four  adults and  four young people grabbed what they had so recently brought into Jean's home,  jumped back into their vehicles with three bewildered dogs, and all of them headed to the home of Jean's friend  Nedra.  

This morning I got up in my Iowa home and checked the internet news and MODIS satellite fire maps.  I saw that my sister, once so far from the fire, was in a mandatory evacuation area.  No one would be home.   She has a cell phone but doesn't use it much.  I remembered I had Nedra's phone number and called at about 8 a.m. their time.  Nedra answered.

Yes, my sister was there, Nedra said with her usual chuckle.  She was surprised I had her number.  She said there was less smoke than earlier.  I had inquired because her home was likely to be downwind of the fire in an area between the major coastal  highway 101 and the ocean.

Jean got on the phone, explaining there were 10 people at the house.  They put the dogs in the garage and she and daughter Crystie had slept on cots there, to keep them calm.  The kids were still asleep, having behaved extremely well during the evacuation.  Soon however, they would awaken.  The return of typical teen angst was expected to descend upon the household.  My hope is that living in the middle of a crisis can shock even teenagers out of their inward focus and preoccupation with self. 

Further east in Santa Barbara proper,  another relative was also sheltering family and friends who had evacuated.  That area so far has escaped an evacuation warning. 

The Jesusita Fire began on May 5, 2009 as a small brush fire in the hills above Santa Barbara, California.  Wildfire in this area is always ominous, as the fire season in southern California now lasts the year round.  In just the past year, the Gap Fire threatened the western suburb of Goleta and the Tea Fire destroyed 200 homes on the eastern side of Santa Barbara.  The foothills between these two burned areas hadn't burned since 1964 and were full of fuel--the chaparral that normally grows in this area.  Abnormally low rainfall over winter months made the brush dry even in May.

Hot weather on the inland side of the coast range produced high winds, hot winds, blowing down through the canyons, across Santa Barbara and to the sea.  These offshore winds, unseasonable for May,  fanned the third fire, the Jesusita Fire, into a conflagration on May 6.    But the winds were not done. 

Mid-day on May 7 my sister sent me an e-mail.  The fire was at 500 acres and dozens of homes in the hills at the northern edge of Santa Barbara  had burned.   No one knew the condition of the Botanic Garden at the upper end of Mission Canyon--debris and downed electric lines were keeping everyone out of that area.    It's an incredibly beautiful area, or was.  But, nature can come back if we let it. 

Jean's note continued.  "Yesterday afternoon Eric (her handyman) and I went to a fellow quilter's home and evacuated her.  She's 87 and we had a time convincing her to pack up and leave.  Later in the evening I called her at her daughter's home and she was so thankful we came to get her.  They closed the area right after we left.   If we hadn't gone to her house when we did, we couldn't have gotten in to help her.  She would have gotten out with the clothes on her back when the police went door to door.  Her daughter was at work at  UCSB and didn't know her mom was in trouble because Evelyn told her kids she was fine!"

" Chuck Libbert, who taught in the room next to me for years, and whose late wife was one of my best friends, lives in the evacuation zone also and is staying in my guest room..."

"Yesterday was 103 degrees (F.) at my house at 2 p.m.  Today is supposed to be the same.  The winds come up about 3 p.m. and blow hard until sundown and then let up a bit during the night. "

Back to now, the morning of May 8.  Via the internet I'm listening to a local Santa Barabara radio station for fire news as I write this.   I know that the fire is now five miles long, running across the hills and canyons to the immediate north of the densley populated areas.  It reaches from Goleta on the west to Montecito on the east.  Damaged or destroyed homes are up to 75, but through heroic effort by firefighters, the fire has been kept out of the city proper.   Three burned firefighters are in serious but stable condition and are expected to recover.   

I want to wish the best to Nedra for sheltering my family and their friends: Jean, Crystie, Alex, Isabelle, Jeremy, Kevin, Tim, and Chuck.  All of them expect to return to their homes after the danger has passed.