Road Warriors Unite!

“On the road again…” the song goes, but for Americans in the year 2009 that has a whole new context: Road Warriors may just park and walk instead.

The fossil fuel age is dying and not a moment too soon. Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are currently 385 parts per million (ppm) and rising steadily. According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that guarantees humanity a 2-4 degree increase in average temperature already. That is perilously close to the tipping point scientists predict is imbedded in energy systems that modulate the world’s climate. No one knows where that may lie—a threshold beyond which all rules change.

Modern Road Warriors will carry a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe: a short course on ecology. As we enter the New Year each of us will need to be scientifically literate. I hope we aren’t too late.

American citizens will be required to understand why coal is not the answer to our energy needs, why tweaking the current grid is not enough, and how citizens must start a revolution for a new energy system.

Citizens have previously just flipped the light switch for an uninterrupted flow of energy. Good enough, right? Wrong! We are using a system that cannot distinguish between clean or dirty power. It all costs the same. Customers have little choice in the kind of energy (coal, nuclear, solar, wind, natural gas) they use.[1]

Thomas Freidman’s excellent history about our present energy system and analysis of what it will take for us to revolutionize it to meet the challenge of climate change should be required reading for all Road Warriors. In Hot, Flat, and Crowded Friedman lays out the task before us: integrate regional grids and make the system “smart” by allowing customers to know exactly how much power they are using and choosing what kind of power they want to pay for – all integrated through an energy internet. At the core of the revolution is remaking the entire grid so that energy produced in distant regions can efficiently be transferred without losing its power.
So Road Warriors let’s start with a science lesson. Ecology is all about energy relationships. Simply put: plants make food from sunlight and store it as starch. Plant eaters use part of that energy and store it in muscle and bone and fat. A meat eater uses a part of that energy and so on up the food chain until the decomposers get the last bits of energy and turn over matter into soil again—dust to dust. Energy in the form of heat is lost at each exchange. For most of life’s history on Earth the released heat energy just warmed the atmosphere and the rest escaped in space. Then we discovered fossil fuels.

When we burn carbon-based fuels, the released hydrocarbons trap the heat in the Earth’s energy system. Our species is adding enormous amounts of heat into a system that can contain only a certain amount before changing into a new system entirely. That system may or may not allow life as we know it to continue.

We need constant sources of energy to do anything from breathing to walking to doing any kind of activity. The task now is to find sources of energy that do not release large amounts of heat trapping gases in our system. With GHG levels already warming the Earth beyond historical levels (human scale perspective), and with world population growing by leaps and bounds, time is of the essence!

Will we be able to change the energy system quickly? No. Even with all of us at the wheel prepared to make the Big Turn we’ll need to be patient and vigilant and prepared to invest trillions of dollars to make it happen. Younger members of our society will see the changes; we’ll pass on knowing we left them a future.

Our challenge will be to pass up easy energy (coal) and move on to other forms. At opposition is the coal cartel of America which is firmly entrenched. Road Warriors will have to root them out or engage them in new and democratic energy industries. Be aware warriors that voices for “drill baby drill” are misinformed. You’ll need to change their minds and help them see the light of solar, wind, and other new and less polluting forms of energy. There will be a transition period when Americans retrain for the new industries, when coal and nuclear will still be a part of the total plan. Prudence must reign with knowledge and cooperation. Our work is cut out for us.
Good news is that entrepreneurs, regions, and utility companies are already moving toward a “smart” system. Governments at all levels will need to help them reach the goals we set as a nation and as a world community. Everything—life and limb—depends on our skill and determination.

If you awoke today with the enviable freedom to consider how you will spend your time, look no further. Road Warriors take the wheel and hit the brakes.

Here are some resources to get you started on your road trip:
1. Friedman’s book: read Chapters 9 & 10.
2. Visit PBS Frontline series “Heat”: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/heat/view/]
3. Go to your local utility company and learn what kind of power produces your energy. If coal-based (high GHS emissions), reduce your personal energy footprint as much as humanly possible. Find out what other forms of energy are possible in your region. Work to bring it into reality. Invest in it if you can.
4. Inform your family and friends: become an energy guru.
5. Rejoice that we still have time to act – a moment of grace, but just a moment.

Road Warriors Unite! The daily number of import is no longer a Wall Street index. It is the world-wide greenhouse gas level in parts per million. We are at 385 ppm and climbing. We must not reach 500 but stay well below it and bottom out with less than 325 ppm by 2050 with millions more people coming into our system.

We have to make this curve.

[1] Freidman, Thomas. Hot, Flat, and Crowded. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (2008), p 220.

LAG TIME

Recently I was reminded of an era I dub as “B.T.” - Before Television. At home after school most B.T. children enjoyed a snack in a quiet house. Later, a period of boredom often set in. Lying on the living room rug, a child might wonder what to do. His heart beat slowed to the rhythm of the wall clock. Tick, tock, tick, tock…his mind wandered. Suddenly seizing upon an idea, off he would go on an imagined adventure!

I remember those days when there was plenty of time for the imagination. A special teacher of mine later named these seemingly vacuous moments as "lag time” - suspended time when fruitful thought can develop.

Lag time is "doing nothing." In today’s frenzied world the notion of lag time is revolutionary, even suspect.

Most Americans suffer from lack of time to develop the fruit of their creative potential.
This is even true among very young children, most of whom have never experienced the "lazy days of summer." Dragged from place to place, weary and irritable, many young children experience withdrawal symptoms in the absence of external stimulation.

Somewhere along the American way of progress, we planned-away the imagination, the soulful, and the spontaneous. The technological advancements marketed as conveniences have enslaved us in a frenzy of work, commuting, shopping, and addictive games and videos, and the Blackberry which makes it possible to receive emails 24-7.

Yet, a person or a family can recapture some of the quietude and beauty that restores the mind, body and soul. It just takes a little re-training: practice turning off the television, Crackberry, or computer for brief periods; remove clutter from rooms. Recycle it and don’t replace it with something else; cultivate air filtering plants in your home. Hang a bird feeder outside your window; practice sitting and doing nothing for 15 minutes. Breathe deeply. Smile. Notice the hange in how you feel (you may also notice you are bone-weary- take a nap); invite the kids to join you. Just be together in the silence.

That's about it. Just incorporate this into your life and your children's lives. Don't get caught up in making a “fabulous space”. Just keep it simple. Your “space” could be just a hammock or a chaise lounge. What you will have is fertile ground for the imagination. There’s no telling what might happen!

Resources for Parents:
Last Child Left in the Woods by Richard Louv Algonquin Books, 2005
Richard Louv’s book shows parents why reconnecting children with nature is in everyone’s best interest.

Resources for Adults:
Coming to Our Senses by Jon Kabot-Zinn Hyperion, 2005
Reading this book will add years to your life!

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
It still makes us stop to consider…

It is rare that a popular science book could hold its relevance for nearly half a century. But Silent Spring, Rachel Carson’s clarion call to the American public, may be more important today than at any time since its publication in 1961.

While many of us remember Silent Spring as a well researched tome on the deleterious impacts of wide-spread pesticide use, few may realize its greater message—and the reason it was so controversial. Rachel Carson challenged the basic values of a culture that puts profit ahead of the health of its public and the integrity of the natural world.

When Rachel published Silent Spring she had established herself as America’s most popular science writer. The Sea Around Us (1951) introduced the public to the origins and functions of the oceans. It won the National Book Award for nonfiction and was eventually translated into thirty-one languages. The Edge of the Sea (1955) vividly illustrated how living communities are interdependent.

In the decade before publication of Silent Spring, Rachel became incensed over the careless advance of technologies that ignored the potential threat to nature and people. America after WWII was enamored with its technological know-how. The corporate-governmental alliances that persisted after the War led to a period much like we have today: science was censored if it appeared to impede the progress of business or government policy.

Silent Spring delivers a compelling argument for technology’s responsibility to exercise due diligence to determine the potential harm to nature and to people before a product is released for widespread use. It promotes the Precautionary Principle which places the burden of proof on the manufacturer - not the public.

Skillfully describing the science of ecology through the chemistry and physical processes of the environment, Rachel helped the public understand difficult concepts such as bioaccumulation—the systematic concentration of toxic chemicals along a food chain in nature and how substances persist in the tissues of animals where they can cause harm. The book sparked a public outcry that is still reverberating around the world.

Readers should approach Silent Spring today for its deeper meaning. Rachel shined a bright light on a path she warned we don’t want to go down. In a 1963 CBS television interview about her controversial book, she concluded, “I think we’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before, to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.”

For a new biography of Rachel Carson, and excellent review of Silent Spring, read Mark Hamilton Lytle’s The Gentle Subversive (Oxford University Press, 2007).


Educational Materials from The Rachel Carson Council

Green Mantle Initiative
20 areas for action
A Family Alert
Toxics in everyday household products
Lawn Care Pesticides
Technical info for major/minor pesticides
What About the Birds?
Pesticides dangerous to birds
Looking Out for Migratory Birds
How insecticides affect birds migration
Celebrating Rachel Carson Pamphlet
In Her Centennial Year

Contact: RCCouncil@aol.com
301-593-7507
http://members.aol.com/rccouncil/ourpage/