Should Wilderness Have Rights?

I'm headed out to BC to attend Speak to the Wild. I'm looking forward to both the speakers (including Candace Savage and Trevor Herriot) and to visiting the wilds of Wells Gray Park.

One of the topics is whether wilderness should have "rights". It's a good question.

Traditionally, wilderness has been something to be conquered, subjugated, tamed, extracted from, and profited from. The idea of it having "rights" was not a big issue.

To me the question is somewhat nonsensical. It's a bit like the mice trying to decide whether the other occupants of the house have rights. (Fleas on a dog might be a better analogy.) I'm one of those "traitors" to the human race that think that nature and wilderness are actually more important than people.

Of course, the other side of the question is what the chances are of actual getting wilderness rights into the law. I'd say slim to none in our current political climate of democracy by the money, for the money. We are far too full of greed and lust over extracting and selling our natural resources. If anything we're more likely to continue the trend of weakening ("streamlining") our environmental laws.

In some respects Canada has lots of wilderness left (unlike many countries). But the sad fact is that there is nowhere remote enough to escape destruction if some extractable resource is found there.

Springtime for Solar Power

Saturday I finally cleared the snow and ice off the solar panels on the roof. We've been away travelling for seven weeks so there was quite an accumulation. Thankfully, it's late enough in the spring that the sun is getting higher and warmer, and once I started uncovering the black panels, the snow and ice on them started to melt.

The solar electrical panels made it to 4 kW - 80% of their theoretical 5 kW output. Sunday was a full sunny day of generation and accumulated about 23 kWh. Considering the best days last summer were around 25 kWh, that's pretty good. One of the advantages of this time of year is that there are no leaves on the trees to shade the panels.

The solar hot water panels were especially iced up and partly in the shade so I wasn't expecting too much from them, but soon after clearing the snow I heard the pump kick in and they reached 60c - impressive considering it was still -7c outside.

It's been a bad winter for solar power - either it was cloudy, or the panels were covered in snow! Hopefully things are looking up now.

[Photos thanks to Shelley]

A Puzzle

Pretty much every hotel I've stayed in has a card in the bathroom saying something like "Help save the environment. We'll only wash your towels if you throw them in the tub."

When I first encountered these cards I thought it was great. But I soon discovered that they were universally ignored, not by the guests, but by the cleaning staff. They always replace the towels, regardless of where you put them or hang them.

As you might imagine, this drives me crazy. First because I want to help save the environment and they won't let me. And second because I can't understand what is going on. Does management think the cards work? But how can they be universally ignorant of what's really happening? Or do they put out the cards in full awareness? But that makes no sense, unless it's all just a ploy to appear green?

I can imagine an explanation from the cleaning staffs perspective. They likely get judged by how the room looks when they are done. And used towels just don't look good. So they have likely learnt they get better evaluations by replacing the towels regardless.

Of course, this is just one small example of a bigger puzzle. Why don't these hotels take obvious steps to save the environment in ways that save them money? Leaky faucets, high flow shower heads, incandescent bulbs (instead of CFL or LED), excessive heating or cooling, disposable everything etc. Some hotels do deal with some of these things, but virtually none do a comprehensive job of it. I could understand it if was a straight expense, but all these things would save them money, and still they don't bother.

It bothers me especially because I know hotels are far from green and yet I still use them. So I feel guilty and I wish they'd at least try to do better.

We Need Less Recycling

Amtrak has signs up to "Train Yourself to Recycle - Join us in our efforts to clean up the environment by recycling your waste"

The problem is that they then turn around and use disposable plates, cups, paper table cloths, bottled water, etc. And worse, they use "fancy" plates and cups that require even more materials and energy to produce.

Not producing garbage is far better than recycling it. Not using a disposable plate means not manufacturing it or transporting it or using energy to recycle (some fraction) of it.

And "green" disposable products aren't a solution either. Regardless of what they're made of, or whether they are compostable, a disposable product still means you're throwing away embodied energy after a single use.

And don't forget that "recycling" is mostly an oxymoron. Very few things are recycled into the same original product. In most cases they are "down-cycled" into different, lower quality products.

Often "recycling" is just another kind of green-washing. It lets us escape our guilt and feel better but it doesn't really solve the problem.

Don't get me wrong, if you're going to use disposable products then please recycle. But even better, avoid disposable products in the first place.

Speaker for the Dead

I was out with some coworkers and one of them was talking about the hassle of clearing snow on their acreage. Someone said they should move into the city. Oh no, they liked living in the country too much. They loved having the deer come and visit their yard. How nice, I thought.

But they also had a coyote come and visit their yard. Even nicer, I thought, coyotes are cool.

But they were worried it might hurt their dog, so they shot it. So much for nice, I thought.

Everyone agreed that this was regrettable, but necessary. Except me. I said I'd choose the coyote. They all misunderstood, assuming I was agreeing with them. No, I said, you don't understand, I would choose the coyote over the dog.

They looked at me like I had two heads. One of them said (albeit joking) "And I thought you were a nice guy". I felt I should look at them like they had two heads. I wasn't nice because I didn't agree with killing a wild animal? To me that's bizarre logic.

I tried to explain that I thought the coyote had as much if not more right to be there than we did. But all I got was blank looks.

These are nice people. I like them. I think I get along pretty well with them. This doesn't change that. I don't hold their attitudes against them. Their parents likely had, and taught them, the same attitudes. Their friends likely have the same attitudes. Heck, our whole culture has the same attitudes. It's clearly me that is the oddball wacko.

I love people, and dogs, and cats, and all animals and plants. But I love nature more than I love people. If you had to choose between a tenant that trashed the place, and one that left no trace, which would you choose?

Humans have demonstrated over and over that we have little concern for anything other than ourselves. We've shown that we will continue to party until the whole place is wrecked. We are the hoodlums and therefore we don't deserve to be here. The coyote isn't trashing the planet, to me it obviously and arguably has more right to be here than us, let alone our pets.

It's bad enough that we feel it's ok to trash the planet for our sake. But it's even worse to feel it's ok to trash the planet for our pets. (We might not explicitly say that we think it's ok, but actions speak louder than words.)

Shooting a coyote is hardly trashing the planet. But the attitude it demonstrates is the same attitude that is driving our destructive ways. People always come first. Closely followed by our toys and pets. The government will pay you to shoot a coyote, but if I shoot your SUV (clearly more harmful than the coyote) then I'll likely go to jail. Pretty obvious what our value system is.

I have no illusions that this post will change anyone's attitude. If you disagree, no doubt you still disagree (if you made it this far). And if you agree, then you didn't need to read this. But sometimes it's just hard to stay silent. I'm not angry, I'm just sad.

* The title comes from an Orson Scott Card book of the same name. 

Home Insulation Project

Another step in making our house more energy efficient was adding more insulation to the walls by putting 8 inches of styrofoam on the outside, taking us from 2 inch walls to 10 inches. Ronn Lepage of VerEco Homes designed this system, and Evolution Developments did a great job of installing it.

There are various ways to make well insulated walls when you're building a new house, but it's not so easy with an existing older house. And there are a lot of poorly insulated older houses.

You have to remove the old siding, so this process makes most sense if you want to replace your siding anyway. (We sold the old vinyl siding, so thankfully it didn't end up in the landfill.) The next step is installing the deeper window boxes (visible below). When they delivered the insulation it filled our driveway.





Because it's only the second house in Saskatoon to get this treatment the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) installed sensors in the walls to monitor it. It'll be interesting to see how it performs.

Here's the end result. Other than the deeper windows, it looks pretty normal. We put on Hardie Board cement fiber siding. It's a fairly green option that is tough, durable, long lasting, and fire resistant.



Our new climbing themed house numbers.



We've already noticed the house is quieter and cooler. We have air conditioning (it was in the house when we bought it) but we haven't used it this year. Even with the recent heat wave the house has stayed a reasonable temperature. It will be interesting to see how it does in the winter.

We're pretty happy with our little "green" house, even if it's not anywhere close to current super-sized McMansion standards. I recently talked to someone who was planning to enlarge their garage because it wasn't big enough for all their "toys". (The real problem is that the world isn't big enough for all our toys.) He was only a little sheepish when I pointed out that my 1100 square foot house would already fit inside their 1300 square foot garage.

Related posts:

• Solar Powered
• Rock Paper Sun
• Where Does the Energy Go?
• Energy Update

Energy Update

I recently added another piece to our home energy puzzle - a drain water heat recovery unit (from Water Cycles). It's the copper spiral in the picture. It was installed by Rock Paper Sun the folks that installed our solar panels.

It's a simple, passive device - no electronics, no pumps - just some simple copper tubing. It installs around the main drain. When you take a shower or run hot water for other things, the cold water going into your hot water tank (or into a tankless heater) runs through the spiral and gets warmed by the outgoing waste water.

One of the things that prompted me to get this installed was the frustration of watching the solar thermal panels warm up our hot water tank, and then losing all that heat down the drain after a couple of showers. This way at least some of the heat is recycled.

As spring progresses, we're getting more and more energy from our solar panels.

March was the first month when we generated more electricity than we used. It didn't hurt that we were on holidays for part of the month so our usage was less. And the weather has been mild so the furnace is running less. That doesn't mean we didn't use any electricity from the grid - it just means we put back more than we took. Our best day was today - March 31. We reached 4 kW maximum output - 80% of the rated maximum of 5 kW with a total of 22 kWh for the day. The top of our solar hot water tank is at 55c so our tankless water heater (set at 50c) isn't firing up at all. Nice!

Related posts:
EcoFriendly Sask - Solar Energy for Your Home
Where Does the Energy Go?
Solar Powered

Are Canadian environmentalists a terrorist threat?

I sure hope environmentalists are a "threat" to the current world order, although I wouldn't call it "terrorist" in the bomb throwing sense. Realistically, I would say environmentalists are currently more a nuisance than a real threat. It's a good sign that the government feels threatened, but the majority of people are still perfectly happy to drive around in their tar sands fueled SUV's.

From the Sierra Club:

In a report released yesterday outlining the federal government’s new counter-terrorism strategy, Public Safety Canada listed environmentalists among other “issue-based domestic extremists” that could pose a threat to Canadians.

Here's the relevant part of the report:

Such extremism tends to be based on grievances—real or perceived—revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism.

Where Does the Energy Go?

We recently had our first "net zero" electrical energy day, i.e. our solar panels generated as much energy as we used that day (about 9 kWh). Of course, that's totals for the day. Midday, at the solar peak we're generating more than we're using (and selling it back to the grid), whereas the rest of the day we're using more than we're generating. (We don't have any kind of battery storage.)

Since I installed the TED energy monitor it's been interesting watching where the power goes, or more importantly, where the energy goes. A number of things surprised me, not because they didn't make sense, just because I'd never really thought about them before.

Power is the rate at which energy is consumed - measured in watts or kilowatts. Energy is the amount of power consumed - measured in watt-hours (Wh) or kilowatt-hours (kWh). (1 kWh = 1000 Wh) If we were talking about water instead of electricity, power would be the rate of flow e.g. gallons per minute, whereas energy would be the amount of water, e.g. gallons.

Here's some rough figures:

• 3000 W - clothes drier
• 3000 W - oven (when the element is on, but that's not the whole time the oven is on)
• 1500 W - electric kettle
• 1500 W - microwave.
• 500 W - furnace fan
• 500 W - car block heater

If you're trying to get a handle on these numbers, think about an old incandescent 100 W bulb for comparison. If it was turned on for 10 hours, that would 1000 wH (watt-hour) or 1 kWh.

But the figures above are power. What really counts is energy. In water terms again, a dripping faucet can add up to as much water (energy) as turning on the hose for a few minutes. That's why your fridge can be one of the big energy sinks, because it's on all the time.

Here are rough guesses for our January energy usage:

• 120 kWh - Furnace: 1/3 of the time = 8 hr/day = 240 hours @ 500 W
• 18 kWh - Oven: 3 hr/week with the element on half the time = 6 hours @ 3000 W
• 15 kWh - Kettle: 20 min/day = 10 hours @ 1500 W
• 15 kWh - Microwave: 20 min/day = 10 hours @ 1500 W
• 12 kWh - Clothes drier: 30 min/week = 4 hours @ 3000 W
• 5 kWh - Block heater: 10 hours @ 500 W 

This adds up to only 185 kWh, about half our actual usage. There are lots of things I haven't included - fridge, lights, computers, TV, etc. And the numbers are just guesses. But they give a rough idea of what the big energy uses are.

This was for a very mild January. With more normal (colder) temperatures, the furnace would be on more, and so would the block heater.

At night, and during the day when we're at work, we have our furnace set lower (16c instead of 21c). Looking at the usage graphs, you can see the furnace not coming on so often. On the days I work at home, I turn the heat back up, run my computer, and use the kettle and the microwave, and our energy usage is noticeably higher those days.

In January we used about 360 kWh of electrical energy or roughly 12 kWh per day. (I think that's relatively low i.e. most people would be higher.) The solar panels generated about 140 kWh, so our net usage was 220 kWh or about $26 worth of electricity. (Not including the base service charge.) It looks like February might be about half that (less furnace and more solar as the days get longer and the sun gets higher). Recent sunny days the solar panels have generated about 10 kWh of electricity. That should continue to increase towards summer. Based on what we've seen so far, I'm guessing that over the course of a year, we'll generate as much (or more) electricity as we use.

Our solar thermal (hot water) panels are currently producing about 1 kWh on a sunny day, but it takes a surprising amount of energy to heat water so the storage tank hasn't warmed up too much yet. Even so, it means the input to our on-demand hot water heater is at 20c instead of 10c, which reduces the temperature rise to 50c by 25% (50 - 10 = 40, 50 - 20 = 30)

From these figures, it seems like the biggest improvement we could make would be to insulate the house better, although that's not always easy to do in an older house. Another option would be to install geothermal (technically a ground source heat pump). This might not reduce our electrical usage, but it would reduce our natural gas usage and our carbon footprint.

I'd also love to have a plug-in hybrid car so we could use our excess electrical power during the day to charge it up. That would allow us to do our small amount of driving around town virtually for free.

If you're interested in this kind of stuff, I'd recommend Sustainable Energy by David Mackay which you can read on-line or download for free at http://www.withouthotair.com.

View live monitoring from the solar electric system

Related posts: Solar Powered, Rock Paper Sun, Installing the Energy Detective

Rock Paper Sun

After writing yesterdays blog post on my new solar system, I realized I had completely forgotten to credit the company that did a great job on the system - Rock Paper Sun.

I actually contacted another company first, Solar Outpost, but they took a long time to get back to me, and then after an initial call (where I stressed I was serious) they never called me back. I think they're a good company, but they dropped the ball this time.

I had seen Rock Paper Sun in connection with the VerEco home, and then ran into Brent (one of the owners) at Green Drinks. We met and Brent explained the issues and choices. (I took it as a good sign when he arrived in his Prius.) Brent and his partner Phil then did a great job of installing the system. The work is neat and well done. There were no surprises or mishaps. It took a while to get everything done, but they had warned me that it would, so it was expected. And they've also been helping with applying for the various rebates that are available. (See Solar Energy for Your Home)

If you're looking for a solar system in Saskatoon, I would definitely recommend Rock Paper Sun.

PS. If you're a techie (which you probably are if you are installing a solar system at this point) then you probably want to also get something to monitor how much energy you are using. The solar electric system does a great job of telling you about what it's generating, but to make that meaningful you want to compare it to what you're using. So I'm planning to install a TED 5000.

Solar Powered

I finally got my solar electric panels inspected and turned on. It's taken several months to get everything ordered and installed and approved. The solar thermal (hot water) was a much quicker, easier process to get installed and turned on. It still had to be inspected, but that was after it was already turned on. (The solar thermal panels are the two on the right, white because of frost.)

Of course, this is the worst time of the year for a solar system - the days are short and the sun is low. And the cold temperatures slow down the solar hot water. On the positive side, I'll now be able to watch the output increase as the days get longer and the sun higher.

Amazingly, the solar hot water system did come on the other day, partly because it was an unusually warm day (for winter), and partly because the temperature of the water in the holding tank is low, so the panels don't have to be as hot to get the required 10c temperature difference.

Frustratingly, we haven't had a full day of sun since the solar electric system was turned on. It's a 5kW (kilowatt) system (20 x 250W panels) but the highest output I've seen so far is 1.6kW and my best total day was only 3.2kWh (kilowatt hours). I'm not sure what my maximum output will actually be since the slope and direction of the roof is not ideal and I do get some shading from trees. (Some trimming might be in order.)

In case you're wondering - the economic story for solar panels is not great (yet). They are expensive and our electricity and gas are cheap. At current rates it'll take a long time for the system to pay for itself. Of course, the reason electricity and gas are cheap is because we're not accounting for the true costs, like climate change and environmental damage. And we're not taking into account the fact that we're using up a finite resource that will eventually run out.

There's also the question of embodied energy. Although the solar panels are generating (capturing) energy, they also took a lot of energy to create - mining the materials, manufacturing, transportation, etc. This embodied energy unfortunately negates much of the benefits.

So if it doesn't pay, and they take almost as much energy to manufacture as they produce, why do it? I guess for me it came down to wanting to lead and to be an example. If enough people install solar systems, the costs will come down, and the manufacturing will get more energy efficient. If no one installs them because they're not good enough yet, then there's little incentive to improve them. They also serve to make people think about energy and alternatives. We've already had a lot of interest from neighbors and friends.

Check out the live monitoring from the solar electric system

See also: EcoFriendlySask - Solar Energy for Your Home

Climbing Gym Reaches for Sustainability

Britain's Biggest Indoor Climbing Gym Reaches for Sustainability : TreeHugger

This Culture Is #/?*#-+

An article by Derrick Jensen in Orion magazine. I wasn't familiar with Orion but Candace Savage recommended it and it looks excellent. Even if you don't want to pay to subscribe, they publish a lot of content on line for free. If you're not familiar with Jensen, this is a mild introduction.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6350/

Spreading the Word - EcoFriendly Sask

For some time I've wanted to do something to help the environment, but it's hard to know where to start. I have this blog where I sometimes talk about environmental issues, but I doubt whether my rants really do much to help the environment.

And so EcoFriendly Sask was born.

My sister Penny has a blog as well (Wanderlust and Words). I really liked the way she told the stories of people and their passions. She also has a weekly Flavourful Saskatoon post about local food happenings.

What if we were to start a blog (and Facebook and Twitter, of course) to talk about local environmental stories and happenings?

At first we were both a little sceptical as there are already so many environmental organizations and websites. But there aren't any websites focusing on the local environmental news and issues in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. No one was gathering the news from all the different organizations, each with their own focus. And no one was telling the stories of the local people and their passions.

Did you know that Saskatchewan's newest national park, Grasslands, was recently expanded? Did you know that the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives has a Saskatchewan office that recently released a report on Sustainable Power Options to Complement Wind and Solar? Do you know which businesses are out there if you want to install solar panels or geothermal? Do you know what events are going on this month related to the environment? That's the kind of information we wanted to share.

The more we thought about it, the more it made sense. I was already following the environmental news, and Penny had already developed a reporting style that we thought would work well.

We brainstormed for names and ended up with EcoFriendly Sask. We're not sure where we'll end up, but we're going to start by gathering the news and stories on the environmental front in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan and passing it on via blog, Facebook, and Twitter. We hope to raise awareness, educate, and encourage.

I hope you'll join us at EcoFriendly Sask, and please Like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

Great Places don't have bottled water

Last night I went to the Spacing Road Show event put on by Great Places Saskatoon. It was an interesting discussion.

But I was disappointed to see the speakers / panel with bottled water. Here's the email I sent them:

Thanks for the event last night, it was interesting. 

One small suggestion - don't use bottled water for the speakers and panel. Even if the bottles are recycled/recyclable/compostable there is still a lot of energy involved in manufacturing and transporting them. All to get water that could just as well come from the tap. (and hopefully not served in disposable cups) 

I realize that Great Places focus is not strictly environmental, but obviously the environment plays a large role in great places. 

People attending these kinds of events look at them as good examples. If they see you using bottled water, they are going to think it's ok.

What's the big deal?

For a change I'm not being sarcastic - I mean this in the literal sense. The world has a lot of problems - what is the "biggest"? If you wanted to choose one thing to focus your efforts on, what would it be?

Population / Consumption

These two go hand in hand. Our 7 billion people very likely exceed the carrying capacity of our planet. But it's not just the number of people, it's how much each of them consumes. 100 primitive jungle tribesman consume a tiny fraction of what 100 affluent Americans consume - in terms of food, oil, energy, land, etc. Americans consume a lot more than Europeans for much the same standard of living. Although our population growth has slowed down*, consumption is set to go through the roof as countries like China and India try to match American standards of living. Unfortunately, we did too good a job of marketing our consumptive lifestyle. China is following up its one child law with a one dog law. Makes sense to me. We need to both reduce our consumption and reduce our population. Of course, neither is a popular suggestion, or very likely.

Side story: An older gentleman was asking if I had kids. I said no and of course, he asked why. I gave my standard answer - Shelley and I are too busy with work and travel. Usually people are satisfied with that, but he pushed for more of an explanation so I admitted the other big reason is that there are already too many people. He was quite taken aback. All he could say was "Too many people?!" Yeah, too many people - 7 billion of us on this bus and we're running out of gas.

* Making a big deal out of the fact that population growth has slowed is like making a big deal out of the fact that your debt isn't growing as fast as it used to. The bottom line is that it's still growing.

Climate Change

I think it's horrendous that we (humans) have managed to pollute the earth so badly that it is changing the whole climate. But I suspect this is more of a human problem. In geological time, the earth has seen hot spells and cold spells (ice ages). Even if we managed to flip the earth into one of it's hot spells, Gaia* will likely be fine. It'll just cause a whole lot of havoc for human beings. Of course, in the short term, a lot of plants and animals will go extinct and the ecosystem will shift drastically, but that's old hat for Gaia. Out climate has been altered in the past by giant meteorite impacts or huge volcanic eruptions. Although I'm not sure I find it reassuring that human effects are "no worse" than global disasters like meteors.

* When I say "Gaia" I'm not talking about anything magical or mystical, I'm just using it as a convenient way to refer to the gestalt of the earth's systems - biological, chemical, and geological.

Loss of Biodiversity / Habitat

In many ways this bothers me the most. If we just left a good chunk of the planet alone, the ecosystem and biodiversity would be ok, despite almost anything else we did. But as human population and consumption (e.g. land for McMansion acreages) rises, our human infestation spreads to every corner of the planet. We plowed up all the prairie grasslands. We're doing our best to cut down all the forests. We are trashing the oceans. Once these habitats are destroyed, and the species that live in them die out, it will take a long time to come back. The damage of the last hundred years will take thousands or even millions of years to repair itself.

Peak Oil

Peak Oil is not a sudden disaster, it's more like crossing the halfway point in a holiday. Likely we've already passed it and our oil production will slowly decrease from now on. Of course, we all still act as if consumption will continue to increase indefinitely. It doesn't take a Ph.D. to see that decreasing production and increasing consumption don't fit together very well. Something's got to give. We live on a finite planet folks.

The problem is, our whole civilization is based on oil. We humans hit the jackpot when we found oil, and like most lottery winners, we've been on a spending spree ever since, with no thought to what will happen when it runs out. Without oil we can't produce the food we need. Without oil we can't meet our ever increasing energy needs. Without oil we can't have all the consumer goods we've become attached to.

I used to think that science and technology would save us. There's a small chance we'll get fusion and nanotechnology etc. before the oil runs out. But I no longer hope for that. It would simply prolong our delusion of infinite resources, without changing the fact that we live on a finite planet. We'd simply expand to fill the earth entirely, wiping out even more of the ecosystem.

My current fantasy of technology saving us is if we can make a smart enough artificial intelligence that it sees how bad a job we're doing and takes over for our own good. It wouldn't be ruled by greed and corruption and delusional short term thinking like we are. Alternately, the AI might see how much damage people are doing and simply get rid of us. Another possibility is the singularity, which by definition we can't see beyond. But I don't think these scenarios are too likely.

In the long run, running out of oil will probably be a good thing for the planet. Unless we hit another jackpot like fusion, we will be forced to reduce our population and consumption. The bad part is that the transition won't be pretty. The death throes of our oil empire are liable to be ugly. And it's likely to be a long slow painful death.

Time Frame

Many of our problems our caused (or at least exacerbated) by our short term thinking. Corporations focus on the next quarter, politicians on the next election. Most of us, both personally, and as a culture, seem more than happy to borrow from the future to have what we want today. Who cares if oil is going to run out in the future, I want a big gas guzzling vehicle today. Who cares if I can't afford the mortgage, I want a big McMansion today. Our whole civilization is on a "buy now, no payments till …" binge.

But most of the big problems are on the timescale of tens or hundreds of years and are impossible to solve with short term thinking.

On the other hand, if you take a long enough view, any problem disappears. Don't like our civilization? Wait a few thousand years and it'll change. Worried about species going extinct? In a few million years, almost all the current species will be extinct regardless. The sun will burn out some day, the universe itself will probably end. So maybe none of these current problems are worth worrying about.

Or to be totally selfish, most of these problems won't really cause big trouble till after I'm dead, so why should I care? The standard answer is that we should care what we're leaving for our children. But I don't have any children, and from what I see of people with children, they don't seem to care any more about the future than anyone else.

If your house starts falling down, do you say "no problem, I'm moving next week" (short term thinking) or "no problem, eventually it would be replaced anyway" (overly long term thinking). Or do you say "this is a good house, we might as well maintain it"?

And so the question becomes, what is the right timeframe to think in terms of?

Conclusion

Honestly, I don't have one, I wish I did. I can imagine an earth with a much smaller population, consuming much less, powered by sustainable energy, with an undamaged ecosystem. But I can't see how to get from here to there.

So my question remains, if you had to pick one big problem to focus your efforts on, what would it be?

PS. Wondering about the conspicuous absence of "human" problems in this list? It's not that I don't care about starving kids in Africa, income inequality, human justice issues, worker conditions, cruel dictators, etc.. I do, I'm human, I empathize. It's just that, to me, the destruction of the earth's ecosystem is a bigger issue. Of course, I'm all for people working on solving human problems as well.

PPS. Yes, being on the train gives me too much time to think! (Especially if I'm also reading books like The Long Descent)

Banks, Tigers, and More

Banks, Tigers and Related Matters — Sierra Club of BC: "Banks, Tigers and Related Matters"

"we may have crossed the boundary from being a part of nature to being apart from nature"

"The environmental crisis presently confronting our planet is a variant of the one confronting our financial system. The time scales are different but the dynamics are the same. So are the denials, the rationalizations, the failed oversight, the paucity of regulatory constraints and the public's naivete. The collective values that have engaged people in the busy enterprise of making money and amassing wealth have kept them so busy with the industry and commerce of production and consumption that they have failed to notice that the ecology of the planet is unravelling."

And they call it democracy

We are the majority! | Sierra Club Canada: "In every poll done over the last five years, an overwhelming majority of Canadians are in support of climate action. In the last election, 68% of voters voted for parties with plans to take significant steps to address this issue. The last pollster even told me we have the best numbers she’s ever seen for a public issue. Yet, somehow unelected senators can block the will of the public with sneaky parliamentary games."

The title is from a Bruce Cockburn song - Call It Democracy

[previously posted in my software blog by mistake]

Heads in the Sand

"People are caring about—and believing in—climate change a lot less than they used to. A recent Pew study found that less than a third of Americans think that climate change is a very serious problem. Even scarier? Only 59 percent of Americans believe there is “solid evidence” that the planet’s getting warmer at all, down from 79 percent in 2006."

from: Best and Worst Environmental Moments of 2010

Not that it should be surprising. Look at how many people don't believe in evolution.

A Historic Landmark ... in Handwaving

The "agreement" reached last week at the Convention on Biological Diversity is making headlines about its "success". But the only "success" is in committing to nothing and spinning it as a huge step forward.

And according to A Ghost Agreement they haven't even published the "landmark" agreement. Gotta love that kind of openness.