Occam’s Razor

Is mutual interdependence the solution?

That is what I have been asking myself this evening. As often happens, I was getting dishpan hands this evening while listening to the radio. Tonight, C-SPAN Radio was featuring speakers at yesterday’s Republican Straw Poll in Ames, Iowa. I happened to tune into a speech given by candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He was winning kudos from the friendly crowd by speaking of the virtues of energy independence. He proposed a plan that within ten years would make our country energy independent. He also warned of an even bigger national security issue: food independence. A nation that cannot grow the crops to sustain itself could be blackmailed, he warned. He warned the crowd that we could not let this happen. He received warm rounds of applause for these points.

I too have made similar points in the past. When discussing illegal immigration, I pointed out the consequences to our nation if much of our agriculture disappeared because we could not find sufficient migrant labor to pick our crops. When discussing global warming, I pointed out that conservation and renewable fuels could help us become energy independent. Once we were energy independent, the consequences of another war in the Middle East would trouble us a lot less.

While I still think that both goals are laudable it occurred to me that there is a downside to all this independence. What we are really saying when we talk about energy or food independence is we want our nation to be completely self-reliant. If we can take care of ourselves, then, if necessary, we can seal our borders and live in relatively happy isolation from the world’s chaos.

In our interconnected world, we will never be isolated from the world’s problems again, if we ever were. It is still said that when Wall Street sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. This seems to be borne out by the turmoil the last few weeks in our risky sub-prime mortgage market. Now it is also true that when stock markets tank in South Korea or in China, Wall Street catches a cold. These effects of course simply reinforce my point that we are increasingly interdependent. There is no way to go back to our isolationist past. We need to accept this reality. That our economy is growing at all is largely a result of our interdependence. Imagine how you would feel as a shareholder of Microsoft if it could only sell inside the United States.

So what does this mean? It means, as I have suggested before, that nation-states are moving toward obsolescence. I see this in small ways in my own life. I earn a few bucks on the side installing software for clients. I have yet to meet any of my clients in person. There is one client twenty miles or so away, but even in his case, all of our interaction was accomplished through email. Most of my clients live in the United States, but I have had clients in Israel and Great Britain too. It is not hard to transact business. They send me money via PayPal. I do the work over the Internet. At least in my case I can state that the Internet has made such things that used to matter, like the country where someone lives, irrelevant. Their money may be in a different color when they go buy groceries, but it is green when it arrives in my PayPal account.

It looks like before we ingloriously leave our debacle in Iraq will cost us at least a trillion dollars. Why did we do it? President Bush was quite candid about his rationalization before we invaded: because he perceived a real threat from Iraq to our national security. We thought that given more time Iraq could create atomic weapons that it might lob at us. Apparently, that was unacceptable to the cost of about one trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives. Our ability to remain an independent nation apparently trumps all other needs including the need for all nations to peacefully coexist.

Most economists tout the virtues of free trade. They see it as a cure to the world’s economic ailments. Free trade, they intone, raises all boats. If it is cheaper to import vegetables from Mexico because the labor is cheaper there, this is ultimately good. Consumers benefit. Our farmers may be a bit put out but overall both the United States and Mexico would benefit. Our agriculture would change to be more efficient, or we would develop new industries to replace it. However, what free trade also does is that it promotes our world’s mutual interdependence.

From listening to politicians running for office, I am left to conclude that the world’s mutual interdependence is a bad thing. Is it? Maybe what we really need is to encourage our interdependence. Maybe nation-states are entities that are on their way out. Maybe what the world needs is world federalism instead. If this is where we need to go, from a world of autonomous states, to a world of federated nation-states then we need more interdependence, not less.

My firm conviction is that these dynamics are already well underway. Those who adapt to this new reality, like Europe, are likelier to prosper. The longer that the United States of America deludes itself into thinking that we will always be completely sovereign the more painful and costly our adjustment will be. Arguably, the debacle in Iraq is a one trillion dollar consequence of our delusion.

Imagine a different world where this is no my country vs. your country competition except in sports. I am not naïve enough to think that such a world will happen overnight. However, I do think that since the process is already well underway, the longer we delude ourselves then the more painful our transition will be. We need to discard ourselves of foolish notions like we can provide entirely for our country’s needs. While energy independence may help us find cleaner means of generating energy to reduce global warming, its ultimate goal is to find ways for the world to also do this. For global warming, like much of what ails us, can only be solved globally.

The more we rely on other countries, and other countries rely upon us, the more natural incentive there is for all of us to get along together in peace and harmony. These ties truly bind us together as a planet. We need to listen to the message. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, India and many other countries need to listen too. The European Union has already heard the message and is prospering.

We cannot solve our national problems by being independent in all things, or even in areas that we consider critical to our sovereignty. This is delusion. However, the world can solve its problems by engaging in them together. Economic interdependence is the means by which a newer and saner world order could emerge. It is likely to be messy, as are most things in human affairs, but it offers a hopeful vision, and seems more viable than our current tactics.

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace…

You may say I’m a dreamer

But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one

- John Lennon, “Imagine”

August 12th, 2007 at 09:35pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2007 | no comments

Adventures in Lighting

Like all obsessions, this one started out as something relatively innocuous. In my case, I was at the Home Depot and strolling down the light bulb aisle when I noticed a four pack of compact fluorescent light bulbs. In case you do not know what a compact fluorescent bulb is, they are fluorescent lights designed to fit into the sockets of regular light bulbs while putting out a similar amount of light.

Admittedly, these compact fluorescent lights look a little odd. However, their odd shape hardly matters, since most light bulbs hide inside lampshades anyhow. Nor were they particularly expensive. I was able to purchase the pack of four 60-watt compact fluorescent bulbs for about eight dollars. When I arrived home, I replaced the bulbs in the lamp in our living room, TV room and in the hallway. I could not discern any real difference in the quantity of light put out. I expected that when I flipped on the switch there would be a delay until the light came on. However, there was none. I smiled. This was not hard at all! Moreover, one compact fluorescent light should last for years, meaning I would have to spend less time replacing light bulbs. I would save both money and time.

Like many Americans waking up to the reality of global warming, I understand that replacing incandescent lights with fluorescent lights is just one small step. Compact fluorescent lights use sixty percent less energy and generate little heat. If I could replace all our incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights, my family will not be dumping 300 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere every year. It seemed like something tangible and relatively painless that I could do to reduce global warming.

The next time I went to Home Depot, I bought two more four packs of compact fluorescent lights. This time I changed lights in the laundry room, the hallway going to my basement, and assorted ceiling lights. I put one in a light with a dimmer switch. It took only a couple weeks experience to discern this was not a good idea. At full power the lights, well, fluoresced, pulsing and flickering. Within a couple of weeks, it gave out. Reluctantly, I put an old-fashioned incandescent bulb back in that fixture. I placed the used compact fluorescent bulb in a bag for special disposal since the mercury vapors inside the light were potentially dangerous.

We have four vanities in our house. Each has above the sink a set of four to six soft white incandescent lights. As I was repainting one of the bathrooms, I kept looking at the light fixture. It was not particularly attractive and so 1980s. I wondered if I could replace the light fixture with a fluorescent one that was reasonably attractive. Those four 60-watt bulbs must be drawing a lot of power. I shuffled back to the Home Depot and wandered through their lighting aisle. Their stock mostly consisted of the usual incandescent and halogen lights. Close to the standard ugly fluorescent lights suitable for workshops were a small number of classy looking fluorescent light sets. There I found this light set. It was designed to be mounted on a ceiling, but with a bit of jury-rigging I was able to place it above the bathroom mirror where the old vanity light fixture sat. With its brushed nickel frame, it looked classy.

The final authority though was my wife, who gave it the thumbs up. I took that as an okay to buy another one. The next one went over the vanity in our master bedroom. We noticed that it put out a brighter and whiter light than what it replaced.

Yesterday, I tackled the master bathroom’s vanity light set. This set was particularly environmentally unfriendly because it consisted of six incandescent lights in a row, which used special soft white bulbs. It put out a lot of heat. Moreover, my daughter was in the habit of leaving them on. This vanity was particularly annoying because its lights were constantly blowing out anyhow. Unfortunately, I could not find quite what I was looking for at Home Depot. I drove to Lowe’s, traversed their light aisle, and I found just the thing, this Newcastle Fluorescent Bath Bar. It fit perfectly into the existing space and looked similar to the other light set. It was both brighter than the old set and cast a more natural bright white light. Its only defect was that it took a second to come on, unlike the others.

I have also replaced a defective floor lamp in our living room. I purchased a compact fluorescent bulb for it that was supposed to have three brightness levels, like a three way incandescent bulb. Unfortunately, I could not get it to work with in that fixture, but at least the light is usable.

I am ending up with a quite a collection of used incandescent light bulbs. I am not sure what to do with them. I still need to replace more incandescent lights in our basement with fluorescent lights. I am pondering what do to about the ceiling mounted lights in our basement, all of which work off a dimmer switch. So far, I have not found a fluorescent light that actually works with a dimmer switch, although some claim to work. Other specialty lights like the ones we use for our bedstead and our outdoor porch light do not appear to have ready compact fluorescent alternatives.

Nonetheless, I now feel compelled to try to replace every incandescent and halogen lighting fixture that I can. I still have one vanity light set to replace in the downstairs bathroom. As compact fluorescent lighting technology matures with new demand, I figure there may come a time when every light in my house will be a fluorescent light. It may not be possible to replace lights like the one in my refrigerator with a fluorescent light, but perhaps in time appliances will come with fluorescent fixtures too.

To reduce the impact of global warming, we can all take action. You may find as I did that ridding yourself of non-fluorescent lights in your house can be a fun project. I use other energy saving devices such as a programmable thermostat. A large energy saving project we need to take up one of these days is to replace our windows (which are already double pane) with more energy efficient windows. I would prefer to wait until we have the money saved, since this looks like it will be at least a $10,000 project.

I may be naïve to think that my contributions will amount to much. As I noted in an earlier entry on global warming, the increase in our population growth alone suggests these efforts will not reduce emissions, but only help check their growth. Nonetheless, for a culture that supposedly believes in life, and the survival of our species in particular, it seems suicidal not to at least try. If nothing else my small actions replacing lights encouraged me to keep committing toward a path where my family and I will live more harmoniously with the planet.

February 11th, 2007 at 11:22am Posted by Mark | Technology | one comment

A Dubious Passage

If you are in the transportation business, geography is rarely your friend. Due to the nature of air travel, the air freight business can somewhat ignore geography. However, even in that business the great circle routes between destinations are not always available. If you are involved in ground transportation there are mountains that must be scaled, swamps that must be bypassed, rivers that must be spanned, and traffic that will slow you down. Transportation by sea means navigating around continents, islands, wrecks and shoals. All add time and expense to their desire to move goods quickly and cheaply between two points.

For centuries, one of the biggest obstacles for transporters has been the Americas. Prior to the Panama Canal, trips to the Pacific typically involved arduous and dangerous journeys around the aptly named Cape Fear at the tip of South America. The Panama Canal cut off thousands of miles. However, if you look at a globe you will quickly see that from departure points like London, even the Panama Canal does not come close to being a direct route to the Orient. Consequently, for centuries one of the dreams of mariners has been a reliable Northwest Passage over the top of Canada, through the Arctic Ocean, and thence into the Pacific. It approximates a great circle route taken by airplanes. Such a venture by sea would save weeks and about four thousand miles of unnecessary travel.

There was, unfortunately, one small problem: the mass of arctic ice that tenaciously extended over much of the Arctic Ocean. Trying to get through that seemed about as likely to happen as the Second Coming. British mariners were among the first to try and fail to find a navigable Northwest Passage. The wrecks of many ships along Canada’s eastern and northern coasts demonstrated that such ventures were futile. Modern icebreakers are usually successful and cutting paths through the Arctic ice. However, their paths often do not remain open for long. During the summer, a few commercial ships have succeeded in claiming the Northwest Passage. However, even today such crossings are dangerous. The season is sort. Icebergs and shoals along the Arctic Ocean remain very real threats. For these reasons, even after all these years, a Northwest Passage to the Orient remains too dangerous for all but a handful of shippers to try. Those that try have to do so only during a very short period of Arctic summer.

The times may be changing. Because of global warming, the Arctic ice is rapidly receding. The average temperature of the Arctic has increased five degrees Fahrenheit in just 30 years. As a result, the Arctic ice mass is quickly receding. A Northwest Passage is looking to be commercially viable at last.

The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen weaves in graceful slow motion through the ice pack, advancing through the legendary Northwest Passage well after the Arctic should be iced over and shuttered to ships for the winter.

The fearsome ice is weakened and failing, sapped by climate change. Ultimately, this night’s ghostly procession through Icebreaker Channel will be the worst the ship faces on its late-season voyage. Much of the trip, crossing North America from west to east through the Northwest Passage, will be in open water, with no ice in sight.

You would think that maybe this would be a cause for alarm. However, in the world of commerce, this may be an event worth toasting.

“Shipping companies are going to think about this, and if they think it’s worth it, they are going to try it,” says the captain of the Amundsen, Cmdr. Alain Gariepy, 43. “The question is not if, but when.”

Environmentalists are, to say the least, alarmed:

Satellite imagery has shown that the Arctic ice cap is thinning and already is nearly 30 percent smaller than it was 25 years ago. In the winter of 2004-05, the Arctic’s perennial ice, which usually survives the summer, shrank by 280,000 square miles, the size of Turkey. This past August, a crack opened in the ice pack from the Russian Arctic to the North Pole, an event never seen before.

Arctic ice reflects sunlight; its absence may accelerate global warming. The intricate chemistry that occurs in the rich Arctic waters could go haywire with unaccustomed heat and sunlight. Whole species seem destined to disappear while others move northward in their place. Inuit who thrived here for millennia are finding the thin ice and changed wildlife inhospitable.

Opponents often chastise us environmentalists (not to mention Democrats). “They look at the glass as half empty, instead of half full,” they say about us. Look on the bright side of global warming: a Northwest Passage in fact would cut the costs of commercial shipping, expanding free trade and helping to lift all boats.

This is a poor turn of phrase, under the circumstances. Because all that melting ice will definitely lift all boats, as well as likely cause the relocations of millions of people to higher grounds. In fact, when looking for evidence of the effects of global warming, the Arctic, while remote, is where its affect is most clear and dramatic. The sheets of ice that cover most of Greenland are cracking, pouring fresh water into the ocean, decreasing ocean salinity and rising sea levels. The Ward Ice Shelf in the Arctic Ocean, which has stood unchanged for three millennium, has been cracking since 2000. Glaciers in Alaska are melting. Polar bears may soon be an endangered species: there are not enough ice flows for them to move across the Arctic Ocean. As Arctic ice retreats, more sea pups die because adult seals have to swim further for food.

Even though commercial shipping possibilities may expand in the Arctic Ocean, this is one time when it is better to say the glass is half-empty. Global warming is happening beyond any doubt and it may soon change much of the delicate ecosystem above the Arctic Circle. It is hard for us to know now what ripples this will have on the rest of the planet, beyond increased sea levels. However, it should not be cause for just concern, but for alarm. For all life is tied together. What happens in the Arctic is likely to effect all of us in profound ways, many of which we cannot yet imagine.

The United States is the world’s largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions come principally from our cars and our coal burning power plants. As a nation, we can choose to take aggressive steps to rein in our emissions of greenhouse gasses. Alternatively, we can keep burying our heads in the sand and pretend the consequences will not affect us. There are other more benign ways to generate energy other than through burning things. We can move beyond hybrid cars to other forms of transportation, such as light rail, that have much less effect on the environment. We can each do small things that can have enormous impact, such as setting our thermostats down two degrees in the winter and up two degrees in the summer. Al Gore has a number of other ideas we each can do that can help the global warming crisis.

As important as our personal actions are, we must demand a national energy policy that not only makes us energy independent, but which rewards conservation. We need larger incentives for greater degrees of conservation. We can make it more expensive to tear down virgin forests and less expensive to redevelop urbanized lands. We can even demand that manufacturers calculate the cost to the planet for the use of their products, such as the European Union plans to do soon.

It may be that by stemming global warming, we will not just save the polar bear from extinction, but our own species as well. If all life is precious, as the right to life crowd asserts, then the lives of all the species on the planet are also precious, for our relationship is mutually dependent. As for all the alleged benefits of finally having a Northwest Passage, let us not make this passage.

November 17th, 2006 at 10:21pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Goodbye Planet Earth

The good news is that virtually everyone, including our president (who typically sticks his head in the sand), agrees that global warming is happening. Perhaps the movie An Inconvenient Truth was the final straw that convinced even the most diehard skeptics. A very vocal but very well moneyed minority (typically representing businesses that are profiting from the status quo) still thinks that humanity’s impact on global warming is minimal. They assert that since global warming is part of a natural trend there is no reason to give ourselves a guilt trip.

As a result, they argue, there is no reason for us to take any drastic actions since we cannot halt it. Moreover, even if we could succeed in taking drastic actions, they will not do any good. On this last point, I grudgingly have to agree with skeptics. I feel an urgency to start doing something concrete and dramatic about global warming. Yet I also get the feeling it is like trying to stop the tide. Humanity’s demographics are working against us. Even if we could enforce the Kyoto Protocols, all it would do is slow the rate of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, since no one can make us stop, humanity will doubtless continue to breed like bunnies. Those new people will put additional demands on the ecosystem. Today there are about 6.5 billion people on the planet. Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth shows a linear relationship between successive years and temperature. Each year the average global temperature creeps up at such a consistent and methodical rate, you can easily predict next year’s average global temperature.

Human population growth, on the other hand, is growing exponentially. Somewhere around 1830, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the total world population reached a billion people. By 1930, it was two billion. By 1960, it was three billion. By 1974: four billion. By 1987: five billion. By 2000: six billion. Here we are six years later and halfway to adding another billion.

“Choose life,” the pro-life people tell us. They should be cheering. Humanity is choosing life in record numbers. They tell us that every life is sacred. However, you have to wonder about our quality of life when every year more and more people are competing for the same resources. Naturally, those who live in third world countries are not too thrilled about their plight. Therefore, when they can they choose prosperity. They cross borders in search of better lives. Those of us in first world countries are choosing life too. And we are choosing to live a large life. In the process, we exacerbate global warming. We tear down the trees that can convert our excess carbon dioxide to oxygen. We drive vehicles that emit carbon dioxide. The infrastructure that gives us life’s many amenities exists largely because of the ready availability of petroleum, which, when burned it emits carbon dioxide that causes global warming. We are determined to have a better quality of life than our parents had, or die trying. We think micro, not macro. We think me not we. We try to ignore our interdependence.

Nature has been knocking on our doors. It has been trying to give us a wakeup call. For example, over the last few weeks California has experienced sustained record heat. These heat spells are not just a little hotter than things used to be, but much hotter. High temperatures passed 110 degrees in many places in California. It reached 99 degrees in San Francisco. Fortunately, brownouts were minimal. Yet in order to keep cool, Californians pushed the power system for all it was worth, driving record demand. Since most of that energy came from non-renewable energy forms like coal burning power plants, cooling ourselves to deal with global warming also exacerbated global warming.

Meanwhile, China is no longer content to be a country full of peasants and water buffalo. It is Great Leap Forward, Version 2 underway right now in China. In a generation, the country will go from the second world to first world. Soon its carbon dioxide production will equal that of the United States. The pollution in China has gotten so bad that it is making it all across the Pacific Ocean. It contributes not only to California’s high temperatures, but also to its poor air quality too. Other emerging economies are probably learning unwise lessons from China’s success: hang the pollution control equipment. Deforest, defile and pollute as necessary until you are first world.

Democracy is the answer, President Bush tells us. When he visits third world countries, he says that industrialization is the answer. He preaches that nations do not have to choose to be miserable. He says any nation if it works hard enough can industrialize itself into first world status. Coming with that industrialization, of course, will be new environmental problems, including more carbon dioxide and global warming. Yes, it may be a wee bit hypocritical of those of us in the first world to suggest to the third world not to industrialize for the good of the planet. Of course, what would be even better would be for us first world countries to devolve into third world countries. Since that is unlikely to happen (barring nuclear war), is it too much to expect us to stabilize our population and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions? Yep, apparently it is too much. Republican or Democrat, we have these expectations. America is the land of freedom, and we can never have enough freedom. Since freedom generally translates into, “I get to do what I want to do and hang the consequences for anyone else”, it seems unlikely that we will do sensible things like petition for higher gas taxes to discourage driving.

Perhaps as these increasingly nasty effects of global warming continue to manifest themselves, we will begin meaningful changes to our behavior. Perhaps we will all drive electric cars that will run on renewable sources of energy. Perhaps as our telecommunications infrastructure improves, most of us will work from home. Perhaps we will learn to start biking to work. Perhaps, but I am not counting on it in the short term.

I feel despondent. In a way, I am glad to be mortal. I am pushing 50. With luck will be around this planet another 30 or 40 years. Nevertheless, along with my natural angst associated with growing old, I am already feeling deeply sad about the seemingly unstoppable problem of global warming. I also feel nostalgic for a time within my memory when the earth seemed in balance. Our environment, on which we all depend, is now fragile. We are the bull in the china shop, largely heedless of the carnage that we are causing and the effect it will have on this and future generations.

I am nostalgic for bone crushing cold winter days I knew in upstate New York, but which now happens much more rarely. I am nostalgic for a time when mountain snowmelts happened in May, not March or April. I am nostalgic for a time when the hottest day all year was 90 degrees. I am nostalgic for a time when I did not have to worry about the air quality index because the air quality was always fine.

I am distraught and sad at how we have raped our wonderful planet. I am angry and frustrated that we are likely to thoughtlessly keep at it. So perhaps my death will be in some way a relief, because by then the earth will no longer the place that I remember. We have remade it, and not for the better. If after death I reincarnate, I hope it is in some greener and fresher world where the citizens live in balance with nature, where glaciers do not melt, and where we treat nature with the reverence of Native Americans. I will be sorry to pass on our trashed and overcrowded planet to my daughter. I will also be angry with myself for not doing more to shake people up. Here is one more futile attempt to do so. It is likely already too late.

July 30th, 2006 at 08:36pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Review: An Inconvenient Truth

Is global warming happening? If it is happening, is it part of a natural trend? Or is it being caused by human activity? If so, can we really do anything to stop it? Or should be just shrug it off and consider the upsides: more time in bathing suits and less time shoveling snow.

Those who keep up on my blog know I do not need convincing. Global warming is undoubtedly happening. Even our president admits it is happening. In addition, human activity is contributing to global warming. President Bush admits that too. He only disagrees on how much we humans contributing to the problem and the methods that should be employed to address it.

Al Gore begs to differ. You remember Al. In the film An Inconvenient Truth, he introduces himself as the man who used to be the next president of the United States. It gets a laugh at every seminar he gives on global warming. The documentary An Inconvenient Truth is largely a filmed version of Al’s global warming seminar. It is his traveling road show. Armed with a Macintosh computer with a very big screen, Al is now traveling the world doing his best to convince anyone who will listen that the global warming phenomenon is real and action must be taken now. His slide show is very impressive. It would take a very cynical person to come away from the movie not realizing that human activity is the major cause of global warming.

The film is marketed as the scariest movie you will ever see. What could be scarier than real life? In fact, I did not find the film that scary. I certainly learned some new things from the movie. However, I understood before coming into the theater that global warming was real and that its consequences were catastrophic. I do hope that the film will bring in average Americans who maybe are not totally convinced. I suspect though that the film will largely preach to the choir.

I hope that it will not dissuade you from seeing the movie, for even those who agree with Al should still see this film. Do the earth a favor though, and bring someone with you who are a skeptic or are still on the fence. Ideally take a whole bunch of friends. Not only will they be uncomfortably awake after the movie, but also by just attending, they will help address global warming. Five percent of the ticket price goes to support advocacy. I can write off 5% of the $19.50 I paid for two tickets on my income tax!

No question about it though. Al has a terrific yet sobering slide show. Whatever presentation software he is using, PowerPoint was not up to the job. The movie is 90% filmed lecture, and 10% background. We learn that Al was first exposed to global warming research in college. For whatever reason, it became a cause he passionately latched onto. As you may know, in 1992 he wrote a book on global warming, Earth in Balance. Here he is fourteen years later, the almost president of the United States, yet we see him going through metal detectors at airports just like the rest of us. He is now Citizen Gore. He seems to have put his defeat behind him and is doing the best he can to shake us up on this issue before it is too late. In the movie he says that he has given his lecture thousands of times. We even see him giving the lecture in China. Al really believes that if he works hard enough the message will get through and real policy change will happen.

Gone is Wooden Al. In the movie, we find the authentic Al Gore. While he may not be wooden, his passion is still somewhat restrained. We see a rather low-key Al Gore who is introspective, sobering and full of gravitas. No theatrics are necessary. This is one time when the facts speak far more convincingly. Instead, you are left wondering: are we doomed? Is there any hope left for our planet and our species?

Thankfully, the answer is yes. Stemming global warming is quite doable. It is not some sort of pie in the sky notion that must wreck world economies. All it takes is will. In fact, Al makes a convincing case that companies that work to stem global warming will be the economic winners. Perhaps that is why General Electric is working on products that will help stem global warming. Al shows us that it is possible because we have already demonstrated that will. International efforts have stemmed the manufacture of chlorofluorocarbons. That once gaping ozone hole in the Southern Hemisphere has closed up. It is one first and modest success in the climate change challenge for which humanity can take credit.

Usually when the movie credits start, you head for the exit. During the credits in this film, we also see suggestions on how each of us can help stem global warming. The Bethesda Row Cinema, where I saw the film with my father, also had a stack of flyers with suggestions on how to help stem global warming. I took one home. I was glad to see I am already doing certain things right (I own a hybrid and bike to work frequently). Others will take more convincing. I am not sure my wife will let me set up the thermostat two degrees during the summer.

In a world of self-serving politicians, it is such a pleasure to see an ex-politician not squander the rest of their life, but work to do something meaningful for humanity and the planet. Jimmy Carter works hard to bring democracy to the rest of the world. Al Gore is working hard to wake us up to the reality of climate change. It will be the rare person who comes away from this movie without a renewed respect for Al Gore. I for one wish he would run for president again.

June 18th, 2006 at 11:41am Posted by Mark | Politics 2006, The Arts | no comments

A hint of desperation in the Paulson nomination

Yesterday the Bush Administration announced the long expected resignation of Treasury Secretary John Snow. The very same day President Bush nominated Wall Street financier Henry M. Paulson, Jr. as his third Treasury Secretary. Paulson is currently the head of the well-respected (and profitable) Goldman Sachs Group.

Paulson is very well qualified, as well as highly respected on Wall Street. This is good news because next to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Secretary wields the most influence in the financial community on United States fiscal matters. With stocks up, but faltering, the value of the U.S. dollar sinking, and with overseas markets skittish, the Bush Administration clearly needs a Treasury Secretary in which the financial community will have confidence. In this sense, Paulson is an excellent choice.

Generally when the White House comes offering a cabinet level position, you do not say no. Apparently, Paulson had to be courted aggressively by the Bush Administration. He spurned a number of interview requests before finally agreeing to meet with the President. Before accepting the position, Paulson required strict assurances that he would have the operational authority that he needed.

While it is clear that on fiscal matters, Bush and Paulson largely agree, what struck me from news reports is how Paulson vigorously disagreed with Bush on other matters. In addition to his full time work for Goldman Sachs, Paulson was the chairman of the Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy’s mission is to buy land to keep it from ever being developed. I contribute to this charity through payroll deductions, and consider it one of the best uses of my charitable contribution. Paulson may be a wealthy Wall Street financier but he is also an ardent environmentalist. He and his wife also have given nearly a million dollars to a political organization affiliated with the League of Conservation Voters. This organization has regularly taken the Bush Administration to task for its anti environmental efforts. Clearly, Paulson has walked the environmentalist walk, not just talked it.

Perhaps most peculiarly, while the chairman of the Nature Conservancy, the Conservancy came out strongly in favor of the United States adhering to the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions:

The Kyoto Protocol is a key first step to help slow the onslaught of global warming and benefit conservation efforts…Until the United States passes its own limits on global warming emissions, innovative companies based here will lose out on opportunities to sell reduced emission credits to companies complying with the Kyoto Protocol overseas. Additionally, without enacting our own emission limits, U.S. companies will lose ground to their competitors in Europe, Canada, Japan, and other countries participating in the Protocol who are developing clean technologies.

Even Goldman Sachs under Paulson took a position on climate change. It promoted an “Environmental Policy Framework” that required governments to take urgent action to address climate change:

[C]limate change is one of the most significant environmental challenges of the 21st century and is linked to other important issues such as economic growth and development… Goldman Sachs is very concerned by the threat to our natural environment, to humans and to the economy presented by climate change and believes that it requires the urgent attention of and action by governments, business, consumers and civil society to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In his position as Treasury Secretary, at best Paulson will have marginal influence on U.S. environmental policy. Nevertheless, those into reading political tealeaves might want to sit up and take note of this nomination. To date, the Bush Administration has not been accommodating to anyone working for it who is unfriendly to its positions. In fact, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was ushered out in 2002 largely for telling the American people some unpleasant fiscal truths: either sharp tax increases or dramatic benefit cuts would be needed to meet to pay out Social Security and Medicare benefits to promised to future retirees. He was eased out the door. Replacing him with John Snow however turned out to be a mixed blessing. While Snow faithfully towed the party line, Wall Street did not buy into growth through unending deficit spending. They wanted a policy maker, not a toady.

Paulson is unlikely to be this politically incorrect on basic Bush fiscal doctrine. However, he does have the savvy to realize that he had to have the authority to set his own policy without being countermanded by the White House. On this matter, for the first time, Bush has relented. Paulson’s sharp disagreements with the Bush Administration on environmental matters suggest that new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten may be testing the waters of moderation. He may realize that in order for the Bush Administration to have any successes in its last three years, it will be necessary for the Administration to moderate its stances.

Paulson may be an olive leaf to the country that Bush is grudgingly willing to moderate his excessive conservative tendencies and embrace more mainstream behavior. This approach likely will not do much to improve his poll numbers, but it certainly could not hurt. It does suggest perhaps a hint of desperation from an otherwise buttoned down, stiffed lipped administration.

May 31st, 2006 at 09:19pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2006 | no comments

Global Warming is Undeniable

From today’s Washington Post we learn that ranchers in Arizona are noticing severe climate change. And many are ready to say it is a result of global warming:

Reese Woodling remembers the mornings when he would walk the grounds of his ranch and come back with his clothes soaked with dew, moisture that fostered enough grass to feed 500 cows and their calves.

But by 1993, he says, the dew was disappearing around Cascabel — his 2,700-acre ranch in the Malpai borderlands straddling New Mexico and Arizona — and shrubs were taking over the grassland. Five years later Woodling had sold off half his cows, and by 2004 he abandoned the ranch.

“How do you respond when the grass is dying? You hope to hell it starts to rain next year,” he says.

When the rain stopped coming in the 1990s, he and other Southwest ranchers began to suspect there was a larger weather pattern afoot. “People started talking about how we’ve got some major problems out here,” he said in an interview. “Do I believe in global warming? Absolutely.”

The truth is that there is widespread scientific consensus that global warming is real and that human activity is its primary cause. There will always be some dissenters they are a tiny minority. But it is clear that the Bush Administration is in denial on the severity of the problem and its major cause. (I suppose it is also possible that the Bush Administration privately acknowledges all this but they just don’t care. I would hate to think that the Administration is so full of ideologues that they cannot draw the obvious inferences from the overwhelming available facts.)

However, there should be no real dispute that global warming is occurring. The data are out there. It just so happens that my agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, has some of the most convincing data out there for anyone who wants to sift through it. All one has to do is look at historical statistics for snowmelts. Take Montana, for instance. Monthly stream flow statistics are available in some cases going back to the early 20th century. For example, the statistics for Swiftcurrent Creek at Sherburne, Montana go back to 1912 and continue through to the present. For the winter months the creek is frozen over so there is no streamflow to measure. Eventually the snowpack melts and the creeks flow again. But it’s clear that in this case (and in hundreds of other sites in our database) that over the last ninety years the general trend has been for the monthly mean streamflow to peak earlier and earlier in Montana. It used to be that the snowmelt would peak in May and June. Now it more often peaks in April and May.

Still not convinced? Check out these fast facts on global warming put together by National Geographic Magazine. This fact says it all to me:

Vast quantities of fresh water are tied up in the world’s many melting glaciers. When Montana’s Glacier National Park was created in 1910 it held some 150 glaciers. Now fewer than 30, greatly shrunken glaciers, remain.

Even Bush’s conservative base is getting the message. In today’s Washington Post we also learn that many mainstream religious denominations that formed the basis of Bush’s support in the 2004 election are realizing the extent of the environmental problem and are demanding that the government get serious about global climate change. More and more these denominations are calling for policies that “care for creation”.

Sadly, Bush’s head in the sand environmental policies are moving both mankind and life as we know it toward extinction. It’s hard for this thinking citizen to understand why we tolerate an administration that refuses to do something concrete about this very real and serious problem. Their environmental policies prove that rather than being pro-life, they are anti-life. If we continue to follow their policies lots of human life as we know it will come to an unnecessary and preventable premature end. Let’s hope us voters sober up quickly and put grownups in charge again.

February 6th, 2005 at 10:13pm Posted by Mark | Politics 2005 | no comments