One step closer to perfect information

Image obtained from treehugger.com

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m operating in a closed system. Like there’s an upper bound on the amount of mental or physical resources I can devote toward the seemingly limitless goals and aspirations that flood my everyday life. It’s like you can grasp your own glass ceiling and you want to shatter it to bits, but you’re worried that your world will shatter with it. Or worse, you’re ready to shatter your world and aggrandize, but you’re not sure how. 

This is what the music binge is for. You listen to a song you like on Pandora, type the name in YouTube, paste the link in Zamzar, and then voila you have a sonic boom of expression waiting in your email inbox. Do it twenty times over, and you’ve got the match, the spark, the chitty and bang, bang of a verifiable  personal renaissance.

I love the music binge. It shakes up my present and gives old hopes a new spin. The current hope is a quest for perfect information, but it starts small with my everyday choices. I want to be able to understand what it means to dry clothes on a clothesline instead of a dryer, to take the bus instead of driving, to compost instead of throwing away biodegradables, etc. Screw the abstract numbers, I need tangible figures that an everyday Steve can grasp. 

Okay. Carbon dioxide emissions are a good start. I did a little research to figure out how much carbon dioxide I can responsibly emit each year to be able coexist in our natural heritage.

I reasoned that by taking the total amount of environmentally acceptable carbon emissions and dividing them by the global population it would yield the acceptable amount of carbon emissions per person. I found out that last year every human being should’ve emitted around 6,424 lbs. of carbon. (People actually emitted around 15,418 lbs. on average.) To see the math, click here. 

In honor of Thanksgiving, I have a metric to be thankful for. The world speaks in pounds of carbon dioxide and it turns out when cars burn one gallon of gasoline it releases about 20 lbs. My Annabel drives about 25 miles per gallon. By checking my trusty driving log I see that I’ve driven about 5,252.6 miles. To date I’ve burned about 4,202.8 pounds of carbon. To see the math, click here.

 

This is good news for our planet because I drive a lot of miles to see family, friends, and to bolster quality leisure time. I haven't crashed through the 6,424 pound average yet, so I think it would be very possible to emit carbon at the responsible environmental levels provided in the Kyoto Protocol.

I kind of want to hug a koala or high five a polar bear, but this is only a small step. I know that I have a long way in my quest to better understand how each of my habits plays into my overall carbon footprint. I know that transportation is only a portion of my energy budget, however, this knowledge is taking me in a direction that I like. The closer I get toward perfect information, the sooner I can get better, freer, and chart a course to true life, liberty and happiness. 

Carbon and population figures were given by the following websites:

http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/CARBONDIOXIDE.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html

Thus began the Financial Crisis

I recommend the first 8 pages.

Never have I had a bulls-eye appear so readily, nor have I been so misinformed. I’m beginning to wrap my head around the origins of the financial crisis, after I found out something pretty enlightening. Check this out:

Today Bill Clinton is synonymous with deregulation. He signed the Financial Services Modernization Act into law, which effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that prevented commercial banks from merging with investment banks. 

The truth of the matter is Bill Clinton was hamstrung when he signed the Act. Earlier in his presidency he rebuffed an attempt to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act, and he was always against deregulation. 

However, on April 6, 1998, Citicorp took the Glass-Steagall Act into its own hands. Citicorps announced its merger with Traveler’s Insurance to become Citigroup, the largest financial conglomerate in the world. It was empowered to sell securities, take deposits, make loans, underwrite stocks, sell insurance, and operate an enormous variety of financial activities, directly violating the Glass-Steagall Act. 

Citicorp knew that it was in violation of the Act when it merged with Traveler’s Insurance, yet it merged anyway because of a loophole. The new Citigroup was allowed a five-year window for the law to change or be repealed.

It was after this merger where the most powerful banking lobbies in the country bombarded politicians with millions of dollars’ worth of contributions. They seduced Congress and won. 

In November 1999, the necessary bills were passed 54-44 in the Senate and 343-86 in the House. In the ensuing days the final bipartisan bill moved through the Senate, 90-8 and the House, 362-57. Those margins made it veto proof. 

Even if President Clinton wanted to stop the legislation, we would have gotten overrun by Congress. I still think he should have vetoed the damn thing anyway to exonerate himself, yet we’d be in trouble either way.

I highly recommend reading “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Lehman Brothers.” I haven’t read much of it yet, but it’s elucidated a festeloon’s worth already. 

Also, I’m new to this game, but I can’t help the feeling that a collapse round two is coming our way. I hope that I’m wrong, but we when I look at the recent bankruptcy of MF Global and its criminal ledger level, and note the impending collapse of Italy and Greece, I see blustery weather coming straight towards us.  

I personally believe we don’t have the kind of political system anymore that could fix an economic downturn. I say this because I understand that money buys policy in this nation. Money will probably continue to do so until the Supreme Court’s decision for permitting unlimited campaign contributions is reversed. 

Just a question, do any of you loyal blog readers know anything about purchasing gold? Not investing in it, but actually buying the real thing.

P.S. I know this is an environmental blog, and I will get back to that soon. This just blew my hair back and I felt like sharing. Kind sentiment for kind people.

Appalachia brings in the year!

The Appalachian Trail stretches for 2,181 miles and is within 550 miles of two-thirds of the US population. It is on this trail where Pomp, Sacagawea's firstborn son invented bowling.



Ostensibly it’s about the exercise, making an event out of a new hike. But the reality is, I go hiking to breathe again. Where the clutches of man are few and far between, I feel my senses wake up. The deleterious ether that clouds my awareness somehow dissipates when I’m out there in the throes of beauty. 

But far better than reawakening my senses in an isolated Walden Pond sort of way, I shared my most recent hike along the Appalachian Trail with the woman I can’t stop thinking about. Through the course of our relationship, Ileana has come to be the glorious goofball who makes me laugh, the patient listener who seems to always find the right words to say, and an inexorable source of energy for me.

If you’re rolling your eyes over the mushy sentiment, then you can put on sunglasses, or wear two pirate eye patches, because I don’t want to see it. Ileana and I just celebrated our one year anniversary and it’s been a year filled with moments that I’ve spent my whole life searching for. 

She’s not only put up with my Gaia cravings like camping in December, my lack of an extant garbage can, my distaste for heat in the winter or air conditioning in the summer, she’s openly embraced the sentiment…she likes my eco-quirks, and for the record she might be more of an environmentalist than I am – I know this to be true when it comes to her ethical food purchasing. 

Vink visits, Mourning Wood, the trail's somber grove.

So, I left the Midwest a little over a year ago, and though I love and miss my family and the people to death, I will never fully miss the place. Highways and arterial byways carve up the flat landscape, while strip malls and poorly insulated dwellings rise along their dissections.  Where the land hasn’t been claimed by cement or residences, corn and soy trample over anything that once smacked of glorious untamed grassland. (Chicago’s an enjoyable exemption, but anyhow)

That’s not to say that there’s not sprawl or land use change out here, however, there are vast patches of untamed land relatively nearby where people like me can regain their breath.  And this past weekend, I breathed so vigorously that I realized, I could spend my life trying to defend and experience places like this. These wild spaces are where people build their dreams. It was here in the Shenandoah’s where I first found the unquenchable spark for adventure in my woman, where my best friend and I nearly scared each other senseless sharing ghost stories in the pitch black, and where I felt my happiness bubble go Sumo. 

I may never acquire the prescience to see the future before it unfolds, but it’s sure damn brilliant getting to enjoy the present in Gaia’s country with the woman I love.

Known for their communal spirit and their striking ability to be still in the presence of danger, blades of Shenandoah switch grass huddle together through the onslaught of wind, water, and sun scorch.

Ring around the Housie

 Starting in Lafayette Park, a band of good-natured individuals and I surrounded the White House to protest the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. We rallied behind the fact that we were a significant portion of Barack Obama's base, and are optimistic at our chances of getting him to shut down the pipeline.

Thousands of my kind of people wrapped around the White House today, to raise their voices (and their posters) in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline. 

People could be heard chanting, “Hey Obama, We Don’t Want No Pipeline Drama,” and “Stop the Pipeline, Yes We Can.”

Joining in the latest saga of American Politics: Jobs vs. Justice, I protested by raising the question: “What would Sweden do?”

Basically, hoping to evoke a little humor and raise the question, “If the Swedes wouldn’t do it, then why should we?” I got a lot of laughs, six people stopped and spoke Swedish with me, I may be featured in two environmental blogs, but on a more important note, I got a taste of the fervor that is coursing through Americans lately. 

At the moment, I’m one of many who feels that social justice in our nation is being held in check by the dismal economy. The only thing any politician wants to talk about are positive economic indicators, like new jobs created or lower unemployment rates. Yet, there are people like me everywhere that are questioning the smoke screen of economic indicators. 

Today was so refreshing, because I was surrounded by thousands of people who were able to voice their opposition to indicators that only told one side of the story. In unison, we protested to bring down a vessel for dirty energy and we demanded that Obama reaffirm his support to his constituent base. 

See videos soon. I wish I had a Mac, because the videos would be up right now.

The Pipeline Picture

The pipeline would transport tar sands from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, creating somewhere in the realm of 6,000 jobs, according to Cardno Entrix, the contractor hired by the State Department to run the pipeline’s environmental review process. 

Yet environmentalists and people like me vehemently oppose this proposition, because the tar sand extraction process has extremely adverse ecological impacts. Tar Sands extraction requires the clear-cutting of Canadian forests and the refining process releases more carbon dioxide than traditional petroleum.

Farm bill not evil, what?

As a planet first kind of guy, I’ve always had my suspicions about the Farm Bill. I figured that Congress was using the bill as a tool to hand out transfer payments which disproportionately favored the lobbying powerhouses. I thought factory farms were making out like bandits at the expense of everyone else.

The truth is, that’s not really the case. When the 2008 farm bill expires next September, it will have doled out only 15 percent of its total appropriations to support growers of select commodities, and less than 1 percent on livestock or poultry (of which may be morally dubious).

The big ticket item of the 2008 farm bill, was the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or Food Stamps, which will have consumed around 67 percent of the total appropriations included in the bill.

Despite the stigma and the harsh criticism about the Farm Bill propping up the undesirables of agriculture, appropriations numbers seem to portray a far less dramatic picture. If you’re interested in the numbers, check out this pdf (scroll to page 6).

The plight of the next farm bill is underway as of Friday and it may take about two weeks according to Environmental Blog Ecocentric.  The upcoming farm bill will offer $23 billion less in appropriations as the federal government tightens it belt to save $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. 

They’ve occupied my hope

Occupy Chicago protesters rally for economic equality in Grant Park, the same spot where Obama delivered his '08 victory speech. Whether its hope, or hopelessness, we're in for an exciting ride.    

Visionaries, protesters make my world better, greener

I’m poor just like everybody else, but thanks to Groupon I’ve got my Sunday edition of the Washington Post. Thanks to net neutrality, I’ve got my free podcasts, and thanks to the world wide web, I have 24-7 access to liberty as it currently exists and transforms. But what I’m crazy thankful for now, are the visionaries that have led us to where we are at this moment:

Ali Tarhouni: University of Washington Economics Professor turned rebel finance minister who helped orchestrate the robbery of the Libyan National Bank and helped finance the Libyan revolution.

Julian Assange: The Australian ethical computer hacker and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks who exposed millions of classified documents after the launch of WikiLeaks.  

Anonymous: The loose band of hackers who commit honorable terrorism. They are the most notorious group of net activists who hack organizations, corporations and agencies that they deem debauched. They're the Web's bona fide Boondock Saints.  

And most of all, OccupyWall Street. Don’t let Time magazine, the Washington Post, or any other newspaper or periodical simplify them into a political movement. Occupy Wall Street is a band of individuals who are seeking a more effective society with a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. Their political orientation is irrelevant, but their message is resolute. Fed up with the economic disparities that have arisen from the social elites’ dominance of our political, economic, and earth systems, they will protest, unceasingly until justice is served. 

As an environmentalist in training, I see hope in their movement and in their trend. Once the corporate playing field is leveled or kept in check, lobbying power could greatly diminish. This could have all sorts of good environmental implications. Stronger regulation on CO₂ emissions, an actual domestic energy plan, who knows…

Occupy Wall Street is burgeoning and with Arab Spring in the back our minds rebellion seems way more possible today than at any point I can pull from in my lifetime. I can’t help shake the feeling that the fall of Gaddafi, could accelerate the disintegration of the US.

It’s scary to think that the United States as an entity could fail, or even to admit that the United States is failing. (Yet as an entity it could, and as an entity it is.) However, the essence of the United States will never fail. The essence of the United States is what is pushing Occupy Wall Street. The essence is what every American has the fortune of sensing: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

As our liberties have been stymied by the Patriot Act, the Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Bailout, and have been exacerbated by an ineffective Congress and a dismal economy, Occupy Wall Street has become the vanguard of those usurped liberties. Since 9/11 our melting pot has become fervid and Occupy Wall Street could be just the ingredient we need to have everything boil over.

As an emotional being, I hope that the movement doesn’t get stolen by the democrats.  And as cities in the US and those around the world become occupied with protesters, hopefully justice will be served.

The reach of the oil juggernauts

Left: Hiding behind the National Environmental Policy Act, the State Department is outsourcing it's responsibility for a fair environmental review of the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal. The image is a screenshot of a comment I left for the State Department, to read it legibly scroll to the bottom of this post.

I know as a blogger you’re supposed to write about things you’ve done related to your blog’s theme. But for those of you like me who are eco-peripherals, sometimes my little victories are completely nugatory compared to the setbacks we face from the oil juggernauts. 

Right now it appears that the State Department is complicit in a scandal involving these oil juggoes.  The State Department has contracted the private company, Cardno Entrix to run the environmental review process for the Keystone XL pipeline, a proposed 1,700 mile pipeline bringing oil sands from northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. The thing is, Cardno Entrix was recommended to the State Department by TransCanada, the company that is building the pipeline, according to an article in the New York Times.

Because of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which took effect in 1970, agencies are allowed hire outside contractors to perform required environmental impact studies. Yet, choosing Cardno Entrix to perform the impact study and run the environmental review process is a conflict of interest. 

Professor Oliver A. Houck, a law professor at Tulane University and an expert on NEPA, said to the N.Y. Times that Cardno Entrix should never have been selected to perform the environmental study on Keystone XL because of its relationship with TransCanada and the potential to garner more work involving the pipeline. 

To make matters more interesting, TransCanada’s chief Washington lobbyist, Paul Elliot, was a top official in Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign…

I highly recommend reading the New York Times article.

I wish I knew about all of this sooner. I found out Sunday night, that public comments on the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal were accepted until Sunday at midnight. I posted a comment as appears below, but I wish I could have gotten this info out to you loyal blog readers to comment as well. Though the comments don’t have a lot of bearing considering that they are directed to a Cardno Entrix email address. But here was my two-cents anyways: 

“Now that I know the State Department is complicit in contracting a client of TransCanada, I know how meaningless this comment is, however, I type it nonetheless.

Oil sands are not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States. Job creation is a meaningless endeavor if the jobs created damage our national social construct. 

This has gone too far, and it’s time that the President and Secretary of State that I voted for, shut the Keystone XL Pipeline down. Please don’t use the bad economy as an excuse to undermine our natural rights, especially the pursuit of happiness.”