Getting forgetful seems another fascinating aspect of ‘growing up’!
This has turned out to be a Neil Kelly week-end on Learning from Dogs. Yesterday, there was his gorgeous jig-saw joke. Today, the following cartoon, sent to me by Neil.
Let me leave you with one of my favourite sayings, “I remember everything, except those things I forget!“
There have been a couple of hard-hitting posts this week, first about the implications of climate, with respect to the massive drought across the USA this year, and the efforts of Polly Higgins of the Eradicating Ecocide movement to make ecocide a crime against humanity.
This short but very compelling video shows why the planet is so worth protecting. Enjoy!
OK, that sub-heading must seem a tad bizarre! Let me explain. On Tuesday, Jean had an important visit to make down in Mesa, AZ on the outskirts of Phoenix. The first 65 miles, give or take, from Payson to Mesa are down along Highway 87.
At 11.20 we started on our return from Mesa planning on being early back home, say by 1pm at the latest. But 31 miles up the Northbound carriageway of Highway 87, we came to a halt. The road was closed due to an accident with a tanker. As our local newspaper, the Payson Roundup, put it,
The driver of the truck was taken by ambulance to a Scottsdale hospital with non life-threatening injuries. DPS has not ruled out speed as the cause of the crash. Photo by Andy Towle.
Due to a hazardous spill, Highway 87 was closed most of Tuesday, but reopened Wednesday morning after overnight clean up efforts, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
Officials initially thought the roadway could be closed as many as two days due to the amount of oil spewed across both sides of the highway.
The highway closed down after a semi truck carrying oil used for paving rolled Tuesday afternoon near milepost 228, at the bottom of Slate Creek.
That resulted in us having to take a 170 mile detour and not arriving back until 4.30pm!
So what’s that got to do with the post for today? Simply that the implications of Tuesday spilled, like the tanker’s oil cargo, across into Wednesday and the long, thoughtful post I had in my mind to write got put on hold. Thus in its place is this republication of a recent release by Stanford School of Engineering at Stanford University. Apologies for another republished item but the article is relevant and interesting.
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WIND COULD MEET WORLD’S TOTAL POWER DEMAND – AND THEN SOME – BY 2030
Wind turbines near Livermore, CA.
HIGH RESOLUTION MODELS
In their study, Jacobson and Archer adapted the three-dimensional, atmosphere-ocean-land computer model known as GATOR-GCMOM to calculate the theoretical maximum wind power potential on the planet taking into account wind reduction by turbines. Their model assumed wind turbines could be installed anywhere and everywhere, without regard to societal, environmental, climatic or economic considerations.
The new paper contradicts two earlier studies that said wind potential falls far short of the aggressive goal because each turbine steals too much wind energy from other turbines, and that turbines introduce harmful climate consequences that would negate some of the positive aspects of renewable wind energy.
The new model provides a more sophisticated look than previously possible by separating winds in the atmosphere into hypothetical boxes stacked atop and beside one another. Each box has its own wind speed and weather. In their model, Jacobson and Archer exposed individual turbines to winds from several boxes at once, a degree of resolution earlier global models did not match.
“Modeling the climate consequences of wind turbines is complex science,” said Jacobson. “This software allows that level of detail for the first time.”
With a single model, the researchers were able to calculate the exposure of each wind turbine in the model to winds that vary in space and time. Additionally, the model extracts the correct amount of energy from the wind that gets claimed by the turbines, reducing the wind speed accordingly while conserving energy. It then calculates the effect of these wind speed changes on global temperatures, moisture, clouds and climate.
POTENTIAL APLENTY
Among the most promising things the researchers learned is that there is a lot of potential in the wind—hundreds of terawatts. At some point, however, the return on building new turbines plateaus, reaching a level in which no additional energy can be extracted even with the installation of more turbines.
“Each turbine reduces the amount of energy available for others,” Archer said. The reduction, however, becomes significant only when large numbers of turbines are installed, many more than would ever be needed.
“And that’s the point that was very important for us to find,” Archer said.
The researchers have dubbed this point the saturation wind power potential. The saturation potential, they say, is more than 250 terawatts if we could place an army of 100-meter-tall wind turbines across the entire land and water of planet Earth. Alternatively, if we place them only on land (minus Antarctica) and along the coastal ocean there is still some 80 terawatts available—about seven times the total power demand of all civilization. Hypothetical turbines operating in the jet streams six miles up in the atmosphere could extract as much as an additional 380 terawatts.
“We’re not saying, ‘Put turbines everywhere,’ but we have shown that there is no fundamental barrier to obtaining half or even several times the world’s all-purpose power from wind by 2030. The potential is there, if we can build enough turbines,” said Jacobson.
Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering. Photo: Linda Cicero / Stanford News Service
HOW MANY TURBINES?
Knowing that the potential exists, the researchers turned their attention to how many turbines would be needed to meet half the world’s power demand—about 5.75 terawatts—in a 2030 clean-energy economy. To get there, they explored various scenarios of what they call the fixed wind power potential—the maximum power that can be extracted using a specific number of wind turbines.
Archer and Jacobson showed that four million 5-megawatt turbines operating at a height of 100 meters could supply as much 7.5 terawatts of power—well more than half the world’s all-purpose power demand—without significant negative affect on the climate.
“We have a long way to go. Today, we have installed a little over one percent of the wind power needed,” said Jacobson.
In terms of surface area, Jacobson and Archer would site half the four million turbines over water. The remaining two million would require a little more than one-half of one percent of the Earth’s land surface—about half the area of the State of Alaska. However, virtually none of this area would be used solely for wind, but could serve dual purposes as open space, farmland, ranchland, or wildlife preserve.
Rather than put all the turbines in a single location, Archer and Jacobson say it is best and most efficient to spread out wind farms in high-wind sites across the globe—the Gobi Desert, the American plains and the Sahara for example.
“The careful siting of wind farms will minimize costs and the overall impacts of a global wind infrastructure on the environment,” said Jacobson. “Regardless, as these results suggest, the saturation of wind power availability will not limit a clean-energy economy.”
Funding sources include National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration high-end computing.
Andrew Myers is associate director of communications for the Stanford University School of Engineering.
Monday, September 10, 2012
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Let me close by pointing you to Mark Jacobson’s website.
This was sent to me recently. It has been doing the rounds big time, and rightly so!
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Before going on to today’s post, I feel the need to explain something. That is that over the last week or so I have been republishing many more items rather than writing my own creative stuff. This is an unfortunate consequence of us having our house here in Payson up for sale, which is generating more work than usual. Plus we are packing. All this to do with us moving from Arizona to Oregon in the first week of November.
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Charles Schulz
The following is the philosophy of Charles Schulz, the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip.
You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. It will make very good sense!
Here’s A Little Quiz
You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just read them straight through, ponder a tad, and you’ll get the point.
Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
Name the last five winners of the Miss America pageant.
Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize.
Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress.
Name the last decade’s worth of World Series Winners.
How did you do?
The point is, none of us remember the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They were the best in their fields.
But the applause dies. Awards tarnish over time. Achievements are forgotten and accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.
Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:
List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
Name three friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
Name five people who have taught you something worthwhile.
Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special!
Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
Did you find that Easier? Of course you did!
So here’s the lesson!
The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, or the most money…or the most awards…they simply are the ones who care the most.
“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” George Bernard Shaw.
Recently sent to me by Lindy C. from Devon, England.
This is dedicated to all of us who are seniors, to all of you who know seniors, and to all of you who will become seniors.
“WHERE is my SUNDAY paper?” The irate customer calling the newspaper office, loudly demanded to know where her Sunday edition was.
“Madam“, said the newspaper employee, “today is Saturday. The Sunday paper is not delivered until tomorrow, on SUNDAY.”
There was quite a long pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a ray of recognition as Madam was heard to mutter under her breath, “Well, shit, that explains why there was no one at church either!”
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As British comedian Bob Monkhouse is reputed to have said, “Growing old is compulsory; growing up is optional.” (NB. More fabulous quotations from this naturally very funny man may be found here.)
On the subject of Bob Monkhouse, let me close with this video of Norman Wisdom appearing on the Bob Monkhouse Show back in 1983. As one of the YouTube commentators put it, “Two of Britains funniest men; we will never seek their likes again.“
I admit to being too free with my silly clichés including, “I can predict anything unless it involves the future!” So now that millions of informed people have the benefit of “20:20 hindsight“, why is it years since the banking crisis first erupted and we are still without a root and branch overhaul of the governance of the industry?
Did you see Per Kurowski’s interview with a leading regulator on Learning from Dogs yesterday? Aren’t we so slow to learn!
Anyway, I waffle on! Let me get to the point of today’s post.
Back on the 1st September, there was a post called Understanding Europe. One of the resulting commentators was Pendantry who is author of a blog called Wibble. He included a link to a poem that he wrote on the 28th February, 2009! The fact that the poem is still so relevant (and when we see what’s happening in Europe perhaps even more relevant now!) is truly shocking. I wanted to republish it which I do with the kind permission of Pendantry. Here it is.
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House of cards
When the inevitable strikes,
when the house falls down,
do you patch up the walls,
fix the holes in the roof,
shore it all up,
splash it with paint?
No.
You learn from the mistakes.
You start from scratch.
You call in the architects.
You rebuild the foundations.
You use new materials;
replace wattle and daub
with a sounder design.
Unless:
Because you’re lost outside the box,
and your mates demand
to regain their riches (and, now!):
You set up the same as before,
perhaps with a few bells and whistles
(spun to persuade that they’ll work).
And… in the end, we’ll believe
that your clothing is not invisible.
“Who is more foolish?
The fool, or the fool who follows him?”
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Written over three years and five months ago. Shame on us all!
A few days ago, I published a delightful story sent to me by Richard Maugham about Helga’s Bar. It was a tongue-in-cheek look at the crazy world of finance and banking that we seem to be living in at present.
One of the regular readers of Learning from Dogs is Per Kurowski and he left a couple of comments. The first being,
As a former ED at the World Bank, 2002-2004, living close to Washington, writing articles and being an assiduous blogger, I’ve been in the middle of many discussions about those many of the challenges our world faces. And my friend, I am sorry to say, our prospects to solve these problems, do not seem good.
One of the main reasons for that negative outlook, is that I have been able to witness how the discussion of many of these problems, no matter how urgent these are, so often get hijacked by a political agenda, or by a group that decides making a business, or a living, out of it.
If we cannot break out of this mold, unfortunately, the world is toast, and this, not only from a global warming perspective.
which was then followed up by,
By the way, I managed to sit down a prominent and important bank regulator in my chair yesterday, though he was invisible and quite silent!
I then replied,
Per, just love that. Any chance of you penning a guest post that could set the background to that video in terms that make it easy for the punter to understand?
So here is Per’s interview (sound volume is a little low) and his views.
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Paul… well here is “a brief summary of my thoughts on banks and risks”
Capital requirements for banks which are lower when the perceived risk of default of the borrower is low, and higher when the perceived risk is high, distort the economic resource allocation process. This is so because those perceptions of risk have already been cleared for, by bankers and markets, by means of interest rates and amounts of exposures.
All the current dangerous and obese bank exposures are to be found in areas recently considered as safe and which therefore required these banks to hold little capital. What was considered as “risky” is not, as usual, causing any problems. This is not a crisis caused by excessive risk taking by the banks, but by excessive regulatory interference by naïve and nanny type regulators.
And, if that distortion is not urgently eliminated, all our banks are doomed to end up gasping for oxygen and capital on the last officially perceived safe beach… like the US Treasury or the Bundesbank.
Bank regulators have no business regulating based on risk perceptions being right, their role is to prepare for when these perceptions turn out to be wrong.
A nation that cares more for history, what it has got, the haves, the “not-risky”, the AAA rated or the “infallible” sovereigns, than for the future, what it can get, the not-haves, the risky, the small businesses or the entrepreneurs, is a nation on its way down.
Per.
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You may read more from Per on his blog here, and also read Per’s Tea with FT blog! So let me close by saying that Per’s summary seems like a blast of sanity in an otherwise crazy world!
Looking at the human-animal relationship, from the perspective of the animal.
This is a guest post from Virginia Ingram. Virginia is becoming more involved in the animal rescue movement. As such, she knows only too well how vital it is to give so many precious animals a second chance.
In a very real sense we, as in mankind, owe our humanity to dogs and other animals. As I wrote here in the essay What is love?
“But understanding animals and empathizing with them also triggered other changes in humanity’s evolution, Shipman said.
All those things allow people to live with people. Once people have domesticated animals, they start to live in stable groups. They have fields, crops and more permanent dwellings.”
We owe so much!
So with that in mind, here is Virginia’s guest post.
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WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Recently I started to question the time I spend on the internet reading articles, essays and recommendations of books about all things concerned with animals. I receive animal stories from friends, acquaintances and business associates from all corners of the globe. I love to get them because, well….. hey, I really enjoy them!
After I read them I forward them to others who I think will also enjoy them. They make me feel warm and fuzzy. They are enlightening, poignant, humorous, inspiring and sometimes heart-rending. I find I cannot ignore any cute email containing animal pictures even though I may have already seen it a dozen times before. Give me a story about a dog who ate a popsicle and to me ‘that’s entertainment’ as they say. We human beings love to feel moved by great stories and these communications are full of it. I am such a sap when it comes to animal stories; so many of us are.
But here is the rub. What do the animals get out of it?
We chuckle and get our jollies from these incredible beings from a distance on the World Wide Web but the fact of the matter is that so many of these wonderful creatures end up unwanted, uncared for or even starved and beaten in shelters across the world.
Unknown and uncared for!
What gives? Why is there such a disconnect? How can we love animals from a distance and not be concerned with the abuses that go on in our own environment?
We know that there are those who don’t understand that animals have feelings and emotions, that they experience deep loss and sadness as well as happiness and joy. What can we do raise to the consciousness of human beings who don’t get it?
I think it involves sticking our collective necks out. I think that we need to be ready to risk some things. It might involve changing or damaging a relationship with someone who is acting in irresponsible ways towards animals. We need to be ready to risk it.
Do you see it on your own street? Maybe it’s a neighbor who leaves their dog on a chain in the yard on weekends regardless of weather or exposure to other animals. Maybe it’s the guy next door who ‘forgets’ to feed his animal.
Let’s stand up for these animals who have no voice. Let’s be advocates for these amazing creatures who cannot be their own advocate. Let’s hold humans accountable. Let’s risk a friendship and say something, make that difficult phone call on behalf of a animal. Let’s talk to people about animal issues and problems. Let’s try to change the weak laws that do not properly address animal cruelty. Let’s summon our courage and do the unpopular things which will enhance the quality of life for these precious beings.
Can you imagine how animals feel when they have been turned over to an animal shelter by the person whom they loved more than themselves? Trust me, the sense of abandonment and fear, the bewilderment in their eye is excruciating to observe. I have seen it not from the distance of my computer but in person. Let’s DO something to change all this. It’s time to get involved.
By all means keep the cute emails going but for every minute we spend on the internet, reading the books and enjoying the emails let’s put the same amount of time into getting something done to improve the lives of animals. Stand up, walk out the door, volunteer or donate money. We can help the suffering. We can make a difference.
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Powerful words indeed. Don’t know about you but I read a strength of feeling that was very moving. A clear message that we must never turn the head, never just ‘tut tut’ but do something. Even if only befriending a stray animal. Because one might argue that even that feral dog without a home is demonstrating something all of us on this green planet need to understand; living a sustainable life!
Finally, living proof of what we can give an animal when we care and love it. The dog in the picture below is Loopy, a dog that Jean rescued in Mexico many years ago. She was so badly hurt by humans that it took Jean six months before Loopy would let Jean touch and hug her.
When I came on the scene, my gender was against me. It took me twelve months before Loopy trusted me. Now she will come to me and let me place my face against hers in the most loving, caring embrace that one can imagine.
So why the fearful look on Loopy’s face as she turns away from the camera? Somehow the camera is reminding Loopy of some sort of weapon that was used to beat her!
Loopy
As Virginia so lovingly wrote, “We can help the suffering. We can make a difference.“
Schalk is the author of the Blog One in a Billion which describes itself as ‘A DIY guide to saving our world while building a happy, healthy and wealthy life.‘ The Billion in the title refers to ‘the billion wealthiest world citizens, are creating serious global problems through our unsustainable consumption habits.’
My name is Schalk Cloete, a South African research scientist currently living and working in Norway. Officially, my research is centered around the mathematical modelling of fluidized bed reactors; something which makes nice pictures, but which is not exactly the most brilliant blog material. I will therefore not bore you with further details about the kinetic theory of granular flows.
Nope, the material I write about here; building a happy, healthy, wealthy and sustainable life within our affluent modern society, should be much more interesting. I use the word “building” quite a lot because that is exactly what needs to be done. One literally needs to build the environment within which one functions from day to day with the same level of diligence and attention to detail one would use to build a house.
Anyway, with no further ado, let me go to Schalk’s guest post.
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YOU are responsible
Not so long ago, Paul left a very thought-provoking comment on my blog: the One in a Billion project, and suggested that my response to that comment was worth publishing as a guest post on Learning from Dogs. Needless to say, I gratefully accepted this generous offer! Before we go any further though, I’d just like briefly to describe my blog so that the comment can be seen in perspective.
The principle objective of my blog is to advocate personal lifestyle change as a lasting solution to the pressing sustainability problems we are facing today.
The rationale behind this overall theme is threefold:
Our current systems are fundamentally guaranteed to collapse (more about this here)
A personal lifestyle change is the one and only sustainable solution to this impending crisis (further detail can be found here)
Such personal lifestyle changes towards sustainable living are the one and only road to lasting health, wealth and happiness.
So, on that backdrop, here was Paul’s comment:
Any successful attempt at reversing and correcting the perilous journey humanity is on has to focus on the nature of change, how humans change, why the change required in this case is psychologically complex, and how the reward feedback process has to work. In my opinion these are the core issues to be tackled.
And my response:
Change is driven by a complex set of internal and external triggers that influence our consciousness every second of every day. If these triggers collectively indicate to a person (based on his or her unique subjective interpretations and subconscious filters) that some alternative is more attractive or that the current reality is unacceptable, motivation for change is granted. The exact nature of the change that this project requests is a change in day-to-day lifestyle choices which stems from shaping a person’s interpretation and filtering of the various internal and external triggers to accurately represent the reality that a lifestyle aimed at sustainable happiness is infinitely more attractive than one focused on consumerism.
This project tries to motivate people to take action by strongly emphasizing on the immediate personal benefits of making these lifestyle changes, the ease with which these changes can be made (and made permanent), the short and long term hazards of not making these changes and the moral obligation we have to the poor and to future generations to make these changes.
The change is psychologically complex because the entire environment we live in today just begs us to consume at ever increasing rates. This is the reason why this project repeatedly emphasizes on the construction of micro-environments to protect against this toxic macro-environment and make the correct actions natural and automatic. On a higher level, change is psychologically complex because we now have to abandon a system that has raised our standard of living tremendously while we still had abundant cheap fossil fuels and a limitless planet. Our most powerful weapon has turned into our greatest threat and it should come as no surprise that we seem totally unable to handle that.
The reward-feedback process in the One in a Billion initiative is actually quite interesting. As stated before, a lot of emphasis is placed on the immediate rewards of making certain lifestyle choices, but the thing that makes it really interesting is the holistic and complementary nature of this plan. Because it covers such a broad spectrum of areas, one quickly finds that gains in one area start to enhance gains in other areas. From personal experience, this truly is an extremely exciting journey and even becomes addictive, thereby all but guaranteeing further lifestyle changes. As soon as this spiral is started, the mind becomes a lot more open to the wealth of information on sustainability out there and this understanding then stimulates further action. In the end, you end up with a completely self-sustaining upwards spiral towards happy, healthy, wealthy and sustainable living.
In closing, the change that is needed within the developed world today can basically be summarized as follows: hundreds of millions of people must be reconditioned away from a debilitating and self-destructive culture of consumerism and entitlement towards a healthy and fulfilling culture of contribution and personal responsibility. It is my sincere hope that the One in a Billion project can contribute to this change and help overcome the great challenges discussed above.
This really is a dream of mine which I have recently described in more detail under my Dream heading for anyone who might be interested. Please spend a minute or two to think about this philosophy and whether you might consider developing a similar dream of your own.
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Trust me, Schalk’s blog is full of very interesting propositions. Yet another sign that opinions are changing across this great interconnected world.
Remaining with the theme of love, love lost and new love.
John Hurlburt sent me the following last week and it is so perfect as a sequel to the writings of the last two days. That was John’s poetry last Saturday on Learning from Dogs, by the way.
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Two lost souls
After losing his parents, this three year old orangutan was so depressed he wouldn’t eat and didn’t respond to any medical treatments. The veterinarians thought he would surely die from sadness.
The zoo keepers found an old sick dog on the grounds in the park at the zoo where the orangutan lived and took the dog to the animal treatment center. The dog arrived at the same time the orangutan was there being treated.
The two lost souls met and have been inseparable ever since. The orangutan found a new reason to live and each always tries his best to be a good companion to his new found friend. They are together 24 hours a day in all their activities.
They live in Northern California where swimming is their favorite past-time, although Roscoe (the orangutan) is a little afraid of the water and needs his friend’s help to swim.
Together they have discovered the joy and laughter in life and the value of friendship.
They have found more than a friendly shoulder to lean on.
Long Live Friendship!
I don’t know, but some say life is too short, others say it is too long, but I know that nothing that we do makes sense if we don’t touch the hearts of others. While it lasts!
May you always have love to share, health to spare, and friends who care…..even if they are a little hairy at times.
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I must say that the generosity of so many of my readers in sending me these beautiful examples of what is really important in this world of ours touches me deeply. Thank you, John. Thank you, one and all.
Learning from Dogs 