Cop Car's Beat

Fred First's additional blog

Fred First, best known for his Fragments from Floyd blog, has initiated another blog Nameless Creek, intended to give a home to the "...more sober, less ethereal side of my writer’s mind...."

On Nameless Creek, he has posted Peak Oil Primer. And Take-Home Tests, in which he writes the following.

Forgive me, this is not an easy demon to confront. But soon, we will enter detox from many decades of ignorant, euphoric addiction to cheap oil. While there will continue to be oil in the ground, much of what's left will stay there. The time has come for us to imagine how we will get on in a world not fueled by a carbon economy.

Fred proceeds to provide three scenarios for consideration:

Scenario #1: Gas is in short supply. Each person in the U.S. of driving age is issued a permit to get a maximum of 10 gallons of gas a week, and only on certain days of the week based alphabetically on your last name.

Scenario #2: Due to geopolitical circumstances (a 9-11 magnitude attack but many times more serious--say, a dirty nuclear bomb detonated under the Arch in St. Louis) we're told that all ports will be closed and gas deliveries will be interrupted across the country for 4 to 6 weeks and thereafter hopefully restored.

Scenario #3: Gasoline becomes both very scarce and very expensive--say $12-15 a gallon if you can get it. Not only that, but things made from petroleum--plastics, fertilizer--can no longer be manufactured at affordable prices due to gas costs, and moreover, there is no longer international shipping via air or sea or interstate commerce via tractor trailer trucks to get those things where they are needed. When something breaks or runs out, it stays broken and empty.

Fred continues, as below.

If you walk through these scenarios, it becomes quickly clear that as individuals, and especially if reacting after the situation is upon us, we're not going to live as we have always lived. We may be struggling to survive. Period.

Our best and perhaps only hope is to start as soon as possible--as families, neighborhoods, towns--preparing contingencies for life in the Post-Carbon age. This will necessarily mean living less wastefully and way more locally and cooperatively. It means re-inventing ourselves within a generation. It is a predicament of enormous complexity because we have chosen to ignore the obvious until the last minute before midnight.

This elephant in the room is not a new guest. Some folks have seen it coming for decades. Ignoring it will not make it disappear. And there is good that can come from meeting the matter with courage, skill and cooperation. Some things can be better than they were; almost everything will be different.

For the rest of Fred's posting, please follow the above link (also posted in the right hand sidebar under For Fun and Enlightenment).  Very thought-provoking.

Trial run of Hunky Husband's Afghan

Unfortunately, HH prefers not to have his photo appear on the web; so, here is the expurgated version of him trying out his new Afghan.  I promise, this is the last post on the thing! (The Afghan, not HH.)

We are just waiting for our Rolla Rolls to finish baking--a tradition for Christmas and New Year's mornings.

An Afghan for Hunky Husband

Buffy won't believe me when I write that, the quilt that I started in October 2005, for Hunky Husband to use as an Afghan, has been completed and given to HH. It had been started during a Beyond Beginner class that I took at our local quilting store.  This is what the instructor's model quilt top looked like:

  This is what Hunky Husband's Afghan looks like:

Need I tell you that HH tends to dislike earthtone color schemes, which he terms "blah!".  The whole point of the class was to teach us how to handle different types of "points" and "stars"--to produce a "sampler".  Next, I need to get back to the quilt that I started while visiting Buffy in the summer of 2006, using materials with which she had gifted me.  Wish me well, Buffy! (Remember my telling you that I had already put one of the goose units flying upside down?  I haven't yet decided whether to leave it as my "known fault" (there is one in the above quilt, obviously), or whether to replace it while it is relatively easy.  Thoughts?

Addition of 12/25/2008:

This file contains the basic blocks (in physicist's terms, they are unit cells) Download Blocks of the quilt that I'm making from the fabrics that Buffy gave me.  The following photo is the electronic model of the quilt--with the revision that the quilt will comprise only 2/3 as many blocks as shown.  I incorrectly fgured how many blocks I could cut from the fabric that I had, and it is too late to buy additional fabric. C'est la vie!

 

 

Christmas plant

Many people buy or receive poinsettia and/or amaryllis plants for Christmas.  We grew a sunflower.  You know, of course, that the state flower of Kansas is the sunflower; but, who ever thought of sunflowers for Christmas?

A couple of months ago, when I brought our house plants in (from the front porch), for the winter, I stuck a couple of babies that were on the airplane plants into water.  When the baby plants grew roots, I planted them in a pot.  In a few days, it was evident that some bird seed had been mixed in with my potting soil (both are kept in the same area of our garage), as three or four "foreign" plants sprouted.  You see the result!

This is the sunflower seed head that I saved from the blossom in the July posting photo, to serve our birds for Christmas dinner.

What's going on at our house

This is the time of year when I can enjoy my favorite food:  snow ice cream.  Already, we've had two snows that qualified as material for the dish, and I've enjoyed perhaps 6 or 7 dishes of the delightful stuff.  I really missed that, during the two years when I lived in Florida (1981-1983).  Too, I've historically reveled in the cold.  I still don't mind the cold; but, I can't say that I revel in cold at this stage of life when aches and pains are intensified by it.  The last time I was able to get out on my bicycle was just 4 hours shy of being one week ago--when the temperature was 54 degrees.  Within a couple of hours of that ride, the temperature had plunged to 22 degrees and we've been above freezing only briefly, a couple of times since.  We have (so far) escaped the horrendous storm that Bogie (and some of our blogger friends) were subjected to; but, our ambient temperature is 8 degrees.  Fortunately, the wind has died down to about 10 miles/hour (but it will be back to 30-40 miles/hour, shortly).

Yesterday, I started the baking and cooking that Hunky Husband just must have at this time of year.  HH's mother was from Serbia, Yugoslavia, and did extravagant baking and cooking during the holidays (she was Serbian Orthodox) which were extended in their home since HH's father was born in the USA of Croatian (Yugoslavia) parents who were Roman Catholic. As most of you, I'm sure, know, Catholics follow the Gregorian calendar that is used by most Americans, with Christmas being observed on December 25, while those of the Orthodox bent follow the Julian calendar, with Christmas being observed 13 days later. As a non-religious person, I really observe neither; but, as families go, it's always been a great time for seeing family.  Yesterday's product: a double batch of walnut Mushkatzone, double batches of two kinds of whole-wheat sweet rolls (not something that I normally make--"sticky" rolls and cinnamon rolls), and two pecan Potecas.  Gee, is that all I got made?  Having started the process at 9 am, and having finished at 7 pm, I expected more!  The excruciating pain that suddenly hit my right knee made me stop, or I would probably still be at it! *smiling*

This is a holiday period during which most of the family is tied up with "work":  1) Dudette is getting out year-end stuff (including payrolls to several small companies), one hand short; 2) Wichi Dude and his crew (as he predicted) will be working over the holidays to re-do product that his company had outsourced to a foreign facility; 3) as a relatively new LPN, Wonderful Granddaughter must work at "her" skilled nursing facility; 4) I am working 2 or 3 days/week keeping the records up (that isn't all that falls into the basket of the person who will start work the 2nd week in January, but others are picking up most of her other work); and Hunky Husband will be working full-time to allow Darla to take time off.

Due to the heavy work schedule, our in-town "holiday" gathering at our house has been postponed to early January.  This will take some of the pressure off of each of us!

For those of you of a religious bent (or not), I hope that you have a rewarding holiday season...and...that you don't work yourselves to a frazzle.

!MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hardy New Englanders

The news out of New England is chilling (OK, so I couldn't resist a pun!); They have been hit by a cold, wintry blast that took out the power to about 400,000 people.

From New Hampshire Public Radio's (NHPR's) web site, which BTW is a pretty nice site:

Crews Expect Some Residents' Power To Be Out For Days

By David Darman on Friday, December 12, 2008.In addition, more than 87,000 Unitil customers around Concord and on the Seacoast are without power.

....

Spokesperson Stephanye Schuyler says crews are working first to restore electricity to vital parts of the community.

"And that would include things such as hospitals, emergency shelters, police and fire and towns - the state, of course."

Though crews have already begun making an effort, officials say it could be many days before all power is restored.

Efforts could also be slowed by plunging temperatures, which could more solidly freeze downed lines and limbs.

As most of you know, our daughter Bogie lives in New Hampshire.  Undoubtedly, she and her Wonderful Spouse are in an area of power outage.  Have we called to check on them?  Well...I just now called, so that you wouldn't think me heartless--but--I got a "busy" signal.  Who knows whether that means her service is out or that she or WS is on the phone.  At any rate.  I am not worried about them because I know how self-sufficient and capable they are.  If I know them, they are busy helping other people--perhaps, even housing a few extras.  Bogie & WS have a well-installed wood stove, with a goodly supply of firewood laid in as mentioned in Fall Endeavors, and an emergency electrical generator.

[TypePad has been giving me fits on this posting.  There was another section that I had tried to excerpt from NPR's web site; but, the system kept inserting thousands of lines of code, each time I saved.  Replacing the control characters with ?, each line looked like this:  ?blockquote dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"?  Aaaargh!  Originally, I thought the problem was in the Beta version of TypePad, which I use; but, everyone seems to have been plagued for a couple of days.  Oh, well. I hope each of you is staying warm!]

Global energy consumption termed "Patently Unsustainable"

From Breakthrough Blog, with apologies for removing a bunch of links (but maintaining others):

 

World's Energy Watchdog Warns Current Energy Trends are "Patently Unsustainable"

Highlights from the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008

---

Posted by Jesse Jenkins on November 13, 2008 at 8:52 PM
....

The world's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, released their annual World Energy Outlook report today, and it starts out with a bang. The first paragraph of the IEA report reads:

"The world's energy system is at a crossroads. Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable - environmentally, economically, socially. But that can - and must - be altered; there's still time to change the road we're on.

It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."

This kind of stark warning may be nothing new if you're used to reports from folks like Greenpeace or even the IPCC. But the language in this IEA report stands in starkcontrast to the tone of past agency reports, which tend to range from "bland-to-cornucopian," as Oil Drum blogger Nate Hagens aptly puts it.

 

From news.CNET.com, again, with apologies--this time, for omitting the photo of the author:

 

November 12, 2008 6:16 AM PST

IEA: World's energy use is 'patently unsustainable'

The International Energy Agency raised the alarm Wednesday with the release of its annual report, emphasizing that a revolution in the energy business is required to maintain economic growth and stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

The IEA's World Energy Outlook 2008 report, written for policymakers, paints a troubling picture in terms of energy costs and global warming due to burning fossil fuels. It calls for "radical action" from governments at all levels and for a coordinated international response.

"Current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable--environmentally, economically and socially--they can and must be altered," Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA's executive director, said at the release of the report.

Although softening demand has pushed the price for oil down recently, the rising cost of extraction, combined with declining productivity rates at oil fields, means that the "era of cheap oil is over," according to the report.

The IEA's annual report forecasts that energy demand will spike in the next two decades, driven in large part by fast-growing India and China. OECD refers to the 30 developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

(Credit: IEA)

The study also lays outs the changes needed to stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and concludes that massive amounts of capital will be required.

To limit the increase in temperatures to 3 degrees Celsius by 2030 would require a huge increase of low-carbon energy--nuclear, hydropower, biomass, renewables, and underground carbon storage. That scenario would require a $4.1 trillion investment, or 0.2 percent of the world's annual GDP.

From the report's executive summary:

"It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient, and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution."

The IEA's call to action to policymakers reemphasizes the long-term trends that many clean-technology businesses are already betting on. Even with the credit crunch and falling prices for fossil fuels, clean-energy investors and entrepreneurs predict positive growth in their sector over the long term.

In the U.S., the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress bode well for policies that promote clean technologies to address economic development and climate change.

______________________________________________________________________

Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Gee, this is something that has begged our attention since, at least, the 1950s.  If we didn't get the message then, how could we have missed it in the early 1970s?  At that time, people started demanding more efficient vehicles; but, not only did that demand peter out with time, but we got nowhere advocating for controlling world population...we got nowhere advocating throttling down on the personal vehicle use, in favor of more efficient mass/rapid transit...we got nowhere advocating the throttling down of guns and bullets, in favor of education and diplomacy....

 

I am less than optimistic about our chances of overcoming our dinosaur brains.  We don't seem to be able to evolve fast enough to manage the sudden prosperity of our species.

Snow blamed for 650-plus Accidents

The above title is the header of an article, by Stan Finger, in this morning's Wichita Beacon.  It explains, a bit, my end of the comment thread between Adele and me under Bunny's Misadventure.  From the article, I excerpt a few bits, below.

"The first winter storm to hit Wichita this season delivered less than 2 inches of snow to the area--but more than 650 accidents." [Mr Finger fails to mention that under, over, and throughout the layer of snow were layers of ice.]

"Authorities didn't hide their frustration Wednesday.

""It was a tougher storm than we thought it was going to be....Twelve inches of snow is probably easier to deal with than that was."

"...north winds gusting above 40 miles an hour reduced visibility and kept reglazing streets and highways that had just been treated.

"Many motorists seemed to pay no attention to the weather at all...."It was idiotic, [Kansas Highway Patrol spokesman] said.  "Ive never seen it that way."

"....he said, motorists were flying along the turnpike as if it were a dry summer day.

"One motorist on the turnpike was clocked at 80 miles an hour through the snowstorm, [the spokesman] said, and another at 75.

"Two people died in storm related accidents around the state Tuesday...."

"Two KDOT [Kansas Department of Transportation] trucks were hit and damaged...more than one trooper was nearly struck by vehicles while they were working accidents.

"Troopers began parking a second patrol car near the first marked unit on the scene to provide some protection, [the spokesman] said, but traffic was regularly ignoring the flashing lights.

""People were just flat running into everything you could find--guard rails, light poles...there were people sliding off ramps," he said.

"Tuesday ranks among the worst examples of winter weather driving he has seen in his 21 years as a state trooper...."

If a person doesn't have to be out and about, one can best serve by staying at home with her car in the garage!  Today, I'm going to try to walk my bicycle out to the street so that I can get in some exercise.  I believe that the bicycle path that passes within 1/3 mile of our house is probably clear of ice.

Old News

Under the header of "Car Talk" in the Comment section of The New Yorker's December 8, 2008 edition, appeared an article of interest.  The article ran about 27 column-inches, but I excerpt only the first six.

"The Secretary of Transportation's report to Congress begins on a dark note.  "Over the past year, the domestic auto industry has experienced sharply reduced sales and profitability, large indefinite layoffs, and increased market penetration by imports," it states.  "The shift in consumer preferences towards smaller, more fuel-efficient passenger cars and light trucks...appears to be permanent, and the industry will spend massive amounts of money to retool to produce the motor vehicles that the public now wants."  The revenue to pay for this retooling, though, will have to come from sales of just the sort of cars that the public is no longer buying--a situation, the report observes, bound to produce "financial strain."

""To improve the overall future prospects for the domestic motor vehicle manufacturers, a quality and price competitive motor vehicle must be produced," the report warns.  "If this is not accomplished, the long term outlook for the industry is bleak."

"The Secretary's report was delivered to Congress in 1980, a year after what may soon become known as the first Chrysler bailout."

We humans seem doomed to repeat history.  On the bright side...as I recall, Lee Iacocca did such a super job of leading Chrysler that the company was able to repay the governmental loan--ahead of schedule.  Part of his strategy was to draw a salary of $1/year, for himself--to give himself more credibility.  Sometimes things work out.  Hopefully, our current Congress will insist upon a "fair deal" in providing any help to the Big Three, now.

 

"Can society afford cost of end-of-life care?"

So goes the title of an article on the opinion page of The Wichita Eagle for 12/6/2008.  The article was written by Bill Roy, a retired physician who had represented northeastern Kansas in Congress--a well-respected gentleman.  His wife of 61 years has undergone extensive medical treatment in the past six months, without financial concerns since she is well-covered by Medicare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas.  Dr Roy writes,

"...I have been asking how long we can afford the extensive care required by 400-gram babies and by fragile [over 85] elderly...."

Dr Roy later cites an article from the New England Journal of Medicine.  "The article told how Britain's National Health Service has since 1999 used "technology appraisals" by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to justify and limit medicines and treatments in England and Wales." Dr Roy further cites another Topeka family physician, Doug Iliff, as believing that the system would be unacceptable in the USA, but asking, "What are the alternatives?"

Further questions from Dr Iliff include, "Can we afford these things, and still hope to deliver primary care to everybody? and "How do we decide how much a year of life is worth?"

Dr Roy writes, "I hear retired physicians venture they may have lived in the golden age of medicine because we could still pay for implementing effective, new scientific discoveries.  But they recognize that we cannot do everything [emphasis added] science has made possible for everybody everywhere."

It is fashionable, these days, to talk in terms of health care being a "right".  I maintain that it is not a "right" but a "good"; however, we must come to a concensus about what constitutes basic health care, about how we arrange health care priorities, and "How...much a year of life is worth" before any steps may be taken, effectively, toward providing universal health care.  Are we wise enough to do that?