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| I'd like to share and open further discussion that began as a sarcastic response to Dan Smith's blog post yesterday about overpopulation. Fellow architect Steve Sunderman responded with a thought provoking comment that inspired me to further modify Dan Smith's graphic that describes the issue: |
23 hours ago
So what's the solution? Cool Cities Coalition might help. The answer to come.
fromtheeditr: What the World Needs Now ... Is More People
www.fromtheeditr.blogspot.com
Comments:
Steve Sunderman: People do what people do. I would hope that we not adopt a one child policy like China has. I believe that we need to do all we can to conserve resources and find new & better ways of accommodating inevitable population growth, affluence and climate change. That is why I promote conservation, recycling and renewable energy sources.
Eldon L Karr-Architect:
Steve Sunderman,
I agree a one child policy is rather extreme, but our country does not yet have a population exceeding 1 billion. As population growth continues to accelerate, it may be unwise to accept it as inevitable and infinite. Mos...t are not willing to accept the idea of curbing our insatiable appetite for affluence. (I'm glad you included that observation.)
We are on the same page regarding conservation and recycling.
As I understand, all of our energy comes from the sun (99.999999999%). Our sun is on the wane and climate change is inevitable. Since the late 1960's & early 70's I have advocated and promoted seeking alternative forms of usable energy and energy storage. This has included capturing energy from the wind to be used as a point of use based supplement, not distributed under the guise of an unending commodity over the corporate controlled convenience of the transmission/distribution grid thus encouraging ever greater consumption and inefficiency.
I believe that nature itself takes care of renewing and storing resources better than we as human beings can ever hope to. I believe it is our charge, particularly as professional architects, to communicate the correct understanding of these matters to the general population. And even more importantly, to promote and advocate efficiency and conservation through point of use based generation systems. while unrelentingly pursuing cost based evaluation of built-environment design.
It is far short of being enough to just advocate "green" and "renewable" (both terms being sorely misunderstood)
and the conversation continues:
Steve Sunderman: Eldon, I agree with many of your points. I understand that their is an inefficiency factor with the industrial wind application and I know that the Tea Party folks are strongly against any financial incentives for renewable energy R&D, but I believe that renewable energy sources are far better than fossil fuel sources in many ways, but renewables cannot compete yet mostly because of lack of demand (costs & availability). It is my premise that subsidizing research & development of wind, solar & water power will encourage innovation, efficiency and mass production, which will drive down costs. Then support can be withdrawn as it will be able to stand on its own merits. I am hearing that electrical storage systems are close to reality and when & if that happens, there is a new ball game. I think that our future power systems may not even be apparent to us today as we cannot even imagine what the future holds, provided we continue to want and encourage such innovation.
Steve Sunderman: Infinite population growth cannot be sustained. When such growth becomes overwhelming it will self-correct, probably in not very nice ways. Think what our population would be today if there had never been any wars. When there is not enough water or food, people will fight for their survival. My hope is that we voluntarily manage growth and earth's resources. Our resources are finite. Did you know that if everyone on earth used resources of a typical American, it would take 5 planets of resource production to supply the demand?
Eldon L Karr-Architect: Steve, First let's remove political references from the discussion as I don't believe the answer to the question of our energy consumption lies within any political encampment. Personally, although in my earlier years I strongly identified with the Democrats and a liberal ideology, I have found difficulty in committing allegiance to any political party since the mid 1980's. Albeit, McClain, Christopolus and many others have attempted to pigeon-hole me with the TEA Party.
Of course, I am strongly in support of government sponsorship of research & development. As a nation, I believe we are making a huge mistake pulling out of our manned space program. I think solar, geo-thermal, hydro(tidal) and fusion are currently where our research and development should be focused. I think we should provide incentives to consumers to install site-based electrical generation through vehicles like the PACE program, thereby encouraging conservation.
Industrial scale generation with wind turbines imposes far too much environmental damage to promote further development with the existing technology. Further, the development incentives are far beyond reasonable expectation of return ($23+/- per Mwh compared to $1.50 per Mwh and less for all other sources of generation).
I appreciate your interest in entering into this discussion. Recently, I have started a new blog:
http://thearchitectsstudio.blogspot.com/
I'd like nothing better than to either move this conversation there or to:
http://bentmountain.blogspot.com/
I believe that a lot more people would benefit in those venues.
Best regards
Eldon L Karr-Architect: Wow! I was preparing my response prior to receiving your next comment.
No, I wasn't aware that Americans were THAT gluttonous. Let's keep this discussion going. Maybe invite a few more intelligent, conscientious architect who would like to make a difference.
We must, however, leave enough time for doing.
Steve Sunderman: Good points. I must admit that I am not nearly as well versed on the details as you are. My support for wind & solar energy is a general principle based on a bias toward renewable energy sources as a means to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but I know that new concepts or technology is always met with a great deal of resistance and I just want to leave this place a little better for my children & grandchildren if at all possible. "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
Eldon L Karr-Architect I do believe we can make a positive difference for our children, let's just not have so many of them for a while ;)
Kudos to you Steve for stating that you are not as well versed on the details of renewable energy. As you said its a principle, but not thankfully a blind belief.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with incentives for alternative(any) ideas that can help our world be a better place. The issue I have with wind energy is best said by these
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/06/why-wind-power-doesnt-work-2/
or this excerpt from Matt Ridley at the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
To the nearest whole number the percentage of the world's energy that comes from wind today is:zero. Despite the regressive subsidy(pushing pensioners into feul poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates),despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine- despite all of this, the total energy generation each day by wind has yet to reach half a percent worldwide. If wind was going to work, it would have done so by now. -End-
The wind industry has been subsidized for twenty years now by taxpayer money, both here and abroad.There are literally hundreds of thousands of giant turbines worldwide.And as the author said, they can't eek out a half percent of production. The wind industry to me has ridden the wave of "climate change", heck they may have helped coin the term itself. But what is clear, is this about money and not saving the planet.
Interesting as a side note; if you are against wind energy you are a NIMBY who is afraid of change. Well, the whole premise of "climate change" plays on the people's adversity to change, and so they give us a "solution" to that change. Certainly a slick marketing tool.
As Eldon stated, it is the Sun which predominately controls our weather and climate.
There are other(minor) factors, but the branding of "climate change" to create such things as the carbon exchange, fees for carbon expulsion, etc. is absolutely ludicrous.
What really burns me is that Nikola Tesla proved in the early 1900's that we could have power without wires that was "free' due to the Earth's magnetic poles. Where are the people talking, demanding that this be put into place????
Again, its all about the money,control,etc.
What a shame.
I have posted a few comments and questions.
DeleteYou may be interested in the below TED video that shows recent efforts to advance Tesla's wireless power transmission theories.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.ted.com/2009/07/23/eric_giler_at_t/
I understand your position and I do not wish to try to dispute information that I have not researched or vetted. There are always going to be different perspectives on almost any issue and I think that that is good because it hopefully causes people to think a bit deeper about a subject.
Obviously, I am not a scientist and I well understand that there are sharp divisions among people on cause and effect of climate change. I have not sought information to necessarily disprove climate change, but I have seen a lot of evidence and reports that it is happening. I'm a glass half full kind of guy! Yes there are climatic cycles, but like the stock market the trend has been steadily upward over time. Based on so much evidence and scientific studies I tend to believe that CO2 emissions are a major global warming piece of the puzzle. I personally cannot say without a doubt that it is the sole cause or even the most significant cause because I do not know for absolutely sure. I leave that to smarter people than me.
I think we can all agree that CO2 is, in fact, a greenhouse gas - correct? I think we can also agree that we (especially the industrialized countries) emit a tremendous amount of CO2. Americans represent about 5% of the world population yet consume 25% of the annual resources (coincidentally those same figures apply to American incarceration rates because of our unsuccessful "war on drugs") so just imagine what is going to happen as the non-industrialized nations continue to grow and seek our life style (as they are now doing). The planet may not be able to sustain it so we can certainly count on much higher costs and reduced standard of living as a result. "The race is on and here comes pride down the back stretch."
In very simplistic terms (and yes I know that climate is an extremely complex topic) it seems to me that since our emissions are not "natural" we are likely interfering with the natural process. The debate for some rages on, but even if our CO2 emissions are not a major problem, does it not just make sense to try to do better? Less fossil fuel combustion means less pollution, less greenhouse gas, less dependence on foreign suppliers, etc. It costs much less to conserve energy than it does to create energy.
I heard that in China a woman is giving birth to over 200 babies per hour. What we gotta do is find this woman & stop her. :)
I have been involved in energy conservation since the mid 70's because I wanted to save money, reduce pollution, conserve energy, avoid foreign imports and make better and smarter buildings - period.
At the end of the day I fear that it is too late to reverse climate change, at least in the foreseeable future. The best we can do is minimize its effects and learn how to deal with it best we can. My hope is that some genius will come up with a wonderful solution, like fusion, that will be a game changer. If the storage batteries thing works then wind and solar will be a viable and very effective alternative.
I am not concerned about saving the earth. It will take care of itself as it has for a very long time. I am concerned about people & animals and their well being.
I am confident that I cannot change your mind with debate just as I know that you cannot change mine, so I only hope that we can all accept that we have differences of opinion but that we can find common ground to be better citizens and help each other as best we can because it is pretty tough going these days.
Whew! There I did it! Time for a beer!!!
PS:
ReplyDeleteJames Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change
http://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_about_climate_change.html
What if James Hansen is right and there IS man-made climate change? What is the worst that can happen if we do nothing? What is the worst that can happen if we try to do something to minimize it?
ReplyDeleteWhat if there is NO man-made climate change? What is the worst that can happen if we do nothing? What is the worst that can happen if we try to do something to minimize it (non-existent climate change that is)?
What happened to the discussion
ReplyDeleteStill here. Still have to do it sometimes. Question of balance, you know.
DeleteI have been giving thought to your last queries, however. I did view all of the links you suggested. I'm a fan of TED and particularly TED ed.
I have no doubt that man has contributed to the climate change we seem to be experiencing.
Although, as rather unique ego-centric beings, we seem to gravitate toward the thinking that we are capable of omnipotent influence on our universe. Yet, I have absolutely no idea of the magnitude of impact we actually are imposing upon our own environment. I can observe that our rapidly growing population seems to be causing dramatic changes in our landscape and is accelerating our consumption of natural resources.
As Americans, we are the most voracious of all people on the planet in terms of the rate of consumption of our natural resources, while declining in productivity in terms of our resource replenishment. As the "most technologically advanced" of our species, it seems that it should be easy for us to embrace more frugality in our consumption.
QUESTION OF BALANCE.
I don't believe that focusing upon our CO2 emmissions should be a dominating focus of our strategy to achieve a necessary balance. Flora over our entire planet absorb and thrive on CO2 and replenish oxygen in our atmosphere.
Deforestation may well be equally as devastating (or possibly more)to the natural balance of our atmosphere as carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. I believe that our "single-minded" focus on our form of electrical energy production leads to but a small fraction of our necessary response to climate change.
I say, FIRST, let's get frugal with our consumption. let's curtail our demand before we start destroying more natural resources to feed our pipe dreams of "free energy."
A year or more ago, I was suprised by a local past president of the Sierra Club bragging about his installation of night lights (120v, no less) along his driveway. I had some 12v lights installed in garden areas around my home that I enjoyed turning on by day-night timer. I turned them off 18 months ago and have only used them once or twice since.
Gotta go fix supper now, but I look forward to coming back and continuing tomorrow.
Thanks for feeding the discussion. We MUST continue. I'm pleased to say we are getting a bunch of page views.
Sorry Steve,
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to get some projects out the door. I appreciate your willingness for a discussion.
I will continue but it will have to be tomorrow.
Thanks again,
Mike
And thanks to you again Mike for entering in the discussion.
DeleteHopefully, more folks will become attracted to a civil discussion of ideas instead typical politically based demogoguery.