Living the American Green

Remember the end of 2007?  Lo, those many years ago.  Even sitting president Shrubers came forward to tell us that Global Warming was probably happening, and might even be our fault.  Sure, we were all shocked that George “Oilz” Bush would go soft on us like that, but the country as a whole was starting to take notice.  Then came 2008, the great socialist take over, and everyone was pretty sure that we had fixed the whole climate thing once and for all, or at least had agreed to start working on it.

Well, here we are in 2010, and guess what we’re debating?  If climate change is real!  Yup, that’s right — do to a whole bunch of stupid stupid things done by the scientists side of the scientist v. loud people on the internet debate, (email gate, Coppenhagen’s dramatic fail) we’re back to having the “is this thing for real” discussion.

But this is odd: leading the charge for the “I’m dubious” crowd is a group of scientists this time: your friendly neighborhood Weathermen!   But wait, you might say, I thought all the scientists were sure that this thing was in the bag! Isn’t this what those point headed Ivory Tower intellectual ninnies have been saying since the 1950s?  Well, you would be right.  But these meteorologists — who are often completely wrong about what the weather is going to be doing three days from now — are sure that NO one could be doing it better then they are and that the long term picture is even cloudier then the weekend forecast.  Thus, De facto, QED and IED, Global Warming models are probably just taking the little mistakes the weathermen made with this years SNOWPOCOLYPSE and compounded it a few thousand times in making their extremist “we’re all going to die” claptrap.

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A few people I have spoken with recently are pretty staunchly against the new energy and climate change bill that squeaked by the house last night.  The bill is too weak, it has too many riders, and passing a bad bill is worse then passing no bill at all — these are the things that some on the environmental side of things are saying.  (I don’t get to talk to the “Global Warming is a myth and this is an excuse to tax the American worker into obsolescence because the Dem’s hate America people” all that much, so I don’t feel the need to argue with them.)  Another objection, expressed by CheriRobertson on my last not-very-well-thought-out post is that no one has read the damn thing and that its criminal to vote on legislation that you don’t understand.

Ok, lots of fair points here.  I still support the Waxman-Markey bill, and here is why:

It fundamentally changes the way the American Government deals with the problems of Climate Change and our effect on the planet.  My beef from the beginning has been that there is no system for me to be protected if someone wants to endanger me and mine by pumping bad things into the air.  A cap and trade system creates a method – however flawed – to allow the gummit to get insist that people don’t get to endanger me and make money off it free and clear.  They at least have to pay for screwing my world up.

From a fundamentally Libertarian perspective, I think that is the job of Government: to protect me from very real and very prominent threats that the Free Market brings to bear on my world.

Now, would I rather the original bill passed?  Sure.  I would much rather have the EPA be the body that regulates which gases are a danger to us.  I would much rather not have the hat tips that are plugged into the bill for the rust belt, for the oil producing companies, for “clean coal”.  But at the end of the day, this bill really IS a new legislative way of thinking about the environment, and for it to pass means that there are a lot of people on board who feel the necessity of action.

I think that it’s a republican talking point that “no one in either party has read the bill”.  That is simply not the case.  First of all, someone had to write the damn thing, so there are at least a few folks who know whats in there.  Secondly, though, and much more importantly, a vast vast majority of the changes are going to be softening and definitions and clarifications on what was left out of the original draft.  Was the thing perfect?  No.  But it’s also disingenuous to say that you need to read it all to understand it: the law makers had plenty of time to read the first 1200 pages, and not many of them did.  The 300 pages of provisions and changes will now be poured over by anyone who cares, and the Senate will draft a new bill that puts the pieces of the house bill that don’t make sense to the test.  The gist of the bill, that companies who pollute the earth will be held fundamentally accountable in the only way that matters to them (financially) remains strong — regardless of the number of pages, and the fact that John Bohner can take an hour to read rhetorical loops in the writing.   A defeat of this bill, even it’s watered down form, is a defeat for the concept, and that’s not something we can afford to allow to happen.

There was a lot of political wrangling to get this bill to pass to be a law. (and yes, I AM amused that Nanci Pelosi thought Dove Bars would help.  You don’t think that’s funny?  Come on… you don’t think it’s amusing to think that congresspeople vote with their tastebuds?  Oh… ok, yes it’s a little scary… but if we can’t laugh at it, then the world gets awful depressing.)   Lots of Dems voted against it because they were scared to tag their name to something and take the political risk, only to have it fail in the Senate.  And lots of people still view this thing as a big ball of taxes designed to hurt their way of life.  But I think that the political climate isn’t going to be this forgiving for many many years to come, and if we don’t do this now, we may miss our chance for this scale of change.  I feel the same way about health care: it’s now or not for a long time.

It may be that, 20 years from now, I will be cursing this thing for being too weak and watered down.  But there are some really amazing parts of this bill and I love it even despite it’s flaws.  Plus, there are, like, 800 Million dollars for green jobs training and stuff in there.  I’m working in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn these days: trust me when I say that there aren’t a lot more jobs places like that can loose, so it’s only going to help out.  I wish the Republicans had come up with a counter solution to get the job market back on line: their idea of more capitalism – providing a series of grants to people who come up with good ideas – is so small potatoes that it boggles the mind.  The Republican party’s stance of Nothing is Happening, lets all Stick Our Heads in the Sand and Invoke the American Worker isn’t valid anymore.  They have done nothing for the American Worker for enough years that suddenly raising the middle class and the small business owner as “at risk” rings hollow and even pathetic.

Today’s story comes to you from the heart of the most beleaguered and yet hard core of the environmental supporters list.  Outsiders for generations, these champions of green are finally getting some traction: that’s right, I’m talking about Nike, Johnson & Johnson, and other BF corporate leaders.

That’s right, retail corporations are putting it to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that things are moving too slowly in terms of environmental regulation.  Whaaa?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is taking heat from Johnson & Johnson, Nike and other corporate members over its opposition to global warming legislation pending in the House.  In a letter to the Chamber, Johnson & Johnson has asked the Chamber to refrain from making comments on climate change unless they “reflect the full range of views, especially those of Chamber members advocating for congressional action.”

Two theories on why these companies, rarely big on Government regulation, might do something like this: (more…)

Danger: Profanity laced rant coming below.

Bad Blue Dogs! BAAAAD!!

DEAR DEMOCRATS:

Get your shit together.  You guys really think the best way to take advantage of a huge majority in two of the three branches of power is to stand up to Obama on the environmental issue?   Really?  You want to use your new-found political clout to protect the segments of our national economy that are putting out the most carbon?  If I see another headline like this one, I think I’m going to lose my mind.

On Friday, former Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) – the man Waxman dethroned to takeover the committee – referred to the cap-and-trade system as “a great big” tax.

“Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one,” Dingell said at a committee hearing last week. The former chairman backs some form of a direct carbon tax that other moderates prefer over the market-based system.

Yes, it is a tax, if you want to look at it like that.  Here is another way to think about it: Don’t pollute so goddamn much, and you won’t get taxed.  It’s not like you have seen this coming for a bunch of years, and have been studiously ignoring the issue so that, when a cap and trade program arrived, you could whine and complain about the unfair economic burden being put on you by the government, is it?   ‘Cause it sure feels like that from where I am sitting.  The theory of bottom line business was all well and good, and it made a lot of people very rich.  But, for whatever reason (greed), the invisible hand of the market has been giving the earth the finger for years and years.  The point here is not to TAX to raise income, but to incentivize people to care about something that they have ignored — to the detriment of the rest of us.

I can’t get the GM’s of the world to stop putting out SUV’s, and I can’t avoid my tax dollars going to bail out the motherfuckers who ran a bad business.  But can I at least get a representative government that protects me from the people who I, apparently, don’t rank high enough to be able to protect myself from?

And, why is it ok to directly tax carbon producing things like Coal, but not ok to set up an offset program?  That doesn’t even make sense!  That just cuts off a few of the big pollution problem areas, and does nothing to collectivize reduction, so that the same set of issues comes down the pike again later when people figure out something else to burn.  What possible reason is there to piecemeal tax things you don’t like?  Make everyone play by the same set of rules!

It’s absurd and disingenuous to imagine that “the market” could continue to exist in a vacuum that ignored the earth.  It’s impossible.  It can’t happen.  The business minds that realized that something was going to have to be done and started building in some semblance of a triple bottom line — these companies are going to be ok.  The rest of you guys: you reap what you sow.  I hope all the cash that you made in the 90’s was invested with for-sight and… wait, what?  It’s all gone?  Oh man!   Then what DID you get out of all that shit?

Why shouldn’t business models that create huge amounts of pollution and damaging amounts of C02 output be regulated to the trash heap of progressive business?   It’s not even like the cap and trade program is unreasonable.  It is certainly more lax then the one I would like, and it gives businesses every opportunity to scale down their pollution going forward as the cap comes lower.   None if it even comes into effect for years, meaning anyone with a head on their shoulders can avoid the brunt of the tax with a modicum of intelligent investment in their business structure.  The only people who are really worried about this are the folks that are running a business model that studiously ignores reality.  To you, I say: welcome to the brave new world where your customer realizes the real costs of what you are selling.  If you have to charge more for your products because you have been producing too much carbon, maybe that means that you were under-charging before!  Or maybe it means that people will decide they no longer really need what you are pushing.

So why in gods name, centrist democrats, are you carrying the water for people who would rather get theirs then build something intelligent and sustainable?  I expect this from the defunct republican party, that crew who continue to belabor the “tax” point as they grow ever shriller and our country grows ever shittier around them.  But you!  I had thought better of you!  Is the 6 month plan really that important to you?  Can’t you see beyond the end of your next (hopefully last) term?  Is it too much to ask for you to think about the ramifications of NOT putting a carbon cap and trade program into place?

At what point does a complete economic collapse become and indictment of the previous way of doing business?  Is it a good plan to rebuild using the same rules that we were playing by before?  If we are already re-building, shouldn’t we rebuild in a way that makes sense for more then the next year?

You’ve had 8 years of being out of power to think about these issues and these problems.  You are also proposing a tax, but somehow you are managing to rail against the cap and trade program as a hidden tax.  You do not make sense.  You are like Chewbacca.

Love

LtAG

Hello campers!  Earth week cranks onwards, though this year with a dramatic difference in comparison to earth days in the past.  Seriously, check out what is going on in the news: it’s not just about personal conservationism or saving the polar bears, we are talking environmentalism in all sorts of aspects of our society.   We all have to admit that previous earth days have been mostly run by a specific offset of what we now consider the larger environmental movement: the Sierra Club types.   Now, I don’t want to declare victory for the environmental movement or anything, but looking around the Internet it feels at least like the movement has arrived and might be hear to stay.

Clean Coal is a huge lobby right now.  Seriously.  Huge.

This, from Politico, is all about the ACCCE lobby: a $45 million dollar collaboration on capitol hill that is just celebrating it’s first birthday.  Since the coal mining, energy production and rail road industries are all figuring out that there is a real awareness settling in amongst the American people that carbon (and therefor coal) might be a problem, they are spending a whole big chunk of cash to get in on the green action.

ACCCE’s impact will be on display starting Tuesday as House Energy and Commerce Committee hearings start on a draft climate bill penned by panel Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Energy and the Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Just a year ago, Waxman and Markey backed a moratorium on new coal-fired electricity plants. But their new draft would allow new coal plants through 2015, if they are retrofitted to cut carbon dioxide output 40 percent to 60 percent within another decade. The technology to do that does not yet exist, but the new measure would set up a $1 billion-a-year clean coal research fund to help.

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While scatter shooting around Earthday, and wondering how many more times I can hear about cool ideas that are “coming sometime soon” before my head explodes…

This is actually a time when public action matters.  Dems and Reps alike are wiffling and waffling on supporting the current Clean Energy Bill put forward by Rep. Waxman and Rep. Markey.  They have introduced a really good bill that will jump start the U.S. government regulating things it should have been regulating long ago.   I don’t usually subscribe to people pushing out contact your representative requests, but this one is a big deal to me, and it should be a big deal to you.  So.  Read up on the bill.  (or, if you are feeling super motivated, read the actual bill.  I like OpenCongress.com for that)  Then, click the link below.

Actually, I don’t care that it says it’s from Al Gore, and if you would rather go directly to your congress person that would be even better, but We Can Solve It is a good advocacy group that can use your voice.

This.  Legislation.  Matters.

Right now, Congress is debating clean energy legislation that will jumpstart our economy and help solve the climate crisis. I’ve joined with Vice President Al Gore and millions of others to show my support — will you?

Please click here to sign our petition in support of this crucial clean energy legislation: http://www.repoweramerica.org/earthday

Assuming that our solar panel continues to work under long exposure to actual sunlight, assuming our wiring doesn’t fall apart when someone breaths funny, and assuming that we can attach the damn thing to a battery long enough to matter, we now should have the ability to charge a 12 volt, at least somewhat, during the non-rainy days.  (whew.  I am exhausted from all those qualifiers.)

But how to spend our ill begotten gains?  The tricky part is getting the power being taken back out of the 12 volt battery into a format that your friendly neighborhood three pronged plug in can recognize.

What you are looking at here is our Tempest™ Battery and our plug’n'play power inverter (that you can get from most reasonable rest-stops or Radio Shacks® you might stumble into.  Mine cost, I think, $14.99, though I quoted it in the last post at $13.99. On the other hand, I have had it for more then five years…). (more…)

Solar Panel part Two: the experimentation!

After a week and a half of waiting for the mail, and then another 4 days due to communal negligence, I am glad to report that we managed to get back on the Do It Yourself Solar Power bandwagon.  This corresponds nicely with day one of our LtAG tip-o-the-hat to Earth Week (remember when it was just earth DAY, and you could feel good about turning out our lights once in a while and leave it at that?  Those were the days…)

You might remember that we left our research phase having ordered 1 x 12-volt battery 8 x single solar cells pictured below.

Front and Back of one Solar Cell 60MM x 60MM

Since Gerrit already had a multimeter to measure the electricities, all we needed to do was figure out how to connect the pieces together to get solar gain and then how to connect the pieces together to use a 12 volt battery for something… useful.

Using our amazing resourcefulness and Gerrit’s knowledge of all thing’s electrical, we discovered that a plastic crate that we were going to use as a work table was actually the perfect size to fit our 60 millimeter square cells.

We then gang pressed into service 1 x an-old-car-plug-in-that-Alan-had-that-converted-from-the-12-volts-in-a-car-and-outputs-at-120-volts ($13.99 at a rest-stop) and we stripped some old co-axial cable that we found on the street for it’s outer coating of fine wire mesh.

It turns out that, on testing the solar cells on the roof, each one was drawing between three and four volts.  Since Sunday was a day of tests, we didn’t want to lock ourselves into anything too permanent.  This meant a simple connection of contact points between cells, which were then set into the slots on the crate.  Because I don’t know much about electric circuits, and because I hope other people can follow along with this who also don’t know much about circuits: please bear with me if the following explanation is unwieldy.

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Solar + Ninja = SOLJA. Defending the Arctic, the Ice Shelf, the Polar Bea... wait a second...

Still geeked from the the first episode of the (totally un-green) amazing new Spike TV show Deadliest Warrior, I was intrigued to see a cultural observation on our comments page.  Mark notes that we might not be able to wait for people to get in on the DIY Solar bandwagon, nor wait for them to pony up the cash to get someone else to come and build.  This leaves us with the obvious option of people who surreptitiously come in the night, build solar panels, then vanish into the mists.  Vandalism in reverse, Mark coined this new home owner scourge solarrillas – but I think that my Deadliest Warrior thoughts push me more toward the deadly and invisible Ninja.  Let’s call them Ninlars.  Solinjas.  Or… Soljas.  That’s right: you can be a Solja for the cause!

To this end: the newest in solar technology that will dramatically assist in the Silent Ninja’s work:  Check out this Solar Paint.  It’s a panel minus the panel, electricity gain that you can roll on to your roof.  Eventually, who knows?  This stuff could cover just about everything.  Plus, for all those Solja attacks, the soldering and other ironwork was going to be a pretty serious noise issue.  Now, it is back to the code of the Solja: Silent, but Green.

Now, I wonder if we can get Stimulus money for creating Green Collar Jobs to train our deadly warrior army…

Week One: Over the weekend, Gerrit and I started what we hope is a process that will lead to the installation of a solar panel on his roof.  The initial goal is simply to make something that works.  It’s not going to power the house or nothing, but it will be neat to see if we can get something up and running by ourselves, and maybe use it to run the game system for a few hours.

An afternoon of research unveiled the mysteries of the Internets: there are a lot of people looking to sell you solar panels for a lot of money.  There are lots of other people who want to sell you a book to help you make solar panels on the cheap… but these books also cost a lot of money.  Eventually, the lowest pre-fab array that I could find was a little RV rig that came in at $139, and produced something  in the tune of 10-15 watts.  Clearly, you go way up per watt from there, as the solar pieces themselves get higher grade.

G and I decided that were going for that truly slacker combo: the cheapest thing we could come up with after an afternoon of research.  We also figured we could follow along based on this and this.  With his in-depth knowledge of physics and my… well… my powers of rooting, we could pretty much build something from scratch.

The pieces so far:

$43 for a battery – 12 volts. (more good info on batteries here).

$37 for 8 of these small solar cells, which we plan to solder together into something vaugley resembling a 4 x 2 grid.

and, we already had a 12 volt DC meter.

Further analysis of the voltage wattage charge situations to come, but if you are looking to follow in our footsteps I’d say this: Careful… we have trouble walking in a straight line.  Our only real knowladge of circuts rests in Wikipedia and Gerrit’s brillient noggin, so it remains to be seen what we can come up with.

It does look like there is information available for DIY options at pretty much wherever complexity you want.   There are always people willing to do it for you at a huge mark up, but there are also people willing to sell you all the pieces and give you a feeling some DIY magic.  In fact, a lot of people that we came across even suggested calling up companies who are likely to have damaged or broken panels and asking for their cast-offs: a former construction site panel at 60%, if it’s free, is still way way better then nothing.  New York City does not seem like the ideal place to try that theory out, but everyone outside should give it a shot.

UPDATE: Surprise of surprises, you can also go to youtube and see all the lists of the things you can do with a 12 volt battery…