Solar is great for heating swimming pools

As we progress into sustained warmer weather people will be out working on their property preparing for outdoor activities. While the percentage of those with swimming pools is small, the energy that they use has got to be quite high.  Many swimming pool owners heat their pools. By using a heater that consumes fuel or electricity, the energy consumption is huge.

Solar pool heating systems make a lot of sense. When used with a pool cover, the fuel cost savings for having a heated pool can be substantial. The investment to purchase and install a pool can be relatively large and the inclusion of a solar heating system can make that pool cheaper to maintain and more environmentally friendly at the same time.

So, if you know anyone who has a swimming pool, or plans to install one, please suggest that they look into the benefits of a solar pool heating system.

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=13230

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytopic=13140

Why a Bit of Big Government is Good for Capitalism

There is a widespread condemnation of "big government" among Republicans and Libertarians. The argument is for "freedom" and the ability to work hard and to benefit from that work without the intrusion of the government by means of taxation and regulation.

Capitalism without this government "intrusion" is an effective way of redistributing wealth by concentrating it at the top of the economic hierarchy. This is deemed "fair" by the right based on the assumption of capitalism functioning as a righteous meritocracy. The right seems to always focus on wealth as something earned and deserved and something that should be protected from the government. That is until the subject of inheritance is discussed, wherein the discussion quickly pivots away from a meritocracy and back to freedom. That is because, of course, inheritance functions as a way of transferring wealth to the next generation devoid of any inconvenient merit requirements.

Big government with thoughtful regulation and progressive taxation can act as means to mitigate the upward redistribution of wealth. The problem we have today is that the Republicans did nothing to reign in President Bush's big government during his 8 years. This while concurrently gutting the taxes and regulation that could have helped to minimize the growing disparity of wealth and the budgetary imbalance that has been the anchor weighing down our economy ever since.

Vermont leads the nation

Senator Bernie Sanders recent blog post is a must read:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/vermont-is-helping-to-lea_b_1435672.html

Time for a solar gold rush

Like the gold rushers before them, the natural gas frackers see the riches just waiting for them to harvest.

But now, we have very quickly overwhelmed demand, while continuing to frack heavily, and there is no where to put all the natural gas we are pumping.  Output is high, and with inadequate demand, there are two new issues to complicate the natural gas situation. 

Storage is one.  There isn't enough.  The industry is running out of storage capacity.  Soon, they will have to stop pumping so much.  All the while, they are trying to get as many wells in the ground and functional as possible while we are still deluding ourselves about the safety of fracking technology.  And in doing so, they are exacerbating the other new issue, price. 

Supply and demand has sent natural gas prices through the floor.  natural gas is selling for a fraction of what the cost was when this fracking rush started.  This has set up a situation where we are supporting our weak economy on the back of our environment in a new way.  Those who only care about money see only the cost benefit.  Those who care about the environment see it as just another deal with the devil. 

Natural gas does have benefits.  Electrical energy production with natural gas has the positive impacts of replacing the need for greater use of coal.  This decreases greenhouse gas pollution and slows the atrocity that is mountain top removal coal mining.  But, does the huge growth in natural gas usage, and the fracking that makes it cheap and easy to obtain merely camouflage the fossil fuel energy crisis that we choose to avoid facing?

It's time for a Solar gold rush.

An Unrealistic Dream

I have this unrealistic dream. It is a dream where, since we are all so self-centered, we can only choose for others and not for ourselves.  It is an example of how I like to think about problems in unusual ways.

We have a debt/deficit crisis. We all seem to want everything that will benefit us but do not want to pay for anything that we believe will not benefit us.

In this scenario, one of my thoughts is this: We set up a system where voters of one state would vote for the candidates from a random (drawn each election cycle by publicly broadcast lottery) other state. Each state would thus be voting for another state's representatives. That representative would then be reliant on votes from a state that would not be the beneficiary of wasteful spending for things like "earmarks" that would benefit that representative's state. This would help the effort to steer legislation toward the common good, rather than for the good of only one's own state. The candidates would remain the same, that is being from the state they will represent, and representing their state's constituents. But, those constituents would not have the expectation of a representative that would work to benefit their own state at the expense of the whole nation. In addition, any state that would deny another state's reasonable desires as a result of their votes for that state's representatives, would risk reprisal in subsequent elections. This would be a form of checks and balances.

This system would limit the power of long term elected officials (without term limits which I oppose), as they would not be re-elected based on the power of their seniority in congress, and their ability to bring home the bacon (pork) to the voters that support them.

Just an unrealistic dream, but perhaps food for thought.

The bilateral political divide

The bilateral political divide we are experiencing, is a result of two runaway trains of urgent thought. One side sees the world as a modern civilization careening towards the precipice of global cultural and financial collapse and that we need to do whatever is necessary to prevent going over the cliff in a way we have never seen before. The other side sees the world as a planet with people, that is careening towards a massive sink hole of planetary social and ecological systems collapse under the weight of a troubled humanity that needs to understand the threat and act quickly to prevent sinking into a worst case scenario reality.

The reality is that both views are based on fact. The divide is created because the two sides value what they are trying to save, and discount the importance of what the other side is trying to save.

The context of these goals in our current election cycle is important. It frames the arguments on both sides. The Republicans tend to see threats to cultural and financial stability. They seek to regulate culture in their own image, and to deregulate finance for profit and prosperity in order to maintain our prominence in the world. The Democrats tend to see threats to society and ecological stability. They seek to maximize social equity and regulate ecological stewardship to ensure we leave a sustainable planet to future generations.

Raccoon

I saw a raccoon on my mountain bike ride yesterday.

Economic growth is unsustainable

Economic growth is unsustainable. Our economy, as it is today, is based on growth. If the economy isn't growing, the economy is bad, and a lot of bad things happen. That is because of the premises that our economy is based on.

I am not an economist. But I do think about the economy, and I wonder if economists think at all about the economy the way I do. I like to think about the big picture. That means considering as many aspects of an issue over the longest term that is practical. When considering the economy, and its basis on growth. I think of what that growth is based on. And I think that growth is based on people. Consumers.

Consumers in the aggregate contribute to growth in two ways. The first way is by consuming more, and the second way is by creating more consumers. Neither of these two contributors of growth is sustainable.

We have already increased our consumption to the point that as Americans we consume substantially more per capita than the rest of the world. Not only has this resulted in an unprecedented depletion of our natural resources, increased pollution and a host of other problems, but we are exporting our consumer culture to the rest of the world, skyrocketing the levels of global consumerism.

And as far as creating more consumers, beyond the exportation of our consumer culture, more consumers are created by creating more people. Population growth creates more consumers.

So, I look at the long term, or even medium term, and see that this is unsustainable. Even looking far enough into the future where globalization has pulled the whole world's population into the consuming economy, the point comes where there are no more undeveloped countries to add to the economy. In that future everyone lives in a country that has a high level of consumerism. Further growth on that front is essentially gone. The only other way for the economy to grow is to add more people. More people, more consumption. How ever many people you think this finite planet can sustain, that number is not infinite. Regardless of where you think that limit is, there is a limit.

So, given that there is a limit to the expansion of markets, and a limit on the expansion of the earth's population, it seems to me that there is a limit on the capacity of economic prosperity to be based on growth. That being said, I believe we need to look at that future and begin the transition to a sustainable economy that is decidedly not based on growth. We need to visualize that future and start to implement the policies that make it possible and make it work.