EvolvingWorld » Earth

Is God Green?

tomh — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:50:41 +0000

Last week John Ortberg gave a really amazing sermon at MPPC on the topic Is God Green? I found this really inspirational because it was original, profound, and well connected two areas of thought which often are quite separate: Christianity and Environmentalism. You might even say that in popular culture they’re often opposed. A lot of conservatives, who claim to be religious, tend to reflexively oppose any efforts to protect the Environment, for these interfere with their worship of the almighty $$$. A lot of Environmentalists are fairly derisive of religion, viewing it as opposed to science and progress. Exemplifying this dichotomy, John by starting his sermon with pointing to an influential paper published in the sixties arguing that Christianity created a historical break in the thinking of man’s place in nature in that it argued that God had created the earth primarily for the benefit of people, and that therefore it only existed to be exploited by people, and had no other value.

John then proceeded to give a fascinating tour through the bible illustrated with many quotes showing that this is a quite incorrect interpretation. In fact in many places the Bible clearly states that the entire universe is the work of God, and belongs to God, and that therefore it’s the responsability of humans to take care of it. In fact, the special role of humans as those creatures made in God’s image is in fact to be stewards of God’s creation. I found that to be quite an inspiring insight. That being a good Christian requires us to be a good Environmentalist and vice-versa.

It made me think that one of the bad habits of our society is that we create false dichotomies and false conflicts, because there are those who try to profit from creating conflict, whether economically or politically. Why do we always have to choose one or the other? In particular, it’s more and more clear to me that the word of the Bible is in very close accord with every other objective view of the universe. Recent historical and archeological work have more and more confirmed the fairly impressive accuracy of much of the old testament as a historic document. When you look closely at the findings of modern Science, and the ethical implications of science, it also is in close accord with the Biblical message. Some say that creation and evolution are in opposition. But how so? Aren’t all the natural laws simply proof of the work God in all places and times? What we call Science is nothing but our observation of the continuous presence of God’s work around us. And in that sense too the Environmentalist’s dedication to the planet is not, or should not, be some act of pagan worship, but really a manifestation of respect and care for God’s creation. So we shouldn’t let ourselves be distracted by false divisions, but keep focused on the ONE thing.

Whole Earth Discipline

tomh — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:05:15 +0000

I just read the most amazing book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand. Truly one of the most eye-opening things I’ve read in a while. He gleefully points out that our partisan loyalties of various kinds make us quite blind to what’s really going on around us. The earth and society continue to evolve at a breath taking pace, and our conceptualizations don’t quite keep up. Fascinating is his analysis of how the movement of the poor from the countryside to the city is actually an amazing piece of economic and environmental progress, freeing people to new levels of prosperity and freedom, while simultaneously removing much of the load on the countryside. A number of yesterday’s problems are becoming non-problems, with the earth’s population growth stalling and getting to a point of falling vastly sooner than anyone had expected, and the forrest growing back much faster than it’s being cut down. Meanwhile technology keeps shifting, with immense progress and promise in harnessing the ability of life to swap genes back and forth, creating new opportunities to feed the poor. While we face giant problems in the decades to come, there are also amazing opportunities out there, for anyone willing to seize them. The key challenge is to see beyond our nose – go beyond our prejudices of what a conservative, a liberal, an American city dweller, or whatever, should see and think, to see what’s really out there. Being honest and open, and thinking globally is critical right now. Even while our own society seems mired in doldrums, the planet keeps changing. Tapping into that change is what will get us out of this calm spot. Read this book and think!

SmartAC – smart enough?

tomh — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:23:24 +0000

In my ongoing quest for more electricity savings, I signed up for SmartAC with PG&E. On the whole this is a great deal. You call up PG&E and they come in and replace your dumb old analog thermostat with a fancy new digital one and then send you a rebate check for your trouble. The digital thermostat enables you to program complex schedules, and does things you can’t do with an analog thermostat, such as run the fan for 15 minutes on the half hour which delivers a surprising amount of cooling for relatively little energy. You can also control the thermostat via the SmartAC website, except that the web interface curiously lacks some of the functionality on the thermostat itself. So this is definitely a cool thing, and since they pay you to do it, it’s hard to argue against it. Wait, you ask, why would they do this? Well there is a catch. On peak power days PG&E can use the internet link to force your AC into fan mode at regular intervals. If you absolutely can’t stand that, you can login on the website and say no on that day. So the benefit for PG&E is to protect against blackouts/brownouts on peak days, and generally reduce the amount of peak power used, which in general is by a large margin the most expensive and therefore unprofitable power for PG&E. Additionally PG&E has another program whereby they actually give you a discount on most of your power in exchange for charging you a lot more on those peak days – encouraging you to conserve on those days.

So with all this, how can one argue against it ? Having had it for a while now, I’m beginning to realize it has a flaw from an energy conservation standpoint. (I’m setting aside for a moment the contribution to peak power days, which is indisputable.) The advantage of the digital thermostat over the analog thermostat is that by setting complex schedules it remembers to turn the AC or heating OFF or DOWN in cases where you on your own would be too lazy or distracted to do it yourself. That it does real well. However, it also has the attribute that it turns it ON on days when you might not. This seems to be its downfall. Before, we only occasionally turned on the AC. Now it’s running quite a bit more. Admittedly the upstairs is very, very pleasant, and this cooling level is accomplished with a minimum of power. But it’s definitely doing more cooling than when we did it manually. The typical heating pattern in our house is that the house gradually warms up during the day, and that by night, when it’s already cooling off outside is when the maximum temperature is reached inside. Before we’d wait till the house was very hot, and then air condition like crazy. Now it runs more often, but sporadically, throughout the afternoon, early evening. It’s clearly working less hard, yet it’s also cooling the upstairs when we’re not there.

Obviously the system is too simple. What’s needed is to couple the smartac to an occupancy sensor. The other issue is the need to remember to close the windows when the a/c runs, or more specifically, when it’s hotter outside than the target temperature. Having just listened to an account of how to automate the whole house (see my previous blog entry), I’m now intrigued. I’m thinking my house is a lot like the way my audio/visual setup was before I automated it – a mass of separate parts not talking to one another. The one difference is that the stereo became so complex my family couldn’t operate it, and when I started having trouble too I had to act. The house on the other hand is certainly easy to operate, it’s just wastes energy. I could probably knock ~$30 off the monthly electricity bill with better tooling. The fancy house automation claims to have an ROI period of 8 years, which is unrealistic because the computers will be out of date in three years. I tend to believe three years is a realistic lifespan for digital toys. So in three years, I could save $1080. This means I could spend $1000 on home automation and at least amuse myself and break even. Somehow I think this will cost more than $1000. This requires more design. To be continued.

Chevron vs Sierra Club at Commonwealth Club

tomh — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:10:52 +0000

June 10 I listened to Dave O’Reilly, CEO of Chevron and Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club in conversation with Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor, The Wall Street Journal at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. It was quite a circus, sold out, tv cameras and protestors to boot. The surprising thing was that it was actually a rather congenial conversation. Dave and Carl really agree on a great deal in terms of the end of fossil fuels, the need to transition energy supplies, and the need to do because of the impact of global warming. What was significant was their difference on the timing. Carl Pope emphasized the importance of transitioning quickly, in thirty years, whereas Dave saw this as a much longer term proposition, mostly because of the practicalities of doing it. This led to an interesting point. Right now Chevron makes 98% of its revenues from fossil fuels. The discussion about timing is crucial for Chevron, because it needs to replace its fossil fuel revenues with other revenues if it wants to continue to grow and prosper. If Dave’s timing is wrong, Chevron will find itself much like Kodak making a painful forced transition to a new revenue model, and possibly becoming a much smaller company in the process. Another interesting point that came up was a question about salaries and percentage of revenues. Carl Pope makes $200K on $40m. Dave’s total compensation is about $14m on $273b. You will notice that Carl’s salary is actually a much bigger proportion. This is something that sometimes gets lost in looking at oil companies. Their revenues are so large, that when you redo things as percentages they come across as rather stodgy, not that profitable, not fast growing entities.

What was very entertaining was when the two men discovered they both totally opposed the Cap and Trade proposals going through congress. They promised each other they would actually go to Washington together to lobby against this. Now that would get the average senator’s attention – Chevron AND the sierra club at once – few of them would turn that down.

All in all it was a pleasant and interesting evening. Yet somehow I can’t help but feeling that a lot more is hiding behind the difference in time table and urgency. The degree to which the required sense of urgency exists and is turned into action will massively affect the future of our environment as well as the future of business. I think it’s great that even CEO’s are understanding the importance of change, but the scope of what’s needed hasn’t fully sunken in. Or perhaps more to the point, it has sunken in, but people are shrinking back from it, saying it’s too hard to do quickly. But it’s not obvious that nature, or the growing resource needs of people around the world, will afford us that much time.

Marine Mammal Center – saving cute animals

tomh — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:03:43 +0000

Cute Hungry Seals

In two weeks The Marine Mammal Center is unveiling their new facility in Marin for taking care of sick and stranded marine mammals. They are a wonderful operation, and I’ve been proud to support their efforts for some time. Of course we’re all going to their open house. It does get me to thinking though about how useful it is to be cute. Let’s face it, we all love seals and sea lions for pretty much the same reason we love dogs and cats – they’re smart, cute, fun animals. Who can’t appreciate these guys? And I admit I too love a cute animal when I see one. But if you think about it, a lot of the biodiversity on earth is hardly cute. A lot of it is very small and inconspicuous. Others are quite ugly or simply boring. Statistically, most species of animals are beetles. Probably by volume, most of them are nematodes. Ok, so who wants to go to The Marine Worm Center ? No? Not you? Why not? Really if we’re serious about maintaining a healthy planet, we have to think about the living conditions for ALL organisms. But by our nature we tend to focus more on those that are relatively like ourselves. Clearly, getting people involved in the Marine Mammal Center is a good thing – their patients need the help, and by spreading the conservation message it will have collateral benefits for everything else. Yet somehow we have to also learn to look beyond the cute, and worry equally about all the small or unappealing critters and treasure their lives as well.
But then again as someone who views dogs and cats as part of the family, it’s hard not to notice that seals also have big eyes and look at you…..

San Mateo Sustainability Hub

tomh — Sun, 10 May 2009 02:34:31 +0000

sustainabilityhub

The nice people at Sustainable San Mateo have created a new Sustainability Hub to publicize and coordinate local sustainability/green issues. I think this is a really good development, in something the internet is kind of weak in to date – namely local coverage. The internet is very good for bringing together people globally on any topic large and small. Whether it’s spreading news quickly, or bringing together scattered people with specialized interests, the internet is great globally. What’s a bigger problem is neighborhood stuff. The decline of newspapers isn’t really a problem for national news — but it makes it damn hard to figure out what’s going on in your town or your county. So it’s exciting to see folks building out more of the local and regional internet.

More on topic, Sustainable San Mateo does a lot of very good work. They also produce a very thoughtful set of annual reports on indicators for sustainability for San Mateo County, which are now published on this hub. These reports are fine example of thinking globally and acting locally. These reports look at every aspect of life in the county from the environment to the economy to social factors to goverment to industry, and look at progress, problems and opportunities viewed in a holistic way, including both financial, cultural and environmental aspects. Now if we could get this level of thinking across the country, we’d be doing pretty good…..

Turning The Tide Conference

tomh — Sun, 03 May 2009 03:49:41 +0000

Turning The Tide

I can’t believe it’s been a whole month since the Turning The Tide Conference. This was truly a phenomenal event. The background is that the National Park Service in conjunction with the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy decided to create a platform to make more of a difference in the intellectual processes around conservation, besides the mere conservation of land itself. Accordingly they setup the Institute at the Golden Gate as a conference center dedicated to conservation/green/environmental issues at Fort Baker next to the Golden Gate Bridge. This is an incredible setting, especially on a warm sunny day, as spectacular a place for a meeting as you might wish. To inaugurate this site they sponsored this conference bringing together people from conservation groups, the government, academe, industry, journalists. It was an amazing mix of people. I found myself sitting next to Steward Brandt of Whole Earth Catalog fame, and quite a few other famous people. Besides lectures there were a lot of interactive discussion sessions so one felt a lot more of a participant and not just an audience member. I was inspired by the content, but more so found the conversations and connections made quite valuable. Truly a wonderful experience!

Pickens Plan

tomh — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:54:45 +0000

Yesterday I listened to T. Boone Pickens expound on his energy plan for America at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco at a meeting of the CommonWealth club. He’s a great speaker and very funny. His delivery somewhat reminds of my professor, Dr. Suppes at Stanford, another distinguished Oklahoman.

But while it was very amusing, his message is deadly serious. And it lines up with what I’ve heard from every scientist I’ve spoken to recently. The scientists come at it from the unsustainability of our economy and the coming ecologic crisis caused by climate change. Pickens approaches it a little differently, is view is to get America off of its dependence on foreign oil. But they arrive at the same result. America is using a quarter of the oil with 5% of the population and 5% of the oil. And some of our main suppliers like Mexico are running out of oil and will soon be net importers. Project forward, oil prices go way up. Coming off the current economic recession, we could easily see the recovery stalled by rising energy prices. Mapped onto the climate change picture, unless we use less oil and point the way to alternatives, it only gets worse. Pickens’ view is that natural gas is a sensible bridge fuel, until solar and wind can catch up. He also points out that heavy trucks and the like are not feasibly powered using hybrid or battery technologies, and that natural gas is much better there. He sees enormous possibilities in investing in these alternative energy technologies, as well as better transmission grids and electricity storage technologies, both as a solution to the problem as well as providing a lot of jobs and growth possibilities. Asked if his plan really reflected self-interest, he said that he’s doesn’t have that long to live, and is giving his money away anyhow, so there’s no point in trying to make more right now, this is simply his way of helping America. A lot of the focus of the talk was on the problems of educating the politicians (and by extension the people) on the severity of the problem and what it takes to solve it. He gave many anecdotes of his problems in getting through to politicians, from Bob Dole to George Bush. He feels Obama is the first president who at all gets it.

He’s really trying to rally people across the country to join his campaign and create the political impetus to really attack our energy problems. This even more than the economic crisis is our real long term challenge. Right now people are distracted by the crash, but beyond it are much bigger and deeper problems. Pickens is doing the right thing here getting people organized. We all have to do our thing here and ask what we can do to. It’s not only right for the earth and the country, economically it will be to our and our childrens’ benefit as well.

So go out and join the Pickens Plan!

An expensive bike

tomh — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:03:17 +0000

Optibike Electric Bike

We went to the new California Academy of Sciences today, and it’s really beautiful. We really enjoyed all the new exhibits. We did miss a few old ones, like most of the fossils are gone (hmmph, I’m a frustrated paleontologist.).

I did see this amazing thing. It’s a hitech electric bike by optibike; it’s a hybrid bike really where you can pedal and/or use the motor, kind of the prius of bikes. It’s really cool. But there’s really an amazing problem about it. It costs thousands of dollars. So it’s great for upper-middle class enthusiasts who can afford somewhat costly hobbies, and be environmentally cool and still show off the latest stuff. But most of the world could never use this. Interestingly, in China each year millions of electric bikes are sold, mostly simple scooters. These are truly peoples’ machines. The companies that build them are rapidly gaining expertise mass producing affordable electric hybrid vehicles, and are beginning to move up market into bigger and more sophisticated devices. I suspect this is where the future really is: practical business people building stuff that works for everyone, and making green technology a matter of every day life and not just a neato toy for the well to do.