Efficient Outcomes

We live in a world that is flawed by you, and everyone you do and don't know.  Those everyone's are humans; homo sapiens that reside at the top of the food chain but way below the chain of common sense.

Not to beat up on humans, I love being one, but let's take a look at some primary accusations the rest of living organisms might make if they could, well...only find a way to communicate with us.  One perfect example can be found in a book titled Ishmael.  While I don't purport this novel to answer humanities failures, but it does probe into the culture of our behavior. 

We lack the ability to respond to a fundamental reality of finite resources because in an economic system the value of these resources are externalities that hold little meaning in comparison to wealth building in financial terms.  We fail miserably in efficient outcomes.

Why?  A culture of belief that never ending consumption, is the key to our remaining at the top of the evolutionary chain.  This includes development, a term that has evolved from the establishment of civilization. Humans have a tendency to conquer rather than coexist.  As Darwin might say, survival is based on one's ability to thrive over another organism.  Evidence of this can be seen not only in grand edifice as a symbol of human greatness, but in our crowing achievement of eliminating disease.

To be certain, there is no turning back the magnitude of our achievement, though cataclysmic they may be in

scale.  Sure we will see glimpses of a change in the tides but culture is a difficult thing to change.  Not only are we slow to respond, in many cases we are just to late.  It is human culture that  is the greatest contributor to the accelerating background extinction rate, dominating the landscape with estimates from 1000 to 10,000 times normal extinction rates of other living organisms-- that is the impact of a civilized society.  Wikipedia has a very interesting way of stating it, as long as species have been evolving, species have been going extinct; no species is evolving faster than humans.

Opposition to Myths About Energy

Opposition to Conservative Reasoning
and Economic Theory

by Scotland Willis

A recent article in a the Atlanta Journal- Constitution(Feb 11, 2012), highlighted "myths about saving energy."  Unfortunately this line of thinking only reinforces the ignorance that much of the world perceives regarding its interpretation of the of the United States and its sense of arrogance.  

While this may seem like a extreme position to take, look at the numbers before I go into explaining why poor reasoning regarding whether or not behaving more consciously about individual usage, is the greatest harm.

The United States uses collectively, 3.7 billion Megawatt Hours/ year (mWh/ year) as per 2009 numbers*. In 2010, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 11,496 kWh, an average of 958 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month. Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 16,716 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh.

An example of energy usage available via pdf produced by National Grid: Ten 100-watt lamps, when on for one hour, consume 1 kilo-watt-hour (kWh).  A 60 watt bulb running for 4 hours equals about a pound of coal.

Returning to the dispute; one should not be opposed to people understanding the individual economic impact of wasting energy; it is critical however, to be acutely cognizant of the greater collective impact.  One could easily argue that if I lived alone on this earth and randomly threw my waste everywhere and anywhere in my wake, it would have marginal impact in comparison to what the environment could in its decomposition process, but multiply that times 260 million people and we have a real problem.  Economic theory suggest that we hold constant explanatory variables other than the one under consideration, i.e., accept that considering the micro economics of individuals having too small an impact to matter, is irrelevant; this paradigm can no longer hold true.  The value of externalities and the increased rate at which we are decimating the environment is too significant a factor to be dismissed.  Such elements are too intertwined to not consider extrapolating the observations to create a more meaningful understanding of our individual responsibility- even if it seems as minute as $3.00.  If we could get 260 million people to donate $3.00 each day (which could serve as an example of how much energy we waste, thought the number is much higher), what affect would that have on poverty (2.847e+11); you'll want to add some zeros on for that "11"?

We need to be constantly conscious of our individual actions as we risk losing the opportunity to shift the behavior of everyone around us.  This discussion was prompted not only by the article, but by a heated discussion between my father and myself.  For him he argued that I could not quantify the significance of leaving a refrigerator door open for 10 seconds versus 3 seconds- which completely misses the point.  The point is if we collectively close our refrigerator door sooner, we (260,000,000 people) will have the kind of meaningful impact that would not only protect the environment a bit more, but also shift the perception that gluttony is a way of life in the United States.  A simple look at our rate of obesity and the trend therein, should reflect another serious indicator that our behavior needs to shift.    




*Energy Information Administration (EIA)

What The 99 Wants...? Deliberate trajectory ?

The Struggle within the We Are The 99 (The 99) is merely speckling the landscape of big financial interest having celebrated their two month anniversary (Nov. 17th 2011).  But with each advancement their efforts seem be derailed due to the overwhelming strength of the financial institutions and politics.  The concentration of wealth may be the concern, but a well thought out counter proposal must be developed if they are to succeed.

It is not hard to face the fact that we live in a quasi-capitalist society (true capitalism would not provide subsidies industry); nowhere is that more true and evident, than in the United States, during times such as these.  And with each argument, government seems to respond with further questionable act of decision-making (or lack there of), when concerning groups associated with social justice concerns such as The 99.

• Between 1976 and 2008, the pretax income for the top 1% of the U.S. population went from 8.9 to 20 percent of the nation's income.  This tells us that tax and revenue policies have continued to work in favor of the most wealthy. (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(1), 2008)

The 99 is in need of a specific objective with a road map of how to reach that objective as a set of proposals or demands.  Such a proposal should be methodical and well reasoned that gets the concerned population closer to transforming the status quo for the people they represent.  The current reality might start out... we know where we are, we are learning where we want to go, we have an idea about how to get there; this is our proposal...

This proposal should have some expertise(able minded people) behind it, that represents well reasoned research addressing specific issues; one example might be how much are you asking from the corporate giants or greed agents/ white collar capitalists (whatever your perspective might be); what do you expect that ask to achieve, how will it redistributed?  Also what are the implications and turn around time for the desired affect?  Identify what is standing in the way and why you believe it is movable.  This is only a small example of what should be happening.  Instead what seems to be occurring is The 99 is losing steam.

 What is wrong?

• Disparity between wealth and poverty on a perpetual  path of disproportionate growth
• Opportunities for elevation out of poverty increasingly distant
• Families and individuals unable to maintenance and prevent poor health
• Lack of job security
• Inability to secure prosperous housing
• Poor academic environment
• Deteriorating communities

These inequities foster the flames that create much of the fire in the relationship between the  extremely wealthy individuals, and other 99 segment of the population.  There are multiple examples of where an equitable society has proven to make a difference.  Not all of them are in the most obvious places, but The 99 should begin to assemble those pieces together and transform their argument into a statement of purpose, if they plan on being agents of change rather than advocates.

Change is most likely to occur when something is really wrong, an assembly of people work to change what is wrong and a plan is developed to make what is wrong obsolete by presenting a better alternative.

Trip of a Life Time- Around the World

Traveling is one of the true amenities of the human experiences.  If you are an environmentalist there are things that you constantly think about relative to your carbon foot print.  I have friends and family all over the world and own a dilemma; how to I enjoy the company of these friends and people I cherish, while maintaining my sense of responsibility to protecting the environment?

Over the past five years I have made many changes in my lifestyle.  I sold two cars and a motorcycle; developed an acute awareness for my waste habits, including recycling, and composting to produce my own food (effectively reducing the distance food has to travel to get to my table and the environmental costs associated with producing that food).  I use a waterfall system to wash my dishes by hand; I turn my hot water tank down to a temperature I can bare (warm) in the Summer; I don't leave water running when brushing my teeth or taking a shower (meaning, I turn the water off while I am soaping my body); I use a rain barrel to water my house plants and in the winter, I use the water running in the shower for my plants (because it takes time to heat up- why waste usable cold water?); I buy used clothes because I know how much water it take to produce a pair of jeans; and I pick up furniture being thrown out by others to furnish my home as I think about how long it might otherwise sit in the landfill as waste.

Despite all these things and more, I still have reservation about doing extensive traveling.  So how do I reconcile these concerns?  My hope is that I will learn more things along the way that will make a bigger difference in my life; enable me to make a bigger difference in the lives of others, so that my overall impact is reduced because of the net benefit.  Obviously I hope to share some of my experience and research to persuade others to practice environmentally sound habits.

It is challenging to see that some of the worst habits are right here at home in the United States.  Perhaps there are some positive lessons in the economic downturn we are currently experiencing.  Slowing our consumption rate is a really good starting point.  We could begin to reconcile our fuel usage and establish a national campaign on conservation that is relentless with clear objectives that achieve specific milestones- that would be data worth tracking.

I would like to say that I will just do my part, but the planet is much too important to me to not be diligent in persuading others, while consistently raising the bar for myself about acting more responsibly relative to being climate conscious.

How do I justify making this journey I believe to be an important next step in my life?  My answer may not be the correct one, which I will reserve until I collect more responses from my readers and friends, but I will begin by telling you the impact I have is on my mind every waking moment; at night I dream about a better world.