Spirit of Happiness

As human beings we go through a whole range of emotional extremes and subtleties; from the need to get up and go to work (whether or not we like it) to celebrating special occasions; from meeting new friends or  successfully completing a goal, to anger about opposing views from our own.  But happiness is a higher state of being; it is an internal wealth of opportunity we can use to transform our lives.

The Dalai Lama has written a book on happiness which millions of people follow; though I have read many books on happiness; I do not believe happiness requires spiritually in the formal sense.  Michael Argyle, in a 2002 publication indicated that from 2001 to the Autumn of 2002 (when his article was published) over 100 new titles have been released on happiness.  With so much emphasis on it, why are we still publishing information about happiness?  Simple, it is the foremost balance we can achieve as human beings.

Happiness is a balance we find within ourselves.  So where do we find this happiness?  Certainly not in material and superficial objects.  No, such things offer a certain pleasure but there is a clear difference between pleasure and happiness.  Happiness is a state of mind when other factors that offer superficial happiness are absent.  Owning a Porsche, a home, getting a raise, eating great food; these things offer momentary pleasure; more importantly, go too much in one direction or the other and they can disappear.  Too much food you over eat, have a car too long, it loses its appeal. Take another example slightly different scenario.

Place yourself on a beach watching the sunset.  While being at the beach provides comfort, the act of watching the sunset (with someone or without someone you enjoy), provides an internal long lasting memory that cannot be removed.  Standing atop a mountain overlooking a grand valley or other mountains on a clear day offers something similar.  Owning a sailboat is one experience but sailing in a wide open space with gentle trade-winds can be transformative.

I begin each morning with a ritual of my own that offers the happiness I seek.  Based solely on my actions and my self understanding of what I need I; each morning I go through a series of meditation poses; I also recite my own personal mantra.  These two activities are not based on anyone else's knowledge, approval, or acknowledgement.  These activities merely add what I found balances my inner self.  They are absent of desires, result in no questions, yet provide complete and utter happiness; it is because nothing else is attached to their existence that allows these activities to be so fulfilling.  More over happiness is something you need to find on your own journey.  So what led me to these activities that provide such balance.

As I was standing on a large boulder, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, relieved of any inhibitions, I raised one knee and began; arms spread, palms up...  It simply felt right.  A release of needs, desires, wants and an absorption of what seemed to exist on a similar plane; the rocks, the ocean, the sunlight, the air.  The absence of give or take, mere existence in the present, and the state of being.
  

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)

Shifting from Climate Change to Climate Extremes

 by Scotland Willis

The discussion over climate change, has been a hotly debated issue since it's inception.  Advocates fiercely reacting to opponents of climate related issues with great fervor to emphasize the seriousness of potential threats.  Now is not the time to add to that flame, but rather clarify- and continue to do so.  Choosing a discourse that is based on observations, reasonable extrapolations, and comparative data year over year, is imperative.  Action is a must.

Yes, it is impossible to predict exactly what is going to happen with the weather patterns around the world, many experts believe the extremes will continue to increase aggressively- a likely scenario.  But if speculation, projections and modeling aren't sufficient (a task carried out by experts in the field of science), then why do we depend so heavily on them with regards to economic market conditions?  Such models are known as market predictability models; hundreds of billions of dollars each day depend on such projections and their outcomes.  Why? Simple, they are a good indicator of human behavior with reference to increasing or decreasing the price of various commodities.

 Why then, are such sophisticated systems dismissed in climate modeling?  Asserting that using probabilities and potentialities is not a reliable source, is a poor argument for non-action by policy makers and the general population for that matter.

It is important to be able to translate this into climate extremes and human behavior; market behavior is of course very different- or is it.

If we think of the environment in an inverse sort of way, we can look at it a bit differently.  While we can't change the weather based on how many people are going to buy a share of sunshine or speculate on rain; we do do this in a sense.  People bid on crops and other agribusiness all the time.  The performance of the weather significantly determines whether the price of wheat will go up or down.  Take the fires that destroyed the wheat crops in Russia.  People who speculated that the price of wheat would go down when those crops matured lost their bet in terms of stock futures.  Why? because the unexpected wildfires that destroyed the crops thus increasing the price of wheat.


And there is evidence that governments have been tampering with, artificially experimenting and manipulating the weather patterns over the years.  But the other and more important point is that we (the human species), can intentionally shift the way we impact the environment.  It is true that if agribusiness could make enough millions they would play war games with other countries crops but that is not the topic of discussion here.

The former discussion is solely to raise awareness of potentialities.  What our human impact is doing is having an accelerated impact on weather conditions.  Climate change will always occur, but climate extremes will significantly impact how we live and what quality of life we can expect.  The other point of the discussion above was to look at the comparison of using predictions and forecasting to influence our decisions about legislative policy related to climate change.  A book written about crowdsourcing (link here), provides some insights to predictive modeling as a powerful source to understanding economic market behavior


In 2011, the United States experienced twelve (12) extreme weather events; the record in 2008 was nine such events.  These are generally events that translate into $1 billion in damage or more.  Two good resources to defer to are both the NOAA (link here) and a Public Broadcasting Service program NewsHour (link hour).  From Snowfall records in January of 2011 that paralyzed the midsection of the United States to the hundreds of people who died from record tornadoes that hit the country; more extreme weather patterns are striking with great force and increasing frequency.  The NOAA estimates $52b in total damage for weather related events in 2011.  These unusual weather events are not solely in the U.S.

This past Fall season, my travels took me to Thailand during flooding that struck the far north and continued southward decimating communities.  And early in 2012, Latin America is experiencing recording flooding, wildfires and droughts (Huffington Post).  Along with the extreme hurricane type winds that battered the U.K., these patters emit a warning signs that should have legislators acting on firm policies to protect the native populations.  Planning is the key.  But when project like Rancho Cielo Solar Farm get canceled one must ask why, and not just point to the DOE-- but ask who is pulling the strings?  How do such project like this get usurped politically?  Start by asking what is at stake for the existing industries that have dominion over energy sources.


Real Solutions
Locating energy sources closer to the populations that use them is an important decision to make.  A tremendous amount of energy is lost when electricity from power generating plants are located long distances from the end user.  But no one wants a coal burning plant in their back yard (unless you live in Washington D.C. [ Capital Power Plant], 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide).  Solution, find a different power source.  Granted that in some areas, certain environments are not hospitable to certain power sources.  The efficiency  is simply a poor trade off.  But in many places geothermal, solar and wind are seriously under utilized.

What to Expect
Expect more extreme storms.  The capacity of the atmosphere to retain more energy and moisture means that the release of such energy will be more extreme.  Can we harness more of that extreme energy and find creative ways to stave off or offset the negative impact? Can't answer that one.  But we can trust what is before us and act accordingly.

Extremeness:

• Snow: January record snowfall in Chicago blizzards that pounded 22 states in the midsection of the US;
• Spring: Tornadoes 3 largest twister outbreaks in 6 wks $25b dmage;
• 300 killed in 3 days
•  Tuscaloosa, Alabama leveled due to tornadoes;
• Joplin Missouri: Late May leveled killed over 150 people200 mph winds
• Hurricane Irene; ravaging the East coastline
• Droughts  TX $10b loss crops, livestock, timber, (hottest Summer in TX
• over 6000 1m acres over labor day weekend.
• Kansas 100 days over 100 temp

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.