followed by some bad news....

The barbaric extraction continues. I have very little hope that we will wake up and realize that the orgy is over. We will either immediately begin to change our ways, as if our grandchildren's lives depended on it, or we will foreclose on their extinction.

This is how we continue much of our happy motoring.....

Canada's Dirty Oil: Breaking Our Addiction - General audience (long version) from Dirty Oil Sands on Vimeo.

some good news??

This article over at sustainablog was a welcome infusion of hope. After hearing President Obama speak of "clean coal" in the recent state of the union, I was feeling pretty depressed. I know we face a huge problem finding ways to produce energy as we deplete the current resources of planet Earth at breakneck speed. Coal is one of the worst means of producing energy and is used to produce 50% of all the electricity in our country. I think about the poor humans living in the 2nd most diverse forest on the planet whose lives are being destroyed at this very moment by greedy corporatists who are willing to blow the tops off of these beautiful mountain forests to get their hands on the coal seams below. It's heartbreaking. That alone should be enough to get us to reevaluate our energy use and move to the new way we will need to live so our descendents have the slightest chance for a future. We are squandering the resources our children and grandchildren will desperately need.

Coal-Fired Power On the Way Out?
by Earth Policy Institute on February 25, 2010

The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States. Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors. The principal reason for opposing coal plants is that they are changing the earth’s climate. There is also the effect of mercury emissions on health and the 23,600 U.S. deaths each year from power plant air pollution.

full article

nuclear what!!!!

Well so much for my "hope-sy change-y thing." Caribou Barbie asked a good question??? I'm sure in a much different spirit. This news is so profoundly sad....let's waste some more of our precious time and resources at a time when our descendents need us to face reality and act as if their lives depended on it ...CUZ THEY DO !!!!!! nuclear anything is no future. No insurance company on planet Earth will ensure these endeavors and that's why they stick us with the bill. (whoops) And that's before the question of toxic waste and what to do with it is asked. No one has answered that yet.

Imagine what $8,000,000,000.00 could do to help us in our descent from this orgy (the fossil fuel age of cheap, plentiful energy and more junk than more of us can fit in our homes) The finite nature of the resources currently used to produce energy, plastic, soil destroying pesticide and fertilizers and all the machinery of said enterprises, as well as the biggest export we now have....the military industrial complex, are going to ensure this descent .....
The question is ....will we prepare? or as Tina Turner says will we choose to have it "rough" not "nice and easy" It won't be easy in the best case scenario, but we must immediately stop over-comsuming, stop barbaric extraction and stop using earth's finite dwindling natural resources to fight over earth's finite dwindling natural resources.

This decision is so wrong, so shameful and, again, profoundly sad!!!!

WAKE UP AMERICA !!!!!

Obama gives $8 billion to new nuke plants

By Steve Hargreaves, staff writerFebruary 16, 2010: 12:48 PM ET




Work under way to expand Southern Companies' Vogtle plant, the first to recieve new federal funding.







NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama announced Tuesday over $8 billion in federal support for two new nuclear power plants in Georgia, setting the stage for what could be the first completed reactor in this country in over three decades.

The money, coming in the form of loan guarantees, is going to build two new reactors at Southern Company's Vogtle plant facility, located some 170 miles east of Atlanta.

In announcing the grant at an electrical worker's union hall in Maryland, Obama used to occasion to tout the benefits of nuclear power.

full article

send President Obama an important message

As I listened to the state of the union the other night and heard "clean coal", nuclear energy, and more off shore drilling mentioned as good investments for our future I was appalled. The following letter provided me with a way to channel my voice in response to helplessness I was feeling after hearing those words.

My heart breaks every time I think about the people who have so resourcefully lived and thrived in the appalachian mountains by living with nature and the resources provided by the second most diverse forest on planet earth. Many of us looked from the outside and considered them poor, but they knew how to get what they needed and passed their knowledge on to each new generation. They are currently undergoing an assault on their lives with the barbaric extraction of coal by blowing the tops off of their beloved mountains. And that is before we even talk about the myth of burning "clean coal".

The enormous input into a nuclear energy producing plant and the resources, including fresh water, to generate energy are just laughable at this point in time. And that is even before we talk about what the hell to do with the toxic waste. And just for the record, I do not think spreading it all over a foreign county (oh, start with Iraq,) in the form of depleted (not) uranium, is an option. And of course that sunny picture follows barbaric extraction.
We are at a crossroads.

Here is my comment on this open letter to President Obama from the Post Carbon Institute. These folks are doing some of the finest work in this area and I would hope their voices would be listened to by the leaders and policy makers of the world and those of my country.

We must face the truth. Continuing to squander Earth's dwindling natural resources fighting over Earth's dwindling natural resources ensures no future for anyone's grandchildren. We must begin to act as if our grandchildren's lives depended on it. They do! If we continue to over consume, barbarically extract and squander the resources of Earth, we are ensuring our extinction. I am in, what I call, the legacy phase of my life and I am ashamed and profoundly sad about how we are collectively acting. I will do everything I can in my life and community to ensure my grandchildren can have a healthy, happy life on this beautiful planet. Please lead, there are many of us out here who want to help save the planet.

sign on to this important message post carbon institute....

Open Letter to President Obama
Posted Feb 1, 2010 by Asher Miller

February 1, 2010

Dear President Obama,

Your State of the Union speech last week laudably referenced clean tech and renewable energy several times. We ask that you follow your words with action, by leading the transition to a post-carbon economy and a healthier world.

You also spoke of our need to face hard truths.

Hard truth: Our continued, willful reliance on fossil fuels is making our planet uninhabitable. We are evicting ourselves from the only paradise we’ve ever known.

Hard truth: No combination of current and anticipated renewable sources can maintain our profligate energy usage as the global supply of fossil fuels heads for terminal decline.

For the recently released Searching for a Miracle, Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg conducted a “net energy” analysis of 18 different energy sources (including nuclear and “clean coal”). He concluded that the amount of energy available after accounting for the energy used in extraction and production of those sources is—at our current and anticipated rates of consumption—insufficient to get us “over the hump” to a post-carbon world.

Our 29 Post Carbon Institute Fellows—experts in the leading economic, energy, and environmental issues of the day—all agree that this "net energy" deficit is just one of many interrelated crises shaping the 21st century. Each crisis alone creates formidable challenges; in combination, their complexity admits no simple solution. But given their direness, inaction risks tragedy.

Mr. President, we respect you and your advisors and appreciate the enormity of the dilemmas you and all of us confront. When a great leader frames a great challenge, a resilient people will rise to meet the opportunity. And so we ask, Mr. President, that you tell the American people that we must:

1. Face reality. In a carbon-constrained world, true prosperity comes not from heedless growth, but from shared security, community, and liberty.

2. Prepare for the future. Conservation, with an emphasis on building a green economy and revitalizing struggling communities, offers cost-effective “found” energy, and the most immediate and long-term return on investment.

3. Lead the way. A substantial investment in renewable energy, with an emphasis on distributed solar and wind, offers the best hope for moving to a sustainable economy and environment.

Mr. President, lead us in creating a future worth inheriting. Post Carbon Institute and our Fellows will support you and your team in whatever capacity we can. We believe that the American people, and the world’s people, will support you as well.

With hope,

Asher Miller
Executive Director
Post Carbon Institute
707-823-8700 x109