The Green Philosopher

    So it seems that I've had more and more conversations with people while biking around northern VA that start out like this, “So your biking around to save gas money?”

    To which I usually answer something pretty consistent with, “No, not really. While it does save money by not using gas to get around, I haven't ditched my car, which is necessary to save a lot of money by bicycling. I bike mainly because it seems to be a better use of my body, has less of an impact on the environment than driving. And in the back of my mind I'm really very worried that a worst case 'peak oil' scenario would leave me unprepared to support my family if I didn't do this regularly.”

    Found this mention of a high speed train being proposed on DIGG of all places. Which is great, as trains have a fuel efficiency that is more than 3 times that trucks. It's interesting to note that train services are seeing a record breaking boom with the rise of petroleum based fuels. Their higher fuel efficiency should help them to be able to compete quite well, finally, against the more dominant forms of transportation. California is the perfect state to state this kind of project, as they are otherwise so heavily effected by rising consumer fuel costs.

    It would be an interesting future if the age of trains saw a rebirth. The state ownership of Amtrak might finally be seen as a golden investment, which is good because our government is rather broke.

    While I've spent time working on and researching various “green” projects, I have realized that I don't have a really good grasp of what the local government is doing to help build self sustainability and protect the environment. So I'm going to start researching the local government and see if there is anything I can do to help push them along. We'll start out in the county I live in, Loudoun county Virginia, and I'll work my way through some of the nearby localities and then see what the state government is doing.

    The county is also sponsoring bicycle to work day, and on May 16^th along the WO&D trail (our local bicycling highway) with two pit stops: at Leesburg at Raflo Park on Harrison Street, from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.; and Sterling at Orbital Sciences Corporation from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.  Not bad, I wasn't even expecting the bike to work week support. Normally the county seems downright dismissive of bicyclists needs. Maybe things are changing, I'll have to see if I can talk with some of the people involved.

    While exploring new routes for my summer commute by bicycle today I found 3 out of 4 routes that proved to be five minutes faster at a mild pace than the normal commute by car (30 minutes). That's mostly due to less traffic lights, and a more direct route, still makes me smile though.

    I also found out that, unintentionally, that dragon flies taste worse than grasshoppers!

    So while reading the comments on one of the more creative online videos that talks about peak oil, I was struck by the preponderance of replies that seem to state absolutely magical beliefs in what science can do. Such as...

“There's enough oil under the north slope of alaska to supply the US for the next 200 years. Not only that, but old wells can be re-explored and often are found to have re-filled.” -deaglek

    Ok, so deaglek may not have even a simple grasp of mathematics but most people should be able to follow this simple number crunch. Here's the facts, the total proven crude oil reserves, in the ground, in the lower 48 states and Alaska are about 20 billion barrels of crude. The US consumes about 20 million barrels a day, multiply that by 365 days in a year, and you find that we consume about 7.3 billion barrels of crude a year. So, in less than 3 years we would consume all of the available oil in the US, that includes the Alaskan north slope.

More doom and gloom(Russia Today), but look at the bright side, if your reading this chances are you are rich enough not to be starved to death by imminent market pressure!

A turn key solution for home ethanol production(product site) is soon to be available.

A very impressive story(active.com) of what something as simple as getting on a bike can do.

Keeping things aesthetically pleasing doesn't have to be unproductive.

    One of the most common arguments against investing in renewable energy is the high initial cost involved in building the infrastructure. Many economists and investors, big and small, say this alone is a valid argument for not investing in a renewable energy infrastructure. This kind of reasoning is built on the basis of the history of dirt cheap cost of fossil fuel energy, which is quickly becoming a point of past history. Simply put, no other energy source can come close to the EROEI(energy returned on energy invested) of fossil fuel energy sources of the past, this is undeniable. And while the costs of petroleum, natural gas, and coal are on the rise even the current market increases still make them the cheapest forms of energy around. But their comes both tremendous hidden costs and very delayed costs to using fossil fuel energy sources that effect everything from our national economy to our very own personal health.

    It seems that when there is talk of doing something in an efficient and ecologically friendly manner the primary argument behind it is usually to reduce carbon emissions. And while that in itself is not a bad reasoning, it has tends to lead to a great deal of confusion about why we should do things in efficient and ecological ways.

    Reducing overall carbon emissions is certainly important, in a educated guess sort of way. I mean the basic laboratory science of carbon emission induced climate change is well understood. And we have some very indicative real world observations about correlations between atmospheric carbon concentrations and global warming. So it is a pretty good bet that reducing our carbon emissions, even in small and personal ways, might help prevent some long term global warming, outside of the normal long term climate fluctuations that is. But is this really a good immediate impact sort of reasoning?

No.

    And there are much better reasons to live efficiently and in an ecologically sound manner. Take for instance the enormous trade deficit in the United States of America, every time you eat locally produced food you are not reducing your personal carbon emissions, you are increasing the value of your money by working against the trade deficit.

    Or what about riding a bicycle 7 miles to work instead of driving? Sure you are reducing your carbon emissions, but you are also fighting the trade deficit, and your improving your overall health which also helps to fights overall long term health care costs. Not to mention the mental benefits of prolonged exercise which will help to fight the stress of the modern professional life. Nothing like coming home to your family after a long day at work without bringing all the teeth chiseling stress of modern cubicle life.

    So not too long ago I made a commitment to do as much transportation as I possibly could by bicycle saving the cars only for when no other alternative would do. Today, all day, no other alternative would do. It's a little depressing and disheartening to burn through about 4 gallons of gas in one day after barely using the same amount of gas in the last two weeks. Sure, there was justification in the absolute need to get so much done today in so little time as to rule out the bicycle. And there is fact that I can't haul 3 other people around on my bike. But it's different now, last year I would have brushed off the inefficiency.

    But today, let me tell you, today as I drove my wife, daughter and cousin through the pouring rain I found my eyes riveted on the commuter bicyclists in the morning. I really wanted to be there in the pouring rain, like them, struggling successfully against the weather and the traffic. It was a deep and visceral need to be in that wet and hectic struggle. Something about me has embraced that challenge, and suddenly I think driving is something too coddled, too pampered, too convenient. While I've always thought driving was inefficient, and endorsing a strategically wrong national obsession, I never though of it as less human, but now I don't know.

    So occasionally I like to step back a bit and make sure my philosophy is in line with long term goals. Primarily among these goals is to insure that my daughter gets the chance to live in a world that offers much the same types of opportunities and experiences that I have enjoyed. Now this primary goal requires that you, the simple reader, understand that the opportunities and experiences in my life have not been particularly special. That I have not been born to a wealthy family that was able to provide for my every want. That I have no particular disadvantages, besides a moderate colorblindness, to impede the things I may strive for. And that I have not ever been outstandingly lucky, that I have not by chance achieved anything significant (I take my wonderful, smart, loving wife as the sole exception to this).

    That this primary goal can only be achieved through the active participation of the political system to which I was luckily born, here in the United States of America. I will not pander to those who subscribe to the wholesale disenfranchisement of the people by pointing out the minority of my individual position. I am but one person, my position may only represent that small fraction of the whole population, which may be difficult to express through a populist system.

    But I shall not lose hope that I can do everything in my own personal sphere of power to achieve my goals. And I can hope higher still, that if my goals are not evidently within the comprehension and empathy of wider audience, that my labors and my voice shall show the virtue and value of what I espouse.