. . . . . entries for 31.7.09 . . . . .
Btw, we had a fire alarm go off today for reasons pretty much unknown to anyone - we have conflicting reports of the alarm's origin in the building. While we were standing around outside, I was accosted by a nice, somewhat over-feminine redhead fundraising for Care. She tried to convince me to donate, and I explained to her my experience with the dubious nature of development work, blah blah blah, told her I'd look up the organization. She pleasantly surprised me by saying (perkily) that she believed me, and letting me go without incident. I think we had a lot in common, study-wise.
So I actually looked up Care on givewell.net, and guess what? They're not one of the top 4, verified-as-effective charities, but they're on the short list of standout organizations for detailed project reporting. They're probably the best thing going for internationally organized development, so far as givewell is concerned. So if you want to do some do-gooding of that nature, they're probably a good candidate.
I wish I could tell the perky redhead what I found out - I imagine she could use it in her spiel - but she'll probably be gone by the time I leave.
Poll to blogreaders: should I get a tattoo of an ouroboros wrapped in a rhodora vine, either smallish between my shoulderblades or around an ankle?
We were talking about tattoos during our pizza party today, and a shockingly large part of our office contingent has them or would have liked to have gotten them at some point. I mentioned the ouroboros idea, and the consensus seemed to be that it was neat but pretty impenetrable meaning-wise. And I guess getting ankle tattoos is painful, as such things go, and often temporary, and my ankles aren't particularly pretty.
Well, I dunno. It's probably a bad idea, but a good idea for a tattoo for me, if ever I decide getting one is not a bad idea. :P
. . . . . entries for 30.7.09 . . . . .
I want a job in which most human interactions are meaningful, who you know matters less than what you do, and movement, intellect, novelty, and nature are involved. Teacher is on the list of possibilities. I suppose, when I think about it, "environmental writer" is too, although I'm not sure just what I'd write, or for whom. Where else should I be looking?
I am deplorably bad at attending to what I actually want, like, and need. I must get better. Today I slept in an extra couple hours because I didn't want to be miserable and exhausted again, and it seems to have worked somewhat. Thinking like this, about what I actually like and would be good at rather than what "must be done," is probably the only way to live well.
Hopefully my foot will not have fallen on this road only to drag back onto my too-well-trodden path.
. . . . . entries for 29.7.09 . . . . .
I wish I wanted all the things I want to want.
I do not know what I want.
But I do not think this is it.
. . . . . entries for 28.7.09 . . . . .
I wonder who died overseas, from starvation or war or whatever else, so that I could live as I do.
. . . . . entries for 27.7.09 . . . . .
Really living sustainably, as an individual or a whole society, would be a hell of a lot of work: growing organic food, making organic clothes, planting trees, retooling homes, putting up solar panels and wind turbines and whatever else - but only if you can't see in the dark, or are too far from the people you need to talk to them face to face; finding the right enzymes to make cellulosic biofuels - but only if walking or biking everywhere is too hard.
. . . . . entries for 24.7.09 . . . . .
The capacity of major stakeholders in important issues to be COMPLETELY WRONG is truly baffling and kind of agonizing. Annoying, but not as mind-bending, are the moments in which those stakeholders are plainly biased and/or "the party of no." For example, snippets from the testimony of the President of the American Farm Bureau Federation:
"We also know, for instance, that the climate models that have gotten so much attention did not predict the cooling that has occurred over the last decade. We know that there have been times in the earth's (sic) history when carbon concentrations in the atmosphere were greater, when temperatures have been cooler or warmer - in short, there are any number of variables that probably affect the earth's climate in ways that we simply don't know and can't predict."
Okay, so for one, I don't think he's right on the first part; I think I've heard that recent models did predict that dip. I haven't looked into it extensively, though.
And then . . . from all those pretty graphs I've looked at, there's no time in the ice core record when the carbon dioxide concentrations were as high as they are presently. It's possible that means that he's totally wrong. It's also possible that, when concentrations got this high the last time around, all the ice melted and destroyed the record. Oops.
"India in fact has already said that if [Waxman-Markey] becomes law, it will file a WTO challenge. . . . Other trade measures in the bill (allowances for manufacturers impacted by international competition, cash rebates, etc.) are also at best murky when viewed against the whole set of trade rules. Any trade measures that will not comply with the WTO do not help us."
The WTO has made a number of gestures indicating that it would allow climate mitigation trade strategies to go through, and it has let far harsher sanctions against non-parties to environmental agreements go through in the past - forget not thy Montreal Protocol.
Also, if you're going to talk about stuff that violates international trade rules, can we bring up agricultural commodity subsidies? No? Oh.
"If you believe that anthropogenic carbon emissions are causing global warming, then recognize the simple fact that the only (emphasis in original) solution is an international agreement. Doing it unilaterally through legislation is a recipe for disaster for the American economy and for farmers and ranchers."
I know I should resist the urge to write snarky comments on the hard copy itself, in case someone else wants to see it, but I couldn't help it here: I wrote "I see you have a short institutional memory, sir," referring to the massive foreign policy faux pas perpetrated with regard to Kyoto. You can't sign a climate treaty that you don't know for sure you can ratify. It just isn't an option. That's why we're doing this Waxman-Markey stuff. Duh.
"We encourage all members to take a hard look at the evidence and the science before making up your mind on this issue. The ramifications are far too important for you to ignore the legitimate scientific evaluations that question alarmist scenarios."
Which legitimate scientific evaluations are those, now? I've heard that a few actual good ones exist, actually, but the only things I've seen with my own eyes have been written by right-leaning materials scientists and economists who don't actually know anything about climate science.
And when you show them to me, there had better be several thousand. There are several thousand on board with IPCC and "unequivocal" evidence of anthropogenic climate change.
Okay, this next one is the part that is so incredibly misled as to really, really distress me.
"Whatever bill is adopted must recognize what will happen when our nation starts starving itself of carbon-based energy forms. If the economy is starved for energy, then prices for energy are bound to increase. Don't let that happen. If you want coal and oil to play less and less a role in our energy mix, then figure out what will take their place - before (emphasis in original) you put our nation on a diet that is bound to result in lower economic activity and a depressed Gross Domestic Product."
That kind of thing goes on for another two or so paragraphs, segueing into why we need an "aggressive nuclear program" (yes, that is actually what he said) to fill the "hole" created by cap and trade.
It's clear that this organization completely and utterly misunderstands the premise of cap and trade, and in its misunderstanding has abandoned the conservative economic principles that you'd imagine the largely Midwestern ag bloc would securely espouse.
. . . well, okay, so they already did that when they fell into the habit of accepting permanent subsidies, but moving on.
Don't let the price go up? Have the government plan which energy types will sub in for coal and oil? Hello! That would be massively expensive and inefficient! It would be Soviet, for crying out loud! The whole point is to raise prices to create incentives so people will innovate and create the best, cheapest low-carbon technologies.
Ah, but I imagine part of AFBF's goal is just to delay the legislation's onset anyway, which creating and implementing a central plan would certainly do.
"In our view, it would be a fundamental mistake to rush to judgment on such sweeping legislation, based on a timetable that is decided upon because a particular meeting has been scheduled in Copenhagen later this year. We urge the Committee to analyze the issue closely, carefully and thoroughly. We would also recommend that you mark up the legislation so that it is as strong and effective as possible for agriculture."
Or, in other words, "for Chrissakes, don't do this crazy thing the House did, but if you have to, put it off as long as possible, and make sure you give us lots of goodies!"
Ugh. It strikes me as so wrong that this sector can make money doing what other sectors have to pay for under this bill. But even so - even as I complain - I'm not complaining. It's okay. It's politically feasible, it's a beginning, and some of the offset programs really do look good.
Let me add another caveat here. It's true that, in the short run, any actualized climate legislation will hurt economically. It's a fact. But this isn't just about economics and it isn't just about the short run.
I also kind of like the AFBF's idea of putting an "off-ramp" into the bill to sunset the legislation if other countries take no action within a certain time period; I don't know a lot about that kind of provision, and should probably look into it more, but it feels like it should let other countries know that we mean business and that we're not necessarily going to take the leap alone. I imagine, though, it'd really weaken the signal to industry and thereby compromise the material effectiveness, if not the diplomatic effectiveness, of the law.
Anyway, I'm going to go back to working on work. But this is what work is, too - this is what I would like work to be, sort of, telling people about these issues instead of just circulating internal memos.
. . . . . entries for 23.7.09 . . . . .
That picture came in an email to me, an invite to a briefing entitled "Water is Medicine." I love it. A lot.
It is my humble opinion that the Timber Owls music from FFVIII should be playing in the background of all nonprofit offices, all the time.
Man, yesterday was a silly debacle. Either because I misread something or because a strange schedule change occurred, I arrived at the Senate ag/climate hearing late and missed most of the first panel. I caught the second panel but for whatever reason it didn't strike me as terribly interesting.
Aaaand I have a week to be ready for intern presentations on our work, which means lots of FOCUS! (oh gosh) on my ILUC "memo."
Mari, Ting, and Kelsey's friend will be here this weekend, then Mari and Ting are leaving on Sunday. I anticipate lots of fleeing and working in the evening/nights early next week.
In very vaguely related news, my nails are getting sufficiently long as to hinder my typing ability somewhat, and to sort of . . . hurt? Kinda? I'd better trim them. Sigh.
Another sigh-worthy thing: I do not think I am going to Chicago this August. There are all kinds of things that seem to be telling me it is not the thing to do.
. . . . . entries for 21.7.09 . . . . .
I am clearly very tired, because a few moments ago I thought to myself, "there should be a place to fight a monster." Regarding global warming-related stuff, I guess. I had an image of something sort of like a Miyazaki-esque nature spirit. For fighting.
Hoo boy. This is going to be a long evening.
. . . . . entries for 20.7.09 . . . . .
I think there are very few blogs left that are just honest-to-God web diaries. Let it be known: this blog is just where I write "stuff." I ostensibly have blogs for other purposes, and my lit blog isn't terrible, but seriously - this thing is seven years old and counting. It contains the record of my adolescent years. "That's all." (It sure seems like a lot to me, and the most unique thing I could offer the Internet. . . or myself. :P)
Although, har har, I should convert some of my recent ramblings on here into more coherent and respectable things on Weed by the Wall.
This post is going to be a more vitriolic, open version of the likely conclusion to my (long, term paper-like) biofuel memo.
Chairman Peterson's amendment to Waxman-Markey included a moratorium on indirect land use change's (ILUC) inclusion in life-cycle emission calculations for biofuels. This amounts to saying that, for at least six years, we will assume a zero value for ILUC emissions.
Let's do a thought experiment. Say there really will be no further land conversion from natural or “marginal” areas due to increasing biofuel production – say the value really were zero. What then?
I may be misremembering (har har, misremembering certainly won't appear in my final memo), but I believe that the original ethanol mandate - not including EISA 2007's ratcheting-up of "advanced" fuel quotas - would have required, at its peak, the entire quantity of the present-day national corn crop to be converted into ethanol, to supply a significant but not enormous amount of the nation's liquid fuel market. That is a lot of corn going into ethanol plants instead of human and livestock bellies. Overall, assuming that increasing yields due to (dubious) biotech probably won’t keep up with rising populations and the expansion of the global meat-eating middle class, global food production rates of increase would (maybe, if we're lucky) slow, (probably) stagnate, or (at worst) plummet. Prices would skyrocket, exacerbating hunger amongst the world’s poorest - like in 2007 and 2008, but forever, ongoing, without a tsunami or a bad storm season to help explain the starvation away.
Now, that paragraph is full of what-ifs and assumptions and verbally imagined wide error bars. But those error bars do not contain a goddamn zero value.
Is this vision what ethanol producers are willing to accept as reality? Does their much beloved zero value really permit them, ethically, to do what they do?
Better gear up for a PRODUCTIVE DAY!
o.O . . .
Blarg.
Today was a good, lazy day. We saw Newsies (teehee young Christian Bale) and lots of Avatar.
Weird news: I acquired, by a means unknown to myself, a very dark purple bruise on the inside of my left thigh. WTF, body, what have you been doing when I've not been looking?
Good news: my dad found my necklace, which I, in a rush, left at my house when I came back. Phew.
And now I need to go to bed, because tomorrow is an important day for Getting Things Done.
. . . . . entries for 19.7.09 . . . . .
Someone on our hall is making noises like a small, yippy, excited dog. Kelsey remarked casually that she thinks the girl across from us is having sex. It was quite the moment.
Well. I guess that happens. :P
What I came here to write is that, sorry to say, I want my damn dragons to hatch!
. . . . . entries for 18.7.09 . . . . .
I unsettle far too easily.
Well, anyway - National Cathedral today, copious amounts of Avatar and ice cream tomorrow. Hopefully some work thrown in there, maybe when Kelsey is off with her folks.
Peace of mind - I doubt that, but then, I am a doubter.
. . . . . entries for 17.7.09 . . . . .
Helpfully, I haven't remembered any dreams these past two nights.
. . . . . entries for 16.7.09 . . . . .
I am in a less abysmal sort of spot now, although physically it is exactly the same spot. Today was OK, which is, in a way, better than days have been.
My fingernails are gunmetal gray, which is kind of hot and kind of scary and only very slightly related to my improvement in mood.
I feel guilty, though, about improvements in mood not actually connected closely to the resolution of key issues. There are connections here, I guess, but there is much left undone, or to be undone, or . . . whatever happens.
I wish I knew.
I wonder if anyone reads feet like palms.
I have also been writing characters for a story about Princeton undergrads in interesting times. I should start actually writing that soon - and I should start doing many things otherwise. I encourage you to remind me that I am actually bored and depressed and should be doing those things, because I might be happier.
Ah, I wrote a very miserable little poem for times like these, when I can think of nothing internal to redeem myself.
This summer so far - for my part, and fortunately not for others' - has felt like an enormous failure of will. I don't think I've ever felt it so . . . not acutely, but as wholly, as totally as I presently do. The weakness of this girl, in every way. The ghosts of accidents and the old selves that have put her here. The doubts.
Today, I think the question will be whether or not I can immerse/lose myself in research and writing - and I doubt that, but hold out hope and, hopefully, willpower. But forever, the question will be whether I have any peace to regain - and if there is none here, how I could move myself into it elsewhere.
Wherever elsewhere is, within or without.
. . . . . entries for 15.7.09 . . . . .
Oh boy.
Arg, focus!?
. . . . . entries for 11.7.09 . . . . .
I think I learned a great big chunk of my outlook on religion and faith, and the world in general, from Terry Pratchett. Every time I read one of his more recent books, this is reaffirmed to me. If you would like to get inside my head a little about such things, or just read a Good Book (but not the Good Book, obviously), consider picking up Nation. There is a lot of me there, but there is a lot of Pratchett in me.
If I ever meet that man I am going to give him an enormous hug.
Man, I can't wait to be an enviro grad student (maybe) of some kind so I can go to half a week of summer school on global change's effects on local ecosystem adaptation and management in a GERMAN CASTLE. Geez.
. . . . . entries for 7.7.09 . . . . .
I'm going to have to take some pictures tomorrow - both of temporary birthday decorations (beautiful Mom-designed bouquet, especially) and of my revamped room, which now features pretty, parent-finished bookcases and brand new mattresses, along with a generally improved sense of order and respectability.
And the new, sunny yellow Adirondack chairs! They are beautiful.
I feel like I could write a lot about today - about various feelings or desires at various times - but I will try to keep this brief.
I love where I come from. I cheer when I enter New York and am moved almost to tears by the beauties of the skylines of NYC and Albany, the river valleys, the flush green Catskills. This probably makes me melodramatic. This is news to no one, so whatever.
I love where I come from in another sense, the sense of the people I grew up around and continue to nest amongst, when I am home. By now, if you read my blog, you probably have a sense of what that means.
One last note: I could write a sequel, albeit probably a pretty lame one, to "the storm that loved callie" based on today. As I traveled north, it got cooler and cloudier until, as I pulled off the big road onto the first of many little ones, the downpour began in earnest. As though the storm had been waiting for me, at home, all day.
Well, SOMEONE listened when I said I wanted to be ambushed at my door.
. . . . . entries for 6.7.09 . . . . .
Reasons To Dislike Monsanto
Agent Orange (e.g. the disabled, dead, and deformed in Vietnam; my father's cancer and peripheral neuropathy)
Roundup/Roundup Ready
Greenwash on no-till/Roundup/Roundup Ready
Greenwashing via sustainable development ad campaign, coupled with the co-opting of a genuine restoration ecology catchphrase (Monsanto's "how can you squeeze more food from a raindrop?" vs. the classic "more crop per drop")
Promised "solutions" to hunger and poverty that its structure and premise promise not to deliver
Deception
Self-interest
More greenwash, e.g. Scott speaking at their award ceremony
Non-systems thinking approach to agriculture
All the ones I haven't discovered yet
When I pull into the driveway tomorrow, I will harbor the unreasonable hope that you will be there, waiting to ambush me at the back door. Just so you know.
Jesus H. Christ. Someone tell me Agent Orange & co. are illegal now.
I wonder why Keith Olbermann chose the first few bars from Beethoven's 9th to open his show. Not that it doesn't suit - it's kind of spasmodic and powerful, like Mr. Olbermann can be. But why that, exactly - what led him there?
Apparently he went to Cornell at age 16 and spent most of his career as a sportscaster. Who knew? Not me. :P
And I thought my dreams this weekend were weird. Someone please save me from my unconscious.
Oh my, I miss my family, and "my people" in general. Their dysfunction is something I largely know how to deal with, something that seems so rich and genuine and familiar to me.
If you can't invent terrible, laughing-cursing epithets to cry out whenever someone wrongs you in a board game - if the point of the game is to win, rather than to bond and harangue and . . . well, okay, I was going to end this (humorously?) with "then what is the point?" - but that would be unfair. I was there. Maybe it feels different, usually. It'd feel different if some outsider were dropped into a family Uno game, amongst us.
And I know I'm being nostalgic, too, for something that never was, only happened rarely, and/or can't ever be again.
I wonder if it will ever happen that I will settle down again, be in a place long enough to feel that those I know and spend time with are my people, people I can completely relax around, cease to judge, laugh and collapse into cuddle puddles with. To say nothing of actually being with the one - and ones - I love most.
Aren't I young, to be talking in such a way? As though I want some steady government job to support my habit of love and lethargy. But I want the love and lethargy, at least. It'll be such a long time.
I am also quite young to be so jaded, now, about people. This seems, even to me, like a bit of a nonsequitor, but I suppose I just worry that I'll be so convinced of the rottenness or dishonesty or self-interested way of Man by the time any "settling down" happens that it'll be too late. But maybe that is the sort of thing one gets less convinced of, further out of one's adolescence.
I don't know. Let us begin - or continue, whatever - with a leap.
. . . . . entries for 2.7.09 . . . . .
List of "but OMG couldn't that fix everything?!" things, in approximate order of my enthusiasm:
-algae-derived renewable diesel
-cellulosic ethanol from agricultural and forestry residues
-small- and mid-scale organic crop/livestock systems
-(with methane capture for dairy)
So what this adds up to is a vision of a small-ish organic farm with cows in fields and in the dairy, methane captured and used to power the place as biogas, some of the manure fertilizing the pasture, some of it getting lobbed into an algae pond, part of the crop's residue and old cover crops and the algae sold to local refiners (co-op?) who sell the finished diesel and ethanol back to farmers to run machinery and cars . . .
Also, less connected to this vision but still on "the list":
-solar thermal (not photovoltaic!) power in Africa, with dryland electrification BEFORE export
-reduced meat consumption in developed countries
-"sin taxes" on unhealthful, caloric stuff in the States . . . like soda
-advanced photovoltaics on every roof
-universities with programs in sustainable community resource use, sub-concentrations in forestry, drylands, fisheries, producing generations of mediators and ecologists to stop environmental degradation and eradicate global poverty
Not on this list, but drawing my curiosity lately, are GMOs. Maybe. Maybe. But there is a lot of room for them to go wrong, and it isn't really that we need more - we just need to use what we have better, and less.
I am even more skeptical about typical CCS. I don't know that all the carbon pumped underground just . . . stays there.
Can we work harvesting algae from eutrophic lakes, rivers, and estuaries into this, too? Please?
The world is very disorderly. Not that it needs ordering - not that it can be ordered, in any sense of the word - but my goodness, in my adorable still-19 naivete, I forget and forget again every time. We have next to no control over our environment, even ourselves, and no real way of knowing when the moment of our greatness flickers - not out of, but into focus. Because there are moments, opportunities, for people to surge through the complexity that foils easy cause and effect, to be the cause, to have an effect.
Ah, but that is not what I meant, starting this. Not completely. That's disorder for you.
I think the other part of what I meant is something like this: in such a world, any action with an intent, any gesture with a will to gravity or feeling, comes with a leap of faith. Faith that this time, you will be let through. That, this time, the one who acts as a believer will become a believer - as if that belief could, forever after, shrug complexity and chaos off its shoulders and yours.
Maybe it can, for some folks. I don't think that's the way I work, but it's not as though I know how I work, anyway. I wish I did. I'd hack into my own superstructure and create the thing to catch me as I fall, such a fabulous easter egg that it would be there regardless of whether it could fit, whether there were someplace for it to go next or not.
. . . . . entries for 1.7.09 . . . . .
Spike - the manly man's Lifetime - is a laugh riot.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
.:past:.
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)