It Can Be Done!

One of the questions I like to raise on this blog is, "what would you be willing to do? What sacrifices would you be willing to make?" In the absence of definitive action against the threat of climate change, our decisions are left under the control of that great invisible arbiter, The Market. And for Juneau, Alaska, the market dictated that they cut power consumption, pay insanely high prices for it, or go dark.
Due to avalanches that took offline their access to cheap hydroelectric power, rates in Juneau jumped five-fold in short notice. Life in Juneau is hard enough already- it is inaccessible except by boat and plane, and expensive to live in as a result- to say nothing of the extreme environmental pressures of such a cold climate. Yet as a tribute to their independent spirit and latent pioneer attitude, Juneau adapted- and within a week, power consumption was down as much as 30 percent. Most of this was driven by common citizens, being proactive about their energy consumption.

Heidi Graves said her 16-year-old son, Levi - the one who never would turn off his Nintendo - was the first to get onboard. He was worried that the family of six would have to cancel its vacation next August.

Levi multiplied the electric bill by five and came up with $950. "It's more than our house payment," said his mother.

Now members of the Graves family eat dinner by candlelight, do dishes by hand, plan to dry their clothes on a rack by the wood stove and limit their time on the computer.

"My husband has bruised himself and tripped over the dog just to keep the lights off," Graves said.

Graves also ordered a history of past electrical use so the family could ferret out which appliances were the real power hogs, and they learned how to read their own electric meter, which they are now doing several times a day.

Now we know what the residents of Juneau are willing to sacrifice to make things work. Clearly, the financial incentive of reducing consumption was able to have a remarkable effect on the city. Perhaps we would do well to remember these lessons the next time someone talks about how hard it would be to reduce consumption. When you need to, you can do it. What other choice is there? There may be many more lessons like this coming 'round the bend- we would definitely do well to remember what Juneau has taught us.

The Long, Remote Arm of the Law

Quick hit from Miami-Dade County: the local police have received FAA clearance to operate this unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Miami, with testing to begin within a year.

The police department hopes to use this device for aerial surveillance in search of speeders on highways, as well as intelligence gathering for hostage situations, and just general, run-of-the-mill surveillance. The device is small enough to fit into a backpack, and can be deployed rapidly for remote operation. Many police departments are in line waiting for FAA clearance to operate such devices over America's cities and borders.

That faint buzzing sound you are hearing? That's the eye in the sky, and the eye is upon you.

The Sum of the Environment and Tourism is Zero

It seems like a relatively simple question- is it worth it to encourage eco-tourism to an area in order to highlight its natural beauty, in order to achieve greater protection? The common line of thinking goes that as people experience more of these beautiful outdoor vistas, they will be more likely to support policies that protect the environment. But at some point, you have to wonder, is the price simply too high? Are we really any better off in the long run?

By way of Plenty, we see that in the Venezuelan national park of Los Roques, the net cost is rising quite high. Due to increased visibility of the natural capital that the area offers due to the celebrity media, Los Roques are showing noticeable wear and tear that threaten its ability to draw many people at all:

But while the tourist boom has been good for the local economy, it’s threatening the ecological purity that gives the archipelago its allure. These days, the crowded beaches are strewn with beer cans, discarded Tupperware, and empty packets of smoked salmon. On one recent clean-up event, volunteers reportedly collected more than four tons of trash in a single day. Meanwhile the archipelago’s delicate coral reefs have been badly scarred by carelessly anchored boats and amateur snorkelers: Every scrape and bump to the fragile corals causes damage that can take years to regenerate.

Like any leader sitting on a potential moneymaker, Hugo Chávez's government has announced plans to make Venezuela's national parks far more affordable to visit, while popularizing them abroad, promising to send attendance through the roof. Potentially, the very success of what the park has set out to do could destroy what made it unique in the first place.

This problem hits rather close to home, as well. A lawsuit relating to Yosemite National Park is considering restricting access to the famous public land in the interest of environmental protection, due to the heavy burden wrought by huge numbers of visitors yearly. I am reminded of places like Arches National Park and the surrounding area, where the prevalence of off-road biking and jeep trails are leaving scars on the landscape, all the while pouring millions into the local economy. Where does it end? How do we balance these competing priorities?

Could we be on our way to hyper-managed, tourist-quota, Disneyfied wilderness theme parks? The point where this happens is the point where wilderness as a concept ceases to exist. On the one hand, it is wonderful that so many people want to visit the outdoors, and no doubt many do so respectfully and with no impact. But I also cannot help but wonder, if maybe it should be more difficult for people to get into these wilderness areas. If access is a given, is it truly appreciated by people? This is something that needs to be addressed, lest it be befouled by those consuming it for free, attaching no personal value to a "product" that so very many of us attach the highest value of all.

Since When is Ignorance an Excuse?

Americans, you need to know where you beef comes from- and for the rest of the world, here's hoping yours doesn't meet a similar fate, but I'll bet that it does.

This comes from a California meatpacker, hitting the news this week. The massive USDA recall has no legal binding- but the massive outcry related to this awful, inhumane treatment embarrassed the packer into ordering one.

The question that I cannot erase from my mind: what does it say about a society that is willing to reduce a living, breathing creature to a block of tortured flesh? One that has individuals willing to desensitize their own soul and degrade a helpless animal? The cold, calculated efficiency of it all is terrifying, sickening, and downright inhuman. Mechanization is not natural to the human existence. Our familiarity with it and acceptance of it suggests ominous things about our true nature. It does not bode well for our long-term survival.

Forced Gender-Bending in the Aquatic World

Scientists on both coasts of the United States are reaching remarkably similar conclusions: in the Washington, DC area and off the coast of Los Angeles, fish are exhibiting intersex traits in higher numbers in what has been linked to exposure to human activity. The hormone levels of male fish in both watersheds have been found to be wildly out of whack with what nature intended, and in some areas, all male fish captured for the study were found to be bearing eggs.

There are remarkable consistencies between these two studies, which point the finger in a relatively narrow direction. In the Potomac River, fish were found to have higher intersex ratios depending on their closeness to areas near towns or heavily farmed areas. Some of these fish were found near sewage outfalls, leading some to suspect that high levels of estrogen in inadequately treated sewage, the remnant of birth control pills, could be to blame. However, authors of a recent study could not blame any one pollutant, which could be related to sewage, industrial or agricultural runoff.

In Los Angeles, poorly treated sewage was more strongly linked to gender-bending fish than previously. While the studies in the DC area were performed in relatively contained river systems, the LA studies were in the open ocean- suggesting that diluting pollution in the huge ocean is an inadequate assumption. While this may seem counterintuitive, it is a belief that has long held traction. According to the article in the LA Times:

Although some of these contaminants may be in urban runoff, the main source appears to be the 1 billion gallons of partially treated sewage that flows into the ocean every day from the region's four major sewage outfalls.

Women taking birth control pills excrete estrogen in their urine, which is flushed down the toilet and ends up in the ocean. The same is true of antidepressants, tranquilizers, anti-inflammatory medicine and other drugs, as well as musk fragrances, sunscreens, soaps and additives to plastics -- compounds known to mimic or disrupt hormones.

There are many ways to filter sewage- plants along the California coastline do it differently, with varied levels of success. Although future study is needed to determine the specific cause, it seems that the correlation between human activity and hormonal disruptions in aquatic life is a given. What does it mean for us? Considering that many of these fish eat the same things that we humans do, as well as use their waters for recreation or drinking, it could potentially levy a huge cost. The effects of free hormones and chemicals in the water, to speak nothing of their unpredictable compounds, is beyond the scale of our understanding.

How much effort and cost are we willing to shoulder to counteract this situation? Perhaps this is one of the inescapable consequences of human industrial society. Time will tell. In the future, we will know. Perhaps we should not sit around until then.

Do You Know Anonymous?

You just might, but probably don't know it. What is Anonymous? That depends on who you ask, and which of their works you have borne witness to. Some call them "hackers on steroids" while the Church of Scientology calls them "a pathetic group of computer geeks." Let's make a note of that, because Scientology is why we're discussing Anonymous here, now.

Even though they are a far-flung, potentially massive group with no central leadership, Anonymous was able to collectively cripple Scientology websites throughout the internet. They followed this up with hacking their servers, prying free a collection of secret documents and immediately seeding them to torrent sites worldwide (try finding articles on that in mainstream media, and if you want to read them, Google "secret dox"). Furthermore, they even organized real-world protests worldwide at Scientology churches.

So why is this important? For the same reason that this massive group was able to almost spontaneously organize and do notable damage to a huge, moneyed, powerful organization- done all on their free time! It's truly remarkable, and a testament to the fact that power on the internet can in fact translate to real-world results. It is not as if Anonymous is doing this out of some sense of morality- the simple fact that the CoS is trying to squelch free speech brought the hammer down. But no matter what light you see their actions in, you cannot deny the power brought to bear by Anonymous. These types of things may become more common in the future, so follow this closely as it unfolds- they are probably not done yet.

Machines with Human Intelligence- or Vice Versa?

A quick hit from the BBC today, about how according to Ray Kurzweil, by 2029 machines will have achieved human-level intelligence. Furthermore, he states that human are not far removed from cybernetic implants in the brain to increase intelligence, while will eventually lead to a melding of man and metal into a superior creature. Of course, Moore's Law will need be consistent for quite some time, and all indications are that it will be. Kurzweil states:

"I've made the case that we will have both the hardware and the software to achieve human level artificial intelligence with the broad suppleness of human intelligence including our emotional intelligence by 2029," he said.

"We're already a human machine civilisation, we use our technology to expand our physical and mental horizons and this will be a further extension of that."

What does this mean for you and me? An argument could be made that human progress is defined by the creations and alterations we make to our bodies- from walking sticks and eyeglasses to organ transplants and genetic modification. The spirit, that of alterations towards a greater good, is consistent. But what does this mean when we could literally depend on machines for our survival, and make them integral to our very definitions of health? Or of humanity?

These are issues that must be addressed, and questions that must be answered, as our technology is rapidly overtaking our traditional concepts of ethics and what it means to be human. The definitions of anything are up for grabs in the future- we had better take stock in examining these issues now.

For an essential counterpoint to Kurzweil's vision, you must read Bill Joy's crucially important work Why The Future Doesn't Need Us. Raises many important questions that we will want to keep in mind, as we navigate our way blindly through the mechanical world we have constructed around us.