What Would We Give Up?

Today I was traveling. I spent the day in Connecticut -- and while there is a pretty big breaking story on the oil front, I'll have to write about it tomorrow. I spent more time in the car and less on the computer...

I was driving through Hartford -- the smell is really bad. So I thought I'd see if I could find out what it was -- I realized I don't take those smells for granted anymore -- what used to just seem like a nuisance now seems like evidence. I found a website that I don't understand that lists Hartford and its varying types of emissions. I don't understand or trust it, but I thought I'd share that it seems to say Hartford's Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxide, PM 2.5, PM 10 and Volatile Organic Compound Emissions seem to be 90-100% of the worst in the country.

Also I read an amazing poem today. It's by one of my favorite poets, Marie Howe -- it made me think very much about some of this I have been wondering about here -- her new book just came out from Norton: The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. I highly recommend you go buy the book! I have to print it small so as not to mess up the formatting.


"What We Would Give Up"

One morning in Orlando Florida, I asked a group of college students -- What
would we be willing to give up to equalize the wealth in the world? Malls, a
red-haired young woman said right away. Supermarkets, the young man in
a black T-shirt said -- where you go to buy bread, and there's a hundred and
fifty loaves on the shelf. Imported fruit, the young woman sitting next to him
said -- berries in winter. A car, the guy with the nose ring said. I don't have a
car anyway.

Travel? Jet fuel? Well, we'd all be together, someone said. TV, said the guy
without a car, I don't watch TV anyway. What about coffee, I said, looking
down at my double tall half-caf soy latte. Ok, everyone said, but I wondered
about that one. Ten pairs of shoes? Yes. Movies? Maybe.

That week my phone was out of order. When the company tried to connect
my line to a split line that would allow me fast cable access to the Internet
everything went dead. When I called the phone company I was put on hold
and had to listen to a tinny version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons pitched at what
seemed a much faster than usual speed. This call may be monitored.

I was told to punch my number in five times during that first phone call, and
every time I was transferred to a person who asked for my number again.

Eight calls that first day. We'll send a technician out, the central office would
say. The technician, when he arrived would say, The problem is in the central
office. When I called the central office, someone would say, We have to send
a technician out. When I said, a technician has already been there, the central
office person would say, All I can do is put in an order Ma'am. Vivaldi.

After seven days, I began to suspect that at the center of the central office is
a room empty of all furniture but a table. On the table, a ringing telephone.
Somewhere way down a long corridor, one guy in a broken chair in front of
an empty desk. Every once in a while he cranes his neck towards the door and
yells to no one in particular -- is anyone gonna answer that?

If you don't want music, the phone company says, please hold through the
silence.

When I came home from Orlando, the phone started working again. The
Gap? Someone said. Everybody said, I don't go to the Gap.

Would I give up the telephone? Would I give up hot water? Would I give up
makeup? Would I give up dying my hair? That was a hard one. If I stopped
dying my hair everyone would know that my golden hair is actually gray, and
my long American youth would be over -- and then what?


Thank you, Marie. Yes.

Regional Control

I didn't know there is oil in Somalia. Or the potential --

Yesterday (or today, maybe) a bill backed by the president of Somalia split the parliament -- According to an article on All Africa.com there was an even split and the speaker voted to break the tie. "President Muse's bill, entitled the "The Oil and Minerals Law of Puntland State Government," aims to award the regional administration the constitutional authority to sign agreements with foreign companies intent on exploring for oil in Puntland."

I did some reading about the history of the place. There have been ideas of oil there for a long time -- there have been suspected oil reserves for many years in Somalia -- all the war and the crisis there has deterred most speculators.

An article last year in the Financial Times explained:

"In the late 1980s exploration concessions were held by companies including Conoco and Phillips, which have since merged; Amoco, now part of BP; and Chevron. They fled the country after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown during civil war in 1991.

The data collected by oil companies has formed the basis of interest in Somalia today. Range Resources, an oil group listed in Sydney, estimates that the Puntland province – which includes the Mudug region – has the potential to yield 5bn-10bn barrels of oil."

I didn't see Blackhawk down -- I guess I should. It seems that oil had everything to do with American involvement in the area.

So the question is, who will have the future stakes in the country -- and who will decide.

In 2005 the president of Somalia, whose bill was in question, "unilaterally signed an exploration contract with a small Australian company to explore for oil and minerals in Somalia's Puntland region."

Local tribes are against it. Parts of the government.

A split vote. It's a tough call -- who makes the decisions for a people -- for which people do they speak and who are the beneficiaries -- victims...

Energyville

Well, I started out writing about a court case -- Environmental groups and local officials up in Alaska are suing to block the development up there -- and it looks like Shell has to wait for the court case to begin exploration on its lease of some 29 million acres of land... I may get back to this tomorrow -- in the meantime I've been playing a game...

Energyville.

I clicked on a paid advertising link on the New York Times article page and came across a very elaborate web site of the Chevron Corporation.

Energyville is a game where you (I) make energy decisions for the future of an imaginary city -- I didn't realize it was imaginary at first though; you put your own town's name in and it calls your city that name. I was really impressed until I noticed the plan and stats are the same for Cambridge and Dallas and Afdser. Energy levels, the site asserts for each city (2007-2015) are based on projected production patterns and lifestyles of prosperous countries in North America, Europe and Asia. There, factories consume/will consume 41.59 percent of the energy consumed; vehicles 19.83%; trucking and freight 9.05% airplanes 2.7%; single family homes 9.09%; apartment buildings 6.53% and commercial buildings 8.48%.

Anyway -- you go through the city and you substitute different energy sources for the current usages -- wind, solar, nuclear, coal hydro and bio fuels -- there are buttons for a few emerging energy sources -- but those options are unavailable because they haven't been discovered yet. The game supposedly tracks cost, environmental ramifications and security risks.

Not surprisingly, this game is an advertisement. After a few substitutions it tells you you need petroleum, and it makes sure to mention the problems with each alternative energy source along the way. I had never thought, for instance, of the issue of sea storms with off shore wind farms -- seem like black outs could conceivably go on for a little longer than usual... If you only load your city up with petroleum, on the other hand, it tells you that you need to work on diversification. Man cannot live on oil alone.

But what alarmed me most about inside of the game was the down play of the environmental effects of coal and nuclear power. The lead story in the Times today is about languishing nuclear waste sites -- waste hasn't been buried -- "The federal government is at least 20 years behind schedule on its obligation to bury nuclear waste." The addressing of our current state solely as a production and energy issue, and not as an environmental one seems to me the most damaging issue before us presently.

The other disheartening thing on this site was a link to the Kyoto Protocol. I spent some time reading some of the text of that agreement. I like the fact that I now have a PDF of the entire thing on my computer...

Elsewhere on the site, Chevron had a set of e-cards that was a print advertising campaign in the New Yorker:







Well, while I would certainly support us all going out and getting tandem bikes, driving a little slower, and downsizing out need for more more more, it seems to me that by offering this focus to consumers Chevron is saying one thing -- the need for larger changes are out of our control -- focus on what YOU can change and trust us to take care of the rest...

Since beginning this project I have made a lot of changes to my life - I've been quite happy about them, and keeping up with them to varying degrees. But I certainly don't think they are going to save the polar bears.

(As an aside I think someone needs to take a look at the health effects of florescent lights.)

Well -- I feel a little badly, but I'm not going to link the Chevron site here. If you really want to play it should be easy enough to find...

They also have a cool little counter on the front of the front of the page ala MacDonalds:
4.57 million gallons of oil were consumed during the writing of this post.

Happy Birthday, Darwin

Today is Charles Darwin's 199th birthday. Thanks to Wired for this celebratory tid-bit.

Well, nearly two centuries later the Origin of Species is still in contention -- but not survival of the fittest...

''The Pacific walrus is an early victim of our failure to address global warming."
Said Shaye Wolf, a Biologist for the Center of Biological Diversiy which filed a petition last week to have the Pacific Walrus listed endangered. Read the Times article here.
''As the sea ice recedes, so does the future of the Pacific walrus.''








Uncredited NASA photo

Without ice the walrus are driven to land -- out of their usual habitat -- and into the habitat of others...

As many as 6,000 walruses in late summer and fall abandoned ice over deep water and congregated on Alaska's northwest shore. Herds were larger on the Russian side, one group reached up to 40,000 animals. Russian observers estimated 3,000 to 4,000 mostly young walruses died in stampedes when herds rushed into the water at the sight of a polar bear, hunter or low-flying aircraft.

One day before the petition was filed, during a lag in ruling on the listing of the Polar Bear in the arctic, The Shell Corp. was the high bidder on oil exploration leases on some 2.76 million arctic acres. They bid $18,497 an acre, according to the article in the Times.

Shell’s vice president for exploration for the Americas, Annell Bay, said the lease sale was an opportunity to move into an undeveloped region that could help meet an increasing demand for energy. “There’s not many areas like this in the United States,” Ms. Bay said.

There are not many areas like this in the world.

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment." -- Charles Darwin

Found Oil

Yesterday it was announced that a massive crude oil deposit was discovered in Argentina.

The article in the Times reported:

"By 2007, all the companies produced 60 million barrels, and this reserve ... represents almost double what they produce," said Chubut Gov. Mario Das Neves in a statement posted on the provincial government Web site.

Buenos Aires-based Pan American reportedly spent $700 million in exploration investments last year. That company is controlled by BP -- the same company that owns the well in Alaska -- I think it's probably time to take a look at the major oil companies. There's a lot of talk about government ownership and stake in oil rights, but I wonder if there aren't a small handful of companies that are simply humoring governments...

What kinds of returns do you expect on a $700 million investment? How small does that make appear the price of an entire election. It makes me feel a little better about my current investment in poetry. Perspective.

Another kicker, according to ABC news, US oil giant AMCO explored the same place to no avail... I'd love to hear the conversations there this morning! Does someone get to say I Told You So? Does someone get fired?

The oil is a relief in Argentina, where growth abounds and energy has been lagging.

I'm picturing a cartoon (I do that sometimes...) -- a cartoon where the world, down on his luck, finds ten bucks in his back pocket. In the next frame he spends it on cigarettes.