Political Change and Personal Lives

I sent in my vote for the US elections today. Yesterday, I went to vote in a British Columbia by-election for the provincial legislature. 70 years before yesterday, October 29, 1938, we had been woken up by loud banging on our door at 5 a.m. A group of brownshirts (SA) came in, commanded by a non-uniformed man (Gestapo?). We were made to dress and taken away. It was the last time I saw the Dortmund house where I had been born 13 years earlier. It was destroyed by bombs during the war they started 10 months later.

The day before that had been pretty normal, starting with school at the Ludendorff Schule, formerly Oberrealschule, then playing football (soccer) and such. The day after, we woke up on the ground opposite the railroad station of Zbaszyn, a Polish border town, among dozens of other Jewish families from all over Germany. We were not allowed to leave the small town for the Polish interior for many months, some until just before the war started. There had been no political changes we knew of that could have been responsible for the abrupt change in our personal fortunes. The takeover of Austria ("Anschluss") had happened half a year earlier and hadn't affected our lives. But there had been things happening that we weren't aware of; and much more to come.

(Continued November 3.)

The US presidential elections tomorrow are to lead to major real change affecting people's life regardless of which of the two candidates allowed in practice wins; if you believe their campaign speeches. If you know how little those tend to mean after the election is over, you discount them now, even though both probably meant it honestly, at least in part and in principle. Most polls predict an Obama victory, which would mean I voted for the winners in all three elections this month.

Even if he ends up with a majority in both houses of Congress, I doubt that he will be permitted to advance substantially toward the only real solution to recurring energy crises and climate change: reliance on our continuous energy income from the sun, the wind it powers, the water cycle it drives, etc, last not least its direct radiant energy. The anti-solar interests made so much money from the oil bubble while most others lost that their corruptive powers may be greater than ever. To John McCain's credit, he was unusual for a major politician in using the word corruption for such corruption. It would be interesting if he could be put in charge of countering it; e.g. as Attorney General. But don't bet on it.

On foreign policy. prospects seem similar; some improvement, but limited in relation to need. If that is all that will happen in the Israeli- Arab/Palestinian conflict the net result could be catastrophic; with effects on many personal lives comparable to those with which this posting got started.

The Plumber Vote

The search for co-sponsors of a resolution to make John McCain an extraordinary member of the plumbers union, suggested in my twitter posting, can be deferred pending on the job training.

On Carbon Taxes

Stephen Harper's Conservative Party has won enough seats in the elections for the
Canadian Parliament to form another minority government with increased representation. The substantially reduced representation of Stephane Dion's Liberal Party is widely attributed to his "green shift" platform, interpreted as a new carbon tax by opponents. While I think that in principle a carbon tax can advance sound energy practice, it did not seem like a good way to proceed in North America; at least at this stage. Following pe0ple's reception of the British Columbia provincial carbon tax, e.g. as shown by earlier comments here on David Suzuki's article defending it, I had posted the comment that follows the link to the original article.

http://www.straight.com/article-151948/lets-clear-air-carbon-taxes

Judging by the preceding commments, carbon taxes are unlikely to endear environmental concerns to an average voter not hooked on granola munching. It could be argued that the taxes were needed nonetheless, if an imminent climate catastrophe was to be averted or mitigated.

David Suzuki's article had, in fact, already conceded that “no one likes taxes”. For someone long involved in alerting people to the latest reports that the warming trends look more dire than in earlier alerts, he evidently wants to be reasonable; conceding that we can't be 100% sure and citing 90% certainty as the consensus of the pertinent scientific experts, the maximum supposed to be expected in science.

He does not include himself among those experts, so Dionysius' comment making that point wasn't needed. Most of the negative comments seem to already have some answer in the article. On Antonio's (through Lord Moncton's) argument that since “perhaps” there is no crisis imminent, the correct attitude is “courage to do nothing”, Suzuki had suggested viewing it like insurance of a home; to refuse to get which is not necessarily an act of courage.

As to whether carbon taxes are the best way to proceed, he doesn't look all that persuasive. Apart from a confirmatory study commissioned by the foundation bearing his name, such taxes are reported to have done well in Sweden. They are supposed to provide economic benefits by helping green technologies. How? The first answer was “that the tax may help us move away from continued reliance on increasingly scarce and costly fossil fuels”; i.e. toward the clean “renewable” sources emphasized in his earlier article on nuclear revival. That could look attractive to both those who need, or want, to generate and use more clean energy as well as those lazy, or wise, enough to need less. But later there is a second answer with a whole paragraph appealing only to those who preach the virtues of maximizing energy thrift, sometimes act accordingly, and claim credit for cuts in energy waste that really were more a reaction to spiralling oil costs. There clearly is no solution hidden in that, in practice just more huge coal fired power plants every month in China and elsewhere; soon even bigger nuclear ones in the environmentally “advanced” countries; or provided by them in places like India (,North Korea?).

There are real solutions.
“As we rethink our energy future in light of the dangers of further increasing greenhouse gases, we have an enormous opportunity. I believe that rather than putting all of our faith in big technology (big dams, coal plants, nuclear), investing in a decentralized grid of diverse, small-scale renewable energy sources would be far more resilient and reliable.We should all get behind renewable energy...”.

I agree with that thoroughly and know there are no scientific or basic economic reasons preventing it. It is quoted from David Suzuki's June 3 article on A nuclear reaction . If he no longer believes in that in July, I am ready to defend it effectively; also using information that he may not have. Since he is more likely to still subscribe to his June position, he really should have a new ball game. It would call for action to utilize those decentralized clean technologies, without any need for more (endless) arguments about the likelihood (or percentage certainty) of anthropogenic (man made) climate change. Even if we played no role at all in global warming, society would benefit also economically by going ahead speedily with the transition toward such an inexhaustible clean energy system. Efficiency and conservation should improve naturally, if more end use energy has to be generated locally for any wasted.

So Dr. Suzuki ought to consider whether he indeed wants to encourage leadership for such action, in which the amount of clean energy used does not require permission from above; or whether he will be stuck with more argumentation and exhortation. Any evidence of our contribution to potentially catastrophic climate change just increases the urgency, not the benefits. Like him, I accepted the likelihood that we contributed, although probably below his 90% level, but my scientific work background also is not too pertinent to that. Conversely, I have had good reasons to be convinced that effective action could, and should, have been taken long ago, before pre-Olympic China constructed many of the pollution spewing monsters that could mar the Beijing games. The motto cited by Tenebrae about thinking globally but acting locally may be outdated.

If he does adhere clearly to his June position, he might even win the support of Peter, the most irate (hostile?) of his critics; but who is ready to make do with solar battery power for his truck. If he can get that, he might reciprocate by disregarding permission to Suzuki for a number of Latte cows for him and his fellow millionaire intellectuals, in spite of the really bad greenhouse gases they emit (the cows).

If the general BC reception to the taxes is as negative as here, other governments may want to try as an alternative to shift subsidies now enjoyed by the polluting energy technologies to environmentally sound ones. That would entail serious confrontation with those wielding real power, able to corrupt more than ever following their bloated recent profits. But if democracy is already too weak for that now, they can probably prevent any solution. If so, it ought to be known.

So-lar En-er-gy For-ev-er
http://members.shaw.ca/illas/pictures/Solar_Power_small.jpg

Submitted by sunnergy on Thu, 2008-07-24 00:50.

From sunsets