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I was recently e-mailed by the creator of a great new site: PeakOilChat.com. I stopped by and chatted a bit tonight -- looks like there is a good mix of people to talk with, from Peak Oil newbies to people who have worked on solutions for a bit. Stop by and join the conversation!

As reported in Energy Bulletin, there are over 1000 Global Warming rallies taking place across the country this weekend. I'm pretty disappointed that this is the first I've heard of it, but not terribly surprised that nobody in the media has picked up the story. Let's thwack the world upside the head with a dying fish and force them to pay attention! If you want to look for an event in your area, check this site: Step It Up 2007.

Too often our society equates quality of life with quantity of energy consumption. Something I discovered as I learned of how to prepare for the future was that I longed for a life not of monster televisions and fast cars, but of abundant nature and slow community. Through most of my life I believed the opposite: that true happiness would be found with vast riches and endless energy. I have yet to see anyone articulate my own internal feelings on this as clearly as Jeff Vail in his recent post entitled "The Design Imperative".

Vail works to quantify the meaning of "quality of life" as a measure independent from energy, although often enhanced by it. As he says, quality of life is demonstrably improved by things such as localized food production, self-sufficiency, indigenous architecture, and strong community. From the article:

Allow me now to suggest a new term, borrowing (loosely) from Jacques Ellul: Technics. While “technology” converts work into any product, “technics” is a more specific term that I am using to denote the design process of converting work into human quality of life.

It seems axiomatic that the goal of humanity is to optimize quality of life. There are nearly endless debates that can begin here—how is quality of life defined, do we measure the mean, median, mode, or selfish-individual level, etc.—but I think that we can all agree that IF we can answer the question “what is quality of life,” then we all share the goal of optimizing it.

This leaves us with a simple equation: Quality of Life = Work * Technics

In pursuing the goal of optimizing quality of life, there are two (non mutually-exclusive) options: improve the availability of work, or improve technics.

LiveScience reminds us in an article today that there is quite a number of gases in the atmosphere that contribute to global warming other than carbon dioxide. Some are greater than 10,000 times more effective at trapping solar energy than CO2, and their role in the atmosphere is not as fully understood. (We have past proxies such as ice cores that can explain the historical effects of CO2, but nothing for exotic species like chlorofluorocarbons -- we can only observe the current havoc they wreak.)

From the article:

Other greenhouse gases make up an even smaller portion of the total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but are more long-lived and less reactive than methane.

Chlorofluorocarbons, banned by an international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol because they eat up atmospheric ozone, are also greenhouse gases. While levels of this gas, formerly used in air conditioners and refrigerators, are no longer rising, the gas won’t completely leave the atmosphere for many decades.

“We just have to wait for the atmosphere to cleanse itself,” Shine said.

Other heavily fluorinated gases are very long-lived, almost permanent, in the atmosphere and are still being emitted. And their contributions to global warming still aren’t completely known.

I found a great resource referencing the state-by-state regulations on composting toilets at Weblife.org. It appears that our concern that most states have banned their use is unfounded -- my own state of Florida, in fact, encourages their use. It’s a touch out of date, so please post if you can find a more recent compilation. But, definitely good news.

An interesting report on LiveScience today on growing crops such as tomatoes using diluted seawater. Apparently, tomatoes grown using the method produce higher levels of antioxidants. From the article:

The researchers found that growing tomatoes in 10 percent seawater improved antioxidant levels significantly, findings they detailed in the April 4 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

RealClimate continues to impress me. In a recent post they pose the question of what would a CSI-style forensic analysis for the case of global warming look like? They point out how ridiculous a defense attorney (defending the humans accused of contributing to Global Warming) would appear while trying to argue such a case in court:

A rather more specious comment heard often (including at this hearing) is that 'if it was warmer before, then the current warming must be natural' or alternatively 'if you can't explain all of the past changes, how can you explain anything now?'. First of all, there are many periods in Earth history that are unequivocally accepted to be warmer than the present - the Pliocene (3 million years ago), the Eocene (50 million years ago) and the mid-Cretaceous (100 million years ago) for instance. Less clearly, the Eemian interglacial period or the Early Holocene may have been slightly warmer than today. Thus, if that logic were appropriate, no-one should bother worrying about climate change until sea levels start to approach mid-Cretaceous levels (about 100m above today's level!).

However, the logic is fatally flawed. It is akin to a defense lawyer arguing that their client can't possibly have committed a particular murder because other murders have happened in the past that were nothing to do with them. That would get short shrift in a courtroom, and the analgous point gets short shrift in the scientific community too. Of course, it is possible that our suspect was involved in previous murders too - but obviously the further back you go, the harder it is to pin it on them. And clearly, there will be past murders where they have a clear alibi.

We could be seeing a prelude to the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case on Global Warming.

I've heard a great many bloggers refer warmly to Sharon Astyk's work, but I had only dropped by her site briefly here and there. As we are soon expecting the birth of our baby boy, one of her recent posts (via Energy Bulletin) really struck me as incredibly insightful and well-conceived. She really hits on some major points on the structure of our society and its effects on the happiness of both parents and children. An excerpt:

Until 200 years ago, a vast majority of all children spent most of their lives with both parents every single day. In hunter-gatherer societies, the tribe often travelled together, and since hunting was generally a less common activity than gathering, male hunters often had considerable time to spend with their children. In most such societies in existence today, they do a considerable amount of parenting. Once agriculture came to predominate, again, children spent their days with their parents. Young, nursing children were often with their mother, but by the age of weaning (four or five in most traditional societies, unless a younger sibling pushed it ahead), children might work or play alongside their fathers for part of every day. Boys would join their fathers in traditionally male work, but even daughters would often help in the barn or around the farm. Everyone would recovene for regular meals, and the family would spend all sabbaths and festivals together. Many agricultural societies had much more free time than we do now - 11th century serfs worked only 178 days per year. Helena Norberg-Hodge has documented that the people of Ladakh, one of the harshest climates in the world, were able to feed themselves by working intensely only four months of the year, spending much of the winter in celebration and parties, and described the integration of children into the lives of both parents and grandparents as well.

MiedRN, the author of Snippets & Bits, recently dropped back into the blogosphere after several months' absence. Her dream of becoming an owner-builder has had to take a back seat to her health, which has caused some major disruptions in her life. As someone with the same dream, I can only imagine the sadness of the inability to pursue it. I'm sure she could use some words of support and encouragement from anyone who cares to give them as she tries to rebuild her life and, eventually, her home.

Jonathan at Past Peak posted an interesting anecdote about how modern medicine completely failed for one guy when the solution should have been the first thing from their lips. The data on the true effects of the harmful ingredients in the consumer products today is woefully under-reported or perhaps even suppressed, and this is a dismal example of how little even the medical community understands. (Of course, always remember my co-worker’s favorite quote: “The plural of anecdote is not data!”)