Zeitgeist Zephyr

For me personally it’s been a tough week.  I’ve ridden the emotional roller coaster of debating whether or not to drop Calc. 2 this summer (I’ve decided to stick with it) and fighting my own internal struggle of what I’m going to gain from all of this.  After some soul searching, I think I’ve found the answer.

There are different struggles that we all face, sometimes they are fairly unique to our situation in life, other times they’re fairly common.  What I’m finding is that these struggles, the climb to the top of a mountain so to speak, are what define us.  It doesn’t matter if it is a class or subject matter in school, a relationship, a physical disability, or a personal tragedy - they all can either work against us or make us stronger.  In the end, hopefully the latter. 

Much like climbing a mountain or taking a road trip to a distant destination, what takes up the bulk of the time is getting there.  Such is life.  We all have goals - to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or an astronaut.  But once you’ve attained the pinnacle of that goal, then what?  Sit idly by,  basking in your glory?  Unlikely.  Most are driven to find the next peak or destination and start making their way in that direction. 

I can only suspect that once you’ve reached the top and decide to go no farther, you’ve placed a limit on yourself making the only direction you can go from there being down.  A fall from grace, perhaps or just slipping into the darkness, fading away. 

The celebrity deaths that we’ve witnessed this week are of people who had mixed stories.  Michael Jackson, for instance, hit his peak in the mid 1980’s.  After that, it was hard for him to outdo himself, so while he was touring doing concerts of his old songs, he became an easy target for child molestation charges, true or false, and in interviews over the last few years became almost delusional about reality (including that the only way to explain his changing appearance was through a series of surgeries.)

An easy way to look at this too, of someone who has stopped climbing, is Uncle Rico from the cult classic Napoleon Dynamite.  Uncle Rico, living out of his van in the middle of nowhere Idaho occupies his time reliving his glory days on the high school football team, reliving one moment where if Coach had just sent him out in the last minutes of the game, he would have surely gone into pro football.  He even buys a ”time machine” so that he can go back and try to change the course of his life.

Climbing is the journey, and the final summit you reach will ultimately lead to your fate.  Make the most of the journey and don’t underestimate its power, because most of your life is likely to be spent climbing, not overlooking the valley below.  Focus on the peak ahead, and don’t look back.   

The controversial bill was passed this evening in the House by a vote of 219-212 and represents a major turning point in not just U.S. legislation towards energy and the Earth’s climate but also a turning point in the direction that U.S. industry will be guided in over the next several years.

 Here’s my reasoning and I’ll stick to this until someone can prove to me that there’s oil on the Moon, and that’s that establishing a comprehensive energy policy that encourages clean and most importantly renewable forms of energy is the best course of action that our nation can take.  I’ve heard arguments made that the “cap and trade” taxes will cripple the American economy even further; I argue that they will direct the private sector in a direction that in the long term will reap benefits that keep oil CEO’s up at night.

Arguments are constantly made that renewable energy will be the way of the future, but it is perhaps a misnomer for the larger picture.  What we are talking about is sustainable energy.  If it comes in the form of wind or solar power, hydroelectric power from dams or waves, nuclear power, be it fission or fusion, geothermal power or bio-fuels, not all are renewable (we’re talking primarily nuclear power), but all are sustainable. 

I don’t care who you are, what political party you’re affiliated with, or what industry you’re in.  The truth of the matter is that within this century, we will start feeling the affects of a dwindling supply of oil in current reserves.  Even the untapped reserves that exist in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, Siberia, and even the North Pole won’t meet the world’s energy needs in this century.  The rapid industrialization of Asian countries and America’s steady need for almost excessive amounts of energy require that new sources be tapped.  All the oil will be used up in about a century and there is only a 200 year supply of coal left (several lifetimes away before we’re out) but if Michael Jackson is cryo-frozen and revived in 2209 and throws a post-mortem concert tour, will there be electricity available so that sound can be pumped through the amps at the Sprint Center II?

The likely answer is that, yes there would be electricity at his concert, but that is made under the assumption that by then, sustainable power supplies would have been developed.  To my readers out there, I’m a person of action.  I personally don’t like to sit on my hands while an issue needs to be tackled, and sustainability in energy is one such issue.

The other benefit is that with increased sustainability in indigenous power supplies, national security increases.  It’s kind of hard to sabotage the Sun or the wind, but those who control the oil control the money and power, and that ’s the way it will remain even if drilling sites are opened within the United States, and more conflicts in the Middle East and even with Russia are likely if we don’t ween ourselves from the oil bottle.  This is the kind of change that I’ve been anticipating from President Obama.

Now the last portion that I’ll only briefly address is the climate.  I believe climate change is real.  There are islands around the world that are slowly sinking into the sea, so yes, I believe that we are in a period of global warming.  If humans are causing it, or not helping matters at the very least, that is an issue that can’t reliably be calculated right now.  I see it as a matter of cause and effect and draw parallels from events in the world that could be causing temperatures to steadily rise.  The one common denominator is that as temperatures have increased, so has the rate of human industrialization based off of carbon emmitting fossil fuels.  Of course this includes primarily oil and coal.

Both resources are non-renewable, unsustainable in the long term, and are stress points in global politics.  Renewable and sustainable resources on the other hand, will be available as long as we feel it prudent to have a technologically advanced society and would allow nations to live truly independent of one another, environmentally speaking.  Call me an idealist if you’d like, but I believe this is the start of a major economic gold rush as people begin investing time and energy into sustainable energy sources. 

And to the critics of the legislation that say it will destroy the job market in America, please, look at the bigger and longer term picture on this one.  Oil is finite, the wind is infinite.  As long as the wind blows and the sun shines, there will be jobs in a so called “green economy.”  Those are the options - 200 years of coal related jobs left versus 5,000,000,000 (that’s 5 billion) years worth of sun related jobs left.  I’m choosing the latter.