Pondering the Peakalypse

Peakalypse? Yeah, like a few others, I'm pondering Peak Oil, and the possible crash of civilization following it. This pondering may come as a surprise to folks who may have known me in the past, as I'm not a garden variety enviro-lefty. I'm not a denier of climate change, but I also believe that climate changes are a part of the Earth's history and future, regardless of what humans do. I'm a skeptic of many in the climate change movement because of the other agendas they peddle under that banner.

But, for some reason, Peak Oil has caught my attention. I think most people would agree that oil is a finite and non-renewable resource. There's lots of debate about how much oil reserves we think we have, but common sense tells us that with demand trending ever upwards, and supply trending down, supplies will dwindle and we will eventually run out.

I haven't read much Peak Oil agitprop, and have read just as much debunking it. Also, I haven't bought into the worst-case scenarios, but the issue bears some thought.

Our current lifestyles are touched by oil seven ways to Sunday. When the oil starts getting scarce, life will never be the same. And after witnessing the quick breakdown that occurred in New Orleans, after hurricane Katrina, I'm not optimistic about the prospects of our culture and civilization once scarcity hits. I'm not a full blown Doomer, yet, but I'm not Pollyanna either.

I'm still mulling it all over.

Live Squat

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place on 7/7/07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

So, the archsongsters of environmentalism are convening a global community sing to proclaim their looming apocalypse, otherwise known as 'Global Warming'. A scant 22 years ago, another band of well-meaning musicians put on a similiar event, called 'Live Aid', to eliminate hunger in Ethiopia. It was a smashing success, as far as raising money is concerned. £150M successful.

Ethiopian President Mengistu Haile Mariam was very grateful for the generous donations. So grateful, in fact, that he was able to expand his army and maintain his fleet of soviet-made armor, needed to secure his Marxist government against surging domestic rebel groups. His starvation of opposition populations in his own country was what spurred the Live Aid project to begin with, so the whole decade from 1976 to 1986 was win, win, and win. Some figures claim Mengistu's Derg party was responsible for 1.5 million dead Ethiopians. So, Mengistu's government got paid £1000 for each person they killed. Nice.

So, who's the money going to this time, and who are they being paid to kill?

How Many Bloggers..

.does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

This past semester, I wrote a paper on the cost comparison between incandescent, LED, and compact fluoresent (CFL) lightbulbs. Here's the result, and then I'll 'splain it:

All bulbs compared were higher-quality units, so that we weren't comparing ultra-cheap items to expensive ones. All costs are also modified to allow for 3% annual inflation.

• Replacement costs were based on the bulbs needed to produce 750 lumens for 6 hours per day, factored for the lifespan (in hours) for each bulb, and projected over 20 years.
  
  
• Disposal costs were calculated by taking the total bulbs needed over 20 years, and for incandescent and LED bulbs, projecting standard waste disposal costs for normal trash. For CFL disposal, I factored in a proposed $0.50 per bulb disposal fee.
  
  
• Electrical costs were based on producing 750 lumens for 6 hours per day, at $0.08 per KWH (Nebraska costs). Depending on where you live, the electrical costs would be significantly higher.
  

As you can see from the chart, over twenty years, CFL bulbs are cheapest to operate, even if the cost per CFL bulb stays relatively flat.