Dear IntentBloggers

We are grateful to Dr Niels Bjergstrom for his submission to ATCA in regard to "The dawn of the new Hydrogen Economy."

Dr Niels Bjergstrom is a Danish physicist with a PhD in mathematical modelling of solid state phenomena. He has been involved professionally in computing since 1964 and in information security since 1987. He has been resident in the UK since 1990. He is a prolific writer with hundreds of articles as well as textbooks in the fields of mathematics, applied science and engineering to his credit. He founded Information Security Bulletin in 1996 and is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal, which has readers in more than 90 countries. Previously, he has worked in The Hague for four years as an information security advisor and consultant to Dutch ministries and large Dutch corporates. He is the organiser of, and a speaker at, a number of international conferences. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

RE: The dawn of the new Hydrogen economy

This was an excellent small piece by Stanford Ovshinsky. Instead of using the term 'hydrogen economy' I think I'd prefer 'solar power economy'. The point is that photovoltaic conversion of incoming photons into something portable is the key to these technologies. Whether we use NiMH batteries or something else as a conduit is immaterial.

What is not immaterial, however, is that we get net pollution-free practical energy generation. So far only nuclear energy has even come close to [promising] that goal. Wind farm producers claim that their products live up to this basic requirement but I have never seen any research results supporting that. Producing and maintaining those monstrosities does actually over their lifetime cause more pollution than they save for a given amount of electric energy delivered to the points of its 'consumption'.

It is worth pointing out that the use of hydrogen, eg in vehicles, presumes pollution-free hydrogen production. Otherwise it has of course little value - a point not often mentioned by its proponents - merely moving pollution from one location to another.

The next question is how much of the planet needs to be paved over with photovoltaic cells in order for enough energy to be produced to make this proposition practical? What is the ecological budget for producing, installing and maintaining these? For the associated infrastructure?

Dr Ovshinsky envisions a series of energy conversions in his scheme. What kind of efficiency can he attain in each of these conversions? eg from solar photons all the way through to kinetic energy driving a vehicle? I last looked at this calculation a number of years ago. Back then the efficiency of photovoltaic cells - as well as of battery technology - was quite low and a few energy conversion stages would more or less eat up all the solar energy, providing only heat - and that is available just from letting in the sunshine!

Best Regards

Niels

[ENDS]

We look forward to your further thoughts, observations and views. Thank you.

Best wishes


Dr Horatio Peppers, Head of Operations -- ATCA

Dear DK,

A very basic question:

With all the knowledge we have at the moment, would it not be possible to build a nearly energy-less society?

Why do we constantly have to generate energy in order to use it and then have to do this again and again?

Mieke

Dear DK

Very informative. Nice to know that new technologies are conducive to health. Hope they have an exponential growth.

Best of luck

Hiren

Dear DK,

This is such exciting technology. My physics background is pretty sadly lacking, but if this technology is half of what it is cracked up to be the world is in for a very exciting, innovative time.

Peace,

Scott.

Dear DK

Hopefully these technological advances in solar power panels will stop the automatic thinking that solar power is not worth the effort, which alway been a bunch of bull.

The only problem solar power ever had was that it was never mass produced Henry Ford style. Even the clunkers of the 80's would have been a worthwhile addition if they became popular enough, then cheap enough, to be installed on every home.

Look at the advancements of other mass produced technology during the same time period. TVs, Cell Phones, Computers. If solar power got its due by now we would have roofing tiles made of solar material.

Its only because the right combination of political and capitalist forces have never manifested that I can not go into Home Depot and buy a solar panel today.

You know, here in Maine we had a surplus a few years back. The Governer at the time, Angus King, decided thet he wanted to do something big with it to make a real change. He decided that Maine kids were in threat of being left behind in the times so he used the surplus to start a laptop buying program for junior high school kids. It's a program that has been replicated in many states and continues here today. That is what solar power needs. Something BIG.

From the Government: Tax breaks, as in NO TAXES, for solar companies, tax REBATES toward the purchase and installation of panels for the consumer. From Buisness and community: INVEST, Build the plants. Make them cheap enough so that the folks making them can afford to buy them (Henry Ford).

There is no reason that solar panels can't start being seen on more and more houses in the next 2 years from today.
That would be a most beautiful ugly thing to see!

Bobby

Give me a break.

As far back as I can see, the dawn of man, every "breakthrough" in technology has added to the break down of the environment and societies.

Can I thank Ovshinsky for contributing to the devastation technologies are wreaking on our planet. Like to see those flat screens and laptops being shipped off to landfills in Africa? And forget the fax machine. It's ancient pollutant history.

The Economist. Please.

A scientist making a lot of money is all I hear. And not very articulate about what he's doing. Give us the nuts and bolts in layman language. Not some company sales pitch.

We don't have 10 years.

We have run out of time.

The tipping point that is being talked about has already occurred.

The problem with humankind in their narrow sited ego infested desire to play god is that we're to blind to see and accept.

The majority expect some kind of cataclysmic planetary spontaneous combustion. It's already happening but not the way they imagine it. The weather/climate has never fit into our neat little scientific models and never will.

Hydrogen is so expensive and is so in it's infancy. Better to shut down your research facilities and head for the hills.

What follows is excerpts from something I found on the net. Wish I could give you the link but I cut and pasted into a word processing document and then deleted the Google alert email from my computer. I don't like clutter. Just substitute hydrogen for any of the other alternatives. We're not running out of time. We already have.

""If we commit, right away, with a wartime intensity equal to the challenge at hand," Tidwell writes in The Ravaging Tide, "we can cut our total greenhouse-gas emissions 50 percent or more in just 15 years or less while simultaneously improving our economy and way of life. If this sounds too good to be true, please keep reading."

Of course, if you do keep reading, you'll find an inspiring story about how Tidwell got into clean energy in his own life.

"Nobody can tell me that a switch to clean energy is impossible," Tidwell told me. "The reason they can't tell me that it's not possible is that I've done it myself. I just charged this cell phone with solar power. I heat my home with corn from Maryland. I drive a Prius. I save money. I've changed my behavior, I turn out lights, I don't waste electricity, and I get all my power from clean energy. It's totally affordable, and I still have a modern lifestyle."

Perhaps the most motivating part of Tidwell's book is the story of how he and a few neighbors in Takoma Park, Md., bought corn-burning stoves to heat their homes, formed a coop to buy corn from a local farmer and then arranged for the city to host a corn granary, donated by the stove manufacturer, to store the coop's fuel corn.

"Again, people need to understand that there is a solution, and that solution does not involve sacrifice and massive changes in their lives."

Tidwell's is a compelling example for each of us to embrace efficiency and green power. But since no energy-efficient man is an island, it's not the whole story.

Unless you live off the grid and make all your own food, clothing and other goods yourself from all-natural ingredients or recycled junk, you partake in the fossil-fuel use of the larger, globalized consumer society. Just take one example, the personal automobile that Americans love so much.

Let's assume you drive a hybrid, as Tidwell does. A Prius may get great mileage, but its manufacture, distribution, use and disposal all require the use of energy. Today, that energy comes mostly from fossil fuel.

A car is made largely from metal and plastic. Steel plants burn lots of coal. Plastic is made from petroleum. Auto-assembly plants use lots of coal-fired electricity. Cars are shipped from factories in Asia on huge container ships that burn diesel fuel and then delivered to the dealer's showroom on diesel-powered trucks.

Fossil-fuel use continues once you get the car. Whether you drive a Prius or a Hummer, you still have to drive it on public roads paved with asphalt (a petroleum product) by trucks running on diesel fuel. Traffic signals and street lights run on municipal power, usually from coal-fired plants. And when it's time to trade in the Prius for a plug-in hybrid or the next generation of green car, the cycle will start all over again.

Meantime, your old car will eventually wind up in the junkyard, where electric- or diesel-powered heavy equipment will crush it, and a coal-fired furnace will melt down the steel for reuse. The scrap metal might even get shipped back to Asia, using even more fuel.

All this is not to minimize the impact of driving a fuel-efficient car. It's just to show that driving Priuses won't get us off the fossil-fuel hook.

It's the same with screwing in compact fluorescent light bulbs, buying an Energy Star refrigerator or using biofuels such as ethanol. All of these solutions currently require fossil fuels at some stage of their existence, even if they help the end-user to save energy.

We should continue to do some of these things. But don't we need to do much, much more to cut our emissions by 70 percent, as scientists say is required to avoid dangerous climate heating?

Tidwell has made a chilling diagnosis of a society whose climate is gravely ill. But like many environmentalists, his prescription for recovery seems too gentle.

It's like giving an aspirin for brain cancer.

Peak oil versus clean energy

"We've created an unsustainable system," Richard Heinberg told me. "And I don't mean that it's not eco-groovy. I mean that if we keep going this way, we'll die."

Heinberg is a leading theorist on peak oil, the idea that world petroleum production will soon reach its historic high point. Afterwards, according to energy analysts, oil will begin to deplete - just as the growing economies of China and India cause demand to spike - and the price of oil, along with other energy sources, will begin an irreversible rise as its supply falls.

Some people think that if we run out of cheap oil, then we won't have to worry about global warming. What they forget is that America has 250 years worth of coal at current usage rates, and the industry is already working on profitable ways to liquefy coal to run cars, trucks and planes. Since coal is much more carbon-intensive than oil, if America switches from oil to coal, it could doom any efforts by the rest of the world to reduce global-warming pollution.

So whether to fight global warming or to deal with peak oil, we'll have to get off of fossil fuels. But peak-oil experts like Heinberg say that won't be so easy.

In his 2004 book, Powerdown, Heinberg wrote that it would require fundamental changes in the world economy and in Americans' lifestyles. This would mean much more than just painlessly switching clean energy for dirty energy.

Today, Heinberg continues to doubt that renewable energy sources are beefy enough to feed the hunger of industrial civilization as we have come to know it.

"The people who talk about climate change in my experience tend not to have much understanding of energy issues," Heinberg told me. "You have to spend energy to get energy. Most of the alternatives we're talking about, like biofuels, offer a low net-energy impact. What's allowed us to build our enormous industrial infrastructure has been the enormous payback from fossil fuels. To say we can replace this with lower energy sources is unsupportable from a chemistry and physics point of view alone."

Environmentalists used to tell Americans that we should drive less or rethink our transportation system to use more transit and fewer private autos. But you don't hear talk of cutting back much anymore from green groups. Instead, it's about how clean energy can fight global warming and create new jobs, all while improving our consumer lifestyle.

And don't expect clean-energy advocates like the Apollo Alliance ("Three million new jobs. Freedom from foreign oil."), a much-touted coalition of environmentalists and labor unions, to talk about powering down any time soon.

"I think environmentalists got really timid because the free-market types were pounding on them," Heinberg says. "That's understandable, but it doesn't make the message any less true."

Tidwell says that U.S. drivers can keep all of their 220 million personal cars and light trucks and still get off of fossil fuels. This may be what most Americans want to hear, but Heinberg says that it's unrealistic.

Whether oil prices rise because of diminishing supplies or government restrictions on carbon-dioxide emissions, Heinberg sees a future of radically higher fuel prices with no practical substitute. In response, the number of cars on the road will shrink.

"When people can't afford to get around, can't afford to go shopping, they'll start doubling up. The cars will start getting older, and the big car companies will start going out of business, or the government will take them over. They'll become even more inefficient than they are now. The streets will come apart, because repairing them will become more expensive, and the states won't be able to find the money for repairs. The whole transport system will become more degraded, unless we proactively return to rail and light rail."

A thick steak or an arugula salad

Heinberg stresses that oil and other fossil fuels are unique in human history and that they are unlikely to be replaced at current levels of use by any amount of future clean energy.

"We have to be realistic when we talk about fossil fuels. Yes, on the one hand, they are the root of all evil - climate change, pollution and other problems. But on the other hand, we have to recognize that they have offered us enormous benefits. They are basically a free gift from nature, enormously concentrated fuels. We've never had anything like them before, and we'll never have anything like them again."

To his credit, unlike some global-warming activists, Tidwell rejects coal, even if it can be burned more cleanly. He's also against expanding nuclear power, though he does say that we should keep existing nuclear plants online.

Yet he's a big believer in another controversial energy source. In The Ravaging Tide, Tidwell writes that ethanol from corn from corn "has a fuel value 26 percent higher than the energy required to make it," and that sugarcane ethanol, as used in Brazil, is even better. He predicts that more fuel-efficient cars of the future could run entirely on ethanol from waste biomass. "Our cars, trucks and vans would run, more or less, on the nation's lawn clippings."

But to put the real potential of biofuels in perspective of the oil they're supposed to replace, we need to compare net energy yields for each. For the moment, let's assume that ethanol really does yield 26 percent net energy. In isolation, that might sound pretty good. But it looks much less impressive when we consider that oil from Saudi Arabia can give a 1,000 or 2,000 percent yield of energy produced. Our industrial society has been built on such large-yield sources as oil.

You might say that, if fossil fuels are a big, thick steak, then renewables like ethanol are an arugula side salad with low-cal dressing. The salad is better for your health and lighter on the land, but it's not going to fill your belly.

Automakers have known how to run cars on ethanol since the days of Henry Ford. But there's a good reason why we've used gasoline - in an age of cheap oil, it gives a lot more bang for the buck. If gas from high-yield Saudi oil sells for $3 a gallon, might low-yield ethanol be expected to sell for many times more once millions of drivers rely on it as the only way to fill up their tanks?

While biofuels may help farmers run their own tractors in the future, critics such as David Pimentel of Cornell University say that the promise of ethanol to run America's cars on a large scale is mostly hype.

Together with Tad Patzek of UC-Berkeley, Pimentel published a study in July 2005 finding that ethanol from corn actually yielded 29 percent less energy than it took to produce. Ethanol made from switch grass or wood were even worse, according to the study. Pimentel, a professor of agriculture and ecology, has also pointed out that growing crops for biofuels can also take farmland out of production for food, which could stoke rising food prices in the future. Given all of ethanol's problems, Pimentel wonders if current U.S. subsidies may be little more than corporate pork for Bush campaign donors like agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Other clean energy ideas, like wind and solar power, are practical today, if on a very limited scale. Yet even these genuinely green sources still depend on a global manufacturing and distribution network run on fossil fuels. It still takes coal-fired steel to build wind turbines and solar panels. Then it takes oil to ship finished units to the warehouse, retailer and final customer.

Could all this be accomplished in the future using no fossil fuels and without emitting any carbon dioxide? Maybe, but it's taken our economy three centuries to build up an industrial system based on coal and oil. It would be a tall order to change it out in 10 years.

I asked Richard Heinberg if he thinks we can stage such an energy revolution with no sacrifice, as many clean-energy advocates promise.

"It would be nice if that were true," says Heinberg. "The fact is that renewable energy sources like solar, wind and biomass currently give us only a negligible portion of our commercial energy for transportation and electricity. To increase that substantially will require not only enormous investment on the order of trillions of dollars, but also decades of work."

While focusing on the threat of peak oil, Heinberg agrees with Tidwell that our society is in danger from global warming. He says that to deal with both threats, we'll need the White House and Congress to take real action.

"Either we've got to power down, or we'll face some level of collapse. That could look like the Depression, or it could be worse. If we do it proactively and cooperatively, it will be an enormous challenge. The trick is that's going to require political leadership and courage at the top."

But Heinberg doesn't think that kicking fossil fuels, whether because of depletion or to fight global warming, will be all gain and no pain.

"It'll require a willingness to tell people things they don't want to hear," he says.

What kinds of things? Well, just the sort of big changes in society that environmentalists used to advocate before they started telling us that clean energy would let us have our cake and eat it, too.

"We'd have to change our agriculture system, take subsidies away from business and start subsidizing small-scale organic agriculture. We'd have to deliberately start scaling down the trucking industry and rebuilding our railroads. There are segments of society that will have to tighten the belt, suck it up and find different jobs, basically. If government helps with the transition, we'll be better off. Those people will lose their jobs anyway, but if there's an orderly transition, we can take away some of the pain.""

Dear DK

I know about Stanford Ovshinsky he lives a couple miles from me, but I never met him, fascinating self taught guy. Didn't follow the "establisment" route, that is why he is probably such a genius.

His wife and cofounder Dr. Iris Ovshinsky just died on August 16 of this year, very sad for him, great team.

Richard

Maggie Villiger
May 19 , 2004
Interview with the Ovshinskys

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN FRONTIERS: It sounds like every idea that you have, people would say "It can't be done," or "That will take way too long."

IRIS: That is absolutely true.

SAF: What do you take from that, and how do you use it?

STAN: Well I use it philosophically. What we do has never been considered as possible, or people tried and failed, either one. We get basic patents. We use that time of incredulousness or skepticism, which is natural, on something that is dramatically different. And then we don't allow the criticism to do anything but spur us on.

SAF: But what is it about you guys that you can look beyond what people see in the day to day, and see the possibilities?

STAN: I think that's a very good question. First of all I don't play in the stock markets, I don't try to foresee the future in any way, I don't claim any extraordinary power. But I do know what society needs, and I think that the industry, building new industries, that that is an absolute requirement.

Old industries are cyclical. Whether it's oil or whether it's automotive or whether semi-conductors, they're all cyclical. Which means that the ups and downs can be very extreme at times. And the only thing that generates new jobs is innovation.

So I "know" where science is going. And the global economy depends on energy and information, they're the twin pillars of our global economy. So I picked the ones that I knew were fundamental to our society, and to our global society, and then made, so to speak, revolutionary changes.

SAF: Stan, you mentioned that you have been inventing for a very long time. What do you think of as your first invention? Were you a kid who was always thinking of better ways to squeeze the toothpaste tube and things like that?

IRIS: No no he's very inventive. My mother used to say, "Why can't his inventions do this or that," but he's not interested, he's not a tinkerer at all.

STAN: Edison was a great, great inventor but he would try a thousand things to get a result. Scientists make fun of that and that was called the Edisonian Method. I think that Edison was a bit smarter than that. That's like saying that a thousand monkeys can write Shakespeare. But that is not the way -- I know what I want, I know what I'm going to do, and I use the periodic chart of atoms as if it's an engineering diagram. It's not throwing darts at the periodic table. So I know what I can do and I just go ahead and do it.

And I'm very blessed by having the help of a great team of people here. Colleagues and collaborators through the years, and a great group of people here, we're a meritocracy. Even though we have a lot of Ph.D.'s you don't have to be a Ph.D. to -- Otherwise I wouldn't be here, Iris is the only Ph.D. in our family.

SAF: Do you think not having that Ph.D. credential, in some way frees you? Does not having had that rigid sort of training open your mind in a different way?

IRIS: I definitely think that's true.

STAN: In the early days it made me an easy target to some of the scientists.

IRIS: They looked at his work skeptically because he didn't have a Ph.D.

STAN: However, let me say this. When young people go to school they have to really respect authority and follow it. So they take, so to speak, orders when they go to grade school, high school, and then when they go to college. And all the time they're being treated in a "giving of information to you" kind of way. And then when they get out of school they say, "Okay, now you're on your own, think, be creative."

After all those years of trying to kill it. And so you have to be an unusual person to survive and to do original work. So I think in that sense I think that you're absolutely right, and I think my scientific colleagues who told me the same thing, over and over again, I think that they must be right.

IRIS: The other thing you have to say, I mean he has an amazingly inventive mind. And he reads constantly. He's got way more than a Ph.D. in terms of all the stuff that he studies himself every single day.

STAN: That's true, I'm 81 and I'm still learning. I love learning. The fact is that in science it's your contributions that are important.

And I look upon science differently, and that is that nature, God if you're religious, did not make disciplines. Man did, humans did. And therefore I don't recognize separation of disciplines. So I have published in neurophysiology, neuropsychiatry, cosmology, solid state physics, chemistry, physics, materials science, and so on.

Wherever I feel I can make a contribution, that people want what I have to invent I work in it, and I get great joy out of it.

LPB -

Guess it's all over then.

Peace,
Scott.

D.K.,

At Kawasaki, in Nebraska, we started manufacturing

light rail cars 3 yrs. ago. We have enough orders

from New York and New Jersey subway systems to

keep us busy until 2009.

At a million bucks a piece, these babies are put

together like a Rolls Royce.

I think we have to weigh the impact of this industry

for the short term intermission that will exist between

our current technology and the next.

Gas today was $2.54 per gallon.

Much better...temporarily, I know.

DK

Since 1978 I have had hugh concerns for the planet and it's environment. Back then only a handful of people could be found who knew and/or were willing to acknowledge the serious peril the planet was in. It is almost impossible for the human psyche to be truthful about total annihilation of the species.

Now it is coffee table conversation. This in itself is unsettling.

I don't doubt that "the Ovshinkys have been really special, warm, loving and kind people." but please forgive me if I don't join in the memorial and grieving as that is not what this thread is about.

I don't doubt that he is sincere in his research.

My experience is that scientists doing real research are forced into an isolation due to the very nature of the research process. One must peel away at the layers and focus on particulars and block out distractions for days, weeks and months at a time. This is a necessary and positive part of the process. In itself it is not "bad" or "good".

Rarely are they, by the nature of the research process, able to see the big picture. And why should they anyway?. Even one researching "the big picture" cannot draw any meaningful conclusions as the big picture is in constant flux.

You see me as skeptical? I do not and will not attempt to change your perceptions. It may be skepticism? And if it is what does that change? Why wouldn't you want to reply if that is what I am. To tell you the truth I wasn't looking for a reply.

I see my comments as coming from that same rare place they were coming from 28 years ago. The willingness to see and speak "the truth" (my truth) about what I see and experience Not to candy coat it so that the majority will except and swallow it. I don't speak what I see and know for the benefit of others. I speak it for my own soul.

Do with it what you may.

The environmentalists of today, unlike those back in 1978, have been forced, in large part, due to economics and politics, to sugar coat the issues. In part this is a good thing because now people are listening. The sad part is that the public is now being led to believe that they can have their cake and eat it too. A dangerous message to send out to the world.

Mr. Ovshinsky research and technological breakthroughs come at a time when the politicians and large corporations that really don't care about saving the planet, and the new environmentalist need proofs that we can have our cake and eat it too. Unfortunately the information given in this post does sound very much like a company sales pitch. Where is the beef?

Respectfully,
LPB

Scott.

All over? Hmmm.

The thing about this whole issue is that even though we have past the tipping point there is no reason why we could not reverse the process and still have a portion of humanity survive and propagate.

It would take an effort on the order of the Manhattan Project or sending a human to the moon to reverse the process. And that on a planetary scale. I just don't see it happening.

I have a daughter and a child on the way. Would I like to believe there is a future for them and their children? Yes I would. Will I lie to myself in order to feel good in the belief that they shall have one? No

Am I one of those people that want to see the economies of the world collapse and big business end? No. Do I see that that is what is going to happen anyway? Yes.

In 1968 my parents loaded up the family station wagon and we took a trip down south. Driving through the Smokey Mountains one could see why they got their name. A mist of H2O that hovered above the land.

In 1978 a friend and I took a drive to California in a van via the southern root which took us through the Smokey Mountains. In 10 short years we had managed to pour out so much pollution into the air that it was hard to see the Mountains because of the participant pollutant in the air. I remember my friend thinking that that was why they were named the Smokey Mountains. The haze was so thick one could not see the entire grandeur of those beautiful mountains.

That is when I began to talk to people about what I "believed" to be a very serious global problem. I found that nobody, not my family, not my friends, not my teachers wanted to hear or discus the issues of environment. They wanted faster cars, vacations, dancing all night long, the beach, etc. (As an aside it is really not healthy to swim in the waters of Long Island which in 1968 were still relatively pristine.)

So I realized that I had to formulate, what I was attempting to tell anyone that would listen, my idea in a one or two sentence statement.

I quote myself "If we were willing to turn off every fossil fuel burning engine world wide today, the negative effects of having run these engines, would progress for another 50 years and only then would the planet begin to work towards a healthy environment." I would then, having got their full attention, and with a dramatic pause for effect, say, "And that ain't gonna happen today".

People just didn't want to hear that. They wouldn't debate it or refute it. They would simply change the subject.

By 1994 I had stopped talking to anyone about it because now I was seeing the end to civilization as we had know it and preparing myself for the new world that will come as a result of a life style dependent on fossil fuels. This is one reason I moved to Switzerland. Water is the most essential thing we have and that is the first thing to go as we are now seeing.

And now I look around and everyone and their sister is talking about it. Wow! Talk about a day late and a dollar short.. I haven't spoken about this for over 10 years and after reading 10 + articles every single day for the past 6 months concerning global warming. climate change and human participation I thought IB was as good a place as any to begin getting involved again?

Scott no one wants to talk about this issue on the serious level that it needs to be talked about. Yes we can change our light bulbs and drive hybrids but that is not what it is going to take.

We can get onto blogs and sing neat little praises for scientists and their technological contributions.

Even Al Gore cannot get anyone to listen unless he gives them assurances that there is a way out. (Light bulbs, hybrids)

The economy as we know it is going to crash. The infrastructure is going to disintegrate whether we like it or not. We need to, on a Manhattan Project scale, change everything from the way we live to the way we produce energy to the way we travel and we need to do it immediately. I'm not a 60's throw back ex-hippie wanting to see the demise of society but unless we dismantle the entire military industrial complex the planet is going to do it for us and in a much more violent way then we ourselves could do it.

The problem I see is that there are a great number of people who are now willing to discuss it around coffee tables but wouldn't think of canceling that trip to Vegas in their private jet.

My friend, there is a way out but as long as people are told it's changing our light bulbs we won't see that way out.

Scott, I don't like saying the things I'm saying. It makes me very sad. But if I close my eyes again, like I started to in 1994, I will be doubly mad when I'm rummaging for roots and berries up in the Alps 5 years from now.

Peace-out,
LPB

Dear DK,

I am sure that it would be very helpful to him.

Kate's post says it all, both a great example to follow and an inspiration.

Breaking rules, exceeding the boundaries, going beyond artificial limitations, and doing what we are told by others is not possible.

Dear LPB,

My statement was made with my tongue firmly placed in cheek. I do believe that we need to make changes (in fact they have begun some time ago), but I don't believe in the "no-win" scenario. I have seen too much not to believe that whatever humankind can dream of can be done.

On the other hand, if it is all for naught...if whatever we do collectively does nothing but further our destruction, then I am not going to worry about it either. What will be will be.

Peace,
Scott.

D.K.,

Improvements to mass transportation in the areas of quality and convenience could make this a more desirable alternative to a solitary car ride.

During the work week, a lot of people make the 60 mile drive between Lincoln and Omaha twice a day. There have been discussions concerning a rail system between the two cities for a few years now. Folks are and will be slow to give up their personal, private vehicles that take them right to their front door. They need a good reason to do so, one that saves them money in exchange for the loss of time incurred.

I imagine there are many such "twin cities" where long, daily drives and traffic jams basically waste fuel that could be conserved for better purposes.

I realise that there are those that car-pool but the percentages are fairly low. If we don't move quickly on these matters we will be discussing trails for horse and buggy and bicycles in the future, not that that would be such a bad thing.

I am not an official spokesman for the rail car industry. I like driving my car so I know that I am part of the problem. What do you drive, D.K.?

DK

I agree. We can never give up no matter how dire the situation appears to be.

The snowball effect analogy is a powerful one and it leads me to believe that if I shift the way in which I talk about global warming just a hair, I may be able to impact the issue in a positive way.

Coming across as a pessimist is a sure way of causing those that may have wanted to listen, close their ears, minds and hearts to the very real nature of global warming.

I know I sound very much like a pessimist but I do believe in miracles which is what it is going to take. Miracles borne out through human awareness and action.

Thanks for your response.
LPB

Scott

I realized it was tongue and cheek yet it has been such an important issue through my entire adult life that I felt a need to respond in the manor I did. It's not that I'm proposing that we can not win ever, "no win" situation and I certainly agree that humankind can do anything it sets its mind to. My real concern is that so much of our advances, so much of what we have set our mind to have actually wreaked more havoc on the bio systems.

We have a problem with a certain organism and so we introduce another organism to solve the problem and before we know it we've thrown the whole local bio system out of whack. A bio system that has taken 1000s of years to developed dismantled in a few years. The list is endless of how we have risen to the occasion and developed pioneering type solutions only to look back and see those solutions adding to the over all problem so I won't make this another long entry.

We do have a chance. This time it is going to take a world wide, well thought out effort. It must include everyone. If the average human being is thinking that it will be the scientist or the politician or the business community that is going to fix it for us then we are doomed. This time it's going to take all of us.

You are a rare person Scott. You are the only one so far that I have heard discuss this topic that has the out look you state if it really is "the end". I have a really good life. I have a beautiful daughter, now 8, that asks me questions about everything. EVERYTHING. Our favorite past time is talking and walking. We just stroll and talk and this is my greatest joy these days. I have a wonderful supportive ex-wife and a girlfriend that is carrying our baby.

I don't have the time to fear and prepare and be dejected over the destruction I have witnessed my entire adult life. If anything I can search for a more positive, constructive, creative means to help bring together all of us in solving this problem.

Thanks
LPB

Dear LPB,

This is a bit off topic but I want to say that I hear you loud and clear when you say that "it's going to take all of us." I agree. Yet, even though it will take all of us to change the destructive course we have taken with regards to the environment, nuclear proliferation, extreme poverty, etc., in our world - the only person we can change is ourselves.

That really strikes me. We need EVERYONE to help in order to create change on a large enough scale. And yet, we cannot control or make any REAL change in anyone but ourselves.

So what can I do? Take a deep breath. Relax. And go about doing the best that I can in my daily life. For myself, at this time, that doesn't include much discussion or action regarding hydrogen technology, but I really applaud those who are making a difference in that way. Because what I have realized is that the reason we need EVERYONE is that we each have a different part to play. What we have forgotten is that we need all the players. Those of us waiting around for someone else to fix things will find the outcome to be as tragic as those of us who are caught up in our own self importance and have forgotten that it's not really about us.

Part of what I am trying to say is that I don't want to minimize (or overly glorify) anyone's efforts. In my view, there are no greater or lesser contributions and all steps taken with the intention to help are reason to celebrate.

Love, Kristin

Kristine

"All steps taken with the intention to help are reason to celebrate."

If us debaters on the climate issue could embrase this idea I believe the march toward solutions would be more direct. Thanks for that.

Thanks LPB,

Good points all. We are such a young species on this planet and have such huge potential for either growth or extinction. We are at a turning point (I believe) in our evolution...this is the big test: Are we going to destroy life on this planet or expand it? The choice really is in our hands.

Peace,
Scott.