Greenpunk.net

Archive for August, 2009

In the post-fossil-fuels era, the ongoing need for energy will make people not just find ways to use less of it but also to use every possible new way of producing it in a sane manner. I could imagine an urban landscape in a GreenPunk world dotted with thousands of these little low-output wind turbines like the one pictured which sits on top of a building in Hong Kong, and perhaps thousands or millions of solar collectors. Why do things like streetlights need to pull power from a coal-fire-powered electrical grid? They don’t, and eventually they won’t.

Being “off the grid” is an idea that may still be associated fairly strongly with a paranoid survivalist mentality, but in the future it will be a matter of practicality and common sense for more people to be be able to get at least some of their energy on-site. It will make undeniable sense to democratize energy and break the backs of Big Oil, Big Coal and Big Everything Else. The very concept of the grid will need to change to accommodate more, yet smaller,  sources of power and smaller networks of people sharing energy. In a GreenPunk future, people will laugh at the notion of a giant utility company dictating what energy costs and where it comes from. They won’t even believe that we tolerated as long as we did. The relationship will be reversed, and people who want to be in the business of providing energy will need to offer what people will demand.

Individually hand-crafted out of scrap wire, any child would be proud to own these miniature soldiers.

They’re far better than the green, vat-molded plastic pieces you get in the drug store.

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“Finding so much plastic there was shocking,” said Goldstein. “How could there be this much plastic floating in a random patch of ocean–a thousand miles from land?”

It’s big. Really big. Twice the size of Texas. Like a malevolent jellyfish, it drifts with the currents, plastic debris entrapping and strangling marine life, their carcasses adding to its mass. It’s slowly rotting. Some of it biodegrades in the sunlight, becoming small enough for animals to eat. It disrupts their hormones. They can’t reproduce. They become ill. They die.

We did this. What will we do now?

We could remove it. Recycle it. Make amends. Do better.

Will we?

Maybe they will. Maybe we can help them.

A city powered by solar cells and wind turbines, where 80% of the water is recycled. A city planned to be green. That’s Masdar, an urban environment being built in the middle of the Arabian desert, close to the Abu Dhabi emirate. The 2.3 square miles city combines traditional Arabian architecture, Italian piazzas and uses the micro-climate to both extract energy and keep the streets at comfortable temperatures. It’ll support up to 50,000 people and will be focused on technology industries and education. Masdar will be completed in 2016.

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She was born. And she lived. She was aware of that much. But she had lost all concept of The Light, save the gene-seated memory — a rare flicker in the dark, as fleeting as a dream — of its warming touch, its shattering focus. Her warmth came not from the Light. Her warmth was that of untold bodies pressed upon each other — a thousand-fold intimate heat robbed of its intimacy by a wire cage, so small she could not turn around. Her warmth was that of her own fetid shit, piled to paste to her bony knees. Her warmth was suffocation. How long had she been in this Dark? She didn’t know. She knew time only by its cruel effect. Her legs could no longer support her weight. The muscles long ago atrophied; and she slumped in defecation. Sometimes, she haphazardly measured the days, even the weeks, by the Needles. Mercy of Light and Earth and Life. The Needles. The piercing pain, the slow, agonizing introduction of the burning sap that made her fat. She did not eat. But she was fed. Something, like a snake, pierced her belly, and sustenance — water, food — was pumped through it.

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It was day four of the siege at the McSalination plant, and the Greenpunks were still slinging biodegradeable flash drives over the walls and shouting slogans.
Greaves grabbed Terry. “We need to break this siege,” he said. “We’re running out of water.”
“This is a desalination plant.”
Greaves shook his head. “No power for the process. PepsiCo stopped manufacturing the rechargeable batteries to up the profit margin and we’re running low. So now we only got salt water.” He shook his head. “We’re hitting them tonight. When their solar’s weak. According to the marketeers specs we’ve got enough juice to power the rifles for one big push.”
Terry would have objected but he’d reread his contract at the beginning of the siege. He’d known this would happen.

CONTINUE READING AT THE DAILY CABAL

IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

By William Saunders

http://www.greenpunk.org

((c) William Saunders, reprinted with permission.

Part 1

Ira checked the weather as he walked toward his closet. Cloudy, wind from the west at 15 kilometers per hour with rain probable in the afternoon. He’d have to wear his turbines today. Dressing had certainly gotten more complicated because of global warming.

As the long coat settled over his shoulders, Ira hooked the power leads into his IPAD. The coat was heavy, and more constricting than Ira liked. It was made of multiple layers, each embedded with micro-magnets connected by a web of monofilament wire. As the magnets brushed past each other they created a minuscule electric charge. Individually, the charges were less powerful than static cling. But together, the thousands of magnets continuously brushing past each other created enough energy to keep his IPAD at full charge. And if he was tasered, the web of wires would diffuse the shock. His ‘PAD might fry from the surge, but that was a sacrifice Ira was willing to make. He’d been tasered before, and not much enjoyed the experience.

Stepping outside, Ira again marveled at the slight spring of the recycled tire sidewalk. He knew the experts claimed you couldn’t tell the difference, but Ira had grown up in a neighborhood where concrete sidewalks were the norm, and swore he could feel the bounce.

The smell of french fries told Ira he’d only been just in time. Or that the wind was out of the east. The squeal of brakes as the bus turned the corner proved the former. “That’s some great detective work there, Lou,” Ira thought to himself. “If you ever make captain, your nameplate will have to read ‘Obvious’”. The bus’ meter beeped as it made Bluetooth contact with Ira’s IPAD and deducted the fare from his account. As Ira moved to his seat, he dug the ‘PAD out of his pocket, activated the PDA, and began to organize his day. He had 20 minutes before the bus reached the EPA office, and Ira liked to hit the ground running.

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Apparently, I fear plastic bags more than murder itself.

Last night I dreamed that I, along with two other university buddies, committed a murder. The three of us were older now, no longer kids, each of us entering middle age with fully adult lives, each of us on our own forking paths of life. They resembled no one I know in real life, and even I did not really resemble myself. Crap, I might have even been straight in the dream, but I can’t recall very well. Yet somehow, a drunken evening and a foolish prank in a seedy corner of the city caused us to suffocate a transient stranger at a bar. It reeks of Hitchcock’s “Rope,” I know, but bear with me. It wasn’t quite like that.

You see, the details of the dream were all wrong. The swampy mansions of this place were more New Orleans and less Dickensian London. There’s no wide stretches of marshes cutting through the streets of London. I know that, and you know that. The Irish newsagent, wearing modern 21st century clothes at the corner belonged in present Dublin and not here. They sold butane lighters, as well as Snickers candy bars. The streets were filled with carriages drawn by horses, as well as the first few models of Ford motor cars. I might have even spotted a cell phone out of the corner of my eye. And yet, I knew we were in Dickens’ era, because the serial versions of his novels, like “Oliver Twist,”  were widely available in the street and in the newspapers. We were in the 19th century, yet there were objects, people, and language out of time, Haunting my college friends and their poor choices in the back of a urine-stained bar.

Objects out of time were haunting me.

After we committed the murder, my two college buddies and I escaped with the body into a rougher part of town, dodging curious glances, and we hid in buildings, sought shelter in gas-lit alleys. We eventually ducked into buildings that oddly resembled a Chicago Greystone (again, completely out of place in the world of Dickens). My two friends did not fare well. You see, at some point, the police caught up with them, and they were arrested.  I escaped with the body, which I stuffed into a black plastic bag. I knew that I had the upper hand, because a burlap or linen sack would smell, would stain, would lead the authorities to find me. But a plastic bag, well, we all know nothing quite escapes the man-made membrane of a plastic bag. I was the cleverest murderer.

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Climate Engineering is an emerging science that hasn’t generated as much personal excitement and optimism since I was a kid during NASA’s post-Apollo days. Imagine: technology that can not only mitigate but the reverse the effects of global warming. Long term? My naive but reasonable optimism is that climate engineering can lead us to eventually terraform other worlds, such as Mars. Sustainable life in an inhospitable environment — the ultimate green technology.

But it’s also a nascent science that, not unlike stem cell research, may fall prey to politics and ideology. “The Horrors of Climate Engineering,” an article in August 23, 2009 NY Times, portends what the technology may face.

The comedian’s name escapes me, but his droll quip could be summarized thusly: “There’s something bigger than my SUV out there responsible for global warming — it’s called the SUN.”

Guess you had to be there. But his snark sums up the conservative/libertarian view of climate change (née global warming) — anthropogenic (man-based) climate change is bullshit. GHG (greenhouse gas) contribution is bullshit. Global temperatures have been on the decline since 1998. Episodic climate change such as the Maunder Minimum are ‘inconvenient truths’ for anthropogenic global warming advocates. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt when Newsweek declared we had a global COOLING crisis back in the 1970s.

On the other side is a veritable avalanche of evidence that mankind is the progenitor of measurable, palpable and deadly climate change. The daily news is replete with corporate malfeasance in terms of environmental damage. And even if GHG impact on the climate is minimal, reducing dependence on oil makes sense on a domestic policy and national security level.

Climate engineering is agnostic. It’s not Democrat or Republican. It’s not red or blue. But it’s a science that could be derailed by ideology. Deniers would see no reason to fund a technology to remove C02 from the atmosphere; Believers would see it as a means for society to continue their C02 emitting binge, unimpeded.

The cause of global warming is debatable; the effects are not. Pushing climate engineering to the side for ideological reasons is misguided.

GlenH says:

“Given Paolo Bacigalupi’s views on the likelihood of a technological fix for future ills(see his blog and scroll down to find the link to an EcoGeek essay) and his pervasive pessimism I highly doubt that his forthcoming novel would fit into your GreenPunk movement.”

I’ve not identified it as such. A blogger did, right?

For the purposes of discussion, I believe that your definition of a “technological fix” and my definition of such may be different. Reclamation and re-purposing of existing technological detritus on a micro-scale (individual, homestead, village, city) rather than a macro-scale (nation, globe) is what I’m envisioning, whereas I think (and I may be putting words into your mouth) that what you’re imagining-and feeling rightly skeptical about-are things like alternative fuels and solar power that will allow us to continue what we currently conceive of as modern civilization. On this count, I believe that you and I are in agreement, because I don’t really think that this is ultimately going to happen. Life will continue, and it will be due to individual tinkerers and thinkers that some of us survive and discover a new way of life-Maybe even a better one. This is the optimism that I imagine.

Is Paolo Bacigalupi GreenPunk? I really don’t know. I’m not especially interested in labeling him. He’s a brilliant writer, for sure. People are more than encouraged to interpret and react to the GreenPunk concept in the way that makes sense to them: claim it, reject it, ignore it.  I encourage you, Paolo, and everyone else to do so. Consider GreenPunk a jumping-off point for both a dialogue about “movements” and also the environmental issues this one raises, rather than an end to itself.

Thanks for your comments.