No War

I have been thinking about war a lot lately.

Today, in November 2009, the United States is at war. I have written before about how we won World War II. I have always had an interest in seeing, reading and hearing all I could about the World wars. Maybe it just seemed such a fearsome prospect that I wanted to be sure I understood how it came about and came to an end if only to feel it could be avoided or to feel some sense that the world was a safe enough place for me to live in.

I'd love to hate war. I'd love to work to end it and prevent it in all circumstances. I have run the theoretical models in my head over and over again. Repressive regime or dictator wants to control and enslave all mankind, I do not wish to be controlled or enslaved along with millions of others so I must stand up and fight. War is thus made.

Sometimes I think the most reasonable end to war is overwhelming force. Back in the day we used incendiary and even nuclear weapons to make the point that Empires and Reichs were not going to dominate free people. To make the point stick required unhindered recourse.

How can I hate war but call for overwhelming violence? If there must be war shouldn't it be decided as swiftly as possible?

I really don't enjoy considering the plausibility of the theories that profiteers arrange for wars to be able to buy up wealth when prices are low or panicked and thereby own more of the world after the prices recover. What a cold rationality.

Then again, we have had a population crises before and I think a philosopher like Nietzsche would applaud convenient solutions such as global conflict to reduce the exponential growth.

My very religious mother likes to say "God has plagues, wars, famines and thirst to handle population growth, don't worry about it". That sounds like the least-managed outcome I can envision.

Dr. Norman Borlaug died this year. He helped forestall what might have been a major 20th century disaster by encouraging the use of new high yield crops and by lobbying for policy changes in areas of high growth in population such as India and Pakistan. He warned that while the grain production might now be ahead of the population growth, the limit would be reached again as the population grows beyond the ability of science to produce higher yields while at the same time arable land shrinks because so many more people need to live and be housed.

Many religious cultures would try to out grow their counterparts by overbreeding to the point of senselessness watching infrastructure fail to keep up. Attitudes like that are deeply detrimental to the future of life on earth. If the capacity of the planet is greater than the current population, we should grow cautiously and sensibly. Now it seems there is a war to flood the world with ones own culture and ethnicity.

In a contest such as this, those who limit their reproductive rate risk being overwhelmed by the others. It reverses the logic of cautious growth. This push to maintain relevance in exponentiating throngs will bring conflict over finite land and water resources.

I think the irrationality of religious belief often becomes the core cause of war. It is often religious people who aspire to have as many children as possible. This is also usually much more than just a personal hope, it is thought to be a moral duty to God.

An American Physicist and Nobel Laureate said:

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg

What is the solution to be? Is the prescription really war, famine, flood and pestilence?

Perhaps the earth can sustain more people that I might think. Maybe a sentient culture needs many people to survive at all. Still, where ever the limit, there is one and I think the problem is not being addressed. Violent evil dictators have tried their solutions. I think there is something better.

Can we live without war? I would like to think so, though my common sense sees a different picture.

-sumwun

A Broken IT Culture that is Doomed to Fail

I predict that the concept of disabling the usefulness of a computer by not allowing users to install software will become a failed IT policy.

The policy was born of Microsoft Windows security deficiencies. Instead of demanding a properly developed and secured operating system, IT managers simply find it easier to essentially disable and handicap Windows users to help resist virus vulnerability and security flaws that are built into Windows by poor design.

The qualifier is that no machine is invulnerable, but you don't put a horse down before it gets sick. Disallowing installation of software crimps off the innovation and flexibility blood supply of the user and I will show, could even lead to physical injury.

Based on many real world scenarios that have come to my attention, here is short story:

Carla wants a portable computer. It would give her new capabilities as a field rep for her company like being able to access office documents and spreadsheets, maps, contracts, pdf field manuals and up-to-date weather info etc. Also very important to her well being, it would allow her some personal access to music, email, instant messaging and entertainment sources while she is on the road. She has not been issued a computer to do her job, but having access to one would make her more capable and efficient. She plans to buy her own laptop, but mentions her plan to her boss.

The Boss promptly sees the benefit of her vision and assures her he would gladly supply the laptop.

One morning she heads into the main office and voila, there it is:



A new laptop with Windows XP installed!! Woohoo! (because Vista is completely useless, but passes the "really pretty" test, sure)

[*Note: For the purpose of my blog I photographed a Dell running Debian/ Gnome because I don't have any crappy Windows machines in my life to even take a picture of.]

Aside: The new Vista commercials should be more realistic..."WOW"..at first then "WTF...???" and "SHIT!"...soon after.

Now she can fulfill her vision of having the benefits she sought. So she immediately seeks to install some widget software to get weather, Google Earth for her work real estate and mapping needs, Apple's iTunes for her iPod and store account to get her favorite music, movies and TV shows etc. She also likes to download her favorite I/M clients and OTR encryption tools (for security!).

Well, she can't install any of that, and the IT (idiotic trance) department is too mortified by Windows' reputed bad security and vulnerability to malware to give her the magic "Admin access" (which on any other machine is "regular user trying to do ANYTHING useful with a computer" access).

What can she do? Of course she could drag around 2 laptops, one for work and one for herself!





That's only 10-20 pounds of machine, carrying case and accessories. She could actually physically injure herself carrying two computers around. It's a ridiculous notion.

No way! That is not a solution!!

Oh I know, she will drive all the way to the home office every single time she even wants to evaluate any new software (or even run an update script for her third-party apps) and plead with a dense Microsoftie IT manager to please just allow her to do her job and have what she needs on the road.



All that driving back for every stupid thing makes Windows machines bad for global warming. Never mind the cost to the environment of the manufacture of a useless device. Now we need 2 machines made for each person because of inherent software flaws and the obtuse policies used to work around them!?

Forget it!

What will she do instead? Buy ONE machine that does everything she could possibly need including run Office software and if absolutely needed, emulate that one stupid app made only for Windows by idiots. And she will have a machine she can actually use, upon which she can install anything and not fear a highly unlikely virus and it will meet all her business and personal requirements with ease. Then she'll only need to carry around just that one lightweight brilliant computer:



The idea that effectively disabling a computer from being used is a "good security model" will utterly fail. This will benefit Apple or Linux or any other platform with a clue. Withholding Administrator Access from a user on their own machine is a failed IT policy which is a blatant direct descendant of Microsoft software flaws. It is a losing proposition in the long run, where better computers with superior operating systems are clearly a preferable option.

=sw

Why Drilling is Not the Answer

There is no doubt that I would board a yacht if a pretty brunette promised me there would be offshore drilling.

Our nation seems to be stuck in a similar trance. Even Democrats are approving more drilling.

Well over a decade ago, Carl Sagan warned that the climate consequences of human caused emissions would be vehemently denied, simply because the changes required would be so great.

The last thing we need to do is drill for more oil.



If we all had electric cars, they would emit less carbon dioxide even if we charged them on coal fired power. Also the coal is domestic not shipped from foreign sources often with destabilizing influence. Even this is a "step one", not a long term solution.

Solar Thermal power can spin turbines in the day and even store heat in molten salt at night. We could use Solar generated electricity to electrolyze and compress hydrogen for storage.



Bio fuels can be made from plants other than corn that can produce more alcohol per acre, more harvests per year and not compete for food growing lands. Swamp reeds like cat-tails have such benefits.



Wind power can be increased and a portion of it used to make and compress Hydrogen.

Even T.Boone Pickens makes a great point about switching to domestic natural gas. Driving a Honda Civic GX (Compressed Natural Gas model) is both cheaper (in terms of fuel costs) and emits far less CO2 than any hybrid. It is a cleaner way to use domestically sourced fossil fuels that is available now. That is a far better choice than finding more oil. Eventually, we'll want to get out of the fossil fuel business.

We could then clean the atmosphere using new carbon capture technology and renewable energy powered methods to store it in solids like sodium carbonate. There is already too much CO2 for us to contend with that we will not be able to avoid future serious impacts such as extreme weather, dust bowl droughts, sea level rise, cold snaps in places not adapted to them etc.

We don't need cheap oil now. We need to get off the oil! We need to invest in and develop what is at hand and already apparent and available.

Sometimes the debate in this country seems to legitimize the needs of those who would rape the planet and trod the less fortunate under their feet to enhance their own wealth before doing what is best for the ecosystem we all share and upon which we all rely. Such corruption is growing in big businesses of all kinds, though particularly in the energy sector.

I will vote for the candidate that supports renewable energy and rejects sacrificing the biosphere for the profits of a few.

=sw

Seeing The Forest for the Green

As the "green" movement hype pushes to fever pitch, I have observed some wonderful human behavior that mocks rational thinking and demotes reason to a second class citizen.

I am a centrist in a way. Some of my convictions may seem to fall far from the middle to one side or the other, though I make my own platform based on the best information I can get combined with my own values and perspective.

I am often stunned by the views on the political right surrounding global warming. I also think some of their claims about hype are entirely valid, though they do not remove the reality we are facing.

First, what stuns me. Sometimes I hear an attitude of "counter arguing" global warming claims. A common one is "the sun is actually warming up, see how all the other planets are warming". This is usually said as if the conclusion can then be "see? we don't have to do anything...I can continue to live in a self-centric bubble and not care what happens to other people...everyone else is living like I do and anyway, Jesus will end the world long before anything we can do."

This thought pattern is eminently debunk-able and really beyond rational thinking. The Sun is naturally the most important source of warmth for the planets. This does not negate the solid "greenhouse effect" science of Carbon Dioxide, Methane and other molecules. If Solar warming is increasing (which is still the subject of some debate among scientists) then this only serves to intensify the greenhouse effect. The warming itself IS cause by the Sun (excluding geothermal warming), and the human greenhouse gas impact is what makes that a serious problem for climate change. Even without an increase in Solar warming levels, the greenhouse effect would continually warm our planet by trapping the more and more heat over time. Additional Solar warming only exacerbates the green house effect. It doesn't excuse mankind.




Therefore, We still have a problem to which we largely contributed.

Naturally, the ability of the atmosphere to keep heat is a wonderful thing at certain levels. This helps us make it through nights and winters. The problem is the runaway increase in temperatures caused by the presence of greenhouse gases in too much abundance. Our portion of that only adds to what the Earth naturally emits from volcanoes, fires or decomposing vegetation. The Earth also has natural sinks for CO2 like plant growth or the sea. By absorbing so many carbon molecules, The sea maybe be becoming more acidic than we'd like it to be. A process that will eventually end the life of some species.

Clearly warming is happening. Climate change is happening. Sea level rise is happening. Though it may seem it happens more slowly than we felt it might, given the urgency put forward by Al Gore, we have to remember that the warming can be additive and even exponential.

Now to the Conservative criticism that the Left is full of hype.

Conservatives do have a point when left wing celebrities pay lip service to the global warming and sea level rise problems while flying around the world, driving SUV's and purchasing beach front property that surely will be underwater soon if they keep living that way. I speak as if my smaller carbon foot print is not part of the problem. It all adds up.

I think this "hypocrisy" argument holds water, but that does not correct the problem of global warming from human emissions.

I have replaced all but one bulb (I kept the dimmer light) in my place with compact fluorescent bulbs:



This makes me feel great, but look at this:

My estimated carbon footprint:

Electrical use related emissions = 2 tons/year
Automotive related emissions = 8 tons/year
Natural Gas emissions = 2 tons/year





My compact fluorescent bulbs MIGHT reduce my electrical usage at home by maybe .4 tons per year.

Including Natural Gas, my Car and Electricity I am at about 12 tons/year. I install a bunch of bulbs and I am at 11.6 tons. Have I gone green? Perhaps a tiny bit.

Even so, is the CF bulb over hyped? It does cost greenhouse emissions just to manufacture and ship these bulbs. They can be heavier than the old bulbs, but they draw a lot less power and last longer. In the end, the mass purchase of these bulbs could reduce the need to manufacture the old kind, thereby not netting much increase on the "making and shipping" side of things. They do use less power and that means lower CO2 and mercury emissions (from coal fired power plants). Let's overlook the mercury they contain themselves. If all light bulbs became fluorescents the carbon impact of lighting would be reduced. But personally feeling much greener for having done it, is a bit over-hyped. It still made sense to do it.

This can all be counteracted by the dramatic growth of population in other countries. We are all in the same biosphere, so their emissions play a zero sum game with ours. If all the millions of incandescent light bulbs not sold to me get sold to the third world because the incandescent bulbs are cheaper...what have I really done for the environment?

Simply transferring American over-consumption to other nations does not reduce emissions at all.

Apparently, we should all be vegan monks who live in silent darkness and walk everywhere.

It must be tough to an animal lover when saving the world means not only refusing to eat the cows, but culling all the cattle as well.

Sometimes you can get the impression that people think it's always other people's over-consumption that is the cause of their own inconvenience. Some act as if it is other people's over-breeding, other people's showers that are too long or thermostats that are too high. If all the poorer people could just live a more meager and lowly existence, then the jet-setting, fine dining life of luxury could continue, uninterrupted, for those who have it.

Tree planting is another common myth-laden issue. Trees will mostly return their CO2 to the atmosphere when they eventually rot and burn. They are at best a temporary sink to buy time. Even if they stay as beams in a house, they will be prepped and treated with greenhouse gas emitting processes and they have to be shipped from where they grew to where they are used. Trees are nice, they are not "THE" answer.

Ultimately, it will take a lot of changes. Maybe the bulbs are in the right spirit and other similar reductions can help. All of my effort, even if I convinced 150,000 friends, will of course be wiped out on Super Bowl Sunday. Even though they try to reduce emissions, it is overshadowed by the huge cost in greenhouse emissions holding the event generates. I don't think we should cancel all that is fun, though real solutions that have a meaningful impact are yet to arrive.

=sw