Apparently yesterday was the twentieth anniversary of when the first climate scientist raised the alarm about global warming.

 

He wrote a speech to mark the occassion.  http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf

 

I think that a great picture to indicate the scope of the problem with one of it's scary ramifications is right here: http://cache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/iowa_06_17/iowa9.jpg

 

By the way, I've designed a climate change t-shirt and a peak oil t-shirt.  The climate change one relates to the aforementioned scientist's warning that we need to get CO2 down to 350 ppm.  The peak oil one is just a fun one (a little on the demented side) that speaks to the more apocoliptic view of our oil situation.

 

Been a lot of talk about food in the first half of 2008.  I'm seeing a disturbing trend building.

 

Step 1: Oil price goes through the roof.

Step 2a: People who use oil to heat their homes find it too expensive, so they switch to natural gas.

Step 2b: Tar sands development increases a lot and natural gas is a major component in the process to extract the oil from the tar sands.

Step 3: Due to above, natural gas prices increase and natural gas (non-renewable) is used up faster.

 

One of the ingredients in making nitrogen fertilizer is natural gas, so if the price of natural gas goes up, so does the price of fertilizer.  If natural gas becomes scarce, so does fertilizer.  The price will further be raised by the higher cost of transporting it everywhere.  I'm not sure what percentage of all fertilizer is the nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas, but I think it's fairly large.

 

So, the point is, I think that food prices are just starting to go up. 

So oil went up 8% on Friday.  That's a lot, especially for a single day.  But how much has it been going up percentage-wise for the last few years.  I fiddled with a quick spreadsheet, going from Sept 2003 to June 2008.  Oil was trading at around $30 during Corbin's birth and today it's above $130, so I used those two numbers.

 

If you start with $30, and compound it monthly at 2.6% you will arrive at just under $130 in June of 2008.  If you just compound $30 annually from 2003 to 2008 you get a percentage of 34%.  Now obviously the oil prices don't follow a nice happy compound interest type path, but I just wanted to experiment with the numbers.

 

Now that we have the percentages, let's continue it forward.

 

For the monthly scenario, Oil hits $200 in November 2009.  It hits $500 four years later in November of 2012, and hits $1000 in February of 2015.  The annual calculation is similar.

 

One one hand, I doubt it would get that high as once it gets too high, the demand would drop off.  On the other hand, as soon as people realize that oil is a dwindling resource, countires are going to start hoarding.  Demand dropping off would likely be the result of a collapsing US economy.  Middle east nations are already showing signs of hoarding.  Saudia Arabia hasn't increased productions despite being asked multiple times by Bush and their king mentioned a month or so ago something about leaving some of their reserves in the ground for their grandchildren.

 

Compounding the percentages makes the rise exponential and who knows if that is the case, but with a rise of $10 in one day, it appears the fluctuations are getting much bigger.  The falling US dollar could be some of the cause of that.  Whatever the cause, the US is in for a rough ride the next few years if oil prices keep going the way they are.  I feel sorry for the next US president.

 

The price of oil rose $10.41 today.  Over ten dollars in just one day.  Some analysts are predicting it could hit $150 this summer, I think we'll be luck if it doesn't pass that by the end of June.  No doubt there will be a bit of a sell off next week... hope hope hope.

 

I wonder how high it will get before the US economy shuts down.

 

I think I'll fill up my tank today.

Just another article that indicates that we're probably all screwed.

 

 

I'm such an optimist aren't I?

 

Just think about the 'tens of degrees' comment.

Looks like my family is going to be receiving $400 from the government ($100 per person).  The government hopes that we will spend this money on products that will help in the war against climate change.

 

 

Let's see, will $400 make much of a dent in the 10K+ price tag to retrofit my house for geothermal heating and cooling?  Nope.

Will it make much of a dent in the cost of an electric motorcycle or car?  Nope.

Will it buy a bunch of CFLs?  Sure.

Will it do anything to help save the planet?  Doubtful.

 

Still, at least the BC government is going in the right direction, albeit at a snails pace compared to what is needed.

 

A particularly pessimistic climate change scientist wrote that most of what we're doing these days is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

 

I really do think we can beat this, but it's going to take more than $100 per person.  Geothermal heating and cooling is on my list of house upgrades as soon as we can afford it.  Obviously I don't expect the goverment to pay for it all... we're all going to be responsible for the financial cost of the transistion to non-fossil fuels.  I just wish the goverment would start slapping regulations on new construction, as well as saying "You all have X years to retrofit your homes.  After that we're shutting Teresan down."

Bonnie goes back to work tomorrow.  I'm going to be cutting my working hours to 1 1/2 days a week with the rest of the time taking care of the kids.  Tomorrow is my first day with Evan all day long and also driving Corbin to his various activities.  It's going to be quite a change.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since my Earth day post.  I wonder two things:

A: How many people read the post - I think I have a few family/friends that are regulars, but not sure how many that is.

B: How many of those that read the post, spent the time to download and read the report.

 

I'm guessing it's a small number.

 

Found an article in the LA Times that is a bit of a shorter read:  http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,2392815.story

 

It's hard to reconcile the economic benifits of our lives with what needs to be done.  Especially here in Western Canada.  In the 9 years that Littley Computer Services has been active, my biggest source of income has been a forestry company who's job it is to cut down all those happy CO2 absorbing trees.  Of my friends/family who might read this, I can think of one who works for the oil/gas industry, another builds big trucks, and another's job is driving big trucks.  If our society is to seriously fight this battle, all of these economic activities would have to come to an abrupt halt.

 

And that doesn't begin to address all of the lifestyle changes we're going to have to endure.  Not to mention getting everyone enough to eat and keeping warm in the winter minus the greenhouse gasses.

 

By the way, for those that haven't read the report, the main fear is that soon processes on the Earth itself will make it a moot point how much C02 we're pumping into the air - we'd be screwed anyway.  The arctic melting is one of those processes.  If it's ice, it reflects sunlight back into space.  If it's water, it abosrbs the sunlight and further warms up the ocean.  Between 2005 and 2007, the ice in the summer months was reduced by around 22% an order of magnitude faster than anyone thought.  Another scary one is the permafrost melting in the north which releases methane (a lot worse than CO2).

 

Anyway gotta get back to work...  I'm sure there will be more ranting later. :)

Interesting article...  don't worry, it's not a doom and gloom article, more of a socialology article.

 

My brother commented that I need to stop visiting doom and gloom web sites.

 

I guess I try to follow the "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst" attitude.  Humanity is facing some serious problems in the next bunch of decades.  I have no doubt that we're up to the challenge of solving them, but in order to do so, we need to get our heads out of the sand and realize just how bad it could get.

 

And well, it's kind of fascinating in a morbid kind of way.  It's like slowing to view the carnage of a car accident, or watching a very slow train wreck.  The fact that we're all on the train in question is besides the point.  It's still fascinating.

 

Oil reached $121.57 a barrel today. :)

Well, yesterday was Earth day so I did a little browsing about climate change.  I haven't heard too much about the debate about global warming, etc in a while.  I think the energy that Al Gore's movie generated is starting to abate a bit especially with the US economy taking up a lot of the news these days.  So anyway, I came across this site:

 

 

There is a 101 page report that you can download.  They require you to give them your email address, which is kind of annoying.  I have a 'spam catcher' email address I rarely check so I used that one.  If you want, email me and I'll send you the report.

 

Though if you don't want to be depressed and stay in blissful ignorance, I'd recommend not reading the report.  It paints a rather ugly picture of where we are headed.

 

I guess it all comes down to probabilities.  These guys may be wrong.  The scientists may be overestimating the impact of Humanity on the atmosphere.  On the other hand, they may be right and we are living in the worst case scenario.  Each person needs to determine for themselves what the probability is that their actions are contributing to the possibility of the 'worst case' coming about.  For what exactly the worst case is, I'll let you read the report.

 

Let's say that you doubt what they are saying and that you think the chances of the ugly future are only 1%.  At that point you have to weigh the 1% against the magnitude of the ugly future described.  For example, let's say you really like chocolate.  I mean really, really like chocolate.  You are then given 100 chocolate bars and told that if you eat one, one other will be added keeping the total at 100.  No other chocolate is available to you for the rest of your life.  However, one of the initial 100 is poison and will kill you dead in a most painful manner.  Would you eat a chocolate bar or would you go cold turkey?  There's only a 1% chance that it will kill you.  The additional difficulty is that you see the chocolate there every day, always tempting you.

 

Probably a better analogy to our society would be an alchololic with 100 bottles of beer.

 

Now what if that 1% chance of a poisonous chocloate bar didn't kill you, but somehow killed your kids, grandkids, etc.  Likely people living today will be able to watch the slow train wreck happening and probably suffer some, but it's our descendants who will bear the brunt of the hardship, especially in the worst case scenario.

Looks like our previous house is for sale.

 

 

They're asking $489,000 and it looks like they've split my old office into two bedrooms.

 

Back in 2001, we purchased that house for $159,000.  How times have changed...

Everything you didn't want to know about oil and would have probably been afraid to ask...

 

 

I have no idea if his projections are accurate or not.  I'm hoping not.  Could get ugly really fast.  I never really considered the possibility that oil could run out in my lifetime.

 

And I never really understood how much our food supply depends on oil.

I've got an investment account with the Royal Bank.  I checked it today and there is a section on the home page that tracks the major indexes, the Canadian dollar, gold, oil, etc.

 

I think they're having a glitch.  It's saying at this point that the price of oil has jumed $180.20 to $281.18 per barrel.  I checked cnn money and it reports a normal price of about $105.  Me thinks that RBC is having issues with their computer system.

Even took his first couple of steps on his own today!  Woo hoo!

Well, gas hit $1.269 a litre.  I don't think it's gotten that high before.  My Integra was running on fumes so I had to fill up yesterday.  I don't think I've ever put over fifty dollars worth of gas into the car at once before.  Ouch.

 

Still, I can't help thinking of a B.T.O. song...

 

Every once in a while Bonnie gets want ads in the mail for various pharmacy positions around the province.  We got one in the mail today that sounded awfully nice.

 

People's Pharmacy - Downtown Victoria

$50/hour starting wage

RSP Package

Full Benefits

No weekends or evening shifts

Only three 12 hour shifts per week.

 

Admittedly they are long days, but having to work only three days a week would be nice.  4 day weekends have a certain appeal, don't they?  Nice wage too.

2007 was quite a year.  Time for a quick 'year in review'.

 

The big event was of course the birth of Evan.  He was born after a short labour, which I was very thankful for considering the grueling labour Bonnie had to endure for Corbin.  Evan's a healthy happy baby and loves to give out lots of smiles and giggles.  He's big.  Really big.  The last time he was weighed, he was off the chart and the time before that he was in the 97% percentile for babies his age.  He's fits quite nicely into clothing that says 18M on the label (he's 7 months old right now).  Another thing that everyone has commented about is that he looks a lot like me.  Poor kid. 

 

Corbin was diagnosed with a type of autism.  The more I read up on autism and the more I observe Corbin, the more I think that I may have had some autisitic tendancies when I was a kid.  I don't think I would have been diagnosed with it, but more of a leaning in that direction.  I turned out more or less ok, so that gives me confidence that Corbin will be just fine.  And well, hopefully his intelligence will help him along the way.  One of his behavioral consultants mentioned a few weeks ago that she thought he was reading at a grade 5 level.

 

Bonnie has been enjoying maternity leave.  I marvel at her endurance taking care of two kids, especially since she's been kind enough to handle most of the nighttime duties with Evan.  She's still as wonderful and beautiful as ever.  I can't even begin to express how thankful I am that she is a part of my life.

 

Both of my brothers have been through chinese-curse type interesting times.  One seperated from his wife of over 25 years.  The other found out he had a daughter, only to find out a couple months later that he didn't have a daughter when the paternity test came back negative.  I was really glad that both of them were able to make it Castlegar for Christmas this year.

 

Mom's doing good.  She's really enjoying the visits from the grand-kids.

 

Bonnie and I were honoured to be the 'best-people' at Clayton's wedding last fall.  Clayton and Susannah make a great couple.  I don't look half-bad in a kilt.

 

Plans for 2008?  Nothing really set in stone.  I've been feeling all mid-life-crisisy lately.  Sometimes, despite all of the challenges we've been facing, I think I've become too comfortable in my life.  I'm starting to feel that if I don't start to really work hard to push myself forward, I'll just languish in my comfort zone.  Don't get me wrong, I'm quite happy with the life I have.  The problem is that because we are so comfortable, it's easy to get lazy.  It's hard to really get motivated to do something because there really isn't a need to get motivated.  If we remained at status quo we'd be just fine.  But I don't want to look back at my life and see just the status quo.  I want to look back and see a life of challenges, achievements, and doing everything possible to make the world a better place.

 

It's really all about power over oneself.  Everyone has the typical new years resolutions but if you break them all done, the core is a desire for more will power.  That is going to be my new years resoultion this year; increase my will power.  I think that if you work on the core will power issue, then all of the other desires will be much easier to achieve.

 

A 16 year old girl was strangled to death in Ontario last night.  The killer was her father and it appears the reason she was killed had to do with her refusal to wear a hijab (Islamic headscarf).  I've been reading a bunch of the comments in the various news feeds and the debate seems to be about where the motivation of this despicable act came from.  Was it because he was Muslim?  Was it more due to his culture and not actually the Muslim faith?  (<sarcasm>After all, Islam is a religion of peace.</sarcasm>)  Or was it simply because this guy's an asshole and has nothing to do with either the religion or the culture?  In other words, an isolated event not related to the larger community.

 

Well, obviously he was an asshole.  But I think that's only a piece of the puzzle.  The girl's brother was also arrested and charged with obstructing police, so obviously there were some larger family dynamics involved.  The question is how much of it was due to the Islamic religion and how much of it was due to the culture around the religion?  Is there really a difference? 

 

I'm sure if you looked in the Qur'an, you could find a justification for this murder.  You could probably also find a condemnation for it.  Many of the people posting comments said that this has nothing to do with Islam, but just the 'culture' of the family.  So, should you criticise the culture or the religion for inspiring this?

 

I think that it's a mix of both.  The culture of female subservience and honour killings is largely to blame, but it's a culture that is intermixed with Islam.  Sure, many members of the Islamic faith are perfectly sane and non-violent, but the ones that are violent are still justifying their violence with the Islamic faith.  So how do the peaceful Muslim's reconcile this? 

 

They say that Islam is a religion of peace and the violent acts are being carried out by 'extremists', who don't really follow Islam.  I think they are deluding themselves.

 

But then, deluding oneself is a prerequisite for any theistic religion, isn't it?

 

The crux of the matter is that you've got this holy book, and it has 'laws' in it that supposedly come from a deity.  These laws are violent to the extreme and they can be used as an excuse to do evil acts in the name of holy morality.  The culture is then built around this book.  Sometimes the culture is benevolent, sometimes not.  When it's benevolent it is because the violent bits of the holy book are largely ignored (such as numerous passages in the Old Testament).  But that doesn't mean that someone might take a fresh look at the holy book, see the violent bits and say 'Hey, God wants us to behave this way, why aren't we?'

 

Acts like the murder in Ontario are fairly common in the Isalmic countries.  I can't imagine what it's like for women in Saudia Arabia.  It's hard to reconcile wanting to be tolerant with other cultures with being disgusted at what they do.  We don't see so much of the ugliness in this world because we live in Canada.  It's kind of a shock when something like this happens in our country.

 

Anyone who knows me well or has read my blog knows my disdain for religion.  This young girls death is a prime example of why.  She was killed because she tried to distance herself from a culture who's defining characteristic was that they believed in the same imaginary friend.

Y'know, I used to like Ben Stein...

 

 

In the latest blog entry he actually tries to connect evolution with racism.

 

I'm torn because my morbid curiosity inspires me to see the movie just to see how stupid it is, but on the other hand the idea of giving these people money turns my stomach.