Sunday, August 30, 2020

The Climate, It Is A-Changing

                                                                                                   written 23 August 2020

                                                                                               published 30 August 2020


            This year 3 million people in India, 1/4 of Bangladesh, and 55 million people in China, were affected by flooding.  A recent derecho wind devastated parts of Iowa, and significant portions of American mid-western crop land lie fallow under unending rain.  The oceans are very warm, generating 9 named storms in the Atlantic before August 1st, and this week, two storms are on track to hit the US Gulf coast at the same time.  Phoenix has had daily temperatures above 110° for over 6 weeks, Baghdad hit 125°, Death Valley hit 130°, and it is so hot and humid in Vietnam they have to work the fields at night.  In the middle of an extreme heat wave, turbulent weather across California generated 11,000 lightning strikes in three days, igniting over 550 fires.  The heat has stressed the California electric grid to the point of considering rolling blackouts for the first time in two decades.

            Climate change is not a problem for the future, it is already here, creating social and economic disasters.  Decarbonizing our economy as fast as possible is essential if we want civilization as we know it to survive much longer.  At some point, our entire nation will wake up to this reality, and decide to respond.

            California now produces 1/3 of its electricity from renewables, and in Ukiah, 3/4 is carbon free.  While this is good progress from a carbon pollution point of view, it demands a new way of thinking about power, because renewables collect energy when it is available, not necessarily when we want it.  This production/load mismatch requires energy storage and creative consumption.

            Grid scale battery storage is expanding rapidly.  It is versatile, allowing the quick changes from charging to discharging necessary for handling variable production and load conditions.  This month PG&E announced a 730 MWh lithium ion battery installation at Moss Landing in Monterey, which is expected to be operational next year.  It will use 256 Tesla Megapacks, larger versions of their residential Powerwall units.  California has created a $600M fund to promote distributed storage, and a Tesla representative has already been in communication with the City of Ukiah to see how they can help solve our storage needs.

            The recent heat wave increased electricity demand for air conditioning, stressing the capacity of the grid and threatening a blackout.  Since relatively little power is generated within the Ukiah valley, we are affected by capacity limitations of the regional grid.  Any increase in local generation will increase local power resilience and help the entire grid.  The city is currently investigating megawatt scale local solar production possibilities.  In addition, the school system has installed a 350 KW canopy array south of town, and other commercial projects are adding solar as well.  However, every one of these systems should also include storage capacity, which is not currently happening.  The production/load mismatch can't be ignored.  

            The issue is not only how we produce our energy, but how we consume it.  As we shift our economy to sustainably running on our energy income, rather than burning through our finite fossil energy savings, we have to get smarter and less wasteful.  The most cost-effective energy is energy you don't need to produce.  Investing in more energy efficient appliances, homes, and commercial applications is essential.  But we can also shift when we consume power.

            For example, solar power peaks during the middle of the day, but air conditioning loads tend to peak later in the day when people get home from work and want to cool down their house, just as solar power production is declining.  Standard air conditioning hardware is designed to produce cool when we want it, regardless of energy cost or availability.  An alternative is called ice cooling.  When lower cost power is available, energy it stored by creating ice, which can then cool a building using relatively little power.  This is now commercially manufactured by air conditioning leaders such as Trane Corporation.  Everyone considering air conditioning upgrades should examine this option.  By shifting our energy load curve, we can help take stress off the gird and save money.

            In these demanding times, we have to get more creative.  Ukiah can become a leader in energy transformation, but it will require political will and vision.       






Sunday, August 23, 2020

War On The Post Office

                                                                                                   written 16 August 2020

                                                                                               published 23 August 2020


            Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the US Constitution empowers Congress to establish post offices, with the mission of delivering mail to everyone in the United States: an essential socialist service.  Despite this clear Constitutional basis for mail service (not business), Republicans have been trying to eliminate the United States Postal Service (USPS) for decades.  Their dogma is: government is the problem and private profit-making business is always better.  However, the USPS is popular with the voting public, so the Republican assault has not been honest or straight forward.

            Claiming fiscal responsibility, the 2006 lame duck Republican Congress passed The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) which financially cripple the USPS by compelling it to pay in advance for the health and retirement benefits of its employees for the next 50 years, and stipulated that postage price increases be limited by the rate of inflation.  No other entity, private or public, is required to make such a prefunding.  It has been described as "one of the most insane laws Congress ever enacted".  Between 2007 and 2016, the USPS lost over $62 billion, $54 billion due to prefunding retiree benefits.  

            In February, 2020, Representative Peter DeFazio from Oregon, sent out a press release.  "In 2006, Congress passed PAEA, to prefund retiree health benefits, costing approximately $110 billion.  Although the money is intended to be set aside for future USPS retirees, the funds are instead being diverted to help pay down the national debt.  Today the House of Representatives passed, by a bipartisan vote of 309 to 106, H.R. 2382, the USPS Fairness Act, legislation that would provide the USPS with much-needed financial relief by ending the agency’s burdensome prefunding mandate."

            The Senate Republicans killed the bill.

            The pandemic hit the USPS hard, reducing their workforce, but unlike other businesses, they got no economic help in the first stimulus package.  In May, the House passed the HEROS Act, another pandemic relief bill, including funds for the USPS, but Senate Republicans killed that bill too. 

            With the election approaching, and no leadership from the White House on the raging pandemic or the collapsing economy, the Republican assault on the USPS shifted to blatant sabotage of the USPS's ability to handle voting by mail.  In June, Trump installed mega-donor Louis DeJoy as postmaster general, despite zero postal experience.  However, DeJoy and his wife reported between $30-$75 million invested in competitors of USPS, presenting a significant conflict of interest. 

            Within weeks, postmaster DeJoy fired most of the USPS executives, and implemented new rules that slowed down mail services: prohibiting overtime pay, removing and destroying 671 high speed sorting machines, removing sidewalk mailboxes, requiring letter carriers to leave mail behind, and recently proposing tripling the cost of sending mail-in ballots to voters. 

            In a July Fortune interview, Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union said, “These changes are happening because there’s a White House agenda to privatize and sell off the public Postal Service.  They want to separate the service from the people and then degrade it to the point where people aren’t going to like it anymore.  A private business can make arbitrary business decisions, but we’re not a private business. We’re a service.”  

            Like many other ham-handed Trump actions, the gutting of the USPS is generating large public reaction.  Last week, bi-partisan outrage forced the suspension of removing mailboxes.  Protesters are appearing outside DeJoy's home.  State Attorneys General are beginning to file suit.

            The US criminal code, Title 18, Chapter 83, section 1703 defines it a crime for a Postal Service officer or employee to delay mail under penalty of fine or imprisoned of not more than five years, or both.  DeJoy and his assistants should be removed from office, arrested and charged.

            The leadership of the Republican party, infected with the Cult Of Trump, is willing to destroy to USPS in order to steal an election they know they can't win on merits. 

What You Can Do

            If you feel this is a concern, communicate with your federal and state representatives.  Let them know you want them to take action immediately.  

            The Board of Governors of the USPS can fire the current Postmaster General.  Their names and email addresses are:

                        Robert M. Duncan

                        John M. Barger 

                        Ron A. Bloom   

                        Roman Martinez IV

                        Donald L. Moak

                        William D. Zollars


           There are online petitions as well, such as MoveOn:


             This election is about who we are as a people.  Speak up about the USPS and make a commitment to vote.






Sunday, August 16, 2020

Three Case Studies

                                                                                                     written 9 August 2020

                                                                                               published 16 August 2020



            Disasters are the consequence of systematically ignoring reality, because of fanatical and uncompromising philosophic zealotry, incompetence, or corruption.

            An example is the recent blast in Beirut, Lebanon, an abrupt disaster that was years in the making.  In 2014, a bankrupt Russian ship, anchored in the harbor for over a year, was at risk of sinking.  For prudence, the orphan cargo of 2900 tons of ammonium nitrate, a hazardous material used for fertilizer and the manufacture of explosives, was unloaded into a port warehouse.  Despite repeated warnings from the Port Authority, nobody took further responsibility for dealing with this dangerous material.  Lebanon's government has barely functioned for decades, as rival political and religious factions have created stalemate, corruption, and incompetence.  Last week, welders working in the area apparently started a fire that eventually burned into the stored ammonium nitrate.  The powerful detonation, about 10% of the Hiroshima bomb, destroyed the port and much of the center of the city.

            A second example is the American Covid-19 disaster, slower to express than the Beirut blast, but longer in the making.  The philosophic zealotry of corporate capitalism has eroded public health investment for decades.  Combined with limited privatized medical care through employer based insurance, the general population has less access to real health care than most industrialized countries.  In addition, the GOP has increasingly derided scientific and medical expertise, rising to extreme levels under Trump.  At the same time, human expansion into new bioregions exposes us to new diseases, and globalization of trade and travel allows rapid spread around the planet.  Despite decades of warnings, American epidemic planning and research has been reduced to save money.

            Though it was initially delayed by internal Chinese corruption, the world was eventually put on notice about Covid-19.  American hubris dismissed the issue, squandering precious time to prepare.  When the disease finally appeared on our shores, the federal response was not to respond.  As the pandemic burned through the New York region, states were told they were on their own.  Critical time was wasted producing flawed domestic tests, while refusing help from abroad.  Rather than organizing supply of essential materials, the federal non-response created a desperate cage match fight between the states, creating critical shortages to this day.  Trump's aversion to taking advice from anyone, particularly medical scientists, produced inadequate and conflicting messaging from the top, turning the entire public health response into a partisan battle.  

            The hardest hit areas managed to control the outbreak through lockdown, but created harsh economic consequences.  Governmental subsidies had sustained the economy in other countries, but capitalist priority of profits over people, combined with Trump's re-election concerns, pushed for a rapid return to economic "normality", completely ignoring the raging pandemic.  

            The zealotry, incompetence, and corruption of the Trump administration has insured that there is no effective federal response to either the public health crisis or the economic collapse.  We are living the results.  America has the worst infection and death totals on the planet and the worst recession since the 1929 Depression.  Persistent massive unemployment, and the prospect of rising evictions, sets the stage for even further economic decline.  

            The third example of disastrous consequences created by ignoring reality is climate change.  The Trump threat to democracy, and the immediacy of Covid-19, have distracted attention from the continuing climate collapse, but it hasn't gone away.  The foundation was laid centuries ago, and has accelerated every decade.  Corporate capitalist dogma and corruption have deliberately confused the issue for 40 years, touting the false dichotomy of economy versus the environment.  Covid-19 shows there can be no economy without public health.  Similarly, there can be no economy without environmental health.

            The Beirut explosion and the pandemic expressed in a relative short period of time, but it is easy to ignore climate change because disastrous effects build slowly.  Each year the frequency of stronger storms increases, droughts are more severe, sea levels slowly rise with more "sunny day flooding", coastal erosion increases, temperatures get too hot to work outside, and key species disappear.

            We are frogs in the slowly boiling water, ignoring the warnings because they inconvenience our lives and we have been taught to suspect "experts".  If we learn anything from the pandemic, we have to pay attention to reality. Ignorance is lethal.








Sunday, August 9, 2020

Three Month Check In



                                                                     written 2 August 2020      published 9 August 2020


          On May 1st, Trump began pushing to "reopen" the economy to help his re-election, hoping everyone would ignore Covid-19.  But the virus never got the memo.

            On August 2nd, reported 4,790,879 US cases, the largest infection in the world: 26.4% of the global total, within 4% of the global population.  The US death count is 158,180 (3.3% of cases).  On 29 July, 1,713 Americans died: one person every 50 seconds.  Our 7-day running average of daily deaths is 1,225.  Every three days more Americans die from Covid-19 than in the World Trade Center collapse.

            Over the last three months, the US per capita death has increased by 140%, with only 13 states growing at a slower rate (69% under Democratic leadership).  During the same three months, per capita deaths in 18 states have grown over twice as fast (66% under Republican leadership).  The 5 leading states (all Republican) are: Utah (533%), South Carolina (540%), Arkansas (614%), Texas (697%), and Arizona (958%).

            Early in the pandemic, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut had infections expanding out of control, but over the last three months, their per capita death total increased more slowly each month as follows: New York 24%, 6%, 4%, New Jersey 53%, 31%, 6%, and Connecticut 70%, 12%, 3%.  This shows that an uncontrolled infection can be tamed by leadership applying proper public health measures.

            California now has the largest case load in the US (509,291), but Florida and Texas are coming on strong with larger daily increases, and could surpass us in the next few weeks.  Los Angeles at 37%, and the ten southern counties combined at 67%, represent the largest collection of cases in the state, but are smaller percentages than a month ago, indicating increased infection throughout the rest of the state.  California per capita death has increased 339% in the last 3 months, 2.4 times the national level.  

            Case count in Mendocino County has jumped over 375% in the last month, from 83 to 312, with 2/3 being in the Ukiah Valley.  This probably reflects the local and tourist activities around the Fourth of July weekend.  The first death was two weeks ago, and is now up to 9.

            The federal response to the pandemic has been inadequate, and even destructive.  The president still spreads misinformation about the virus, muzzles public health experts, hides hospitalization data, refuses to create any kind of national response, and is pushing to reopen schools for in person learning.  

            Republican governors follow his lead.  In Georgia (deaths increased 212%), the governor is suing the mayor of Atlanta to prevent a mask ordinance.  In Florida (deaths increased 398%), there are no state level mask or social distancing rules.  In Texas (deaths increased 697%), the governor prohibits mayors from passing any local public health measures, despite hospitals being overwhelmed.  

            In late March, a Covid-19 task force headed by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, began to form a national Covid-19 response, but canceled the work because only blue states were affected at the time.

            The GDP decline in the 2nd quarter was the largest in US history.  With rising Covid-19 infections, states are renewing business restrictions to keep their hospital systems functioning.  Economic slowdown has reduced state and city incomes, while the pandemic has increased expenses, risking cuts in essential services to avoid bankruptcy.  Schools need massive investments to balance education and public safety.  The federal government does nothing because half the Senate Republicans won't support any more Covid-19 relief.  Federal support for the unemployed millions, and moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures, just expired because the Senate refused to act on House passed extensions. 

            With less than 100 days until the election, the president is struggling.  Unwilling to deal with the medical and financial issues, Trump sent armed agents into Democratic cities, suggested delaying the election, and slowed down the Post Office to cast doubt on voting by mail.  He is laying the foundation to claim election fraud, destroying our democracy, trying to steal an election he can't win fairly.

            When Hitler, another malignant narcissist, realized Germany had lost, he ordered the infrastructure be destroyed, to take the country down with him.  Patriotic Germans refused such insanity.  We must overwhelmingly vote Trump out, and curtail his destructive insanity until his term expires. 








Sunday, August 2, 2020

GOP Is Infected With COT

                                                                                                    written 26 July 2020

                                                                                             published 2 August 2020



            Albert Einstein said, "Either everything is sacred, or nothing is," reflecting his understanding of the deep interconnection of unity reality.  Merriam-Webster's definition of sacred, apart from religious connotations, includes: "entitled to reverence and respect, highly valued and important".  Thus, unity perspective demands we revere everything, and everyone, as important and deserving respect.  Sadly, this is not the current state of affairs.

            America was founded as an experiment in democracy, an expression of unity connection, but the Myth of Separation runs deep in this land of rugged individualists.  We are currently experiencing the Myth shattering upon Unity Reality, a conflict long in the making.

             Capitalism has always been rooted in the Myth of Separation.  The fantasies of exclusive gain and externalized costs deny the sacred "other", sacrificing people and place for limited short-term gain to a diminishing few.  The rise of corporations accelerated this problem.  When the American economy peaked in the early 70's, corporate dogma shifted to define the only purpose of a corporation as "maximum fiscal return to investors".

            While both political parties were seduced by corporate cash and lobbying efforts, the GOP was the primary beneficiary.  Starting with Reagan, the GOP rhetoric shifted from "government of the people" to "government is the problem", making Republicans poor public servants.  The harvesting of the middle class began in earnest.

            Automation and export of manufacturing jobs have stagnated wages, while costs of health care, education, and housing keep rising.  America has one of the lowest percentages of voter turnout of all developed countries (53%), but we still have regular elections (so far!) and GOP policies are becoming less popular.  The party addresses this problem with strategic gerrymandering, voter role purges, voter ID rules, reduction of polling places, and acceptance of foreign meddling.  

            All that has been barely sufficient.  In two of the last three presidential elections where a Republican took office, they lost the popular vote, and in 2000 the Republicans on the Supreme Court had to intervene to sway the result.  As economic dislocation increases, Americans increasingly feel it, and populism grows.  In 2016, the corporate Democrats were able to deflect Bernie.  While Trump blindsided the corporate Republicans, they believed they could control him, and went along for the ride.

            Like a hostile corporate takeover, or a lethal parasite infecting a host, the election of Donald Trump gutted the Republican GOP, destroying any integrity, leaving only the Cult Of Trump (COT).  Using discord, corruption, and disaster, the COT's only goal is to increase the power and purse of a malignant narcissist, the extreme expression of the isolated individual, where nothing is sacred.  The COT has populated the executive branch with acting directors who lack any competence in their job, but manifest mindless loyalty to their leader.  The wreckage of the GOP in the Senate is complicit, but lacks any functional control over the COT.

            Then came Covid-19, an expression from Unity Reality, impervious to the Myth of Separation.  

            There are rules to unity reality, fatal to ignore.  Ignoring the rules, a person jumping off a 100-story building can believe they are flying, right up to the messy end.  However, by respecting reality, knowing the rules and wearing a paraglider, the same jump becomes a sport.

            When Covid-19 first emerged, it was ignored, but reality demands respect, and most humans around the world have learned the rules.  Lockdown to reduce transmission rates, test everyone and isolate the infected.  By following the rules, the pandemic can be managed, and the economy can begin to function again.  

            But the COT doesn't respect rules, never learns, and can't admit error.  China, with the world's worst infection early this year, had 34 new cases on a day when America under the COT had 33,031 new cases.  Incapable of dealing with the virus and the crashing economy, the COT sends federal goons to beat up and teargas citizens over graffiti. 

            When electronics crash, and no longer function as needed, pulling the power can often get things back on track.  Similarly, Republicans should be removed from power for a decade to purge themselves of their COT malignancy and find their principles again: honesty, integrity, rule of law, and respect for the Constitution.  Even then, the COT inflicted damage will take a long time to repair.