The $30 billion jobs opportunity

In an election year, you cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a political ad, photo op, or campaigning politician. In a country still reeling in many ways from the economic collapse of six years ago, the largest talking point still centers around job growth. Regardless of one's opinion on how many jobs we really need as we develop more and more efficient ways to maintain our quality of life, the current state of affairs in Illinois comes down to 433,000 people who want and need to work who cannot find a job. With approximately 150,000 to 200,000 job openings in Illinois going unfulfilled, we would need to create about 250,000 new jobs in order to obtain full employment. With manufacturing making a slow recovery, and nowhere near fast enough to create that kind of growth, where can we turn for good paying, productive jobs?

Clean energy and energy efficiency.

Currently, Illinois' residential and small business consumers spend over $30 billion a year for energy. Almost all of that capital leaves the state, with only a small portion getting recycled back into the Illinois economy. If we can find a way to tap into that capital already being spent, and turn that into job growth, we can both improve our employment situation and create a cleaner, healthier future. In addition, that $30 billion, at current rates of escalation, can be $35-40 billion within only a year or two, so economically, it behooves us to move quickly.

The key to the job growth comes from the need for almost all energy efficiency and clean energy work to use local labor. The fixing up of homes and small commercial buildings, installation of solar panels, and construction of wind turbines uses, almost exclusively, local labor. Dirty energy industries, including nuclear, employ somewhere between 5 and 8 people for every $1 million spent. Clean energy and energy efficiency employ about 16 to 17 in good, median income-scale jobs. That means that our $30 billion each year could fund as many as 495,000 jobs in Illinois. Even if we only took half of our current energy expenditures and switched them to clean energy or energy efficiency, we would more than eliminate our current unemployment. In addition, we would build a stronger, more resilient economy less susceptible to shocks from energy price increases.

It will take much work in our financial sector to develop the mechanisms to make this change happen, but it can happen within months, not years. We have the capacity to train workers through our robust community college network. We have the knowhow through years of programs managed by local consultants and non-profits. All it takes is for the financial system to let small building owners tap into the same tools to which institutions and large customers already have access. Tools like on-bill financing, property-assessed clean energy, and community energy cooperatives provide the mechanism that can turn $30 billion a year in energy expenditures into a $500 billion construction program.

It will also take political will...to bring big energy companies and utilities to the table when any program like this is in the interest of the consumer but not large energy companies. It will be interesting to see if either candidate for Governor has the insight or will to make something like this happen.

Friday Five: September 26, 2014

As over half a million people made their voices heard last Sunday, it is disheartening to know that it likely will have a minimal impact on the politics...and it desperately needs to have a significant impact on the politics. 
Why the (awesome) climate march won't change American politics
"The march slogan was, “to change everything, we need everyone,” which is telling, because it won’t change everything, because it didn’t include everyone. Specifically, it won’t change American politics because it didn’t include conservatives."

The politics are so difficult, not only for the demographic reasons noted above, but also because of how much those in control of the market stand to lose...enough to make it worth it to them to threaten the lives of everyone on the planet.
The new Abolitionism
"The last time in American history that some powerful set of interests relinquished its claim on $10 trillion of wealth was in 1865—and then only after four years and more than 600,000 lives lost in the bloodiest, most horrific war we’ve ever fought."

Even those who distribute the energy have much to lose, and without a political solution, they will continue to fight the expansion of renewable energy at a time when we desperately need their support.
Berkeley Lab report quantifies the financial impacts of customer-sited photovoltaics on electric utilities
"A core purpose of the study was to evaluate measures that could be pursued by utilities and regulators to reduce the financial impacts of distributed PV. The report considered a large number of such measures, including changes to utility rate design and ratemaking processes, mechanisms that allow utilities to recoup revenues lost due to distributed PV or to earn profits on distributed PV, and a variety of other strategies."

Because no matter what conventional industry may say, the substitution of one fossil fuel for another fossil fuel does not improve our chances of survival.
Natural gas is not a good climate solution, even without methane leakage
"The only case in which more abundant natural gas would take a bite out of emissions, according to our modeling, was with a renewable energy mandate. We looked at a case in which utilities were required to get a certain percentage of their electricity from renewables, rising year after year to reach 50 percent by 2050. In that case, the competition between natural gas and renewables would be minimized — so natural gas would compete primarily with coal, making cumulative emissions about 13 percent lower."

You know what does improve our chances of survival? Every one of these people...not only through their teaching, but also through their doing.
Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators (PIAEE) winners
"The Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators recognizes outstanding kindergarten through grade 12 teachers who employ innovative approaches to environmental education and use the environment as a context for learning for their students. Up to two teachers from each of EPA's 10 regions, from different states, will be selected to receive this award. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers this award to nationally honor, support and encourage educators who incorporate environmental education in their classrooms & teaching methods."

Happy Friday!

Adrees Latif/REUTERS

#TBT: Corporations are not people, but they might be drug lords

I live in Chicago, and we have come under national scrutiny for the high homicide rates that have continued in some of the areas of our city. Having lived here all my life, I know the city is much safer than it has ever been, but I also see that some areas continue to struggle with gang violence related largely to the trafficking of illegal drugs. In the same vein, we hear of the troubles in the Mexican border towns where drug cartels move their products. In both these cases, and other similar situations, we have people trying to live their daily lives under the specter of risk posed by the presences of businesses operating outside the law.

And then I read Tim Dickinson's brilliantly written but troubling account of the history behind Koch Industries and how they grew their wealth and turned it into a powerful platform from which to create more wealth and protect their interests. From everything within the article, it became abundantly clear that the only difference between the actions of the various businesses related to Koch Industries and the actions of the street gangs and cartels of the drug business....

Is that gang members go to jail or get killed when they kill people...the Kochs just get richer.

[NTSB] Photo of explosion that killed two teens in Texas in
 1996. The explosion was the result of a poorly maintained
pipeline

Reading the details of the piece - much of it garnered from the Koch's own words, details of court cases against them, whistle-blower reports, and as much information about a private company as can be garnered from FOIA requests to governments with which they deal - it becomes abundantly clear that the Kochs consider human life to have a finite value that gets figured into the equation of how to run their business. Unlike, say a person, who would lose their freedom, property, and any hope of continuing on in a normal existence, if the business practices of the Koch's cause someone to die (which they have) or shorten the lives of another (which they have) or cause irreparable harm to a community (which they have) it is simply a part of doing business. A person's life is only worth what they are likely to get in a lawsuit against the company. The value of a community is only worth what they might have to pay in fines for clean up. This kind of capital-centered capitalism follows the same thinking of the Capone operation and today's gangs.

Yet, we as a society celebrate people like the Kochs and (rightly) seek to imprison the drug gangs. We place this value on business "excellence" but only to the point where someone might end up holding a gun to our face. If our truck gets blown up because a pipeline leaked, that's an accident, even if the "accident" came from the deliberate negligence of a business leader. Because the decision that lead to the death was a business one, that somehow makes it ok in our book.

It is not ok.

We need to have much less tolerance than we do for people's lives being subject to their value on a balance sheet. At the turn of the 20th century, it was conservatives who understood that unbridled capitalism will devalue human life, the environment that supports that life, and the social structures that join us as people...all the things that give us high quality of life. It is no coincidence that once we understood that and put safeguards in place, we enjoyed the greatest growth in lifespan, quality of life, and social equity yet experienced in human civilization.

And then we blew it.

Today, and really since the 1970s, we have allowed morally bankrupt capitalists to tell us what society values. We have allowed them to control more of our economic capital, given them the keys to own our political system, and placed our lives in their hands by the choices we have made. We have - on the whole - accepted the line that business is always good and regulation always bad. Our political system has decided that money is speech, and those with more money get to say more, and that by virtue of their attainment of wealth, they have earned that privilege. We have been wrong, and we need to stop treating people like the Kochs as valued men of high achievement, and call them what they really are...

Criminals.

The outrage against violence in my city should be equal to the outrage we cast on men like the Kochs. Anyone who trades human life for their own gain should end up in prison and not on the cover of business magazines. Until we start holding the people within corporations to the standards we ask of people in general, we will never reach the just, equitable, and peaceful society that our Constitution holds as our nation's aspiration.

Those who operate both legally and morally in our country's economy should - and often do, at least as far as I see - have disdain for the actions of people like the Kochs. Regulation, when properly applied as it is most of the time, provides a transparent description of the marketplace that we the people regard as equitable and of value to us as a country. Requiring those who pipe flammable products across the country to maintain their infrastructure at the highest level of safety is not an onerous and superfluous requirement...it recognizes that selling something while killing people is wrong. Requiring that those who speculate in a commodities market have the capital on hand to back their gamble is not totalitarian domination, it is common sense that every casino in the country follows. Asking our business leaders to comport themselves with the same moral approach that we ask of every single member of our society is not an anti-business philosophy...

It is a pro-people philosophy.

We need our capitalism to be more person-centered and less profit-centered. The modern manner of executing capitalism has not found a manner for the system to value people, so we turn to regulation. With the market completely manipulatable by business, the consumer can usually only demand change in drastic circumstances...and even then only if an independent media draws attention to the matter, and government calls those responsible to the carpet, and almost always only after many people  have been killed. It is up to us whether or not this is acceptable. If you do not find it acceptable, then make noise...with what you purchase, with how you vote, with where you spend your time...in every conceivable way, make some noise.

Kudos to Tim Dickinson and Rolling Stone for putting the truth in print. I only wish I could shake the feeling that a large portion of our population will not read the piece and see it for how it gives a glimpse into the consequences of unbridled, morally corrupt capitalism, but will celebrate the Kochs for what they have done.

Many steps and many voices

Yesterday's People's Climate March in New York City succeeded in at least part of what it set out to do. Early estimates have the turnout at 310,000 people (and it could climb to 400,000 after final analysis) in NYC alone...not counting the dozens of sympathy marches taking place everywhere from England and Australia to Oklahoma City. Those who challenged the event to relevancy had their challenge met and exceeded. At least some of those who might have some say in the outcome...Bill de Blasio, Ban Ki-moon...attended, giving even more hope to those that attended.

AP/Jason DeCrow

Only time will tell if it made even the slightest bit of a difference.

In 1963, approximately 250,000 marched on Washington to demand  peaceful and political solution to the civil rights atrocities that institutionalized people of color as second class citizens in this country...the land of freedom and equality. Half a century later, despite achieving short-term political solutions, the dreams given voice that day still have yet to fully materialize. The voices of those opposed to ceding any economic or political power still have control, albeit much more subversively than they did fifty years ago.

In time, however, those voices will - quite literally - die out. It's hollow solace for those who still have to work twice as hard to achieve half as much, but their children will live to see an equal country.

On the issue of fossil fuels, the pollution it causes, and the impact on human life, we do not have that kind of time, and we face a similar, less subtle foe. A search of the hashtag #climatemarch yesterday in the hours that followed the event found both hopeful messages of those who attended or wished they did as well as a healthy mix of trolls* providing counter point to the issue of climate protection. Although we can casually brush off that kind of rhetoric as uncivilized, uneducated, or even irrelevant, one crucial point remains.

The opposition to acting on climate is real, well-funded, and poignant.

Among the schoolyard name calling and pictures of Nicholas Cage, one can find some valid criticism of the climate movement that we need to address if not directly, then at least obliquely. First and foremost, we need to get better at focusing on the issue at hand and not the hyperbolic predictions. Talking about the dangers of sea-level rise, then having to admit they will happen over a hundred years into the future blunts the argument. People believe in the innovative spirit, and trust that that spirit will solve a problem that long into the future. Our aims must focus on much more immediate threats.

Second, tying onto that thought, we need to exercise caution about how far we reach. The science surrounding drought and extreme storms has only just begun to investigate the role that greenhouse gas emissions play. To blame climate change for the California drought, Sandy, and the polar vortex makes for great headlines, but it smacks of the same pseudo-science that fills the counter arguments. Also, it sets up deniers to make similar claims when the US experiences one of the coldest winters on record. We have so many issues with immediate impact: The dangers of mining, the damage to countrysides and water resources, air pollution...we do not need to grasp opportunistically for every straw that comes our way.

Third, we need to get away from arguments that cost more. I personally know that morality tells us to prioritize the lives of people near fossil fuel extraction fields or thermal plants, or those who live in endangered island nations. But I also know that imposing morality on another creates confrontation not solutions. This gets especially true when every argument for solutions ends up recommending solutions that cost more than current options. We need to put our human ingenuity to work and create solutions that cost less. Economic analyses are starting to make the argument that a clean energy future will save us money...blunting any argument for including fossil fuels in any new energy plant. We need to focus on that future, and the dwindling availability of fossil fuels in a world with expanding population and increased development. (In fifty years - a time horizon that people can connect with since most of us expect to live that long, we could be almost out of fossil fuels. The reserves that industry themselves admit to being available, coupled with the current rate of increase in exploitable reserves, still does not match the rate of consumption we will experience over the next half-century.) That means increased prices and decreased quality of life unless we respond. That's a story that people can connect to as we have experienced several such shocks in the past decades.

Lastly, and yesterday's march rightly starts this discussion, we need to focus on the clean energy fight as one of innovation and equality. Amidst the recent public discussions of marriage equality, several conservative pundits noted that they heard a compelling argument on behalf of those seeking the right to marry, and no counter argument to the idea of free choice. We need to have the same focus in the fight on climate. Emissions of any sort provide an opportunity to make sure that prices for sources of energy include all costs associated with each source. If we frame the argument in terms of our communal desire for freedom and a fair market, clean energy wins each time. The more we focus on common themes, the larger a tent we create and the greater our chance of success.

In many ways, the climate march was the art of the possible. The economics favor systems that use less energy, and at every juncture over the past decade, when faced with a challenge to reduce energy use while preserving quality of life, we have succeeded (eg. cutting refrigerator energy use by more than half, increasing fuel efficiency in cars, improving the energy efficiency of buildings). We no longer need to act like a fringe movement nipping at the heels of industry. The growing industries are on our side, and all we need to do is remain consistent and the economics will continue to favor the cause of pollution reduction. If we keep clouding the issue with ideas that do not resonate, and even worse give fuel to opposition, we threaten all the hard work. The next steps forward need to be ones of community...solutions that work for all.

That even includes the trolls.


*trolling is an internet term for those who seek to create discord by playing devil's advocate and saying whatever they can to get a rise out of people.

Friday Five: September 19, 2014

This next week will be a telling one for the movement to stem the effects of climate change. Ahead of an international meeting in New York next week, environmental organizers have gone all in by collaborating with previously un-tapped partners to try and pull off the larges climate march in history. If they succeed, it could be a watershed moment for the movement, if they fail, it could spell the end. Or, it could just be another Sunday in NYC.
How to define success for the People's Climate March
"Organizers of the march have set themselves a high bar—two high bars, actually. First, they’ve proclaimed that this will be the biggest climate change demonstration yet. That means organizers have to turn out no fewer than 100,000 people—the estimated size of the Copenhagen march—or be judged a failure; a lower turnout would send the signal that the movement is waning rather than growing. Further, organizers have declared that the People’s Climate March will be “historic,” meaning it will be looked back on as a key moment in the climate struggle. This definition in turn requires that the March lead to more and better things down the road—that it be not merely one day of protest."

The numbers have been coming in, and it looks like somewhere between saving us 10% and costing us 5% is the range of net impact of addressing climate change on the economy. If you believe that eliminating fossil fuel emissions will do absolutely nothing, then it's a 5% add. If you believe that clean energy will eliminate most energy bills, improve human health, and increase property values, then it saves 10%. My best guess is probably not a 10% savings, but a measurable one.
Fixing climate change may add no costs, report says
"While the commission found that the requisite steps may make economic sense, that does not mean they will be politically easy, the report says. For instance, the group will recommend that countries eliminate subsidies for fossil fuels, which cost about $600 billion a year but are vigorously defended by vested interests.
It will urge nations to take a fresh look at the potential of renewable energy, whose costs are plummeting, and also recommend the adoption of initiatives to halt destruction of forests, use land more efficiently and limit wasteful urban sprawl, among many other steps."

As a bit of forewarning, the article does not deliver on the headline (which is rarely the author's fault), but it does raise particularly interesting issues relative to the conversation around almost every environmental issue...or for that matter, every economic issue. It paints an image of people on all sides who claim factual impartiality, but only from their decidedly isolated point of view.
How to talk about climate change so people will listen
"In the best of times, this problem—given its apocalyptic stakes, bewildering scale, and vast potential cost—would be difficult to resolve. But we are not in the best of times. We are in a time of legislative paralysis. In an important step, the Obama administration announced in June its decision to cut power-plant emissions 30 percent by 2030. Otherwise, this country has seen strikingly little political action on climate change, despite three decades of increasingly high-pitched chatter by scientists, activists, economists, pundits, and legislators."

Meanwhile, on a particularly practical front, consumer and environmental advocates in Illinois have teamed up to call for transparency on carbon emissions. Instead of pounding the table for widespread action, they ask just to know what is happening at each of Illinois' electric utilities.
CUB, EDF push for comprehensive smart grid metric on carbon emissions
"The greenhouse gas petition, filed by CUB and EDF Wednesday, is related to major power-grid upgrades, collectively called the "smart grid," that were approved by the Illinois General Assembly in 2011 and are now being launched by Commonwealth Edison and Ameren Illinois. The improvements, including new digital electric meters, have the potential to make Illinois' electricity system cleaner and less costly."

And while we stage protests, denigrate scientists, and do so from the comfort of our 99.999% reliably electrified homes, people in non-electrified parts of the world are showing us the truth about solar economics...solar is cheaper.
There's a place in the world that is fighting poverty with solar panels.
"He laughed. It’s much simpler than that, he said. 'I just wanted electricity.'"

Happy Friday!

Tim McDonnell/Climate Desk

What do we do when there are no villains?

I was lucky enough last night to see a new play written by a friend of mine (which I highly recommend you check out). One of the thoughts that stuck with me is how differently we respond to situations when we perceive someone as a villain. This has a particularly poignant application to the discourse over improving our quality of life in a sustainable future.

When discussing our use of resources and the resulting impact on the environment, the most common theme from those advocating a sustainable energy future centers around the evil corporations...especially those directly involved in fossil fuel extraction. Admittedly, the Koch brothers in particular make it easy to cast them as the devil, but in casting the net in such a fashion, we automatically give individuals - people - in these organizations no role in solutions or in the future.

On the other hand, business leaders create a picture in their mind about the environmental advocate as an uncompromising rabble rouser intent only on creating a communist state in which corporate leaders are put into the stocks for public humiliation. There are some who merit this designation, such as the former coworker who would stalk people in the bathroom and shame them for overusing water, but 99% of the environmental community loves a high quality of life and a freedom to pursue ones passions...they just want it with less damage to life.

The thought argument then goes, what happens if we stop treating the other as a villain? How would the opportunity change if we had some sort of "truth and reconciliation" associated with our interaction with the environment?

We have already seen how some of that might play out. As the cost of renewable energy has dropped significantly, we see both business and regulatory agencies choosing new renewables over expanding fossil fuels. Although initially a failed effort, we saw an attempt from BP a decade ago to move "beyond petroleum". With the vast financial resources at their disposal, today's fossil fuel giants have the best capacity to move the needle toward renewables faster than we can accomplish without them.

For environmentalists, seeing how these large, evil corporations also employ tens of thousands of people who need the security of that paycheck to have any sort of quality of life, we should look for opportunities to engage with those businesses instead of ostracizing them. We have seen large energy companies and utilities work successfully with organizations like NRDC and in Chicago, ELPC. We have also seen people realize that we share in the blame for the existence and strength of these industries, and try to rectify that through divesting in those companies that will not change. It is all too easy to place all the blame on another, but when we too have to change, we often find a better way to solve the problem.

Removing villainy from the equation would not solve the problem overnight, but it will do so faster than digging in for a long fight. While I advocate for working together, I do not advocate compromising on facts. Remaining beholden to fossil fuels will cost us more than a renewably-powered future, it will harm more lives, and it will jeopardize our existence. We have to come to terms on that truth part of the equation as well as agreeing to work together.

If we can, together, accept the truth and agree to work together, history has shown there is nothing we cannot accomplish.

Flashes: September 17, 2014....Labels, labels, labels

First there was:

A label showing you could trust product quality.

Then came:

A label showing you could trust a business to be honest.

Then 80 years later, thanks to the EPA, we got:

A label showing that the product you bought used less energy than previous.

And just a few years ago, 

A label that shows a product you bought uses less water than previous.

And after all this time, we finally have one that addresses whether a cleaning product is safe for use around humans....and you get to help pick this label.

A label that indicates the product you bought will not harm you or your family.

Enjoy the journey!

On China's Silent Spring and the hope for an end to apathy

I read with interest Daniel Gardner's piece in yesterday's NY Times about China's recent enthusiasm for environmental awareness. Although he places significant emphasis on 2013...and with good reason...seeds of discontent can be traced back to the 2008 Olympics when citizens saw their government place regulations and restrictions in place to improve air quality for the athletes in the venues. I would imagine that much of the middle class population in those areas began to wonder why China's own people did not merit equal consideration to the world's athletes. Protests have sprung up in China's major cities in response to the significant worsening of the air and water quality in the country, but those protests can only happen with a strong organizing force already in place, and my guess is that much of that organization "got legs" in 2008.

It is interesting to note three things about the state of the Chinese environment, and the comparisons to the US's approach over the past 40 years. First, the situation in China finds its root in the rapid industrialization that has occurred over the last half-century. Although that industrialization has certainly been partially in response to increased demand by the Chinese people for goods and services, much of it has to do with demand for cheap goods by us in the US. It is easy to say that in a "free market economy" it is up to each group of people what sacrifices they are willing to make for economic development, but during an era when we were working to clean up our air and water here at home, should we bear some of the responsibility for what has happened to China's environment?

The second observation has to do with that economic development that occurred. In a counterpoint to the question about our culpability in the poisoning of China's air and water, I wonder how much we can also take responsibility for the rise of China's middle class. Our resources spent in China for the better part of a half century have provided the capital for the growth there, and combined with other economically developed countries, that capital provided the seed for the economic prosperity that created the large and ever-growing middle class. That middle class, certainly since the mid-1990s, has pushed for economic reform, social reform, and now environmental reform.

The last observation has to do with speed and endurance. In the US, the great environmental disasters of the 1960s lead to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts of the 1970s which lead to great innovations and improvements to our environment. Notably, we cleaned up lakes and rivers, made marked improvement in the air quality in our cities, and addressed lead in the air and acid rain with not only a minimum of costs but with a boost to our economy and quality of life.

And then we stopped. We still have localized wins on the environmental front. But for the better part of twenty years, we stopped leading and started posturing. We ignored science...the freedom that made this country great, the freedom of scientific pursuit...and allowed industry to drive our policy. For the better part of a decade we have listened to challenge after challenge against the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts...ignoring all of the economic growth that has occurred because of them in favor of an antiquated thought that a laissez faire approach to industry is the only way to deliver economic growth. Most egregiously, we completely buried our head in the sand over climate change and its root cause in climate emissions. We allowed corporate interests tied to fossil fuels to use their capital to poison the conversation, control our lawmakers, and stall most reasonable action that would have solved the problem and created a great economic boon for the country. Perhaps most patronizingly, the richest country in the world said it would not act until lesser developed nations did so...nations whose carbon pollution came largely due to American-financed offshoring of manufacturing to meet the American desire for cheap goods.

Well, now China has acted. It will extend its existing carbon trading markets to the whole nation by 2016, almost daring the US to act. China, with its communist government that exerts more influence over industry than our approach in the US, will tackle air and water pollution...likely looking to the successes we had in the first two decades of environmental action. As that changes the economics of some industries, it will be interesting to see if after progress is made, whether they too will succumb to apathy and accept a partial response as we have. I would imagine that with the availability of renewable energy technology, replacing fossil fuels will be easier now than it would have been for the US two decades ago. With the impacts of climate change already taking root, it would be hard to imagine that the Chinese people will be as ready to bow to the pressure of industry as we did in the US.

But then again, I would have said the same thing about the US in 1990 fresh off our wins on acid rain and leaded gasoline, so only time will tell.

Perhaps more importantly, the question is whether since the US would not lead, will we have the grace to follow.

What if it never rains again?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

California is experiencing one of the most feared circumstances human's can experience: A drought that no one can predict when they will emerge. There is a reason that almost all of our major cities have developed near large sources of fresh water, or over large and plentiful underground aquifers. As highlighted in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we need water to survive...more immediately than anything else besides air. Next in line is food, which takes water to produce as well. We cannot access water sources or food, and support the populations to which we have grown in our cities, without energy to extract, transport, reclaim, and process the water and food on which our survival depends.

I have written previously on this "food/energy/water nexus": The idea that in our pursuit of our basic needs, none of them exists independent of the other. Our hope for maintaining our existence lies in having as detailed an understanding of this balance as possible, then making decisions that lead us in the direction of minimizing usage of water and avoiding a path that leads us in an out-of-control spiral where we cannot control our use of the basic resource. This issue is coming to a head in California, even as we speak.

Jan 2011

Aug 2014

Since 2011, California has gone from a state with a small area of minimal drought risk to a state of emergency with almost the entire state in some level of drought and many areas in severe drought conditions. Obviously, weather plays a large role in this as California has had only sporadic rain over the last year or so, but such a quick change in the status of the state comes from short-sighted management of resources. In addition to direct human water use for health, and our ongoing insane obsession with water-thirsty manicured lawns and decorative landscape, California also taps all available resources to maintain the largest agricultural economy in the country. With the large expansion of fracking over the past decade, California has jumped on the bandwagon to get its share of the pie, at the expense of its water resources. To add insult to injury, California hold the distinction of being one of the most densely developed areas of bottled water extraction in the country. (See this piece for a more detailed examination of why bottled water in everyday life is not only stupid but dangerous.)

To make matters worse, what we see today may only be the beginning of a long-term - potentially as long as 50 year - drought condition for this area of the country. Climate change and shifting weather patterns may severely limit the rain patterns that replenish the water sources for the region. Already, the Colorado River and Lake Mead, two of the main water sources in the southern part of California, have hit record lows with little signs of bouncing back. Recent research (see here and here) has placed the chances of a decade long drought at 50/50 and a half-century long one at a non-trivial 5-10%. We could see a major threat to the lives of 1/10th of the nations population...and a mass movement of those people to areas that have ample water to survive. Managing this challenge will define the future of our country.

A major shift in weather patterns that restores rainfall to California and mitigates the threat to life would obviously be welcome, but we should not hope for that, nor if it comes, allow it to divert us from taking action. We need a strong, national energy policy, and one that recognizes the overlap in our food, energy, and water industries. We need to seriously rethink some of the uses of water currently in our economy - such as landscape irrigation and non-emergency bottled water - and develop long-term (like 150-200 year) water use plans that apply conservative principles to ensure that we have the water we need to maintain our existence.

The combination of a lack of foresight on water use with the effects of climate change has put California especially in a dire predicament. If we do not learn our lesson, we could lose more than we could ever imagine.

Friday Five: September 12, 2014

The UN meets to discuss climate change in NYC in two weeks, and the People's Climate March takes place on Sunday the 21st immediately before the summit. The movie Disruption provides insight into the reasons for the march and the perspective on our moment in history. If you are curious as to what all the talk is next week, this is what it's about.
Disruption
"This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future."

I have used the line for years that we know our military is full of tree huggers, but that doesn't mean they aren't right. It's good for a laugh, but next to the insurance industry (which also agrees that climate change is a threat), can you think of an entity that better assesses risk?
Republicans always listen to the Pentagon - except when they say that climate change is real
"At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, a Department of Defense representative laid out how climate change is exposing its infrastructure in coastal and Arctic regions to rising sea levels and extreme weather, and that it's even impacting decisions like which types of weapons the Pentagon buys. This is only the latest in a series of recent warnings from the military, which raised the issue as far back as George W. Bush’s second term. In March, the Pentagon warned, in its Quadrennial Defense Review, that the effects of climate change “are threat multipliers that will aggravate stressors abroad such as poverty, environmental degradation, political instability, and social tensions—conditions that can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.” In other words, increased drought and water shortages are likely to trigger fighting over limited resources. The military has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas footprint 34 percent by 2020—and it’s already well on its way to that goal."

I could not assemble a list of stories from this week and not include something about Apple. Truthfully, I looked for something about U2 instead, but there was nothing inherently about quality of life, so I picked something about the iPhone 6. Except, if your quality of life, like mine, is enhanced by more U2 music, then just go to the iTunes store and download the album for free instead of clicking on the article link.
How green in the iPhone 6?
"According to today’s live-streamed event in Cupertino, Calif., Apple’s commitment to the environment includes a mercury-free, arsenic-free, and beryllium-free iPhone 6, among other things. This follows the company’s official ban, a few weeks ago, of benxene and n-hexane — two toxic chemicals previously used in the final assembly of Apple products."

All of us who shepherd children in one way or another have a duty to them to be honest about possibilities. We have bubble-wrapped our children when it comes to their activities and where they can play and when, but most of us do not educate ourselves or them about other real risks. It's up to each of us individually, but if we do nothing, and we are wrong, then we will have ill-prepared them for the future.
Parenting, climate change, and solutions
"When our kids ask us about climate change, or better yet, when we engage them in a conversation about it, this is the story our ever-evolving resourceful selves should be poised to tell. It's the antidote to the fossil fuel industry's narrative that renewables aren't feasible or that society somehow can't afford to invest in acting boldly to stop the biggest threat confronting our kids. We should tell our kids that attaining 100 percent clean energy within the next two decades is technologically feasible, and that it's our job and theirs to push back on any and every political obstacle that blocks our path."

Moving beyond Audi's cool "Two Spocks" commercial, we will soon have a more reasonably-priced vehicle that has driverless car features. I told you, the driverless car revolution is coming, and sooner than you think.
GM will introduce hands-free, foot-free driving in 2017 Cadillac
"The system will allow drivers to switch the vehicle into a semi-automated mode in which it will automatically keep the car in its lane, making necessary steering adjustments, and autonomously trigger braking and speed control to maintain a safe distance from other vehicles."

Happy Friday!

The two biggest myths about a sustainable future

For the past fifteen years, I have worked to improve the ways our buildings improve quality of life, not just for those that use them, but for everyone whose lives are impacted by them. The past two years especially have shown me how much I did not know or understand about the ways in which we have organized ourselves as people. Even with all that I have seen people accomplish, with all the great innovation and passionate discourse, we have made little change in the path of our potential destruction. If anything, with the natural forces of population growth and economic development, we have increased the rate of our damage to the environment. Watching this happen, it has become abundantly clear that we have been misguided on two major fronts of the battle to save ourselves from ourselves.

First, it is not about human behavior

So much of the dialogue about the sustainable energy future, one where we do not harm anyone with the way we use energy, has focused on the individual choice. We celebrate devices that give the user more information to make their own choice, or that learn our patterns and adapt our choices for us. We create campaigns that teach - or sometimes shame - people not to do things that are wasteful or harmful, placing the blame for the harmful outcomes on the fact that someone made a choice in their home or place of work. "The fish in the Atlantic are getting poisoned with mercury because I fell asleep in front of my TV and wasted all that electricity."

The sustainable future has nothing to do with the individual choices we make to save energy, recycle, conserve water....it's all about infrastructure.

There are a small number of people who have gone "off-grid" and have found ways to create sustainable existences, but their success is not about the day-to-day choices they make, but rather in how they have changed the infrastructure of their lives. They live in smaller, more manageable spaces that do not need energy to supply the comforts of living. If we powered our planet completely off the sun, we would not have to reduce one lick of energy use...the sun provides many, many times the amount of energy we all need to survive in comfort.

Instead of building a civilization around systems that fully sustain life, we have created the infrastructure of our existence around systems that destroy one part of our world in order to prop op other parts of our society. Especially in America, where our entire infrastructure was built during the Industrial Revolution, when energy was cheap, we have not even remotely considered how wasteful we are until very recently. If we are to make things different, protect all people from the dangers associated with the depletion of resources and the environmental damage that comes from the ways we process them, then we need to focus all of our efforts on infrastructure. In many ways, focusing anything on human behavior creates a negative feedback loop that causes more harm than good.

Only by making large changes at the infrastructure level will we have any hope of creating a civilization that supports life.

Second, and most importantly, social equity comes first

The mantra of triple bottom line has worked its way successfully into the corporate world. We now hear people talk regularly about the economic, environmental, and social bottom lines. Somewhat more colloquially, we hear leaders talk about people, planet, profit, but if we are to be truthful, the former triad is more accurate. Our current political and business models focus most if not all their efforts on the economic bottom line. The leaders of industry were educated by mentors who had no concern for anything other than profit, they have operated in and furthered a system that rewards profit above all else, and even when faced with mounting evidence of the harm being caused, their focus is on how to value people and the environment within the system.

The current political-economic system does not value people or the planet, and it never will.

In creating this modern economic system that rewards only profit, we have made money the equivalent of power. Those with money have the ability to shape policy and infrastructure, and only through mass action within the economic system - purchasing certain products while avoiding others - can people of limited economic means have any say. Outside of that, people have only limited ability to shape the future, as even the electoral choices we make come between options that are presented to us by those with power and capital.

The thinking for the last decade was that the movement to a sustainable future would create one of social equity, but we have it backwards. Only by focusing first on social equity can we achieve a future that is sustainable for all.

When threatened with security, loss of food and shelter, or separation from those we love, we retreat to the easy and comfortable - namely the systems that already exist. Only by freeing people of these fears can we create a populace that collectively makes choices in everyone's best interest. A society that rewards active participation in the systems that support life by compensating with enough resources to give each member a voice in that society creates equality. This does not mean everyone has the exact same, it just means that we all have enough to influence the decisions made that affect us all. Especially in our modern society where the economic choices sometimes have more influence than even our votes, balancing the flow of capital so all can participate stands as imperative.

We glimpsed this after World War II in this country. We did not reward equally across racial lines, but we did reward across class lines within the population of white Americans. In that system, we saw greater potential for equity. In making some strides over the past decades against systematic racism, we have lost much ground on overall social equity. Only by creating equity across all social systems can we hope to create a sustainable future. This begins with movements to raise the minimum wage, or to create a similar system whereby people who work get the capital to have a voice in what happens.

A sustainable future will not create social equity or improve our infrastructure. Our challenge is to work that in reverse. We must fully realize the vision of a nation in which all are created equal if we are to create a sustainable society. If we leave power only to those who profit from the existing infrastructure/systems, then the choices they make will dominate everything. Only after we establish that everyone, regardless of race, gender, preference, or class has equal say, and eliminate the wasteful systems...only then will we truly have a sustainable future.

Flashes for September 10th: The minimum wage reality

Enjoy the journey!

It's the least we can do

I found an interesting discussion on social media this past weekend. After a segment on the All in with Chris Hayes show discussing the fast food worker protests over increasing the minimum wage, the response came swiftly. Many questioned the sanity of a worker who had been working at an establishment for 15 years at near minimum wage. Others questioned the ambition of the worker or ability to improve themselves. Still others offered tales of how they scraped by and worker their way to a better life, offering no sympathy for those that cannot today. Many people defended those who cannot break the cycle of low-income employment, citing lack of ability to schedule interviews or even attend school with the schedule their employers require.

At the core of these arguments comes the idea of opportunity. If one wants to "get ahead" a college education is the best opportunity to make that happen. The question then becomes, can a person get ahead on a minimum wage job?

The answer is, without significant help.....no.

To see how drastically things have changed since many people were able to work their way through school in the 60s and 70s, I offer this comparison. (Full disclosure, the calculations and research are all mine, but the idea came from an article I read about a month ago that I can no longer find. My apologies to that author for not citing their work.)

In 1970, the federal minimum wage was $1.45 an hour. (I am fairly certain my dad made that pumping gas in his second job that he would work after teaching all day.) A single person, with no other family obligations, working 50 hours a week during the summer and 20 hours a week during the school year could make - after deductions - about $1,818 per year at that wage. At the time, the average four-year, state school tuition+room+board rate was $1,287. That means the student could attend college, live on campus, and have about $500 left over to figure out where to live and eat during the summer. Given the reports of my older relatives living on Chef-Boy-Ardee, it seems likely that someone could survive on that and get that college education.

Today, the federal minimum wage sits at $7.25 an hour. A single person, with no other family obligations, working that same balance of hours as their 1970s counterpart, would clear around $9,090 over the course of the year. Today's average tuition+room+board for a four-year, state university sits somewhere between $15,000 and $19,000. At a time when the difference in incomes between going to college and not going to college mean more than ever, when union membership - the sure ticket to the middle class for the blue-collar worker - continues to drop, the minimum wage worker has the almost impossible task of working to get themselves by. Telling them to work 80 hours a week in the summer and 50 hours a week in the school year will still not get them close to their 1970s counterpart, and will jeopardize their ability to successfully complete their degree. A comparable minimum wage in this "work hard to improve yourself" example would be around $17.75 per hour to give today's ambitious worker the same chance they would have had a generation ago.

It all comes down to equality of opportunity. There are some who could live at home and forego the expense of living on campus, but they must have someone who would support them. On the other side, there are some who have families to support while making this Herculean effort. They can only dream that they will be able to make that happen. No matter what the racial, class, or social background...no matter what support system a person has...the keys to a better future must be equally available. If we want to provide the same opportunity to this generation as we did a generation ago, if we want people today to achieve the same or better quality of life than the previous generation, we must look at the social equity that our systems create. When there is none, as exemplified by the current minimum wage, we must rectify that.

It is absolutely the least we can do.

When it comes to sustainable energy, America really IS the land of opportunity

There is a sad fact that we have to face....the US is a very wasteful country. Our politicians like to talk about all the waste in our federal government, but truth be told, that pales in comparison to the amount of food, energy, water, material that we waste on a day-in and day-out basis. This attitude of waste grows logically out of two different characteristics of our early country: First, the amount of available space that existed in North America during the 17th through 19th centuries, and second, the fact that our country developed all of its lasting infrastructure after the Industrial Revolution and during an era of nearly-free energy resources. Efficiency was not an issue...progress, prosperity, and profit ruled the day.

Now that we are dealing with the repercussions of that, one might think that we have to completely change our infrastructure to move to a more sustainable future...

But they would be wrong.

Precisely because we have been so wasteful, we have an extraordinary opportunity to make improvements...potentially even more so than even Europe (where infrastructure naturally supports sustainable action more effectively) or China and India (where they are starting with mostly a clean slate and do not have the burden of sunk investment. In order to move to a more sustainable economy, but without the financial shock that comes from contraction, we need to make three major shifts:

1.  Eliminate fossil fuels from our mix of electricity generation.
2.  Shift fossil-fuel burning as a source of heating energy from our buildings.
3.  Reduce vehicle milage per unit of GDP and shift remaining to cleanly generated electricity.

If we were starting from scratch, we would need to develop a large grid infrastructure to handle the new loads shifting from fossil resources for buildings and vehicles. Because we are so wasteful, we can build this capacity much more cost effectively through efficiency in our existing buildings and systems. Meanwhile, as we close coal, nuclear, and natural gas electricity-generating plants (in that order) and add new renewables, we can, again, use efficiency to reduce the pain associated with dropping new generation.

This also opens up great opportunities for innovation. New technologies and design strategies make it so that as we renovate or replace buildings in existing, developed cities, we can introduce distributed generation assets that are easier to install. With advances in communication, grid operators can have an even better handle on these distributed resources than they traditionally had on large utility-scale generation. We are learning that the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy resources can happen more swiftly and with less disruption than previously thought.

Many environmentalists treat our culture of inefficiency as a pox that we should try to wipe out by degrading all of us for years of efficiency sins. Instead of that negative view, we should focus on the opportunity...we can make great strides, very quickly, and with no disruption to quality of life. In fact, if we do it well, we can increase quality of life dramatically...across the whole spectrum of Americans...while we grow more and more efficient. Americans have shown, as Churchill said, that we will do the right thing once all other options are exhausted.

We are just starting to do the right thing...and we will all be the better for it.

www.folkartfromtheharbor.com

Friday Five: September 5, 2014

In another post this week, I made a reference to Pompeii. There are definitely days when I feel like the guy who saw the eruption coming but spent more time worrying about trying to convince people it was going to happen then getting the heck out of town.
5 terrifying facts from leaked UN climate report

" It’s a long list of problems: sea level rise resulting in coastal flooding, crippling heat waves and multidecade droughts, torrential downpours, widespread food shortages, species extinction, pest outbreaks, economic damage, and exacerbated civil conflicts and poverty.
But in general, the 127-page leaked report provides starker language than the previous three, framing the crisis as a series of 'irreversible' ecological and economic catastrophes that will occur if swift action is not taken."

The rising middle class in China is forcing the government into actions that will reduce pollution and simultaneously reduce the carbon in the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the waning middle class in this country cannot accomplish the same thing.
China brings forward start date of carbon trading scheme

"The rapid growth of a Chinese middle class has gone hand in hand with increasing unrest in the country over the damage caused to the air, water and soil by the nation's rapid industrialization.
According to Reuters, the Chinese government has pledged to reduce the amount of carbon emitted per unit of GDP by 40-45 per cent of its 2005 levels by 2020."

I wanted to just write "Nicaragua?" as a "clever" way of highlighting that other countries in the Americas are stepping up where we cannot. Then I thought, who am I...in the country in which I live...to be anywhere near that snarky. We could learn much from Nicaragua on this issue.
Nicaragua on the rise as next leader in renewable energy
"Last year, 51 percent of the country’s energy came from renewable sources, and the goal is to reach 74 percent by 2017, and 90 percent by 2020.
What’s important to note, though, is the country still has massive renewable energy potential and is ripe for investors to make the stated goals a reality."

America uses twice as much energy per capita than most of our leading, developed economic competitors (and four times as much as China). Either you believe that we do not know any better than to be wasteful or that we do not care. Whichever you choose, it's not a good thing.
"Zombie" servers and inefficiency drive waste at data centers

"These 'zombie,' or comatose, servers are among the examples of energy waste documented in a report about U.S. data centers released Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). If those facilities were to cut electricity consumption by 40 percent—half of what is possible using the tools now available to improve efficiency—the electricity savings would amount to $3.8 billion and 39 billion kilowatt-hours, according to the report.
That's enough to power 3.5 million American homes."

Read the ruling by the judge...all the way through. It's worth hearing at least some idea of what happened over the month leading up to the start of the spill and during the spill. We talk about the value of the pressure to produce, and how the push for profit should be considered a positive trait. If you look at the actions of the technicians and engineers through the lens of the drive for profit, the actions taken appear to be logical, albeit completely unethical...and as it turns out, illegal.
BP may be fined up to $18 billion for spill in Gulf

"By finding that BP was, in legal parlance, grossly negligent in the disaster, and not merely negligent, United States District Court Judge Carl J. Barbier opened the possibility of $18 billion in new civil penalties for BP, nearly quadruple the maximum Clean Water Act penalty for simple negligence and far more than the $3.5 billion the company has set aside."

Happy Friday!

Old math posing new problems

I fully understand the benefit of conservatism. As a person who believes in environmental protection, the idea that we move slowly and consider all impacts before making a decision has great value to me. At their core, most environmentalists just want us to understand that we did not do that back when we decided to do things that are harmful to the planet and its life support systems. If we had followed a more conservative philosophy then, perhaps we would not find ourselves in the position we now sit.

What I do not understand, nor can I support, is the refusal to accept new information masking as conservatism. Assuming that because things have always acted a certain way, that they will inherently continue to do so...even in the face of strong information to the contrary...does not make logical sense regardless of one's political sensibility. Would any one of us, placed in a time machine and deposited in the middle of Pompeii, listen to the locals when they decide to stay because "the mountain has rumbled before but never done us harm"?

Or, more recently and less catastrophically, look at the development of wind energy technology and its application in Germany. Germany has approximately 25,000 wind turbines in the country with a capacity for around 35 GW of power production. This past year, at some peak energy consumption times, renewables supplied 75% of the electricity in the country. This is truly a great feat and an example of what can be done when governments work with industry to plan around energy.

In order for Germany to really move forward...both in terms of emissions reductions and energy independence...they would likely need to triple the amount of wind they have in the country. Conservative thinking might say, "That means we need 75,000 turbines to get there...we can never do that!" Forecasters and analysts might be tempted to assume a slowdown in German wind energy because of the potential for trouble with locating new turbines.

The real trouble is, that the assumption that triple the energy means triple the turbines ignores two potentials: The potential that turbines get more efficient, and the potential that we find better places to build them. If land-based turbines move from about 1.5 MW each to 5.0 MW each through better blade technology and better energy transfer technology, that means we can upgrade existing turbines to produce more. If offshore wind technologies, which offer even better performance, can replace aging on-shore turbines - especially in lower-performing areas - then we net even higher production.

All in told, through technological improvements, siting improvements, and management improvements, Germany can deliver the increased production likely with fewer turbines, not more...as few as 21,000. This means that few new routes for infrastructure are needed, that fewer political hurdles will have to be overcome, and that those companies with the best technology stand to benefit, driving innovation. More importantly, faced with this information, policy makers can figure out the best way to achieve the end goal, rather than getting scared by the daunting task of tripling the nations infrastructure for wind.

This is something that even conservatives can love.

Source for German wind data: Renewables International the magazine.

National Laboratory Update: Flashes for 9/3/2014

DOE 'Knowledgebase' Links Biologists, Computer Scientists to Solve Energy, Environmental Issues
With new tool, biologists don't have to be programmers to answer big computational questions.

Livermore team awarded for hydrogen production research

The award recognizes the team for its work developing models of photoelectrochemical solar-hydrogen production and corrosion processes.

New Process Helps Overcome Obstacles to Produce Renewable Fuels and Chemicals
NREL demonstrates a concept that provides opportunities for the successful conversion of lignin into a variety of renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials for a sustainable energy economy.

Chromium's Bonding Angles Let Oxygen Move Quickly

The result is a novel material with potential applications in fuel cell technology

Enjoy the journey!

Valuing labor and leisure

I think that we have the order of summer holidays almost perfect. It is absolutely right that we honor those who have given their lives to protect the right of self-determination for all people, and I personally extend my Memorial Day thoughts to those first responders who have also sacrificed their lives to protect the lives of others. The giving of ones life to protect others sits high in value in any civilization. In the middle of the summer, we recognize the value of thought, and how organizing principles can bring people together. Independence Day in the US is more than just a statement about freedom or quality of life (look at Canada, they have freedom and high quality of life and never fired a shot in independence). The simple statement that every person had equal standing in society stood against almost every successful civilian organization of people since the dawn of agriculture. For those individuals who said it in the face of death, it is right that we remember and honor their efforts. Then we come to the penultimate celebration of the summer, and the one that rightly holds the highest place....

The celebration of labor.

Without labor, no sacrifice or grand statement means anything. Without those who toil, slowly sacrificing their bodies through years of stress and strain, we do not have food on the table, a place to rest our heads, or clean water to drink. Without the struggles of those who have labored previously, we not only would have no infrastructure on which to build our quality of life, but we would not have the concept of the weekend, the virtual elimination of child labor, or the idea that a sick person best serves the market by recovering rather than working themselves to death.

Over the past four decades, there is no question that the great majority of our country, as expressed through the political system, has shown - at best - disrespect, and more likely utter contempt for those who labor. Economically, as a country, we have invested less and less in the productive labor of our own people, and created more and more opportunity for those who work for the accumulation of capital than for those who work to improve the quality of life of people.

Even our economic system devalues the individual who works. We speak of increasing profitability, improving productivity, and chasing efficiency as though they are the greatest accomplishments that we can achieve. Every time we shift capital from production to profit, every increase in productivity, ever efficiency realized means that someone either loses a job, loses wages, or loses freedom. Businesses has no measure of success that seeks to improve the employment of the individual or their access to health and leisure.

This does raise a question, however. Outside of the reasons or intent behind this disrespect toward and devaluation of labor, we need to ask ourselves, how much do we really need to work. As our economy has advanced, little attention has been paid to the thought that as we move toward a more productive economy, that means that we may need to work less. At the turn of the 20th century, almost 12,000,000 people were employed in the agricultural industry...a whopping 16% of the population (not just the workforce). Today, that number sits at around 750,000, or 0.2% of the population. At that same time in history, people died from water outbreaks on a regular basis as we rapidly urbanized our population. Today, approximately 50,000 workers in the water and sewage industry keep us supplied with safe drinking water and separate us from harmful waste. Less than 1% of our population keeps us fed and watered. Since air is free, that means that three out of four of our basic requirements can now be met with almost no labor input.

The last need, shelter, has a more complicated story to tell. Of the entire construction/service workforce of 10 million, it is difficult to separate out how many work directly in the building of residential shelter or support the water and food industries. Some estimate residential construction at as many as 2.5 million, but it is probably safe to say that around 3 to 4 million work directly or indirectly at supporting these basic human needs. Even at that number, and assuming 50 hours of labor a week for each of those individuals, the amount of time each American needs to work in order to maintain the basic necessities of life is about one hour per year.

Although this assessment does not include education or healthcare, it points toward the fact that our efforts to improve quality of life have succeeded. The idea that we have to labor and work hard to provide a basic quality of life no longer holds. We can move away from an economy that seeks to punish us with work, and move toward one in which we all maximize our potential. We will still need farmers, construction workers...labor of all sorts, but in this future, those who sacrifice some of their freedom to pursue those endeavors will receive appropriate compensation for it. We will value labor more highly precisely because we will need to fewer people to do it, and will need to entice those who do away from other pursuits.

Each Labor Day, I thank those who have shortened their lifespan by choosing to use their strength to support a high quality of life for all. More importantly, I hope for a future in which we recognize that we all can work less and still enjoy that quality of life. I look toward a future where the celebration of Labor Day, like the celebration of Memorial Day or Independence Day, recognizes the past sacrifices of a small number so that the larger population can work toward the improvement of our species, and not just its mere survival.