Sunday, May 08, 2005

What peak oil will mean to you

In the most immediate sense, end of oil and natural gas is going to mean a return to the hell of coal and nuclear use in your neighborhood. Think about it. When home heating oil and natural gas prices rise to the point that people are struggling to afford them, what do you think will occur? Will they say, "Oh, now we get it. We've been stupid - we'll put on extra sweaters and reinsulate our homes." I wouldn't bet on it. What people will do is go looking for cheap heat sources. With the price of cordwood rising rapidly, and deforestation an equally rapid danger, people will get coal stoves. When electric prices go through the roof, our long aversion to nuclear energy will go away - G-d forbid that we should have to turn the TV off.

Those conversations are starting right now. Our president claims we can build "clean burning" coal plants (no such thing!). People are putting in woodstoves - but the price of cordwood in my rural area is now near 150 dollars per cord - how long before coal becomes the new woodstove? And yes, they are considering new nuclear power plants - lots of them. Coming soon to your area.

If you've never read about what London or New York was like in the days of coal stoves, do it now. The yellow haze, the rising world temperatures, the arsenic and other toxins in your water, the asthma rates...all these can be yours. Remember, the population of even the major cities was a lot smaller then, and their standard of living a lot lower - do you think someone used to setting the heat at 70 is going to make do with one small coal burner for cooking and heating in their new McMansion? BTW, I would strongly recommend against living anywhere that has coal in the ground - unless you want your children to get black lung, your hilltops strip mined and your water so poisonous you can't drink it.

And those nuclear plants are going to be a lovely thing for all of us. Where will the waste live? Next door? Depends, most likely, on how rich you are. But distance won't necessarily prevent those cancers and mutations, the dangers of obsolescence and forgetting - in 500 hundred years, when someone opens up that now decayed plutonium storage... Not to mention the fact that as greenhouse gasses go, nuclear power produces nasties far worse that CO2. Will they build one on a major fault line next to you (the Seabrook nuclear power plant was built on one of the biggest faultlines in the Northeast, and it ain't earthquake proof. I spent much of my teen years futilely protesting that stupidity. Soon, you can do the same!) Check out Helen Caldicott on nuclear power today at http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/03/dicum-caldicott/index.html. Is this enough to get you to dig out those signs and go protest?

Now, realistically, those first plants are going to go in the inner cities and poor rural areas, so that the radiation and the arsenic can continue poisoning the poor who don't have lawyers, the luxury of moving, or the resources to properly protest. No worries there, as long as you don't mind the moral issues (Moral, shmoral - we want our out of season strawberries! A few little kids with cancer are a small price to pay for dryer-fresh laundry.) But how long do you think before you need one in your neighborhood to keep your lifestyle going, keep your house warm, your microwave running and (if we get really desperate we can distill gas from coal, a nasty, toxic process that makes nuclear power look friendly) your SUV running on time.

Dammit, people, the only thing anyone can do here is refuse. To yell so loud, and tell the truth so clearly, and be so angry and outraged that we have to find another solution. Anyone who ever fathered or mothered a child, anyone who wants their future to go past the next few generations has a stake in this. Yes, you can spare the time to write a letter, stage a protest, talk to your neighbors *before* the coal plant comes.

But I've seen no evidence that we're willing to defer immediate pleasure and comfort to spare our children a lifetime of drought and starvation (read the current series on climate change in _The New Yorker_ if you'd like a hideous picture of the US in 75 years), of early cancers and impure water. I wish I had a solution, other than giving up the lifestyle we so adore. But I don't, and I don't think there is one. Nor do I think we have the common sense to do it. So coming soon, probably next to your playground, a "clean burning" coal plant, 10,000 coal stoves spewing emissions, and your friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant, complete with blinky, the three eyed fish.

Sharon

2 comments:

Dan Trabue said...

Can it not be possible that we'd discover that the best things in life are not things at all. Or, as Dorothy Day said:

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.

梁爵 said...

2020.06.01酒店小姐的基本介紹跟工作內容背滿學貸信貸,優渥人生對妳而言好遙遠?快來哈囉舒壓,我在酒店上班的日子給自己一個機會,不敢來酒店上班-酒店打工的原因成就日收破萬高薪人生! 工作環境單純,安全更無憂。想脫貧?這次好機會別錯過。酒店上班-酒店兼職-兼差如何達成人生的第一桶金免繳保證金/免證件/不綁約。薪資超透明 月入10萬不是夢。服務: 安全面試, 最佳顧問, 單純保證, 安全呵護。一、酒店兼差不是一個複雜的工作環境?酒店小姐的收入有多少?有急用可以借支嗎? 職場須知 【酒店PT 】以一個〝單純〞陪酒的酒店小姐,一天的收入約3000~7000(不含小費)除非有〝額外〞的服務,一天可以領。酒店小姐藝名用疊字感覺活潑易記
雙雙 寶寶 安安 依依 佩佩 菲菲 婷婷 飄飄 麗麗
蓉蓉 師師 小小 圓圓 蕊蕊 水水 珊珊 堯堯 嘉嘉
冰冰 霜霜 柔柔 寧寧 薇薇 佳佳 露露 娜娜 暄暄
茶茶 琪琪 巧巧 妞妞 玲玲 妍妍 晨晨 莎莎 芳芳
點點 慧慧 真真 嬋嬋 珍珍 佳佳 婷婷 芊芊 多多
而且只要做酒店工作,這些都是無法避免的「有人覺得做禮服店就賺很多,又不會出場,我都覺得是幻想。你不是模特兒等級的,哪間禮服店收?傳播工作與酒店工作有什麼不同傳播小姐與酒店小姐的工作內容其實大同小異,但在工作內容以外卻有許多的大不同,我來為各位做出
便服店: #王牌酒店 #香閣里拉酒店 #麗園酒店 #龍亨酒店 #香水酒店 #金典酒店 #威晶酒店 #威士登酒店。
禮服店: #麗緻忠孝酒店 #麗緻敦南酒店 #維多立亞酒店 #百達妃麗酒店 #萬豪酒店 #金荷酒店 #大富豪酒店 #絕色酒店。
制服店:#麗都 #淘寶酒店 #金碧輝煌酒店 #金昌酒店 #金聰酒店 #君悅酒店 #盛世酒店 #奧斯卡酒店 #龍昇酒店 #龍昌酒店 #百富酒店 #台北東區酒店兼職。
2者不同的差異性,給各位做個酒店工作內容: 桌面服務,一般人通常會想偏,其實桌面服務
是很簡單,也很單純的一件事。桌面服務有以下幾個要點: 看了很多篇酒店文,好像很少有男生寫經驗? 我是酒店少爺,在滿18歲那天開始上班雖然不是第一次進去酒店,不過以工作人員的身份倒是頭一次,有一些沒有接觸過酒店的姐妹來找我應徵酒店小姐的時候,我們談的都很融洽,實際上她們也很需要來酒店上班賺錢,可是後來卻沒有來上班,不是沒有休假?那個是有簽約的對吧?