14 July 08
Night of Approaching Nights
ExpressJet has gone to the Great Airport In The Sky. They are ceasing flight operations as of September 2nd, citing high fuel prices. We flew ExpressJet on our trip this past April to Texas, appreciating the direct flight from Sacramento to San Antonio, though the journey ended by haggling with them about the return flight. (We won.)
I don’t see the airline industry as surviving this transition from cheap energy. Jet fuel has no substitutes — don’t expect to see hybrid planes in the air, and there is not a lot of room for improvement in the fuel efficiency of modern jet airplanes. Fly while you still can; the party’s winding up. Air travel will still exist in a decade or so, but it will be very expensive, circuitous, and basically only accessible to the rich and the elite.
This is, simply put, a vision of technological decline. It is an odd concept to get used to, conditioned as we are to expect ever-improving technology. Jet transport is an obvious, though painful, area to anticipate decline, but it stands to reason there may be others. Perhaps it’s time to ponder them.
Last night was Night of Night IX. This is an annual radio event commemorating the last commercial marine Morse Code station in the US, KPH located on Point Reyes, going off the air nine years ago. In this event, a number of these old transmitters go back on for an evening in tribute to the radiotelegraphers who worked for decades from ship and shore. I listened for a bit to the Morse Code, copying the stations from Point Reyes and from Mobile, Alabama. Voices from the past, to be sure. But we would do well to keep our skills up at trailing-edge technologies. They may yet come in handy.
11 July 08
Green Summit in November
I’ve been asked, in my capacity as Yolo Audubon president, to participate in a steering committee for a day long workshop to address conservation challenges in our region. The first meeting of this committee took place last night, and while I do actually have plenty to do this summer, I’m quite jazzed about this. It’s a fantastic group.
I sense a huge fatigue among the public, at least around here, about climate change and the environment. The brown smoke that hovers in the air, still, this morning, the days of suffocating heat we’ve been having, the drought this spring: undeniable signs of unpleasantness, with more and worse to come. The housing crisis and the price of gas and food, together, are clear indicators that what we’ve been building since WWII is untenable, unworkable. Back to growing our own food and walking or biking to the shops. This means, ultimately, less urban sprawl. (The wakeup call couldn’t have come faster, from my point of view, but I realize the transition is going to be messy, difficult, and very possibly violent.)
I think our task with this summit is to empower people to get engaged. Have workshops on how to understand planning policy and participate in the process. What does it mean? How can I help? How can I make what I do count? I don’t doubt that people around here have the will and the energy to get things to change, but they do need more tools to do it. I know I do.
This summit will come just after the general election, when the focus of everyone will be on the outside, on the country as a whole, on the body politic on the national level. Our green summit will be all about bringing it home…