Critically examining the "End of the World"
Real Solutions
It is time to take action, be heard.
Mar 18th
It is evident in my articles that while I have no fear of a foretold apocalypse in the year 2012 I am genuinely concerned for the future of the human species. Our planet is durable, having survived multiple mass extinction events in the past (including some that cycle with apparently clockwork precision every 27 million years, but do not worry, we still have 16 million years before the next one in this cycle should occur) it is far more likely that humanity will be wiped out than the entire planet. As the fictional Ian Malcolm says, “Life Finds a Way.”
That does not however give me much solace. Our world is rampant with corruption, poor policy, and ignorance, putting all of us on a dangerous precipice. It is essential that we collectively demand more from our leadership, locally, nationally, internationally, and privately. It is only by making our voices heard that we can hope to sway policy makers to take a long term view of our place in this world and the cosmos. With that idea in mind, I have decided to try and compile information on how to contact your local government leaders. As we are based in the USA, the information we were most easily able to compile will be for the USA. However, we will try to provide information where possible for international visitors so they too can take up the cause with their own leaders. If you have useful information in this regard that we were unfortunately able to track down on our own, please, add it to the comments. Hopefully at some point in the future we can compile a more up-to-date resource list than what we have been able to put together so far.
So to start off with, here’s some useful links for our US visitors.
Find your Federal House Representative
Both of these links will provide you with contact information for your federal legislator. These people are supposed to be your representative in the government, so make sure they know what your ideas are so they can represent them accordingly.
Vote Smart is also an excellent resource for US citizens as it will not only list your current Federal congress people, it will list all of your local elected officials as well as candidates. While it seems to be lacking direct contact information, it does give you their names which is an excellent place to start. Most, if not all, state legislatures have some method of contacting your local official through their websites these days. While some may not make it as easy as entering a zip code and being given contact information for your official, by using the information from Vote Smart you can easily identify your district and the name of your official to make contacting them that much easier.
This link will help you locate your Parliament Member if you’re from the UK.
And this one has the information for the European Parliament (note: the link is to the English version of their page as that is the language we use here on the site)
And here’s a link to the website of the Australian Parliament
While we would like to be able to provide comprehensive information for everybody in the world, such an undertaking would require a whole website of it’s own (and of course, there are still some countries that are not democracies, representative or otherwise). Regardless of whether we were able to provide information for you specifically, we would encourage you to do the necessary research and take the required steps to make your voice heard and help drive our leaders to pursue policies that will benefit both our species, and our planet.
Self Sufficient Energy Really Matters
Mar 8th
Last summer was full of reminders about the real price of energy in our world. Not just the cost as measured in dollar amounts, but the human and environmental costs as well. The need to shift to energy sources that are not derived from traditional carbon fuels like oil and coal continues to grow more urgent. This need for new energy sources exists even without concern about the year 2012.
While we do not generally accept that any of the theories that predict calamity on Dec 21 2012 are anything to worry about, that does not change the fact that some people are genuinely afraid of what the future holds. In a world ravaged by the types of cataclysmic events being predicted, it is safe to assume that the electrical grid and gas stations we have all come to rely on to power our homes and vehicles will simply not exist. The truth is that even without these dire events, the infrastructure our society depends on for delivering power is still crumbling.
Development of alternative energy sources, ranging from bio-fuels to wind farms, and solar power plants have all lagged. The main opposition to these energy sources is not in fact a logistical one. These technologies have been viable for well over two decades, but widespread adoption has still not become a major factor. Some argue that implementing these technologies on a large scale would be cost prohibitive, but that fails to take into account the economics of scale. If we were working to manufacture large numbers of wind turbines or solar cells, the costs for the components of these machines would begin to fall as well.
The problem is that for many people it is easier, or more profitable, to maintain the status quo. I am personally inclined to believe this stems from the myopic vision we as a species have because of our life spans. Considering the consequences of any given choice a few days in advance can be problematic, let alone taking a long view towards possible consequences that are decades, or centuries down the road. Why worry about whether “peak oil” has actually been met or not when right now you can easily fill your car at the local gas station? I do not even want to get into how the “profit motive” is almost certainly blinding the Tony Hayward’s of the world from worrying about the long term impact of the decisions they make as the heads of huge energy corporations like BP.
On the plus side, it is easier now than ever for people to start working towards their own energy independence. There are do it yourself kits available on how to build your own solar cells, or windmills. There are products that consumers can purchase or use that allow them to have more control over the amount of energy they are using. If you want to make sure your family is secure in the future, for generations, the time to start energy conserving habits and finding stable, renewable energy sources is now.
