(This is the prototype for solar energy farms of the future that can produce electric power except when there are clouds or when the sun goes down. When operating, the individual mirrors focus intense heat on the tower array, which boils water to produce energy. It also shreds birds in midair and can blind pilots, but it is sustainable except for the fact that the mirrors get dusty and wear out and require government subsidies which are offset by higher costs to the consumers. That is not to say that it isn’t a swell idea if there were means to store the energy for use when the array is not “optimized,” but there is no provision for that. Photo Solarmaxsystems).
You know the second someone says the phrase “sustainable” and “common sense” in the same sentence that the individual knows that the rest of what they are going to tell you is:
a. 1. Not
b. 2. Isn’t.
But I am not going to go off on that this morning, but rather on a tangent, since the two phrases are used interchangeably across a host of public policy issues.
At the moment, it seems like they are trying to change what people are talking about, which is not the climate, and I certainly don’t blame folks for wanting to change the topic to something that might happen by the mid-term elections in 2054. At the moment, they are busy telling us that the temperatures on this resilient planet could go up ten degrees this century. That stunning prediction was from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed by Dr. John P. Holdren. He is a smart man who has been around the block on this stuff.
He was at Harvard, and you know what that means. I speak from experience. As a graduate of the shortest resident course that actually leads to a certificate from the JFK School of Government, I know we have to stick together.
(Dr. John P. Holdren, Office of Science and Technology Policy. US Government Photo.)
I looked hard to see what the new science was that Dr. Holdren was referring to. I mean, we all agree that the temperature has skyrocketed almost a whole degree Celsius since 1840. I think we all agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas- I mean, that is why the actual Greenhouses increase the level of the gas to encourage plant growth, right? The increased level in the atmosphere may have contributed to the dramatic increase (17%) in the 19 most-grown agricultural crops between 1995-2009.
The dates roughly line up with the amount of time that global surface temperatures have stayed within the margin of error- which now goes back to the second Clinton Administration.
Still, Dr. Holdren is a smart guy and he must be on to something, or else why would he have just issued the impressive 840-page National Climate Assessment that told us that the effects of climate change are already upon us? Having just watched the latest and largest snowfall out in Colorado, I am in agreement. I just am not sure what it means.
I mean, weather isn’t climate. Climate is the average of weather, right? So the average over the last 17 years really hasn’t changed, but it is suddenly going to go off the scale?
I am not anti-sicence and I am certainly not anti-technology. There are plenty of great applications for photovoltaic systems- as back ups and for household applications and the like- but the astonishingly bad idea of the massive (and inefficient) solar farms in the Mohave Desert are a case in point about “sustainable” things. I am not even going to ask what is sustainable about the gigantic windmills.
The hardy Danes have been using them for a while, and the oldest one they have still in commission has lasted 28 years. The average is more like sixteen.
So, ‘sustainable is’ sort of a relative concept. But about the big solar arrays:
A new report by the people who hang out with us at Willow- the Fish & Wildlife Service- finds that the new massive solar facilities in California are acting like “mega traps” that kill and injure birds. As a result, “entire food chains” are being disrupted. Here is the deal:
The Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory studied three projects in California: Desert Sunlight, Genesis Solar and Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS). Two-hundred and thirty-three different birds from 71 species were found dead over the course of a two-year study.
The three main causes of death were:
1. Solar flux: Exposure to temperatures over 800 degrees F.
2. Impact (or blunt force) trauma: The birds’ wings are rendered inoperable while flying, causing them to crash into the ground. Birds that do not die are often injured badly enough to make them vulnerable to predators.
3. Predators: When a bird’s wings are singed and it can not fly, it loses its primary means of defense against animals like foxes and coyotes.
Hummingbirds, swifts, swallows, doves, hawks, finches, warblers and owls were just some dead birds found at the solar facilities’ “equal opportunity” mortality hazards.
I take this stuff seriously- there is an awful lot at stake, after all. So here is a bold prediction: the average temperature could go up in Washington by twenty or thirty degrees by August from what they are now. Of course, it might also change in November, but I am confident that the temperatures are going to go up. I think.
Dr. Holdren is, too. In fact, he is so serene in what he is predicting that it is exactly the same thing as what he told president Clinton in 1995:
It is comforting to me that some things don’t appear to change, as Dr. Holdren has not changed his position since 1995. That must mean they are sustainable, right?
And that is only common sense.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303