This is Your Climate on Fossil Fuel

Mother Nature is taking the planet on a roller coaster ride lately. For any remaining skeptics who like to imagine that global warming is a hoax,  

Germany

the list starts with a freeze and snow storm in Texas midwinter, it proliferates with a giant fire from a ruptured pipeline igniting the sea in the Gulf of Mexico; a huge heat dome caused dangerously high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest,  the Amazon rainforest released more carbon than it stores, at least 191 people died in flash floods in Hunan Province, China,  and parts of Germany and Belgium, shocking even the climate experts, deadly fires in southern Europe. And Exxon’s leaked video showed use of political lobbying to undercut remedial legislation.

 

Gulf of Mexico on fire

 

Since the 60s, scientists have been warning the world’s population of freak weather events to be expected if humankind can’t radically change its fossil consuming ways, but human imagination is underwhelming compared to that of Mother Nature, and quite nakedly she is pissed. She shows this with fires in the American West and Southwest, and in the 100-year drought desiccating California and elsewhere. No one seems to take much note that excavation of California’s native shell mounds shows long periods of disuse, perhaps as long as a hundred year cycle, suggesting that California’s native inhabitants may have had to migrate elsewhere in search of water sustaining life. A recent drive behind the coastal hills, revealed reservoirs reduced to a trickle so bare they might be identified as creeks, or even brooks.  As this warming process intensifies globally, long periods elapse without any good news with which to allay the deep fears and assuage the mourning of my readers.  Given such distressing news, I am finding it increasingly difficult to write.

 

 

"Lake" Oroville

 

Just yesterday, Common Dreams points out that for the very first time on record, U.S. renewables generated more power than either coal or nuclear. And when we read that renewables exceed even oil and gas, we can relax somewhat, but not breathe any easier, because the effects of anthropologically induced global warming, even if it were to come to a complete halt today, will last at least another 200 years, longer than 3 human life spans, a world in which one can’t imagine raising children any longer.

 

Sierra Club recently announced that their 13-year-long campaign to stop Keystone XL in its tracks has paid off with TransCanada’s announcement that it was finally cancelling its plans. Indigenous water protectors and supporting activists rallied last week to halt construction on Line 3—to be brutally arrested by police. Whatcom County, Washington announced new rules against fossil fuel expansion, a possible blueprint for the entire U.S.,  and the government of Greenland decided to suspend all oil exploration, although no oil has yet been found in Greenland. Despite COVID’s persistence, the roads are filled with traffic, suggesting that humankind is in no way inclined to kick carbon, and despite militarism and war being more carbon intensive than many nations, Congress approved trillions for the military, indicating that the U.S. shows no signs of kicking its saber rattling habits, its latest target being China.

 

 

No one in power seems to pay attention to our nation’s lone Tiresias, Noam Chomsky.  His latest interview, published by Truthout. is a plea for “genuine international cooperation to tackle the climate crisis” as it edges towards the tipping point. In it he points to “the wobbling of the jet stream which effects heating of the atmosphere hitherto unconsidered in climate studies.”  He reads this as a “good side” because he speculates that it may awaken global “leaders to recognize the horrors they are creating.”

 

Criticism or denial of science on the part of so many conservative higher authorities who seem not to understand that the fate of life on the planet is at stake, condemns the quest to understand the world in which we live. On a grass roots level, many people world over are awake to the impending catastrophes of global warming and are doing what they can, but an effort on a global scale for a universally concerted program to reverse warming’s ominous consequences requires global leaders throughout the world to step up to the plate. NOW.

 

Nominations are open.

 

 

(Many actions—all about climate change— since June newsletter.)

 

LISTEN to a Belgian Parliamentarian tell it like it is.

 

SUPPORT the peace tax fund bill.

 

ENCOURAGE Congress to think big about climate.

 

OPPOSE the $7 billion anti-China bill.

 

DEMAND big tech stop the fossil fuel ads.

 

HELP The Intercept identify the big fossil fuel polluters.

 

DONATE  to Avaaz to combat climate change.

 

 

 

(Roses filtered for climate change.)

 

Global leadership groups urged permanent embers of the Security Council to affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

 

Global Alliance for a green new deal launches visionary campaign for the world.

 

Globally banks are called to stop financing fossil fuels.

 

‘Civil disobedience our duty’: Swiss climate campaigners occupy Zurich Financial Center.

 

Protesters urge Boris Johnson to take climate seriously.

 

Climate campaigners and Extinction Rebellion (XR) hold tug of war in front of Leinster House, home of the Dail.

 

Warning of climate chaos, new 350.org campaign demands Fed ‘stop fossil fuel finance.’

 

‘A false solution’: 500+ groups urge U.S. & Canadian leaders to reject carbon capture.

 

‘Future belongs to renewable energy’: Greenland ditches all oil drilling.

 

World’s poorest nations to wealthiest: ‘no more excuses’ on urgent climate action.

 

70+ groups urge Ireland to introduce UN resolution for fracking ban,

 

U.S. peace activists in Germany join call for withdrawal of nuclear weapons.

 

Sunrise launches green new deal jobs website to celebrate future of climate-friendly work.

 

Morongo tribe now owner of the power grid.

 

Whatcom County, WA.’s new rules against fossil fuel extraction permanently banning new refineries, shipping terminals, or coal-fired plants, and imposing tougher regulations on expansion of area’s existing facilities, celebrated as ‘blueprint’ for nation.

 

Biden mileage rule to exceed Obama climate goal.

 

Biden reverses #45 rule, tightens limits on coal plant waste water.

 

Biden to restore protections for Tongass National Forest.

 

Defenders applauds Biden administration’s move to protect roadless areas in Tongass NF.

 

Forest “service’ to end logging, restore protections in Tongass NF.

 

Biden administration’s drone strike in Somalia draws fire from Senators Sanders, Lee, and Murphy and Rep. Ilhan Omar.

 

In first application of Supreme Courts “maul” clean water act test, environmental protection prevails.

 

Schumer commits to creating civilian climate corps.

 

84 Dems sign letter demanding civilian climate corps in reconciliation bill.

 

Senators introduce legislation to curb endless U.S. wars, lethal arms sales.

 

Civil society calls on Congress to end war and blockade on Yemen.

 

Jamaal Bowman unveils $1.4 trillion green new deal for pubic schools.

 

Groups demand ‘not a single dollar more to Pentagon’ in infrastructure package.

 

Victory for advocates: Company drops plans for Byhalia pipeline which would have run through mostly black Memphis neighborhoods as activists continue to mobilize  against risks to water, land, climate and community remains.

 

45+ groups say ‘future of our planet depends on ending new cold war’ between U.S. and China.

 

Rally to stop SoCalGas in Ventura unites 250+ frontline community embers, elected officials, and public health advocates.

 

Northwest Mississippi celebrates grassroots victory after plans pipeline running through wetlands are scrapped.

 

Black residents in Coastal Georgia hold polluters accountable.

 

Barbara Lee introduces legislation to allocate $350 billion of Pentagon budget to healthcare, education and green jobs.

 

Minneapolis City Council joins opposition to pipeline.

 

Over 200 activists, celebrities and Democratic donors demand Biden reject Line 3.

 

Grandparents protest Chase and pressure Biden on climate.

 

Tara Houska and Winona LaDuke representing EarthRights International and other organizations filed a restraining order against Hubbard Co. Sheriff Cory Aukes for blocking access to an indigenous-led organizing camp.

 

Just out of jail, Winona LaDuke decries militarized crackdown on Line 3 protestors.

 

‘Huge legal win’: court stops police from blockading Line 3 protestor camp.

 

Anonymous Automous Antifascists blockade blocks Enbridge Line 3 easement to the Willow River.

 

Animal extinction protesters blockade McDonalds factory.

 

Climate Power and LCV announce $10 million July paid media campaign in support of Congress delivering clean energy and climate investments necessary to meet the moment.

 

Civil rights leaders in Reading PA. one of nation’s poorest cities, launch environmental justice ecosystem rights ballot initiative.

 

NCR halts pursuit of 40-year license nuclear power plant extensions.

 

Japanese victims of radioactive black rain finally vindicated.

 

Chester, PA. battles to shut down toxic waste-to-energy plant.

 

U. of Southern California pilots project to ascertain what  tress could be planted to cool temperatures that might thrive in LA’s poor Latino and Asian neighborhoods.

 

Unsustainable farming: Family Farm Action Alliance releases report to ‘counter Big Ag’s deception.’

 

Hemp, nature’s own fuel, could save planet from greenhouse effect.

 

Power plant of the future is right in your home.

Cannibalizing 71% of Earth

As early as the 70s, James Lovelock  advanced what people still refer to as the Gaia “hypothesis,” claiming that all living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to regulate our atmosphere, and form a synergistic self- regulating complex interconnected system which maintains conditions favoring life on the planet.  He collaborated with Lynn Margulis to co-develop the discipline of endosymbiosis. Lovelock’s conclusion: living organisms, through their effect on water and on water bearing clouds, modulate the Earth’s systems in an on-going feedback loop, and that the most humble, least complex organisms, the bacteria,  attest to the unity of all things. All systems on Earth make of it a living being in its own right, every bit as alive as a tree or as you may be as a human being.

 

The proof is that Lovelock was able to predict to the US government which spent billions to determine whether or not there might be life on Mars, that lacking  the appropriate atmosphere, Mars could not possibly support life. 

 

This week,

 

•with Common Dreams decrying the Biden Administration’s approval of ConocoPhillip’s bid to drill for more than half a billion barrels of oil in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve,

 

   Oil rig in National Petroleum Reserve

 

•and the recent news (under the radar mere days later) that Sri Lanka suffered the very worst pollution accident in its history when a container ship caught fire and sank off its coast, adding toxic chemical substances to the waters, littering the beaches with plastic pellets,

 

 

Cargo burning off Sri Lanka coast

 

•and with TEPCO, the  incompetent nuclear managers of much of Japan’s nuclear industry vowing to dump tritium contaminated water, the effluvia of the Fukushima catastrophe,  in the seas come 2024 with only vigorous opposition by Korea deterring them so far,

 

Fukushima contaminated water tanks

 

•and with the U.S. Navy, which exploded a 40,000 ton bomb registering as a 3.9 magnitude earthquake in Florida’s waters, having no intention of foregoing its sonic boom testing which basically dooms cetaceans to death because they relate to their watery world through hearing, and obtain their food by echolocation,  

 

US Navy tests carrrier with 40,000 lb. bomb

•not to mention so called oil “spills,” which might be better known as hemorrhages (in 2018 there were 137 oil spills in the US alone) or Gulf War I of 1991 when 500,000 tons of oil were dumped into the Persian Gulf and 600 oil wells were set on fire, helping to cannibalize the air

 

 

Kuwaiti oil fields on fire

(since 1960, from major spills alone, both from ships and platforms, 3.5 million tons of petroleum have been spilled into the seas) and not overlooking  the Foulwater Horizon by BP, which alone accounts for spillage of 779,000 tons, aside from the tons of proprietary and toxic “Corexit’ BP dumped, supposedly to mitigate the disaster (and where eleven workers lost their lives and American television watchers could actually see the oil hemorrhaging from its hole on the ocean floor in a show that lasted for a good 6 months, from April 20 to Sept 17, 2010),

 

 

BP Foulwater Horizon oil rig burns

 

we look at how humankind keeps cannibalizing the seas.  (full disclosure: that’s the longest sentence of my writing career.)

 

Texas-sized garbage patch

Mid-Pacific there exists a slowly swirling plastic gyre called ‘the garbage patch,’ bigger than the state of Texas which slowly revolves around its axis. Among all the other triumphs of western civilization it includes at least one television set.

           

            Stuck in the swell

            of becalmed seas

            a school of canned guffaws

            floats just below the shallows.

            Leno wisecracks

            at an empty sky,

            Carson gawks

            as horsetails track the trades:

            cathode ray reliquary

            of culture gone to brine,

            Farnsworth’s tube, its cord

            trapeze to barnacles.

 

But most damaging of all is the practice known as trawling which turns millions of square miles of sea floor to desert every year. 

 

Sea floor stripped bare by trawling

These are a few of  humanity’s well known assaults on the planet’s waters.  Additionally there is the sinking of nuclear submarines, which add a nice radiological cocktail to the mix. But alas! there is no happy hour. Mankind’s Lilliputian efforts attempt removal of plastic detritus from small areas of seas which occupy 71% of the Earth’s surface total.

 

Four technologies so far have been perfected to remove plastics which primarily flow into the seas as river discharge.

 

•Floating booms. One such is installed at the mouth of the Kifissos River in Greece. It’s called a Tactical Recovery System or TRASH, a project run by the EU.

 

                                            Greek TRASH

 

•Mr. Trash Wheel has been scooping plastic out of the Jones Fall River in Baltimore.

 

 Nope, Disney didn't design it

•The bubble barrier manages Amsterdam’s waterways, deploying 5 garbage boats that pull out 42,000 kilograms of plastic yearly.

 

•The Interceptor designed to clean up ocean plastic has suffered damage from wind and waves.

 

Interceptor at work

 

Given the magnitude of ocean pollution, the human clean up scale seems picayune.

 

 

PLEDGE never to discard plastic other than in an approved repository.

 

INCLUDE Military pollution in COP 26 climate agreements.

 

URGE Congress to pass the Break Free From Plastic Pollution now.

 

DEMAND Congress protect our oceans.

 

 

Leaked IPCC climate report ‘reads like a 4,000-page indictment’ of humanity’s failure.

 

Terrifying UN draft climate report urges total transformation of “our way of life.”

 

Key witness in Assange case admits to lies in indictment.

 

UN set to call halt of arms to Myanmar.

 

Global call goes out to end destruction of Canada’s ancient forests.

 

Iran says US agrees to lift sanctions on oil, shipping.

 

Old growth logging protesters on day seven of hunger strike.

 

Brazilians protest against Bolsonaro’s COVID mismanagement.

 

Pedro Castillo’s victory raises hopes beyond Peru.

 

Anti-imperialists convene in Venezuela for Carabobo bicentennial congress.

 

Doctors without Borders calls on BioNTech to share vaccine tech with world.

 

680 global leaders urge Biden to end ‘Israeli oppression.’

 

14-day global campaign demands justice for victims of Bolivia coup.

 

Historic Belgian Court says inadequate climate policy a human rights violation,

 

Delegation visits Cabo Verde to #FreeAlexSaab as US flaunts international laws (as usual).

 

In Japan ‘suffocated’ art becomes form of protest against Olympics amidst COVID and radiological contamination.

 

Class action lawsuit filed alleging RCMP abuse of indigenous people in northern Canada.

 

Palestinian Canadians and supporters actively participate in rallies, pickets, and #BloclkTheBoat actions.

 

Indian farmers’ protest completes 200 days.

 

Progressive International convenes global summit to achieve vaccines for all.

 

PG&E to pay $5.9 million for dumping cooling system water from Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant into ocean.

 

State court ruling called ‘big step’ toward holing ExxonMobil accountable for fudging on climate change.

 

Climate experts’ predictions come true as US heatwave.

 

Sunrise ends 400 mile climate march with arrests at Cruz’s house.

 

Biden and Putin agree to resume nuclear talks, return ambassadors to posts.

 

Biden has chance to oversee biggest river restoration project in US history.

 

Biden expands plan to return asylum seekers forced to wait in dangerous border towns.

 

70+ House Dems call on Biden to acknowledge Israeli settlements are illegal.

 

Pelosi to form House select committee to investigate Jan. 6 attack.

 

House appropriates $4.5 million specifically to pay White House interns.

 

Lawmakers tell Biden US has moral obligation to ban landmines (assuming US doesn’t have earwax).

 

Lawmakers demand Biden extend pause on student loan payments.

 

Biden extends eviction moratorium another month.

 

Done with bipartisan dithering on infrastructure, Schumer kicks off budget reconciliation process.

 

Led by Sanders, Senate Dems weigh $6 trillion infrastructure Bill as bipartisan talks fail on climate.

 

Schumer and Sanders work together on bill that could pass the Senate with just 50 votes to lower Medicare age to 60, expanding the coverage to include vision, hearing and dental.

 

Bill to grant Title 38 VA healthcare professionals full workplace rights gains momentum in Congress.

 

Sanders says Congress must combat GOP attacks on voting rights in ‘any and every way.’

 

Manchin gives Biden huge win with support for ‘human infrastructure’ plan than would undo much of ‘very unfair’ GOP tax scam.

 

Dems introduce bill to combat Republican voter suppression efforts.

 

New bill would require Biden to declare wildlife extinction crisis a national emergency

 

Biden to target ‘merchants of death’ who sell illegal guns as US homicides spike (but will he remove them from cops?)

 

Investigative journalist Palast confront Georgia operative throwing legal voters off rolls.

 

DOJ sues Georgia over state’s voter suppression law.

 

Dems introduce abolition amendment to scrap Constitution’s slavery clause.

 

Warren vows not to vote for bipartisan infrastructure plan without climate and child care.

 

Warnock gives speech of our democracy’s life on Senate floor.

 

Blue state Dems make history with big winds on voting rights, worker’s rights, and health care.

 

Criminal probe into DeJoy demanded over illegal GOP donations.

 

20 AGs urge postal commission to reject DeJoy plan to slow mail.

 

Obamacare survives third US Supreme Court challenge.

 

After SCOTUS upholds ACA  progressives set sights on Medicare for All.

 

SCOTUS reaffirms Biden’s power to remove social security commissioner Andrew Saul.

 

SCOTUS rules to protect students’ full free speech rights.

 

SCOTUS dismiss an ongoing challenge to previous administration inhumane anti--asylum “remain in Mexico” policy only because program is no more.

 

SCOTUS rules that cop who followed driver home to his garage had no right doing so without a warrant.

 

Long overdue, House passes Barbara Lee’s 2002 AUMF Repeal.

 

After Iraq War Authorization repealed, calls grow to ‘do the 2001 AUMF next.

 

DOJ finds state laws attacking trans kid’s rights ‘unConstitutional.’

 

New report shows US immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to monitor informed consent protocols use by a doctor accused of performing non-consensual gynecological procedures on women detained at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.

 

New poll shows voters believe social media profits from conspiracies and lies, driving American division.

 

Poll finds socialism increasingly seen as ‘badge of pride’ in US.

 

Growing perception that US support for Israel hampers US diplomacy.

 

Advocates cheer VA move to offer trans vets gender confirmation surgery.

 

Over-the-counter birth control give youth more control over their health.

 

Majority of voters support reconciliation to pass American Jobs & Families Plans together, blame GOP for lack of bipartisanship.

 

Ohio Republican expelled from chamber after federal indictment in $60 million corruption scheme.

 

Construction was halted on Pipeline 3 for over a day by indigenous and activist protectors at the Mississippi’s headwaters.

 

Indigenous women invite Deb Haaland to see devastation of Line 3 for herself.

 

Hoopa Valley Tribe praise Haaland for revoking Central Valley Project.

 

Drought-stricken communities push back against data centers which consume 1.25 million gallons of water each day.

 

New report shows citizenship for undocumented would boost economy and increase wages for all.

 

State lawmakers use powerful tool to mandate renewable energy use.

 

In Brooklyn, activists withhold gas bill payment to protest National Grid Pipeline.

 

Socialist and working class India Walton declare victory in Buffalo mayoral race.

 

Counseling, not criminalization bill unveiled to boot police from US schools.

 

Five Georgia officers fired, denied appeal, after 60 year old Black man dies in custody.

 

Alabama coal miners  demand better wages in 3 month long strike.

 

Coalition demands federal ban on Amazon’s punitive worker surveillance.

 

Teamsters announce coordinated nationwide project to unionize Amazon/

 

Louisville and 20 other cities plan march for Medicare for All.

 

Berkeley rent board passes resolution to condemn evictions of Palestinians  but dos nothing for its own homeless.

 

Tenants call for public housing boss to be bounced.

 

N.Y. court suspends Giuliani from practicing law over #45 lies.

ARMS AGAINST A SEA OF TROUBLES

I want to devote this issue of the newsletter to a matter having a wider reach than our current political discourse (and lack of it).

In a recent conversation with a friend, she speculated that I might not want to get quite so “dark” as she put it, compared to where I “have been going” lately. Indeed, she is not the first. One friendship has been lost around this very issue. The issue of “going there.”

For some uncanny reason (maybe it’s genes) I seem to have somewhat less trouble than some folks “going there.” That seems always to have been the case, from the time when, as a very young person, I accepted the mentorship of three people who in various ways, had experienced being Jewish, living in Europe through the years of the Third Reich, each of them having paid variously and dearly for their experiences. That said, I experienced one period of high stress when this gift deserted me for some time. 

I told my friend I was not without secrets, that I had some defenses up my sleeve. I think it may be helpful to some of the over 800 readers of this newsletter for me to try to share some of them.

The west is not the only fruit

While the western hemisphere basks in full sunlight, the eastern half of our planet lies in darkness. Without realizing it, most people of the west are completely in the dark about what the east has to teach us. Increasingly, our planet seems to have allowed itself to succumb to the lures of western culture, a culture based on individualism, competition, and the collapse of time itself, whereas for the most part, the east embodies in its cultures a slower pace of living, a more collaborative, collective view of work and life, and a sense of history rooted in the very distant past, a sense which lends opinion formation both perspective and humility.

 

And that seasoned sense of time allows the viewing of technology, certainly as the manifestation of the western, one-sided state of mind, with a certain skepticism, and to recognize in its single-minded pursuit, an obsessiveness which characterizes any other religion. That untempered pursuit has gotten us earthlings in a mighty fix, one we lack language and vision to encounter. At best we have the glimmerings of new birth, an awakening piloted by children. In our growing dilemma, we forget that Earth is custodian of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Shivkumar Sharma, Nikhil Banerjee, Jimi Hendrix, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Sophie Watillon, and the painting of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Matisse, Courbet, and the writing of Shakespeare, Kazantzakis, and Sam Beckett, and the theater of Peter Schumann, and such thinkers as Buber, and Levinas, and the mathematics of Ramanujan, and the mysticism of St. Francis, and that we earthlings are the guardians of such treasures, which perish when we perish.  

 

 Living Things 

What other folks sometimes refer to as Creation, namely all things that live (including the human) is cause for study, and celebration, and some of them are things I have learned to hold dear. Trees, especially, occupy that part of my landscape—which is why I continue living where I do. Whenever I find myself in their presence, I notice that the air feels different, which I experience as a freshness, a coolness I find no where else.  I am breathing the air the trees have breathed. We are sharing this air, and I am conscious of their gift, and their great beauty and majesty.

 

 Some time ago, when the East Bay Regional Park District announced their plan to clearcut thousands of trees along the East Bay Hills, I attended a hearing (a sham hearing as it turned out: the apparent jury declared at one point: “Oh, we’re not the commissioners! We are just the secretaries!”) I spoke. I testified, if you will, about what those trees meant to me after living under them for so many years. “I have put a lot of love on those trees,” I tried explaining.

The point here, is not whether or not I might have been heard by the secretaries, or their masters, but how I chose to encapsulate a feeling that is infinitely broader than words can ever express:  I hold trees—and all of creation—sacred.  In other words, awe is part of my life. I am not ashamed of it. I need it to lend dimension to the way I perceive human existence, and my own small place in the world.

 Commitment to Buddhism

At most, I am an accidental Buddhist. The story begins some 40 years or so, after experiencing two uncanny episodes, 15 years apart, of absolutely undeserved, and unearned serendipity. What I  appreciate about Buddhism is it allows you to think for yourself and progress at your own (sometimes pathetic) pace. It does not tell you what to think (although its amusing mythology attributes the Buddha’s birth to his mother’s encounter—not with a bird—but with an elephant)! For someone areligious, it appeals because it is not a religion; it is a path without absolutes, one adaptable even to slow learners. It offers few declarative sentences, and it poses its questions in the form of unfathomable koans. (All dharmas are inherently empty; form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form - from the Heart Sutra.)

Ajanta Cave - India

Over a great deal of time, in its mysterious way, little by little, its practice seasons the untamed soul. The small increments are barely noticeable at first, but over many years, they add up to a stronger sense of perspective, and balance, and strengthen one’s ability to count to ten, and above all to listen. It gives one the insight and courage to begin facing oneself. And to observe the distinction between saying “that’s good, that’s bad” vs. “I think that’s good. I think that’s bad.” In other words you give up any impulse to lay trips on other people, some of them ex-friends, and begin learning to take responsibility. And that growing sense of responsibility allows even willfully junglee people to grow up. A little.

What I especially like about Buddhism is one of its so-called noble truths: See things as they are. And that ability is essential if we are ever honestly to face the challenges coming at us thick and fast, and to become effective at doing something about them, not just smiling (that is the danger of over-Buddhism) and continuing on one’s placid way, but allowing the divine fire of anger to move us off our duffs.

Tile detail - Blue Mosque, Isfahan

Wrong Way on a One-Way Street

Wrong way on a one-way street

What if James Watt had been born under French skies, and not in Scotland? Or what if Augustin Mouchot’s invention of the solar-powered steam engine had preceded rather than succeeded Watt’s by 100 years? The history of industrial age energy might have taken a radically different course. As it is, from its beginning its Anglo-centric history projected a trajectory similar to traveling the wrong way on a one-way street. Instead of looking below the Earth’s crust for ever-declining resources to fuel the industrial age’s growing need for energy, it might have been wiser to look above to the sun as Mouchot did for the ever-renewable energy it could provide in limitless quantities.

Today, the 266^th day following the planetary disaster at Fukushima, the morning dawns shrouded in fog so dense, the tall redwoods lining the opposite side of the street hover like ghosts, their crowns barely discernible at 40 feet. It reminds me of what Londoners called pea-soup fog, the result of burning coal in all of London’s fireplaces against the winter chill.

What were the Scottish skies like when James Watt made his appearance on earth in 1736? What were the skies like in 1825 when Augustin Monchot was born? Why did one man look below the earth for redemption, while another looked to the sun? Long before the year of Watt’s birth, the so-called “primitives” of the Southwest had thought to orient their cliff dwellings on the north sides of their steep canyon homes to benefit from the sun’s radiation in the winter months. Even proponents of Feng Shui will tell you a front door opening east is always propitious. How did it occur to a Westerner to see with eco-centric eyes and with a sensibility that concerned itself with implications for the future?

Watt and Mouchot were very different men in terms of social class, in culture, and sensibility. While Watt was born into the merchant class, inadept at any scholarship other than mathematics and mechanics, Mouchot was born in the Morvan, a district in the heart of France known for its natural beauty. Except for the year in which the Ministry of Education gave him a grant and a leave of absence to travel to Algeria to perfect his invention of a solar steam engine, he served as a schoolmaster, moving from teaching grammar school in the Morvan, to teaching high school in Tours and later in Rennes.

“One must not believe, despite the silence of modern writings, that the idea of using solar heat for mechanical operations is recent. On the contrary, one must recognize that this idea is very ancient and its slow development across the centuries has given birth to various curious devices.” What curious devices might Mouchot have referred to in his 1880 statement? The small book he published in 1869, the same year he displayed one of his first models, Chaleur Solaire credits the Arabs with their glass-making skills for experiments focusing the sun’s rays to obtain heat and traces their interest to ancient Egypt and later Greece, evidence of Mouchot’s historic sensibility. Even more telling, in another short section he points out the sun’s role in regulating the planet’s wind and ocean currents, and nurturing the life of plants and animals, suggesting a deeply ecological cast of mind. But, unlike Watt, he never succeeded culturally or financially in obtaining support for his invention. He taught school till his retirement. One can only imagine how fortunate were those pupils who studied under him.

By 1869, the year he displayed one of his first prototypes, the price of coal dropped, effectively making his invention all but irrelevant in the eyes of the public.

“Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion... Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then?” Mouchot wrote those words in 1878, the year he exhibited at the Universal Exposition in Paris the great axicon he had perfected—essentially a solar dish.

The earlier model he displayed in 1869 disappeared in 1871 during the chaos and destruction of the Franco-Prussian War during which—ironically —France lost its access to cheap coal with the German annexation of the mining district of Alsace-Lorraine—which may in part explain why present-day France is the European country relying most on nuclear energy.

It’s hard to imagine what the consequences to our planet might have been had Mouchot’s timing been otherwise, had the Industrial Revolution not resulted in the growing infrastructure that guaranteed support for Watt’s invention to the exclusion of Mouchot’s: the coal mines in which children and women worked sixteen hours a day stripped to the waist to better withstand the heat, crawling on their knees to push the coal cars in galleries too shallow to allow for mules or machines to do the work, how thousands died of tuberculosis in the crowded cities of newly industrialized Europe whose skies became darkened by carbon pollution, air so thick, at dusk you could see the carbon particles shimmer in the fading light.