Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is Climate Change, so I asked Chris Blackman, who is a strategic consultant specializing finding both private and public funding in the green and clean technology sector, to offer her thoughts on a subject that enrages me every time it comes up—which is more and more often. The subject is the sacrificing of one limited resource for the sake of another.
From Chris…
Would you choose to go hungry and thirsty so that you could have energy?
To biomass’ benefit the water it consumes is reused over and over again, but turning waste to energy using the aerobic digestion method has a 1:1 ratio—one ton of waste requires one ton of water to process that waste.
In some ways, we have adopted an anything goes approach to producing some green energy and it seems a bit deja vu: using oil products to produce other energy forms.
In this case, it is even worse—it is not only the environmental impact but also the real possibility of going thirsty or hungry if we use our drinking or irrigation water to produce energy.
A recent New York Times article revealed that a solar power company dangled the opportunity to create hundreds of new jobs in a desert community at the cost of “consuming 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of the desert valley’s available water.”
All that community needs to do is to look at the legal battle being waged right now amongst the states that have access to the Colorado river to vividly understand why they should not sell their water rights, in the hopes of procuring water from their neighbors.
Already there are many parts of the country in which the water is already unusable in spite of the Clean Water Act.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. … the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.
I am not in any way advocating stopping our investments in clean and green energy; however, it is tunnel vision to invest in clean energy at the cost of clean water.
There are places in this country better suited, where the solar and water requirements are better aligned: Florida and the rest of the Southeast, at least in most years. (See Chris’ post on how dark, rainy Germany used US-invented technology to become a global solar leader.)
The opening question may seem melodramatic, but I wonder what the former Soviet Republic would give today to have the Aral Sea back, since today it is mostly a dry lifeless bed of blowing salt.
Was its loss, and the salt poisoning of the surrounding lands, worth the measly two decades of cotton they produced while depleting its water sources? The environmental and economic toll of the Aral Sea’s destruction could end up being as costly as Chernobyl.
That is not melodrama, that is precedent.
Want more proof? T. Boon Pickens, who isn’t known for his ‘friend of the community’ attitudes, is betting 100 million dollars that water is the new oil.
‘Oh Father, spare me the need to eat and drink so that I may use these resources for electricity’ – who would ever pray for that?
We still don’t get “the vision thing.”
When will we begin to approach our economy and the environment as a single integrated whole?
When will we balance out the true costs and benefits of our activities?
When will the options we choose from include using less, instead of always inventing new ways to consume more?
According to Drew Pinsky MD, AKA, Dr. Drew on radio and TV, and S. Mark Young, a social scientist it may be especially dangerous for young people, who view celebrities as role models.
“They are the sponges of our culture. Their values are now being set. Are they really the values we want our young people to be absorbing? … It harkens back to the question of how much are young people affected by models of social learning. Humans are the only animals who learn by watching other humans.”
18 year-old, 6-foot-5, 200-pound “Colton Harris-Moore is suspected in about 50 burglary cases since he slipped away from a halfway house in April 2008. Now, authorities say, he may have adopted a more dangerous hobby: stealing airplanes.”
Adin Stevens of Seattle is selling T-shirts celebrating him and there is a fan club on Facebook.
I’m not surprised, in a world where serial killers have groupies and people fight for souvenirs of death-row inmates it figures that they’re going to romanticize someone who manages to not get caught.
But what makes me ill are his mother’s comments, “I hope to hell he stole those airplanes – I would be so proud,” Pam Kohler said, noting her son’s lack of training. “But put in there that I want him to wear a parachute next time.”
It’s tough enough to grow up these days; it’s tougher in a dysfunctional home or in areas that are gang-controlled, but what kid stands a chance with parents like this?
What can we do? Where can we find more positive role models that have the glamour that mesmerizes kids and grownups alike?
When will we glorify function instead of dysfunction? Meaning instead of money?
I don’t understand the current obsession with other people’s lives, in fact, I find it very weird.
Whether it is a public figure or not, the desire (need?) to know every little detail, what they are doing every minute of their lives, the products they use, their ups and downs to be almost obsessional.
This kind of interest used to be reserved for the intimacy of real friendship or close family relations—and even then there were boundaries—but now anyone is fair game.
Apparently I’m not as out of it as I thought; many people are shutting down their Facebook pages for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are the effects they notice on their own MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).
Others are leaving because they don’t like the commercialization, which I find amusing. Any mass human congregating, past, present or future, will attract those who want to sell their product. Why anyone would think it would be different because the location is in the cyber-world is beyond me.
Other than malicious intent, two things happen on social media.
Not thinking, which causes people to post stuff to venues in which it doesn’t belong and giving access to “friends”—who may not be next week.
Not focusing, which leads to pilot error though the ease and simplicity of clicking the wrong button.
Consider this post, sent to me by a friend, as a great example of the dangers of multitasking while updating Facebook.
Can you imagine the reaction of hiring managers, potential mates or future kids? Even if it had been posted privately there is nothing to stop a “friend” who is angry from reposting it.
Once it’s out there it’s out there forever—definitely the wrong kind of immortality.
I’ve said many times, both here and at MAPping Company Success that social media never dies and people need to think about that.
Last April Steve Tobak, who writes BNET’s The Corner Office, did a post on 5 classic blunders when presenting to the board of directors. Good post, interesting and useful if you’re in that arena.
But his current post, 5 Classic Dumb Executive Moves is priceless; not just the five of his own that he shared, but the dozens shared by readers.
The great thing is that they apply to everyone, so you don’t have to be an executive to learn from them.
Many talked about email sent to the wrong people or the entire company instead of the one person for whom it was meant. (Sound familiar?)
Sadly, many talked about what happened when they gave honest answers to their managers; enough similarities to assure you that Dilbertland is alive and well.
Obviously, it’s a matter of culture and the manager’s MAP, but it’s a good idea not to misread it.
As one person offered in his WORDS TO LIVE BY: No good deed goes unpunished
Good guys DO finish last
A few were hilarious, here’s a favorite from a woman who was even brave enough to use her own name.
“Gave a speech in a foreign language and, in an attempt to say, “You can be flexible,” accidentally said, “you can stretch your private parts.” The audience loved it and kept asking me to repeat the sentence before I caught on.”
Let’s start our own list, here are 5 of mine.
Back when smoking was still acceptable in offices I smelled a cigar and made a comment about the phallic implications of men who smoked cigars to my cube-mate. A few minutes later the VP visiting from HQ walked in carrying his cigar. He pretended he didn’t hear, but I was told later that almost everybody heard me.
When I was a recruiter I called a long-time client and presented an engineer for a critical opening. Half way through I realized I was presenting the person who had just left.
Probably one of the dumbest things I did as a recruiter was setting up an interview and then forgetting to tell the candidate, so he was a no-show. The manager was furious and I had to grovel to get him to listen to the truth and reschedule.
During a training session on writing better emails I critiqued one of the real life examples given to me by HR, pointing out the grammatical and spelling errors, poor phrasing and misused words. It turned out that the email was from the executive who hired me.
Then there are the times, too numerous to count, since my hearing went south that I’ve responded to what I thought was being said and was not only off base, but completely out of the park.
Not my smartest moments.
What about you? What are your most remembered OMG moments?
Each OMG moment you share will enter you in a random drawing for a copy of Jason Jenning’s Hit The Ground Running.
The contest runs through August 31 and you can enter as many times as you want.
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His [Livingston] situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”
“I think it would be much better for the country and for him [Livingston] personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.”
“What I find interesting is the story of David, and the way in which he fell mightily—fell in very, very significant ways, but then picked up the pieces and built from there.” (King David, who slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife, had the husband killed, married the widow, but continued to ‘lead’.)
“Too many people in government seem to think they are above regular folks, and I said I would expect humility in the way each member of my team served—that they would recognize that the taxpayer is boss.”
“We as a party want to hold ourselves to high standards, period,”
I hope you’ll come back tomorrow as this conversation continues.
“…the Obama administration will use a Congressional rewriting of the federal law later this year to toughen requirements on topics like teacher quality and academic standards and to intensify its focus on helping failing schools. … The stimulus requires governors to raise standards to a new benchmark: the point at which high school graduates can succeed — without remedial classes — in college, the workplace or the military.”
Sounds great, but all I can say is good luck.
Not because of teacher quality; not because of money, since they actually plan to fund education (unlike the original N. C. L. B.) and not because the state governors won’t get behind it, but because there is no way to mandate parental support.
Previously, “the No Child Left Behind law allowed each state to set its own academic standards, with the result that many have dumbed down curriculums and tests. Colorado even opted to use its “partially proficient” level of academic performance as “proficient” for reporting purposes.”
“…an unpopular math teacher was dismissed from a suburban high school where I live because parents complained that she was far too tough on her students. She gave them way too much homework, and her tests were much tougher than the other math teachers’ tests, forcing her students to study for hours each week outside of class. Interestingly, her students also scored the highest on state mandated standardized achievement tests as well as higher than other teachers’ students on the quantitative portion of the SAT and on the math AP exams. Still, she was tough, so they fired her.”
Parents as a group are vocal about wanting better education and are quick to blame teachers, schools and government for its sorry state.
They never consider their own complicity in the downward spiral of US education. It just couldn’t have anything to do with their parenting.
After all, it’s only fair that they talk to the principal/school board about Ms. Randell’s/Mr. Johnson’s totally unfair treatment of their precious children; all that time the kids are expected to spend on homework when they would rather be socializing with their friends. And the papers they’re expected to write, not just copy off the internet, using good grammar and being down-graded for using texting terms; not to mention the tests—they’re just too difficult.
Nor should they be expected to tell their kids that they need to work really hard if they want to get into college—let alone at a job—that’s not supportive and may damage their fragile egos.
“”The show counteracts the stance that the world owes you whatever you want, even a living as a rock star, just because you happen to want it,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.”
I’ve never watched Idol, but if it’s teaching that lesson I’ll be a lot more tolerant when it pre-empts something I do watch.
It doesn’t seem that the financial crisis is really changing things all that much.
The exodus of Wall Street bankers is mostly smoke and mirrors, not change, as many of the so-called disgraced leave for banks that didn’t accept bailout money, taking their clients and attitudes with them.
“Banks paid out some $18 billion in bonuses last year, down 44 percent compared with a year earlier, and many workers viewed them as paltry payouts… Sensing a shifting tide, talented bankers who fear a dimmer future at banks that have taken taxpayer money are migrating to brash boutique firms like Aladdin, which are intent on proving their critics wrong by chasing fast profits and growth in hopes of one day rising up as challengers to the old guard.”
Wall Street forces companies to focus on short-term profits, often at the expense of long-term corporate success and innovation, primarily to add more zeros to their own paychecks.
State politicians solve their budget shortfalls by trashing those least likely to vote and completely incapable of donating to their campaigns—the poor, elderly and children.
According to Arizona’s Linda J. Blessing “There’s no question that we’re getting short-term savings that will result in greater long-term human and financial costs,” expressing the concerns of officials and community agencies around the country. “There are no good options, just less bad options.” Ohio’s proposed budget “will dramatically decrease our ability to investigate reports of abuse and neglect,” with some counties losing 75 percent of their investigators The Illinois governor’s budget proposal would scale back home visits to ill-equipped first-time mothers, who are given advice over 18 months that experts say is repaid many times over in reduced child abuse and better school preparation.”
Politicians implement short-term fixes at the cost of long-term social solutions, because (a) they have little negative impact on their re-election and (b) they won’t be around to deal with the mess anyway.
I have an acquaintance who isn’t wealthy, probably midway between middle and upper-middle class. She constantly talks about how she and her husband do everything they can to avoid taxes and would never vote in favor of them no matter what.
During the same conversations she gripes that the unincorporated county where she lives doesn’t plow the road near her house quickly enough when it snows; the ambulance didn’t arrive fast enough when her husband had trouble breathing; her grandchildren’s schools keep reducing enrichment programs and the classes are too large.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is Climate Change, so I asked Chris Blackman, who is a strategic consultant specializing finding both private and public funding in the green and clean technology sector, to offer her thoughts on a subject that enrages me every time it comes up—which is more and more often. The subject is the sacrificing of one limited resource for the sake of another.
Last Friday I wrote 
But his current post, 
“The bottom line, though, is I am sure there will be a lot of legalistic explanations pointing out that the president lied under oath. His [Livingston] situation was not under oath. The bottom line, though, is he still lied. He lied under a different oath, and that is the oath to his wife. So it’s got to be taken very, very seriously.”
Whoever thought that it would be American Idol that would teach kids that 
It doesn’t seem that the financial crisis is really changing things all that much.
