A few years ago, I read an inspiring article on Treehugger that changed my whole attitude toward solar-powered homes. I had been thinking that solar was a multi-thousand dollar commitment that required complicated wiring and hard-to-understand deals with power companies. It turns out solar is (like marriage) something you can transition to slowly as your means permit.

The original Treehugger set-up (which is based on a post from Off-Grid.net) promises to keep the initial set-up at under $600 and indeed it does:

However, when I set out to purchase all of those items, I found the reality to look more like this:

Maybe the professionals have a line on super-cheap (and discontinued?) solar products, but it was clear that their recommended gear was not going to work for me at the price suggested. I’m the kind of guy who likes to let other people make my mistakes for me (which is why I love libraries) so I became nervous when the exact system they mentioned wasn’t available. I considered getting an all-in-one kit like those from Sunwize, but for $600 I would end up with a 5 watt panel and a 19 amp hour battery. If I wanted to get ripped off, I’d buy ridiculously expensive Chuck Taylor knock-offs.

Eventually, I had to bite the bullet and learn me about some solar. I bought a Kill-a-Watt monitor and went from plug to plug measuring my appliances. Then I did some reading about solar systems in general and what I could expect from the sun in my area (San Francisco). Finally, I did a lot of online research and came up with my own shopping list:

Close enough! There are some definite improvements to my own list, if I do say so myself. The obvious ones are the bigger inverter and charge controller—the latter especially important, as it will allow me to support up several more panels and batteries when I’m ready to grow. The battery is AGM (Absorption Glass Mat) which is safer and can take more punishment than the slightly old school gel batteries. Finally, the size of the panel doubled and is a size that’s not discontinued. The Uni-Solar panels from the original plan are definitely the way to go, as they’re light-weight, glass-free, shade-tolerant, graffiti-proof, and lots of other hyphenated descriptors.

Still on my list is a digital multimeter, because not knowing the precise number of volts here or amps there is going to drive a number-obsessed fellow like me crazy. Oh, and I need to talk to my landlord about all this… you don’t think he’ll mind, do you?

Update (1/20/10): It’s up-and-running!

The last few years, controversy has followed around Adam Werbach like a shadow. From his landmark “Is Environmentalism Dead?” speech to the work with Wal*Mart that’s left even his supporters scratching their heads, all along he’s promised that answers were coming. Answers have finally come… and in a form no less substantial than a total re-imagining of “sustainability” and a model for organizing how we tackle it as a planet.

Instead of spending the rest of this post explaining exactly what that is, here’s a full transcript of his speech and more about the platform from which he’s planning on doing his part. Yeah, it’s an advertising company—get over it. Now that we’re on the same page…

Though he namechecks Switzerland for the name Blue, it’s clear that this vision is the thoughtful and considered construct of one who has faced his demons—the IPCC reports things are worse than we’ve feared even as carbon emissions continue to rise, all the while Werbach’s been a leader in the Green movement—and emerged a wiser man. Environmentalism, despite all the dire warnings and alarm bells, has succeeded in little more than everyone feeling scared, guilty, or just angry. Now he’s ready to stop saying “the world is ending” and move from crisis to possibility.

In this way, he aligns himself with similar transformative thinkers—notably Van Jones (unfortunately, no relation). Though I haven’t heard yet if Jones endorses a “Blue” re-framing, he’s certainly been wary to define Green as limited to the organic foodfest or Prius-equals-redemption model popular among the gatekeepers of Green. His anxiety around the Eco-Apartheid that we seem determined to create and the consequences it would have on lasting sustainability are addressed by Blue in ways Green pays only lip service.

Also sharing this vision might be Alex Steffan of Worldchanging, who recently declared that “optimism is a political act.” Indeed, Blue is accepting and positive on a scale that makes even Bright Green (which “forgoes the bleakness of protest and dissent for the energizing confidence of constructive solutions”) seem a bit dim. Blue will likely mean saying yes enthusiastically to things to which we’ve been trained as activists to say no.

Werbach recalls:

I remember the conversation with Jan when she told me that her new PSP was a diet. “Really?” I asked, obviously disappointed that this born leader had chosen to go with something so…ordinary.

“What do you mean, ‘Really?’” she snapped back.

“Well, I just figured that sustainability—I said it slowly this time—has to have something to do with protecting the earth.”

Jan gave me a kind sigh. “Where do you think all that food is coming from?”

This letting go will be absolutely necessary to reach the most startling aspect of Adam’s plan. We have five years to grow Blue to one billion people (for reference, that’s about the size of the Internet). If we’re going to move at the speed necessary to address climate change, that’s the number of people we need to reach. That means we have to talk about things that address the concerns of more that just “Mac users… coastal states and college towns”. The impossible mass of the American Midwest, land of strip malls and big box stores, must in turn be joined by the waking giants of India and China and all feel as much a part of Blue as I now do.

I have to admit I think the name is unfortunate. Yes, it’s next on the spectrum but that wavelength is already well-tread by the U.S. Democratic party and yet another color name makes the “Blue is the New Green” jokes unavoidable.

One of the things I liked most about the Creative Review “green issue” was its admission that it couldn’t solve everything in one go (note my British turns of phrase), but that it was committed to getting its house in order and that the changes it made for its green issue—like the biodegradable polybag and recycled paper stock—weren’t just a gimmick but the first steps toward a sincere promise to address ecological concerns. To quote the article “CR and the environment” on page 36:

However, we know that this isn’t enough. There are a lot more aspects that we should consider including…

You can imagine my disappointment to get the new issue and see that the cover is back (no biodegradable polybag) and the indicia specifying the paper as Galerie One Silk, which doesn’t appear to be recycled, instead of the Cyclus Print (100% PCW) named in the last issue. It’s also a double issue, with “over 100 extra pages”.

Almost as disappointing is the “green issue” from one. a magazine produced by New York’s One Club, a non-profit dedicated to “the recognition and promotion of excellence in advertising”. They must have a different definition of “excellence” than I, as their awardees for their green issue include GE’s clean coal greenwashing, Diesel’s “global warming ready” clothing line, and BP’s Helios campaign which features a LEED-certified gas station as it’s centerpiece (or “branding beacon” as the Senior VP of Global Brand Marketing and Innovation calls it). Yes, a LEED-certified fucking gas station. Even BP’s ad agency Ogilvy & Mather admit the idea was:

Let’s take an existing gas station site and re-wrap it in an eco-friendly way.

Maybe just bulldoze it next time? I mean, it’s like they do this just to see if anyone notices how screwed up it is. They were probably giggling the whole time.

Speaking of “beacons”, the only light at the end of the tunnel was an article in the Creative Review by Tom Wnek about how the ad industry is (partially) to blame for everything from global warming to obesity called, “How Did We Get To Be The Bad Guys?” It offers a pretty good analysis of how “selling the sizzle, not the steak” has gotten us into some hot water. The next issue promises a part two on how to get out of this mess… Promises, promises.

Over the last six years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have written the most authoritative study on Climate Change to date. It has been penned by over 800 scientists and reviewed by an additional 2500 from over 130 countries and represents the very best science we have on the subject. The Summary for Policymakers (pdf) is available online. In brief, the findings were:

1. “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” (p.4)
2. There’s a 90% chance that humans have caused it. (p.3)
3. Emissions are so out-of-control that warming will “continue for centuries” even if they’re stabilized. (p.12)

I’ll let you take a moment to go through the fives stages of grief before we move on. By move on, I mean, introduce the other team. Yes, coming out on the other side—against the report—is a well-oiled machine of energy companies, PR hatchet men, and legislative puppets.

ExxonMobil (via one of their “unbiased third party” think tanks, American Enterprise Institute) has already gotten caught offering bribes to any scientist willing to dispute the report. No research required, just disagree. All they want is a climate of confusion (pun intended).

Next, PR hacks like self-appointed “Junkman” Steven Milloy (to whom I will not befoul myself by linking, but do read his profile on SourceWatch), have tried to deliberately misrepresent the report by accusing the media of deliberately misrepresenting it. Having long since given up trying to prove the contrary to any scientific findings, the best they can do is shed doubt on what knowledge real science has rendered. Nice try, but it turns out I can read.

Similarly, Senator James “At-least-I’m-not-Senator-Stevens” Inhofe (R-OK), has gone on record calling the report “a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain“. The statement is so ironic it attracts magnets.

I am not given to hyperbole. Phrases like “worst” and “best” I reserve for the actual “worst” and “best” subjects of a category. Similarly, if I say something like, “I love this movie,” I have often already considered marriage before someone taunts me with the suggestion. I note this because it will ground my following opinion as beyond a stereotypical enviro-exaggeration, but the truth as far as I am concerned. These people who would place their profits, their salary, or their kickbacks ahead of the health and safety of not only our natural world but the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet cannot be called anything nicer than traitor to the human race. They’ve been deceiving, deluding, or dragging their heels for far too long. I search my heart for some scrap of compassion for them to forgive the terrible crime they’ve committed against all of us and find none.

Let’s leave them to their petty machinations and meddling and pay them no more mind. In the meantime, the rest of us will Step It Up and try to get Earth back on the right track before things get even worse. Hesitation is over and done. Do all you can, as soon as you can. We meet this challenge and our great-great-great-grandkids will sing the victory in their songs. We fail and no songs will be sung.

“My Final Prediction”, Bruce Sterling’s last column with Wired, ends:

As a futurist, I’ve often licked my chops over rather grim possibilities. But my lasting fondness for the dark side is a personal taste, not an analysis. I’m frequently surprised, and when I consider the biggest surprises, I’m heartened that they were mostly positive. The Internet, for instance, crawled out of a dank atomic fallout shelter to become the Mardi Gras parade of my generation. It was not a bolt of destructive lightning; it was the sun breaking through the clouds.

Please, Bruce, you’re not a Futurist. And your “fondness for the dark side” is like my “fondness” for The White Stripes. I would like to like them, but I don’t actually like them. As soon as no one’s looking, I switch back to AFX and Autechre.

Futurists are violent, callous, and remorseless. An art project in college had me memorizing the 1909 Futurist Manifesto, and I can still recall the good bits:

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! Oh, factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!

We want to glorify war—the only cure for the world—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired, for they are nourished by fire, hatred, and speed! Does this surprise you? It is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world’s summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Futurists would love the world we’ve created today. Essentially, their manifesto has manifested. Even television commercials have wholly adopted Futurist values. Faster transactions with your credit card! Higher horsepower for your SUV! More blades on your safety razor! Louder crunch in your snack food!

Nope. I’ve heard Sterling speak before and I was not left wanting to destroy museums or build my own rocket pack. He had the closing remarks at last year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference. After an hour of decrying the state of the world, failed governments and devastated ecosystems, he described the beautiful world that was possible and, in a tearful rendition of Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes!” drove the point home. I couldn’t continue without quoting the poem myself.

The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can’t laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.
…
This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can’t hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people march:
“Where to? what next?”

No, Bruce. Sorry to say it, but you’re a humanist. Maybe, on some days, a transhumanist—but mostly just a humanist. I know it sucks to be a happy, optimistic writer sometimes (what do you do for angst?) but you’ve given us a beautiful vision of an ecological sustainable future, so don’t fight your nature. No pun intended.

Sorry this post looks like a Clips Show. I’m getting sick and needed some extra sleep.

The short answer is everything, but let’s delve into a little more detail, shall we? I’ve included screenshots of RAN.org from each year, so you can play along at home.

1994

• Tim Berners-Lee founds the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• The brand new Netscape begins to chip away at Mosaic
• Al Gore coins the term “Information Superhighway”
• Yahoo goes live
• The now ubiquitous programming language PHP is released

1995

• Java and JavaScript join the party
• Amazon starts books so cheap, everyone says it can’t last
• People can now “find it on eBay“
• Suck creates the first generation of internet famous
• Craig starts a list

1996

• The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is incorporated, using data gathered from Usenet
• Macromedia releases Flash spawning millions of terrible websites
• US Robotics develops a Pilot that fits in your palm
• I graduate high school

1997

• The first PCs for less than $1000 emerge
• The Dancing Baby debuts
• Altavista’s Babel Fish offers sometimes useful translations
• The first DVDs go on sale

1998

• The DMCA is passed, many protest
• Windows 98 is released
• Google goes live, its importance is somewhat understated at first
• Megapopular Open Source database MySQL is released

1999

• The Y2K freakout begins
• The launch of Napster sounds the death knell for the music industry
• Seminal massively multi-player online roleplaying game (MMORPG) Everquest is released
• Prince parties, presumably

2000

• AOL, a cute little internet company, buys Time Warner, a ginormous media conglomerate
• Microsoft loses it’s anti-trust case United States v. Microsoft
• Gore loses Bush v. Gore (and the presidency)
• I graduate from college

2001

• The launch of Wikipedia tears down the Ivory Tower
• Suck posts its last article
• The iPod debuts, it seems very expensive
• Napster shuts down under the weight of multiple law suits
• Somebody sets us up the bomb

2002

• eBay buys PayPal, the only “Dot.com buys Dot.com” move that has ever seemed like a no-brainer to me
• Old school social networking site Friendster goes live
• Google News removes editors from the equation and offers algorithmically selected headlines
• The first Creative Commons licenses released

2003

• MP3.com shuts down
• Social bookmarking site del.icio.us goes live
• Google, not the first to recognize the growing power of blogs, buys Blogger
• MySpace begins its rise to fame and subsequent descent to infamy
• MMORPG Second Life is made public, no orcs are included

2004

• Photo sharing site Flickr goes live and allows people to look up ex-boy/girlfriends and see if they’re fat
• GMail introduced, requiring an invite for the tasty AJAX action
• 37signals releases some of the code to their product Basecamp as Ruby on Rails
• First mention of “Web 2.0“
• I take over design at RAN.org

2005

• YouTube goes live, amidst shrieks of “Be the media!” and “OMG, I can’t believe he ate that!”
• eBay buys Skype
• Adobe buys Macromedia
• Dog eats dog

2006

• Google buys YouTube, heads are scratched
• Despite a widespread awareness-raising campaign, “Network Neutrality” laws fail to pass
• Microsoft releases the Zune just in time for Xmas, in lump-of-coal black or log-of-shit brown
• I relaunch Sunshocked and resurrect the Stanifesto

Next year, I get to deal with a surly teenager.

My mother thinks I’m being silly, so this blog post is partly for her, but partly for anyone else who would wonder why I would choose to take a 52 hour train ride inside of a 5 hour plane ride. The reasons are largely, though not entirely, environmental. There are two big considerations in taking a train over flying—consumption and emissions; essentially, “what goes in” and “what comes out”.

For consumption, it can be difficult to compare the wide variety of modes of transportation. This one uses gasoline, that one uses electricity, this carries just one person, that one carries 70. We need to level the playing field a little bit. One way to do that is to talk about BTU/passenger-mile. A BTU is a simple unit of energy. Fuels such as gasoline or coal contain energy; a gallon of gasoline contains about 115,000 BTU, a pound of coal contains about 12,000 BTU, etc. Of course, converting fuel into turning wheels or spinning jets is not 100% efficient and a lot of these BTU are wasted (the internal combustion engine in your car only gets about 30%). That’s why we need BTU per passenger-miles, as in “How many BTU does it take to take one person the distance of one mile in this vehicle?” With that explanation, let’s see some data.

Data courtesy of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, except the long walk which I calculated burning 100 Calories per mile walked (I’d be somewhat encumbered with Xmas presents).

By taking a train over flying, I save 5,359,200 BTU, or almost 50 gallons of gasoline. That’s just one person. A single train car on the California Zephyr would save close to 2,000 gallons!

Let’s talk about emissions. Carbon = bad. People have tried to get around this fact lots of different ways, including denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. So what now?

Data courtesy of WRI and TravelMatters. Walking still wins.

There are other reasons, for sure. The seats are bigger, they don’t harass you at the security checkpoints (I always have to restrain myself from saying, “how many terrorists did you catch today?” at airports), and the view is tremendous. On the line I’m riding, they specifically time the train schedule so that the most breathtaking views occur during daylight hours. At the end of the day, we just can’t continue to fly as much as we do on this planet—something’s got to give and I don’t want that to mean not seeing my family gathered around the tree.

Oh yeah, and Amtrak has developed a hybrid locomotive. Eat that JetBlue!

It’s not the first time O’Reilly has expressed his unmitigated hate toward the city of San Francisco. Almost exactly a year ago, he told Al Qaeda, “You want to blow up Coit Tower? Go ahead.” This time, his current rhetoric is more aimed at our gay pride parades, “pot shops”, and mocking of Christianity.

I should know better than to assume anything O’Reilly says is rooted in reality, but assertions that San Francisco is some sort of secular playground is ridiculous. I’ve attended services at Glide with a Jewish friend and managed to make it to a Solstice or Beltane party every once in a while, too. Further, the Mission District is very Catholic and there are neighborhood celebrations around Confirmations or Baptisms every week.

So what exactly are “San Francisco Values”?

He’s hitting on something with the gay pride parades. San Francisco definitely values diversity. The tremendous Chinese New Year Parade has been named one of the world’s top ten parades. I loved going last year and seeing all the little kids dressed like puppies for the Year of the Dog. Last week’s Dia de los Muertos celebration was a beautiful colored stone in the mosaic of cultures that is San Francisco.

The “pot shops” crack may be a crack at our hippie heritage and I’m pleased to say that the treehugger’s have left a lasting legacy. San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland are all in the Top 20 greenest cities in the U.S. according to the Green Guide. Personally, I take one of the four excellent forms of mass transit San Francisco has (none of which use gasoline) to work every day.

One thing that Bill has left out, however, is San Francisco’s value of innovation. I’ve long said that the DNA of San Francisco contains, across the board, the “I wonder what’s West of here?” gene. That spirit of imagination and adventure has given the world some amazing things. Considering just the illustrious internet marvels, the Bay Area is home to Apple, Craigslist, Flickr, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube among many, many others. Let’s not forget popsicles and fortune cookies!

One more invention that had its root in San Francisco that Bill O’Reilly may be especially thankful for and not even know it. On a foggy day in September, back in 1927, Philo T. Farnsworth brought to life a device without which the world would never come to know the No Spin Zone, the motherfucking television.

Diversity, sustainability, and innovation? Those are San Francisco values and Congress could sure use all of them.

The term “Conspicuous Consumption” was coined in 1899 to describe (with no small amount of disdain) the buying patterns of the Nouveau Riche. They suddenly had lots of money and wanted to let everyone know. Huge cars, lavish mansions, fur coats, sparklin’ dookie, etc.

Who’s sexier: George Cloonery or Al Gore?

The same thing seems to be happening with the trend-setting creative class in the present day. These Nouveau Righteous have developed a conscience and, by god, they’re going to let people know. Fashion magazines this summer were abuzz with the new “Eco-Chic” trend (as opposed to Eco-Chick, which is always in season). Everyone was checking labels to make sure they were toting certified organic, sustainably cultivated, fair-trade clutch bags that really reflected their worldly values on the way to the plastic surgeon for lipo, in their Hummer.

Evangeline Lilly thinks you should wear more hemp.

Making known one’s ethical affiliations is nothing new. Bumper-stickers proclaiming preferences for love-making over war-making could have grandkids by now and the colored-ribbon frenzy of the 90s has merely evolved into the colored-bracelet frenzy of the 00s (no, not that one). Still, there’s something about the ultra-ubiquitous white iPod as symbol for cultural capital that suggested to me that this (RED)^TM coalition was more about capitalism than activism. Afterall, fancy iPods and Bono go hand-in-hand.

The (RED)^TM campaign (yes, they’ve trademarked the term “(RED)”) has a wonderful manifesto that explains their intention with the branding strategy. My favorite bit is reproduced below:

(RED) is not a charity. It is simply a business model. You buy (RED) stuff. We get the money, buy the pills and distribute them. … If they don’t get the pills, they die. We don’t want them to die, we want to give them the pills…

Does that read like a protection racket to anybody else? “Hey kid, buy this iPod or Africans die. I could help ‘em out y’know, all you gotta do is buy this iPod. C’mon, you wouldn’t want anything bad should happen.” This is strange to me, because the (RED)^TM products seem to be priced exactly the same as their non-African saving contemporaries, what kind of “business model” is that?

The new face of activism?

In the end, I don’t think this campaign is truly about leveraging the power of consumption to help resolve the world’s tragedies, it’s leveraging the world’s tragedies—and the incredible transformative power of activism—to further fuel consumption. Otherwise, we could skip the iPods and just send $10 to The Global Fund ourselves and save $189 plus tax. The truth is that many corporate business plans rely on Third World poverty to keep costs down and if we really want to address global inequities, it’s probably not best accomplished by pouring money into the very institutions that have perpetuated them.

The online news source TPMmuckraker (the TPM, in this case, standing for Talking Points Memo) reported this afternoon:

Every single contributor to the Pennsylvania Green Party Senate candidate is actually a conservative—except for the candidate himself.

Yeah, really. The Republicans are funding efforts to get the Green Party on the ballot in order to split the votes for the Democrats. Brilliant! They must have some pretty creative, outside-the-box thinkers on that campaign. Some of them may even use Macs! The whole list is available at Attytood.

Why the sudden change of heart? It may have something to do with Santorum getting a tighter race than he bargained for from his Democratic opponent, Robert Casey. In these days of gerry-mandered districts and bought elections, it’s nice to see incumbants with a healthy dose of “Fear of the People”.

Other extreme tactics he’s employing? How about facing off against Tubemeister Senator Ted Stevens in trying to prevent the Network Neutrality bill from ever making it to the Senate floor (knowing he’d get hammered for voting against The Internet)? Or maybe labeling his opponent as a terrorist-lover by saying Casey took money from Al-Jazeera. Except that it was a different Al-Jazeerah. Oops.