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  • From: Tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The answer, my friend, may not be blowing in the wind.
  • Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:24:02 -0400


I live in upstate NY and have been subscribed to this list for at least a year, maybe a couple years- sometimes I forget which list is which. I'm quite sure that I have posted here before.

What am I trying to say? I'm saying that we've overshot the resource and renewable energy carrying capacity of the planet as far as human population and the highly consumptive 'western' lifestyle as we know it. We are headed for a much lower energy future and the descent can be gradual or precipitous. Likely the latter if we keep squandering energy and resources on science-fiction fantasies (that will in the short term make a few people rich but ultimately have little effect). I'm saying that there is no answer, or even a combination of answers that comes anywhere close to allowing us collectively to maintain the energy-intensive lifestyles we're used to. The longer we put off confronting this reality and grasping at science-fiction 'alternative' fantasies the harsher descent will be.

Technically there isn't anything wrong with discontinued turbine models, just that they are not at the cutting edge of efficiency and buying them from Denmark or wherever certainly doesn't help unemployed americans. If tax funds that I contribute to are used to subsidize these projects I'd like to see real benefits from them beyond an upward wealth transfer to corporate entities and it seems like the turbines ought to be the most up-to-date and efficient ones available.

The controversy around upstate NY industrial wind development seems to have calmed down in the last year- maybe the easy pickings for the energy corps have all been taken or opposition has become more sophisticated and the companies are targeting other locations. A lot of the information I read was in local papers, from locals, etc. Probably online too, but I'll have to search it out.

That the 'oil age will not end because we ran out of oil' follows 'the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones' is a non sequitur to which I'd respond that world history has more civilizations that have failed due to over-extention and over exploitation of resources than civilizations that have survived. I'm sure the Mayans believed 'We'll come up with something!' (or the priests will or the gods will save us, etc.) as they were running out of trees for fuel and their limited soil was eroding away. Are we different?

Homestead related? First of all, I didn't start the thread. Secondly, it seems to me that 'homesteading' as an endeavor is at least partly about striving for self-sufficiency, living with some understanding of and direct relationship to one's environment and its cycles, etc., and I would argue that a degree of skepticism toward, and even rejection of large-scale, centralized corporate schemes is a natural outgrowth of the ethos. Homesteaders are probably better positioned to deal with what lies ahead than most. And while I agree that the medical 'study' regarding living in proximity to an industrial-scale turbine cited in the original, thread-starting post seems dubious, the industrial wind development racket is equally dubious. Just look at the history and track record of the energy industry from Carnegie and his coal, through Standard Oil, to Enron, Exxon, BP and all the rest. It is a history of deceit, manipulation and exploitation and personally I don't see any reason to expect that trend to cease because they are adding renewables to the portfolio.

Tom




  • Re: [Homestead] The answer, my friend, may not be blowing in the wind., Tom, 08/15/2008

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