When Pretty Good Isn’t Good Enough

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Stop_Digging_^_-_geograph.org.uk_-_195319

An excavator that is in a hole and has stopped digging. Chris Wimbush

Recently I attended a talk at Western New Mexico University given by Jeff Bingaman, the former Democratic Senator from New Mexico. He spoke in front of a friendly home-town crowd on energy and environmental policies in the US Congress. Once viewed as independent, they increasingly overlap due to the challenges of climate change.

Bingaman gave predictions from various sources – including ExxonMobile – that really struck me. For a time frame of 2000 through 2040, worldwide:

  • Population will increase from six billion to nine billion – up by 50%.
  • Energy demand will double – up by 100%
  • CO2 emissions will only go up by 60%, mostly in the Asian Pacific countries while staying flat in the western world. (He didn’t touch on other causes of global warming such as methane releases and land use.)
  • Global GDP, Gross Domestic Product, or the total market value of goods and services produced worldwide in constant dollars, will triple – up by 200%.

To put those numbers in an admittedly limited analogy, if I hired 50% more workers and paid 60% more in supply costs (I’m assuming the CO2 is a measure of efficiency), but got 200% more income, I’d be happy. But even these fine numbers are accompanied by warnings that, while future impacts will vary from region to region around the globe, the effects of global warming include a rise in sea levels, a change in the amount and pattern of precipitation, and probably expansion of subtropical deserts. [Wikipedia Global Warming] Continue reading →

Social Security’s History and Future

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Social Security WorksRecently I reviewed a book because I hated the premise. I read this book because I like the premise. The title says it all (with an exclamation point): Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All. I wanted to see the proof offered by authors Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson.

With an average of five stars from over three hundred reviews on Amazon, the book has a following. Altman and Kingson aren’t Social Security’s only champions, as this article on slate.com shows, there was anger over Obama’s willingness to “give away the store…[and] cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security In exchange for a modest tax hike of $100 billion over 10 years—targeted at the wealthiest Americans… an outrageous deal.”

Some 54 million Americans receive benefits today, with the “average retiree’s checks roughly equal to the gross pay of someone working fulltime at the federal minimum wage.”

The authors seek to debunk “a three-decade-long, well-financed campaign [that] has sought to dismantle Social Security… [and been] successful in undermining confidence… The mainstream media has aided and abetted the campaign by uncritically accepting and advancing a panoply of misconceptions, while largely ignoring the facts.”

I must admit to being swayed by the anti-Social Security campaign. Since I started my career, I have assumed I would never receive any Social Security and used to joke that my tax went to my own grandmother. Yet, here I am, nearly forty years later, and Social Security looks secure for the next 20 years (assuming Congress doesn’t damage it.)

From the beginning, many opponents called Social Security socialism. “These same opponents rarely, however, express disgust with, or seek to privatize, America’s socialized police, fire, and prosecution services or our socialized system of roads, canals, and national parks, not to mention our socialized military.”

I found it interesting to read that President Eisenhower thought the opposite. In a message to Congress, he called Social Security “a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free.” Continue reading →

Silver Bullet

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The Phrase Finder says the expression refers to, “A direct and effortless solution to a problem.” There was an ancient belief that silver had magical powers. There are records of spears and bullets being made from silver to battle evil enemies. Nineteen century fiction has numerous references to silver bullets being used “…against werewolves, witches, the Devil, and all manner of creatures…” The use of the expression for the current meaning didn’t become popular until the Lone Ranger radio show began describing how the hero “…arrived from nowhere, overcame evil and departed, leaving behind only a silver bullet and echoes of ‘who was that masked man’?”  There was a warning published in 1951 about viewing the atomic bomb as a magic weapon. “This is not a silver bullet which can deliver itself or otherwise work military miracles.”

Oil Spills from Man and Nature

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Several news agencies published articles on the fifth anniversary of Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion describes the disaster. According to the Associated Press eleven workers were killed and from 100 to 172 million gallons of oil were spilled into the gulf during the three months it took to cap the well. The lower estimate is from British Petroleum (BP). Today the “Gulf of Mexico looks clean, green, and whole again, teeming with life—a testament to the teeming resilience of nature.” There are, however, problems that remain. There continues to be oil on the seafloor, dolphin deaths have tripled, nests of endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles have plummeted, deep sea coral have suffered, etc. Many probably thought the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill couldn’t be topped, but Deepwater Horizon more than eclipsed that 10 million gallon spill.

If there is any good news about oil spills, it might be that nature has been dealing with cleanup of oil in the oceans for eons. One study has estimated that between 80 and 800 million gallons of oil has seeped out of the ocean floor off Santa Barbara, California at the rate of 20 to 25 tons of oil each day. I know there are seeps in the Gulf. We learned on a family vacation to Texas that you didn’t walk barefoot on our beach. You wore cheap beach shoes and tossed the tar-coated shoes when you were finished your vacation.

I’m not trying to minimize the effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. That spill released waves of oil into the Gulf, and the sea life, birds, and wildlife paid a high price. However, nature has been dealing with “cleanup” of oil spills long before we began to get involved. Some of it evaporates, some of it is dissolved, but microbes have the greatest effect. Researchers studying the spill (and science has received a tremendous infusion of money for studies) found that most of the oil was degraded by microbes. It appears that they “stopped eating, leaving a small fraction of compounds in the sediments.” A marine chemist said that research is now focused on why the microbes left a small fraction of the compounds in the sediment.

Hopefully our oil exploration is safer because of what Deepwater Horizon taught us, and maybe our researchers will learn how to encourage microbes that love to feed on spilled oil.

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate

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spread-of-nuclear-weaponsThis book written by Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz is interesting because the two authors, as is indicated by the title, take radically different positions on the threat from the spread of nuclear weapons. I’ll let the authors explain further from the Preface. “What are the likely consequences of the spread of nuclear weapons? The answer is by no means certain or simple. Indeed, the readers will discover we disagree about the central issue. Kenneth Walsh argues that the fear of the spread of nuclear weapons is exaggerated: ‘More may be better’ since new nuclear states will use their weapons to deter other countries from attacking them. Scott Sagan argues that the spread of nuclear weapons will make the world less stable. ‘More will be worse’ since some new nuclear states will engage in preventive wars, fail to build survivable forces, or have serious nuclear weapons accidents.” That’s a good summary of what they say in the book, although I didn’t find out what the “fail to build survivable forces” has to do with the debate.

Kenneth Walsh takes the lead with his proposal that “More May be Better.” He points out that the world had “…enjoyed more years of peace since 1945 than had been known in modern history, if peace is defined as the absence of general war among the major states of the world.” He argues that, “War becomes less likely as the costs of war rise in relation to possible gains.” The incentive for the major nuclear powers to begin an exchange makes it clear to even the most insane leader that there will be little to gain since each side has sufficient nuclear stockpiles to destroy the other. That easy to understand fact has prevented World War III for seventy years while there have been nuclear weapon stockpiles in the many tens of thousands of weapons. “Deterrence is achieved not through the ability to defend but through the ability to punish.” Walsh writes, “Early in the Cold War, the United States deterred the Soviet Union, and in due course, the Soviet Union deterred the United States.” He observes that he believes “The presence of nuclear weapons makes war less likely…Nuclear weapons have not been fired in anger in a world in which more than one country has them.” Continue reading →

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

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I had always believed this expression is used to describe the need to proceed carefully in a delicate situation. The Internet doesn’t seem to agree with that. It does have a long history as a song. Wikipedia says it “topped the charts” for ten weeks after Nick Lucas introduced it in the musical “talkie” film Gold Diggers of Broadway in 1929. The tune was used in the first Looney Tunes cartoon short Sinkin’ in the Bathtub in 1930. Numerous other singers have recorded the song, including Tiny Tim in 1968. Some think it has a satanic origin, especially if played backwards. It was played several times in the horror movie Insidious.