An Effective Protest Against High Gas Prices

The picture was taken near Cambria on California’s central coast.

Quote of the day:
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."
--Brendan Gill

When gas prices go up, it is simple, popular and fashionable to criticize the government for not doing anything about it, or the oil companies for being corrupt or greedy.

Sometimes politics, worldview or boiling anger require the label “obscene” attached to the term “oil company profits.”

At these times, we lose touch with the following facts:

1. Large companies make large amounts of money.

2. The percent of each dollar of sales that oil companies keep (the profit margin) is much less than in other industries.

An example of fact number two is that, in 2004, 126 Fortune 500 companies exceeded Exxon’s profit margin of 9.8% Citicorp’s margin that year was 15.7%. Software and internet companies regularly exceed 50%. When was the last time someone called Google’s or Microsoft’s profit “obscene”?

This is not to say that oil companies are as pure as the driven snow--unless the snow is covered by an oil slick. These are big companies, and they sometimes have big problems. And they need to be regulated.

But al the whining, screaming, and yelling about oil prices, and all the blaming of oil companies, does nothing but score political points. And it keeps the biggest helping of responsibility for high gas prices away from where it belongs. With us.

If you are concerned about high gas prices, there is a very effective way to protest. Buy less gas. If you genuinely cannot get by with less gasoline, and rising prices present a hardship, call the office of your congressional representative for help.

Please don’t plan to protest by not patronizing gas stations owned by the big oil companies. It doesn’t work. The independent stations and small chains buy their gas from refineries run by the big oil companies.

Earth in the Balance

Quote of the day:
“Real pain can alone cure us of imaginary ills. We feel a thousand miseries till we are lucky enough to feel pain.”
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Monday is Blog Action Day, when all kinds of bloggers are going to be writing about the environment. I've signed on, too.

I imagine a lot of folks will be writing about Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize. I think this prize is richly deserved, for Gore's courage in repeatedly bringing up this issue when it was spectacularly unpopular. Over the last 20 years he has patiently faced down global-warming deniers by carefully laying out the scientific data.

When "Earth in the Balance" was published in 1992, it was still common to dismiss those who talked about global warming as "hysterical chicken littles." In spite of the Rush Limbaughs of the world, those days are long behind us.

I had never read a book like this before--it clearly and carefully described the best environmental research at the time, and the conclusion was inescapable.

Many people and organizations are still working to try to market global-warming out of existence, but this will not happen. There is now a broad understanding of the kinds of changes happening around the planet. And we have Al Gore to thank for really pushing this understanding forward.

I was especially impressed with how "An Inconvenient Truth" methodically and meticulously put to rest any idea that the kind of warming we are seeing now is part of some long, historical cycle.

The work to understand and deal with global warming has really just begun. We can all be grateful to Al Gore for his work as environmental ambassador, and we can thank the Nobel committee for recognizing his work.

Room With a View

Quote of the day:
"I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof."
--John Adams, after his first night in the just-completed White House

In a semi-private hospital room, one bed gets to be closer to the window, the other closer to the door.

A small blessing is that Merrie has the bed with the view. And it’s a good view from the fifth floor. She can see all the way to the surrounding hills.

Last night she was sitting by the window watching the trolley come and go, and saw the lights gradually come on across the city.

It brings to mind a recent “New Yorker” story on light pollution. In it, a researcher said that Americans almost never watch it get dark anymore. Instead, lights go on all around us.

The human body is built for cycles of light and dark. In the winter we often hear reports about the importance of being exposed to light. But we never hear about the effects of not getting enough dark.

It’s sort of like silence, I guess. We see it simply as something missing rather than an entity in itself. Peace is the same. We see it as just absence of war.

All things considered, Merrie is doing ok. The doctors continue to track her blood factors and make medication adjustments.

She did have time and enthusiasm yesterday to review and choose tile designs for our kitchen. The doctor on rounds declined to participate in that decision.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

Quote of the day:
“The National Rifle Association says, 'Gun's don't kill people. People do'. But I think the gun helps.”
--Eddie Izzard

How about that. This morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated "Little Miss Sunshine" for best picture. I’d say it’s a long shot, but it’s good to see this swell film (my favorite of last year) get some more attention.

It looks like Martin Scorcese and "The Departed" will pick up best director and picture, though anything is possible. Most certain is Forrest Whitaker ("Last King of Scotland") for best actor. Helen Mirren ("Queen") looks likely for best actress, but there are four other very strong contenders. Another near-certainty is "An Inconvenient Truth" for best documentary, and Al Gore will be at the awards.

It may be the most important documentary of the last five years. I’ve said this twice in previous posts: there has been not a single refutation of any of the data or information presented in the film. People can complain about Al Gore all they want, but he managed to very carefully and methodically put to rest all doubts about long-term global warming.

Most especially, he put to rest for good the idea that the climate changes scientists have been noticing for years are just part of a natural cycle that the earth has seen before.

Best Documentary of 2006

Quote of the day:
“Complaining is good for you as long as you’re not complaining to the person you’re complaining about.”
--Lynn Johnston, For Better or For Worse

Quote of the day no. 2:
“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
--David Brin

Tuesday will be an interesting day. Early in the morning, the Academy Award nominations will be announced. Certain to be on the list for best documentary will be "An Inconvenient Truth." I hear that the Dixie Chicks’ "Shut Up and Sing" has a shot.

In the evening, President Bush will deliver his State of the Union message. I wonder if he will talk about the environment. Will he go along with the will of the American people and allow Congress to take the lead on what to do about Iraq?

Great Shopping at the Dump

Quote of the day:
“If you want to soar with the eagles, you can’t hoot with the owls.”
--Lorenzo Neal of the San Diego Chargers

Follow-up to "Trend, We Hardly Knew Ye":
“Netflix expects physical DVD rentals to remain a strong business for anywhere from 10 to 25 years before enough movie downloads become available and consumers adopt a download model on a wide scale.”
--Reuters, today.

Did you see the item about an amazingly creative recycling program in Aspen, Colorado? City officials, to extend the life of their landfill in this wealthy community, have established what’s called a “freecycle” zone at the entrance to the landfill.

People can drop off their unneeded possessions, and anyone who wants can “shop” among the discards and take home whatever they want. Many folks have been very pleased with what they’ve found, and have furnished rooms or whole apartments.

The program is working. 60 percent of what comes in to the landfill goes back out again.

Kudos for a program that works for everyone involved.

Have You Waited in Line For Water Today?

Quote of the day:
“Only in the past two decades has the majority of the human race joined the market economy with the fall of Communism, the opening of the emerging markets and the liberalization of international trade.”
--Barron’s

Quote of the day No. 2:
“China has less water than Canada--and forty times as many people. With wells draining aquifers far faster than they can be replenished by rain, the water table beneath Beijing has fallen nearly two hundred feet in the last twenty years.”
--Michael Specter in "The New Yorker," October 23, 2006

With our recent fixation on oil and gas prices, there has been very little attention paid to water, which is, of course, a far more necessary resource. Specter’s story on the global water situation is well worth reading.

He details the machinations that the poor go through in New Delhi to simply get enough clean water to live on. “Even in the most prosperous neighborhoods of cities like Delhi and Mumbai, water is available for just a few hours each day--and often only as a brown and sludgy trickle....”

Worldwide, Specter says, “More than a billion people lack access to drinking water, and at least that many have never seen a toilet.

“[E]ven if the population of the earth stopped rising tomorrow--and no demographer considers that possible--the number of people facing water shortages will continue to grow for decades. There are simply too many people who lack access to clean water; even the slightest improvement in the standard if living for hundreds of millions of them would increase demand immensely.”

Chicken Little Has Crossed the Road

“You can live to be a hundred if you give up everything that makes you want to.”
--Woody Allen, from script for "Interiors"

Fifty miles south of Anchorage, Alaska, there is a glacier so stunning that a visitor center was built next to it in 1985. Visitors watch a brief film and the curtain goes up to reveal a stunning blue expanse of ice. Or that was the idea. It turns out the glacier has receded and is no longer visible from the visitor center. (see http://www.alaskanha.org/begich-boggs-visitor-center.htm)

For years leading climatologists could not understand why glaciers and polar ice were not disappearing more quickly. After all, their data demonstrated convincingly that the earth was getting warmer. This led many to question their research, and doubt the phenomenon of global warming. The reasoning was that it was “just a theory” and was not backed up by “the facts.” Various political commentators loved to use the term “Chicken Little” to refer to climate scientists who track the earth’s temperature patterns and other factors.

Well, I guess Chicken Little has crossed the road. As things have turned out, the Alaska example above is but one of dozens that have been publicized over the last year, especially since the release of the very good movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

It is very interesting to me that, in the wake of the film, there has been some criticism of Al Gore, mostly from his usual detractors, but there has been no criticism or refutation of the movie’s very carefully laid out premise.

If you have not seen the film, I strongly encourage you to take the time, however you feel about Al Gore. I didn’t find it dull or pedantic--it’s very interesting, and it’s constructive. It’s still in theaters, and comes out on DVD on November 21.