How Could We Ever Expect Government Regulation to Trump Market Forces For the Good, I Write in My Invisible Sarcasm Font?

OJSTW guest blogger Stephen Colbert didn't seem to get around to my request to pitch in with an acid-tongued critique of the Senate's failure to enact climate legislation of any kind.  Regardless, I'll step up and do the duties - and in my most seething faux-pundit voice, to boot.

Ahem.  Mi mi mi mi mi.  Is this thing [my keyboard] on [plugged in and recognized by my laptop's device manager]?

Where do you get off?  Yeah!  I'm talking to you, liberals!  Has your on-average five-and-a-half years of university education taught you nothing about capitalism's infinite dominance over state-imposed legislation?  You can tax-jack cigarettes all you want, but the consumer will always make the final choice as to how much cancer he or she chooses to get!  Because you see America is about choice.  And the inaction our Congress has taken this summer has shown that their constituency wants this energy crisis.  You keep crying about a "two-degree rise" - well maybe it was two degrees too cold in here!  Ever think of that?

[Okay, the biting-parody voice doesn't suit me.  Let's now return to my own Teddy-Pendergrass-tender-parody voice.  Seamlessly, too.]

Is there an example in our recent international history where we faced a collective problem, together mounted a firm stance against it, and actually resolved said problem in a way that kept our species going and lead to the longest high-five sesh on record?  How quickly we've forgotten. 

The light....spreads out...the letters.

 Image credit: burnbarrel.org

In a month and a week - September 16 - I will be celebrating alone, in my loft studio rent-controlled apartment time-share...loft (god I'm suburban), because no one seems to recall that we have a world-recognized holiday called International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.  Its penchant for falling out of memory is probably due to its timid tagline: "Nine-Sixteen - We'll Never Forget...To Try To Remember...As Best We Can...To a Reasonable Degree".

Let's face it, our situation is comical!

The year was 1994.  PM Dawn was rocking the charts.  Four Weddings and a Funeral was revolutionizing the multiple-and-varied-festivities genre.  It was then that the United Nations General Assembly commemorated the date September 16 - when in 1987 the Montreal Protocol was signed.  I can assure you, they don't just give out holidays - this one was worth it.

The short story: it was learned in 1985 that there was a hole over Antartica - no ozone where there should have been ozone.  Ozone, of course, being the gas that naturally occurs in our atmosphere to protect us from ultraviolet radiation.  So a gaping hole would mean excess UV radiation - skin cancer, respiratory system irritation, cataracts, and ultimately accelerated climate change. 

But once recognized, the world's leaders had a series of sleepovers, shared super-secret secrets, and when all was said and done, made a totally serious pact to limit production of chlorofluorocarbons, the stuff that eats ozone like Four-Cheese Cheez-Its.  Screw hair control, they basically said.

Am I right??

And it worked.  In only a few short years, it was determined that stratospheric quantities of CFCs and other harmful gases had leveled or decreased, and the ozone was reforming.  Boo-yah.  International cooperative enforcement policies FTW.  Let's get these guys a holiday - is 9/16 available?  Sweet, stamp it [this presumes there's a form of some sort and the 'stamping' thereof makes it fully official].

Shall we close with some lessons?  This is what proverbs were made for:

1. There's more than one way to skin a cat.  (Market forces only take you so far; when society's general interest is involved, a government body can trigger positive change faster than any unregulated market.)
2. Necessity is the mother of invention.  (A threatening issue arises, and humanity's innovation steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park.  Home run.  And there was a runner on second.  Plus it was a walk-off.  Also broke up a no-hitter.)
3. Never mix your liquor.  (I'm prepping for that 9/16 celebration.  Evites to come.)

LOLpower: three

Power Down, Y'all!

That says 37.4%.  It was drawn during a euphoric jubilee, so go easy.

"I'm just one person, what can I do?"   - some idiot, 2010

 A lot of people look at the energy quandary we're in and feel no solution is possibly on the horizon - what with the confluence of spiraling national debt, protracted economic agony and population growth that will threaten our way of living for future generations.  With that frame of mind, it's easy to just want to lay down on your couch and order Papa John's, while making sure to request extra garlic sauce, because they won't give it to you if you don't ask.

And then there's me - brilliant like a wizard and twice as popular at parties.  Why?  Because simple old me, with merely a drive to change and some questionable grammar, just cut my energy use by a whopping - that's right, I'm going with whopping - 37.4%.  "Prove it," someone randomly shouted from the crowd.

Add 'em up, fool.  What that's saying there is I used 3684 kilowatt-hours (kWh) in May through July of 2009.  It seems to think I used 2681 in that same period of 2010, but no, I assure you it was only 2308.  Good try PSE&G, with your wild assumptions despite not even knowing me - that's an estimate you made there in July, and you know what happens when you make estimates?  You make an ass out of yourself...mates.  I happen to have it on good authority I used a mere 950 kWh in July.  How can I be so sure?  Let's just say I keep an eye on my meter. 

 Image credit: 4hforestryinvitational

No, not like that...though I must say I'm disturbed that image was so readily available.

What I mean is I use an iPhone app called MeterRead that lets you enter your meter reading and extrapolates your usage, enabling you to get a good sense of how much and when your electricity use is more than it should be.

So over the past few months, as I've religiously logged my meter readings into my trusty app and made a conscious effort to eliminate waste energy, I can say with confidence that one person can make a difference. 

"One person can also set fire to a daycare center," some moron in the crowd may yell.  Whoa! Wait, why would you even say that, it seems irrelevant and counterproductive?  "My point," the moron may continue, "is that just because one person does something doesn't mean everyone else should.  Free will!  Also, 'Free Bird'!"  Put your lighter down, moron.  And possible arsonist.  

The overriding mission doesn't necessarily have to be a reduction of energy use.  I'm all for gadgets and gizmos and Christmas light shows and racing three remote control firetrucks simultaneously just for the purpose of mind-blowing my dog.  But I damn sure expect the juice to be coming from the ever-renewable source of the 6.5 kW solar installation up on that there roof.  Because if not, my dog gets a free pass, and we're back to playing boring old fetch.

No way.  That dog's just too big.  And - OMG is that cat dead!?  And what's the significance of the missing dog poster?  Is he in that fire?!  Too many questions!  Not enough "Contact the Artist" links!

Image credit: picture-book.com

Fine.  Let's start with the assumption that you want to make a difference by cutting your wasted energy.  What I, the Energy Wizard (trademark?), have done is proven it's easy as pie!  If you're wondering what actions I took to decrease my electricity use, you're about to find out - right after this commercial break.

Or, more likely, in another post.  I'm off to track down that artist.  That illustration is haunting me. Dog's too big, I'm tellin' ya...

The Great 7/19 Blackout: 30 Minutes of the Apocal-ish

Recently I was couchin' it at home, and as I drank my whatever-it-is-I-drink, things truly felt serene.  A light thunder rumbled ever so gently, like a snorer's obstruction in the nasal passage that doesn't quite require medical attention (though a sleep study wouldn't hurt).  I watched my local sports team perform however-it-is-they-perform, and considered the state of my union: it was pleasant.

 8:37 PM. A crude artist's rendering.  The rendering's crude, the artist's actually rather polite.

At that moment, a tiny slice of armageddon pierced my world.  Without warning the lights ceased to shine.  The television halted its broadcast.  The microwave's green glow of the wildly wrong time dissipated into nothingness.

8:38 PM.  High-res photo of the blackout.  Diagonal white lines are "spirit streaks".

My entire world suddenly shifted into the 'off' position.  In my desperation, I think I coined some new profanity like "shuck".

Step One in my survival handbook was apparently "Have an Exceptionally Dumb Look On Your Face", so I did this.  Soon my brain was running through possible disaster scenarios that might be playing out at that very moment, momentarily convincing myself of each one's veracity.  "Could this be...oh my word...this is al-Qaeda.  They're here!  They've exploded all the transformers in a quarter-mile radius!  Of course they'd start with suburban South Jersey - it's where we'd least expect it!"  Then I'd switch to a more likely circumstance.  "No no no - this is merely the straw that has broken the camel's back that is our decrepit power grid.  It was me, running my wash at an inopportune - nay, catastrophic - time, that has overwhelmed the infrastructure up and down the entire Eastern seaboard.  My bad, you guys, this one's on me."

Each potential cause I identified served to explain the situation, but did nothing to mitigate its effects.  In fact, as time wore on, the intensity of the disaster at-hand only magnified - or perhaps just my perception of it.  I envisioned a torch-bearing mob banging at the windows of Wawa (in my head, they were already zombies - go figure!), each flashing-light vehicle that sped by was en route to a bloodied, society-crippling riot, and the pitter-patter of rain that still caressed my roof was the precursor to epic floods that would leave this land in ruins, or at least with that moldy smell that's annoying to get rid of for awhile.

Geez, brood much?

Doomsday visions swirled in my head. I checked my cell phone.  Twenty minutes of darkness.  A thought along the line's of "God hath left us - was He ever even here?" entered my mind, but delivered by Daniel Day-Lewis.



It was a steamy night, and the absence of AC was fast becoming palpable.  A bead of sweat formed at my brow - my left one, if memory serves.  For a moment I rationalized that turning on a fan would allay the meltdown, until it sunk in that everything I own is grid-operated.  Even my batteries plug into the wall, for hyperbole's sake!

Forty minutes into this hellscape, an explosion of light and sound filled the air.  Greta Van Susteren's mellifluous tone wafted through the room, which is strange because I wasn't watching Fox News.  I swear.  I was too mentally exhausted by this point to consider that particular conspiracy theory.  Instead I cracked open another whatever that I had deftly tucked in the freezer at the outset of the crapstorm.  I have priorities, and I exercise them.

The next hour passed much like the one that follows a near-death experience.  I think I wept at one point, the evidence being smeared eye-liner all over my face, which I don't even wear because I'm a gentleman; I'm telling you, it was a weird night.  But I vowed to myself this: I will prepare myself.  I will be ready when the next blackout hits.  Because that one might be the real deal.  So whether it be excess grid-demand or Talibanistic in nature, I'll be prepared. 

It should be noted I talk to myself in italics.

So here I am now, sixteen days later.  In those sixteen days I've lost my phone charger and ran out of milk.  Because the only thing I am more than an American, is an idiot.  Someone should write a song...

Wow.  Talk about a powerful, let alone apt, image.  The only thing that could ruin it is a self-aggrandizing caption that totally neutralizes the meaning behind it.  And the only thing that could make it better would be like a bunch of machine guns at the bottom-right there.  You know, for freedom.

It's a Recession Up There

Don't see overalls much.

Image credit: diynetwork.com

It was decided long ago that lighting fixtures should no longer protrude from the surface of the ceiling to do their light-casting thing.  In the 1940s, recessed lights came into fashion - a fixture that is positioned above the ceiling plane in an aluminum housing, downlighting from up on high.  So in an effort to create a more evenly distributed and presumably more aesthetic shower of light, we cut myriad six inch holes in our ceilings - gaping pathways for precious cooled and heated air to escape.

And why did we do this?  Because it was the nineteen-doublefrontin'-forties, and energy conservation wasn't even a thing in the scientific community.

Note the absence of 'Energy Conservation'.  Also missing, the period after Truman's middle initial.  Why?

The energy lost through recessed lighting fixtures is significant enough that the Department of Energy's excitingly-titled Energy Savers Booklet (a comprehensive guide to home efficiency - worth a glance) calls them "a major source of heat loss".  My comprehensive reading skills tells me that it's something worth focusing on.

 Is that money escaping the house or being deposited in, piggy-bank-style?  I don't like this graphic.

Nice hat.

So what are our options?  Your home probably already has recessed lights; it would be too much of a production to remove them, patch the holes in the ceiling, sell your home and get a cottage in one of the Dakotas.  I thought I was the only one that appreciated this problem until a google search for "recessed light cover" turned up - you'll never guess - www.recessedlightcover.com.  This dude's got recessed lights covered!  [casual whistle...]

Tenmat, Inc. out of Newport, Delaware offers a fire-resistant enclosure that sits atop the fixture which is then sealed air-tight, putting a stop to the energy loss. Watch this vid where a guy proves he knows how to use a torch:

Anyone else hope he was going to write "FIRE SALE"? BTW, a better blogger would have sized the video properly.  I'm not a better blogger.

Amazon's got 'em for $20.40 including shipping.  I know you're not going to buy them, but I also know that you know you should buy them.  Which really leaves you with an ethical and moral internal debate with which I cannot help you.  I'm a recessed light cover salesman, not your psychologist.

LOLpower: two

CU L8R Climate Legislation!!!1

Bye you guys!!!  No it's fine, we'll save ourselves!! See ya!  This was fun!

Image credit: lulilab.com

The New York Times today was like "looks like the Democrats are giving up on the whole climate legislation for awhile".  I paraphrase.  A collective f-word was heard throughout the Greater Northeast and Pacific Northwest, not quite in unison, but still.

Hey Dems - w the f?  Harry Reid attributed the retreat to lack of support from the opposition.  That's like the Cubs forfeiting because the Padres have explicitly stated they're going to try to win.  (How's that for stoking the ol' Cubs-Padres rivalry, huh?)  And just like the Cubs ignominious ineptitude for capturing championships, it looks as though the most drastically needed energy bill in generations will have to wait another one to be realized.  Steve Bartman, man.  Steve Bartman.