Random Thoughts and Sound Bites – Roger Ingalls

Obamacare

Why has the Republican Party turned into an uncoordinated group of domestic terrorists trying to destroy the US economy? It’s a thrash and burn tactic synonymous with defeat; it’s just like Saddam blowing up oil wells as his army retreated from Kuwait. The conservatives know the Affordable Health Care Act won’t cause the world to stop as they’ve predicted and the people will mostly endorse it once underway. The party will have major egg on their face and they know it.

Government Shutdown

Why is a small group of right-wing zealots allowed to do harm to the country? By definition, a group conspiring to harm the USA is committing treason. They should be rounded up and given due process. Calling yourself a political party doesn’t exempt you from prosecution for treasonous acts.

Global Warming

The IPCC has released their fifth report on climate change and it is now 95% certain that this cycle of global warming is being caused by humans. As I’ve said in the past, it doesn’t really matter what’s causing it, we need to prepare for it…build an economy for it. It is here to stay. However, I’m still amazed that pseudo-scientists are still trying to deny the cause. The fakes are now even generating their own report with an almost identical name to further confuse the truth. All one has to do is look at who is backing these deniers and it becomes obvious that they’re shadowy hired guns supported by fossil fuel based corporation.

War on Terror

Listening to the local radio talk show, I was surprised to hear a frank speaking person with opinions seemingly based on real information. Then it became obvious. He was an ex-military higher up who worked under Colin Powell. His name is Lawrence Wilkerson (retired Army Colonel). I didn’t agree with all he said but Wilkerson did confirm something I strongly believe in. The WAR on Terror is misguided. The odds of an American getting killed by a terrorist is less likely than being struck by lightning yet we spend billions on top of billions under this fear mongering program. The military spending serves another hidden purpose.

Thanksgiving from the Mind of a Social Activist – Roger Ingalls

What are you thankful for? I’ve decided to take some liberties and put myself inside the heads of various characters, people and organizations in an attempt to say what is really on their minds. If retail giants can bastardize Thanksgiving why can’t I use it to make political statements? It’s all in good fun. Happy Thanksgiving.

Wall Street, “We’re thankful for gullible conservatives.”

Kardashians, “We’re thankful for Spanx.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, “We’re thankful for gifts from the Koch brothers.”

The Financial Industries, “We’re thankful we get to write the regulations that govern us.”

Walmart Executives, “We’re thankful Americans prefer cheap crap over worker’s rights.”

Westboro Baptist Church, “We’re thankful we’ve created God in our own image.”

Global Warming Deniers, “We’re thankful for data culling.”

California School Board, “We’re thankful kids make good propaganda tools.”

Kermit the Frog, “I’m thankful most Americans don’t eat frog legs.”

Smokey the Bear, “I’m thankful for wildwood flowers…out here in the deep forest where no one’s around, smokey has a whole different meaning.”

Prison Industry Authority (PIA), “We’re thankful incarceration is big business and criminalizing human behavior doesn’t concern us as long as we get paid.”

Pharmaceutical Industry, “We’re thankful the Feds still won’t allow people to grow their own cheap medicine otherwise we’d be obsolete.”

Republican Politicians, “We’re thankful Americans don’t understand that Military personnel are government employees otherwise they’d understand we’re responsible for the biggest increase in government spending.”

Factory Farms, “We’re thankful military explosives and chemical fertilizers are one and the same; it makes availability cheap.”

Insurance Industry, “We’re thankful people don’t understand that business practices dictated by Wall Street eliminate a free market economy.”

Banking Industry, “We’re thankful people don’t understand that business practices dictated by Wall Street eliminate a free market economy.”

Fossil Fuel Industry, “We’re thankful people don’t understand that business practices dictated by Wall Street eliminate a free market economy.”

And me, “I’m thankful for beer and cookies.”

Apple, $700 per Share – Roger Ingalls

This week Apple Inc. hit $700 for a single share of common stock and, as a whole, the company is now valued at $656 billion which places them at the top of the market valuation list. These dollar figures are incomprehensible.

The company has been very successful over the past fifteen years and the employees should be proud of their accomplishments but I wonder what the success of Apple says about our society. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but for all intent and purposes, Apple supplies entertainment products. If all the company’s products were to suddenly disappear, the human population would not go extinct and other companies could supply similar gadgets.

As a species, we need food, water, shelter, care (love, nurturing and healthcare) and external energy. These five needs are essential to our existence yet the most valued company in our society is one that provides a luxury product. To be fair, ExxonMobil is an external energy company and very similar to Apple in market valuation. As much as I hate fossil fuel based companies, it is much more justifiable, in my mind, for an oil company to have a higher market value than a company providing a non-essential product such as Apple.

It agitates me that a company selling luxury products sits at the top of the value list when a significant portion of our nation does not have access to healthy food, are an event away from homelessness and can’t get adequate healthcare.

I know connecting Apple with the basics for human existence is not a legitimate discussion but it would make more sense if companies that helped us with essential survival were at the top of the valuation list.

Ironic observation: The Occupy Movement protested against corporate greed while having Apple earbuds stuffed in their ears.

There Back: Killer Cantaloupe – Roger Ingalls

I’m starting to sound like a broken record with my reoccurring posts about the far reaching poisoning caused by industrialized farming. Today, a single mega-farm can have a single quality oversight and people across the country will get ill or die. It happens two or three times a year.

Here are my previous posts on the subject:

1)      Killer Cantaloupe, September 2011

2)      A Toilet Bowl of Food, June 2011

3)      Strawberries to Die For, September 2001

It’s August 2012 and here we go again with two more occurrences of produce poisoning; a lettuce recall due to E.coli and cantaloupe illnesses due to salmonella. These recent events have caused death and sickness across multiple states.

When will we learn that a centralized food system is not only environmentally disastrous but also puts too many people at risk? It’s amazing that we continue to endorse this food system.

Responsible farming has given way to energy intensive factory farms and as a result, there’s been a change in how food animals are raised and crops are grown. Instead of many decentralized mom-and-pop farms feeding the local population, we now have a small quantity of mega-farms supplying the far reaches of the country.

The solution is locally grown food. If an E.coli, listeria or salmonella outbreak does occur, it is locally contained and only a few people are affected. In addition, local production simulates the economy, creates jobs, uses less energy and has a smaller impact on the environment.

We have choices. Save your life, your family and the planet by buying locally produced goods.

Why Can’t We Get Off Oil?

Last Thursday, Roger Ingalls wrote a post about two ideas, one general and one specific. The specific idea was about using farm subsidies to develop “algaculture” in order to move us toward freedom from foreign oil. Good idea. But the general idea is much more important – that of changing and prioritizing how our government works (including things like agricultural subsidies) to adapt to an evolving set of realities.

As I was reading Roger’s post, I suddenly thought, “Why isn’t this already happening?” The answer is simple: Power.

It’s easy to see that money largely controls politics, but the situation runs deeper than that. Our politics are controlled by cemented-in power structures – not just any money, but the money and power that have been in the same, willing hands long enough to build structures of self-protection.

What this means is that our government is influenced most not by solid logic, but by entities protecting their own interests. This is the reason that big oil and big coal oppose solar and other renewable energy development with such fervor.

A long time ago, I promised Alon (the main author of this blog) that I would explain why oil companies are looking forward with copious amounts of drool to the day when oil is really scarce. Scarcity of a commodity which is “necessary” or at least very difficult to substitute for makes the price go up.

You might think that sure, the price goes up, but there’s less oil to sell, so it sort of evens out. But the oil companies know that, if alternatives aren’t developed, when oil gets scarce they will have the world by the you-know-whats. They will be able to spend much less on producing oil (and gasoline and everything else that comes from it) while charging absolutely incredible prices – prices that will support unimaginable profits.

People often point to the relative inefficiency of alternative energy sources at the present moment. Right now, much more energy is available from a dollar’s worth of fossil fuel than from any renewable source. This is because of the relative inefficiency of present technology in converting solar, or wind, etc. into usable electricity, in addition to the investment needed to make the conversion possible at all.

But it will be unbelievably expensive to build wind turbine towers, for example, when oil costs $500 per barrel. If we don’t do a lot of the “heavy lifting” now, while powering the development of alternatives and the experimentation that must precede it with “cheap” oil, we will soon be at the mercy (or lack thereof) of the oil companies. 

So, is Roger right? I don’t know if even Roger knows just how right Roger is. Algaculture is by no means the complete solution to our energy problems, but what Roger has brought up here is the very future of civilization. Think I’m exaggerating? As of just about today, the world’s population is hitting 7 Billion people, over half of which live in urban settings (82% in the U.S.). Our food supply chains are usually located far from population centers and require huge amounts of energy for transport, not to mention many other aspects of production.

This means that the prices of foods will skyrocket, even while the real earnings of the middle (and lower) class fall. I’m not sure what that world will look like if this trend is realized, but you can bet it won’t be pretty.

It’s not just about the cool prospect of not bowing to Saudi Arabia anymore. No. It’s about the cool prospect that our kids might be able to eat in 50 years. Above all, we need to cut down our ridiculously wasteful energy usage, but we also need to make investments in the energy sources that will still be around when the oil gets scarce.

-Tom Rossi

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Tom Rossi is a commentator on politics and social issues. He is a Ph.D. student in International Sustainable Development, concentrating in natural resource and economic policy. Tom greatly enjoys a hearty debate, especially over a hearty pint of Guinness.

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Save the P – Roger Ingalls

Have you seen the price of food lately?

Many of us now know that food prices are tied to natural gas and oil. Oil is used to make pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer is made from natural gas. Since World War II, most of our food has been grown with manmade chemicals. As fossil fuel prices rise, so does the price of food. Even meat rises because the animals are fed grains grown with synthetic chemicals.

What’s not often discussed is another type of fertilized or macro-nutrient used in Industrial Agriculture. Phosphorus (P) is essential for plant growth but since the 1930s most of it was depleted from the soil. Under President FDR, government initiatives were put in place to mine ancient phosphorus-rich marine deposits. The P is processed into a usable form and then spread across the fields.

P problem solved, right? Wrong! Just like oil, the well is starting to run dry. The known minable phosphorus deposits will be depleted within the next 35 years. Consequently, the price of phosphorus has recently jumped over 400% adding more cost to food.

Fortunately, P is a reusable resource if recovered. Industrial Agriculture uses a spread to waste process so valuable resources are not reclaimed. Instead, pesticides and fertilizers, including phosphorus, get washed into water ways damaging ecosystems and creating dead zones. This seventy year old method of growing food is productive but extreme wasteful and is becoming economically obsolete. Unfortunately, it is being propped up by big money chemical companies and politicians for hire.

There is a bright side if we look far enough into the future. Eventually, industrial spread to waste agriculture will cost more than sustainable organic farming and high-tech agriculture, such as aquaponics.

Until then, grow your own or buy organic!

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Roger Ingalls is well traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

Gold Standard Hogwash – Roger Ingalls

The country’s sad economic state has renewed the cry for a return to the Gold Standard. A significant percentage of the population as well as presidential candidates are endorsing this form of monetary system. Fiat Money Systems are used by most countries (including the U.S.) which normally require tight regulation and active monitoring to thwart abuse and corruption. The recent financial crisis was caused by conservative policies that deregulated the banking industry which opened the door for unethical practices induced by greed. Wall Street’s failure to “self-police” has rekindled interest in the Gold Standard.

It is my belief that moving to a precious metal standard will not fix problems facing the people of this country (USA) or the world’s masses. It may unify currency across the globe but it’s still just another form of money significantly controlled by the wealthy few.

If we’re going to entertain the idea of changing our monetary system, let’s go all out. Let’s develop a system that empowers today’s masses and future generations. Let’s create a system that produces wealth based on conservation, cooperation and increases with the participation of many.

The basis of life is energy. Every life force needs some form of energy to exist. Therefore, a true and unifying currency would be some sort of energy unit, such as a Joule or Calorie. The value of energy is understood in the U.S., China and even aliens from outer-space would understand its worth.

I realize that this initially sounds like a wild idea but think about it for a few minutes and it starts to make sense. Keep in mind that all forms of energy are somehow derived from the Sun. Oil, coal and natural gas are fossilized ancient life forms that once received energy from the sun. Even elements used to create nuclear power owe their existence to solar activity.

This blog site (leftcoastvoices.com) will post more on energy unit currency in the near future but in the meantime, here is some information that will hopefully inspire you to think more about the subject:

1. Mother Nature takes the path of least resistance because it conserves energy.
2. Calories are a form of energy unit. There are 90 calories in a large head of lettuce and 540 calories in a Big Mac. The current price of lettuce is $2; therefore, a Big Mac should cost $12 in a true free-market.
3. The energy from one gallon of gas in equal to 408 man hours of work. The minimum wage in CA is $8 so a gallon of gas should cost $3264.
4. If energy was priced appropriately, conservation would be adopted quickly.
5. If energy was priced appropriately, food would not travel the average 1500 miles it now takes to get to your dinner table. Lettuce grown in CA would not be shipped to New York.
6. A monetary system based on energy will automatically promote sustainability in all aspects of human existence.
7. Humans consume food energy and transform it into mechanical energy.
8. People working together cooperatively are more efficient and can produce more (community).

A Gold Standard is hogwash. An Energy Standard would promote human equality, builds community, protects the environment and create a happier existence. A system like this brings to light the true cost of energy and inherently promotes sustainability through local production. Local production creates local jobs.

Of course, big business, Wall Street and the banks would never allow a conversion to a monetary system that draws attention to conservation. They need debt to create wealth.

More to come!

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Roger Ingalls is well traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

Want Water, Get Nuclear – Roger Ingalls

We can debate the dangers and virtues of nuclear power but its proliferation is inevitable. Pro and con arguments are irrelevant. One basic human need makes nuclear power an absolute necessity.

Water is humanity’s lowest common denominator. Without it we die. Drinkable water is precious and in short supply. Only one percent of all water on Earth is potable and accessible. Currently, twenty percent of the world’s population does not have daily access to fresh water. Let me rephrase, “today, November 17, 2011, approximately 1,400,000,000 people will not taste safe water”.

Fast forward 40 years to 2050. The number of people on Earth has increased by 50% and now sits at approximately 11 billion. Since the Earth won’t magically make more potable water, half the world’s population (7 billion) will struggle to survive.

Clearly, something needs to be done. We could just let people die off but that would be an economic disaster because we need an ever-expanding population to fuel our financial system that is based on perpetual growth (crazy as that sounds living on a finite planet).

The only option we have is turning salt water into fresh water. Desalination is an energy intensive process. Today, fossil fuels are already stretched thin and most energy experts say we are in or heading into a peak oil scenario where we are draining cheap oil reserves faster than we can find new ones. Also, oil and natural gas are used to manufacture pesticides and fertilizer (respectively) so they will be in heavy demand for agricultural purposes to feed the new billions.

The only way we can produce an adequate amount of fresh water is by running desalination plants with nuclear power.

Again, the arguments about safety are irrelevant. We need to look at this in terms of future lives saved. Nuclear power will prevent the deaths of billions from starvation and thirst. Forget about saving 30 or 40 people from radiation poisoning over the next 50 years – that’s crazy logic.

Think in terms of benefits. Think a generation or two into the future.

 * The 104 nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. over the past 40 years have not caused a single death while wind energy has already killed 41 in its short existence.

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Roger Ingalls is well traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

Killer Cantaloupe

When will we learn that a centralized food system not only is environmentally disastrous but it also kills people? I blogged about an E. coli breakout in June, poisonous strawberry production earlier this month and now in late September, I’m writing about an outbreak of killer cantaloupe.

Killer Cantaloupe…it sounds like a bad title for a 1950’s era B-horror movie. Unfortunately, this Listeria-laced deadly fruit is scary and real. To date, up to 16 people have died and close to 100 are seriously ill. The incubation period for Listeria can take as long as 70 days so it is forecasted that many more people will become sick and potentially die. So far, 18 states are affected by the cantaloupe that came from one farm in Colorado.

It’s amazing that we continue to endorse a food system where one farm can make so many people sick across the country. We have choices. We can buy food from locally grown sources.

Let’s briefly review the benefits of local food:

1)      It is healthier because it tends to be organic and free of fuel-based fertilizers and pesticide.

2)      It is harvested when rip and sold within 24 hours so it’s more flavorful and has more nutrients. Factory farmed produce is picked weeks in advance and then ripened with ethylene gas before being sold.

3)      Locally grown food (as with all locally manufactured products) employs more people and improves local economies.

4)      It is environmentally friendlier than factory produced food. Factory farms are energy intensive, use chemicals and goods are transported up to 1500 miles creating a large carbon footprint. The run-off from factory farms acidifies waterways and negatively impacts the eco-system. In addition, these big farms inefficiently use water and create soil erosion.

I sound like a broken record because this subject comes up a lot in my posts. But it is important, especially now that the frequency of food borne illness is increasing. This doesn’t need to happen. We have choices and all we need to do is think before we buy.

Save your life, your family, the planet and neighborhood jobs by buying locally produced goods.

-Roger Ingalls

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Roger Ingalls is well traveled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.

A Zoroastrian Revival

Let’s talk truth. When it comes to the environment, Christianity, Judaism and Islam have failed miserably. These monotheistic religions are not overtly hostile toward the environment but they place humanity in an elitist position, thereby relegating all else to servitude.

Prior to the rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, mankind worshipped many gods with a significant portion dedicated to mother earth. The so-called pagan religions respected nature and, in turn, help protect the environment. Then along comes the big three monotheistic religions—endorsing man’s entitlement over all things earthly—and the entire ecosystem begins to progressively deteriorate.

Man has forgotten how to work with nature and now pushes against her, consuming a lot of energy in the process. We are so out of control that we use 10 fossil fuel calories to produce one calorie of food. These fossil fuels—in the form of pesticides, fertilizers and desiel—have turned the soil barren and the skies brown. Take a shovel to any industrialized farm and turn over the dirt. You will not find anything living; no worms, no ladybugs and no beneficial bacteria. It’s all dead. Plants will only grow with more fertilizer and more pesticide—death breeds death.

It’s odd that these three faiths would have such little respect for all creatures and earthly elements when one considers their origin. Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all derivatives of Zoroastrianism. Yes, that’s right, Zoroastrianism is the first monotheistic—one god—religion dating back to 2000 BCE or 4000 years ago.

The three prevailing “one almightly god” religions are fundamentally the same and, for all practical purposes, just copy-cats of Zoroastrianism. However, Zoroastrianism has one major difference. From its inception, it preached ecology and care of the environment with respect and reverence for nature. Zoroastrians must protect the sky, water, earth, plant, animal and fire. At the end of times, when “all things” are harmonious, mankind must give the world back to God in its original perfect form.

The eco-friendly beliefs of Zoroastrians are in stark contrast to the trivial considerations Judaism, Christianity and Islam gives to nature. Imagine what the world would be like today if these three religions also copied the environmental aspects of the original “one god” religion.

Perhaps we need a Zoroastrian revival.

-Roger Ingalls

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Roger Ingalls is well travelled and has seen the good and bad of many foreign governments. He hopes his blogging will encourage readers to think more deeply about the American political system and its impact on US citizens and the international community.