Renewable Energy Gold Rush

NIMBY and the Psychology of Protected Areas

December 2009

There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
--Wendell Berry

2009 is the year of the renewable energy boom. Renewable energy projects that start construction by the end of 2010 can get 30% of the construction costs federally subsidized. Booms and busts have had great impacts on California and the West before, and those impacts will continue as we madly dash toward a carbon-free energy system.

The Eastern Sierra is already a renewable energy colony of the rest of the state and a water colony of Los Angeles too. We already produce, use, and export electricity generated from dammed streams, deadened geysers, and dropping water tables.

But it isn't enough. Now renewable energy prospectors are looking for sites where they can build new dams and hydroelectric plants. There is a proposal for

How to create a socially responsible oil company

Tonight (due to the documentary on marijuana on CNBC) I was thinking about how people that smoke pot without knowing where it comes from are probably supporting the Mexican Mafia and its horrible murderous acts. It reminded me of an essay I wrote on my Website in 2000, 2001, or 2002 when I didn't have a car. It was about boycotting all oil companies because they all did such horrible things. How could you be a willing customer of someone/something so evil?

At the time, the research I did on the Internet turned up zero oil companies with records clean enough that would make me want to do business with them.

The oil companies I researched back then were: BP and Oxy, Shell and Chevron, Texaco and Maxus, Unocal, Arco, Exxon, Mobil, and Amoco. Their crimes and transgressions included human rights violations (Colombia, Nigeria, Alaska, Ecuador, Burma, Thailand, Cameroon, Chad, Central America), spills and related environmental impacts, massive CO2 emissions, and being members of the Global Climate Coalition that claimed Global Warming was a myth.

I'm sure some things have changed, although the press surrounding the BP oil disaster this year leads me to believe that most oil companies are stuck in the old, outdated, and simply evil ways of doing business.

The logical next step: stop buying anything from them. But how to live without oil?

Welcome (back)

My previous Website was "Sustainable Use and Restoration of California's Natural Environment," found at www.ecomafia.com from about 1998 to 2008. Ecomafia was a novel I never had time to write. In 2008 I changed it to www.reisvalleyandmudville.com (a new book I wanted to write about my dad, who passed away that year). And in 2010 I canceled the site, and the new domain name, saving a few bucks, and keeping an eye out for a free place to host it. It was time for a change.

Well, ever since I discontinued my site I've been thinking about how to find an outlet for my essays. My ideas are too good (or at least thought provoking!) to keep to myself. Plus I had a few good essays on the old site that would be nice to put back up somewhere. The old site had five sections: Inspiration (quotes, lyrics, humor), The Realist Idealist (sustainable solutions), Glimpses of the Golden State (California geography and history), The Other Side of the Batholith (essays from the Eastern Sierra), and Resources and Links.

So here's the plan. I'll start off by posting the "best of" ecomafia.com and reisvalleyandmudville.com, revised, updated, and edited. I've changed since then, and so has the world. A lot of my resources and links are no longer relevant, surpassed by far better resources--and better compilations of them! When I started a Website about sustainability, it was easy to keep track of good resources, but the Internet has grown far too large for me to keep track of.

After I post "the best of," and maybe intermingled with it if I can't wait, I'll post my new essays and ideas... the ones that are worth sharing. And in the midst of all that, there is the book...

Bilderain Adobe in L.A., 1880s

I really really want to write this book already. But the research is daunting. And I don't have lots of time to do it. The general plan of the book is to write about my dad's fascinating life, but to include all his ancestors that I can find. Since my dad kept lots of journals, there is a lot of material to use, but the genealogical research is what is going to take the most time. And since I want to start writing at the beginning, and researching ancestors the farthest back takes the most time, I'm feeling like I'm not going to start writing for a few years. So this blog will be an outlet for that writing energy, and maybe you'll get some interesting updates on the book and the research once in a while. Like Encar. Bilderain, my great-great grandmother who lived here (see photo above right) in Los Angeles, but was born in 1824 in California (according to the 1880 census). The mystery is--where was she born? My dad's papers indicated that she and her husband were from Spain. But the censuses of 1870 and 1880 show California and Mexico as her birthplace. Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, so if she was born 3 years earlier she could have been born in Spanish California. And what of her husband, Ignacio? By the time of the U.S. censuses, she was widowed, so those aren't too helpful for his information.

My cousin Brian did a family history of my mom's side of the family, and his effort is inspirational for my attempts to delve into my dad's side. What an interesting journey this will continue to be.