Last night I had dinner with some musician friends from High School (thanks Facebook for making such a meeting possible!). And there were only two of us who had left the fine arts world for science. My friend Abbie (who used to play Oboe in the Vermont Youth Orchestra) has been working on the international politics of global climate change. Her most recent Masters Degree (she now has two) in Environmental Studies led her to a thesis regarding the importance of including deforestation policy in climate change talks. According to her 1/5th of the world's Green House Gas emissions come from deforestation, slash & burn, in the rainforest. And that's the cheapest thing to fix. Instead of building wind turbines, or switching to biodiesel, we could just not destroy forest land for agricultural use.
According to Abbie, slash & burn in the Amazon was, once upon a time, a sustainable technique used by natives for agriculture. A small population would clear an area of forest, but the land was so poor that it could only support them for a handful of years, after which they'd pick up camp, move to another location and do the same thing until, after about a 30 year period they would end up at the original plot.
Abbie's thought is that a high carbon-emitting country could pay a highly forested-country to not cut down their forest land as a way to offset or sequester their carbon.
This plan was opposed by Abbie's friend who works first-hand with Brazilian farmers saying that in such a case, one country basically pays the government of another country and the farmers who need jobs are left with nothing.
Here's as fundamental question: how can we both preserve forest land and create jobs for native peoples?
When a french-horn playing friend asked, "so what's an acre of forest worth?" Abbie replied that it depends on the type of forest and how much carbon is sequestered there. For some forest areas that have been burned it may take on the order of 50 years to gain back the carbon lost to decay or burning. However, the peat forests in Indonesia which are incredibly carbon dense, she said once those have been filled in for agriculture, the space will *never* recapture all the carbon it once held. And ironically, the agriculture in Indonesia is largely for Palm Oil, which is used in many products, but also biodeisel. Apparently the EU just put out a mandate that some percentage of all transportation fuel must be biodeisel. So this mandate is creating a market for a horribly carbon-unfriend practice. Bleh! So complicated!
All this stuff sounds fairly depressing and too big to handle, but I'd like to propose that it's not too big. It's all just policy. Let's change the mindset. I think, globally our morals are shifting, so what should they be? Look at whole systems, give back what you take, businesses need morals too, what do people need?, progress at what cost? hmmm I feel another post coming on... :)
On another note entirely:
Last night I had a dream that my students were presenting their original calculations regarding energy and climate change at a church and WCAX was there and wanted to know if we wanted to use their microphones or if we should use our own. I came up to give an introduction to the presentations when I woke up, and as I did the phrase throbbing in my head was:
"The Rich want to Drive. The Poor want to Eat."
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Remembering Romaine Tenney: "The Man Who Would Not Be Moved"
I heard this story from my mom last night, which I felt was so compelling that we did a little more research and found an article regarding the events in an old newsletter. Here's my version.
In Ascutney Vermont back in the 60's there lived an old man who had a small farm with a gorgeous 19th century gingerbread farm house and a barn across the road. Romaine Tenney, who had been born in the house was the only one of nine siblings still living there, working the farm, which had 40 cows. He was quoted as saying "I was born in this house and I'll die in this house."
Mr. Tenney milked his cows by hand even in 1964. After a little research I found an article in a newsletter from the Weathersfield Historical Society by Edith F. Hunter which states, "He did not approve of electricity, daylight savings time, or gasoline powered vehicles. He heated his house with wood stoves, lighted with kerosine lamps, and did his farming with horses." Mom says she remembers him because he used to rent pasture land from her parents' farm, and he would drive his cows up the road to Weathersfield and their farm, always walking along behind the cows.
"In the early 1960's I-91 was being constructed" the article says. "Many things stood in its way - rocky hills that had to be dynamited, wetlands that had to be filled in, houses and barns that had to be moved or destroyed. One of those houses... was the farm of Romaine Tenney in Ascutney." Tenney resisted all offers from I-91 reps. They offered him almost ten times what the property was worth according to town records, and he wouldn't budge. They offered to move the house, but that was eventually deemed unfeasible.
As I-91 made its progress closer to Tenney's property neighbors offered to help him move, the local school offered to donate large boxes so he could move his belongings, to which Tenney replied, "Perhaps I can use them, or at least they will burn well."
As my mom was telling me this story, I thought it was going to end, "and that's why there's a funny little bend in I-91", but no, that's not how the story ends.
Again from the article: "On Friday, Sept. 11, [1964] the county sheriff came with a court order to remove Romaine Tenny's possessions, and brought along four helpers and two trucks to get the job done." Apparently these movers just started working, moving stuff around all day.
Later that night, after another man named Fitch had dropped off his children's baby sitter he drove by the house and noticed the interior was "all aglow", and there was a strange light inside the barn. He raced to the fire department, but when they arrived they could not break down the door because it had been "spiked" shut. Even if they could have gone in it would have been unsafe as the building was structurally unsound at that point as the fire consumed the house.
Tenney's dogs and cows had been set loose outside the barn, which also burned to the ground.
The next morning, inside the house they found what they believed to be human remains in a bedroom with a .32 caliber rifle, revolver, and exploded shells, although it was unclear if the shells exploded from the fire and the barrels of both the revolver and rifle had been melted shut.
When Mom drives down 91 she knows exactly where the house was and remembers Mr. Tenney as she drives inches above where his house once stood.
Emminent domain is maybe one of the scariest laws I can think of - it symbolizes all that I don't love about forms of government with high level of intervention such as socialism and communism. This also means that despite the fact that I wish certain properties in Montpelier would be managed differently, I respect the fact that it's not my decision and the state, the "will of the people", should not force a change.
True as this story is, it serves as a fable or archetypal myth conveying sentiments which I believe many Vermonters identify with. The reclusive old ludite harrassed by the government in a fit of depression gives in and destroys something beautiful in a final catastrophic statement about progress. Where are we going? Is it somewhere good? Who decides what is good and what is meant by "progress"?
These are difficult questions that I believe many Vermonters are currently struggling with. I hear it in conversations at church, at school, and with students. When students gave me a positive reaction to the possibility of an electro-magnetic pulse bomb going off over America, that certainly gave me pause to question our current state of technology.
The story also raises questions about states rights vs. the rights of individuals. Who's will is more important: those of property owners, or the collective majority's will, the rich foreigner's will or the poor native's will. I believe it's part of the state's job to look out for the rights of its poor constituency.
In Ascutney Vermont back in the 60's there lived an old man who had a small farm with a gorgeous 19th century gingerbread farm house and a barn across the road. Romaine Tenney, who had been born in the house was the only one of nine siblings still living there, working the farm, which had 40 cows. He was quoted as saying "I was born in this house and I'll die in this house."
Mr. Tenney milked his cows by hand even in 1964. After a little research I found an article in a newsletter from the Weathersfield Historical Society by Edith F. Hunter which states, "He did not approve of electricity, daylight savings time, or gasoline powered vehicles. He heated his house with wood stoves, lighted with kerosine lamps, and did his farming with horses." Mom says she remembers him because he used to rent pasture land from her parents' farm, and he would drive his cows up the road to Weathersfield and their farm, always walking along behind the cows.
"In the early 1960's I-91 was being constructed" the article says. "Many things stood in its way - rocky hills that had to be dynamited, wetlands that had to be filled in, houses and barns that had to be moved or destroyed. One of those houses... was the farm of Romaine Tenney in Ascutney." Tenney resisted all offers from I-91 reps. They offered him almost ten times what the property was worth according to town records, and he wouldn't budge. They offered to move the house, but that was eventually deemed unfeasible.
As I-91 made its progress closer to Tenney's property neighbors offered to help him move, the local school offered to donate large boxes so he could move his belongings, to which Tenney replied, "Perhaps I can use them, or at least they will burn well."
As my mom was telling me this story, I thought it was going to end, "and that's why there's a funny little bend in I-91", but no, that's not how the story ends.
Again from the article: "On Friday, Sept. 11, [1964] the county sheriff came with a court order to remove Romaine Tenny's possessions, and brought along four helpers and two trucks to get the job done." Apparently these movers just started working, moving stuff around all day.
Later that night, after another man named Fitch had dropped off his children's baby sitter he drove by the house and noticed the interior was "all aglow", and there was a strange light inside the barn. He raced to the fire department, but when they arrived they could not break down the door because it had been "spiked" shut. Even if they could have gone in it would have been unsafe as the building was structurally unsound at that point as the fire consumed the house.
Tenney's dogs and cows had been set loose outside the barn, which also burned to the ground.
The next morning, inside the house they found what they believed to be human remains in a bedroom with a .32 caliber rifle, revolver, and exploded shells, although it was unclear if the shells exploded from the fire and the barrels of both the revolver and rifle had been melted shut.
When Mom drives down 91 she knows exactly where the house was and remembers Mr. Tenney as she drives inches above where his house once stood.
Emminent domain is maybe one of the scariest laws I can think of - it symbolizes all that I don't love about forms of government with high level of intervention such as socialism and communism. This also means that despite the fact that I wish certain properties in Montpelier would be managed differently, I respect the fact that it's not my decision and the state, the "will of the people", should not force a change.
True as this story is, it serves as a fable or archetypal myth conveying sentiments which I believe many Vermonters identify with. The reclusive old ludite harrassed by the government in a fit of depression gives in and destroys something beautiful in a final catastrophic statement about progress. Where are we going? Is it somewhere good? Who decides what is good and what is meant by "progress"?
These are difficult questions that I believe many Vermonters are currently struggling with. I hear it in conversations at church, at school, and with students. When students gave me a positive reaction to the possibility of an electro-magnetic pulse bomb going off over America, that certainly gave me pause to question our current state of technology.
The story also raises questions about states rights vs. the rights of individuals. Who's will is more important: those of property owners, or the collective majority's will, the rich foreigner's will or the poor native's will. I believe it's part of the state's job to look out for the rights of its poor constituency.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Sustainability Rally and VECAN Conference
The last few days have been just crammed with ... wow - great, bad, wonderful, horrible stuff.
Let's start with the highlights:
Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network (VECAN) conference at Vermont Technical College in Randolph. That was just awesome. I went to regional policy session first: not that interesting, but good to know, and meanwhile I found myself brainstorming about other things. Then I dialogued with a VTC prof with whom I'd been meaning to connect, Joan Hall-Richmond. We're both interested in engaging students in the weatherization process. She might also be interested in the Summer of Solutions program (which I'm not sure if I'll do yet).
Then I got to chat with Ken Jones, which was great (as usual), then a final session led by the "ethical consciousness director" for Seventh Generation, Gregor Barnum. There were other people presenting, but he was mainly the show. And he was really good - gosh, he was funny, but I enjoyed his presentation on the Low Carbon Diet workbook very much. I've already proposed doing it with my environmental Bible study group at St. Andrew's.
And finally instead of hearing another speaker I connected with Kimberly Hagen of VEEP (Vermont Energy Education Program?) so she's planning to come to my class to do some energy demonstrations, which I'm completely stoked about.
After the conference I went to a friends house for a potluck followed by a contra dance in Montpelier. And wow. I had never been to the one in Montpelier before, but it was packed with spectrum of ages: people my age, high school-aged folks, middle aged, and more gray-haired folk. It was also one of the few events that I've been to at which there were more men than women. *gasp!* Anyway, I had a ball - thanks for entertaining this paragraph of non-physics related material.
On Friday of the weekend I went to a rally with a bunch of (mostly) college kids, followed by hanging out with legislators and getting a feel for the up coming session and students were able to discuss issues they cared about. It was great.
So now... instead of relating the low points of the weekend, how about we'll frame it as things I've learned:
From the rally:
If I'm not in charge, I should not pick up other people's garbage.
Rely most heavily on adults rather than students to get things done.
I just need to be a confident leader and people will follow.
It's important to keep an open hand and let things evolve as they will evolve. I can't control outcomes.
Having friends around can help me breathe in the midst of chaos.
From the press:
Be careful about what you say to reporters.
Don't involve the media unless you really believe in what's happening.
From the aftermath of the article:
It's best to sweep up miscommunications right away so that feelings are not hurt.
If you'd like to read the article it's here (it had some less than bright implications about our relationship with the cafeteria).
Altogether I'd say it was a successful weekend even with all the madness with the media. We'll just chalk that up to my own education.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Is Your Life Sustainable? Reflections on busy-ness
This evening I met with one of the pastors of St. Andrew's over tea at Uncommon Ground in Burlington, and I told him all about the latest excitments in my life:
Recent trip to Chicago for a Knowles Science Teaching fellows meeting; I just got interviewed by a woman from the Bridge for an upcoming article about Capitol Area Neighborhoods; VSHI is hosting a rally for sustainability this Friday and KSTF's advertising company caught wind of it and so they've managed to interest the Times Argus sometime before the rally; and apparently Vermont Magazine is interested in an interview in the near future.
Meanwhile I'm working on weatherizing the homes of St. Andrew's goers, visioning where St. Andrew's should go next, and just today I met up with a guy from the Roots school in Calais which teaches primitive and survival skills. I'd really like to have him come to my classroom to teach students how to make fire, in conjunction with our unit on force and friction.
In the course of conversation he said, "Do you think your life is sustainable?"
I said immediately, "no", but I was really just referencing the gasoline in my car and the propane heating my house. Of course, that's not what he meant, and so it gave me pause to wonder if I could continually bite off more than I could chew indefinitely. Maybe. I've been doing it for so long that I don't know what else I would do, how else I would live.
Maybe if I ever decide to date someone, then maybe I'll slow down. What's more important relationships or changing the world?
Recent trip to Chicago for a Knowles Science Teaching fellows meeting; I just got interviewed by a woman from the Bridge for an upcoming article about Capitol Area Neighborhoods; VSHI is hosting a rally for sustainability this Friday and KSTF's advertising company caught wind of it and so they've managed to interest the Times Argus sometime before the rally; and apparently Vermont Magazine is interested in an interview in the near future.
Meanwhile I'm working on weatherizing the homes of St. Andrew's goers, visioning where St. Andrew's should go next, and just today I met up with a guy from the Roots school in Calais which teaches primitive and survival skills. I'd really like to have him come to my classroom to teach students how to make fire, in conjunction with our unit on force and friction.
In the course of conversation he said, "Do you think your life is sustainable?"
I said immediately, "no", but I was really just referencing the gasoline in my car and the propane heating my house. Of course, that's not what he meant, and so it gave me pause to wonder if I could continually bite off more than I could chew indefinitely. Maybe. I've been doing it for so long that I don't know what else I would do, how else I would live.
Maybe if I ever decide to date someone, then maybe I'll slow down. What's more important relationships or changing the world?
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Montpelier: Transition Town Meeting
I just returned from the Montpelier Transition Town Meeting where Transition Town Handbook author Naresh Giangrande from Totnes, UK spoke about how to transition to a post peak-oil community. It was very much about relocalization, addressing the community as a whole. A couple interesting points he brought up:
1) He uses human happiness metrics as an indicator of success (along with lbs of CO2 emissions averted).
2) For those who don’t have access to land to grow their own food, he and his team are matching up people with land and would like it to be worked with people who don’t have land and are willing to grow things. Pretty cool solution.
3) He noted that “common or shared things” will become more important, like garden spaces, tools, etc.
For my readers not in Vermont, oh gosh how I wish you could’ve seen the folks who attended. They were the best of Vermonters: The Cynic from Barre, the mustache-wearing soft spoken fellow who wore a black hat and coat and carried a long walking stick with colored string wrapped around the end of it, the bright-eyed wrinkly old farmers with no teeth left to articulate their questions, the alert high school activist, the 20-something bearded fleece wearer who reeked of pot when he came in, and my friend Nicko the heirloom tree farmer. There were a lot of suspenders, flannel, and fleece. I don’t know why I find it important to note what everyone was wearing, except for that perhaps it does give us a sense of identity and shared culture – which I hear will be important in the post-carbon society.
I do have one bone to pick with Mr. Giangrande, which is specifically about what a transition town is. He said it was a community that used “much less” energy and “much fewer” resources than what we do now. I disagree. I’m shooting for sustainability.
At least two friends have asked me in the last month “What is sustainability? Everybody talks about it, but I’m not sure I know what it means”. Fair enough, I think it’s overused, but here’s what I mean:
In order for a process to be sustainable it may only take resources at a rate that they may be replenished, and if the resource is non-renewable, then it shouldn’t be taken. This seems rather negative, let’s spin it more positively: A sustainable community uses resources at a rate that can be sustained indefinitely because they are harvested less than or equal to the rate at which they are replenished. Hm. Does that make sense? That seemed to take more words than I had hoped.
I would like to see some metric of success developed around that.
1) He uses human happiness metrics as an indicator of success (along with lbs of CO2 emissions averted).
2) For those who don’t have access to land to grow their own food, he and his team are matching up people with land and would like it to be worked with people who don’t have land and are willing to grow things. Pretty cool solution.
3) He noted that “common or shared things” will become more important, like garden spaces, tools, etc.
For my readers not in Vermont, oh gosh how I wish you could’ve seen the folks who attended. They were the best of Vermonters: The Cynic from Barre, the mustache-wearing soft spoken fellow who wore a black hat and coat and carried a long walking stick with colored string wrapped around the end of it, the bright-eyed wrinkly old farmers with no teeth left to articulate their questions, the alert high school activist, the 20-something bearded fleece wearer who reeked of pot when he came in, and my friend Nicko the heirloom tree farmer. There were a lot of suspenders, flannel, and fleece. I don’t know why I find it important to note what everyone was wearing, except for that perhaps it does give us a sense of identity and shared culture – which I hear will be important in the post-carbon society.
I do have one bone to pick with Mr. Giangrande, which is specifically about what a transition town is. He said it was a community that used “much less” energy and “much fewer” resources than what we do now. I disagree. I’m shooting for sustainability.
At least two friends have asked me in the last month “What is sustainability? Everybody talks about it, but I’m not sure I know what it means”. Fair enough, I think it’s overused, but here’s what I mean:
In order for a process to be sustainable it may only take resources at a rate that they may be replenished, and if the resource is non-renewable, then it shouldn’t be taken. This seems rather negative, let’s spin it more positively: A sustainable community uses resources at a rate that can be sustained indefinitely because they are harvested less than or equal to the rate at which they are replenished. Hm. Does that make sense? That seemed to take more words than I had hoped.
I would like to see some metric of success developed around that.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
National Board Certification: A Humble Post
Soooooo... some of you may know that last spring I applied for National Board Certification and in case you didn't guess from the title of the post, I didn't get it. Sad face.
It was definitely tough news since I received it in the beginning hours of a day-long training session with my other Knowles Science Teaching fellows, and Casey (a fabulous physics teacher, and Knowles fellow) from California did get it.
No, I didn't cry - I wanted to at times, but mainly I had to fairly quickly digest the details of my failure, accept it, let it go, and move on. Of course everyone was sad to hear it and the air in the room was understandably tense until the next break when I got to explain to folks the details of my failure.
I had a really strong portfolio (representing about 90% of the work), but my test score was abysmal. I knew coming out of that test that I had bombed it, and I knew ahead of time that if I didn't get it it would be because of the test. So at least I anticipated that piece correctly.
Here's the good news, my portfolio scores will be kept for 2 years during which time I have the opportunity to re-do any pieces I wish to redo for the required score of 275, which I only missed by 6 points. So here's what I'll do: I'll schedule another testing, study my butt off, and I probably couldn't help but do well a second time around.
Aaaaaand back to the bad news. Now I've got to break it to people at school, family, colleagues, students that I didn't get it. :P Not really looking forward to that. However, here's a story to go with this news:
It's like my own grading policy is being applied to me. I let my students redo any piece of work within a certain time limit, and now, I have that same opportunity as well. Learning will occur and I'll get better and I'll have a second chance to show it. There's something satisfying about the reflexive or pleasantly ironic nature of that thought. And I think my students will appreciate it as well.
It was definitely tough news since I received it in the beginning hours of a day-long training session with my other Knowles Science Teaching fellows, and Casey (a fabulous physics teacher, and Knowles fellow) from California did get it.
No, I didn't cry - I wanted to at times, but mainly I had to fairly quickly digest the details of my failure, accept it, let it go, and move on. Of course everyone was sad to hear it and the air in the room was understandably tense until the next break when I got to explain to folks the details of my failure.
I had a really strong portfolio (representing about 90% of the work), but my test score was abysmal. I knew coming out of that test that I had bombed it, and I knew ahead of time that if I didn't get it it would be because of the test. So at least I anticipated that piece correctly.
Here's the good news, my portfolio scores will be kept for 2 years during which time I have the opportunity to re-do any pieces I wish to redo for the required score of 275, which I only missed by 6 points. So here's what I'll do: I'll schedule another testing, study my butt off, and I probably couldn't help but do well a second time around.
Aaaaaand back to the bad news. Now I've got to break it to people at school, family, colleagues, students that I didn't get it. :P Not really looking forward to that. However, here's a story to go with this news:
It's like my own grading policy is being applied to me. I let my students redo any piece of work within a certain time limit, and now, I have that same opportunity as well. Learning will occur and I'll get better and I'll have a second chance to show it. There's something satisfying about the reflexive or pleasantly ironic nature of that thought. And I think my students will appreciate it as well.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What if VSHI went National?
When we met with Peter Welch we asked him if we could go National with this program, if we could come to Washington DC to do some lobbying. And he jokingly said, "No", and added that we didn't need his permission to lobby in Washington. The only thing is, we don't know how to lobby in Washington. :(
I was talking with Bart my bus buddy today about this and he recommended getting someone with that kind of experience on the board of VSHI since we are, finally, a non-profit. Hm.
I guess we have a board. Sort of. It's Tom, the students, and myself. But we don't have bi-laws or regular monthly meetings. Anyway, talking with Bart made it seem possible to lobby in Washington, which brings up the question, what specific things are we looking for?
1) $100,000,000 for research grants regarding sustainable heating and cooling systems available to university students to do research.
2) 1% of each state's current LIHEAP funding to go towards helping low income families transition to sustainable heating/cooling systems.
This is what we've got so far - there are a few more details, but maybe they'll change. Now we just need to figure out how to get this in a bill or ... something. (?)
I was talking with Bart my bus buddy today about this and he recommended getting someone with that kind of experience on the board of VSHI since we are, finally, a non-profit. Hm.
I guess we have a board. Sort of. It's Tom, the students, and myself. But we don't have bi-laws or regular monthly meetings. Anyway, talking with Bart made it seem possible to lobby in Washington, which brings up the question, what specific things are we looking for?
1) $100,000,000 for research grants regarding sustainable heating and cooling systems available to university students to do research.
2) 1% of each state's current LIHEAP funding to go towards helping low income families transition to sustainable heating/cooling systems.
This is what we've got so far - there are a few more details, but maybe they'll change. Now we just need to figure out how to get this in a bill or ... something. (?)
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