"Clean" Coal is Here!

I found this entertaining: http://www.thisisreality.org/#/?p=facility

Not only is "clean" coal technology far away (we don't know where we will safely and cleanly hide the CO2 that we still don't know how to sequester), the myth hides the painful truth that there is no quick fix. If we want to decrease overall emissions, it's going to effect our wallets and our lifestyles. There's no way around increased costs (to reflect full costs, health costs, environmental clean up, new technology, lower supply, and higher demand) and a change in lifestyle to avoid those costs!

The receptivity to the "clean coal" myth is based in the quasi-religious faith people have in the redemptive power of technology. It's perpetuated when politicians (like both 2008 presidential candidates), feed the myth. Mainstream politicians need to balance the following goals: 1) show eco-cred to 'organic' voters, 2) be somewhat honest that some change is needed (change to technology, not lifestlyes, that is), 3) capture voters in coal states, and 4)give corporate sponsors a nice return on their investment. "Just raise the banner of Clean Coal," their pollsters likely instructed, after field and focus group testing for each goal. (I did public relations, polling, and strategy work for a coal company a while back, so I recognized the language Obama and McCain used to package the myth.)

Voters need to be more skeptical. Let's be iconoclasts against this comforting, blind faith in technology. Of course, let's apply this technology to current coal plants and make them cleaner. But we're missing the point if we think there's a net improvement if we have to build 100 new "clean" coal plants. Technology is a process, not a golden goose: the same technology that can help a doctor see inside a broken leg is the same technology that still threatens to level cities. Ever the Homo habilis, it is us who decides whether the stick in our hand is used to attack someone or to tend the fire.

So, instead of looking to the ground to burn stored solar energy from the past, let's look to the sky and learn to capture solar energy directly from its source. (And plan on driving less too.... ).

Just remember, no matter how clean your coal is, you still have coal ash.

Our new slogan: "Privatize the Profits, Socialize the Risks"

Explaining the roller-coaster of events over the last couple of months is made more difficult in the midst of this blame storm. Simplifications abound: one camp says the market collapse is attributed to the largess of the government, over-regulation, and constraints on the free market; the other camp says the market collapse can be blamed on a government that was too slow to respond, too anemic in its regulations, and too lenient on the excesses of capitalism. Once again, we return to the cliché debate between Capitalism and Socialism. That’s so last century¸ I think.

Both camps couldn’t be further from an accurate explanation of the mess we’re in. Over the last couple of decades, a hybrid policy has been the accepted norm: privatize the profits, socialize the risk. There has been bi-partisan cooperation towards this goal under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. The market is free on the way up, and given a soft cushion at the tax payer’s expense on the way down. The largess of our government and generosity afforded to those who fail due to their own greed and/or shortsightedness fall on people who pay income taxes at all levels. While two thirds of US corporations don’t pay any federal income taxes, wage earning Americans, their children, and their children’s children will be paying for policies that privatize the profits and socialize the risks. They’ll also pay in the form of a dollar that buys less and a bank account that is worth less because we’ll have to resort to printing more money.

What most people understand about the term “socialism” is really in the eye of the beholder. Those auto executives who for the past 30 years have been tremendously successful in fighting off higher fuel efficiency standards in the name of shareholder profits are now asking for government handouts to save them from their own shortsightedness. Privatize the profits and socialize the risks at taxpayer cost. In truth, We the People are socializing their stupidity. We are socializing their assumption that gas prices would stay low forever and that Americans would still drive big on a smaller wallet.

The dynamic works the same for other sectors. While defense contractors (and I used to work for one) have made vast private profits off of the American empire since President Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex, the risk comes at the expense of current and future tax payers – not to mention American lives. We now have mercenaries in Iraq that make multiples of what American soldiers make for the same exact work. This isn’t capitalism, this is cronyism.

Concerning our health care system, one has to hold back laughter when various stakeholders ponder with gloom and doom what would happen if a “socialized” system were to take hold in America. I guess they haven’t read about the socialized care we currently provide teachers, veterans, Federal employees, prisoners, the deserving and undeserving poor (Medicaid), and senior citizens (Medicare). Socialized health care in the US is not a matter of when or if, it’s a matter of who, how well, and how much more it costs us than other countries. Doctors fear the prospect of making what their counterparts in other countries make, but fail to see who’s really shafting them in their own country: insurance company profits and wage taxation that supports a bungled empire and an inefficient, fragmented entitlements system. If you want to make money in medicine, become an administrator in the shining towers that house the vast bureaucracies of insurance employees arbitrating on whether or not some poor soul’s condition is preexisting or not. We support an empire of 700 military bases, yet cover fewer people at higher cost than most Western market economies. (For a balanced review of alternate market-based systems, view Frontline's work on this subject, "Sick Around the World." ) Privatize the insurance company profits, but then socialize the increased costs to the taxpayers and lenders when someone declares bankruptcy due to a medical emergency (a situation unheard of in many other Western market economies).

And, as it relates to the environment, profits from unchecked growth and expansion are shared by the shareholders and management, and the costs – the “negative externalities”, the site clean up, the human health costs, the financial costs to future generations – are paid by society and the unwitting wage earners at all income levels. While large agribusinesses make money hand over fist (with government’s help) in pumping cheap corn into every imaginable food item (as seen in corn syrup in processed foods and animal feed that creates meat with higher fat content), it is society who must pay for the costs of prosperity diseases like diabetes and heart disease. Further, while the US government (as well as EU) protects large agribusiness from cheap imports and competition, American citizens pay more for their food while farmers in third world salivate over the prospect of exporting to the US and EU. Guess where our surplus production ends up? US and EU governments purchase surpluses and dump them in third world nations, further undermining prices. I've heard some call this "aid."

I’m quite agnostic about the record of capitalism and socialism in the 20th century. This is not because I lack an opinion in theory, but because we’ve followed a flawed hybrid of these two systems in practice. To use these labels in absolutes amounts to talk-show semantics. So, at this precarious juncture in our history (which a friend described to me as the feeling one gets in those slow seconds right before a high speed collision), maybe we ought to ask ourselves where we are, how we got here, and where we are going as a society. Do we want to continue this one-foot in, one-foot-out approach towards both systems? We need to decide whether we are to become a country like Switzerland or Finland (which oddly rank right next to us in economic competitiveness rankings), for example, or model ourselves after the "free market" in post-Soviet Russia, after the "small government” as seen in Mexico, or perhaps after various 18th century political theories. What is our shining city on a hill: an idea or a self-aggrandizing platitude? Are we still trying to create a more perfect union, or just elect politicians and consume media that tells us we are the perfect union?

I used to engage in "green washing" for major US corporations and mainstream politicians. Corporations (who have same legal status as individual people), want to deceive you into thinking they believe in a higher calling than increasing shareholder value. I - like other Americans in this ownership society - love increasing shareholder value, especially when we own the shares. But not unconditionally and not arbitrarily above all other concerns. What was once a legal vehicle that served at the will of municipality (a corporation of individuals seeking to minimize risk when building a bridge, a dam, school, road, etc), has become a vehicle to spread costs to different lands and times, to increase shareholder value above all other concerns, and to pay their shareholders with the investments of tax payers. Their original social charter has reversed direction: the fiduciary responsibility no longer leads from the corporation to the authorizing municipality, but from the authorizing municipality to the corporation in the form of tax credits, education for the workforce, infrastructure, and – increasingly – corporate welfare and bailouts. If you think you're getting fleeced on April 15th, you most certainly are.

You probably think – incorrectly – that I’m a socialist. In fact, I love the free market, I just don’t think we’ve seen one yet. All of the hallowed benefits of the free market, as seen in Economics 101 text books, are assuming fairness, full information for all actors, full knowledge and accounting of costs (current and future), and access of all stakeholders to their markets. It assumes that when I make an investment, I can look at the books of a company and believe what I see. It assumes that I can have faith in debtors' ability to repay. It assumes creditors are not engaging in predatory lending (some people, like Jesus, might call this usury), providing full information, and offering market competitive rates. It assumes arms length transactions. But as the assumptions grow, the resemblance to reality shrinks.

Looking at the major policies of last couple of decades, the US does not have a true market economy: until corporate money is out of politics it will always harbor crony capitalism. I believe in a free market that operates by the rules set by a government of the people, a government where the voter matters more in policy making than the campaign contribution, where logic and expert opinion weigh more than cold hard cash and raw influence. We have a long way to go. We’re a country that fought off the arbitrary rule of a distant monarch, and we’ll have to become a country that protects its citizens against the arbitrary rule of organizations whose sole purpose is to maximize shareholder value at any cost to current taxpayers, future generations, and our ecological and mental environments. The coal plant in Tennessee certainly increased shareholder value by building a cheaper retention facility to hold back toxic coal ash from the citizens and watersheds downstream, but maybe there is a higher value than just boosting the shareholders' value? If it is true - as the classic libertarian argument goes - that government should only be where The Market fails to provide or protect, isn't the environment one of these many areas?

Let me leave you with one example of the free market in action, where a brave citizen knew that he too deserves a literal seat at the table just like other "individuals," or corporations as they're more commonly known. The Utah student decided that he too deserved to bid on the same land that the oil and gas industries can bid on: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081223_bush_and_the_monkey_wrench_guy/.

When did we forget that social capital is part and parcel of capitalism? What we need now more than ever is true conservative leadership, like the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt, a "conservative" who saw that we must conserve our market system from it’s own abuses and saw that we must conserve our natural environment for future generations. Today, what are we trying to conserve? The myth that we can have our tax cut and spend it too? The myth that we can continue to buy more and produce less? The myth that inputs are infinite and costs are invisible? The myth of the City on a Hill?

© Bjorn Beer, 2008

Romantic Comedies (and my hungry plot expectations)

Six years ago, my wife and I were on our first date, and I distinctly remember our lively conversation on how Hollywood and our advertising-saturated culture play a likely role in what expectations we have for our own lives. If Happiness = Realization - Expectation, can certain media patterns elevate the Expectations side of the equation? Can increased expectations of plot resolution and "happy endings" decrease our Happiness?

Some evidence supports that point. Here is an excellent article that makes one consider the effects (for good or for ill) that the medium of movies (romantic comedies, in this case) can have on the way we view the world: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7784366.stm

If watching romantic comedies can heighten expectations of the ideal relationship playing out in our own lives, this begs larger questions: do pithy one-liners and laugh tracks from sitcoms create a lowest-common denominator sense of humor that never proceeds past sarcastic zingers and caustic come-backs? (Does everybody really love Raymond, or just the way he talks to his wife?) Further, since there are no "ahhs and umms" and non sequiturs in the tight, smart dialogue heard in TV and movies, are we less likely to be random and free in our own speech and more likely to be afraid of "random," unscripted, or candid thoughts? To get really philosophical, does having watched MacGyver as a child make one more likely to carry duct tape in the car? (I barely know how to open up the hood if I had to repair a hose in my car, but I have duct tape ready for that moment when I can fix or create the device that saves the day.)

This dynamic also plays itself out in how we get our news, which I believe is even more important than the content of the news. Does watching the captivating, entertaining, and flashy graphics and stories on CNN, MSNBC, or FOX make one more predisposed to adult ADD, an argumentative disposition, or an over-simplified worldview? Does the name calling and vitriol that the ratings demand trickle down into the way we talk to our own family and friends about the matters that matter? My anecdotal evidence is a resounding, yes.

I've noticed that people who watch the polarized "cockfighting" that cable news shows call "debate" are more likely to break down a complex issue into bite-sized, polarized “truths.” For example: does someone who is habituated to seeing the world in stark, simple contrasts of black/white, right/wrong, left/right, liberal/conservative, us/them develop an impaired understanding of the real dynamics of our political system? I laugh every time I hear people say things completely contrary to facts, like "the Republicans are committed to small government" or "the Democrats are anti-business." [laugh track] These two commonly held beliefs persist despite abundant evidence to the contrary from the last 16 years.

When you turn on the TV and view it from a sociological/anthropological perspective, it's no surprise why many talk in polarized absolutes. We may be adults, but we continue to mimic and ape the language of others who we consider to be authorities. For example, isn't it funny how so many in the last few months attribute our economic malaise to One Singular Cause? "No, it was the failed policies of the Bush administration." Or, "No, you're wrong; it's Carter and all those government programs to help poor people get credit." "No, it was the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that happened under Clinton." "No, it is the unsustainable leverage ratios and a speculative asset bubble built on fallacy of ever-increasing home values." And on and on and on.

These “chronic simplifiers” are simply echoing the polarized views they hear in the dominant media. In reality, these squabbles amount to petty semantics when you consider that, for the past couple of decades, it's been the same forces - under sundry banners - that have been hollowing out the American middle class and spreading wealth up and out. Hidden safely behind the labels and over-simplified explanations is the scary truth that there are more people and concepts to blame than you have fingers to point with.

Going beyond content to explore format, the medium certainly defines (or confines) the message. How much substance can you really fit in before the next commercial break? How entertaining must the news story be to carry me unwitting into the arms of a commercial, to see what object will bring a wide smile to my face, bring me closer to my family, and make me dance on clouds? (You know what? Come to think of it, I will ask my doctor about Lunesta.) I’m not a technology-fearing Luddite, but I know that we need to realize that time spent in front of the TV is a complex, commercial relationship that may not have our interests or “the truth” in mind. Commercial interests frequently trump quality of content.

Where I'm overly cynical, others are hopelessly naive. A while back, I worked in crafting messages for pharmaceutical companies, for example, telling them which message works best to push the most pills, and which TV shows at a certain hour will deliver the most captive audience for that polled demographic. The people I worked with have this down to a cynical science that keeps people watching and keeps people buying. "Yes sir," I would say, "I think you should make this ad buy for [insert erectile dysfunction pill here] during the O'Reilly Factor because the target demographic of the 45 to 55 year old Angry White Male is more likely to watch this than other shows at the same hour." [seriously, I’m not making this stuff up!] Whether you're trying to appeal to "organically aware mothers aged 25 to 35" to buy a certain type of "green" soap, or convincing people that CO2 is not a threat because its "what trees need to breathe", it works all the same. It's worse for political ads, and frighteningly brilliant how we narrowed in on viewers' fears, prejudices, and - sadly - hopes. But, to see these chessmaster puppeteers for what they are is the first step to cut ones own marionette strings.

As we all know, nuance, logic, and evidence don't make for good ratings in the mainstream media. This is no surprise, as we all know which of these two scenarios would get better ratings: (1) seeing two blowhards duel it out like some sort of boxing match, or (2) having a 30 minute, balanced segment on how our legal system of campaign finance amounts to a form of institutionalized bribery that backs both parties at the cost of voters' interests. Scenario number two is either too troubling or too boring to pull in a high Nielson rating for the night, however accurate it may be. Now, if Obama makes good on his promise to take on these entrenched interests that have captured both parties in the past couple of decades, that will be some great made-for-TV action! If you think Ultimate Fighting is entertaining, tune in for a real fight….

Going beyond the info-tainment news, many plot constructs have become standard fare in our media diets: happy endings, deus ex machina, easily resolved conundrums in a 90 minute format, Mr. Perfect, Miss Perfect, The One for Me, The Quick Fix, The Last Man Standing, the Good Guys Always Win by Default, The Final Battle, etc. Returning to the original question, can the undiscerning viewer's perception of the greater world beyond the couch be influenced by these common plot constructs? Central to purpose of this blog, does seeing endless consumptive possibilities play out on TV and movies hide the ecological and emotional costs of our modern lifestyles?

In the last couple of months, I've thought about how my own hungry plot expectations relate to my perception of current events. Here's a drama for you: Obama is up against the inertia of 535 members of Congress who cling to their seats in a perpetual campaign that costs more every year. Obama is up against 40,000 or so lobbyists and their boatloads cash. And Obama is up against the complacency that many of us have that the system will reform itself just because we got the right guy into the office. I am excited about the possibilities Obama brings, but I also know that people vastly underestimate the bi-partisan forces that Obama faces.

So, does my excitement about Obama play into some construct I have, of the lone, messianic hero who rides to Washington on his modern day Bucephalus? Do I harbor the expectation of the philosopher-king, who upon arriving in Washington, will unsheathe his sword, and - with one decisive blow - cut the Gordian Knot that is the entrenched system of legalized "pay to play?" Do I have an almost Biblical hope that Obama will walk into the Temple of our Democracy, overturn the tables, crack the whip, and throw the influence-peddlers out?

I hope our expectations are fulfilled. But hope gets us what exactly, if it's not backed by sustained grassroots pressure? I'm optimistic enough to hope, but also realistic enough to know that "He" will not change everything by himself, and believe that the success "his" whole movement supports that point. In fact, it takes you and me, seeing where our representatives in Congress (both Democrat and Republican alike) get their money www.opensecrets.org .Yes, your vote does count; but, sadly, someone's money speaks louder. To "form a more perfect union" and continue to improve upon our grand experiment in democracy, we must continue to insist that money is not speech.

© Bjorn Beer, 2008

Follow the Money...

This is the best explanation I've read explaining the "principled" stand that certain lawmakers are taking against the bailout (I agree with their stand, but for completely different reasons). Very interesting:

http://www.slate.com/id/2206525/

Commitment to free market principles? Not so fast, this is the same group of "fiscal conservatives" who backed large increases in both defense spending and non-defense discretionary spending over past 8 years. Conservatism via bankruptcy, is the real dynamic at play.

On this issue, like so many others that effect sustainability (e.g. the ethanol hoax, the bi-partisan commitment to the largess of the farm bill, and "clean" coal technology) all is illuminated if you follow the money trail and go back to their district.

As Tip O'Neil said, "all politics is local."

What Would Jesus Buy?

Having been exposed to the Southern Baptist tradition growing up, I repeatedly find myself returning to the question, "what would Jesus buy/drive/etc." It's a revealing question - not for any specific answer you can apply to your consumption patterns 2000 years later - but instead because it suggests that many Christians you meet have lost touch with the revolutionary nature and the spirit of Christ's message.

Christmas, which ironically started out as a pagan holiday, reveals its true materialistic splendor today. Regrettably, the emergence of what I call "Prosperity Gospel" (in the fashion self-help gurus like Pastor Joel Osteen) further ingrains this consumerist worldview: God wants us to be wealthy.

Really? Do they get that from some apocryphal book that's not in the standard New Testament, or do they just fail to read the New Testament in the first place?

If "the Book" isn't your cup of tea, it turns out there is a movie on this very topic, What Would Jesus Buy. http://wwjbmovie.com/ The trailer looks like it might be worth a view.

What a great concept, and great question to ask one another. If we are celebrating the birth of someone who told us "blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" and "it's easier for a camel to walk through eye of a needle than for rich man to enter heaven," we ought to stand outside ourselves and critically view our own culture, especially those who profess to walk in Jesus' path. For those who still use the occasion to celebrate Jesus' birth, why is consumption and acquisition favored over volunteerism and charity for the vast majority of followers?

Of course, we all want a full stocking and a well-stocked tree, but maybe - given the collision course we are on with ecological reality - it's time to either apply the lessons of the past or develop a more sustainable vision of the future. Although I believe this can come from various faith and non-faith traditions, I don't want to throw the baby out with the holy water. In fact, all I want for Christmas is for "Christians" to turn off their TV and read the New Testament and the lessons it offers on humility and minimalism. Start with the Sermon on the Mount: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sermon_on_the_Mount

But, for the rest of us, rather than degrade and dilute the revolutionary, non-materialistic message of Jesus Christ that both believers and non-believers alike can find wisdom in, let's just call Christmas by what it has become: Winter Solstice.

© Bjorn Beer, 2008

Random Quotes

"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope that we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that" - Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931)

"Anyone who believes you can have infinite exponential growth on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist." Kenneth Boulding

"Endless growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." Edward Abbey

Whatever Happens in Vegas?

I’d like to take a deeper look at the brilliant marketing mantra “whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” My business trip there last week has convinced me that the Vegas mentality shares striking parallels with some of the prevailing trends in our culture. Some of these thoughts on aesthetics and sustainability tie back into the point of this blog which is that - in a modern democracy - the main impediment that stands between us and viable solutions to our challenges is our culture of distraction and diversion, a culture of “beer and circuses.”

Walking past the Caesar's Palace casino, the original "bread and circuses" phrase kept coming into my head, almost as compulsively as a gambler throwing quarter after quarter in the slot machine, expecting the winning bells to ring and lights to sound. With this phrase I'm engaging in the cliché literary device of reductio ad Huxley, but I believe that it has renewed relevance today.

I found the original source of this phrase, a Roman poet, Juvenal, who observed how much a people will tolerate if they are well fed, entertained, and distracted: "Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." This will be a repeating theme in this blog.

Returning to 2008, the first thing that struck me about Las Vegas is that I wouldn't call Vegas "sin" city. Rather, I think it's "tease" city, but maybe I just wasn't in the right place. For most visitors, however, it gives them just a taste, brings them right up to the edge of some moral line, reminds them they’ve reached that line, and then pulls them right back. It has much less to do with fulfillment and attainment than it has to do with the real industry of distraction and flirtation. It’s the pursuit – not the attainment – that is the main commodity for sale here.

Driving to the hotel, the lights and movement evoke childhood memories of Barnum and Bailey. From just the first couple of hours there, I could see some obvious parallels to our popular culture: constant stimulus overdrive in a carnival atmosphere. Everywhere you look, much to drink, smoke, buy, and eat. But the second glance is more revealing: there are no clocks, no maps, no center, and no seats except for those at tables or in front of slot machines. No sense of place, of history, of causes or their effects. I feel that the sufferer of an attention deficit disorder would be in their element among the constantly flashing graphics and sounds, but then I’m reminded that the average American watches an average of 5 hours of TV per day. Perhaps the infotainment we call “news,” the TV we call “reality,” and the incessant commercials asking for our attention and our dollars would help one adapt to this environment.

Let’s pause to pay homage to Lady Luck, the patron saint of this desert town. The Vegas mindset is consistent with our expectations of the inevitability of continued economic prosperity. Just as I thought "if I can turn 100 bucks into 300, then I can easily turn 300 into 900," so too do we make false assumptions that “luck” is on our side, that housing prices will always go up, up, and up, and that all of us can easily attain the American dream. This dream was once a consistent reality of guaranteed social mobility in return for hard work. For too many of us, however, this dream now reveals itself as the myth of easy money and the paradoxical belief that we can all be winners by default. In reality, someone still has to put the quarters in the slot machines.

In a certain sense, we all gamble. It's called a 401K. Send your money to the fund manager, expect a tidy historically-certain return of 9.2% per annum, sit back, and "let us do your worrying (and profiting) for you." So, who pays all of those fees, even when your fund values go down? We’re given glossy brochures by the well-tanned, friendly representative from XYZ Capital Partners and then asked to pick which Growth Portfolio Plan looks the best for us, which for many Americans makes about as much sense as picking which slot machine to sit down at. In the last couple of months, it seems like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to even the more savvy investors.

Looking back, the last few years were quite a rush, but now we awake with a splitting headache the morning after. Sadly, people on the precipice of retirement are finding out that not only did their account fail to outperform the market, the market itself was a house of cards built on cooked books, ungrounded speculation, bad assets, insanely unsustainable leverage ratios, and an almost religious-like belief in ever-increasing home values. From the experts on down to the amateurs, we all drank from the same punch bowl that fueled the bubble. We attribute it to bad luck, while we scramble to figure out who to blame.

Before we point the finger at someone else, let’s follow the three fingers that point back to us. "I'm maxing out my 401K, so why can't we live a little and pull some equity out of our house for a [insert depreciating asset or onetime cash outlay here]." The home, many Americans’ most important (or only) investment became a cash cow. In essence, we threw our winnings back on the table, and feel betrayed when the dealer scoops those chips away. “What happened? I was on a lucky streak.” Despite abundant evidence in the last decade, many of us failed to make the connection between stagnating real wages and skyrocketing house prices. Our greed outpaced our fear. And now fear makes its triumphant return.

America, once the land of the rugged frontier individualist, lost the healthy cynicism that had always kept a watchful eye on the government and distant, centralized business interests. However did this blind faith in the “house” emerge in the United States? Whichever the house (government, your fund manager, or the casino owner), we somehow forgot the house always wins. So, who built this house, I ask myself as I stroll down the strip. Who built this house? On balance, was it the winners who get up from the table while they’re ahead, or the losers who keep coming back for more drinks?

The answer to this question finds me as I walk through the casino on the way to breakfast, seeing some of the very same people sitting at the same tables and slot machines they were sitting at just six hours earlier. Taking the analogy to the extreme, I can’t help but ask who pays the commissions, fees, and salaries of the fund managers and CEOs, even during bad performance? Someone has to put the quarters in the slot machines.

Here in Vegas, I feel I’m standing in our cultural capital, located in a state with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the US. So, all of this begs the question, “why does the house always win?" It's because the house is packed with so many who believe there is always another person behind them who will buy at an even higher price. The house is packed to the brim with those who fall easy prey to the seductive belief that chance has a memory and that chance plays favorites. This place is less a city and more a desert shrine to worship the irreverent, fickle goddess of luck, the cocktease cocktail waitress she is: "can I get you another [free] drink, honey?" Keep spending, she winks at me. This reminds me of our outgoing President who reminded us that our patriotic duty was – in the face of economic and military challenges – to keep spending.

At this point, let’s transition from economics to ecology. Speaking of high stakes, no-limit games, many think nearby Lake Mead could dry up by 2021, a 50% chance they say. (That's almost as good as the odds my blackjack system was supposed to bring me, or at least what the little card in my pocket said.) Can we reverse this trend in our nation’s largest reservoir? Yes, I hope so. But my hope does not come from above – in our leaders or in the sky. Instead, my hope is conditional upon us changing ourselves, a challenge made even harder in our culture of beer and circuses, a culture that makes it even easier to grasp at everything but ourselves for the source of and solution to all of our problems.

I saw an excellent example of this while standing at nearby Hoover Dam, marveling at this impressive feat of human ingenuity and enterprise, as well as the deficit of one hundred or so feet of water in Lake Mead that the dam holds back. A young kid next to me, seeing the obvious high water mark, asked his father, “Daddy, why is the water so low?” “Cause it hasn't rained enough, honey,” he said casually while typing away at his BlackBerry®, a device that further blurs the distinction between family time and office time, between work and vacation. The child nods and accepts this explanation; father goes back to his half attendance in the moment.

A teachable moment missed. I felt like jumping in and mentioning the imbalance between intake and outtake (evaporation, consumption, flow of Colorado River, and downstream releases, etc), declining snow melts and lowering water tables traced back to global warming, and the responsibility that we share in return for the benefits we receive from Lake Mead. But, where do you start, especially with strangers? His oversimplification and following silence perpetuated the prevailing belief that things happen to us, but not because of us. He probably believes in luck.

We - as a society - are leading a "lucky" streak, a string of good cards. Geographical coincidence dealt us a good hand: originally endless expanse of fertile land spread over an ever-Western horizon, and now cheap, abundant energy. Your clothes, your food, your home's location in relation to your work, your vacations, garage full of goods, your “organic” asparagus flown in from Argentina in the dead of winter, your empire of over 700 military bases abroad are all made possible in part by cheap energy, cheap (and ever-distant) labor, and spending (as households, as an economy, and as a government) more than we earn. How long do you think we can beat the odds? How long can this last?

Who’s to save us from ourselves, besides ourselves? In a democracy, I don’t think there is anyone else, which presents both an opportunity and a challenge. Our political institutions and culture were not built in a bubble; instead, they were forged in and made possible by economic expansion since the earliest days of the Republic: the ever westward sky and the ever deeper well. Jefferson hit the nail on the head when he foresaw that the key to avoiding the same “mobocracy” and tyranny he saw in Europe was robust, independent, and self-reliant families.

In the absence of ongoing growth and prosperity, we run the risk that stability and order will come from other sources. Without ongoing growth, without social mobility, without abundant energy, cheap labor, and overflowing water, what happens to our experiment in self government? History is full of examples where resource bottlenecks result in social and political upheaval.

History also highlights - to the chagrin of those who believe we’ve reached “Peak Oil” – that we’ll face an almost irresistible temptation to rely on our abundant coal reserves, rather than tighten our belts and scale back our lifestyles. But of course, "clean coal" technology is politicians' cynical deus ex machina in this whole drama. It's a great idea, if we can figure where to hide the CO2. Details.

The optimist in me is certain we can avert the same ecological collapse that has been the fate of many great civilizations (for a good topical review, read Jared Diamond's Collapse), given a critical mass of changed minds that precipitate real cultural and political change. Yet, ever nipping at my heals is the annoying, barking bitch of evidence. As I flew into the sprawling city on a crystal clear, sunny day, not a single solar panel was to be seen. People come here for the sunshine, but apparently don't use it. Solar and water catchment systems ought to be on every single roof here.

Have we forgotten that this is the same nation that got us to the moon, cracked the atom, unlocked DNA, and led multiple revolutions in communications and travel? I think I saw more solar panels in cloudy former East Germany ten years ago than I saw in sunny Vegas this week. In fact, what gains the US once held in renewable energy technology have been surpassed by firms in many European companies, who can now boast some of the most advanced solar and wind energy companies in the world.

This should be our revolution too. In what amounts to a few seconds in the lifespan of the earth, in a few hundred years, we will have completely burned our way through billions of years of the sun’s energy stored in the form of coal and oil. Don’t take it from me – when it comes to an assessment of our fossil fuel situation - take it from an arch conservative dinosaur like T. Boone Pickens, a wealthy oilman who just invested billions of his own money in wind technology. Let’s take this to heart.

Sadly, some lessons must be learned twice, and oil provides a cutting example. Only 30 years ago, OPEC taught us one of our first lessons in how inextricably our economy is linked to foreign oil in less-than-democratic places. (What would George Washington say about this entangling alliance that we’ve been caught up in since the 1940s?) We’ve had this time to invent, invest and retool, but what progress has been made? Our foreign policy continues to run on an unhealthy blend of foreign oil. Steel, instead of being used to rebuild our once proud consumer and city rail networks, instead of being used to build solar systems on every house, has been used to build larger cars with declining fuel efficiency. Why? All because it’s “what the market wanted”: the gas guzzlers make the consumer feel safe, prosperous, and tough. And now the Big Three want a bail out. Let Toyota bail them out, buy them up, and remind us that the all-knowing Market cuts with two edges.

As I flew over Vegas, one of the nation’s fastest growing cities, all I see is a long, high voltage power line system stretching into the parched desert horizon, gasping for energy, like the plastic lines from the nose of so many gamblers, sucking oxygen from the tanks at their feet – cigarette in left hand, slots lever in the right. Unsustainable. Let's call a "spade a spade:” this place is a monument to our short sightedness.

All of our imbalance stands in stark contrast to the hike I did in nearby Red Rock Canyon, a desert that paradoxically lingers in my mind as an oasis. Each single lizard, snake, cactus, plant and tree I saw existed in a delicate, beautiful balance, a balance earned through millions of years of trial and error. The balance I see there is what it is - nothing more, nothing less. Elegant, simple, at One with its environment. Each well-adapted creature takes only what it needs and gives back all that it takes. When I think of Vegas, this is my monument. This is my favorite hotel. This the most exciting “show.” In harmony, yet creative and adaptive. We might take these lessons home, applying them even to something as mundane and ubiquitous as landscaping. Shouldn't the yards I see in the sprawling Vegas suburbs look more like this stunning desert flora around me and less like a planned community in Florida?

A hawk screeches, but that only serves to deepen the silence of this parched paradise. Out here, my ego shrivels quickly in the desert sun. Out here, I am humbled, I am nothing. Out here, there are no bluffs or boasts, intoxicants or distractions. Out here, I'm not being asked of anything, or asking anything of someone else, selling them, convincing them, or bluffing them. The thirst I have here is a genuine one. And the thirst I have here is easily quenched. Only hours after leaving Las Vegas, the city I just left remains nothing but a mirage of distractions from this high perch.

To be fair, I see why this play-pen for adults draws so many visitors and new residents every year. Driving back into the city, I feel the excitement and energy building. Back in the city, it is one big ego boost: I am king, I am a winner, I am a VIP, I want and I get. Anything, anyone, it all has a price. Everything is reduced to the Dollar; so much human interaction - from the tables to the bed - is openly a transaction. It's a different kind of predation than I observed in the desert. I see endless consumptive possibilities; yet, oddly invisible costs. Where are the recycling bins?


I have a dirty little secret that has managed to leave Las Vegas, contrary to the mantra. In the middle of it, I love that city, its energy and how it distracts me from the rest of the world and my nagging responsibility to it. I just fear the reasons why I enjoy it in the moment and how easily I get sucked into the dust storm of distraction. On my last day, while packing up, I finally took the time to look out the window at the mountains. Coincidentally, the whole time my room was facing the same peak that I stood on just days earlier. Isn’t it odd how on top of a high mountain you can feel humble, vulnerable, and meek, and in a smoke-filled noisy flashing air-conditioned resort you feel like you’re at the center of the universe? I have another beer and take in the whole circus. My Copernican thoughts can wait. The ego is a funny thing.



On my last day, I jumped in a cab and got a great view of the famed Strip as I headed back to the airport. If Mark Twain was right in saying our cities and our culture are merely extensions of each individual citizen or member, respectively, I think it's fair to say that each of us must rapidly learn to do a better job at mimicking these natural systems for water collection, energy generation, and food production. Rather than ape expired empires (as seen in the Luxor, Venetian, Caesars Palace, and other themed casinos and hotels passing by my window), let's mimic the empire that outlasts all others: nature.



To get in this new frame of mind of sustainability, let's start asking ourselves some questions. If we build it, will it be here in a hundred years? Will its benefits outlast its costs to our posterity and their environment? Are we paying the proper cost for it? The total cost, or just the costs that we can easily measure at this point? Are we pushing the costs to other times or to other people? Is it the most efficient use of resources? How would this purchase or action effect the environment if everyone else were to do the same? Are the world and our environment better or worse off for my brief sojourn here?

Unless we answer (let alone learn to ask) these questions, continuation of our prosperity will prove a mirage. We’ll never be able to answer or ask these questions unless we see the distractions, diversions, and addictions all around us for what they are: beer and circuses. Even as we transcend these, some will try to divert this dialogue into a mutually exclusive false choice between economic prosperity on one hand and environmental concerns on the other. Spotted owls or jobs, they’ll say, because to them, it’s really that simple. But sustainability goes above and beyond this by taking both ecological and economic concerns into a longer time horizon. This concept of sustainability is our new “West.”


At the airport on the way out, I could see both the distant mountains and the smog-covered city. I think about air quality. My thoughts return to my own hypocrisy as I prepare to board a transcontinental jet. I am part of the problem, I admit as I contemplate my flights to Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Florida, and New York this year, and my daily 60 mile round-trip commute to work. That uncomfortable thought leads me to divert my concern to CNN “news” running on the TV monitor above me. Out of nowhere, I could feel my ego attempt to put my impact in some context: each week, two coal-fired power plants are built in China, so screw it, I think, as I feel a few tons of carbon fall off my shoulders. Of course, ready to distract me – and my remaining quarters – were the slots at gate B-22. Maybe I’ll be lucky this time.

I fly over what seems to be millions of square miles of rugged desert and become enveloped in child-like awe. Meanwhile, the screens above the captive audience descend and play some sitcoms (plus adverts) for the duration of the flight. Below us unfolds a more subtle drama. A cool confidence is exuded by the earth; her rugged canyons reveal basic truths that we find all too easy to ignore. I’m reminded by the economist John Maynard Keynes’ famous saying, “in the long run, we’re all dead.” When the effects of our inconsolable egos and insatiable appetites have long been forgotten and erased, I think Mother Earth will show her infinite wisdom: the house always wins. You can bet on that.

© Bjorn Beer, 2008

“Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinking what they're selling.”

~ lyrics from Cake in “Rock ‘N Roll Lifestyle” ~