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The end of Covid-19?

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We seem to be at a point in the covid pandemic that is very confusing, and frustrating for almost everyone. Apparently something like 40% of the people in the USA have been vaccinated (25% fully vaccinated). That is a great start, but clearly we are not anything like complete. Assuming it is uniform across the country, that means that something like 3 out of 4 people we see are still vaccinated (most people). For some reason, the public is reacting as if we are finished with this, even though many variants are turning up and there are global “hot spots” (such as India) that are still in the throws of an ongoing disaster.

The part that keeps me wondering has to do with the lack of information concerning how effective the vaccines are against catching the virus and then passing it along to others. It sounds like vaccinations are very effective at protecting the vaccinated person, but nothing has been said about protecting those that they come into contact that haven’t been vaccinated. My grandchildren fall into the latter category – I really don’t want to catch it, become a non-systematic carrier, and then pass it along to them. In fact, I am not happy with the idea of passing it along to any of those other 3/4 of the population that are still at high risk.

I see almost all of my friends reacting as if things are now “safe.” They have stopped wearing masks, stopped socially distancing, and generally given up on doing much of anything to protect others. They are slightly careful to socialize with those that have been vaccinated, as if that is safe. In my mind, it is probably protective for the individuals involved (assuming that the protection is close to 100% – which is FAR higher than our experience with things like the flu vaccinations we get every year). However, that protection doesn’t extend to the rest of the population. I don’t see how it is appropriate to act any different from what we have been doing (masking, distancing, sanitizing, limiting contact). It is all the same from the point of view of the overall population.

I am still convinced that the CDC isn’t giving advice concerning personal safety within the population, instead they are focused on the issue of avoiding overloading hospitals. Their advice seems to be based upon keeping the numbers below the capabilities of the hospitals – not on what happens to all of those that still get sick and die. While I too am concerned about the hospitals, I am also concerned about those individuals that do get sick and die. For some reason that consideration seems to have taken a back seat in the discussion.

I am fascinated by how important “normalcy” has become to people. I get the impression that the need to stop with the protections is reaching something close to panic. The need to socialize in ways that are extremely dangerous has become a desperation to many, even if they don’t particularly like those that they want to socialize with. It looks to me like people are saying, “I don’t care what the risks are, I don’t care who I kill, I NEED to take the mask off and I NEED to get close to strangers. If we all die, so be it – it is no longer tolerable to worry or try to protect others, even if they are my children and grandchildren.”

It seems to me that we are on a good track toward getting past the pandemic in a few months. I don’t understand the rush to “break free” at this point in time. We can save thousands of lives by cooling our heels a bit longer. I get that the economy is a concern, but I also see that it isn’t nearly as dire as we are told if we were to just admit the problem and solve it. Most people are still working, most people still have good incomes, most people aren’t in trouble. A small number are having a very difficult time and are hurting. Why can’t we get together so that those who are doing alright help out the others until we get past this? Sure it might be difficult, but that is life. Things happen and we need to do what we can to solve the problems.

In any case, it is certainly interesting to see how forceful people are getting in their desperation to get “back to normal.”

Kochland by Christopher Leonard

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A couple of weeks ago my neighbor put the book “Kochland – the Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America” in my newspaper box. We are still being careful to stay isolated during the pandemic, so mostly communicate electronically and share things using this method of putting the item in a designated spot. We tend to share books that are designed to “get under our skins” – such as this one. I immediately knew that this is one of “those” books by the subtle graphics on the cover – Giant black block text on a bright yellow background! The cover makes it have the “look and feel” of junk literature like is displayed at the check-out counters in grocery stores. Normally I would skip over something so garish, but since it is an offering from my neighbor I decided to read it.

I found the story to be rather intriguing. The first 7/8 of the book described a ruthless but principled adherence to the “free market” tradition in America. According to the book, the Koch brothers have an extremely sharp focus on maximizing profits and power. They have figured out how to make vast amounts of money off of investments that others either didn’t notice, or weren’t in the place to take advantage of. The story is very much about maximizing profits by optimizing efficiency. That seems like a good thing, and they have been very successful. They did this by being flexible, and looking into long term opportunities rather than quick turn-around deals. Rather than sell off assets of newly acquired businesses, they invested heavily to bring things up to snuff. Rather than attempt to “get by” on regulations such as EPA or OSHA requirements, they enforced a policy of 100% compliance.

They had their share of problems, and more than their share of successes.

However, toward the last part of the book the story takes a dramatic turn to what I consider the “sinister” aspects of the Koch brothers that have become evident since around the time that Obama took office, and that has escalated ever since. For the past 60 or 70 years their guiding philosophy with regard with the role of government is that there should be no role. In their stated opinions, anything that the government does can only turn out to be bad. Bad for industry and bad for everyone else. At around the year 2010 they seem to have decided to use their great wealth to do whatever they can to achieve this philosophy – doing whatever they can to destroy and eliminate government and the regulations that come with it.

I found this to be quite thought provoking. They seem to have embraced “the American Dream” using the approaches espoused by the “brains” in universities. They found that the techniques work – but it is clear that they work in an extremely heartless way that only results in wealth and power for the business enterprise, without consideration to collateral damage to individuals or Society. They managed to garner great wealth, but they also seem to have left a great swath of destruction behind them – not the least is caused by their insistence that green house gases are not a problem, and that the global warming is hoax. They have pushed this so hard, for so long, in so many different ways that we are in a very real existential threat because of lack of belief and inaction. The Kocks are a major reason why we have been unable to settle down and do what is necessary to prevent the likely highly destructive future. They got theirs, now the future can get whatever is left.

Now they are wielding their wealth and power to transform the American way of politics and with it the American way of life. So now we all have a major problem on our hands. How do we manage our financial and power systems in ways that benefit all, and how do we prevent wealthy individuals and corporations from destroying the “American Experiment?” It looks to me like the experiment is being pushed toward failure by a few people that managed to accumulate great wealth are dead set upon getting it their way. My final opinion is that the “American Way” will always fail unless it has sufficient controls. Uncontrolled growth, uncontrolled monopolies, and uncontrolled greed will keep popping up “winners” who get all of the marbles, usually from “accidents” and situations that come about in an almost random way. Sometimes these random events result in “success” – resulting in the lucky ones thinking that they were the cause of their success. Therefore they come to believe that they are all knowing and all powerful.

Out of Body

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One of the things that intrigues me about “the other side” is the possibility of moving out of my body. My first with something that felt like being out of my body while completely awake happened while at work, around the year 2000.

I was working as a safety consultant for a company that made large, very powerful lasers used in the semiconductor industry.  My job was to help them design enclosures, interlocks and controls that would allow them to use these lasers safely.  I would visit their facility in Santa Clara once a week or so to talk to their engineers, inspect the equipment or attend meetings.  Since it was just a part time job, I wasn’t issued a security badge, so I had to be escorted to enter the building past the lobby.

On one occasion I showed up at the scheduled time, but my escort was not ready to see me.  I was asked to wait in the lobby for a half hour or so until he could come and get me.  This was fine with me; I get paid the same sitting in a lobby as I do actually working.  The lobby was a fairly small room that opened directly off of their tree covered parking lot.  There was a security desk, but no guard.  Four or five chairs lined each side of the lobby.  There were a couple of certificates and other business related documents hanging on the walls, but nothing of interest.  I was the only one waiting that day.  It was a fairly stark and uninteresting place to sit and wait.

Since it appeared that I would have a little time, I decided to meditate while waiting.  I sat in one of the chairs, closed my eyes, and sat following my breath.  After a few minutes, I felt myself separate from my body.  It was like my attention slipped right out and hovered near the ceiling.  I opened my eyes and found that I was near the ceiling, looking around the room, and looking at my body sitting in the chair.  It was a very peaceful experience, I had no desire to change anything, I just remained in this separated position until all of a sudden the door opened and my escort came in to get me.  This created a crisis of sorts because I could see him going over to greet me, but I wasn’t there.  I managed to force my “real” body to open its eyes and acknowledge the person, but couldn’t really talk or anything because I was in the wrong place.  With a very large effort, I managed to force myself back into my body in time to be able to stand up and say hello – but could barely do anything else. 

When he talked to me it was like it was from an immense distance, I was trying to communicate to him across some sort of barrier. We were not in the same place at all.  Luckily, he didn’t demand much communication at that time.  He gave me a temporary badge and led me off to a meeting room.  By the time we got to the meeting room I was solidly back in my body so could carry on normal communication.  I remained in a very “spacey” state for the rest of the day, but was able to talk and act more or less normal if I concentrated hard enough.

The second time I had an out of body experience I was lying in bed, getting ready to fall asleep – but was having a difficult time doing that.  One of my normal tricks when this happens is to lay on my back and let my attention move to all parts of my body.  I start with my face, near my eyes, and feel myself.  Then I move slowly down my face, to my neck, arms, chest, legs, feet, then back up to my buttocks, back, neck, head and back to my face.  By the time I do that I am very relaxed and can feel my entire body as one unit, it helps me to be aware of all of myself.  I finished the trip around my body and just lay there relaxed, when I felt myself separate from myself.  I just sort of floated up out of my body and hovered about a foot over myself.  It was quite comfortable and felt good.  I was not really amazed or anything like that, it seemed like a natural thing to do.  After awhile I decided to turn over onto my side and go to sleep.  When I rolled, I was surprised to find that I rolled under my hovering self, but it stayed in place.  For some reason I had expected that it would move with me, but it didn’t.  I could switch my attention between the two me’s, changing my point of view at will.  I finally decided to just go to sleep, leaving the second floating above me.  When I woke up, I was back together again as if nothing had happened.

Both of these experiences were very quiet and subtle.  There was nothing really dramatic or earth shattering about them.  The most unusual aspects of them were that they seemed to be so “normal.”  It was like this is a normal state of affairs, something that happens all of the time, but for some reason on these two occasions I happened to pay attention.  I think I may have had more of these experiences, but I just don’t recall them because I didn’t notice them.  They felt like the normal, and correct, way to be. 

The Last Stargazers

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by Emily Levesque

The subtitle of this book, “The Enduring Story of Astronomy’s Vanishing Explorers”, fails to do justice to what is actually contained in the book. Yes, it has a lot of fun and interesting stories about astronomers – including some really nice descriptions of some of the more difficult to comprehend parts of astronomy – but for me the book something that I have never read before. It gives a glimpse of what it “feels” like to be a scientist in general, and specifically an astronomer.

Over the years of working around “high tech”, big science, projects one of the things that always amazes me is the “feeling” of the place. There is something about big machines humming in the background, pure energy and potential. There is also usually an odd feeling of disjointedness, of being in some kind of “other world” where time is different, the smells are different, and the people are a special “bred” of their own. Dr. Leveque nails it with her description of boredom, excitement, exhaustion, enduring discomfort but enjoying every minute of it. I don’t know how to describe what she does – but she manages to bring humanity into her interesting (and fun) stories. It isn’t just about the people and equipment involved in the explorations, it is also about the people put in ways that I could “feel” as if I was there.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it reminded me why science is so much fun, why it feels so important, and what the people behind the headlines are doing and experiencing. I guess I can relate as a fellow “science nerd” – even though I don’t actually do any science.

Out of Body

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One of the things that intrigues me about “the other side” is the possibility of moving out of my body.

The first such experience happened sometime around the year 2000.  I was working as a safety consultant for a company that made large, very powerful lasers used in the semiconductor industry.  My job was to help them design enclosures, interlocks and controls that would allow them to use these lasers safely.  I would visit their facility in Santa Clara once a week or so to talk to their engineers, inspect the equipment or attend meetings.  Since it was just a part time job, I wasn’t issued a security badge, so I had to be escorted to enter the building past the lobby.

On one occasion I showed up at the scheduled time, but my escort was not ready to see me.  I was asked to wait in the lobby for a half hour or so until he could come and get me.  This was fine with me; I get paid the same sitting in a lobby as I do actually working.  The lobby was a fairly small room that opened directly off of their tree covered parking lot.  There was a security desk, but no guard.  Four or five chairs lined each side of the lobby.  There were a couple of certificates and other business related documents hanging on the walls, but nothing of interest.  I was the only one waiting that day.  It was a fairly stark and uninteresting place to sit and wait.

Since it appeared that I would have a little time, I decided to meditate while waiting.  I sat in one of the chairs, closed my eyes, and sat following my breath.  After a few minutes, I felt myself separate from my body.  It was like my attention slipped right out and hovered near the ceiling.  I opened my eyes and found that I was near the ceiling, looking around the room, and looking at my body sitting in the chair.  It was a very peaceful experience, I had no desire to change anything, I just remained in this separated position until all of a sudden the door opened and my escort came in to get me.  This created a crisis of sorts because I could see him going over to greet me, but I wasn’t there.  I managed to force my “real” body to open its eyes and acknowledge the person, but couldn’t really talk or anything because I was in the wrong place.  With a very large effort, I managed to force myself back into my body in time to be able to stand up and say hello – but could barely do anything else. 

When he talked to me it was like it was from an immense distance, I was trying to communicate to him across some sort of barrier. We were not in the same place at all.  Luckily, he didn’t demand much communication at that time.  He gave me a temporary badge and led me off to a meeting room.  By the time we got to the meeting room I was solidly back in my body so could carry on normal communication.  I remained in a very “spacey” state for the rest of the day, but was able to talk and act more or less normal if I concentrated hard enough.

The second time I had an out of body experience I was lying in bed, getting ready to fall asleep – but was having a difficult time doing that.  One of my normal tricks when this happens is to lay on my back and let my attention move to all parts of my body.  I start with my face, near my eyes, and feel myself.  Then I move slowly down my face, to my neck, arms, chest, legs, feet, then back up to my buttocks, back, neck, head and back to my face.  By the time I do that I am very relaxed and can feel my entire body as one unit, it helps me to be aware of all of myself.  I finished the trip around my body and just lay there relaxed, when I felt myself separate from myself.  I just sort of floated up out of my body and hovered about a foot over myself.  It was quite comfortable and felt good.  I was not really amazed or anything like that, it seemed like a natural thing to do.  After awhile I decided to turn over onto my side and go to sleep.  When I rolled, I was surprised to find that I rolled under my hovering self, but it stayed in place.  For some reason I had expected that it would move with me, but it didn’t.  I could switch my attention between the two me’s, changing my point of view at will.  I finally decided to just go to sleep, leaving the second floating above me.  When I woke up, I was back together again as if nothing had happened.

Both of these experiences were very quiet and subtle.  There was nothing really dramatic or earth shattering about them.  The most unusual aspects of them were that they seemed to be so “normal.”  It was like this is a normal state of affairs, something that happens all of the time, but for some reason on these two occasions I happened to pay attention.  I think I may have had more of these experiences, but I just don’t recall them because I didn’t notice them.  They felt like the normal, and correct, way to be. 

Fear in the Classroom

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I was attending a Toltec class given by my good friend and teacher, Ramin.  It was an evening class held in a classroom in one of the large buildings at the University of California, Davis. We had been working on the issue of “stalking” ourselves in order to become more aware of what we are doing, who we are, what we believe and assorted similar issues.  Stalking is a practice of learning to become more aware of yourself, your feelings, and your thoughts.

Ramin decided that we needed a little “nudge” to push us beyond our comfort zone to help us to experience the edge of our discomfort, and as an aid to practicing “being in the moment.”  It is always a bit scary when one of the Toltec teachers decides to push me beyond my comfort zone because they seem to be very skilled at finding ways to push me far beyond that boundary.  This evening was to be no exception.

Ramin told one of the other students to count the tiles on the floor the length of the hallway.  I chuckled to myself about this, thinking that it was an easy assignment and that maybe I would get off without too much perspiration from facing my fears.  It turned out that while counting the tiles would be no big deal for me, it was a really frightening and uncomfortable thing for the student with that assignment.  His problem was not with counting the tiles, which was easy enough.  His problem had to do with so many strangers watching him do a senseless activity.  For some reason, being observed doing something like that just didn’t fit into his personal agreements, making this a very difficult assignment.  It seemed easy to me because I don’t have much of a problem being observed doing some pretty silly and senseless things.

Then I got my assignment and almost fainted from fear.  My assignment was to enter all of the classrooms in the four-story building and as for assistance in locating a fictitious person.  I was to ask about the whereabouts of someone as if it were important for me to find him.  This was at a time when all of the lecture halls were being used, there were lectures going on in them all.  I learned in a flash that one of my personal agreements has to do with not unnecessarily interrupting professors when they are in the process of giving lectures.  Actually, it isn’t quite that – it is more that it is rude (and therefore unacceptable) to force my way into other’s space unless there is a good reason to do so.  This belief is probably connected with my being taught that children are to be seen but not heard. In any case, the idea of opening a door and asking the professor and students if they knew where so-and-so was did not fit into what I consider acceptable behavior.  However, it also didn’t seem to be something that was really all that bad or dangerous.  This would harm nobody, and the effects would be very short lived.  Therefore, I didn’t have a very good reason to reject the assignment.  I knew I wasn’t really hurting anyone, but that didn’t make it any easier for me.

As I approached the first room I could hardly breathe I was so frightened.  I had concocted a very short speech to be used when I opened the door, something like; “excuse me, I am looking for Jim Smith.  Has anyone seen him or know where I might find him?”  While my prepared speech was very short, I was sure that I would not be able to speak because of my nervousness. 

I was trembling and hyperventilating by the time my sweaty hand turned the first door handle.  To heighten my fears, the door led to a large lecture hall filled with students and a professor at the blackboard in front.  I blurted out my speech, barely waiting for a response before I apologized for the interruptions and thanked them.  I closed the left and closed the door as fast as I could, feeling a brief relief as the door closed.  Of course, that didn’t really solve my problem because there were dozens of doors still to be opened.  As I went from floor to floor doing this I found a variety of reactions to my rude interruptions.  Most people took it in stride, answered politely and let me go my way.  A couple of the professors showed great displeasure at being interrupted, but let me get an answer nevertheless.  Only one professor prevented me from getting an answer.  In one room a student claimed to know the fictitious person, but luckily didn’t know where he was!  I should have been more careful in choosing a name. It would have been very confusing if a person with the name had been in the classroom.

When I started this exercise I assumed that it would be bad to begin with, but would get better as I got used to the experience.  I figured that after a couple of rooms I would be “hardened” enough to just go through the actions.  However, that was not to be.  It didn’t get easier, in fact it got much harder the more I did it.  I never was able to get the feeling of terror out of my chest, never was able to stop hyperventilating and sweating.  It got so bad that at about at the midpoint I was on the verge of quitting the project, it was just too horrible to continue.  I knew that there were students in the halls as I went from door to door, but I was so upset that I couldn’t see them, or meet their glances.  It was like I was in some kind of a cocoon, separate from the rest of the world.  All that I could focus on was my fear, the doors, and my little speech.   I did continue, and was greatly relieved when I finally closed the last door.  I felt like running away from there. I didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity of the building.  When I finally got back together with Ramin and the others I could relax and laugh about it, but at the time that I was doing it there was no laughing.  Some of them said they were surprised that this was difficult for me, to them it seemed like it would be a cake walk, there was nothing at all to fear in such a thing.

This was a very interesting exercise in facing my fears, and continuing in the face of them.  I have used it on a number of occasions to remind myself that even though I might be frightened and have all of the bodily experiences that come with that fear, I can actually keep acting.  The fear doesn’t have to paralyze me like I thought it would.  I also learned the power of our personal agreements.  I wouldn’t have had a problem counting tiles, but the other student did because it went against his private, irrational agreements about what is “right” and “wrong.” 

As I sit here and recall the experience it isn’t really clear what my agreements were that I was violating, or just why it was so scary.  It seems like I should be able to do such a thing without blinking, but I suspect it would still hold all of the fear that it did on that evening if I were to do it again.  I seem to have very powerful agreements that most of the times are invisible.  However, when things are just right – they are full of power and can easily take control of me.  It is an interesting thing to experience these hidden stories and then watch them vanish from sight again, only to return unexpectedly when things line up just right.

There was another important aspect of this exercise besides scaring the daylights out of me.  Ramin had managed to find a way to get me to shift my assemblage point and to hold it there for an extended period of time.  The reason that I felt out of touch with those around me was that I was shifted, and that caused me to be out of touch with normal reality.  I had entered a bit of the “other reality” that Carlos Castaneda talks about in his books.  This was an exercise in learning to move, and hold, my assemblage point, which is an important skill for following the path to enlightenment.  It was very much of an energetic exercise, not just a simple mind game. 

George Floyd

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It is pretty hard not to comment on what just happened with the George Floyd case. Amazing! A police officer was held responsible for something.

I feel pretty divided by all of the thoughts that come flooding into my mind about this. Obviously, we want (and need) police to help protect our safety. It is also obvious that to do that they need sufficient “tools” to do so. Once that point has been agreed upon, then a whole lot of difficult issues pop to the surface concerning the nature of those “tools” and their appropriate use. Most of us want benevolent, but strong, police that we can trust and respect. There are a many officers that want the same, and believe that describes them – they truly feel that they are providing “public safety.” As a safety engineer, I certainly align with this point of view. Unfortunately, it appears that the profession also attracts individuals that are more aligned with “public control.”

It appears to me that the selection criteria for police officers might be defective by failing to filter out those that like the aggression/control aspects of the job more than the trust and safety parts. Many (perhaps most) of us have all experienced officers that can best be described as aggressive “bullies.” We have also encountered officers that are truly helpful, friendly, while being “professional.” I don’t think you can train the bully out of bullies. I also don’ think you can scare them out of bullying by showing that they might be held guilty – they are much “stronger” than that. We need to prevent them from entering the system. Waiting for them to do something so egregious as to be convicted of a serious crime before they are “weeded out” clearly doesn’t work because it allows many lessor events to continue unabated. Unfortunately, expecting the local police chiefs to do the sorting is very problematical because they (the chiefs) are prone to being bullies themselves – thus not only allowing, but encouraging, overly aggressive behavior and tactics.

I don’t have a great solution to this problem. However, perhaps identifying the problem is a necessary first step. Perhaps it is not “adequate training”, perhaps it is not “appropriate protocols”, perhaps it is not public oversight or accountability – perhaps it is something amiss in the selection criteria for those willing to take on a very difficult, challenging, and potentially dangerous job. The conflicting requirements of “strong and brave” and “compassionate and helpful” might be pretty rare – but necessary. I wonder how, or if, we can change the makeup of the police departments in ways that better support the needs of the community without the nasty parts that so often boil to the surface. My personal encounters with police officers has been overall good (with only an occasional excessive pushiness that seemed uncalled for at the time) – but then I am a middle class, white, large, passive male. It appears that not everyone has similar generally positive experiences as I have had. I suspect there are “bubbles” of situations that enhance the “bully” attitude.

The Fifth Agreement

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Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz

As a long time reader of don Miguel Ruiz’s books, I have been avoiding this one because I made the assumption that I knew what it was about – and therefore it would end up being a waste of time to read it. For those that might not be aware of his writings, one of the most popular of his books was “The Four Agreements.” I assumed that somewhere along the line he realized that while the four are important, he neglected to include one more.

The four agreements that he discussed were:
– Be impeccable with your word;
– Don’t take anything personally;
– Don’t make assumptions;
– Always do your best.

The fifth agreement is:
– Be skeptical, but learn to listen.

the first four of these are almost easy to understand, but quite challenging to bring into your life. As usual, I assumed the fifth agreement was going to be similarly “obvious” but difficult to live. It turned out that this new book is very different from what I expected. For one, the first half of the book is a restating of the four agreements in a way that is quite different from the original. The book The Four Agreements makes use of a lot of allegories and metaphors in presenting the ideas. I found them to be impactful, but far from obvious. I had listened to don Miguel in person describing the ideas behind the “agreements” so was somewhat prepared to interpret the meanings behind the allegories. Over the years, I have had many people ask me to help them understand the meanings behind the stories. The discussions in The Fifth Agreement don’t depend upon the allegories and metaphors. The discussions are much closer to how I have been attempting to explain the concepts using clear straightforward explanations. Perhaps they are only “clearer” to me because I have been attempting to understand the concepts and integrate them into my life for the past 15 years or so. Maybe they are only clearer to me because they align with what I had come to understand. In any case, the duplication was not wasted, both styles of presentation have much value and seem to enhance each other.

The second half of the book was devoted to the ideas embodied in the rather simple statement of being skeptical but learning to listen. My first level of interpreting this had to do with being skeptical about what I hear, read, or see because it is likely to be far from “the truth” – but to continue to engage because it is likely to contain much that is true. This is a pretty straightforward idea. Given the source of the statement, I also assumed that it includes paying attention to myself – be skeptical about what I am telling myself, but listen because there is almost certainly a lot of “truth” and important information in my personal story (dream).

While all of this is in fact included in the book, there is a much deeper and more interesting thread running through it. There is a big idea about how we create and use symbols (letters, words, objects, pictures, etc) when engaging with the world. I think the general idea is that we create our “knowledge” out of symbols, and we understand that knowledge based upon manipulating the symbols (including talking to ourselves in our own head). But – since that knowledge is only based upon symbols used to represent “the truth” it is not the truth. There is a truth of who we are, but it is not contained in our knowledge represented by these symbols.

I don’t think this is the place to expand further upon these ideas, afterall it took don Miguel and his son over 200 pages to describe the ideas. I can’t possibly do them justice in a few lines. However, I can recommend exploring these two small books if you are interested in getting to know yourself better, and to find ways to live your life with more peace, joy and happiness. These little books contain ways to make amazing transformations in your life and happiness.

What to do about Natural Gas

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The April 2021 issue of Scientific American has a very interesting article discussing the possibility of achieving a sustainable energy system – including the role of natural gas in the future. Michael Webber, the author of the article, begins with the observation that while natural gas is often touted as being the bridge fuel to a zero-carbon future, but if it is a “bridge” it is not part of the long term game plan. His contention is that if we build that bridge, it will be extremely difficult to get off of it. It represents a type of status quo, continuing using existing technologies that continue to burn vast amounts of fossil hydrocarbons, continually adding green house gases in the form of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere. Webber explores opportunities that provide not only a viable bridge, but long term solutions.

Webber’s main focus is on ways to achieve a non-polluting, hydrogen based energy future. He discusses several interesting approaches to obtaining the hydrogen. One source of hydrogen is from anaerobic digesters that use microbes to create methane from organic matter such as crop waste, manure, landfills, and the like. (The reason that carbon dioxide created by burning methane from these sources is that the carbon for plant growth comes from the atmosphere, and just ends up back the atmosphere when it is burned – there is no net increase in the amount of carbon dioxide. It is actually better than not using it because the methane is created in any case when organics breakdown in landfills and such, increasing the amount of methane in the atmosphere, which might be worse than carbon dioxide. What the author fails to point out is that “big industry” often takes these kinds of solutions to the extreme, clear-cutting vast forests that are ground up and fed into industrial digesters. The point is to do this using materials that would normally be waste, creating fuel and organic compost used to enhance agricultural activities. To be effective, it should NOT including cutting down forests for fuel, or planting large crops such as is currently being done with corn to produce ethanol as a fuel additive.

Gas produced by bioreactors can be used in a number of ways including producing electricity for local use or put onto the grid, injecting directly into natural gas pipelines as a substitute for natural gas, or liquefied and shipped to the user by truck or train. While this source of methane is limited, it is currently available and being done globally.

Sources of hydrogen include creating it by electrolysis of water by using electricity produced by sustainable sources such as wind, hydroelectric and solar. It can also be obtained by steam re-forming of methane. Large deposits of hydrogen have been found and can be extracted using wells much like methane. Unfortunately, the existing natural gas distribution pipelines are not suitable for transporting pure hydrogen. There are problems with corrosion, leakage, and energy required to move it through pipelines because of its low density. A solution to this problem is mixing it with methane to reduce, but not eliminate, the amount of carbon in the fuel. It is even possible to pipe methane to the user and reforming it at that location by extracting the carbon from the gas, resulting in hydrogen and carbon powder. (The powder has economic value and can be sold.)

Another interesting possibility for making hydrogen suitable for pipelines is to turn it into ammonia (NH3) by combining it with nitrogen from the atmosphere for transportation and back to hydrogen at the end of the pipeline. Another advantage of using ammonia is that it is liquid at near-ambient conditions and can therefore replace traditional liquid fuels for ships and aircraft.

All of this is very interesting and encouraging because it describes what could truly be a bridge to a hydrogen economy that can eliminate the increase in carbon dioxide and methane levels in the atmosphere (with the added benefit of eliminating the other pollutants associated with burning fossil fuels). The author’s point is that we shouldn’t be thinking of methane as a bridge, but instead move toward a hydrogen and sustainably produced electricity based fuel system.

While this is an interesting approach to a better future, it follows the typical path of assuming a constant (or growing) demand for energy, and the presence of a vast commercial infrastructure that sells energy to the customer. I believe we need to focus much more on reducing our energy demands as a major step toward achieving an “green” energy footprint. The opportunities to conserve in ways that don’t result in reduced utility are astounding. For curiosity, last night I counted the number of LED “indicator lights” glowing in my house. They are on all sorts of devices, from smoke alarms and toothbrushes to televisions and refrigerators. I found 46 of them glowing like a spread out Christmas tree. If each of those little lights uses 1/2 watt of power, the approximately 125 million homes in the USA require the total output of four very large coal burning power plants just to keep those little lights glowing. We could shut down four coal burning power plants just by not including indicator lights in all of these devices. As I have discussed in the past, we can reduce the amount of energy required to condition the air in homes to about 1/3 of the current amounts by various means of “fixing” problems, at an initial cost that is less than the cost of not fixing them (this means “free” to me). Implementing these “free” fixes would cut the country’s energy budget by 5%. Doubling the mileage of cars and trucks would reduce the use of energy by another 15%. Switching to other low efficiency devices in homes can further reduce the demand by 5%. I believe that making energy efficiency a priority can easily reduce the country’s energy use by 50% or more, getting the demand small enough for a zero-carbon approach to be feasible without resorting to solutions such as nuclear power plants. For example, once homes are made more efficient, then making them “net zero” consumers is highly affordable using solar electricity. Combining this with on-site hydrogen production and storage can achieve not just “net zero” energy use, but “off grid” conditions that do not depend upon using the grid at any time except as a means of making a small income by selling excess power to the grid.

I would like to see a big study that researches how much we can reduce the energy demain using techniques that have costs less than the equivalent of 5 years (or some appropriate time period) of energy or at least pays back in less than the product lifetime. These relatively short payback investments result in a lower ownership/use cost for the consumer. Perhaps the government will need to provide some type of zero interest loan to absorb the upfront costs. These loans would be in a “revolving” fund that gets payed by as a fraction of the energy costs that would have been incurred without the improvements.

I think the focus should be on reducing our energy footprint so that we only replace what needs to be replaced. Just because we current use 93 quadrillion BTUs (QUADs) of power does not mean that we will always use that amount. Perhaps we actually only need 30 QUADs to power a more efficient economy. If so, that makes the problem of switching to “green” sources of power much easier considering that we already produce about 11 QUADs, with an addition 8 QUADs of nuclear (that could be the true “bridge” power source that will become smaller as the power plants age and become uneconomic to operate). While coming up with 10 QUADs of new sources of non-carbon fuels will be a challenge, it is not nearly as large as the requirement for 70 QUADs currently envisioned.