Categories
Environment

Birds and Blades

Iowa Windmill
Iowa Windmill

LAKE MACBRIDE— It’s no secret that when wind turbines began to be constructed, there was an unintended consequence of killing animals that collided with the large blades. Birds and bats made most of the news, endangered species particularly. On Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it will be extending the maximum length of the permits it’s granting wind energy facility operators for the ability to injure or kill bald and golden eagles. The move to increase the length of the permits from five to 30 years is intended to more closely match the life cycle of wind turbines and is said to be consistent with the department’s Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance. The so-called “eagle-take permits,” that accept the inevitable deaths of the national bird and other species, has begun to get conservationists in an uproar. It is only beginning.

First on deck to take action have been the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Working Group and the American Bird Conservancy. A friend who worked for the latter organization indicated that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has put the cart before the horse in some cases. In Wyoming, a “record of decision” regarding an eagle-take permit on a wind farm was signed by the Department of the Interior before knowing where the turbines would be sited. It speaks of shoddy work by the department, even though the decision was more than a year in the works.

My experience in developing wind farms was a consulting engagement that was part of  the Criterion Wind Project near Oakland, Maryland. At the time I was involved, we hadn’t hear of an incidental take permit for birds and bats, and it wasn’t until the project was completed that the subsequent owners of California based Clipper Windpower, United Technologies Corporation, were required to get one for Criterion, and that only after legal proceedings.

What I know for personal observations was that the developers were very much like the desperadoes of the 19th Century West in that they dealt with regulatory issues, only as they came up, not in a pro-active manner, and with an eye toward completing the project above all else. If corners could be cut, they were. There was a race to take advantage of expiring wind energy tax credits from the federal government, and that drove the implementation schedule, with its corner cutting.  In the case of Criterion, public opposition grew, and the project was delayed because of it. Eventually, Criterion was scaled down and completed in December 2010. My understanding is that the take permit issue with regard to Indiana bats at this location is unresolved at this writing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife eagle take permitting re-emerged in the corporate media yesterday, and large environmental groups intend to fight the decision. Battle lines are being drawn between American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and conservation groups, and somewhere Charles and David Koch are smiling as it serves their agenda for the nascent wind energy industry to experience challenges. For someone like me, it’s tough to pick sides between people I know and respect on all sides of the issue. What I do know is the issue of our time is the release of CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the deleterious effects it is having on life as we know it. There is no time for side skirmishes like the eagle take permitting, and one hopes for a speedy resolution to the conflict.

Categories
Writing

Scalloped Potatoes

Scalloped Potatoes
Scalloped Potatoes

LAKE MACBRIDE— As Thanksgiving leftovers linger in the refrigerator, diminishing bit by bit each day, we need to make something different, a new dish. With the abundance of potatoes at the end of the growing season, making a scalloped potato dish fits the bill instead of the usual mashed, boiled or fried. Serve it with a green vegetable and a protein, and it would make a comforting meal on a day that didn’t get above 15 degrees.

My first thought was to find a home neighborhood recipe in one of the cookbooks I collected from the church and hospital near where I grew up. No luck there. Apparently the church ladies didn’t cook gratin much. (There were no credits to men in the book). So off to the Internet and a review of the standard fare of websites returned after a search for “scalloped potatoes.” While there are many variations of potato dishes, I sought the simplest, with the fewest ingredients, and least prep time. Modified from the recipe to use items on hand, here is the dish.

Scalloped Potatoes

Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups milk (or heavy cream), 3 bay leaves, half teaspoon dried thyme, 2 garlic cloves run through a garlic press, half teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, salt to taste, 2 pounds of potatoes peeled and cut into eighth inch slices, half cup Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper to taste.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a saucepan, heat the milk or cream with the bay leaves, garlic, thyme, nutmeg and salt and pepper. Butter a casserole that will hold the potatoes. Pour the heated milk through a strainer into a large bowl with the slices potatoes. Sprinkle half the Parmesan cheese on top and mix gently to coat the sliced potatoes with milk and cheese.

Spoon part of the milk mixture into the bottom of the casserole and layer the potatoes so they are evenly positioned. Pour the rest of the liquid over the potatoes and sprinkle the remaining Parmesan cheese on top as a crust.

Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for five to ten minutes and serve.

Note: If chives were in season, I’d finely slice them and sprinkle them between layers of potato.

Categories
Work Life

Friday Miscellany

Free MandelaLAKE MACBRIDE— My earliest memory of Nelson Mandela, who died yesterday, is associated with the image printed on this button. At the time, South Africa seemed like a remote corner of the world, and there were other substantial, and more local, social justice issues with which to be involved during and after I attended college at the University of Iowa. I recall President Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, and for me, it typified what was wrong with that administration. I supported the act and congress overrode the president’s veto. Others have said more eloquently what I would, may Nelson Mandela rest in peace, and may his legacy live long.

On Thursday, I had breakfast at Sykora Bakery in Cedar Rapids, interviewed for a low wage job, attended a lecture on the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, visited my congressman’s local office, and met with my insurance agent to attempt to finalize health and dental insurance policies for 2014 during open enrollment. It was a busy day and a mixed bag.

After spending most of the last four and a half years working in low wage jobs, one would think I would have a clearer view of the challenges of low wage workers in Iowa than I do. Having given it some thought overnight, a little clarity appeared.

There is a role for government in low wage work, and it is less about fixing a higher minimum wage, and more about providing part of the social safety net. Government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and others matter a lot. The work of the U.S. Department of Labor provides worker protections for low wage workers. What matters more is its help in transitioning from lowly paid work to something better, and breaking out of the low wage environment.

Unions have become mostly irrelevant to low wage workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2012, 6.6 percent of private sector workers were members of a union. The idea of unionizing minimum wage workers like those at fast food restaurants, is ridiculous because of the high turnover. This is especially true in the current regulatory environment. Like it or not, market conditions will set the pay and benefits of most lowly paid jobs, while unions watch as bystanders. As someone who recently sought and found a number of low wage jobs, if a person works at it, they will seldom have to compromise for minimum wages.

Anyone who is paying attention knows that in making a living, money is one of many components, and not always the most important one. The lower on the socioeconomic scale one falls, the more money helps, but the less it matters as one draws increased support from a social network.

So that’s where thing rest on Friday morning. I need to quit resting and get after it.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Breeding Season

Tagged Cow
Cow

LAKE MACBRIDE— Breeding livestock is as old as dirt and the season for cattle and sheep is wrapping up now. Bulls and rams have begun their fall courtship, and the question remaining is whether or not the ladies are pregnant during the first go-around. Some farmers can “tell” if the females are pregnant, while others consult with a large animal veterinarian. The idea is to impregnate the livestock now for spring lambs and summer calves.

Cattle
Cattle

As a flexitarian, I’ve given little thought to where meat comes from since my days of working in a slaughterhouse more than 40 years ago. The animals with which I am familiar now are grass and grain fed and well cared for. While confinement operations are de rigueur in Iowa, in the local food system, we don’t talk much about concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), except to criticize the environmental issues associated with them. We believe our way of managing livestock is better.

That said, my intersection with raising livestock is more tourism than economic activity. I enjoy reading about the complex solutions to cattle feeding involving corn, silage, alfalfa, distillers grain, corn stalks and grass, but wouldn’t want to spend my life in a constant analysis of nutrient values and costs. There is a knack, rather than a science to this, and farmers seem to do what pleases them with an eye to what others may be doing and saying.

At the end of the day, when a person works in the local food system there is exposure to the entirety of things people consume as food. Learning more about livestock this year has been another valuable lesson in sustainability.

Categories
Work Life

December Already

U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack
U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack

LAKE MACBRIDE— The stack of holiday requests for money is growing, and this year there is not much extra to spread around, which makes the picking easy. In fact, besides paying annual dues to a couple of national organizations, no other organization will be getting anything. That’s the way it is going this year.

The last of the red delicious apples were used for a family dinner on Sunday, ending the Thanksgiving holiday season cooking with a few extra pounds of weight and a refrigerator full of leftovers. Or, as I posted on twitter, “baking apple crisp for family dinner across town. #localfood is great, but done with cooking in favor of leftovers for a long, long while.” While preparing a menu for our Thanksgiving meal, I realized how much food we have in the house, and it’s a lot, especially if one likes daikon radishes. We won’t have to buy many groceries except milk, lemons and limes between now and New Year’s Day. That frees up time for other things.

What are those other things? A short list includes finalizing a decision about our health and dental insurance during the annual open enrollment period (I’ll post about that when I do), cleaning house with my spouse, decorating for the holidays, and most importantly building a business plan for 2014. If 2013 was a hodgepodge of turbulent activities, I expect next year to be more orderly and sensible. The key aspect of the research and development of a business plan is networking with people to identify opportunities. In practical terms, that means becoming more social, and instead of turning down invitations, accepting them more. The agenda will rapidly become packed.

This also means keeping to my schedule of devoting a few hours each morning to writing. Not only here, but a larger project, the results of which I hope to self publish on Amazon.com. More on that as the plot thickens, literally.

Lastly, I attended an event with our U.S. Congressman Dave Loebsack yesterday. It is something to see the changes in him since he was a college professor challenging a 30-year incumbent, and he got excited and involved every time a person wrote a letter to the editor supporting his campaign, to someone who wants to get re-elected and has to deal with more than 750,000 constituents.

The League of Conservation Voters, that evaluates members of congress on environmental issues, gave Loebsack an 87 percent lifetime score, which means his views are similar to mine when it comes to his voting record. The only higher score in the Iowa delegation is Rep. Bruce Braley at 88 percent. U.S. Senator Tom Harkin is rated at 93 percent in 2012, with a lifetime score of 83 percent. The Republicans in the delegation are scored very low. Loebsack’s 2012 score is 69 percent, which reflects his growing movement to the center based upon having a much different district than he did when we first elected him in 2006.

What that means is on rare occasions like yesterday, when I get one-on-one time with him, I feel a need to briefly and succinctly talk about the need to put a price on carbon. I believe he shares my views, but has to suppress them in a move to the center to get re-elected. Among the many things he said during his remarks yesterday, was that he wanted to get re-elected, and the district has diverse views. I too would like to see him re-elected.

December will soon be gone, but there is a lot of living to do before it ends. Better get to some of that post haste.

Categories
Environment

Holiday Talk about the Environment

Typhoon Haiyan 2013 Photo Credit: EUMETSAT
Typhoon Haiyan

LAKE MACBRIDE— At a holiday gathering, talk was about the billionaire who came to Iowa to meet with people about the possibility of spending some of his/her fortune on environmental advocacy, and not the climate denier type. There had been a successful campaign to identify environmental voters during the recent election in Virginia, so what about Iowa and it’s first in the nation caucuses? I was told about, but not invited to the meeting.

The trouble with this kind of money is non-profits and consultants will fight over it like there is no tomorrow, especially when the prospect is seven figures as this is reputed to be. That’s been the history: a dog-eat-dog contest to woo and sway donors to support one cause or organization over others. There is no time for the parochial concerns of a few non-profit environmental groups or consultants fighting over donations. In my opinion only one concern matters most: climate change is real, it’s happening now, it’s not too late to do something about it, and we should do something about it before it’s too late. We need to stay focused on what’s most important.

My agreement with The Climate Reality Project restricts me from accepting funds for my advocacy, so in any case, I would be out of the fray. It doesn’t make me impartial, just less able to be diverted by advocacy funding and its work-products. While funding an environmental advocacy effort is an important part of an overall effort to solve the climate crisis, there is hardly agreement among Iowa environmental groups about what is the most important legislative objective, let alone consensus. It’s safe to say there won’t ever be consensus.

Some group or groups may secure funds, along with their expectations, deliverables and arc of expenditure. They’ll develop a plan, engage paid and unpaid staff, and set objectives to meet the requirements of the funder. All well and good, but tying the project to the Iowa caucuses would not be as productive as other use of the funds could be. Case in point: what ever happened to the Sensible Priorities of Ben and Jerry, the Vermont ice cream purveyors? There are photographs and memories, but the government continues to spend more money on the military industrial complex than is needed, the Sensible Priorities project notwithstanding. My fear is adding a well funded environmental advocacy group to the Iowa caucus process would be akin to adding another clown car in the parade, and Iowa doesn’t need that.

What would be better is to channel the positive efforts that are emerging on a number of fronts into a concerted, non-partisan effort, something advocacy funding seems unlikely to do.

One should be thankful that groups are working on various aspects of the climate crisis, but in the end, the recent mold of political advocacy needs to be broken and re-invented to be more inclusive. Common ground must be found with the climate deniers, whether we like it or not, and the way to do that is not by matching the Koch brothers and others, dollar for dollar. We’ll see what happens, but the conversation was a lot more interesting than the game on the T.V. screens ever could be. It mattered more as well.

Categories
Social Commentary

Thanksgiving Work

Working the Garden
Working the Garden

LAKE MACBRIDE— It became clear the planned Thanksgiving dinner was not going to happen when the well outage persisted into its third hour. We live in a rural subdivision with a public water system managed by volunteers. They took prompt action when the water stopped around 12:15 p.m., but the contractor lives in Toddville, so it took an hour or so for him to arrive once contacted. After the second hour of no water flow, we decided the gallon jug plus a few on-hand containers of water were not enough to finish preparing the menu in yesterday’s post. We rescheduled the vegetarian feast for Saturday, and I made a pizza requiring only a cup of water for the dough. Life is change and adaptation.

The cause du jour this holiday weekend is retail and restaurant workers called in to work on Thursday so people could shop after Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t get it.

Having lost count of the number of holidays I have had to work, I know what it’s like to sacrifice family time for a job. Working holidays included the only Thanksgiving my mother spent with us since our wedding. Even so, it’s hard to share the sense of moral outrage others express about low wage workers having to work on Thanksgiving. And I plan to continue the off and on annual trek to Farm and Fleet with a friend from high school later today, Black Friday or no. But maybe I do get it.

There is a progressive movement to increase the minimum wage, and selected low wage Thanksgiving workers have been used as a prop by unions and progressive organizations to call attention to the issue.  It’s advocacy 101. To the extent low-wage workers support it, I’m with them. I’m not convinced the vast majority do.

There are complicated reasons why a person would accept a low paying job. It’s always partly about the money, and who couldn’t use more of that? But it’s also about social networking, a sense of self-esteem, and the systemic reliability of the paycheck. The latter is almost never discussed, but it is important.

There is a stark difference between working for a small business and a large corporation with an established compensation program, and adequate cash flow. When a person begins work with a large corporation, there is a detailed and consistent process for generating a paycheck, one that is usually well explained during orientation and training. There are hiccups, but over the long haul, having such a process benefits both the employer and the employee. Working for a small business is different, and given a choice, people often choose to accept low wages and work for a large corporation. What you see is what you get, less subject to personality and its inherent inconsistencies, both of which are often found in small businesses.

That said, U.S. workers have a right to organize and form a union. Why is it that so few (6.6 percent in 2012) private sector workers form a union? Why is it private sector unionization efforts so often fall flat? The simple fact is that for low wage workers, union organizers represent one more thing to deal with in an already complex cultural fabric. Because a union can’t make any promises, there is little reason to join an organizing effort unless one is already disposed to do so. Too, the potential fluidity of lowly paid work is such that rather than deal with the drama of a union organizing effort, a person can easily move on to another position. As I have written previously, unions must become more relevant to low wage workers to have a chance to organize them. This is something they have failed to do, at least in my experience.

As the sun has risen, there is work to do before taking off to meet up with my friend. He’s a union member so I’m sure we won’t cross any picket or protest lines today. We may buy something, but if we do, it will only be something we need. I’m thankful for the working life that put me in this position… and not only on Thanksgiving.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Thanksgiving Menu 2013

Vegetarian Thanksgiving
Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today, among many things, I am thankful for the readers of On Our Own. Whether we have met or not, having an audience is an encouragement that provides a sense of validity when I write. So thank you.

Today is a family cooking day in our house and we prepared a special vegetarian menu that will nourish us today and feed us leftovers for days to come. Our family is scattered around the U.S. and we’ll be thinking of them all as we prepare this meal:

Relish tray of pickled vegetables, Kalamata olives, bell pepper, young carrots
Deviled eggs
Cranberry relish
Lentils with carrot
Wild Rice
Baked beans
Sage dressing
Steamed broccoli
Sweet potatoes
Root vegetable stew
Apple crisp
Iced water

Best wishes for a happy Thanksgiving, and thanks for reading On Our Own.

Categories
Writing

The Season is Over

Farm Landscape
Snowy Landscape

LAKE MACBRIDE— It was pitch dark when I arrived at the packing shed. Driving a 1970s-era Ford Econoline van, the previous three hours had been spent loading vegetables in it and another truck, and delivering them to CSA customers in nearby Iowa City and North Liberty. The wind was cold, but there have been worse, the customers were positive about the final fall share delivery, and the old vehicle served.

Supplementing starlight with my phone’s flashlight app, I found the light switch inside and turned it on to illuminate the area and unload and stack the empty crates and coolers and head home. The CSA season was over.

Proceeding cautiously on the icy gravel road, I made my way to the highway and turned south toward town. An email had reported the community well was broken, so I stopped at the grocery store and bought a gallon of water to use for cooking if needed. Resisting the temptation to purchase a frozen pizza for dinner, thoughts turned to what to make from food at home. The well had been repaired by the time I turned the kitchen faucet on. Dinner was a grilled cheese sandwich, a glass of cow’s milk and some oatmeal-raisin cookies from the store.

Instead of reflecting on the end of seasonal work, or depositing my paychecks, I went right to my queue of movies on Hulu. I started “Bob Dylan and the Band: Down in the Flood” and watched it straight through. I remember listening to copies of the bootlegged Dylan recordings at a friend’s home in high school. Downstairs is my copy of “Music from Big Pink,” purchased the day it arrived at the discount store in 1968. On the computer are tracks from the 2000 re-release of the album… I was enamored of the creative process of that music and that time, and still am. The film called up memories.

Memories are not about the past, but to help us live today… and tomorrow.  I retired around 10:15 p.m. wondering what to do with memories from a time of youth, hope and promise. By morning it was clear. There is nothing to do but go on living.

Thanksgiving and the following weeks have become a time to work on a plan for the coming year— true especially after leaving full-time paid work for a corporation. There is a sense of receding into the landscape— a seduction of the active mind. The season is over, but the living goes on.

While youth has flown like a murder of crows annoyed by a brown fox preening in the sunlight, hope drives us toward new seasons, the uncertainty of which is tempered by experience, and a succession of cold nights like last night. Yes, it’s time to go on living.

Categories
Sustainability

Why Nuclear Abolition Matters

ICAN_Regular_LogoLAKE MACBRIDE— During the Reagan era, there was a general understanding that a nuclear exchange and subsequent war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union would be a disaster for the entire world. What we know today is that even a limited war between nuclear states, like between India and Pakistan, would also cause a global catastrophe. Are we worried? Not really. Should we be? Not necessarily worried, but we should be working diligently toward nuclear abolition, as is most of the rest of the world.

New research about the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear exchange has fueled a growing international movement to abolish nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, this research is not widely known in the U.S., and most people here continue to act as though the danger of nuclear war ended when the Berlin Wall came down. Even now, more than 3,000 nuclear weapons stand ready to launch in less than 15 minutes. Are we mad? No, but we are distracted.

A full scale nuclear war would disrupt the climate in a way that would produce a decade-long nuclear winter, with temperatures around the world dropping an average of 15 degrees F. In this scenario, agriculture and food production would stop, with dire consequences for humanity. Even a smaller nuclear exchange would disrupt agricultural production resulting in wide-spread famine, according to the study.

Whenever one writes about getting together with more than 100 other countries to do something, the pro-life, anti-UN, anti-tax crowd gets vociferous. They assert any infringement on U.S. sovereignty is wrong, and unnecessary. There are sound reasons to support nuclear abolition. Some of them are:

The risk of global famine should states launch a nuclear exchange intentionally or accidentally. As long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a chance we would use them. Preserving life on planet earth is as important as any cause there is.

The diversion of resources that could be spent elsewhere or eliminated. If one feels taxed enough already, avoidance of unnecessary nuclear weapons spending is a way to reduce taxation. Some say as much as $59.2 billion could be cut from the nuclear weapons budget. Do we really need to spend $100 billion on 12 new ballistic missile submarines? Or $55 billion on 100 new nuclear-armed strategic bombers? Or $60 billion to upgrade five nuclear warhead types?

The interconnectedness of life on our blue-green sphere is obvious to some and less so to others. Failure to recognize it could have fatal consequences for us and for everything we hold dear.

My advice is to learn more about nuclear abolition and do what is possible to get involved in the movement. For starters, check out the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons at www.icanw.org, or Physicians for Social Responsibility at psr.org. Nuclear abolition matters, and our participation matters more.