Tag: Sustainability

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Sustainability

Nuclear Weapons Update

B-61 Nuclear Bombs

Editor’s Note: On Friday, FOX News mentioned President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear program and replace the agreement he withdrew America from in his first term in office. Iranian state media immediately picked up on Trump’s acknowledgment, though there was no confirmation from Khamenei’s office that any letter had been received. This seems largely a head fake. The real issue is the nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia.

When the president mused about all the money the United States was spending on refurbishing our nuclear weapons complex, he can’t be taken seriously. This is what he said:

There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.

What motivates this comment? Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. I plan to view it with a skeptical eye until the discussion gets beyond the type of public brainstorming the president is known for. This is what he meant:

The U.S. House is having trouble coming up with enough savings to fund my $4.5 Trillion in tax cuts, so maybe we could use some of the nuclear complex monies.

Cognizant there is a national security issue around the use of nuclear weapons, the president’s team developed a policy. Invoking the failed Reagan missile defense policy, the administration proposes we try it again under the aegis of an “Iron Dome for America.” As Stephen J. Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb point out in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the plan has serious technology and policy problems. What needs to happen is renewal of discussions between Russia and the United States concerning arms control. If nuclear arms are eliminated, there would be no need for a missile defense system by any name.

Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association said, “a dialogue between Moscow and Washington could lead to negotiations to maintain or lower current limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals before the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires in February 2026.” If the president is serious about reducing the number of nuclear weapons, this is a reasonable approach. I don’t think reason can be applied to the current administration when they lust after tax cuts for the wealthy.

While public oxygen is taken up by the uninformed chopping away at the federal government by Team DOGE, the country could be working on arms control. In a recent substack, Joe Cirincione opined that to keep Europe safe, two things were needed:

For over seven decades, there have been two basic frameworks that have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in Europe. One is NATO, founded in 1949, that provided positive security assurance to Europe. America assured European NATO members that if they were attacked, the United States would defend them, including with our nuclear weapons. So, these countries did not need to get their own nuclear weapons. America would protect them.

That extended deterrence, as it is called, was not, by itself, enough to stop countries from considering their own nuclear arsenals. The United Kingdom got nuclear weapons in 1952 and France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.

We all know how the president feels about NATO. He doesn’t care for treaties any better. As we have seen, he appears to be forsaking Europe for his new relationship with Vladimir Putin.

So what is the administration doing to control nuclear weapons? Short answer: Nothing. He should be doing more, and elected officials need to hear from us on this topic. The U.S. Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

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Writing

Back on the Trail

Trail walking on Feb. 25, 2025.

I’ve been back on the state park trail for about a week since the cold snap. The debate in the neighborhood is whether winter is over. The consensus seems to be winter is not finished. I maintain winter never really got started this season. The relatively warm temperatures, consistently, and year upon year, mean trouble for us all regardless of what the president does about the endangerment finding.

I have been reading the news and doing my best not to think about it. Very little is positive. Six weeks into the new administration and I feel strong, ready to upgrade my resistance. However, new shrapnel continues to fall from the sky. Better keep my powder dry a bit longer.

Yesterday I planted the second tray of seedlings: spinach, celery and arugula.The seeds were from 2022, so I’m not confident of the germination rate. I ordered new ones which should arrive next week. The spinach and arugula should show quickly whether or not they will germinate.

I have been working on my book daily for the last week. Mostly, the word count is going down as I edit a chapter about the period 1985 until 1987. There are some instances when a quote from my written journal or papers is appropriate. More often, I’m find such texts to be the basis for new writing. As I progress through the book, I believe I will use quotes as a starting point for a draft instead of using them as an actuality that nests in the narrative. This is especially true when I have new insights into what that 30-something man was thinking from a privileged viewpoint in 2025.

Today is the “buy nothing” day and I hope to keep my credit card in my wallet. If I can’t go a few days without buying anything other than emergency items, then what have I been doing the last 70+ years?

These daily blog posts are helpful in getting the writing fluids flowing. The next major change in my intellectual life will be when it is warm and dry enough to work in the garden and yard. Since I missed planting garlic in the fall, that will be the first crop to go into the ground: as soon as the ground dries enough to till the soil. Today we are not there yet.

These days have been the best part of winter. I intend to use them as I can until spring truly arrives.

Cup of black coffee on Feb. 27, 2025.
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Living in Society

Is Life Reasonable?

Animal Tracks

Science may be the best way humans have to develop reliable knowledge. Underpinning 21st Century science is the idea the world has a rational basis that can be understood. In this time of political chaos and confusion, craving science seems a logical next step as we seek reason in the social and material world.

As I wrote before, I find solace in withdrawing from society into family as a reaction to Republican hegemony. As I do, I find people and situations requiring attention. As a septuagenarian, I find more people who need medical care and financial help than I did during the Reagan years. They also need companionship. The vulnerability of living on pensions is no longer an idea, but a reality. There are limited funds to go around and a small number of income-producing mechanisms available to the aged. Current threats by the administration to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid can be alarming. It isn’t any easier for millennials entering their fourth decade.

Due to extreme cold, I missed about a week on the trail. It is my concession to aging and self-care. I resumed trail walking Friday when ambient temperatures rose to the teens. Building a good life under the oppression of Republicans is a best practice. We must keep our health, strength, and financial resources for when we really need them. While we might sense the ineptitude of the administration during its first five weeks (how could one miss it?) the noise has not reached a crescendo. If not careful, all the hailstorm of attacks on the liberal consensus could blow up in Republicans’ collective face. We plain folks need to keep our powder dry for now, and be ready to act.

What is the underlying reason for a person to exclaim as “evidence,” in a public meeting, that the American Library Association is a “Marxist organization?” That librarians conduct a “grooming barrage” of unacceptable books? It seems clear such citizens’ language is weaponized and they departed reality in conceiving their analogies and metaphors.

Educators sometimes get upset with me when I point to the education system as the cause of such deviance from rational thinking. I suppose indoctrination into a cult could be a different cause, but legislators seem to accept such “evidence,” as the subcommittee and full education committee advanced the bill repealing Iowa Code 728.7 to the full Iowa House. The underlying reason may be the desire to feel there is a culture war going on in our public libraries and schools. If there is, departure from reason is a part of it. For me, I browse the public library collection to see what new books I might have interest in, and are available for check out. I don’t need a nanny state to do that.

Life can be reasonable and certainly the physical world has a scientific underpinning the understanding of which scientists continuously refine. The ship of American society has become unmoored and is heading for the shoals. Whether it can be saved is up to us. Old and young, we must be ready.

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Living in Society

Making a Stand

Government issued boots.

A recurring theme in my personal journals is the following:

We must all recognize our two feet standing squarely on the ground. (Personal Journal, Iowa City, Iowa, June 29, 1983).

What does that mean? Since I left home to attend university, my life has been one of self reliance. I intend to stand on my own for as long as I can.

Today, I’m thinking of friends whose life is impacted by the new administration and its unlawful cutting of government programs. I’ve been spared much of the current pain because I rely on government programs as little as possible. This round of cuts, the two main ones that support me, Social Security and Medicare, have been spared the knife. During a Feb. 4 telephone town hall, my Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks said, “(President Trump’s) instruction to us as well is that there are no cuts to Medicare or Social Security.” Check with me next year to see if that continues to be the case.

I received a government paycheck twice. When I served in the U.S. military and when I worked at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry.

My 1975 enlistment in the U.S. Army had everything to do with how screwed up the military was coming out of Vietnam. I asked myself, if regular people didn’t step up and fix the mess, who will? I stepped up and did what I could to make the military better. While my colleagues tried to convince me to stay in, I finished my enlistment, got out, and finished my graduate degree with money from the G.I. Bill.

When I took a job at the Dental School, I was seeking employment to support myself as a writer. The University of Iowa is by far the largest employer in Johnson County and my prior military service put me a step up in the point system they used to select candidates for jobs. I met my future spouse there and once we married, it was time for employment outside government work.

Among my friends and their families, many work for the government and are caught in the current, illegal federal funding slowdown and cuts. Some have invested heavily in the jobs they hold, with degrees, with tenure, and with a commitment to place. I empathize with them.

I’m glad I left my government jobs, and to be honest none that paid well enough to support a family was ever offered to me. It’s not like I was looking.

I’ll admit we need the government for things like utilities regulation, road and bridge building and maintenance, financial regulation, public water standards, research and development of new treatments for disease prevention and cures, and more. Self reliance goes only so far. I could get along without all these things, yet it would be a poorer world. We join together for enterprises bigger than ourselves. Abraham Lincoln once said, “The legitimate object of government is ‘to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, for themselves.'”

I paid taxes since 1968 and have been happy to do so. I served four years as an elected official to help provide emergency services for the community and maintain local cemeteries. I volunteered in our neighborhood to help provide a public water system and wastewater treatment. Now our government needs to make wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes. I don’t see many rich folks out here doing volunteer work. What’s fair for one is fair for all.

Although I have two feet standing squarely on the ground, I know it is good for society when we bend down and lend a helping hand to those who need it. Together we can find resilience. I hope we will.

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Writing

An Inside Joke

Trail walking on Feb. 3, 2025.

Before deactivating my Facebook account, I posted a photo of Rainer Werner Fassbinder as my profile picture. The New German Cinema was in vogue in Iowa City during the early 1980s. I saw more than 20 films by Fassbinder during a two-year period. He died on June 10, 1982, of a drug overdose/suicide. The joke was that as prolific as I was on social media, as Fassbinder was in film, I ended my own Facebook life by deactivating it, partly because I felt addicted to it. I suspect no one got the joke.

The changes in my social media use mentioned in yesterday’s post have had an immediate effect. Maybe not exactly cause-effect, but since I removed social media from mobile, I have been sleeping more soundly and more hours of it. I reduced mobile device screen time by half yesterday, to about three hours. I seem to be getting back to having seven or eight hours of sleep in a night. While that takes time from doing things I love, it is likely good for my health. Other positive changes seem to be happening.

It took a while this year, yet I am deep into revision of my current book. I had 63,000 words on January 1, yet the whole thing needs restructuring. I spent part of yesterday working on a new outline. It’s not finished. Having written the first book, I learned a lot about how to create a readable narrative. I plan to apply those skills as the major re-write begins. I will start with a solid outline and then, from the beginning, rewrite each chapter as if it were a stand-alone piece. The main epiphany is I need to focus on a smaller set of narratives. I’m thinking 25-30 stories. My whole life won’t fit, and there is no reason for it to do so. It’s not like I’m Robert Caro writing the biography of LBJ.

Yesterday one of my shoes wore out while I was walking on the state park trail. Water began to seep through the hole in the sole and by the time I finished 30 minutes of walking, my left foot was drenched. When I got home, I tossed the shoes in the trash and dried my feet. I made a note to buy a better pair of walking shoes soon.

There are a lot of moving pieces today. Having more rest and a new pair of walking shoes seems like a necessity. Also humor can help if people get the jokes.

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Living in Society

Giving Attention to Stuff

Photo by Ola Dapo on Pexels.com

Our home is a relatively quiet sanctuary for creative work and networking with family and friends. It is easy to enter a room and “do something,” whether it be cooking, cleaning, writing, reading, or working in the garage, garden or yard. We made it this way when we designed the house and its setting. We are constantly using computers.

I recently discovered a new widget on my mobile device called Digital Wellbeing and parental controls. It tracks screen time. The results were shocking: more than six hours per day. Since then, I’ve been using the tool to reduce screen time. Last week I averaged 4 hours 24 minutes per day, which is a still a lot. I am endeavoring to do better.

What did I do about it? First I sorted my social media accounts. During the last year I reduced my social media presence, deactivating Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I left Threads on my desktop and had BlueSky on my mobile device. This morning I removed all social media from mobile. In doing so, I removed them from my bed room and living room.

Second, I turned my mobile device into the tool it was intended to be. Instead of garnering my attention on social media feeds the way a slot machine empties one’s pockets, I time my morning exercise, read ebooks, keep up with news and email, and monitor traffic on my blog. I don’t mind the screen time if I’m getting something other than distraction in return.

Since paring back social media my human interaction increased with more telephone time and emails. As the weather warms, I expect to have more interaction with neighbors outdoors. These are positive developments.

The main thing I learned through the widget is to think about how I spend my time and focus more of it on stuff that adds value. That doesn’t just happen by itself.

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Living in Society

Week Two

Hot Peppers from the Garden, Oct. 12, 2018.

At the end of week two I continue to hunker down, waiting for the shrapnel and debris to settle from the new administration’s assault on the government. I’m not ready to come out of the bunker because destruction is just beginning. This is infantry tactics 101.

The bellwether for me will be the arrival of my Social Security check, which is scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of each month. February will be the first month in which the new group was in charge, so any variation in delivery will be a sign.

There have been few surprises since Jan. 20. The president is doing much of what he said he would, plus things outlined in the Project 2025 document written mostly by Russell Vought. Senate hearings were completed on Vought’s appointment as director of the Office of Management and Budget. We are waiting for Republicans to schedule a vote. I have been following Vought since 2015 and am well-familiar with his intentions for our government.

One surprising thing has been Elon Musk’s approach to the Treasury. He purportedly installed his team to review every expenditure as money moves from the government. On one hand, the owner or general manager of every small company I have known scrutinizes every invoice before payment. However, the scale of U.S. Government disbursal is about $6 trillion per year. That’s a lot of invoices to review — even with an experienced staff — without mucking things up. Time will tell if Musk survives the wrath of the president. The over/under of him surviving is Feb. 8 among my friends. We may be optimistic.

I view myself as part of the resistance. Anne Lamott wrote about the lack of visible action to resist in today’s Washington Post:

I think we need and are taking a good, long rest. Along with half of America, I have been feeling doomed, exhausted and quiet. A few of us, approximately 75 million people, see the future as a desert of harshness. The new land looks inhospitable. But if we stay alert, we’ll notice that the stark desert is dotted with growing things. In the pitiless heat and scarcity, we also see shrubs and conviction.

This is how I feel. I am ready to get active but not sure what I should get active doing. I write letters to the editors of newspapers, yet mostly am dealing with family issues and my own mental and physical health. As bad as these two weeks have been, I am confident there will be a reckoning for what the November election results have wrought. Robert Reich wrote today in his substack:

As bad as this “fu*king nightmare” gets, it will awaken Americans to the truth about what has happened to this country — and what we must do to get it back on the track toward social justice, democracy, and widespread prosperity.

When I find my fulcrum, I plan to be ready.

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Sustainability

Gillett Grove

Screen shot from Google Maps.

Gillett Grove, Iowa has a post office and 30 people, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. In 2000, there were 55 people. The whole of Clay County, where the town is located, appears in decline. In some ways, Gillett Grove typifies rural Iowa.

How did this come up? The way many things come up in a household: we got talking.

Its history is brief. “First settlers appeared in Gillett Grove in 1856 and the town, named after the Gillett brothers, was incorporated on May 13, 1874,” according to the website Travel Iowa. “The town was originally located west of the (Little Sioux) river and one and half miles North until 1899 when it was moved to the east side of the river along with the arrival of the railroad.” I don’t see railroad tracks on Google Maps.

The high school for the South Clay Community School District was located in Gillett Grove. It also served Webb, Dickens, and surrounding rural settlements. In a relatively rare for Iowa occurrence, this consolidated district was dissolved in 2010 when it had 132 students.

The website Zillow lists the sale of a house at 506 3rd Street at auction for $25,300. Built in 1900, the outbuildings appear to be worth more than the dwelling. It’s a fixer-upper, definitely. Who might live in such a place in this rural city with limited visible economic activity? It’s an open question, yet the website suggests the property could garner $816 per month in rental income.

How many towns and hamlets like Gillett Grove exist in Iowa? More than a few. There is not time to write about them all. What we do is discuss our connections with some of them and wonder what life might be like living there. Then the conversation ends and I’m glad to live where we do.

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Sustainability

In Winter

Trail walking on Jan. 27, 2025.

January and February are the best months to hunker down and write. I get outside almost every day to take a brisk walk along the state park trail. Some mornings the landscape looks like this. Then it’s back indoors and to work.

Today we’ll experience ambient temperatures in the 40s. I decided to run the buckets of compost out to the garden composter. They started to stink in the garage, so it was time to go. On January 28, it should not be this warm, but it is.

NextEra Energy Resources filed a request with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to potentially restore the facility’s operating license as demand for electricity surges to power large data centers needed to handle the growth of artificial intelligence, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported on Saturday. The plant was damaged during the 2020 derecho and has not been repaired. If the license were issued, management expects the nuclear power plant to be back on line sometime in 2028. My question about this is who pays? Except for those parts of the operation paid by the Department of Energy, all costs should be paid by the potential customers. We shouldn’t pretend bringing Duane Arnold back on line serves the public good.

The other question, and I believe it is the right one, relates to re-starting the Duane Arnold Nuclear Power plant because of the big electricity needs to power Artificial Intelligence. What people are not talking about is using new power plants to generate electricity for another energy hog, crypto-currency, to the detriment of our economy. Shouldn’t we be talking about that?

I’m losing confidence in our local media to cover this issue. For the most part, they seem to be writing stories based on industry generated information and not any specific facts.

Well, at least the compost is out in the bin ready to make a soil conditioner. That, I know I can put to good use.

Categories
Environment

Winter Days

Trail walking at sunrise.

According to the sensor installed on the north side of the house, the ambient temperature was 13 degrees below zero Fahrenheit when I began writing this post. The sun is rising and it warmed up. We’re not at zero yet, although the high is forecast at 25 degrees. Today the weather is weird again.

Hannah Ritchie, author of Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet, posted a widget on the internet with a state-by-state analysis of electricity generation sources. Find it here. Here is where Iowa lands:

Here is another chart:

Iowa is a leader in wind energy and has plenty of room to improve our solar capacity. There are environmental issues with every form of electricity production, yet burning fossil fuels is our most immediate danger because of the role of carbon dioxide in enhancing the greenhouse effect. Despite today’s low temperatures, Iowa is simply too darn hot.

The trend on the following chart is the right one. As a state, we need to move more quickly.

It seems obvious to me that to get to zero fossil fuels used to generate electricity Iowa needs to install many more solar panels. There are issues with both wind and solar generated electricity.

The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. They can be addressed. One of the key strategies to deal with intermittency, which is what this is called, is to improve the forecasting and planning of renewable power generation and demand. Another strategy is to invest in storage and integration solutions that can balance the supply and demand. A third strategy is to foster innovation and adaptation. This involves developing and deploying new technologies, designs, and practices that can enhance the performance, efficiency, and resilience of renewables. We need the will to solve these problems.

So the news about electricity generation in Iowa is positive. We just need more renewables and technological solutions to deal with intermittency so we can replace fossil fuels altogether. To a reasonable mind, this can be accomplished. Now we just need our regulatory and governmental authorities to get on board.