Those of us who are soldiers in the Pickens Army are dedicated to promoting and evangelizing the religion of reducing carbon produced by oil, reducing our dependence on foreign energy, and are always on the lookout for initiatives to feed our passion to solve critical energy issues facing America's economy, the environment, and our national security." (from the Pickens Plan)

We should aggressively find those jewels of energy leadership, highlight them, and learn from their efforts. 

The National GRID is actually a British company, specializing in delivering both electrical and natural gas in the northeast United States (as well as the UK).  Serving about 3.3 million electricity users, and around 3.4 million natural gas users, national GRID is taking a leadership role in developing US policy towards energy transmission and use.

The Day of Losing Your Dream

How many of us have been there? You get up early every day, get cleaned and prepared for the job. You want to give your job 150% of your energy, and crave the camaraderie of your co-workers, and friendship of your customers and business partners.

Then organization changes come along. Your company is sold or acquired, the culture begins to change, and life becomes one of "who is going to be let go today?",... or concerns develop on the dilution of respect and friendship within the working group. You wonder, am I getting up early to work, and will this be the day security comes to walk me out of the building?"

In the mid-1990s I frequently worked in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The city supported around 1 million people, nearly half of which were transients living in small tents called "gers." The "ger" communities had no real infrastructure such as electricity or water, and subsequently used raw coal in stoves as a primary heat source, and those people who had a little money occasionally had small gas generators for minimal electricity.

In those days unleaded gasoline did not exist in Mongolia, and transportation was either older used cars from Korea and Germany, or even more often Russian made vehicles such as Ladas or Volgas. During the winter months Ulaanbaatar's air was so bad you did not dare to wear any clothing with exposed white, as it would soon be covered with black soot, which could never really be cleaned.

Our employees were frequently ill, at a rate that is unprecedented in offices I've worked in over 35 years. Sadly, people also died at a much younger age, with respiratory problems and cancer being the most frequent cause. A very unhealthy place live and work.

Nearly all people agree protecting the environment is critical to our continued prosperity and health.   However there are arguments on how to best approach legislation that would either regulate or offer guidance on controlling pollutants and waste.

On the Cap and Trade issue, which is part of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act (H.R. 2454, or "Waxman-Markey",  most of the arguments are related to the potential high financial cost of reducing carbon dioxide.  Those critical of H.R. 2454 list many reasons to reject the bill, with some of the highlights including:

• Huge increases in the cost of gasoline (due to higher taxes)
• US jobs will be lost
• The bill will not reduce our reliance on foreign energy
• Similar efforts in Europe have not been successful (under debate)
• Potential to lose control of carbon credits in open trading markets
• Does not force electric utilities using fossil fuels to re-engineer with technology that would reduce carbon
• Economies in coal-producing states could be devastated
• The American people would pay the full price of Cap and Trade with personal tax and cost hits of nearly $2000/year per family (Spectator.Org)
• Belief that global warming due to greenhouse gases is a fantasy

While it is clear much of the debate is based on politics and corporate special interest lobbying, a couple of the above points do justify further study and discussion.  The most compelling argument may be the high cost of carbon credits being passed down to individuals, as well as the potential impact on jobs and local economies as fossil fuel-producing industries are forced to either re-engineer, or scale back operations.

Carbon Dioxide, or CO₂, is a natural byproduct of nature.  Nature produces CO₂ in large quantities during volcanic eruptions, geo-thermal events, and other processes as simple as breathing and normal chemical breakdowns of other elements.  It is an essential component of photosynthesis, which is the process of plants changing CO₂ into oxygen, and an essential component of the "carbon cycle."  At proper levels, CO₂ is a requirement to sustain life.

When the ratio of CO₂ to other elements becomes disrupted, the carbon cycle is also disrupted. The earth's eco-system may not be able to absorb the excess CO₂ present within the system, and the cycle is changed to account for disruption in the status quo of nature. 

One byproduct of excess CO₂ in nature may be excess "greenhouse gases," which may have the effect of retaining heat within the earth's atmosphere.  This is widely accepted as being the main cause of global warming, which many scientists believe is causing much of the world's problems with deforestation, drought, and melting of the polar ice caps.

Rob Bernard knows green.  As the Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft he walks the talk of reducing our carbon footprint, and evangelizing the impact of our actions on both the environment and quality of life. Our quality of life, and the quality of life others on the planet wish to enjoy.

Our Commitment

At Microsoft we are committed to software and technology innovations that help people and organizations around the world improve the environment.  Our goal is to reduce the impact of our operations and products, and to be a leader in environmental responsibility.

Years ago, in the stone age of computing (~1990), I used to access an X-Window environment on my Sun Sparc5.  Pretty cosmic stuff for the time, and gave a lot more control over the UNIX operating system than if a non-systems person like me would have through the command line.  The applications, such as Asterisk (an old office suite for UNIX), were ahead of the times, giving us a very good idea of what the future held in a client-server world.

The UNIX environment allowed us to operate our workstations either in stand-alone mode, or fully networked into a mesh of other workstations.  Any of the workstations interconnected in our "Internet" could operate as an application server for any other workstation on the network.  All you needed to know was the IP address (or later domain name) of the workstation, and be able to pass the security check. 

This accomplished a number of objectives.  It ensured that losing one work station would never kill the entire network of applications.  It allowed a certain level of efficiency to better utilize available resources (e.g., unused resources on workstations were used by server applications).  And it allowed individual users to log in from any workstation and execute the applications they needed to do their work - location independent from their home workstation.

Jogging along Sunset Canyon Drive in Burbank is great. You have the choice of peeling off into several great mountain trails, or you can just keep running the border line between the rugged Verdugo Mountains and the city of Burbank. From Sunset Canyon drive you are high enough to see the entire San Fernando Valley, as well as a glimpse of the Los Angeles skyline off to the south.

The best time is during sunset, as you see the tall Mexican Fan Palms dancing along the top of the city like a hundred green cotton balls and tumble weeds being whacked around the sky by tall Italian Cypress trees. The sunset brings out exciting colors of the palms, the city, and the rich reds, oranges, and the greens of the Verdugo Mountains. And the softness of the sun brings a warm softness to the community - a period of calm in a sea of dense humanity.

On those occasions when you really want a good workout, and have a burning desire to run the mountains, heading up Harvard Road to the Wildwood Canyon Road is a great place to unload excess energy. In addition, you will take the wonderful views you get on Sunset Canyon, and multiply them 10 fold. However you need to have a real feel for off road running, as the trails soon get steep, and are not that hospitable for the casual runner.

Fact of the Day - July 24, 2009

Wind accounted for 40% of the nation's new energy generating capacity in 2008.

Love him or hate him, T. Boone Pickens is fighting for a cause. He wants Americans free from not only the control of foreign governments for our energy supply, but also free from the devastating effects of our addiction to burning fossil fuels.  And he is recruiting an army to help him bring the message of how we can accomplish the above objectives to fight the battle with our government and corporations.

Do the residents of Long Beach believe the breakwater issue is important?

Ryan ZumMallen, Managing Editor of the Long Beach Post (LB Post) kept the city informed with a constant stream of "Tweets" during the entire proceeding of the Long Beach City Council meeting last evening, 27 July 2009.  City council members had already received hundreds of letters and messages from residents giving their opinions on the break water issue, and now the council was about to be presented with a detailed Long Beach Breakwater Reconnaissance Study offered by Russell H. Boudreau,  principle coastal engineer for a local engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol.

From Ryan ZumMallen's Tweets (@lbpostdotcom):