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Desert Year: Doing a 180 on Energy

by Skip Laitner • May 7, 2012 @ 8:53 am

Running with the lizards and doing a 180 on energy!

The heat of the season is beginning to arrive earlier in the morning. And on this particular day it seemed especially sensible to get out ahead of the sun – well before it began to beat down with any real strength.  So I headed out early for a leisurely morning amble.  The route took me up a road that has very high curbs to channel the water from the fall monsoons. On this specific stretch of curb there was a single lizard, hugging the side of the concrete wall.  It scurried maybe 10 feet ahead of me as I approached, and then it stopped.  As I again advanced within three feet, it jumped ahead maybe another 8-10 feet, still hugging the curbside. And then again. . . .

I don’t have a clue why the lizard insisted on moving forward with me, hugging tightly to the pavement sidewall. The smarter thing, it seemed to me, would have been to scurry at a very quick right angle away from me to safety.  Yet, as I again approached it for perhaps the fifth time, it suddenly turned 180 degrees and bolted past me in the opposite direction – leaving me alone with my thoughts.  Although the suddenness of its movement startled me, I reflected a little and thought . . . that was very cool. And I immediately wondered why it is that we are so often dogged in maintaining our existing course of action?

A Changing of the Minds?

The good news is that people can and they sometimes do change their minds. Not to distract from his current predicament, in 2006 Rupert Murdoch, for example, “had a change of heart on climate change and now believes global action is needed.” Also changing his mind on climate change? Bjorn Lomborg who claimed for many years that climate was not an especially important issue to address. Yet in 2010 he released a new book with new equations stating the exact opposite. The indication is that while did change his mind, he hugely underestimates what might be an appropriate scale of mitigation effort. His current thinking recommends that we should spend $100 billion a year to mitigate and avoid the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. The evidence, however, suggests it should be many times larger.  (more…)

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Desert Year: Meeting Energy Needs is All About Perspective

by Skip Laitner • April 18, 2012 @ 2:25 pm

It had been in my mind for some time.  Picacho Peak is a fascinating and major focal point of the Arizona landscape, located perhaps 40 miles north of Tucson.  I’ve wanted to explore both the peak and its surrounding area almost since my first return to Tucson last May.

Earlier this year Arizona celebrated the 150th anniversary of the only Civil War skirmish that occurred in Arizona — right there in Picacho Pass. The Union forces lost that particular encounter because of the disobedience of an overeager young lieutenant. They also suffered three fatalities in that fight.

The little bit of publicity I saw about this anniversary only heightened my interest in climbing the peak.  So I set out one fine Friday with a friend to get it done.

Picacho Peak at a Distance

Our very first picture was taken at about 7:30 am in the morning as we approached Picacho Peak from the south on Interstate 10.  At that angle and distance one might begin to wonder, how the heck do we even begin to think that we can actually make the ascent? And if we look at the seemingly insatiable demands for energy, how might we do anything but dig for more coal or drill for more oil? (more…)

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Desert Year: Why Is It So Hard to Care?

by Skip Laitner • March 9, 2012 @ 9:33 am

Why is it so hard to care about snakes? Or the desert? The climate? And especially the environment more generally?

This time the snake was real.  Right there on the side of the road.  Some evenings ago, however, in the waning hours of twilight, it turned out to be just a short length of black rubber hose that was also laying along the path I was taking. But this particular snake was just as dead.  I’m no expert but it was non-venomous, perhaps a narrowhead garter snake.

It looked as though it wanted to live, but it also looked as though the wound had slowly bled it to death. The snake seemed as if it had been just barely clipped or pinched by the wheel of a passing car. The injury itself didn’t really appear to be all that serious.  I was thinking that had it been given immediate care, it would likely be alive today.  Unfortunately, the cars seem to be more forthcoming than any immediate animal care.

Narrowhead Garter Snake

I confess that while not especially fond of them, I am intrigued by snakes.  And of this particular critter? Somehow I think of this as “my snake” and I wondered why I cared about it, or why I was saddened by its demise?  That single snake was neither socially nor economically important.

Nature is content to love snakes in her own way – as a species. Yet she seems wholly unconcerned with any particular snake.  As Joseph Wood Krutch suggested many years back, Mother Nature seems to hold the view that it’s the “greatest good of the greatest number.”  In fact, it seems to be a principle so absolute that she is not “tempered with regret over those who happen not to be included within the greatest number.”  And yet, I cared.

There are perhaps 3000 separate species of snakes, and maybe hundreds of millions of individual snakes.  These may be a sufficient number so that, like Mother Nature, I don’t need to think about them all that much. And I certainly don’t need to fret over their individual livelihood.  And yet I cared about this snake.  Probably because I was right there with it.  In some way, then, I was connected to it.

Why is it so hard to care about snakes? Or the desert? The climate? And especially the environment more generally?  (more…)

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