The question everybody keeps asking, is where is all the power going to come from when we shut down Indian Point. It's always the same story... You have to start from scratch with people... because they don't have decades of experience in the trenches of the alternative energy movement to understand the logistics and how difficult is has been getting it to this point, against all odds, with all of the monies spent on trying to prevent a solar revolution rather than create it.
There's been tons of ink spilled on both sides of the equation, the new way vs. the old way... back in the 50's there was nothing else but oil, coal and nuclear... the subtle energies that were the sun and the wind were not harnessed yet... there is still the problem of storage, and we have the that problem licked, but it still sits in labs, waiting for funding.
It's great that so many drove to the Oscars in hybrids, that Al Gore and Laurie David are green celebrities... But look who their friends are... it's the same old thing, the same old machine, telling you one thing, then doing the other, to preserve what they have rather than take a chance on the future.
We're not talking about a leap of faith here, we're talking about high-tech
nano-materials that can do so much more with so much less, like
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for example, which can light a space for a fraction of the energy that fluorescent take, never mind incandescent, which are history. Even at Wal-Mart you can't find any... In super-mass production, LEDs are going to be dramatically cheaper than fluorescents, and a lot cleaner, safer, kindler, gentler on the environment, because fluorescent use tons of poisons, while LEDs are encapsulated in solid-state substrates.
LEDs means we can light streets, homes, factories, for 2% the energy we used to need before, 2%, that's right, 2%... that's how insane this is... yet it took independent companies, the sweat of their brow, all late 90's, selling plans, through
Home Power magazine, to build them yourself practically, because none of the major corporations would touch them... because they would indeed spell the end of an energy addiction, an end to profiting from our electron addiction.
The same is happening with batteries, where chemistries, where devices that can store electricity with the same voracity and precision as we use microchips to store information, also in the form of electrons, and give us power packs, without liquid or gel, that are easily mass-produced, scaled up, distributed, and safe from unstable safety effects.
Yes, all these things need pulling together, by industry, by government, but it's not happening there, it's happening from little companies, again, struggling, stealing fire from the Gods, building components in China, usurping patents they know they can't license, because the labs are in league with military interest, and they are still under the illusion, that these energy conversion devices must stay secret, or curtailed, in limited use, for fear some terrorist somewhere might find the formula to rob a bank with a pulse bomb.
We need to get over this, and quickly, because this "fear" that is chronically instilled in us, this fear of being without, of being in the dark, is a lie... an outright light... we have more alternatives, and more solutions, than we know what to do with, but for as long as all the money is spent on cleaning up a nuclear mess like the flood spills in Louisiana, or the waste leaking at plants all over the country... if we just stopped this insanity, cleaned up the mess, and invested instead in third wave, fourth wave quantum nuclear physics, that "charms" the atom rather than wack it over the head with a sledge, to boil water... we'd be in heaven... or almost.
These wars, these campaigns, led by blind men who can't settle on religious faith, who won't let sensuality rule this sphere... who block everything over dogma, can't understand that indeed the answer is blowing in the wind, this is not some romantic notion, this is a physical reality, that all things are in balance, and if we use the flow, of the wind, of the sun, we can easily run all our machinery, by fine tuning, and maybe doing with a little less here and there, conserve, not keep rooms in the City at 75 degrees in the den of winter, like I experience too often still today.
We all need to get into the act, so that this
2000Mw the new governor of New York talked about, promised, never mentioned again, to my knowledge, is done without... and it already is, all tabulated, it is... we've already conserved that much, for all the people going green, up and down the Hudson, turning off the lights, changing bulbs, walking or biking rather than driving... switching over to alternative fuels, buying more efficient vehicles... we're on a roll, doing our due diligence, educating those around us to do the same, get inspired.
But this muse is a little lazy, taking its time, likes to party... doesn't really understand that boys will be boys, want to get their hands dirty, with a feeling of urgency, and spirit, and necessity... that's what have you join the army, to serve, to feel empowered, with momentum, with power... so if we don't give them that now, to restore the earth, save the planet, that energy will be spend aggressing against an enemy that isn't there, that the weapons makers invent, to sell more guns and bombs, crippling children in hospitals, filling refugee camps.
We have heroes and heroines now,
Angelina Jolie comes to mind, someone I met when she was just a toddler on a high chair, crying because nobody was paying attention to her pain... She broke my heart a few months old... the way other woman have, who cry so deep for the damage and horror we do this world... Ani DiFranco sings, and I morn, because I hear in her voice a call, a message I can't answer, because it would need an army, and I'm only a general in my imagination.
We need to get busy is what I fell you... we need to shut down Indian Point, give this country a renewed sense of being, of identity... of
Viridian Design (even if you sank the Whole Earth Review, Mr. Sterling for being too stubborn to invite me in...) We are going to do this... it's only a matter of weeks... the workers themselves want to quit, we know this from talking to them in private sessions, it's a small village up there on the banks of the Hudson.
But Entergy is vast, and it's strong, and it has deep ties with evil tendencies of war... of secret programs, of bomb making, of sadness and sorrow, and horror and bones... When will we learn, when will humanity learn? When will the fear of anti-Christ stop true leaders from emerging, men like Clinton with a libido to match, nothing wrong with that, that's human kind... he at least tried... so did Carter, so do most Democrats, who don't have their hands dipped in war machinery, gone our of control, sending boys to war, who should be making music, building cities, greening cities, charming maidens... running free in the woods, making love in the rain...
But we spent our youth, us old eco-warriors, trying to set it right for future generations, and this is almost it, the Woodstock generation, trying, wanting to shut this plant, we got so old, and grey, being called names by men and women with no capacity to feel trees, and snails, and blades of grass growing... who think uranium is just another stone, and not this poison that should have been left in the ground, or at the very least, dealt with the utmost respect.
We don't have the time for all this bullshit, not anymore, sorry to ramble on, go on like that, but I'm tired, I want to go do something else... I want this to be done and over with, but I'm a tenacious f***, so I won't let go, I will never let go, I never look back... When I make a commitment to something, 30 years later I'm still at it... and if I die, if they run ME off the road one night, I know all the seeds I planted, all the young people I trained, will just be there to follow in my footsteps and finish what I started.
They made me this way, they stole my childhood, because they expected something they didn't get... a justification for their silly, hollow lives... and I don't want to see it repeated, I won't let the one I love, who inspire me now, fall prey to this desolation of the soul in exchange of rent money and food on the table. We know better now, we can do better now... all we need is a little something, a little push, a little encouragement, to let go of the old, and embrace the new... things change, it's ok... you're not losing freedom, you're gaining hope... light, love... tranquility, a new sense of open space... a mission... a divine mission to fix this place we call home.
It has come to GNB's attention that Robert Kennedy Jr. is largely invested in Citizenre, a company currently under fire for being nothing more than a photovoltaic pyramid scheme.
According to Melissa Everett, the Sustainable Hudson Valley organization rarely steps into the complex world of policy, but right now they are doing that.
