WASTE HEAT AND THE GREY WATER ANALOGY

It won't be long until "grey water" becomes a major source for non-drinking, non-bathing purposes.

Like waste heat, the amount of potential grey water available is huge. But due to the corporate-water-industrial complex, its competitive entry into the "water market" has been sharply reduced with prohibitive regulations.

In a bizarre reversal of policies about energy and water, it's now the progressives and libertarians who are pushing for "deregulation" against the conservatives and liberals who put the regulations in place to restrict competitive alternatives such as grey water and waste heat.

But all those deals cut in the backroom between lobbyists, corporations and legislators have pillaged and plundered water and energy resources to the point of BARRING SERIOUS COMPETITION FROM ALTERNATIVES.

DEREGULATION DOES NOT MEAN COMPETITION. REGULATION DOES NOT MEAN SOCIALISM.

Each has a role and can achieve leaps and bounds above the current state of affairs in energy and water. Getting waste heat and grey water into the supply chain requires a forceful application of both regulation and competition.

This is good, and should be included in our national energy portfollio. Efficiency is a great transition for our corporate masters.

Eventually (whenever that means) we will turn to solar energy. It's powered the planet for billions of years! So, the word "transition" should not be lost in the shuffle. remember- we're still talking about petroleum engines here.

Also, I just can't seem to accept that the majority of CO2 doesn't come from cars... Not cows, not industry- but those cars we celebrate at 30mpg (3mpg better than 30 years ago) when Japan is at 48mpg. Where's that inflatable american pride- we should be a 75mpg.

Don't let'em fool ya!

Compared to the actual potential that could be reached with the information that our ruling elite have, this amounts to bread crumbs. The problem is that they don't want the gov't to serve the people, they want it to continue with business as usual.

dustinchicago {quote}: 'Also, I just can't seem to accept that the majority of CO2 doesn't come from cars.'

Can I challenge you to take a look at the website I quote from below? Yes, cars are a huge issue. But check out the amount of ozone-destroying chemicals put DIRECTLY INTO THE OZONE LAYER, courtesy of the military-industrial-congressional-media complex. Please check it out. It will - or should - horrify you.

From another post of mine: "When will we begin to talk openly about how much damage the military does - with the wars and the research into new weapons for wars. This comes directly from www.HAARP.net - read it and weep: http://www.earthpulse.com/src/subcategory.asp?catid=1&subcatid=1

"During the 1980's, rocket launches globally numbered about 500 to 600 a year, peaking at 1500 in 1989. There were many more during the Gulf War. The Shuttle is the largest of the solid fuel rockets, with twin 45 meter boosters. All solid fuel rockets release large amounts of hydrochloric acid in their exhaust, each Shuttle flight injecting about 75 tons of ozone destroying chlorine directly into the stratosphere (which contains the ozone layer). Those launched since 1992 inject even more ozone-destroying chlorine, about 187 tons (!!!!), directly into the stratosphere."

Add to the shuttle missions (which everyone thinks is great because we are 'conquering' the last frontier - more war-speak) the testing of newer and bigger bombs, the use of the older and smaller (ha!) bombs in the ME, the endless sorties flown by military types .. the list just goes on and on.

Please, some scientist, can't you carve out how much of the damage is due directly to the military (not only of this nation but of all nations) and the perpetual creation / maintenance of war?

Hook up heat recovery units to any neocon's body...any body heat they produce is "wasted heat"

It's too late, we've passed the TIPPING point.

Refer back to November 10th article by Bill McKibben for additional material on this topic. Mckibben is a great writer on many issues.

Curious to me that "most businesses do not take time to consider what they can do with their waste products." It seems that once they have what they want, they consider their responsibility is over. How sad is that! What do they teach in those business schools?

Maybe we are passed the "tipping point." Still. How does that make any difference in our ability to choose to act with principle? Would we not save our sisters and brothers even for just one more day? We have life; we don't have the luxury to not work our best. "Tipping Point"? How about our moral tipping point? Basta! Enough.

Your selfish if you just think of your self...? Tipping point?

Actually, I was thinking of everyone, including Mother Nature and her planet. No one has ever said I was selfish before during my entire 72 years that I'm aware of. I don't quite know whether to laugh or cry. ___ Think I'll laugh.

If you have never heard of the term "tipping point" when in refernce to Global Warming, you must have been in hibernation, or perhaps perched up in a tree in the jungle for a long time, barkng at the moon.

I think the selfish remark was more about those that use the "tipping point" idea as a reason to give up or to feel some misanthropic world view has been vindicated.

At least that is what my point about focusing our attentions to make the best of our situation is about. The long run may even reveal that what is happening to the earth right now is more about the natural seasons of the planet on a slightly larger scale. This is much more likely than the current trend toward global warming really being about either a retributive god (or Goodess) or even strictly human behavior. The whole "tipping point" Idea might be missing the mark completely. The earth produces seasons over slightly longer periods of time in the same way that it has produced seasons over a year's time. And that's the facts.

The continental glaciers melted and caused the rising of the ocean giving rise to the global flooding stories (the one in "The Bible" being only one) and it didn't happen because of anything humans did. Just like the time before and the time before that.

He also questioned the term tipping point.

I have never given up,___ as any who have read my posts about our enviroment would be aware. I post on every single one of them if at all possible.

There is nothing to apologize for to mention the tipping point when discussing Global Warmng. That is like the go-no-go point on the runway when takng off with a heavy load. Once that point is reached, there is no turning back if you pass it and don't have the speed to miss hitting the trees at the end of the overrun.

We're truly in serious trouble and we have reached or passed the tipping point and we have to start working on the prolbem NOW in a BIG way, if we wish to save humanity and most other life on this little world.

Yes KP! I wish to make the following point: Where ever we are in the go-no-go of this global warming question the fact that immoral values have guided and shaped the current human economic system means we must fully repudiate those principles and then build from there a congruent application of the principles of Democracy. I feel that the "Tipping Point" idea is more useful in framing political arguments.

Responding with sensitivity and insight to any single or more to the point the collect problems we are facing is only possible when we have laid to rest those world views that have supported the development of the current immoral system.

If not we only carry the error forward. I point out that this is the hint to answering Orwell's question he posed in Animal Farm: How do we replicate oppression? The system of oppression is internalized. It is evident in our designs, of products, of methods of production and distribution; in politicalized theories of human development; in our language; in our treatment of our Selves and each other. Churchill pointed out "We shape our buildings; there after they shape us."

We need to do a real inventory and then set to work on those things we can fix, stop, and prepare for. We need to do this from a united front. A real world summit. A real world mandate. Because we Can. And that is the answer to the Western Academic Dilemmas with Ethics: Because We Can.

Will we?

KM: That is the question. It is a question we can only face after we understand that we can. As Churchill also said "America will do the right thing, after exhausting all other options."

So for me the question rises with questions of when and how. When we do will give us a better understanding of what we can do. How we get us to open up and take the risks in telling the truth and standing up to the challenges of Democracy is a huge question.

There is a subtle and powerful re-framing with this approach. It has lead me to write on "Democratic Capitalism" on developing a "Purple Party (a little red, a little blue) and so much more.

I like your power of thought and inner strength and determination. I fear the reality of what our government and others will finally actually do or not do, other than study the problem. The study session should be over. Unfortunantly we must face reality some times even when it hurts, and you aren't in charge ___ sad to say.

Thank you KP. I also fear what they are up to. So many are simply preparing for their "Non regrettable" actions that will lead to their survival at our expense. The bUsh's purchase of all that land over an aquifer is not the behavior of a family that doesn't believe in the coming climate change.

But they are not "our government". That only arises with the informed consent, the will of the people. We are working on that. And that is the hard reality that I feel We must face. We must act to include us all. We must act informed with the truth. We must use this as a moral tipping point for taking a stand. As Rock Anderson said: Enough!

We can't afford to capitulate, there is no luxury to be sad or cynical, or defeatist. "We are that guy."

As for the time to study: That will only begin in earnest when we commit to a course of action. Then we can invest the 10s of billions that this needs. New and specifically designed satellites, small scale recovery projects, deeper and better research across the whole range of subjects.

What's sad is that we aren't in charge. Well yet.

B PAYNE (first commenter, first comment above):

Your comment is enormously appreciated and helpful, not only in promoting progress in energy and resoruces sustainability, but in helping us to transcend our polarized thinking and go to second-tier level thinking and action (new synergy - using the best of all tools and solutions) not just traditional "first tier" either/or right-left.

Thank you!