Here's an entry from my friend Grant from Spain. I have to thank him for turning me onto Roel Snieder (http://www.mines.edu/~rsnieder/) a potential interview subject here in Colorado who he heard speaking last week in Spain. I am currently setting up a blog page for Grant so that he may become a regular contributor to the SFD Film Project.
peace,d
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Dan, glad to know you are blogging more again. I was missing your regular insights into life. Nice videos by the way... the time lapse traffic ones are appalling, conscious raisers. And, so, our mind numbed, instant oatmeal, get-something-for-nothing society is still quite in the dark about how things are going to change in the next decades. With record oil profits, "peak oil" is getting a little more in the mainstream news, so that's good. I figure in a few short years, the phrase may be as common as "global warming", indeed it should be, because the two are not mutually exclusive, and are quite inextricably linked. On the one hand oil prices are at record highs, even adjusting for inflation, and on the other, Saudi Arabia is saying, don't worry, we are not running out of oil (wink, wink... nudge, nudge), there's lots of oil! http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSSYD3274320080410

Energy
But, here's the catch, we are NOT running out of oil; that is uniformly misunderstood. We are just at or near the peak of how much we can pump out in a day, and demand is going up, but supply is leveling off. Oil in a well is a little like molasses in a big thick slice of bread. Now, take the molasses soaked bread and stuff it at the bottom of, let's see, a Pringles can. Fill the Pringles can with more bread and really pack it down there on top of the molasses bread. Pack in more bread until you can't pack any more. Now, suppose you wanted that molasses... mmmmm, yummy.... but the only way you can get at it is with a thin plastic straw. Ok, so, assuming you can even get the straw down there, without breaking it, maybe the molasses is now under enough pressure from the overlying bread that it might just shoot out, or at least ooze out of the Pringles can (I haven't tried this, just a thought experiment, but maybe worth a try), then you understand what is involved getting oil out 4km below the surface. Nowadays, they are drilling even deeper because all the "good stuff" is gone. So, yeah, well that's where we are. Most of the good, easy to get molasses is out, maybe half of the total still remains. So, it's more or less, not coming out of there, without some pressure injection (which takes lots of energy... but where does that energy comes from), you see where I'm going. Once you pop, it just CAN stop. ;)

So, what do we do? If we are smart and I have no doubt that we are, and we can work together (not so sure about that), we can make a smooth transition to a low energy future (low, because it will likely never be as high energy as it has been on oil). In its most basic sense, energy just allows us to do things. It allows us to organize society, which can be thought of as a system of related and unrelated events that tends toward disorder (natural systems have this tendency because there are many more "disordered states" than "ordered ones", keeping in mind that "order" is not completely subjective). Patterns exist in nature, which is "order" but this order is not the natural tendency, but simply because we live with a effectively limitless supply of energy from the sun. But, higher levels of organization such as society and high-tech, for instance, required something more, oil. But, what IS possible is that we can still influence the system positively within our realm of control. But, a smooth transition is more likely than not, a pipe dream, I am afraid. There will be bumps in the road, so we should accept that, but meanwhile also accept having a fulfilling, yet low energy future. It is, therefore abundantly subjective, what "fulfillment" means to you. If that means high-tech, you might be out of luck, but if you are happy with good food, good family and friends you will discover that fulfillment is all around you, you just need to look for it. For this reason, I really like the "Transition Culture" idea... a very positive message and sustainable way forward: http://transitionculture.org/


The Climate is Changing in Spain
Here, in Catalonia, Spain we are going through a severe drought, the worst in 6 decades. Basically, there is a water ban on most non-essential water usage... and it is just April... at this rate, August will be critical. Let me explain. Last week I saw the headline in Barcelona's newpaper, El Periodico, which showed the current state of the reservoirs in the Pyrenees. They are at 21%, or just above the critical level. Normally, at this time of the year, they are in the 70% full range. Just about the only thing Franco did right however, was to build scores of dams in the mountains, which double as hydroelectric plants. But, this year they are just about run dry and they are usually what gets us along for the summer... The snow pack and glacier run off, as well as the generally rainy Mediterranean winter, fills the reservoirs, and much of northern Spain relies on this for summer water, through the damn dam system. So, of course, we have this water ban... there's no point in complaining. This is an urgent situation. If we don't conserve now, it will be much worse in August when it is in the high 30's. Among other things, we cannot water gardens or green zones, public or private, fill swimming pools (6000€ fine!), wash your cars, even run certain types of air conditioners. Now, the second problem of course is that these reservoirs are running those hydroelectric plants. So, the energy grid is being forced to take up the slack by using, more coal burning plants, which of course, in the long run, exacerbates the problem by contributing to heating up the atmosphere, further inducing droughts and so on. However, other parts of Spain are doing fine, and so this is evidence of the type of things that climate change induces, not just general warming, but the related affects and how the planet (indeed, those very same wonderful laws of physics) respond to warmer temperatures. So, Catalonia has resorted to shipping in water. Yes, you read right. See here: http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=478946&lng=1 This is the epitome of unsustainable and the Catalan government (The Generalitat) knows this, so there is a plan in place to build a desalinization plant. Just hope it's not run on a coal fired electricity plant.

More evidence of the changing climate is that the glaciers in the Pyrenees are just about gone... maybe one or two more years. I saw a picture from 1980 and one from 2004 and it is absolutely shocking, when you realize that this glacier had been there for 10,000 years. Kind of brings tears to your eyes, except that you want to save them in a jar in case you get thirsty. The bears couldn't even hibernate this year in some parts of the Pyrenees, it was so mild... So, their social and reproduction patterns are out of whack.

The Universe is so complex and we have evolved only to be able to perceive it with OUR senses... basically, medium sized objects moving at medium sized speeds. There is so much happening at so many levels, all around us, but many of us seem to assert this so called "god-given right" to dominate the world around us, and our recent discovery of oil has led us to believe that we can do just about anything (ie. go to the moon, etc..., just think what an ego boost that must have been!) A famous physicist, Richard Fenyman, once commented that "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't understand quantum mechanics". Quantum mechanics is brilliant mathematically, but we simply didn't evolve to comprehend it, conceptually. Perhaps, mathematics is even the "mind of god", to overuse a metaphor. It's like, well, ok, we think of an electron as a point particle, but in fact, it's not, its more like a statistical probability... a probability cloud of sorts... because if it is a point particle, elementary in nature, then it has no size, yet... it has a measurable mass... what's more, recently there has been some talk about when the new CERN particle accelerator gets going later this year, there is the possibility of observing the Higgs Boson, which is, as of now, a theoretical particle that if it exists, would give the mechanism by which particles acquire mass. This would be revolutionary in physics! Here is a great definition of the Higgs Boson: http://www.phy.uct.ac.za/courses/phy400w/particle/higgs2.htm
So, what would the existence or not of the Higgs Boson do for us? It may lead to future technological or philosophical discoveries, but more importantly, I think, it would for certain test the limits of what we know or, for that matter, CAN know.

So, the truth is all around us and we have proven that we are a "super-species", we have done some change for bad, but we can choose to also make a change for the good. Much has been said about how "fighting climate change is an industrial challenge" or "it will hurt the economy", well, let me stress, that conserving is always cheaper than spending. We many times underestimate the power of conservation. So, conserving is necessarily good for the economy. And, those areas that will be negatively affected by the changes necessary to move forward will be offset by those that are needed to move us forward to begin with. Building windmills and insulating houses creates jobs. CO2 gas sequestration creates jobs. Finding better, sustainable ways to feed the planet creates jobs. There is no single answer, there is every and all answers. We just have to do the job.

Peace,
Grant
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Grant Buffett did a BSc in Earth Science at Memorial University and then spent 6 years in both private and public sectors working as an exploration geophysicist in Canada where he researched the application of reflection seismology to finding oil and gas, base metal and diamond deposits in various geological settings. Currently he is finishing a PhD in Earth Science at the University of Barcelona in Spain where he studies the application of reflection seismology to image oceanic thermo-haline fine structure. which he hopes will tell us something about how the ocean transports heat and therefore, its consequential effect on climate.

Grant is interested in promoting human rights and moral issues such as climate change, alongside environmental and economic sustainability, in the face of the pending global energy challenge. He lives with his wife near Barcelona. In his spare time he plays acoustic guitar and works in the garden.