On weekends we often take the light rail to the Mall of America. It’s become an indoor town square for the community, especially in the winter or during the hot days of the summer. We can take long walks or sit and people watch and they have a lot of activities and events for the community.

Hopefully there won’t be so many quarantines this winter. Our home energy use was pretty high last winter because we couldn’t get out very much due to the epidemic alerts. Don’t get me wrong, the Internet’s great for keeping in touch with people all around the world but I like seeing people face to face too. I guess maybe I’m not so much the introvert that I claim to be.

In the winter we’ve been saving energy by turning the thermostat down in our house. We keep it at about 58°F all day long. In the living room we have a gas insert in our fireplace which we use to warm the living room in the evenings. We have electric space heaters in other rooms. We use those heaters to bring the rooms to a more comfortable temperature when we occupy them.

We’ve been doing this for a couple of winters now and find that we can save quite a bit of energy. It really isn’t that much different than in the summer when we occasionally use window air conditioners to keep us cool in certain areas of the house. We do however have to watch our moisture generation in the house. At the lower temperatures, there is a greater chance of moisture condensation on the walls and windows. We want to minimize the chance of mold growth, especially with the ReDS threat.

We have noticed that as a family we use our house differently in the winter. We spend more time together in the living room and the home communication theater. This gives us more time to interact than we normally do in the summer when often everyone goes off on their separate ways. I can look forward to the winter knowing that we will be spending time together as a family.

EmergentNRG

From simple actions emerge energy efficient households and communities

Who We Need
People who have common sense, imagination, and communication skills. Engineers, social psychologists, systems thinkers, left AND right brain thinkers.

How to join
An amoeba, by following simple rules, can create a community of cells that self-organize into a slime mold to survive certain environmental conditions. What behaviors or actions can we take as individuals that can self-organize households, neighborhoods, communities into more energy-efficient, zero-energy, or even energy generating organizations. Mission: can you propose or describe actions and behaviors that have or could lead to this?

Mission
Develop actions and behaviors that individuals can take which will lead to households and communities to self-organize into zero-energy or energy generating structures. Generate simple rules that we can follow that will promote and foster these actions and behaviors.

What we can accomplish
Generate and share ideas, actions, and behaviors that individuals can adopt which will reduce our energy needs and hopefully lead to a net energy generation for households and communities. We can look at our lifestyles and our connections with others to promote the emergence of energy efficient network.

How this superstruct works
Create and post articles, videos, podcasts, etc of of actions and behaviors that you do or have tried. We can host discussions here and serve as a repository linking to everyone\’s ideas. Let\’s generate ideas and see what emerges.

Superthreat Number 3: Power Struggle

Welcome to the Global Extinction Awareness System.

You are watching Superthreat Number 3: Power Struggle.

In 2019 we’re all caught up in the “alternative fuel wars” as the world fights over what will take the place of oil.

Hardest hit: Oil-exporting nations, coal plants, autoworkers, consumers everywhere

GEAS Volunteers report from the frontlines of the Power Struggle superthreat.

GEAS volunteer CooperB is commemorating the third anniversary of the defeat of the Madrid Renewable Energy Accord, which would have set international standards for alternative energy technologies. It was three years ago today that the leading BioPEC nations of China, Russia, and Brazil faced off against the wind and solar powers in the U.S. and the EU to throw the world into an energy stalemate. CooperB writes: “We could have chosen to work together. Instead, we’ve got competing industries building technologies, products and infrastructures that just don’t work together. And today we’re paying the price.”

How can our competing industries and nations work together to break the grip of energy chaos?

GEAS Volunteer Carla Acosta updates us on the looting in Caracas. Several thousand youth have been wreaking havoc in the streets of the Venezuelan capital all week, after they were turned out of the government’s oil-revenue-funded “safe harbor” schools. The school closings represent an abrupt discontinuation of a major social experiment in poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, child poverty continues to climb in the disrupted oil economies of Ecuador, Nigeria, and Iran. Carla says: “We know we can’t count on oil wealth to feed our poor and fund our schools anymore. So what’s next for the children in countries like ours?”

How can we create safe harbor for children around the world without depending on oil revenues?

GEAS volunteer JSchiffer reports from Lusaka: This month, the millionth ethanol automobile will roll off the Zambian assembly line. Meanwhile, China, which invested in the Zambian plants, has just rejected Daimler-Tesla’s bid to build agile manufacturing plants for electric vehicles across China. The joint plan could have reduced automobile fuel emissions worldwide by 10% over the next 10 years, but would have weakened the ethanol industry and China’s interests in Africa. JSchiffer says: “The Zambians chose short-term gain at the expense of more global waste. Shouldn’t they—and the Chinese—have to do something to offset those emissions?”

How can we act together to hold nations accountable for their waste?

GEAS volunteer britneychu reports from the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana, where three people died in this morning’s violence at a makeshift camp for migrant wind farm workers. These migrants, many from the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, and Texas, sought their fortunes in a region known as the Saudi Arabia of Wind Power. But angry locals say that the green windpower jobs belong to them. Britneychu blogs: “From where we stand, the energy economy isn’t keeping its promise. We need more green jobs, and we need them now.”

How can we create a stronger green energy economy and reduce unemployment from our fading carbon energy industries?

GEAS volunteer Linjr reports from Singapore that the docks at Pasir Panjang are eerily quiet today. Shipping giant Han Sook Logistics unexpectedly shut down its engines just hours ago, another victim of WalMart’s price war with local fabbing services. As a result, billions of dollars’ worth of oil—as well as electronic energy monitors, hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels, and other high-tech energy products—stand effectively embargoed on Singapore’s docks. Linjr writes: “This is a country where the entire economy depends on shipping. Workers of every stripe will now struggle to put food on their tables.”

How can workers worldwide protect themselves against the cascading collapse of industry giants?

Here’s a word cloud of the transcript:

Fantong

This threat has five Superstruct challenges:

I hope the GEAS doesn’t fall into the same trap as the Madrid Accords. We can’t keep concentrating on supply when demand is the driving force. Of course it is imperative to continue our development of renewable energy but we also need to look at our consumption. We need to change our behavior. There is still so much to do with upgrading our existing infrastructure. Unfortunately, efficiency is just not as sexy as wind generators, PV panels, and fuel cells. But we’ve got to reduce demand and energy efficiency and conservation need to be a priority. If it isn’t a big part of the effort, I’m afraid that we will be tilting at windmills.

Minneapolis, MN

Dinner was good tonight. I cooked chicken for everyone. That was
a treat and it sure was fun to cook with meat for a change. Boy, do I
miss that. It just isn’t as much fun cooking vegetarian but what can
you do? Fortunately tofu is easy to get but what I would give for a
big bowl of rice. For food, there are a lot of advantages living in
Minnesota but there sure aren’t a lot of rice patties up here. My
Chinese food sensibilities just don’t synch well with the local food
stuffs we have here. I shouldn’t complain, we have enough food and
plenty of water.

I’m still debating with my wife about whether one of us should cut
back on work to stay with the kids. Our oldest daughter should be
starting high school and our second daughter should be starting middle
school but with all the school closings for epidemics, they haven’t been in school
now for two months and are already two grades behind. At least we
have the Internet for them to take some classes. I guess I’m old
fashioned but I’d like to stay home to teach them.

It was a beautiful Fall day today. Hurricane season down south is as
crazy as usual and it’s nice to see the sun for once. We’ve had a lot
of rain lately. Winter though is just around the corner and I think
we’ll take in five people this time. With my sister living with us
now, I think we can manage with ten, maybe twelve, in the house this
winter. The streets do seem emptier than last year. I guess people
are moving sooner to warmer climes this year. Hopefully though, we
won’t get the snows so early this year.

I better stop. It’s getting dark and it’s time to shut off the power.

Fantong