Ponderables

quotes worth talking about


Heaven on Earth is a choice we can make, not a place we can find.
– Wayne Dyer


The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.
– Socrates


Sharing knowledge is the greatest of all callings. There’s nothing like it in the land.
Satire on the Trades, Nineteenth Dynasty (circa 1200 BCE), Egypt, Click Here to view an English translation of the text


Every act is a choice, and the future is in our hands.
– Charles Hugh Smith


Energy Efficiency is the low-hanging fruit, it has not scratched the surface, is by far the best approach because it provides the quickest and biggest “bang for the buck”,
AND it is invisible,
AND it does not make noise,
AND it does not destroy pristine ridge lines/upset mountain water runoffs,
AND it would reduce CO2, NOx, SOx and particulates more effectively than renewables,
AND it would not require expensive, highly visible build-outs of transmission systems,
AND it would slow electric rate increases,
AND it would slow fuel cost increases,
AND it would slow depletion of fuel resources,
AND it would create 3 times the jobs and reduce 3-5 times the BTUs and CO2 per invested dollar than renewables,
AND all the technologies are fully developed,
AND it would end the subsidizing of renewables tax-shelters benefitting mostly the top 1% at the expense of the other 99%,
AND it would be more democratic/equitable,
AND it would do all this without public resistance and controversy.

– Willem Post: Energy Efficiency First, Renewables Later


Art and science are creative disciplines which must walk together hand in hand.
– Leonardo Da Vinci


It would be some consolation for the feebleness of our selves and our works if all things should perish as slowly as they come into being; but as it is, increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid.
– Lucius Anneaus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, n. 91


When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.
— George Washington Carver


It would arguably have been better for us all if, when Edwin Drake and his men went to drill the first commercial oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania back in 1859, they had found an ominous standing stone there carved with glowing runes:

THE BLACK GOLD IS THE BLOOD OF THE EARTH
THE FORCE IN THE BLOOD IS THE FLAME OF THE SUN
TO DRINK OF THE BLOOD IS TO MASTER THE WORLD
BUT THE FATE OF THE EARTH AND ITS BLOOD ARE ONE

– From the Archdruid’s blog January, 2012

The level of alienation in developed industrial societies, in Europe, North America and elsewhere, is quite staggering. People are only able to form lasting friendships in school, and are unable to become close with people thereafter with the possible exception of romantic involvements, which are often fleeting.

By a certain age people become set in their ways, develop manners specific to their class, and their interactions with others become scripted and limited to socially sanctioned, commercial modes. A far-reaching, fundamental transition, such as the one we are discussing, is impossible without the ability to improvise, to be flexible—in effect, to be able to abandon who you have been and to change who you are in favor of what the moment demands.

Paradoxically, it is usually the young and the old, who have nothing to lose, who do the best, and it is the successful, productive people between 30 and 60 who do the worst. It takes a certain detachment from all that is abstract and impersonal, and a personal approach to everyone around you, to navigate the new landscape.

– From a commentary on Dmitri Orloff’s blog


There are two ways to build a successful company. One is to work very, very hard to convince customers to pay high margins. The other is to work very, very hard to be able to offer customers low margins. They both work. We’re firmly in the second camp. It’s difficult—you have to eliminate defects and be very efficient.— pg 215

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year-time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people. But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue…We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

In some cases, things are inevitable. The hard part is that you don’t know how long it might take, but you know it will happen if you’re patient enough…So you can do these things with conviction if you are long-term oriented and patient.- pg 244

– From an interview with Jeff Bezos, Wired, Dec 2011


Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era
by Amory B. Lovins

The old fire was dug from below. The new fire flows from above.

The old fire was scarce. The new fire is bountiful.

The old fire was local. The new fire is permanent.

And except for a little biofuel, biogas, and biomass, all grown in ways that sustain and endure, the new fire is flameless—providing all the convenient and dependable services of the old fire but with no combustion…

Efficiently used, the new fire can do our work without working our undoing.


Oak: The Frame of Civilization
– by William Bryant Logan

Memory, reason and skill are God’s three gifts to human beings, and the simultaneous activity of the three might just be a requirement to become and remain a human being.

Craft is a school of patience. Patience is what you acquire by working again and again on resistant materials. There is never a right or wrong, only a closer and closer approach to wholly useful. – pg 181

Notes From Windward – Index – Vol. 72