Fovea Centralis: 9 Mar 2022
Only a small part of our vision is sharp
“The fovea is responsible for sharp central vision, which is necessary in humans for activities for which visual detail is of primary importance, such as reading and driving.”
Having finally (almost) brought the new iMac back to pre-meltdown status, I find myself scattered and unfocused. Hence, the title for similar future posts in which, while still widely distracted by shiny things, I try to reach a place of clearer vision by holding my mind's eye on a limited number of topics, saying just a bit about each. Time may come to drill down into one or more of such related topics and others in future conversations here. @ff
📕 Bright Green Lies Torpedoes Greens
You might know of my long history as Earth-watcher, going back at least to the first Earth Day. I might be rightly branded as an "environmentally-oriented" teacher, writer, or home owner.
But the authors of this article expose some of my persistent angst about our deluded expectations and false hopes that "alternative energy" sources should sustain the business-as-usual future of human civilization.
"Bright Green Lies debunks the notion that modern civilization can be ‘greened. It obliges readers to face two vexing truths: industrialism is unsustainable and ecocidal—even if it embraces “renewable” energy.”
The authors' claims "tear apart statements and theses by the likes of Naomi Klein and Bill McKibben of how solar will heal the planet with the miracle of Germany as evidence to the world that the planet is so worth saving, just go green!"
So: going all-alternative into the Anthropocene so that we can continue the planet-consuming growth economy is not an environmentalism I can get excited about. Read the piece for some reasons why.
📕 The Woody Biomass Blunder
This topic has been on my front burner at least since 2014 when several hundred acres of adjacent woodlands were "deforested" near our home in Floyd County, Virginia.
When I saw tandem-trucks of arm-sized "trees" going out of our valley, I came to realize those saplings and roots were destined to become pellets as part of the "climate neutral green energy" push in Japan and western Europe. This is not okay. And now more and more earth-watchers are saying so.
And this is a verse in the song of the bright green lies already in focus.
"World governments and big money forestry interests embrace it, love it, and subsidize it for big-big dollars, similar to fossil fuel subsidies but now it’s subsidizing the cutting down of nature’s biggest carbon sinks rather than oil that emits the carbon the trees store for free. Does this seem backward?"
"...Here’s the secret to woody biomass success stories: The IPCC does not count biomass emissions the way it counts coal emissions. In fact, shockingly, they don’t count them at all!"
📕 Wood-burning Stoves Raise New Health Concerns
We have a 32 panel solar array that we added here, making more then $2k of sun energy in 15 months, sparing the enegy-equivalent amount of mountaintop coal or fracked un-natural gas. We also have a wood furnace, and cut down-and-dead wood from our own place. in light of the issues with both solar and wood as long-term fuel sources, how should we measure our impact on current and future health and wellness? Wood has its downsides.
I am not ignorant or indifferent to the health impact of fine particulates created from burning anything, and those particles being released into the "commons." I made this point here a while back: Every Breath You Take
But this article makes some good points, and others I would question:
The chief concern is "particles 2.5 microns or smaller across, tiny enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs and even penetrate the brain. But woodsmoke also contains carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, carcinogenic compounds like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.
"Though reducing emissions in the short term can be beneficial, a longer-term solution would phase out wood stoves altogether...some agencies are no longer pushing for new wood stoves, and instead funding a transition to alternate heat sources.
Our HeatMaster (2021) G4000 is EPA certified at just short of 90% efficient. It is not 100% efficient. No energy source is. If instead of solar and local-cut wood energy we relied on West Virginia Coal or Marcellus shale-derived propane, what’s the math look like?
I wonder, if all the cumulative emissions could be accounted for in the manufacture of the required machinery, the drilling and blasting, piping and trucking and ultimate emissions of PM2.5 sources, how would they compare particulate-wise, to our wood energy home economics?
Okay. I replace my wood furnace with an (assumed less polluting) alternate heat source, but then I take a job where I drive five hundred commuter miles a week in a gasoline-powered car instead of working from home, I will have not necessarily made the world an entirely better breathable place. Home economics is just complicated.
Cutting forests for biofuels always seemed a bad idea to me.