[ValueSystem]

I need some really fast help, ASAP. Tomorrow, the National Education Association, the largest professional organization in the USA with 2.7 million members, will consider endorsing the "25x'25" campaign.

http://www.25x25.org/25x25-Resolution_text.pdf

This is the current motion that will be considered, "NEA endorses the '25x25" campaign's call that 25% of the nation's energy supply must come from clean, sustainable, and secure domestic renewable energy technologies -- such as wind, solar, biomass, and biofuels, geothermal, hydropower, renewable hydrogen and wave power by the year 2025."

After reviewing the web site of http://www.25x25.org, I think the motion needs some work...

http://unfoundation.org/features/25x25.asp

1. Renewable hydrogen is a storage mechanism, not a energy source.
2. This would encourage massive subsities to corporate agribusiness, oil companies going into renewables, and auto companies.

What insight can you all give me on this... And quickly, so I can speak well about it?

Thank you!!!

[PolestaR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ValueSystem', 'I') need some really fast help, ASAP. Tomorrow, the National Education Association, the largest professional organization in the USA with 2.7 million members, will consider endorsing the "25x'25" campaign. --snip-- What insight can you all give me on this... And quickly, so I can speak well about it?

[fafhrd]

This plan seems pretty reasonable. The fine print though, is that by 2025 our population and energy resources will be some small fraction of the current numbers. As time goes on, that 25% goal becomes easier and easier to meet.

[ValueSystem]

Okay, this is my best response. I've got to go to sleep now, I'm exhauted. If you west coasters can weigh in, I'll try to improve it in the morning before going to the meeting...

...

The goal of the 25x25 campaign is to get the US Congress to set a goal of providing at least 25% of the energy in the USA from renewable sources by the year 2025. It is a campaign created by the United Nations Foundation.

This is an excellent goal for our great nation. We need to develop the nation’s renewable and sustainable energy resources. Our dependence on the non-renewable fuels has numerous serious consequences. I’ll mention just three:

1. The price of oil has tripled in three years. We are now sending billions of dollars out of our economy. Every dollar we send overseas is another dollar that an American worker can not earn. Our nation is bleeding, and the color is green.
2. We American’s, with five percent of the world population, consume twenty-five percent of the world’s oil. Indeed, we are the greatest consuming people in all of history. Our consumption is changing the very climate of our planet. Global warming is real, and we are causing it. Tennessee’s environmental superstar, Al Gore, in his new film “The Inconvenient Truth” exposes this harsh reality. We are ruining our atmosphere, and leaving our children and grandchildren to suffer with the results.
3. We consume fossil fuels like they’ll always be there, even though we know that they won’t. We are now burning oil five times faster than we are finding it. We are very near Peak Oil. According to a government study titled, “PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION”, we need twenty year head start to avoid severe global consequences. Energy banker Matt Simmons of Texas, author of the book “Twilight in the Desert”, recently warned that peak oil could drive the price of oil from $70 to $500 per barrel. Our best economists tell us that impact of such an oil price shock could cause the collapse of industrialized civilization. We are headed for a cliff, with our cruise control on, and we’re asleep at the wheel.

It all starts with us. We need to reduce our consumption of energy. We need to wean ourselves from our addiction to oil. We need to support the development of renewable and sustainable energy resources.

...

Normally, a person only has 2-minutes at the mike. So I'll probably have to pick and choose.

[ValueSystem]

I agree... It's a conundrum for me as how to best speak to this issue.

Would agrueing that re-localization is our only chance make any more sense to the 10,000 delegates? Would pointing out that this is a project that would be more intense than the mobilization of World War II? Would I say that there simply is not enough energy, raw materials, and time to save industrial civilization? Should I point out that the dominant value system is unsustainable and will have to radically change?

I don't disagree with the situation we're in, I'm just not clear on a better way to address the assembly on this.

I have about 6 hours before this motion rises in the assembly. I greatly welcome and invite your additional thoughts on what to say.

[Doly]

This is the way I would approach the issue, if I had 2 minutes to speak:

30 seconds to say: 25% of renewable energy by 2025 is a good aspiration, and in fact, I would endorse even more.

30 seconds to say: But this resolution leaves a very important question unanswered: 25% of what? How much energy will America be using by 2025? That is the key question. If we continue our energy-hungry lifestyle, the remaining 75% may be as much energy as we are using right now.

1 minute to say: We could ask an even more important, and more inconvenient question: how much energy will be available in 2025? Oil is peaking, etc.

Expand as you see fit.

[grabby]

Mankind is illogical.

if you start moving to 25% renewables you are wasting resources that could make far more effeect by conservation.
you will never be able to hit 10% for renewables

THIS IS FIVE TIMES MORE THAN ALL OUR RENEWABLES PUT TOGETER OVER THE LAST CENTRUY

in other words, all those dollars will be wasted in USING UP MORE OIL when it wont do us any good and peak will actually come faster.

Course I dont expect sense from teachers, they are illogical and run on feelings not fact.
YA GOTTA DO SOMETHING?

well why not burn money?
that oughta help.

[grabby]

dude, just turning the speed limit to 55 will save more energy than all our exitant renewables.

The govmtn should immediately build train and rails and block off lanes 3 and 4 of each highway.

[grabby]

You could stand up and be ready with posters that say

NOT ALIVE IN 25 !
PEAK OIL IS NOW!

and
ETHANOL
IS NEGATIVE!

Peak oil is NOW and we won't even have a country by 25

It could be fun being activist, it would give you something to do..
But no matter what you do, it wont work.

If you want to rise up in your status, and you can sleep with yourself, you could be a front runner in this 25 movement and dazzle them with numbers, you see how it is done in the news and you could be expert, move up in ranks and fit right in.

Then you will be accepted and heroed.

but it wont change anything it will actually speed up peak oil because to even BEGIN to produce alternates will take a HUGE ENERGY BURN to get up to speed, and peak oil will come that much sooner.

Teachers: Ya can't live with 'em and ya can't live without em.

there is now way life as today will even exist in 1915
Key passa?
We have a severe oil shortage NOW that cannot be overcome and prices will clime each year 1-2 dollars we will never get to 10 dollars a gallon.

they are basically liberals who have to do something, and that something is BURN MONEY

But at least some will look for PEAK OIL on the internet and mthey may see this site.

Or you can just relax and not do anything it will have the same effect,

you can kick back and realize that our world is controlled by the ignorant.


Basically it doesnt really matter what they do at all it wont work.

[gnm]

Reminds me of the sort of neo-greeny feel good crap I see around now... Like ooo ooo lets sign up for "green" wind power from our local utility which actually produces 90% of its power from coal and 9% from natural gas. God forbid they try to CONSERVE.

-G

[azreal60]

Sorry I didn't respond earlier, but I didn't think I qualified as an expert.

I guess I would agree that while this is a laudable goal, you have to quantify it correctly. If your saying it's for the environment, fine. But if you really wanted to have the NEA do something worthwhile with a press release, Doly's statement would probably be a better place to start.

But after re reading and checking out what your actually doing, how about something like this.


We as an organization wish to leave something for our children. Resources, the ability to exist in way that might be better than ours was. This is the dream each generation has, that their children might be better off. It's the primary reason our organization exists, to better the lives of children.

Yet right now we exist in an era when there is a good chance that won't happen. There is indeed a great chance our childrens lives will be Worse than ours. This situation might be able to be fixed as of yet, but right now it's definately on that path.

The reasons are too many to list, but to focus, two things that need addressing. The proposal today addresses one of them, global warming. That's a decent idea. But I would argue if we are going to address one, we have to address the other. That's the problem that our society is unsustainable. Even if global warming is averted, our way of life is not something that can last for much longer, because it requires us using resources we won't have for much longer.

We, folks, are the National education association. I would argue that endorsing the 25by 25 proposal is a good task, but getting our nation to a sustainable future is OUR TASK. It is in our children, in how they are educated that we can change this future.

It always has been and always will be about the children. So when we talk about their future, let's not ignore Our great task, that of seeing their education prepares them for a future that can actually be sustained.




Sorry, that's the best I can do. My daughter needs to be fed, so can't edit that any. Feel free to use any of that you want.

[denverdave]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('grabby', 'd')ude, just turning the speed limit to 55 will save more energy than all our exitant renewables.

The govmtn should immediately build train and rails and block off lanes 3 and 4 of each highway.

[grabby]

HERE IS YOUR ANSWER


DOWNLOAD THIS FILE
PRINT IT OUT IN COLOR ON TRANSPARECNCIES AND SHOW THEM TO THE PEOPLE IN 15 MINUTES

THIS WILL SHOW THEM HOW ALTERNATES WILL BE USELESS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

CLICK HERE
click here for an expert talk about alternates

GO TO PAGE 44, THAT IS WHERE WE ARE AT IN OUR INDUSTRIAL CYCLE.

[Petrodollar]

Just an fyi, but the 3rd largest economy in the world, Germany, has adopted formal energy policy and plans (with lots of subsidies) to achieve 25% of total electrical power with 25% renewable energy. It's their "25 by 2025" plan. In fact, their stated goal by 2050 is quite aggressive and commendable:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/germe.html

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Renewable Energy
In recent years, the German government has been strongly promoting the use of renewable energy sources. Germany's Renewable Energy Act sets a goal of doubling renewable energy use by 2010. The long-term goal of the German Ministry for the Environment (BMU) is even more ambitious: renewable energy sources to account for 50% of Germany’s primary energy sources by 2050

[grabby]

gERMANY USES 2.7 MILLION BARRELS A DAY.
WE USE 22 MILLION BARRELS A DAY.

TO GO TO 25% WE WOULD HAVE TO PRODUCE THE ENTIRE OUT PUT OF 3 GERMANIES in oil production.

germany would only have to produce 750,000 barrels a day. to hit 25 percent and 1.5 million barrels a day to hit 50%

but if you notice, they are not even attempting to replace oil

they are replacing electricity with 50% renewable. that is a lot less.

For the US renewables is not even an option it will actually do little.

we have to cut back our use 50% today then we could produce ten percent of our needs.

think about that for a long minute.

[ValueSystem]

Thank you all for the fantastic responses.

The business item just came up and was approved. I had planned on saying the piece I wrote above. Unfortunately, I didn't talk because as we are so near the end of the meeting, and as we only had people lined up to speak in favor of it, we moved straight to voting after the motion was made by a fellow from Virginia.

I did have the opportunity to say it in front of the 300 Michigan delegates earlier this morning, so at least that group got a 3rd or 4th or maybe 5th impression on peak oil.

Again, thank you very, very much for all your input. I look forward to more carefully reading your responses once the meeting is over and I have a good opportunity.

Thank you!

[ValueSystem]

Thank you again for the ideas. I wish I could have connected with a few like minded delegates that would have helped educate the assembly on peak oil.

When thinking about peak oil, I generally think a lot about our public education system and how it needs to begin seriously addressing this as quickly as possible. Teachers nationwide, if on one message that they had internalized, have the ability to really get the conversation running.

Teach the kids the realities of the future. Telling them that they are going to be able to visit Mars someday is just like telling them that they are all going to have the powers of Superman. At the moment, this is exactly the vision for the future that the education establishment has... as a reflection of the entire culture.

I think the education establishment should be leading this awareness... at least that seems to make sense to me. What is the most effective way to help the system change its paradigm/mindset/beliefs about the future?

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ValueSystem', '
')I think the education establishment should be leading this awareness... at least that seems to make sense to me. What is the most effective way to help the system change its paradigm/mindset/beliefs about the future?