Kids, Kayaks, and The Kern

Life sometimes throws you clues - as in, what I should be doing. I've spent the last few months obsessing over energy, stressing because I don't know what to do about it, questioning my "faith" (e.g. does it matter? what are ethics anyway?), and becoming convinced that while coming to Berkeley was a great choice, I am probably studying the wrong subject.

And then, the semester ended, just like that, and I found myself with time (sort of), no money, and a job offer to hang out with 8th graders learning to kayak on the Kern River. Over the course of a week, I fell in love with 21 8th graders, their teachers, kayaking (again), and living out of my car (again). Why am I not teaching already?

Two weeks ago I sought advice from a professor regarding what I should do... and although the conversation ended before it was finished, I was left with a question to ponder. What would I do if I could do exactly what I wanted? Before coming to Berkeley, I didn't know. Now, I do know. I want to spend 25% of my time working in sustainibility/energy, 25% of my time teaching (high school?), 25% outdoors stuff for others (management, leading trips), and 25% outdoors stuff for me. Serendipitously, I was rejected for the lucrative SMART fellowship last week as well, freeing me from the comfort of stability on the path that I'm on. Should I drop out now? In a year? Continue on this path, get the degree, and then teach?

Perhaps I am just suffering from a broken heart and I will feel better tomorrow. I don't know how teachers cope with it.

The "Enron" of Agribusiness?

Lately, I've been learning about AgriBusiness in the US. Ignorance sure was bliss. I can across a little history of Archer Daniels Midland. If this is indeed true, then ADM is in fact the "Enron of Agribusiness" *, and the biofuels problem is even worse than I thought. I'll be looking into this shortly, although I'm more interested in science than business or politics. Problem is, scientists aren't making the important decisions, so it behooves me to pay attention to politics, economics, and business.

* Nicholas Hollis coined that term

My First Protest

I attended the protest against the BP-Berkeley-Biofuel deal today, and discovered something significant: I don’t like protests. All that crowd-whipping rhetoric and silly stunts – ugh – I guess I prefer intellectual discourse. This is going to sound strange, opposed to the deal as I am, but the protest was just standard silly Berkeley stuff – alarmist with no factual support, meant to rile up the simple-minded, but utterly unconvincing - in fact, if anything, convincing that these protestors were just a bunch of paranoid fools. And often off-topic – I can deal with (but don’t like) the “corporate America is evil” stuff, and “this is a public institution” chatter, even the discussions about BP’s social/environmental transgressions (which are basically irrelevant), but why were we talking about nuclear energy? Seriously! Off-topic, people! And it weakens the message, which is actually quite strong. *Sigh* Why don’t we have a debate on campus? I nominate Tad Patzek.

And I didn’t even get arrested – although one student did… they pulled a cute little stunt of creating a faux oil spill on the entrance to California Hall, dressed in white lab coats with BP on the back, which resulted in at least one arrest. I actually got there too late to witness it… but there were 10-12 cops (2 with cameras, which sparked some amusing yelling from aged hippies that would make the ACLU proud) among the 100 or so attendees. Mostly, the cops looked bored.

I attended the protest against the $500 million BP-Berkeley Biofuels research deal on a couple of principles: 1) Biofuels simply don’t have the potential to replace our energy needs and isn’t really “green” (e.g. more carbon, ecological disasters in places like Indonesia, and rising prices of food, like corn in Mexico) and 2) The terms of the deal with BP – that students should report to a BP “mentor”, that intellectual property will not be protected, instead sold, and that research suggesting biofuels could be “bad” will likely be suppressed. This deal creates a bad precedent of socially irresponsible research, is a threat to academic integrity, and worse, masquerades as “green”! Now, I’m not against corporate support of academia (like many of the protestors), but I am against promoting a research agenda to support corporate goals. Do we really want BP to use the starving University of California as a low-budget corporate research lab? Hell no! Despite my criticisms of the movement, I therefore still support it. I better start practicing my “GO AWAY BP” chants!

Read this article in "Nature".

Harlow Got Me Going (again)

Harlow always forwards me all of this crap... having joined the email revolution later than most of us, he's still enamored with forwards! Most of it I delete, but sometimes I laugh, often I debunk the urban legend, occasionally I'm touched by military tributes or offended by the sheer stupidity and small-mindedness of propaganda, but every once in a while, there is a real gem, and this is one of them. Here's some Food for Thought, points also noted in Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" (but condensed mightily from TWIF, thank goodness).

But I do dispute one thing in the presentation:

"We are living in Exponential Times"

We are not living in exponential times. You see, there are several way of modeling the growth that is occurring in our society, many of which look quite similar at or near the peaks of the growth rate, "Exponential" is merely the simplest one. But it cannot be the correct one because it would mean that the end result is infinity, which is physically impossible.

Remember, we are still human beings, and we require food, water, air, and shelter to survive. These things are finite. At some point the finiteness of these things will cause great suffering in humanity, and likely be the cause of the next world war, which in the nuclear age, could be much, much worse than the previous two.

Sigh... enough of a sermon for one day. The Food For Thought is not alarmist like me (merely entertaining), so check it out even if you disagree with my comments.

Berkeley-BP Deal

Should Berkeley accept $5o0 million from BP to research Biofuels? That depends on a couple of things, in my mind - are biofuels a good idea? I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest no, at least on the scale touted by many politicians and businesspeople as a pancea to solve the impeding oil crisis. On a small scale, with appropriate environmental considerations, the answer might be yes. And why is BP interested? Not to be "green" (yes to appear green). Because biofuels, especially with government subsidies, stand to be money makers. I'm not against an oil (and I should say solar) company like BP taking the lead on new technologies, but I want to make sure that these technologies are appropriate for solving the problem, and are truely green. Biofuels are failing...

Interestingly enough, some students at Berkeley have noticed, and are opposed to it! This is incredibly good news. Most Berkeleyans think the BP-Biofuels thing is good, e.g. green. I hope this opposition by students will spark much-needed debate on this subject. Check it out here: Stop BP-Berkeley

Let's get the attention of Chancellor Birgeneau.

new sport for me?

I wish I were brave enough to try this.

Photo Blog?

I'm learning how to upload pictures. Here is one of me in the Trinity River, July 06. I was upside down about 3ms later... and I went thru this rapid, called Hellhole, 4 times in 2 days, upside down every time!