When I am not sitting on my porch drinking tea and marveling at my electricity meter as it roars backwards on a sunny day as I generate energy from my solar panels, I’m working at a methadone clinic. For almost the last two years, I have been the Intake Supervisor for my clinic, so I see every prospective client who walks in the door seeking help for their opiate addiction. Most clients are addicted to Heroin in our area, so I will talk about that (and yes, I will link this to oil).

At my clinic, the census has steadily gone down over the past year. Now, this is odd, as methadone is quite cheap, costing $50 a week. (It’s effective too, for those readers who are skeptics). It is generally much cheaper than heroin, which up until recently cost about $8-$10 a bag. If a person is using 3 bags of heroin a day, you can do the math and see what I mean. So why then is our census going down?

Well, there are two trends that seem to be impacting our census. First is that there has been a significant spike in IV drug use. This is because it is cheaper to use heroin IV than to sniff it. Secondly, the dealers have discounted their heroin significantly, selling 10 bags for $50. So, in these difficult economic times, both the drug users and the dealers have adjusted.

As we know, America is addicted to oil. It appeared, over the summer, that we were running out of oil. Prices for gas went to $4 a gallon. Talks about “Peak Oil” were everywhere (including on my porch). However, oil is now $100 less per barrel than just a few months ago. Is it a coincidence that oil has dropped in price so drastically? America is the oil dealers’ best client and the oil dealers want to keep it that way. They saw the rapid adaptations Americans chose when gas was $4 a gallon, and they didn’t like what they saw. So, like the drug dealers on the street, they adjusted to keep their best customer.

Here is where the government needs to step in, because over the years, efforts at energy efficiency have always been stop-and-start, due to rigged market pricing over the years. The dealers lower the prices periodically to knock out clean energy competition. To counter the oil dealers' strategy, we need market incentives NOW to allow for innovation, production, and economies of scale for carbon-free energy production.

First, I recommend bringing back direct subsidies for homeowners and businesses who want to install solar/wind energy. I got 65% of my solar panels paid for up-front and it made the difference. As a social worker, I could not afford solar panels otherwise.

Second, like journalist/author Tom Friedman, I recommend a tax on barrels of oil or gallons of gas in order to keep the prices from falling too low due to market manipulation by the oil drug dealers. This will “price in” some of the costs not currently accounted for with CO2 emitting fossil fuels. It will also allow for steady and aggressive investment and innovation in green energy.

As Tom Friedman says in his most recent book Hot, Flat, and Crowded, “The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.” If we wait until we run out of fossil fuels to make the needed changes, the earth that we are leaving to our kids and grandkids will not be recognizable to us. Top

He did what he wanted to do

Springing blueberries and bananas on his small plot of land with 18 years left on the mortgage at 6.25 percent

He did what he wanted to do

Bought a Vespa to commute to the train

Recycled his plastic

Bought white toilet paper only

Ground up his Christmas tree

And took a birthday without wrapping-paper

He did what he wanted to do

Read stories to his kids at night

Kept the heat below 60

Turned out the lights when he left the room

Made his own beer

Grew his own hemp

Made home-made tomato sauce on Sundays

Loved his wife

Drew his dreams

Wept when gunshots resounded in the reservation and

Bought his coffin at Costco

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    Why do you ask so many questions? Why did you shoot me with your drugged gun? Why did you take me captive? Why did you disrupt the way I act? Why are you surprised that I say this? Has no one asked you this in the place where your caste lives? Are you intelligent? Do you know civilization? Do you know biology and chemistry? Do you know unity? Do you know future? Why did you come here? Has no one said that your manures disrupt the ice? Has no one said that your drugged gun disrupts our work? Has no one said that all the instruments you plant inside the ice disrupt our work? Why are you surprised that I say this? We thought you knew. Liverworts and lichens, little-eared seals and huge elephant seals, midges, hairgrass, pearlwort, snow petrels, nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades all knew.

Rotate your globe 90° to the north. Yes. This plain white dough that is shaped like a decaying rayfish surrounded by the ocean is our place. You call it Antarctica. We call it Sanctuaire. We do not want it to be disrupted. No caste wants their place to be disrupted. We are the fumiers. You call us penguins. We fertilize the Archaea that live deep underground in the great subglacial lakes that we call Planète. You call them Lake Vostok, Lake Untersee and Lake Ellsworth. The ice is melting and the waters of Planète are rising. It is most of Earth's fresh water. Each place on Earth will be disrupted if Planète's waters reach the surface. We thought you knew. Liverworts and lichens, little-eared seals and huge elephant seals, midges, hairgrass, pearlwort, snow petrels, nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades all knew.

You do not mine Sanctuaire for minerals or make colonies. Sanctuaire is hidden on your maps. Sanctuaire's ice has not been very much disturbed since the Archaea arrived 900,000 years ago on chassignite, hakhlite, and shergottite meteors. You call one of them ALH84001. Did your scientists encounter the Archaea in the deep methane waters? Did your cameras record where the Emperors went and why? My caste is Adélie. Our other castes are King, Chinstrap, Gentoo, and the Rockhopper who have eyelashes like you. We all hunt ice-shrimp, floaterfish and squid. We feed our manures to the ice cap and the ice cap feeds Planète. We thought you knew. Liverworts and lichens, little-eared seals and huge elephant seals, midges, hairgrass, pearlwort, snow petrels, nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades all knew.

You call them the Hindu. We call them the Gentoo. They live near human colonies on islands that you call Malvinas. We call them Malouines. The Gentoo see you hunt fish in the sea. They see your mines and your manures disrupt the islands and the sea. Sheep manure spreads on the islands. Will this happen on Sanctuaire? What is your purpose here? You shoot some of us with the drugged gun and attach bands to our feet. You leave manure that disrupts the Archaea. You plant instruments in the ice. The Gentoo see your colonies spread heat. Heat melts the ice and Planète's waters rise. Why are you surprised that I say this? We thought you knew. Liverworts and lichens, little-eared seals and huge elephant seals, midges, hairgrass, pearlwort, snow petrels, nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades all knew.

The Archaea preserve Planète. Planète preserves Sanctuaire. Sanctuaire preserves our castes. Our castes manure Sanctuaire. Sanctuaire manures Planète. Planète preserves the Archaea. The ice must not melt. Are you intelligent? Do you see this? The Archaea preserve Planète. Planète preserves all other places. All other places will be disrupted if the waters of Planète rise. Are you intelligent? Unclip this band from my foot. Then write on the band that your caste must not spread heat. Then clip the band onto your foot. Then go back to your caste on Malouines. Then tell your caste what is written on the band. Tell them we thought you knew. Liverworts and lichens, little-eared seals and huge elephant seals, midges, hairgrass, pearlwort, snow petrels, nematodes, rotifers and tardigrades all knew. Top

I am the Water, with many jobs to do

Look through me. I am a prism yet I reflect the stars and the planets in my black nighttime luminescence

I can be frightening and foreboding or inviting and exciting

Tell if I am colorless or blue, green or gray

See if I am shapeless or a magnificent ice statue, built for a day

I can annoy you with my constant dripping or dazzle you with my spectacular falls

My atomized droplets bathe your skin in my moistness and make your rainbows I fill the ponds, streams, rivers and oceans with my elixir

My depth can rise and fall according to need I can be as hot as a cauldron or frigid as the icy tundra

I can be harsh, and violent, drowning you in my turbulence yet my lagoons can soothe your mind and spirit

My rivers can guide you, or lose you or be your border to freedom

I can make your soup, cleanse your body, purify, sanctify I can quench your thirst or fill your eyes with tears

On a hot summer day riot police can use me to disperse an angry crowd Or I can let your children giggle as they run through my spray

Skate upon my ice, making figure eights or fall on it or through it

Ski through my pure white snow or be buried in my thunderous avalanche

Know my violence as I strike against your shores and with my partner, time, whittle down your massive rocks

Whiff my perfume as I fill your scorched plain with my lifegiving fluid or smell death if I don’t

Don't abuse me or I’ll go away Top