From all I’ve seen on the Internet so far, The Age of Stupid is an incredibly powerful film. It was funded through a viral, grassroots effort and not supported by the usual film studio, media attention, and marketing dollars to make it widely known to potential movie goers. But here again, through the power of the Internet, YouTube, bloggers and you, the word is getting out. This is a MUST SEE movie!

It had its world premiere in London on March 15th 2009. It was released in UK cinemas on March 20th 2009, and will be released in other countries (Click here to find out Where? When?).

If you do nothing else this week, take a look at The Age of Stupid trailers on YouTube and at the The Age of Stupid webiste.

Here’s the best of its trailers off YouTube-click here.

Click here for The Age of Stupid website

So what you might say. I won’t be alive in 45 years. What can you do? It’s just Nature’s way. What’s happening will not just suddenly hit the world 45 years from now…. it’s happening all around us on an every day basis. It’s already affecting your life and even your immediate future. It’s happening NOW. Will your children and their children look back to THIS time and THIS place and say “Why didn’t they stop climate change when they had the chance?

Special thanks toVicky Portwain at Wind Energy Planning for her post on The Age of Stupid and bringing it to our attention.

On Sunday, Tom Friedman was interviewed by Tom Brokow on Meet the Press about his new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. In it he says that the US needs to ensure its world leadership position for the future by taking the lead now in solving global warming. Here are a few choice excerpts:

“But when I hear, drill, drill, drill, or drill, baby, drill, I try to imagine… the Saudi, Venezuelan, Russian and Nigeria observers…They’d be up there leading the chant. They’d be saying this is great. America isn’t sitting there saying, “Invent, invent, invent new, renewable energy,” they’re saying, “drill, drill, drill.”

“I’m actually not against drilling. What I’m against is making that the center of our focus, because we are on the eve of a new revolution, the energy technology revolution. It would be, Tom, as if on the eve of the IT revolution, the revolution of PCs and the Internet, someone was up there standing and demanding, “IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM Selectric typewriters.” That’s what drill, drill, drill, is the equivalent of today.”

“…Young Chinese… they say to me, you know, “Mr. Friedman, you guys got to grow dirty for 150 years, now it’s our turn.” To which I always say to them, “You know what, you’re right. It is your turn. Take your time. Grow as dirty as you want. Because I think we just need five years to invent all the clean power technologies you’re going to need before you choke to death and then we’re going to come over and we’re going to sell them to you and we’re going to clean your clock in the next great global industry.”

Click here to read the Meet the Press Friedman interview transcript.

Click here to watch the Meet the Press Friedman interview video on line.

Even with the height of modern day wind turbines, it is just not possible to build turbines tall enough to tap wind at very high altitudes. But kites could easily reach these heights and tap into the steady flow of wind above us. For space, or low-level wind constrained countries like the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark, flying kites to tap the high-speed jet stream directly above them is an exciting opportunity for them to participate in the wind power market.

‘Pretty much anywhere in the UK you could run a kite plant economically, but you couldn’t run a wind turbine economically,’ said Allister Furey of the University of Sussex.

Just how quickly will kite technology make it to market?  Well, that depends on how much investors are willing to put into the various projects already underway. 
 
Professor Wubbo Ockels, who leads the Laddermill project believes that commercial systems could be operational within five years if the money were available. But without significant funding behind it the technology could languish in the labs at Delft, Stanford, Sussex, Hawaii’s Makani Power, and Italy’s Kitegen for a decade or more to come.

Click here to read more about kites and high altitude wind.

 Click here to watch the video as Dutch scientists demonstrate their electric kite
 

On the one hand, Earth Day has helped environmentalists to successfully fight smog and contaminated waters. And, it has helped to raise environmental issues in peoples’ thinking. But lately this well-meaning once-a year celebration has become a flood of inadequate gestures – full of sound and fury but really accomplishing little.

“The danger is we let ourselves be happy with gestures rather than substance,” says Hal Harvey, environment-program director for the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, a funding organization supporting environmental groups. (Click here for more on this issue.)

We bring our own canvas bags to pick up groceries but then drive back home in our SUVs, feeling that we’re doing our bit to help save the planet. We think that taking a significant stand is refusing to buy cat food in non-recycleable pouches. It’s like going to church for an hour on Sunday to atone for your sins in the rest of the week.

And, corporate marketing has jumped right on this “feel-good” bandwagon. Gas guzzler car companies fill your TV screen with clear skies and happy children to convince you that the corporation really CARES about the fate of the planet. Would you really feel better buying an SUV after seeing the hypocrisy of this car advertisement?

We all want to wear the green badge of courage yet do we do our homework to see where our actions can really make an impact? And time is definitely running out. We can no longer afford to just drop office paper into the recycle bin and pat ourselves on the back for saving the planet. The issues are way more pressing!

The fate of the planet, its species, water, air, plants, oceans and everything else are tottering on a fraying thread.

In “Let’s turn saviours this Earth Day” Jitendra Verma of The Times of India exhorts us to join together on a world wide basis to pressure Earth summit delegates to do much more than talk.

“…the people’s movement in all nations needs to become so strong that those biggies returning from Earth summits should be compelled to return with some concrete measures and not just charts for future action.”

And so, What ARE you doing for Earth Day 2008?

Will you refuse to be fooled by the green hype around you or lull yourself into thinking that by going to a rally somewhere today you’ve done all you need to for saving Mother Earth?

Or will you join with Jitendra to shout as loudly as possible:

“It is time that the Environment emerges from the loony fringe of five-year plan segmentation. It needs to be as important for lawmakers as issues of poverty alleviation and defence.”

Will you make a commitment today to join with others to pressure elected officials, corporate executives and Earth Summit delegates to aggressively work to help save our planet? Yes! You CAN make a difference without money, power, or influence. Grassroots organizing can be successful whether you work on a wind project, air quality issue, ocean dead zone problem, or saving Mother Earth.

Take a look at the Seventeen Steps to Success on this website and make a commitment to start today.

The Will of the Wind by Jim Photoglo click here to see and The Will of the Wind live by Kenny Loggins click here to see are both worth a listen. Each is a beautiful piece that you will surely want to add to your positive wind music collection.

I get caught by this question whenever I have mustard, honey or – yes – peanut butter stuck, in its container unwilling to let go. I know that recycling is mighty important, yet sometimes, I wonder if scrubbing and recycling really makes a difference.

As if she could read my mind cousin Janet Salmons, an e-collaboration expert from Boulder, sent e-mail today that included some really ‘cool’ recycling facts.  It warmed my heart to see how even my small efforts can really help the planet, for example:

• Recycling a ton of paper saves 17 trees, two barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for six months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space and 60 pounds of air pollution.
• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every three months.
• Recycling creates six times as many jobs as landfilling.
• Recycling glass instead of making it from silica sand reduces mining waste by 70 percent, water use by 50 percent and air pollution by 20 percent.
• Recycling just one aluminum can save enough energy to operate a TV for three hours.
• The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year — or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years.
• If every U.S. household replaced just one roll of 1,000-sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, it could save 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space and 155 million gallons of water.

Sources: Eco-Cycle, Environmental Defense Fund, Colorado Recycles, Steel Recycling Institute, Seventh Generation Co.

Ok, so I’m convinced that even one jar of sticky honey should get a wash and go out for recycle. But how about those little cat food pouches that look somehat like aluminum foil, or an aluminum colored type of plastic? I toss them into the recycle bin and wonder if they can be recycled.

According to Annabelle Gurwitch in an essay she did in December 2007, “Where Do the Recyclables Really Go?”

“The average family produces 20 pounds of potentially recyclable trash each week, according to garbage experts. You have to wonder, though, where does the reusable stuff end up?”

To answer this question, she followed her recycle bin from home to its various endpoints, and what she learned is really insightful:

• About one-third of the stuff people put in their recycle bins actually shouldn’t be there (e.g., garden hoses, plastic painters’ tarps, etc.,). It may be plastic, but it is not recyclable. These go to the land fill.
• About 50% of actual recyclables are sold to local recycling firms. The rest gets shipped overseas or to other parts of the country.  

There really is a market for recyclable waste.

And so I continue to ponder the fate of the cat food pouches. Is there a website out there that evaluates new packaging and let’s us know if it’s recyclable? If so, please post that URL in a comment here….In the meantime – where’s that scrub brush? Every single aluminum can, glass container, plastic bag, etc., can actually make a difference. Don’t lose any opportunity to help cool Mothership Earth!

• Blow The Man Down
• Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
• Watching Lake Michigan Roll

 Ok, so two of the three are definitely NOT wind-positive. And, I can’t find the lyrics for Lee Murdock’s Watching Lake Michigan Roll.  But I’m guessing it may be more about the water and less positive about the wind — who knows?

This is only the first reply I got on the AlleyChat forum (at one of the best 24/7 listener supported live-streaming folk music websites I know - Folk Alley). So maybe there will be others. I’ll let you know.

Now, back to my hunt — here’s what I’ve been able to find as “wind is good” songs so far today.  You will recognize these I’m sure at Everything Pre-School. It tickles me to see that these are positive wind songs for the littlest wind lovers. 

I’m still looking….

If you know the lyrics to Murdock’s song or if you can think of a positive folk song about wind…. how about a comment! – or drop me an e-mail.

This television ad very cleverly demonstrates the “story of Wind” – unloved, disapproved, and disconnected until one day discovered for the gift it offers. It is definitely a hoot!

The German Federal Minister of Environment, Sigmar Gabriel enthusiastically noted, “When I saw ‘Power of Wind’ for the first time I was drawn by the motive and the humor of it. The Nordpol team did a great job in interpreting the meaning of wind energy into image and sound. It was an excellent ad for the future of renewable energies.”

If you haven’t seen it – take a look.

KiteShip Corporation builds wind systems to power boats, transcontinental shipping vessels, pleasure and racing yachts and industrial and aerospace applications. Its forward thinking sailors, designers and visionaries are developing and marketing what they call Very Large Free Flying Sails (VLFFS) and the control systems, technology and techniques for launching, controlling and recovering wind aboard small and large commercial vessels.

To actually see how a kite sail works on a large commercial vessel, take a look at the January 17, 2008, National Geographic News video of a German-built ship using the VLFFS technology.  The wind power system used on this ship was built by Hamburg’s SkySails.

“Not a sailboat and not a parachute—this German-built ship aims to save fuel by towing a kite to capture wind power high above the water.” Check out the video on line here.

Keep an eye on this technology. It definitely has promise and gives new meaning to say – go “fly a kite!”

A couple of years ago while I was working at the North American Rural Futures Institute in northcentral Montana, I e-chatted a bit with Montanan pianist and composer Philip Aaberg about him doing a wind-related compostion. His Live From Montana album nominated for a 2002 Grammy was recorded live in the school auditorium of Aaberg’s hometown, Chester, Montana.

Chester was one of the first places up on the northcentral Montana Hi-Line that installed a wind turbine thanks to the heroic efforts of a number of folks but particularly Liberty County Commissioner, Don Marble, of Chester. 

Philip was interested but noted it would take at least $50,000 (in 2002) for him to do a composition and recording on wind, turbines and kinetic beauty. Not having that in the NARFI budget, the idea dropped.

And so to date, the only piece of music I could find out there on wind power – and it’s a good one – is Thomas Dolby’s WindPower recorded in 1982 on The Golden Age of Wireless album. This piece is every bit as hypnotic as watching a turbine moving. It’s a great song to use to open your wind project community organizing meetings.