Vanquish Poverty with the Lottery (and take home a million!)

The lottery intrigues us. And for good reason. It appeals to our humanness. And it has a long history. The Chinese are believed to have financed the Great Wall of China with a lottery. New Jersey-ites decided which colonials should fight the British by lottery.  Queen Elizabeth I chartered the first official lottery to be designed as a means to do public work.
The lottery appeals to the human traits of eternal hope, of personal destiny; it satisfies our need for risk behavior and the desire for instant gratification, all of which define us. And we are drawn to its dark side, the numbers games that are so profitable to racketeers.
The lottery has moved constantly between crime and politics, between mob coffers and state coffers. The game lately has justified itself as a means toward community benefit. Most states now have a lottery system realizing huge profits that are returned in part as prize money for a few lucky individuals and, after administrative costs, in part to the community to meet its needs. Two multi-state games exist, PowerBall and MegaMillions, that are subscribed to by almost all of the states, with the two notable exceptions of Hawaii and Alaska. Portions of the profit from those games are divided by state members.
Being taxed has never been more fun.
And some prizes won by individuals are staggering, in the multi millions of dollars.  A Morristown, New Jersey school board member, for instance, won the March 13, 2010  Powerball jackpot to the tune of $211.7 million. When I hear about such large winnings I find myself doing the math. Had the game been organized differently, 211 people might have won one million dollars. I ask myself, would we really rather watch one person receive an un-spendable amount of money than spread the wealth to 211 people, or even 422 people? Intrigued by the possibilities, I decided to do some research (and some math).
My present home state of California, for example, received almost 3 billion dollars from its 2009 lottery ticket sales. In that year California put 50% of those receipts toward prize money, 34% toward education, and the remaining 16% toward administration. In 2009 California had a population of 19,953,134 souls, 14.2% of whom existed below the poverty level. Now just suppose California, in that one year alone, decided to take that prize money,  {50% of 3 billion dollars (1.5 billion dollars)} and instead of awarding huge prizes to just a few winners, divide that amount among all of its citizens, all 19,953,134 people. I did the math. Had my state done that, every citizen would have been awarded over 75 million dollars.
Whoa! What? This can't be right. If this were true, in that one year alone the California lottery and state officials held in their hands the means to completely eradicate poverty in California. More than that, to make California the wealthiest state per capita in the United States. Maybe in world.
Something had to be wrong with this picture, I thought. I decided to explore other states. I thought about New Jersey, where that woman serving on the school board of my old alma mater won the $211.7 million. In that year, 2010, the population of New Jersey was 8,791,894, 9.4% of whom resided below the poverty level. I learned that  the New Jersey Lottery had broken its own record in terms of ticket sales for the fiscal year 2010, a record $2.6 billion in ticket sales, the most in its history. And it came amidst one of the biggest global recessions in recent history. It seems that those who don’t normally play lottery games do so during harder times in a bid to change their fortunes. I could find no firm percentage for the division of lottery receipts in New Jersey, but I did find that in 2006 the state claimed it put 59.2% toward prizes. This may have changed, but I decided to assume  a nice round fifty percent for my purposes and did the math once again. So, 1.3 billion dollars divided among 8,791,894 New Jersey citizens in 2010 alone comes to over 147 million dollars each.
Holy smokes.  How could this be?
I looked at one more state, Pennsylvania. In this state 60.9 percent is paid out as prizes, 29.9 percent goes to programs, 6.7 percent is paid as retailer and vendor commissions and 2.5 percent is consumed as operating expenses. In the fiscal year 2010-2011 the Pennsylvania State lottery had sales of 3.2 billion dollars. Sixty percent of 3.2 billion is 1.92 billion. With a population of 12,702,379 in 2010, an equal division of the prize money that year in Pennsylvania would have awarded 151 million dollars to each and every citizen.
But where is all that money coming from? As we saw from the numbers, even if everyone in the state bought a lottery ticket the amount would not begin to approach the actual ticket sales. Of course, unclaimed prizes grow with interest, quite quickly.  And people buy multiple tickets. Many, many tickets, I learned. Imagine: once a jackpot approaches enough millions of dollars to become a reasonable investment, well funded individuals and corporate groups could buy a high percentage of number combinations in certain games, virtually ensuring a profit. In one year in the Virginia lottery, an investment group "came tantalizingly close to cornering the market on all possible combinations of six numbers from 1 to 44. State lottery officials say that the group bought tickets for 5 million of a possible 7 million combinations, at $1 each, in a lottery with a $27 million jackpot. Only a lack of time prevented the group from buying tickets for the remaining 2 million combinations".
And foreign interests get involved as well. It was an Australian group behind the effort described above. And apparently they were successful. Here at home, a New York investment firm recently bought up massive ticket amounts in an upstate New York lottery. The treasurer of the firm said that "he performed a risk assessment for large-scale investments in such a game and found that a profit could be made if played properly".  States have since taken measures to make such "buy-outs" more difficult. But they cannot be prevented entirely.
But there is another reality, a sadder reality. Research confirms the those who can afford it the least tend to pay the most in terms of percentage of income. A Washington Post investigation of the Virginia, Maryland, and District of Columbia lotteries found that they "rely on a hard core of heavy players, who, on average, have less education and lower incomes than the population as a whole. The 1995-6 Virginia Lottery sales were concentrated in 8 percent of Virginia's adult population, who accounted for 61 percent of Lottery sales. Those heavy Virginia players on average spent $47 for lottery tickets in two weeks, the equivalent of more than $1,200 annually. Yet one in six had household incomes of less than $15,000."        
Clearly, some players play desperately.
And so I pondered the possibility of a redistribution of prize money in a way that benefits more people. Smaller prizes of, let's say, one million dollars each. Who would not be satisfied with one million dollars? You'd be surprised. I learned that when prizes are smaller, fewer people purchase tickets. The MegaMillions blog confirmed this. "…we actually started that game," the representative said. "No one played." The United States apparently enjoys the accumulation of massive wealth as a spectator sport, a competition in which a few manage to grab most of the pie while the majority of us watch, fascinated. We would rather posture and compete, we would rather admire and envy, we would rather look down in our turn upon the less fortunate, than make a serious attempt to eliminate poverty.
The Chumash band of Indians in my local Santa Ynez Valley must be chuckling at this. The band runs a casino (which tribe does not?) which is, to say the least, profitable. And no tribe member is left out. Much of this information is confidential, yet I did learn that in 2007 the tribe paid each of its members $30,000 a month from casino earnings (Slate, March 5, 2007). They know how to take care of their own.
And so I propose that my state do the same. Announce that every citizen of the state who buys a lottery ticket at least one time during the year will receive one million dollars at tax time. Then skim 36 million of the total lottery ticket sales for one year from the prize money for that purpose, leaving only 1.465 billion (so sorry, California!) for the jackpots. Pay the million dollars out to each citizen who played (only 18 and over legally). And keep what remains after distribution of the 20 million as a tax adjustment. How's that for an economic boost?
Is this too simplistic? I will be told so, no doubt. I'm sure state officials will quickly offer reasons why this would never work. But I hold to a core view: if Americans truly wish to eliminate poverty, we could do so. Not some distant time in the future. Right now.

For those still unaware, tongue is firmly in cheek! RLG

At .188 Degrees Centigrade Warmer: All is Well?

Having heard little about global warming in recent months I thought I should take a quick look at how we are progressing.
Computer models suggest that from the start of this new century to its end the average mean temperature of the planet will increase anywhere from a minimum of 1.5 degrees Centigrade to a maximum of 5.8 degrees Centigrade.

The NCDC/NESDIS/NOAA graph for global mean temperature rise over land and ocean shows that there has been an increase of .9 degrees Centigrade in the 100 years from 1910 to 2010, or .009 degrees C per year. But from 1975 to 2005 the increase has been .55 degrees C of temperature rise, or roughly .018 degrees per year average. By the time Mark Lynas' Six Degrees was published in 2008 the planet had already warmed about .15 degrees Centigrade from the beginning of the century, or about .019 degrees per year of global temperature rise. If that rate of increase is maintained, my math puts us at 1.9 degrees of global temperature increase by the year 2100, slightly above the projected minimum. But here is the bad news. When you consider that since 1910 there have been two major cooling periods, from 1945-50 and 1960-65 and two minor cooling periods, from 1973-76 and 1980-84 which prevented a more precipitous rise, one wonders what the global temperature might currently have been without those occurrences. Yet they did happen. Clearly the warming of a planet is a complex and unpredictable event. But it is also clear that the rate of global warming has increasing decade by decade the last century. The rate of temperature increase essentially doubled in the second half of the last 100 years. If it doubles and redoubles in the next 100 years the rate of temperature rise could reach .076 degrees C temperature rise per year and we might well find ourselves much closer to the high end of those global temperature projections by 2100. There is little evidence to suggest that the current rate of increase will abate.
The stimulus for his book Six Degrees was data Lynas had collected while researching an earlier book, data with which he was able to create a chronology of events projected to occur with each degree of global temperature increase at the time of publication to a potentiality of six degrees centigrade of warming. I was curious to revisit those projections one decade later and about .188 degrees C warmer with reference to his first chapter, One Degree.
Prediction: Lynas begins with the southwestern United States and a projection of increasingly arid conditions. One symptom he describes is the increase of dust storms, with entire towns engulfed in blowing sand and millions of square miles of farmland becoming too dry for agriculture.
Fact: Both Arizona and Texas have experienced mammoth dust storms in 2011. The  July dust storm in Phoenix was termed the largest in 30 years. Texas and much of the Southwest have experienced unusual drought conditions.
Projection: Increased monsoonal rainfall in the eastern United States.
Fact: The NOAA reports record rainfall this year to date for the Northeast. The Northeast Climate Region showed three times the normal value while the South Climate Region showed twice the normal value.
Projection: Melting Arctic ice will change weather patterns as the polar front moves north.
Fact: According to NISCD (National Snow and Ice Data Center) Ice extent for October 2011 was the second lowest in the satellite record for the month, behind 2007. Between 1979 and 2001, it was found that the position of the jet stream has been moving northward at a rate of 2.01 kilometers (1.25 mi) per year across the Northern Hemisphere. Across North America, this type of change could lead to drier conditions across the southern tier of the United States.
Projection: Severe bleaching will occur in most of the world's reefs.
Fact: The Queensland Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency reports that as a result of this prolonged increase in sea surface temperatures, the Great Barrier Reef has recently experienced a number of coral bleaching events. Sea temperature and ocean acidity are steadily rising.
Projection: One degree of warming could put the North American Pika over the brink to extinction.
Fact: The reviews here are mixed. The journal Ecology has found that the Rocky mountain Pika is not nearing extinction, at least right now. They plan to keep an eye on it after the snow pack melts. But the courts in California have twice asked the California Fish and Game Commission to rethink its position on not listing the Pika as endangered.
Projection: The extinction of the Golden Toad in Costa Rica's Moteverdi Rain Forest has likely occurred.
Fact: None have been seen since 1989.
Projection: The possibility of a hurricane in the Mediterranean.
Fact: Depression 99L, named 'Rolf' November 8, 2011. NOAA's Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) gave 99L a tropical classification based on its satellite presentation, with winds in the 40 - 45 mph range. Damage in the Aeolian Islands suggests wind velocity reached 72 mph, but not officially: the National Hurricane Center is not responsible for the area.
Projection: Pacific atolls of Tuvalu to succumb to sea rise.
Fact: Tuvalu is still with us. However, Tuvalu has declared a state of emergency because of a shortage of fresh water. Subterranean water has apparently been compromised due to the rising sea level. Drought conditions have exacerbated the situation.
The above are just a few of the concerns projected for a planet one degree warmer. Many of the projections are generalized and difficult to research. However, on the whole, it appears that global warming is alive and well.

An Invitation to Educators: Treat your Brain

I received my brochure for the February Learning & the Brain Conference in San Francisco today. The theme this year is Educating the Whole Student, no surprise, that, considering that if you approach learning from the perspective of the brain you quickly find that it is impossible to restrict yourself  to an approach of specific skills for isolated subjects: that's not the way the brain works. All of its functions are interconnected.
There is a clear parallel in pharmaceuticals. Did you ever wonder why one year a drug or supplement may be seen to be 'good for you' and the next not so much? That's because of  variables caused by the intricate interconnectivity of our biological systems.  When we take a drug, it does not act in isolation but instead effects the balance of every part of our systems and the uniqueness of our individual system shapes the effects of that drug in turn. But research is done in a single or double blind process, the drug or substance tested over a span of time in contrast to a placebo, or to one other drug.  Although studies can produce generalities, research can not possibly assume all possible effects derived from the wide variance of individual biology or chronologically induced changes or even natural evolution and adaptation and differing environments. But the brain can…and does.
To optimize learning one needs to imitate the way in which the brain explores the relationship of each newly discovery bit of information to all of its previously stored knowledge. The brain does this overnight during sleep. The educator can facilitate this process by suggesting  meaning for newly introduced material in all phases of the life of the student, not just  math and languages and music, but in her spiritual and social life as well. We do not live life in one isolated subject area at a time, so why do we teach that way?
Speakers at the conference will address play and physical exercise, the importance of which in brain growth and assimilation is just beginning to be understood. Dr. John Ratey has explored the relationship of aerobic exercise and its production of new nutrients in the brain that enhance learning.
Other speakers will talk about how to grow moral and ethical minds. Role modeling is not enough, this capacity must be facilitated. I have presented frameworks for teaching ethical processing to preadolescent students in schools. Frameworks are necessary in the absence of the capacity to understand abstracts in a subject area that develops incrementally, like math or art or music.
There is interconnectivity in all things educational. Teaching the whole child opens the door to teaching all kinds of minds. It leads to broadening our perspectives and opening our craft to differences in cultures. That, in turn, leads to globalization of thought and philosophy in education. And globalization isn't coming…it's here.
I'm struck by the question that always comes to me when a Learning & the Brain Conference brochure arrives or indeed following upon attending the conference. That is, why don't more educators attend them? They are presented annually in Boston, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and New York City, and probably other locations as well. The wealth of educational insights available for teaching the brain is massive, more than I can assimilate in one session. I have attended five over the years and am astounded by the new research results that become available each year. Every educator should attend. I'd love to go again.
Anybody got an extra five hundred bucks?

Let's Listen, America!

The erstwhile silent passengers on this nation's voyage have awakened from their passive sleep, nudged awake by rougher seas, stretching arms and rubbing sleepy eyes to look about and wonder, "Where has the ship of state sailed while I have slept?" 

Beginning then to gather in the city streets and squares, to hold placards and chant mantras, voicing their concerns, they are our fellow countrymen, Americans.

Not an Arab Spring but an American Fall.

The gatherings do not whither away and die, they last, they grow, they reach out to other cities, they catch on globally. Occupy Wall Street! Occupy Columbus! Occupy Washington! Occupy hundreds of cities in the U.S.and the world! Occupy my own back yard! 

What do they protest, our fellow Americans?  Some will say they protest financial greed and corruption, some that they protest corporate influence on government, some say its the economy or unemployment or rising medical costs. No one seems quite sure. But perhaps it isn't just about Wall Street or corporate greed or unemployment or the economy - perhaps layered beneath is a more universal complaint that binds the demonstrators, a deeper discontent. Perhaps it is about being heard.

So let's listen, America.

We see a growing focus on the "ninety-nine percent", that portion of the Americans who struggle to make ends meet while 'one percent' of the population shares most of the wealth. There is the perception of increasingly distinct classes in American society, separated not just by individual wealth but by a different American experience, two classes of citizenry living very different lives within one nation. Neither class able to understand, to comprehend the experience of the other. 

A disconnect evident in an interview on the program '60 Minutes' when President Obama's new Job Czar, Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric, complains to a confounded Lesley Stahl that "You (the American people) should be rooting for us (General Electric)". Hello?

A disconnect evident in the remarks of a Presidential candidate (and former business CEO) who called the demonstrations "unAmerican". But what could be more American? What is more emblematic of America than lawful assembly and the right of American citizens to free speech? Are these demonstrations less American than the behavior of corporations that found their genesis in the advantageous climate of freedom and opportunity here in America and then left these shores to invest in other nations and create jobs for other people because those climates profited them better? 

A disconnect evident in the words of another Presidential candidate calling it class warfare, apparently fearing that the 'lower class' in a supposedly classless American society will rise up out of its place. 

A disconnect evident in remarks by politicians and law makers who decry these protests as "sour grapes", a litany of complaints and jealousies from people who have not realized the same high degree of financial success as the bankers and investors on Wall Street. "Blame yourselves" was the helpful comment of one would-be leader. But is it really as simple as that? Just a whining discontent with their lot? Or is it really about ethical behavior and the American ideal that the same rules should be applied to everyone?

Let's listen, America.

Consider this: Perhaps these demonstrations are not about personal gain or envy of the wealth of others. Perhaps they are about redressing wrongs and re-establishing values and equality and fairness. Perhaps these citizens feel that their voices can no longer be heard through the pathways provided for them by the Constitution, that those pathways no longer serve all of the people, that the influences of money and power are corrupting true representation? 

Perhaps we should view these protests as Americans reminding Americans that it is necessary to revisit the vision of our forefathers from time to time, the vision of a nation of free citizens treated equally under law. And to remember our responsibility as Americans to see that the course our ship of state sails is straight and true.    

Maybe we should listen, America.

We Are Americans

Autonomy. To Douglas Heath in Schools of Hope it is one of the five effects of successful adaptation (the other four are symbolization, other-centeredness, integration and stabilization). It is independence and self reliance within selectively formed interdependent relationships.
An individual with autonomy is capable of accepting or rejecting others' views of self and can control self growth. Ultimately the autonomous being achieves increased mastery, competency, and a sense of power.
In a way, ironically, autonomy frees the individual to experience greater interdependency, by entering into it from a center of power and stability. Individual autonomy is an indicator of a healthy civilization.
The American identity has always been closely interwoven with autonomy - the self reliance of the colonists, their refusal to accept the status quo, and the courage to fight for these freedoms.
But the government of the people, by the people, and for the people has hit a rough patch in the road. Because somewhere along the line the people became them. This unique form of government sought and fought for by the American people became an entity unto itself. Somewhere along the line the American government became an authority instead of a process, became a parent instead of a peer, became a creator of policy instead of a conveyor of the peoples' needs.
And what we have created has now grown so large that we can not change it. And it will not change itself.
But what is the American government if not a reflection of the American people?
Heath includes within his definition of autonomy the ability to be independent and self reliant and to be able to tolerate aloneness if necessary. And to be motivated by considered principle rather than impulsive wish or environmental pressure.
The meta-values he assigns to autonomy are courage and freedom.
The American government has grown to become the overburdened cumbersome entity it is today not by design but by neglect. It has become what it is because Americans have gradually allowed their autonomy to slip away. We have deferred our independent decision making and reliance on self to our local governments which then deferred them to the state governments which deferred to the United States government. We have allowed ourselves to be swayed by environmental pressures, deferring critical decisions pertaining to our way of life up the chain as well.
What is to be done?
One axiom says the more complex the problem the simpler the solution.
And so it is now.
Simply, individual Americans must recapture their autonomy, that trait of character for which we have become known around the world. We know what must be done, so we need to set about doing it. And we need to do this on an individual and a local level. Many Americans are already doing it.
We need a clean source of energy? We will put up solar panels on our homes or build windmills or form a cooperative to create a local source. And we'll sell the extra back to the grid.
We need water? We will protect what we have and find ways to gather or create more, whether evaporative systems or salt removal systems. We will invent and adapt.
We need fuel efficient and clean transport? We will buy hybrid or electric  vehicles, or bicycle and walk more, and car pool. And we will invent and adapt.
We need healthy organic chemical free food? We will buy locally, we will grow our own gardens, we will form a cooperative to exchange food.
We need jobs? We need to improve our local economy? We will create local job markets and job fairs. We will support local banks and local businesses.
In short, we need to localize our efforts, from education to economic growth to disaster preparation. Local communities know their own needs best. We can free the state and national government of the burden of our local needs to allow those governments to run more efficiently and effectively. And maybe more fiscally responsibly.
No political agenda is necessary, no ulterior motives are involved. It is a matter of doing rather than deferring, of taking care of our own back yard, and when our efforts are rewarded with success, the message will be clear.
But can we do this?
Of course. We are, after all, Americans.

Five Important Changes Educators Can Make

Can there be any doubt now of the need for leadership and character education in our schools? When teachers and administrators in the Atlanta public schools made the decision to change student answers, to cheat on standardized tests, no more eloquent case for character education could have been made. There is plenty of blame to go around, of course. The "No Child Left Behind" program left many schools in a "Catch 22" - they had no chance to meet the standards necessary to acquire the funding to improve student achievement to meet the standards. But there is no way to tip-toe around the fact that the poor choice, the dishonorable choice, the insufficient character choice was made by those teachers and administrators who decided to cheat - no matter how they justified it.
Role modeling is the most effective teaching tool in the adult workbench. But it can be a two edged sword.
Character is truly defined during difficult times, during those times when making the right choice leads to the greatest sacrifice, when it becomes necessary to contradict the loudest voice or stand against the greatest numbers or tolerate the greatest pain. It is easy to talk the talk but not so easy to walk the walk because to do that requires great conviction and self understanding and yes, education. Like everything else that is done well, it must be taught.
       And so I suggest as the first most important change for educators that Educators must decide to teach character, every day, and in every class. We can't wait for the school to decide to emphasize this area or to assume it will be taught by the next teacher during the next hour. Character will not become important to kids until they see that it is important to adults in their world, all the adults. Students will be convinced of this only when character must be taught in every teacher's personal kingdom, their classroom. Character education is developmental, it needs to be taught over time in bits and bytes at each level of student readiness. A curriculum to coordinate the effort is very helpful, but then…any effort is better than none at all.
      But Educators must study the brain. If every teacher is in tune to when developmental doors open and close a character curriculum might almost construct itself. After all, what are teachers teaching if not the brain? And how can we teach all of these young brains if we do not understand how they work? Of all teaching levels, it is the teachers of preadolescent students who most need to understand brain development, how the brain functions, brain individuality. Teachers must become experts in brain science and current in brain research, always ready to apply new understanding and flexible enough to leave behind those traditional ideas that research suggests do not work as well.
And this means that Educators must look at time in new ways. The traditional time frames for teaching specific subjects within the day may in fact not be optimal for best assimilation. Evidence has shown that exercising at the beginning the day, specifically by accelerating and sustaining the heart rate with aerobic exercise before classes transforms the brain for peak performance. And that the time usually set aside for sports, the two pm to four pm period, is particularly beneficial for memory consolidation that occurs during sleep the following night and might better suit classes that benefit most from it. Further, it is established that adolescents experience a change in their circadian clock, one that naturally postpones sleepiness for an additional full hour at night. To prevent a sleep deficit and the accompanying learning impediments, an hour of extra sleep should be added each morning. This seldom happens and constitutes an additional struggle for many teens during the most critical educational period of their lives.
Once attuned to the idea of aerobic exercise preceding the studies for the day, we see that Educators need to promote exercise as a priority over organized competition. Now, there is no doubt that this is a hot button topic. The cultures of many schools, particularly private schools, are seriously invested in competitive teams. But competitive athletics has its place and its limits, particularly for pre-adolescent children. Beyond injury concerns, it devours huge amounts of time and is often not a satisfactory platform for exercise for all but the best, who get to play the most. Such teams should be voluntary end-of-day opportunities for dedicated athletes. The other students should be encouraged to play or pursue individual interests.
Finally, Educators must remember that male and female brains are indeed wired differently. Research has established that boys and girls are wired to behave differently socially, intellectually, and physically or, as researches view it, they have significant genetic, neuroanatomical, and behavioral differences. In brain formation, scientists have found large differences in the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system, and the amygdala (larger overall in men than in women, women functioning with the left and men with the right). Biochemically, men produce far more seratonin than women. Larry Cahill's research has demonstrated that men and women under stress recall memories in very different ways, women in detail and men with the 'gist'. Girls learn in a verbal social context, men less so. Hierarchal status behavior patterns in girls tend to be verbal and persuasive, boys physical and direct. When teaching, the emotional and social underpinnings of class involvement can not be ignored. Certain subject matter might best be taught to mixed genders while other subjects might best be taught by separating genders. Educators must be clever observers and utilize autonomy and flexibility to vary from stereotypical, traditional approaches.
By now the reader has observed that the five areas described above are in actuality all part of a symbiotic process in which attention to one part will necessarily stimulate change in another. The much maligned educator of today, restrained by the bonds of unrealistic expectations, time-worn infrastructure, and misguided mechanisms can break free only through an individual effort to understand how they teach what they teach to whom they teach.  

How Fracked is my Valley

"Once there were green fields kissed by the sun,

 Once there were valleys where rivers used to run;"

The paraphrased title of this piece is borrowed from a novel, the verse from a popular song from my era by The Brothers Four but the theme common to both is a nostalgic look back at what once was but can no longer be, a theme I fear could well become the case for the Los Alamos Valley/San Antonio Creek basin area if those who live here do not gain control of its destiny.

But how fracked is  my valley?   

At a recent information-gathering/disseminating meeting held in Los Alamos on July 18 it became evident that my valley and your valley is fracked far more than we knew. And there was nothing to suggest that it won't continue. In a gathering of ranchers and townspeople and county officials and one or two oilmen we learned what legislation is currently in place regarding fracking specifically (almost none), what legislation is being proposed statewide and nationally, and what may or may not be accomplished with it.

But the elephant in the room was illustrated by the evident frustration of ranchers and landowners who represent the first line of direct contact with fracking, and it was a lack of control. It was the inability to stop oil companies from coming onto their land and pumping harmful chemicals deep into it. It was the inability to learn precisely which chemicals are being pumped into the earth and what health risks they might pose. It was the inability to safeguard their own lands from human error during well construction or chemical transporting or polluted water dumping. 

As the oil companies like to point out, fracking is not a new process, used in some cases as long ago as the forties. Modern fracking - utilizing horizontal drilling, placing explosive charges  deep in the earth, and injecting pressurized propant and chemicals to assist flow, is newer, but has been utilized in Marcellus Shale back east for a number of years, and in Europe. Before moving down to the Santa maria River valley and then to Los Alamos, fracking Monterey Shale was begun in Monterey County amid protest. 

The point is, it should not have come as a surprise to us and to county leaders. Safety lies in awareness and autonomous action. To those who expected the oil companies to take a reasonable and empathetic approach to landowners, to involve them in decision making or to voluntarily discuss the chemicals to be used, or to delay exploratory drilling or fracking until essential questions could be answered, the evidence is to the contrary. The website FracFocus.org is a voluntary registry of chemicals used in fracturing procedures by oil companies across the U.S. There are many oil companies registered but Venoco and other players in Santa Barbara County are not.  

We can wait; we can wait to see if Congress will pass a bill to force oil companies to reveal fracking propant ingredients, we can wait to see if local and state legislators will tighten fracking laws, we can wait to see if oversight is truly present, we can wait to see if the oil companies' claims of safe drilling and chemical containment are accurate, we can wait to see if pressured toxins forced deep into the earth will find their way to the surface eventually.

Or we can act now, before our valley is no longer green, before the water in the San Antonio Ground Water Aquifer becomes contaminated, to attempt to ensure that control of the future of this valley is in the hands of those that live here, not those who come to exploit the local resources and then move on. 

The answer lies is in every voice, every telephone call, every question, every meeting attended. Let's begin with the Board of Supervisors meeting on August 2. 

Fracking Follow-up

Two nights ago I was turned away from a meeting in Los Alamos led by a representative of Venoco Inc. who explained to me that the meeting was for Venoco lease contractees, mostly land owners and supervisors, only. Was anything to be disclosed that the public shouldn't know? It seems not. The meeting was later described as an attempt by Venoco representatives to make the case to their lessees that their lands and the ground water beneath them are not endangered by the company's oil and gas extracting methods.
Fracking in the Los Alamos Valley has finally become an open topic of discussion. That's good, because the future of the land and all that resides below it and above it is the business of all of us - and it is everybody's responsibility. As our natural resources dwindle in the face of a burgeoning population of consumers and a changing climate the dispersement and the safeguarding of these resources is important to every single one of us. All residents need to arm ourselves with an understanding of the choices that must be made, the choices will be necessary ultimately to conserve the quality of life and perhaps even life itself.
There will be fewer and fewer easy answers.
For Los Alamos and this valley the resources in question are oil and water. We cannot understand fully the impact of one on the other and the questions surrounding both until we get answers. What is the future plan for each? Will these plans impact one another? What choices will have to be made? What priorities must be set?
It is troubling that the oil companies, in this case Venoco, choose to keep their activities a secret. Until persistent questions were directed to county administrators by our local citizenry resulting in inquiries being made it seemed no one was even aware that hydraulic fracturing was taking place here, this despite a national - nay, international hue and cry on the subject. Nor will oil companies disclose the precise formula they inject deep into the earth. Congress has sat on a bill for several years now that would have forced this disclosure, at the least to local supervisors, thus allowing emergency precautions to be put in place.
The recent meeting held by Venoco to share information with at least part of the public was a positive step, whether or not one agrees with their conclusions. The representative promised a second meeting this month, this time for the general public. Meanwhile the district supervisors have made their presence known and the topic of fracking is to be taken up in the June 7 Board of Supervisors meeting, which is open to the public. Another meeting will be attended by DOGGR, the state body tasked with regulating and supervising oil extracting processes, and is to be held August 4. Both meetings are held in Santa Barbara.
There are several issues to consider: contamination of the water supply from both injected toxics and surface spills, seismic disturbances from concussion and weakening underlying ledge, disposal of recovered toxics, and the huge amounts of water required for fracking and water injection, taken from the aquifer (3% of the amount of water consumed by the town of Los Alamos in a year, per well).
It is disturbing that there is no legislation in Santa Barbara county that requires the oil companies to disclose the methods they will use in their wells. It is distressing that formulas with toxins may be injected deep into the earth. Venoco has assured land owners that the depth of the wells, claimed to be between 8000 and 10000 feet, protect the aquifer and that a casing sheath seals the well from the aquifer where it passes down through it. They may be right but if they are not it will be too late.
To my mind, the philosophy that supports injecting toxic fracking fluids into the earth at great depth is similar to the philosophy supporting dumping unwanted waste into our oceans where we can no longer see it. We are now discovering how that worked out.
Yes, we are a petroleum culture through and through but that shouldn't mean that we can't continue to try to make changes. At what cost freedom from foreign oil? We need oil for our lifestyle. We need water for life.

Related articles

• Blackpool earthquake tremors may have been caused by gas drilling (guardian.co.uk)
• Big Oil Companies Face Growing Concern on Fracking (scientificamerican.com)

Fracking Around Los Alamos

It would seem that fracking is indeed occurring in the Los Alamos valley.

In my February 2011 post I raised the specter of adding pollutants from invasive oil and gas drilling to an already diminished aquifer in the Los Alamos valley. At the time, there was no direct evidence that hydraulic fracturing techniques were being used. I had learned, however, that there was rejuvenated interest on the part of Venoco Inc. in utilizing new fracking and horizontal drilling techniques to extract oil from the Miocene Monterey formation, a rich but not naturally fractured layer underlying much of the transverse California coastal ranges, including the Los Alamos Valley. The appearance of two drilling operations within a few hundred feet of each other within the San Antonio Creek flood basin down the valley suggested to me the possibility of a Monterey Shale hydraulic fracturing oil play. But there was no ready means of identifying the proprietary oil company or of determining their intentions. The leases being worked had been passed hand to hand with minimal disclosure to the uninitiated and although Vencoco reported (in a shareholders' report) the existence of three Monterey Shale fracturing operations in the nearby Santa Maria valley with a fourth in the offing the location of the last exploratory well was not disclosed. 

In my February post I detailed my reasons for believing that the Los Alamos valley operation might be that fourth, and apparently less public, exploration. After publishing the post I discussed this possibility with a friend, a former participant in the Los Alamos planning board, who agreed that this operation likely involved hydraulic fracturing. He called the office of District County Supervisor Doreen Farr for information. They had none, but promised to look into it. The representative of Supervisor Farr was responsive but seemingly ineffective, ultimately sharing an informative film describing the fracturing methodology currently in use which stressed containment and safety. 

But apparently more was going on than was being made public.

On May 5, 2011 The Independent of Santa Barbara published an article stating that "with the recent discovery by county energy's Doug Anthony" our suspicions were confirmed and that Venoco inc. is indeed utilizing fracking to extract oil and gas at that location, described as "two separate leases in the North County" and vaguely "on private land, just off Highway 135 near Vandenberg Air Force Base".  Anthony asserts that Venoco "did it" without permission and that they "have been resisting" providing information but the two sides are "still working through that". (What?) 

It seems that "the current county onshore drilling application does not have fracking-specific language" (which I can only regard as a serious oversight) and that they are drilling deep, "like 11,000 to 12,000 feet". If true, that is considerably deeper than the conventional Miocene oil plays in the area, including the Chevron Los Flores well drilled nearby to only 5998 feet. In this area, I have read, the Monterey shale ranges from 4800 to 6200 feet in depth and is between 600 to 1100 feet thick. Oil companies have often promoted deep drilling as a safety feature, suggesting that the greater depth provides a safety barrier between toxics and the water supply. But isn't it really just a matter of time? 

The above descriptions are vague. And the general knowledge demonstrated by local public officials and leaders regarding oil extraction methods in the area appears to be scant. We have just emerged from a wet winter. Our water reservoirs are full. For now. Water conservation as a concern may have slipped down the priority list just a bit. But the reality of a warming planet won't change and the value of water as a vital resource can only grow. How will we balance our energy needs against our water supply needs right here in our own backyard? 

Leadership requires the ability to see the big picture and to adjust one's compass  accordingly, both morally and actually. The mariner in a storm battles each wave at a time but the wiser mariner checked the forecast and stayed in port, avoiding the hazard altogether.

Related articles

• Shale gas extraction: The need to be seen to be clean (economist.com)
• France To Ban Fracking (businessinsider.com)

A Futuristic View of Education

By far and away my most visited post is "Sorry Parents…There Still Is No Free Lunch" in which I restate the importance of parental involvement in the education of our own children and the assumption of responsibility in fair part when things go wrong (or right!). Parental involvement is important now but I believe parental ownership of the eduction of their children will become the way of the future.

My view of education in the future is drawn from a new understanding of how the brain learns. This future includes a shift of the entire educational experience to a much younger start…and a younger finish. At the far end I recognize the increasing desirability of enlisting younger people into the work force, thus reaping the benefits of their burgeoning creativity and special cyber talents for society even as they continue to learn (as we all do all of our lives) either while pursuing studies while working at home or benefiting from a mentoring system in the work place. This projection assumes that a larger piece of the educational pie in the preadolescent to mid adolescent curriculum will be devoted to building individualized life, character, and social skills leading to essential capabilities for abstract projection and empathy, abstract thought and spirituality, ethical reasoning, and the research and validating tools to access the data needed. At the beginning, education would begin with the parents before the birth of the child and begin for the child immediately after birth, if not before, guided by a real or virtual partnership with educators, thus launching a fifteen or sixteen year collaborative educational journey, not unlike the relationship of the professional athlete and his agent.

If all of this seems very far-fetched, think again. It is in essence how children have always learned best- in a tribal way, from role models and with guidance from all members of localized communities, then to assume adult roles in those communities in their mid to late teens. The great advantage today is the technology which permits this transition into roles of responsibility in larger communities in greater ease and personal safety. Industrialization and a burgeoning population have over time been permitted to shape and form our education processes rather than best practices. But best practice today has never been as good! Learning begins with the brain and we know very much more about the brain and how it learns than ever before. We need to use what we know.

The egg does precede the chicken and education begins with purpose. Nel Noddings, in "Happiness and Education" talks about the importance of well defined teaching aims. To what purpose, after all, are we teaching this child? For financial success? For happiness? For adaptability to a changing world? Nel asks, "Should our efforts be designed to enhance society (the state) or should they be directed at benefits for the individual?" School aims (the egg) may be found scrolled above door lintels or on the proscenium of the school stage. The spectrum is usually too wide and the challenge too great: once a school begins to generate a list of such worthwhile goals as Health, Citizenship, Industry, Character, Respect, Honor, and Truth, etc. there is difficult in deciding what to omit. A child staring at such a list is likely to regard it as multiple choice. The egg  preceding the chicken can be made simpler than this….and better, when the process of learning is correlated to the developmental stages and genetic predisposition of the brain. Perhaps our egg should be, simply "Learn to Live and Live to learn."

Schools today find themselves spending increasing amounts of time and resources attempting to deal with impediments to learning. Most of these impediments are to be found conveniently located in the brain itself since they generally develop from some misdirection or misunderstanding of emotions, brain readiness, or brain differences. The education of pre-natal parents in this future model will likely begin with learning how such obstacles to learning grow and learn strategies to prevent or, in equally part, recognize and understand them. Our model parents might begin by learning about the brain from volumes similar to John Ratey's 'A User's Guide to the Brain' to gain an overview of the way the brain develops to realistically time expectations for their child in terms of brain readiness and windows of learning opportunity, behavior and discipline, ethics and values assimilation, and emotional intelligence. And then, as the parent team is growing in readiness and even as early as the third trimester prior to birth the child's formal education can begin by surrounding the expectant mother with elements of music and language. John Medina, in his wonderful book 'Brain Rules'  in which he synthesizes brain science for use right now, sees education begin in the second week of life. "The amazing cognitive ability of infants" he envisions "would be unleashed in a curriculum designed just for them", a curriculum not yet created but that could and should be easily derived from a cooperative effort between educators and the research of brain scientists, an effort that could begin right now. 

Once the educational collaborative between parents and the educator 'coaches' begins each developmental stage that follows can be addressed in a time appropriate, pre-emptive manner. The time to move from the home to an appropriate learning facility might be suggested by the child's progress or by particular needs and might occur as a gradual transition to a community learning center, perhaps to enhance personal and social skills or to gain advanced conceptual learning skills with teachers in a particular subject area. The point is that the structure of the education collaborative is that of an individualized curriculum that can change and flex to address the specific needs and changing directions for a particular student and respond to a particular brain.

In my next posting I will take up those areas of new emphasis in learning and changes to old paradigms that brain science suggests.

Water...and Oil

I recently watched a documentary on television that explored a conflict between land owners and oil companies in Colorado. More than half a century ago, the oil companies began obtaining the rights to explore and extract oils and gases from beneath the land. The landowners who signed these rights away could see no harm, and potentially much profit, from doing so. What mattered a drilling rig here and there on such a vast expanse of land? Now, it seems, it matters.

Oil companies have gradually and steadily accumulated the rights to drill and extract from a huge percentage of the privately owned (and some public) lands in the western United States, and California is no exception. Over the span of years there appears to have been relatively little conflict between land owners and oil companies. Yes, there have been spills and there have been complaints, but with the presence of foreign oil at reasonable prices home reserves have been used moderately and extraction processes have involved minimal impact. For the landowner an ameliorating affect has always been the greed side of the equation; the possibility that the big strike will be on your land, when at once you become a partner with the oil company and realize the wealth that comes from oil profits. But there is less tip-toeing around the bore hole these days. On the downslope of the oil industry, resources that had been overlooked before are drawing new attention and new technologies are being applied. The mood is a bit more desperate. 

Enter 'fracking', the common term for hydraulic fracturing. Simply, the process injects pressurized fluids into bore holes to cause the rock to fracture and release the gas and oil it contains. Proppant in the fluid, usually consisting of sand or ceramic grains, keeps the fractures from closing again after the pressure is released. The instant of the fracturing of the rock has been compared to a small earthquake, a thought that makes those of us living along the San Andreas fault understandably nervous. The gas that is released makes its way to the surface, is piped to compressor stations to purify it, and is then piped on to the consumer. The fracking fluid that returns to the surface is stored by various means and/or trucked away. A portion of it is never recovered and remains under ground. 

The documentary that I viewed highlighted some problems from fracking. There was a spillover from a pool of used fracking fluid into a river, the open air burning of volatile and harmful waste gases, new bubbles of methane gas appearing in a rancher's field, and, most concerning, the contamination of water supplies. A particularly memorable film clip showed a man positioning a lighter near his open tap and the 'water' instantly igniting becoming a flaming torch. 

A reader who enjoyed my recent article "The Prophets of Doom" will remember that one of the five projected potential causes for the demise of the United States discussed in that forum was lack of potable water. Anyone who lives in the western slopes drainage area has historically been hyper aware of the need to protect our water supplies. 

So the question arises, where does the waste water that does not return to the surface after fracking go? Particularly in relationship to the aquifers upon which communities rely for their water supplies. This question, and the presence of several new drilling rigs and increased activity in the Cat Canyon oil reserve area above our own San Antonio Creek drainage area prompted me to engage in some research. 

Never a geology major, I had always imagined that an aquifer was a huge pristine lake of pure water existing in a specific location somewhere under my feet which when emptied would leave a large hole in the ground. Some aquifers are like that, I learned, but most are essentially an underground drainage system in which water is contained, seeping gradually out along a path of least resistance through fractured rock formations and gravels until it either bubbles to the surface, joins a river, or empties into the sea. The key to maintaining a successful aquifer is replenishment: it must fill at the same rate it is emptied. Replenishment can come from rivers and streams, from ice and snow melt, and from state water.

Ground water is the sole source of water supply to the San Antonio Basin, specifically deep percolation rainfall and stream seepage. There are no surface diversions and there are no deliveries of state water to the basin. A 2003 analysis by the CRCD confirmed a study begun in 1942 and updated in 1999 which estimated an average annual overdraft of 9500 AFY (Acre Feet per Year). Input to the basin is an estimated 15,000 AFY annually. You do the math. Imagine soaking in a full bathtub kept cozy by warm water from the tap and draining at the same rate that the water enters. Now imagine the drain is opened so that the outflow is increased to one and a half times the inflow. How long until you are sitting in an empty tub covered in soap? Agriculture is the heaviest user of the water supply, no surprise here, some 20,000 AFY annually. By contrast, the town of Los Alamos uses a mere 270 AFY. 

Having established the tenuous nature of the water supply in my aquifer, I turned my attention to the quality of the water. I learned that the average quality is estimated at a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) concentration of 710mg/l (milligrams in one liter). But that's an average. As the water seeps from east to west down the Los Alamos Valley its TDS load increases. At the far western reach of the aquifer lies the Barka Slough, a wetland created by a surfacing consolidated rock formation that underlies the valley. Here the TDS is 3780 mg/l., in contrast to the extreme eastern end measured at 263 mg/l. What happens? The ground water absorbs contaminants  from agricultural return flow and the dissolution of soluble minerals which accumulate as the water moves westward under the valley floor.

There is also evidence of poor quality connate (water trapped in rock when it formed) water in fracture zones in underlying bedrock beneath the valley, an ever present but unavoidable hazard. 

Now let's return to the resurgence of oil recovery activity in the Los Alamos Valley above the San Antonio Groundwater Basin. Vencoco reports (February 2011) drilling two horizontal wells in the Santa Maria basin (the adjacent aquifer) and "awaits four-stage fracs expected in a few weeks". Their interest is in the Miocene Monterey formation, a biogenic deposit underlying the California Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, and adjacent basins. It is a rich petroleum preserve, newly available now that oil companies have "cracked the code" of shale oil recovery. In fact, the U.S. Energy Administration expects oil production to climb from "5.4 million b/d in 2009 to 5.7 million b/d in 2035, most from more enhanced oil recovery and oil-bearing shale plays onshore". Drill, baby, drill, indeed! 

The EPA is uncertain enough of the dangers that they have launched a study "to understand the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water resources". The study is expected to be completed by 2014. We can't know exactly which chemicals are injected into bore holes to cause fractures because each company has its own formula and guards it carefully, in much the same way your grandmother guards her famous brownie recipe. Oil companies are exempted from revealing the precise formulas. The bill that would reverse this secrecy, the Frac Act, has sat in committee in Congress for two years.    

In the Southern Los Alamos Valley oil fields the Monterey formation has been tapped at depths of 1400 feet to 4000 feet. Safety from water contamination is in depth: Marcellus shale fracking in Pennsylvania is done at depths of 8000 feet, creating substantial separation from groundwater aquifers. Now, four miles north of Los Alamos, within a few hundred yards of San Antonio Creek, another drilling operation is underway. Nitrogen trucks, a curtained site between the creek and the drilling operation, and many large container trucks are on site.  Nitrogen has many uses in oil production and one of them is using its high pressure characteristics in hydraulic fracturing. And a frac job involves as much as a million gallons of surface derived water, water that is already in overdraft in the Los Alamos valley.

I have taken my own advice and made myself aware of the water supply facts in my own community. The facts are disconcerting. But no more so than the tenuous water futures around the state, the country, and the world. And I can't help wondering how we can justify the risk to diminishing water supplies in order to obtain an energy source that by its use must necessarily contribute to Global Warming and thus continue the cycle that is diminishing our water supply. Without water, the benefits offered by this energy source do me very little good.

The Prophets of Doom

Recently I viewed a TV program called Prophets of Doom. The format was an informal gathering of individuals in a studio set, five or six leaders in their various fields, who via discussion format were challenged to predict the one disaster among the many currently looming which they believed would most likely be the one to spell the downfall of the United States. The participants demonstrated great intensity in the expression of their individual views on this subject and shared a sincere, albeit alarming consensus that the United States is indeed on the brink of downfall, if not from those specific individual causes that each championed, then most certainly from a combination of several of them.  Our demise was projected to come from economic collapse, water loss, an accelerated disfunction resulting from the downslope of peak oil, nuclear terrorism, and/or the dominance of machines. No, this was not a movie, but a serious discussion among knowledgeable, highly trained professionals with the facts at their disposal. The time frame for this demise was determined to be within the next two decades. The elephant not in the room, surprisingly, was climate change. It was never mentioned, not once. But the scenarios presented during the two hour presentation were dramatic, catastrophic, frightening. A term, cognitive dissonance, was introduced to describe what we humans do in the face of  possibilities on a scale beyond our emotional capacity to deal with them: which is to pretend that they do not exist. This tactic seems to have been employed by the these very prophets in terms of global warming. I would put that concern before the worry of my robot dismissing me as non-essential function (if I had a robot!). Regardless, the program re-introduced the dark underside of our lives, the realities which in our 'cognitive dissonance' we ignore, fail to see, or chose not to believe. It showed the Rome that is burning as we fiddle. But unlike many such documentaries, actual solutions were introduced. And these solutions make sense. 

Centralized government with its centralized programs was a clumsy proposition at the best of times. But even as we watched the waste grow and the inefficiencies mount and the inequalities increase over the centuries we continued to support it because, well hey! it was ours and it worked after a fashion and we enjoyed propping it up against those other governments out there…good old America, the land of the free! Along with cognitive dissonance, Americans also suffer from 'momentum sickness', the effect of the Newton law that says its better not to change those things that seem to be working. It is momentum sickness that allows us to continue to support the oil industry, to continue to pay taxes to a central government for services many of us will never receive, to allow politics to trump the needs of the people in the halls of congress. But the problem with momentum sickness is that this malady makes it difficult to tell when things have actually stopped working. Because of momentum sickness leading to cognitive dissonance Americans are allowing a failed debt-ridden unresponsive central government to soothe us with the false reassurance that because it has always been there for us after a fashion, it always will. Remember New Orleans and FEMA? What about public education? Where once a central government actually worked, in the face of the growing needs of an ever increasing population it no longer can. Which is why the solutions offered by the Prophets of Doom make sense.

Localize! That's it, in a nutshell. That was the consensus of the group. Bring everything down to a scale that will work. Allow individual localities to determine and respond to their own needs, in the way best suited to their local environment. Institute local water plans that will work for that neighborhood, that town, that population. Reverse outsourcing to insourcing. Buy local. Grow local. Establish a local economy that is not reliant upon remote conditions. Establish a local currency for that economy. Get off the grid. Find ways to produce electric locally, individually. What about a local health plan? Or a local retirement plan? Its time to go back to the future.

Localizing does not require a major government overhaul. It will never be accomplished through endless debate among congressmen attended by influential lobbyists and concerned corporations. It can only be done from the bottom up. The very bottom up: you, and I. A small group of neighbors with a proposal, a plan. A Saturday activity, a project. 

Yes, laws will need to be changed and responsibilities shifted and systems restructured eventually but that will happen in due course if each individual American subscribes to this course of action. I intend to start right away. My first step is simple: on my small balcony, in prepared containers, I will grow vegetables to eat. I can grow tomatoes and perhaps a squash and lettuce variety. My other foods I will purchase at farmers markets or otherwise be sure that they are local. And I will make myself more aware of how I consume: aware of my water quality and source, aware of the cost and source of the electric I use, aware of  the disposition of my waste water. I will study ways that my community could potentially utilize solar and wind on a very local basis. These are very small steps, but they are positive steps. We need to learn to walk before we can run.