For some reason, I was thinking about John Kerry while I was taking a shower today (OK, that doesn’t sound weird) and I was recalling all of the criticisms that he was a “flip-flopper.”  In other words, people were implying that a good presidential candidate can’t “flip-flop” on issues.

Now, the flip-flopping that Kerry did is sort of complicated, and doesn’t fit the type I’m going to mention.  But flip-flopping in general on issues isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The flip-flopping I am referring to is being in favor of one side of an issue at one point in time, then later, changing one’s mind.

I think this is a good thing because it shows someone can be open minded.  Many politicians today refuse to change their minds because it is perceived as “defeat” on an issue.  But really, having the ability to change one’s mind when presented with evidence on the opposing side of an issue is a great asset.   For instance, when the US invaded Iraq, and we thought there were Weapons of Mass Destruction there, it seemed like a good idea at the time, at least from an my perspective (I won’t comment on intelligence issues, because I don’t know much about them).  But as time has gone on, things have looked worse and worse, and Bush has refused to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, staying in Iraq might not be the best solution out there.

For those of you who keep up with gimme-five, you know that I am in the process of working on an independent study in the Economics department of William and Mary.  The study is on the economics of transportation, with particular focus on the environment.  Although the last article (about ethanol) was part of my independent study, I thought I would give an explicit update.

I am planning on creating a policy proposal to address a three-pronged problem associated with transportation.  The three pronged problem is:

1. We are running out of liquid fuels
2. Congestion is becoming worse in and around major cities
3. Our current system of transportation is not environmentally friendly.

Of course, there are many sub-problems associated with the three points mentioned above, however, I will try to focus on the three broad issues.  Of course, this idea is not set in stone yet and is dependent upon what my professor and I decide is an appropriate plan.

There have been a number of different policies proposed or enacted to address one, two, or all of these problems.  These include:

I just got back from an interesting talk by a man named David Pimentel, who has written and given lots of advice regarding the national use of ethanol and biodiesel as sources of fuel to replace gasoline. Although many people believe that ethanol will be the fuel of the future that will free us from our dependence on oil, Pimentel disagrees. He asserts that ethanol production is economically unsound, environmentally unfriendly, geographically impractical, and ethically questionable.

Ethanol production is economically unsound, according to Pimentel. This is because it costs much more energy to produce ethanol than it creates. According to his January 2005 paper on ethanol and biodiesel, the following energy balances exist for these production techniques:

• Corn Grain to Ethanol: -29%.
• Switchgrass to Ethanol: -50%.
• Wood Biomass to Ethanol: -57%.

In other words, it costs 29% more fossil energy to produce a given amount of ethanol than the energy the ethanol itself contains (that’s a jumbled sentence!). So if you produce 1000BTU of energy worth of ethanol, it will cost you 1290BTU of energy to produce it.

I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I’ll list a few of the important points from the meeting today (3/21/2007). I’m not saying all of this is correct, I’m just mentioning this is what Gore is talking about today.

• Gore does not believe that Nuclear Power is going to be a large part of the global warming solution
• Gore believes a cap and trade system can be combined with a carbon tax. This is interesting, and I never thought that both problems could be combined together effectively.
• Gore emphasizes the point that a conversion from our current economy to a “green” economy would not be as painful as many people project. This is because green energy will create jobs and “shift” the economy more than it will hurt it. In fact, he points out that in the long run, the economy may greatly benefit from a green energy conversion.
• Are sunspots responsible for global warming? No, according to Gore. He mentions that certain areas of the atmosphere would get hotter (I don’t remember which areas, something about the troposphere vs. stratosphere) and that is not the case right now.
• Senator Thomas (I think?) brought up the fact that “we can’t project the temperature tomorrow, how can we project it so far into the future?” This is the basic idea of weather versus climate (trends vs. deviations). Climate is a totally different animal than weather, and weather or not we can predict short-term weather has very little to do with whether we can predict long-term climate.

Hey everybody, I just ran the Shamrock Marathon this past Sunday, the 18th of March, and I thought I’d mention how it went on gimme-five since I haven’t written anything on here in a while.  I know this doesn’t fit in with the usual gimme-five banter, and my time isn’t as fast as “Shaniqua’s” marathon PRs, but oh well.  Enjoy.

Shamrock Marathon Race Report

After months of training, the day of the Shamrock Marathon had finally arrived.  I awoke at 5:00 AM after a “wonderful” sleep at the Super 8 in Virginia Beach.  The hotel wasn’t actually as bad as most people claimed.  Sure, the stairwell doubled as a bathroom (or at least smelled like feces) and the floor and bed generated tons of static electricity that my girlfriend Jessie and I unfortunately shocked each other with many times over the course of the night and morning, but other than that, it wasn’t so bad.  [Side note: the static electricity really hurt.  I got up and reached for a metal part of a light switch and saw a gigantic blue spark when I was shocked…]