Snow in Tahoe! it's time for some winter Fun!

My recent posts about climate change have been pretty heavy these days so this is an attempt to lighten things up. I'm in Tahoe right now and we got about a foot of snow in the past day. We're heading out to enjoy it soon.

Last week my Uncle shot some video of Jade enjoying some winter activities. She made a lot of progress last week and she's really looking forward to getting back onto the slopes this weekend to improve her skills (and show off for Daddy).

Jade is learning to ski. This video was shot on the "Lugi" run at Northstar:



Jade is learning how to skate. This video was shot at the ice rink in Northstar village:



Enjoy the snow while you can!

Another smuggy day in California

Last night I read a really hopeful article in The Economist about the America's attempts to address global warming.

Reading the article made me proud to be a resident of California because my state has taken the lead in America towards decreasing greenhouse gases and energy consumption. As the graph shows, per capita electricity consumption has been level since the 70's and has been recently decreasing.

The article in The Economist requires a subscription to read but it's well worth it. It discusses the security, business and community benefits of changing to a lower carbon based economy. My favorite part of this article discusses how our state is leading the nation in initiatives to decrease greenhouse gases. I've transcribed this section here:

Congress may be thinking about tackling greenhouse-gas emissions, but California has already done it. Its Global Warming Solutions Act, which was passed last year, aims to cut them to 1990 levels by 2020 - an ambitious target for a state that has grown rapidly in the past 15 years and will probably continue to do so. The details have yet to be fleshed out, but the reductions will come from both a cap-and-trade scheme for industry and regulations of various sorts.

Mr Schwarzenegger issued the first such regulation earlier this month, obliging producers of petrol and other fuels to cut the emissions of carbon dioxide from their products by 10% by 2020 - presumably by mixing in more ethanol and other biofuels. It is not California's first attempt to reduce emissions from transport: its legislature voted for stringent cuts in 2002. That move has become snarled in a court battle over whether states have the right to set fuel-economy standards. Meanwhile, the politicians keep trucking. In September, the state showily sued six car manufacturers, alleging they had damaged its climate. It is also suing the EPA, for failing to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

California's politicians are keen on renewables too. State law requires utilities to generate 20% of the power they sell from sources such as windmills and biomass plants by 2010, and 33% by 2020. Solar power has won even greater favour: under the "million solar roofs" scheme, the state plans to spend more than $3 billion over the next decade subsidising the installation of solar-power panels.

California has also pioneered the practice of "decoupling", which deprives power firms of their incentive to sell as much electricity as possible. Instead, the local regulator has devised a formula to reward firms whose sales are lower than expected, and to allow the recovery of the costs of energy-efficiency schemes.

Such measures (along with high power prices to pay for them) have helped California rein in its electricity consumption - although lovely weather and a relative lack of heavy industry have also played a part. Power use per person has remained roughly stable in the state since the 1970s, even as it has doubled in the rest of the country (see chart above). As a result, California's greenhouse-gas emissions per person are on a par with those of Denmark. Relative to the size of its economy, they are lower.

I'm very proud of my state and our green Governator for taking the lead in addressing the problem of global climate change. California may be leading the nation into lowering greenhouse gas emissions but it is also the leading the nation in creating smug.

The debate is over. Now what do we do?

I can't be silent anymore. I've been jumping out of my skin and have been obsessed with climate change since watching An Inconvenient Truth a couple of weeks ago. I was expecting political dogma and fear mongering which is the modus operandi of some of the environmental zealots. However, this film focused on the science and presented it in a way that made it accessible and "connected the dots" between all the global warming events that I have read about over the past 20 years. I'm a scientist by training so the case was extremely convincing. I watched it again last night and listened to the producers commentary and it was fascinating that they were compelled to make this film to inform people about global climate change. Ironically, they marketed it as the most terrifying film you will see and I agree. I've been having nightmares and like the producers I feel compelled do something proactive in order to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere.

This hit home for me personally this year because of the really crappy ski season. The weather is warm and there is very little snow in the Sierra Nevada. This may be a seasonal variation but last year we got lots of rain dumped on us. Seeing the before and after images of the glacier melts in the Gore film made me think of the end of skiing/snowboarding and there will be warmer years ahead rather than cooler ones. There is no doubt in my mind that weather is changing and is becoming more extreme. The time to act to reduce C02 emissions was 30 years ago.

We're at a tipping point and we have to act within the next 10 years or this planet will become hostile to human habitation. The global warming naysayers are on the wrong side of history and will be judged as quaint as those in Galileo's time who believed that the sun revolved around the earth. There seems to be a lot of news items these days discussing climate change and it is going to be the big issue in the next election. Even John McCain said last week:

"The debate is over, my friends. Now the question is what do we do? Do we act, do we care enough about the young people of the next generation to act seriously and meaningfully, or are we going to just continue this debate and this discussion?"

Global climate change is the most important issue of our generation. Much more important than the war in Iraq. Let the Neocons battle the Islamic fascists for control of the oil fields. Oil is old news and the people in countries who hate us the most like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iran and Venezuela have most of it. We support these countries directly and inadvertently because of our addiction to oil. Our oil dependence has made the United States the crack whore of the global community. They charge us a fortune for our habit and bitch slap us just like a crack whore indentured to her pimp. It was really embarrassing when Hugo Chavez gives us smack talk at the UN. We must move beyond our dependency on fossil fuels to reduce our carbon emissions and increase our energy security. If we can change our carbon addiction then in 50 years these oil exporting countries will revert to the 3rd world deserts that they once were and no one will care.

I want my daughter to live on a sustainable planet and enjoy the mountains, trees, oceans and snow. I owe it to her to fix the damage to the atmosphere that we have done.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide image courtesy of Global Warming Art.

The Interweb knows who I am...

I was listening to Talk of the Nation on NPR and the discussion was on life blogging and user generated media. One of the guests made the remark "who with a computer hasn't Googled themselves or their ex...". Well, I haven't Googled myself in years and my hit hit count isn't really great since Mark Davidson is hardly a unique name. However, I was quite flattered to see that someone blogged about a document I wrote.

I was impressed that he read my Component Assembly Manifesto and he felt compelled to comment on it. I wrote this document during the post boom years when I was a software rock star. I was on a flight to Rochester on a business trip and the movie was Sweet November and it totally sucked so I wrote the manifesto in a fit of inspiration.

This manifesto had a pretty good impact and impressed a VP at a major New York investment bank that he flew me out to the Big Apple under the auspices for me to give a private talk to his staff but his real motive was to recruit me. This was a few months after 9/11 and Eve was pregnant with Jade so I didn't want to relocate. I was afraid of "dirty bombs" and didn't want Jade to be raised in New York City. This was a bit of a missed opportunity since the bank is doing doing awesome since then. The compensation structure at investment banks is based on results so half-million dollar annual bonuses were not out of the question for talented Engineers who lead strategic technology initiatives. If I had made the move then I could have had Google type wealth. I like to think that the type of tools that my document inspired may have contributed to those stellar earnings.

I'm no longer a software rock star - just a working stiff punching the clock humbly in obscurity. I think I made the right choice at the time. I love living in California and I just have to solace myself with the fact that I'm living in paradise with my wonderful wife, child and mountain bikes.

Tunes in My Head

I have been snowboarding quite a lot this season. There hasn't been a lot of snow in the Tahoe area - mostly man made stuff - but we have a ski lease this year and seasons passes for NorthStar. It's still fun since we are teaching our daughter to ski and skate. I also bought a bunch of protective pads and I'm teaching myself to jump and ride boxes but I wish there was a lot more snow. We picked the wrong year to get a ski lease. Curse this global warming!

For years, I have been wearing a snowboard helmet but a month ago, I lost the helmet at the top of the Comstock lift when it fell out of my backpack (update: this helmet was recovered a few weeks later). The old purple chrome Pro-Tec was too small and heavy and it was time for an upgrade.

I bought a matte pewter Giro Nine.9 after much research and fit testing. I also bought a pair of "TuneUps" - headphone replacement earpads. I also bought the second generation iPod shuffle to round out the fun factor and loaded it with 700 megs of Buckethead. The complete package is a light weight party helmet. Who hoo!

I'm having fun with the helmet. The only thing better would be more snow.