Alex Krogh-Grabbe

I’ve long been turned off, to say the least, by cigarette smoking. I would never smoke, and have long been subconsciously searching for a valid reason why other people shouldn’t smoke either. Today Treehugger has an article about the consequences to the environment of global smoking habits. They seem pretty severe. And Treehugger links to all of its sources, many of which seem to be highly reputable international organizations. Any environmentalist smokers in the audience? Your thoughts?

So, I came upon this list via Digg of the “Top 50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming”. It’s actually a really good list; it covers most of the bases I’ve heard about. So for anyone who says they want to do something, but don’t know what to do: take a look. And most of these things can be done without any significant financial burden. A lot of them actually save you money.

So, on one side of the scale:
-being part of the environmental solution
-saving money

On the other side:
-resistance to change
-laziness/comfort

Take your pick.

Okay, I had an exciting day, finally! Highland Annual, basically, and also my couchsurfing friends.

First of all, Friday afternoon I hiked around Holyrood Park, to the summit of Arthur’s Seat, but also to St. Anthony’s Chapel (a nice little ruin-ed chapel) and the Radical Road, which goes around the base of Salisbury Crags, and which a Shooglenifty tune is named after. I took lots of pictures, which are all online, including one that’s really artsy and nice of the sunset and clouds over the Crags.

I finished and burned a copy of a mix that I made for a friend at Conn, but which I think I’m going to use as my standard “make me a mix/I’ll make you a mix” mix. It’s awesome. All A+ songs, arranged nicely, and tailored around the edges to make them flow nicely.

So, the Highland Annual. It’s a big annual ceilidh (=traditional dance party), which this year one of my FolkSoc friends did most of the planning for. It happened in the Teviot Student Union building, and there were several different locations with different things happening. There was a jam session in the Middle Bar, where I played with the FolkSoc crowd for a little while; good fun. Then in the Debating Hall upstairs, there was the ceilidh, where all the dancing was happening. Downstairs in another room was a concert area. So, basically, it was like a mini-NEFFA, except all Scottish. And with the usual amount of alcohol for any Scottish event. I didn’t like the dancing as much as contra, partly because I know contra, partly because one of the dances was excessively repetitive, and partly because the band was rather oom-pah (yes, that’s an adjective, and you know exactly what I mean). Aside from it not being contra, the dancing was fun. The most interesting thing about that part of the night, though, was a guy who was next to me in one of the dances. He was wearing a kilt (as I was, coincidentally) and a white laced shirt. He had long blond hair in a ponytail (“He looked like Fabio” -my friend Sarah), and apparently had killer, massive calves. To paraphrase Sarah, “He was a Man”. I think he may have been the most authentically Scottish person I’ve seen so far.

I unfortunately had to leave at 11, for I had to meet my couchsurfers at the Couchsurfing meet. Let me explain: it just so happens that the same night that I had these people staying with me, there was a gathering of Edinburgh people on the Couchsurfing network. So, we had arranged that I would meet them there at 11. I did. We went into the back room of this pub, where the event was. It was really crowded, and a live band was playing. It was pretty cool. I met the guy who had organized this meet, who also happens to be my “friend” on Last.FM, this social music website. That’s because he listens to the same kind of music that I do. Anyways, after a short while, Martin, Ugne, and I (they’re my couchsurfers) left.

Martin is 22, from Malaga in Spain, a computer guy, a juggler, tall, a smoker, wears Bono-esque glasses, and has long, slightly-dreaded dark hair. I’m not the best judge in the world, but I’d say he’s pretty darn attractive. I think the phrase “smoking hot” might apply, too. Ugne is 27, from Vilnus in Lithuania. She has a masters in marketing, and met Martin when she was traveling in Spain a few years ago. She’s rather gorgeous too, in a slightly Slavic way. They both love to travel, and each other. They’ve been living in Galway, Ireland, for a year, saving up for a long trip to South America. They’re moving to Malaga shortly to earn more money, because they’re both tired of the weather in Ireland. They’re both really nice, and both of them, while having noticeable accents, have decent English. Ugne’s is better, but not by that much. They’re staying until Tuesday evening, so I’d best like them. Tonight they’re coming to see The Queen with me, then tomorrow we’re climbing Arthur’s Seat. Ooh, actually, I’m sick, so I might not. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I passed up going out to the museum with them today, for that reason. I also didn’t sleep too well last night. It’s still uncomfortable having near-strangers sleeping in my room, even if they are nice. Oh well, all my most important valuables AKA my passport are secreted away safely.

Oh, so I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized there are only 3 weeks left of classes, until Spring Break. That’s scary. It also means that if I’m going to write one of these optional formative essays for my classes, I’d better get on it pretty soon. I also need to get on buying a Eurail pass NOW. Their website didn’t like my computer, or vice versa, so I’m going to try on the computer lab computers, but if that doesn’t work, I may have to ask my lovely parents to buy it, because I hear it might ship to the US before coming here anyway. The reason for that is the Eurail pass is just for non-EU citizens; there’s a different pass, the InterRail, for Europeans.

Okay, that’s it for now. Hope everyone’s doing peachily. I miss you all, and will hopefully see you again reasonably soon.
-Alex

My life is so boring. But that’s not a bad thing. Just uninteresting for you guys to read about. So little’s happened that I don’t even need to link to the full post. Here:

I got free bread from the ISC, and have been making PB & J. I also got horseradish sauce, which is bitter and tasty. It’s the Greenough in me (family reference). But today I found mold on all the remaining full loaf of bread. Oh well. It was free.

The other night I watched Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life with Jon, Emily, and Lauren of “Team America”. It was good (I’d seen it before).

I’ve been making for two more loads of couchsurfers to stay here. One couple from Spain and Lithuania, living in Galway, guy’s a juggler, are coming tomorrow night and staying four nights! It’ll be an experience. Then another, American twosome is staying one night next Wednesday.

I’ve been staying in pretty close touch with some friends from home. I miss them. I’ve been following the Housefellow selection, and several of my friends got appointed. Also several of my friends got selected to be Student Advisors next year. I’m excited for them. I also miss them. Did I say that?

I’ve been reading my book (Magician, first book of the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Fiest) pretty voraciously, and playing a load of my current computer game, Jedi Knight, and generally bumming around on the internet.

On Tuesday night, I saw Paradise Now, a Palestinian movie about two young men who become semi-reluctant suicide bombers. I then went to FolkSoc, where it was Pancake Day and I got super sugar-high. Met a friend of a friend there, he’s nice. While leaving, I saw and met the people in Drumming Society, and will surely try to make it there on Mondays.

And last but not least: MY PHOTOS ARE UP!!!! May you enjoy them. They go in reverse chronological order, so if you want to see them all in order, might want to start at the end.

David Roberts engages in some more tasty articulation over at Gristmill. Conservative hacks like to try to make Gore look hypocritical, pointing out that he doesn’t do everything he could to reduce his environmental footprint. Well, first, for a semi-cheap shot, I doubt Sean Hannity is doing nearly as much as Al Gore to reduce his footprint. But, as Roberts points out, that’s not even the point.

Being a high-profile advocate makes it very difficult to be anything but bad for the environment, directly. Even as a normal citizen of a Western country, it’s very difficult. To have a non-existent carbon footprint, one basically needs to grow all of one’s own food, live off the electric grid, only use self-powered transportation, and not buy anything that’s not local and completely zero-footprint itself. In other words, it’s impossible to be a normally functioning citizen and be perfect with regard to the environment.

What Gore and others of like minds are on about is that the system needs to change. Living as environmentally as possible needs to become the unthinking default lifestyle. There are numerous things we can do, changing the way we think, to fix our currently fetid and broken system. Not until a critic is themselves actively working toward such systemic change, I think, do they have the moral justification to throw punches at the consistency of those who already do.

So to paraphrase this Treehugger article, solar energy is awesome, but honestly, too expensive right now for mass adoption. But apparently a spokesman for this Swiss thin-film solar company predicts that this new kind of solar panel will be cost-effective in less than five years, and be twice as good as non-renewables in ten. As Treehugger says, “That’s what is technically referred to as clobbering.”

Current solar panels are made using silicon, which is expensive. Thin-film technology instead uses a type of manufactured semiconductor material called CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide), which is less expensive. The solar cells made with it can be printed onto material, which is chemically and financially more efficient than the process for creating silicon cells.

Sounds good, no? It certainly does give one hope, but I hold a few skepticisms. First, spokespeople making predictions certainly have motive to exaggerate the quickness of innovation timelines. Second, it would be good to see a substantial revamping of our energy system sooner than five years from now. That’s asking a lot, true. This is a message of hope, indeed.

So we should do something about all this carbon we’re burning into the atmosphere, yes? That seems to be a general consensus. With the proliferation of concepts such as “carbon neutrality”, “carbon footprint”, “zero-carbon” products, and all the rest, I think it’s pretty safe to say a lot of people care about this.

So how do we stem our voracious carbon addiction, institutionally? It seems there are two major proposals: a Carbon Tax or a Cap-and-Trade system.

The way I understand it, the Carbon Tax would just put a straight tax on activities that burn CO2-producing stuff. So that means, oil and coal primarily, which means gasoline (and thus transportation), and electricity (and thus heat, frequently) would be the places where the tax would have the biggest effect on most people.

The main difference with the Cap-and-Trade system, it appears, is that organizations would have a maximum amount of CO2 they can emit, but there would be a credit system by which a low-emitting organization could sell their credits (obtained by emitting less) to people who needed to pollute more. Thus, low-polluters would make money directly from high-polluters.

I have only a rudimentary understanding of this, and I may be somewhat wrong, but here: in Gristmill there was a brief piece a few days back from a conversation with Steve Hayward from the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative thinktank) about the two. It’s interesting to hear the worthy perspective of someone whose #1 concern isn’t environmental issues.

Oh, he favors the Tax over the Cap-and-Trade system, basically because with the latter, there are too many complexities for loopholes to hide in. I think.

So, it’s been almost a week again. Wow. I’m starting to forget some of the stuff that’s happened since the last time I posted. That’s not good; means I need to post more frequently.

Not that much to report, really. I’ve been dueling wits on facebook with a girl I met at dinner the other day. Fun times. I got deodorant (TMI? Well, I have to rant about this, sorry) the other day. All the men’s stuff was aerosol, antiperspirant, and looked ugly, so I embarrassedly got something that wasn’t blatantly women’s, but was on a shelf with a bunch of women’s stuff. Yet it to turns out to be both aerosol and anti-persp. What’s the deal?? Don’t they have regular stick deodorant and non-antiperspirant? One thought I had was that maybe antiperspirant means something different over here, something that just goes along with the fact that it’s deodorant. But the stuff that we call antiperspirant in the US is bad, because it traps all the sweat inside and the sweat/body doesn’t like that (at least that’s what I hear). And aerosol is just bad for the environment. Grrrrr. Speaking of the environment, I revitalized my other blog, Green Questions, because I’ve started reading the environmental blogs again, and felt like posting. On Saturday we had really nice weather and I went outside for a while. I visited a bunch of cool-looking shops I hadn’t been into yet, and sat in Princes Street Gardens for a bit. While I was sitting on a bench there reading, a little teensy bird came over and sat on the back of the bench for a little while, chirping at me. So cute.

I had some meals with one of the Team America crew, Caitlin, from Babson, because she was sick and all the other people were either out of town or with friends from home. Caitlin lives in my building, and I ate with her and two of her neighbors, both British, one from the Isle of Man. Last night I went to see Little Miss Sunshine with them. I’d seen it on the plane over, so I’d basically seen it already, but it’s good and it was nice to see it with all the swearing intact.

Also, I’ve been having a nice email conversation with my parents about my study habits, which might be generally classified as “bad”, but which I think are just geared toward my priorities and the ways I learn. I’m doing with my college education what I want to, that is, balancing social, personal wellbeing and happiness with academic wellbeing and success. I find I can maintain a reasonable degree of academic success and learning even when focusing much more on personal enjoyment, and that’s the ideal situation for me. As long as I can keep passing my classes with good (not necessarily all A’s) grades, I’m extremely content with my current arrangement.

That’s really about it. Today is the last lecture given by the Philosophy and the Environment lecturer I like more, so I’m excited. Later this week, there’s a meet for CouchSurfing members in Edinburgh; I haven’t decided whether I feel like going yet. In about two weeks, I think it is, I have some people staying with me again. Oh, and I made a super-duper-awesome mix of the bestest of my Celtic Fusion music. I’m going to give it to people, and maybe give copies of it as prizes on my radio show next year.

Oh, another thing. The housefellows for next year have been selected at Conn, and many of them are friends of mine, or at least acquaintances. And one of my best friends is the housefellow of the house I want to and probably will live in! So exciting. If you’re interested, the list is up at Connwiki.

Cheers and hope everything is well with everyone!

So, I’ve started reading environmental news again, and I just decided I feel like posting here. So guess what? Green Questions is back up and running!

It doesn’t really help get us out of the mess we’re in, merely reading about the extent of the problem we face from climate change. It’s much more useful and heartening reading about the things we can do to solve this seemingly gargantuan puzzle. So, that’s what I’m going to seek out and post for you here. Also, I feel really bad about my previous posting in that I would frequently just read the summary of an article and post the link based on that. So I’m not going to do that anymore. If I don’t have the time or patience to read the article, I won’t post the link.

Anyways, what I wanted to post about were these few posts on Gristmill.

This one is about ways to reduce the transportation part of your carbon footprint, even if your area doesn’t have good public transport and you don’t have money for a hybrid. That applies to the vast majority of rural and suburban Americans, probably, so I think it’s worth a read.

This one is from my idol, David Roberts, and is lambasting the “proto-conventional wisdom” about climate change: that there’s nothing we can do about it. Such fatalism is not helpful, just ask the coach of any less-than-stellar sports team, then watch any one of those inspirational sports movies (Little Giants? Mighty Ducks? Not a big fan of that kind of movie myself, but roll with the analogy). With such an enormous challenge facing us, if we want to even have a chance of overcoming it, we need to think about solutions, not just give up. And in that article, Roberts cites several different sources of solutions that would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 (which is what we need to do in order to not break our planet beyond repair…and we can’t really return it to the store in exchange for a new one). All of these solutions also centrally consider the global economy, and provide ways of maintaining, even strengthening it. So you see, Eeyore? There really is something to be done.

We can do this, people. If you want to know what you can do, just look around the internet via your favorite search engine for a couple minutes, there’s sure to be a nice list somewhere. Here, I did one search via Google, “personal action global warming” and came up with some good stuff in the first page: Union of Concerned Scientists, Al, a whole blog about it, and Wikipedia. And that’s just in the first page!

If we all do as much as we can, we can kick this problem without breaking a sweat. Go for it!

So, it’s been a week. Here’s what I’ve been up to. Getting better all the time, though I still miss home muchly.

Wednesday:
I was going to go to an Archie Fisher concert, but the friends (Bria and Anna from FolkSoc) I was going to go with wanted to go for a walk in the (meager) snow instead. I grudgingly agreed to accompany them, and enjoyed annoying them with my grudging manner, dismissive of the quality of this snowfall (really just a dusting) for the rest of the night. It was fun spending time with them, though.

Thursday:
Not having class, being bored, and being curious, I decided to walk around the city logging all of the shops. A big task, yes. I got most of two of the main streets in my area, which is the only place I’m really concerned with. Eventually planning to get prices for stuff too, but who knows how far I’ll get with this project. I was going to have “American Night” with my friends (Emily, Lauren, Sarah, Kate, Caitlin, and Jon, all from the Arcadia exchange program, who now refer to themselves as “Team America”), but one of them had a last-minute second date with a guy he’d gone out with the night before. I watched Forrest Gump on my computer instead. Good movie, and really quite American in the bargain.

Friday:
I did very little. Slept in late, went to dinner, and was non-committal about joining my friends on their trip to Roslyn Chapel on Saturday, because I’d made plans to get coffee with another friend and didn’t know yet when that was.

Saturday:
Got coffee with my friend Dafni from the ISC. We talked for about 3 hours, and on the way back I learned that she lives very close to Pollock, where I live. Got back to my room, starting washing socks and getting depressed, then had a nice long instant messenger conversation with Alex Pressman in Madrid. I’ve been talking to her a lot; she’s fun to talk to. Afterwards, I got a call from Bria, and we decided to go for a walk. It was great, we walked all over talking about language, philosophy, and philosophy of language. She’s a linguist with a penchant for intellectual discussions, and I’m a philosopher with a penchant for linguistic discussion. Good fun, although we disagreed on a few fundamental points that led to some argumentative angst. I articulated some of my perspectives gorgeously, and have already forgotten how I said them. Oh well. I need something that records my every experience so I can remember stuff.

Sunday:
I lazed around most of the day, going to see the FilmSoc showing of Red Road (a Scottish film) in the evening. Can I just say, one of the most disturbing, depressing, realistic films I’ve seen? Though not too well-made. The story was very good, I think, but the script didn’t flow very well. Too little dialog, too much silence. Too unlikeable a main character. After the movie, I was really down, and talked to Jeff Bender on IM. It was wonderful to talk to him, and spontaneously in the middle of the conversation, I cried over the breakup. It was the first time I’d cried about it, and I really needed to. I didn’t get it all out, but it was good.

Monday:
I went to the ISC at 1ish, then to the library to download the new episode of Lost on BitTorrent (the dorm network blocks it, but the library wireless doesn’t). Watched Lost, which was good, then to dinner with “Team America”, which was the most comfortable meal yet with them. I felt and was acting like i do at Conn. Good times. I did virus and spyware scans, and read a lot in my book, as I had the day before.

Tuesday:
I went to my ISC shift and read. Walked with Dafni back to her flat before going to class. The new lecturer in Wittgenstein is such a stereotypical British philosopher: crazy hair, kinda awkward, talking slowly and not saying much. He’s nice, but I liked the other professor more. Came back, was really tired, went to dinner then to FolkSoc. I was actually dropping off just before going to FolkSoc. Stayed until the end (bad idea) at 12:30 (half twelve) or so. A good time, met some new people.

Wednesday:
Got up early for class, had a good one (I stayed awake and talked a bunch, the two of which are undoubtedly related). I got some stuff at Lidl (a grocer store), then came back to my room, read for a little bit, then went to sleep. I woke up around 6, having missed dinner with Team America, but I ate with a friend from FolkSoc, Clair, and her friend Susan, who knows one of Bethany’s friends from home.

So that’s that. I haven’t called the help desk about RESNET yet, but I will, and you’ll get a load of pictures then. I need to plan some sort of trip for sometime. I want to go to Ireland once before my big trip, because there’re so many places I want to see there. I think I’d probably hit Galway, Croagh Patrick, and something else in the west on this small trip, to be based in Dublin when I hit it during Spring Break.

I’m doing better here, feeling more comfortable, hanging out with friends more, and getting over the ickiness of the breakup. Staying in touch with friends at home, too, which feels good.

Oh, and I’ve gotten missed calls from two phones in the UK; should it be you trying to call me, let me know, or leave a voicemail.

I hope you all are doing well, and aren’t buried under meters of snow like some parts of the US are.