Tag Archives: History

Solar growth like compound interest has turned Al Gore into an optimist

Not even Al Gore saw that the continually decreasing price of
solar power was causing exponential deployment growth that
will win within a decade. But now he does.
Since solar is going to win, building destructive and hazardous
petroleum pipelines for short-term profit for a few executives and investors
would be short-sighted at best.
Let’s stop those pipelines, LNG export, and fracking, and plug in to
sun, wind, and water power for a clean and prosperous future.

Experts predicted in 2000 that wind generated power worldwide would


reach 30 gigawatts; by 2010, it was 200 gigawatts, and by last year
it reached nearly 370, or more than 12 times higher. Installations
of solar power would add one new gigawatt per year by 2010,
predictions in 2002 stated. It turned out to be 17 times that by
2010 and 48 times that amount last year.

And you ain’t seen nothing yet: Continue reading →

Videos: Leadership Lowndes, rezonings approved, one citizen about a Water Trail @ LCC 2015-03-10




Leadership Lowndes Class of 2015 was there,
and Gretchen Quarterman spoke about

the WWALS Alapaha River Water Trail Conference.
Everything else went as predicted
with the rezonings and pretty much everything else unanimously approved,
at the Tuesday 10 October 2015 Regular Session of the Lowndes County Commission.

Continue reading →

Videos: Historic Courthouse, 2 rezonings, 1 utilities, MIDS bus, CDBG @ LCC 2015-03-09



These videos are of yesterday morning’s Work Session,
and they’re voting right now on

the annual grant paperwork
for the county’s on-call bus system, run by MIDS, Inc.,
on a

commercial and a

subdivision rezoning, both previously recommended
unanimously by the
Planning Commission.
Plus they will accept
Utilities for Creekside West Phase II, i.e., water and sewer.
They will declare at least two

Potential Conflict(s) of Interest for Commissioner Joyce Evans and County Clerk Paige Dukes
on the board of the

hildren’s Advocacy Center of Lowndes County, Inc. (CAC),
before agreeing for the Chairman to sign a

Resolution
to submit to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a
$500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the CAC.
We don’t know what those conflicts are, because as usual
the county only published the agenda sheets for

each agenda item,
without the rest of the details that are in the board packets.


Judge H. Arthur McLane spoke yesterday about the

Courthouse Preservation Committee; see
LAKE videos of its public meetings.

Tonight they have Citizens Wishing to Be Heard on the
agenda.

It’s a welcome change that for rezonings they now consider traffic
on nearby roads, unlike

back in 2011 when then-Chairman Ashley Paulk said:

I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.



Who knows? Next maybe they’ll consider expanding to

regular routes on the bus system.

Below are links to the LAKE videos from Monday morning,
followed by a video playlist. Continue reading →

Historic Courthouse, 2 rezonings, 1 utilities, MIDS bus, CDBG @ LCC 2015-03-09

The county has an on-call bus system, run by MIDS, Inc., and
they’re doing

the annual grant paperwork.



Judge H. Arthur McLane will speak this morning about the

Courthouse Preservation Committee; see
LAKE videos of its public meetings.
Tuesday the County Commission will decide
the rezonings, one

commercial and one

subdivision, previously recommended
unanimously by the
Planning Commission:
will they discuss the poor people they’re displacing, unlike the Planning Commission?
Plus they will accept
Utilities for Creekside West Phase II, i.e., water and sewer.
They will declare at least two
Potential Conflict(s) of Interest for Commissioner Joyce Evans and County Clerk Paige Dukes
on the board of the

hildren’s Advocacy Center of Lowndes County, Inc. (CAC),
before agreeing for the Chairman to sign a
Resolution
to submit to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs for a
$500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for the CAC.
We don’t know what those conflicts are, because as usual
the county only published the agenda sheets for

each agenda item,
without the rest of the details that are in the board packets.

It’s a welcome change that for rezonings they now consider traffic
on nearby roads, unlike

back in 2011 when then-Chairman Ashley Paulk said:

I’m not going to argue Bemiss Highway, it’s not a pertinent fact.

Who knows? Next maybe they’ll consider expanding to

regular routes on the bus system. Continue reading →

TVA needs to listen to former chair S. David Friedman about solar power

Will you bet on the blinkered money-only policies of the current
TVA Chair, or the accurate clean solar future predictions of former
TVA Chair S. David Friedman?

Seven years ago S. David Friedman wrote:


“As a substitute for oil, coal, and nuclear energy, the sun can
replace the three poisons with inexhaustible fuel.”

The former TVA Chairman wrote that in 2007 his boook

Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How,
which also says (page 4):

There are breakthroughs in new technology that promise to make
the cost of solar power as low as that of coal, nuclear, and oil.
Almost simultaneously in South Africa and the Silicon Valley in the
United States, companies are building huge new solar factories to manufacture
a paper-thin solar coating that can generate electricity that could
actually lower our electric bills.
These breakthroughs promise solar power at 75 percent less than today’s price. Continue reading →

MLK and pipeline opposition

The fossil fuel opposition is the child and grandchild of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.


With their nonviolence, truth, and action as a model, we shall overcome.

Bill McKibben, The Guardian, 25 August 2011,

Martin Luther King’s legacy and the power of nonviolent civil disobedience:
In opposing the Keystone XL oil pipeline, demonstrators are getting a sense of the civil rights leader’s courage,

Preacher, speaker, writer under fire, but also tactician. He really
understood the power of nonviolence, a power we’ve experienced in
the last few days. When the police cracked down on us, the publicity
it produced cemented two of the main purposes of our protest: First,
it made Keystone XL “ the new, 1,700-mile-long pipeline we’re
trying to block that will vastly increase the flow of “dirty” tar
sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico “ into a
national issue. A few months ago, it was mainly people along the
route of the prospective pipeline who were organising against it.
(And with good reason: Continue reading →

Solar boom charts

When a power source grows 66% a year on average
people start taking notice.
Few had heard of

the Internet in 1993:
now it’s in your pocket.
In less than a decade, by 2023,

solar power will generate more energy than any other U.S. source.
To keep Georgia from being left behind, this is the year to

change a 1973 law.

If charts like this one aren’t familiar yet,
they will be in the next year or two:



Tim McDonnell, Mother Jones, 7 November 2014,

Here Comes the Sun: America’s Solar Boom, in Charts:
It’s been a bit player, but solar power is about to shine.

At 66% more per year, solar power’s current 1% of U.S. electricity
next year will be 1.66%, then 2.76%, then Continue reading →

More military enlistments from Southwest Georgia


300x208 Military Enlistments, in Military Georgia, by John S. Quarterman, 30 December 2014
Yet another reason Atlanta doesn’t understand south Georgia:
military enlistment is 1 in 100 people in south Georgia from
Columbus to Valdosta, and less than a third of that in the Atlanta Metro area.
Enlistment is probably related to two other major features
of south Georgia that Atlanta doesn’t understand:
it’s agricultural (traditionally a bastion of military supporters),
and it’s poor (and enlisting is one way to a career).
A certain pipeline company may not have taken this factor
into account, either. Continue reading →

Solar bills in the Georgia legislature

Every year since about 2000 one or more solar bills have been
before the Georgia legislature to modify the
1973 Territorial Electric Service Act
to enable solar financing.


2015 could be the year one of them finally passes,
what with

influential people finally waking up
to the cost-saving and energy-independence power of solar panels.
If you want

real energy reliability, lower power bills, and local jobs,
you can help pass whichever bill gets before the legislature this year,
and right now is a good time to help draft that bill.

Here are a few recent bills.

ADS wants a trash collection rate hike: who could have forseen? @ LCC 2014-12-08

Who could have forseen the rate hike ADS
requested

Monday morning at the Lowndes County Commission Work Session?
Maybe anybody who noticed that ADS’ bid was 40% more than
its quickly-acquired subsidiary Veolia’s bid.

Update 2014-12-10: No report from ADS in the
board packet.
Joe Adgie reported on this topic in the VDT 10 December 2014,
Advanced Disposal wants price increase.

1. Call to Order 4.Minutes for Approval 8a.Advanced Disposal
8.a. Advanced Disposal —Steve Edwards (work session)

Video.
ADS wants to amend the exclusive franchise
for solid waste collection due to “lost revenue and unanticipated costs”.
And their number one reason: competition with “another hauler”,
in other words Continue reading →