The Renewable Energy Challenge

Thursday, September 10, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

To meet the EPA carbon targets of 32% by 2030, we are going to need a lot more than energy efficiency. The few new nuclear plants will just compensate for the closing of older nuclear plants. We will need to rely on renewable energy, mostly wind and solar, to replace the energy from closing coal plant. Obama is betting that renewable energy is up to the task. But optimists and pessimists paint very different pictures, especially for the further carbon reductions that we need after 2030. Some say renewables can take us to 100%, other say that we will need advance nuclear plants to provide the baseload electricity missing from renewables. We will take a closer look at the challenges to renewable energy to get a fair assessment. We will use material from the following videos:

• Al Gore on the reason of hope from renewables
• Thorium Energy to fight Climate Change by Gordon McDowell
• Obama at the Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas
• CASEnergy & IEER Debate Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7
• Amory Lovins - A 40-year plan for energy (link corrected 9/10/15) 
• Jonathan Lesser on Intermittent Power
• Bill Gates Talks About the Future of Energy (link corrected 9/10/15)

Note that many of these videos have information about nuclear energy, but we will will only look at the parts that pertain to renewable energy.

---------------------------------- Updated 9/10/15 ------------------------------------

Here are the links to the video that were shown at the meeting, but were not listed above:

• Chuck Grassley The Wind Energy Production Tax Credit
• Lamar Alexander Let Wind Power Stand on Its Own in the Marketplace
• Arizona PBS Expediting Electrical Transmission Lines

Student Loan Debt

Thursday, September 3, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Student loan debt now exceeds 1.2 trillion dollars. Is has been a problem for a number of years and is a major issue for the 2016 presidential race, at least on the Democrat side. However, main stream media continues to focus on the "horse race", so the issues get lost. We can do better.

For our next meeting, we will examine the full scope of the problem, and some of the incremental solutions that have been implemented by Obama, mostly by executive order. Our discussion will use the following videos for background:

• PBS report on the student debt problem
• Obama's last year's executive actions on student loans
• Senator Warren on student debt held by the elderly
• TED Talk on using technology to lower college cost
• Obama announces Student Aid Bill of Rights
• John Oliver on for profit colleges

Energy Efficiency

Thursday, August 27, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Energy efficiency is expected to play a large role in the EPA Clean Power Plan, see our previous meeting. Maryland has plans to shut down some of it coal fired electric plants to meet its EPA mandated carbon reductions. Unless we find ways to use our electricity more efficiently, our rates will surely go up.

Of all the carbon reduction actions, efficiency is the one that we will have the most personal experience with. While we don't know yet what Maryland plans to do, we can talk about how energy efficiency affects us globally and personally.

Al Gore explains how global energy efficiency can contribute to stop climate change. Alex Laskey tells us how to use psychology to make us conserve more. Catherine Mohr shares her over-the-top energy accounting.

There are also some down sides. The Conundrum is a book which claims that energy efficiency will just let us consume more. Aim High, by Thorium advocate Robert Hargraves, explains what is really needed to reverse climate change, (warning this is a long talk and only a small part will be shown at the meeting).

---------------------------------------------- 8/27/15 update -----------------------------------------------------

Here link to videos shown at the meeting not listed above:

• Amory Lovins on energy and efficiency
• Hans Rosling story of The Magic Washing Machine
• James Hansen on nuclear and coal

The Iran Deal

Thursday, August 20, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Next week we will discuss the Iran Deal, which has long been in the news but is about to get a lot more attention as we approach the votes in the House and Senate in September. We will show clips from videos which explore aspects of the deal and its political ramifications.  Here is a partial list:

• A brief history of Iran's nuclear program and the conditions of the deal, Warning this video gets a little political in some areas.
• Obama's July 14 announcement of the final deal and the threatened veto
• Ernest Moniz and the expected media barrage
• Obama's August 5 address to American University, answering the critics to the deal
• Maryland's Ben Cardin, possibly the most critical undecided vote
• Marco Rubio's bluntness on how the deal will ultimately be decided

------------------------- Updated 8/20/15 --------------------------

Here are links to the other videos shown at the meeting:

• John Oliver - Selling the Iran deal back home
• Israel's Netanyahu urges 'better deal' over Iran nuclear program
• The President Holds a Press Conference on the Nuclear Deal with Iran
• Barack Obama interview with Jon Stewart
• Boehner on Obama Presenting 'False Choice' on Iran
• Kerry on Why Reinstating Sanctions is a Bad Idea
• NPR interview with Obama on Iran Deal
• Morgan Freeman and others explain the Iran Deal

EPA's Clean Power Plan

Thursday, August 13, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will discuss Obama's Clean Power Plan, how it can lead to a solution to climate change, how it will survive the legal challenges, how it will affect the 2016 presidential elections and how it will affect Maryland. Because this is breaking news there is no single TED Talk you can view ahead of time. Instead, I am looking at YouTube videos as they become available and posting the ones I find interesting.

• Short promotion of the Plan
• Obama's announcement, this is long and will not be shown at the meeting, but it will be discussed. So watch this one if you only have time to watch one video.
• A summary of plan and its process by Gina McCarthy
• The connection to the UN Paris Summit
• A surprisingly honest assessment of the Plan by Europeans
• A look-back at climate politics
• The legal challenge by some governors, including Scott Walker
• Will old fashion coal politics still play a part?
• Will this kill the US coal industry?
• HERE is a long but interesting talk about coal's dominance in energy

--------------------------- Updated 8/24/15 ----------------------

Here is a link to the clip of Obama's Anger Translator at the WHCD.

Also during the meeting the Scott Walker clip above was not shown. This clip of Roy Blunt was shown instead.

Can We Influence Government?

Thursday, August 6, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Thanks to the Citizens United decision, you certainly can influence government, provided that you are a billionaire. Our Zoom-In group examined the need for campaign finance reform in a previous meeting. The featured video was a TED Talk by Lawrence Lessig, which explained how money corrupts our faith in government. He laments that we cannot addressed the problems that we care about unless we first fix campaign. For group members who missed that meeting, I suggest you watch it before coming to the meeting.

In our next meeting, we will view Lessig's follow-up talk where he promotes the grassroots movement that he is leading to force Congress to fix the problem. You might be surprised to learn that Columbia's Congressman John Sarbanes has introduced a bill, H.R. 20, to do just that. Sarbanes explains his bill HERE. So far H.R. 20 has 151 cosponsors, including the entire Maryland Democrat delegation. Unfortunately, there is only one Republican cosponsor. Nancy Pelosi is urging us to show support.

But what can you do? THIS TED Talk has a suggestion.

Respecting the Rights of Women

Thursday, July 30, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

After the tragedy in Charleston, we had a series of discussions of race and prejudice. While successful, our discussions left out the largest persecuted group, which makes up over half the population in this country and just under half the population in the world, (you can look it up on the web).

In THIS TED Talk, Jimmy Carter gives a comprehensive summary of what he considers the greatest injustice in the world. He also explains why men are reluctant to talk about it.

Persecuted groups in our country have gained respect after sacrifice in military service. Only a short time ago, it was unthinkable that our country would send our young women to die in combat. In THIS TED Talk, we see that this is no longer the case. One our Zoom-In members, Skye, had some personal contact with these women warriors in Afghanistan. She has graciously agreed to lead the discussion for this part if our meeting.