The City Mouse in the Country

** The majority of this column was written nearly two years ago, however for a lot of reasons, has been updated and ready for publication now.** Recently a friend of mine and I were talking about some changes in our area.  We have had three solar farms built recently and there is talk about a wind farm. She brought up how wind turbines are responsible for killing birds.  That's a known fact that everyone can agree to, however exactly how many birds and what to do about the bird strikes is up for debate.   This conversation tells us a bit about the type of people we want to be.  We are going to have to make trade offs in the future and we need to determine what those tradeoffs will be.   Wind turbine's are constructed in a location that meets certain criteria to meet it's full effectiveness.   What happens if location X is also the breeding ground of a nearly extinct bird?  Can they still breed if the tower, or solar panel or geothermal ...

This blog was started because I had lived most of my life as an urban dweller; I wanted to record my adventures as I tried my hands at different things and I never pictured this blog would become what it did. Country life suits me in some ways.   I'm at a point in my life where I can appreciate looking up into the night sky and seeing thousands of stars, just like I did as a kid.   I just love how the moonlight bathes my beautiful sleeping wife in a creme colored light.   Country life is more peaceful and a lot more hard work than I would have ever expected.  While my neighbors and I may not agree politically or philosophically, my new lifestyle has given me insights on how they view the world. This brings me to my main point.   Here in rural America we simply don't have public transportation, nor do we have a lot of manufacturing or diversity or hospitals or even great education...and if we are going to move forward with a brighter greener f...

**Several months ago I had a bit of an argument with someone on Facebook.  That promoted this article.   I've decided to republish it due to the city of New York recently purchasing over 1000 all electric Police cars and replacing most, if not all, of its gasoline fleet.  You can read about that here .**   One of the reasons I write this blog, is because I believe that knowledge is useless unless it is shared.  Someone that reads this may disagree with me or my conclusions and that's fine.   However they can't say that they didn't learn something. Facts and Reality are not something we get to choose.  Nor can we ignore a fact that does not fit our world view.   Example of an EV Fire Truck Even though I do try to keep politics out of the blog, this post and the last were inspired by a political debate about disaster relief in the future.  Or the mistaken belief that somehow hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles (EV) will never replace...