Uncategorized – Page 16 – Captain Obvious

The Price of Miracles

A newspaper with the headline ” Miracles Happen”.

We are such an interesting species living in unprecedented times. A bewildering array of food choices have been developed specifically to appeal to our taste buds. These foods are produced in unsustainable ways, and even when we try to cut down on things like red meat, the markets come up with substitutes that defeat our responsibilities to reduce consumption. We simply want ways to continue bad habits. Miracle meats are simply not really miracles.

Then, coupled with media that amps up our desires leads to a toxic cocktail of societal desires to live life well and ironically at our own peril. We simply are not aware of how modern foods, especially salty snacks and diet drinks, are so bad for us. We see countless ads implying our friendships will be enhanced if we offer arrays of these foods. We will be liked, and we want that for sure.

Even things like our diet drinks have so many chemicals in them that they twist and torment our natural body safety and control mechanisms … then couple all this with sedentary lifestyles and we get a nation of overweight people whose diets are just not balanced and nutritious.

We enjoy all this so much we look for ways to continue our bad habits with miracle cures for obesity, hair loss, wrinkles, and the quest for social acceptance. When we find anything that works, we then jump on it with both feet hoping it will restore us to our youth and make us popular … something we longed for since our teenage years.

Well, in the case of obesity, Big Pharma may have unleashed the devil itself. They once again seem to have found something that offers us the easy way out. We don’t have to change our behaviors … we simply have pills to take our responsibilities away. According to a recent article in MIT Research:

“Medicare still doesn’t cover drugs for obesity, but a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine warned that, in the hypothetical scenario that all Medicare beneficiaries with obesity were to use Wegovy, the cost would exceed the entire Medicare Part D budget. And if just 10% of obese people on Medicare were to take it at the net annual price of about $13,600, it would cost Medicare nearly $27 billion a year, according to the study. Unless the list price of Wegovy were discounted by more than 40%, the overall cost of the medication would eclipse the benefits to the U.S. healthcare system of lower obesity levels, according to a report by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. “If you spend all your money on weight loss, you’re not going to have money to do other things in healthcare,” says Dr. David Rind, chief medical officer of ICER.”

What makes matters worse is these drugs will have to be taken for the rest of a person’s life. If they stop taking them, their weight returns. Evidently, our bodies have natural mechanisms that require natural answers to these behavioral questions. We can’t just take a pill and forget about our personal choices. We must relearn the basics and practice them religiously (pun intended). Unfortunately, the business world sees the bounty in all this:

“The amount of attention drugs such as Ozempic are getting on social-media platforms, driven by testimonies from ordinary people and celebrities, shows how popular this new class of drugs is quickly becoming. Wall Street is working up its appetite.”

So, the real appetite problem is not only with us … the consumers. The lure of big money and the continued flow of that is a drug corporate America has always been addicted to. So, perhaps it is ironic and tragic that companies whose mission is to help consumers cope with their bad eating and living behaviors such as Jenny Craig are now going out of business, as reported today in the Walls Street Journal:

“Jenny Craig is going out of business after 40 years. The once-highflying weight-loss brand, which offered personalized plans and coaching and touted endorsements from stars like Queen Latifah and Mariah Carey, said Thursday it was canceling all online food orders. The closure comes after new drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro—which have been embraced by competitors such as WeightWatchers—have shaken up long-held beliefs that diet, exercise and willpower are the way to weight loss.”

Perhaps we need to stop thinking about miracles and more about personal responsibilities.

Do you see a pattern here? It seems to be everywhere these days.

A Tribute to Dr. Dick

There are times in life when a person becomes much more than a friend or acquaintance, and this blog offers a tribute to a person who helped Susan and myself build our company. The nickname came from the show Cybill where her inebriated friend would talk disparagingly about her husband saying “Dr. Dick” with obvious disdain. Dick Niess never fit that mold, but we called him Dr. Dick anyway.

I first met Dick back when I was manager of machinery development at Mechanical Technology Incorporated. We were both selected for a task force looking at heat recovery technology. Years later, quite by accident, I was visiting with Hal Bowles who headed up the Electrification Council for EEI who told me that Dick had left his company and was retired.

Georgia Power had picked up on my idea of industrial heat recovery as an alternative to cogeneration and I convinced Dick to join me … which he did and we worked together for about another 20 years.

Dick came from a different generation and was the refrigeration salesperson that first introduced air conditioning in New York City, mostly to the garment industry … not to keep employees comfortable, but rather to keep them from sweating and ruining fabrics as they worked on them in the garment industry.

Dick’s stories were a large reason for our success. They seemed like history lessons, but the wisdom was timeless and applicable to life today. Plus, most of them were funny … at least by the standards of humor back then. Some people today have completely lost their sense of humor.

My favorite story of was of the lady’s auxiliary in Britain after the second world war who had invited a Luftwaffe Colonel to speak about the war from the German point of view. As he finished, a British commander asked him about rumors of friendly fire as they returned to Germany after bombing raids.
Dick told the story with both British and German accents which I can’t replicate here, but work with me: “Colonel, I understand there were nights when you were mistaken for British planes as you returned to Germany?

“Ya … dis is true … I remember one night when we were fired upon by a group of fokers.”
The British commander quickly reminded the audience of women that the Fokker aircraft was one of the finest German fighters in the sky to which the German Colonel then responded with:
“Ya … das is true as well … but these fokers they were Messerschmidts.”

There were so many other stories he told which I will cherish for as long as I can still remember them.

Here’s to you Dr. Dick!

New Rules

Unlike basketball or football, baseball seems to me painfully slow to watch. Evidently, I am not the only one who feels that way. According to this from USA Today. The rules of the game have been changed to speed it up.

We are witnessing major changes in the game, and perhaps I missed it, but there doesn’t seem to be the polarization we see almost everywhere else? Why isn’t boxing illegal? Don’t we believe knocking a person out leaves permanent damage? I could go on and on, but work with me here. Something truly amazing has happened.

As you study the graphic and start watching the outfall from these new rules, I am sure the pace for the game will increase. That will no doubt have side effects that detract from the game like added time for commercials. As I watch the evening news, I have clocked the time covering news rather than playing commercials, and it is now absurd. Where are the rules that news shows have to have more than half of their time covering content to be considered news. Our local newspaper has rules that advertising content cannot exceed 1/3 of the paper.

I have been amazed at the civility of this transition in baseball. Look at these closing comments in an excellent article from February 16^th in the Wall Street Journal:

“The rollout of the rules will likely lead to some early moments of confusion over violations and frustration by players who are adapting to new restrictions. Data had been collected through a survey of minor league players who had experienced the pitch clock and said that “90% of them said they were able to adjust within a month.” Spring training runs about six weeks, and MLB hopes that will be long enough for most issues to have been ironed out by Opening Day.”

“Major League Baseball is embarking on a gamble against its conventions. The league hopes to preserve and increase future interest in the sport by reverting it closer to its roots through the use of novel rules. Baseball’s past, present, and future will coalesce in an attempt to deliver a sustainable version of the sport. The clock has started, now everyone must assume their stance.”

I want to see research into how and why this transition seems so easy and everything else in the world seems frozen against change. Is it because everyone in the baseball business was looking at the relentless decline in their fans following the sport? Is it because there are just a few in power in the right places who all see handwriting on the wall and have the power to change things? Contrast these changes with the state of our political system as summarized by Senator Joe Manchin the Wall Street Journal.

My point is that there is something to be learned here, and I really want those who can do this research to do it. We need new rules everywhere, in our politics, in our media, in our communications.

Does Carbon have Privilege

I would like to believe we still live in a free society with the freedom of choice in how we spend our leisure time. I am always thankful that so many others provide these amenities, and I do respect their need to bring in enough money to make them sustainable. It worries me when I hear about farmers going out of business, being pushed out in fact because they just can’t compete with the giant corporations. It also makes me cringe when I hear small local businesses being crushed by Walmart and Amazon. Worse yet, Walmart goes into a town, destroys the businesses and then seems to have no remorse in shutting down when they decide it just wasn’t worth it.

A recent article condemning ski lifts who need more snow making equipment because this increases their energy use. Read the article from New to Ski. Didn’t these same people ban natural gas in new buildings which will increase the electric use plus cost the building operators more money. Doesn’t anyone realize the added costs of snow making will raise ski lift ticket prices … that’s all … and given how much these tickets are already, hardly anyone will complain. After all, they want snow!

The Washington Post article referenced here illustrates that energy has always been a significant cost for ski resorts. If the planet is warming a bit and there is less snow, are you going to declare that they have to go out of business? How about irrigation to increase crop yields? Are you going to ban that? After all, that too increases the energy use, plus it depletes the water supply.

I do think we need to ask and answer water use questions, especially in the Western US where these agribusinesses do not pay for water anyway … they have hundred year old rights to water. Why were those rights granted? Because they are growing food you fool! This is part of modern business.

Rank has its privilege. Where does carbon stand in the ranks? The last time I checked, food and shelter took the high rank. We can certainly live without skiing if we decided it was destroying the planet … which it is not.

Why are we continuing to tilt at this windmill? Oh, I forgot … this is all about the money … in other people’s pockets.

Glass Windows

Our houses and buildings today have more glass than at any time in history. We all just love looking out at the world and admiring its beauty. OK, maybe it all is not quite so beautiful. My wife and I were visiting our client in Newark and the motel looked over a junkyard. The view from the desk and bed was OK … just as long as you didn’t walk over the to the window and look out from there.

As a boater, it is now quite clear that the windows to the master stateroom have grown exponentially, even if they are close to the waterline. Years ago those windows were called portholes and were built like they were the front of diving helmets. The main salon windows now are absolutely huge.

So what? Well, energy efficiency of boats has never been a criteria. After all, when you understand the fuel efficiency of a motor boat you quickly realize that is an oxymoron. When I grew up it was pretty common to think of getting 3-5 miles per gallon for my little outboard and the wooden skiff, and I could get even more if I kept the speed down. Today’s modern yachts can get 2-3 miles per gallon if you keep the boat in a no wake condition, but they now consume between 2 and 10 gallons per mile at 20 mph and much worse if you go faster than that.

Of course, if you aren’t going anywhere, fuel efficiency doesn’t matter, and since we use our vessel as a floating condominium it actually makes sense compared to property in Sarasota. In fact, it makes perfect sense, especially since our marina costs do not meter our electricity use. We pay a flat fee for our power consumption, and ironically, because the marina doesn’t measure individual slip power consumption, they have no idea we use so much more electricity for both heating and cooling compared to the older boats here.

Why? Because of the glass of course.

Today’s glazing is much more efficient than that of the past where it was about an R = 1. The modern coatings and multiple panes can bring that up to about 4-5. But, compared to modern wall materials, that is still pretty awful. Modern walls are an R value of 15 and higher, and much higher if you really work at it. Ceilings of course make these numbers look awful.

So what? Why are we letting modern architects use so much glass if we are really obsessed with energy? Because it helps sell you say? Why, if this is an existential crisis, is selling good for the planet? Because these newer homes and business buildings are better than the old ones? Why do we need new buildings?

Why, why, why … and the list goes on if you are really thinking.

It is time to clearly recognize that the world’s path is irreconcilably conflicted if we fail to be willing to destroy economic growth. We can’t mine our way out of the shortages of materials to build EVs and PVs. We can’t power our way with renewables to a lower carbon footprint if we fail to stop growth of the world economies.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where breaking the glass ceiling, rightful as it is, takes precedence over facing obvious abuses like our glass windows.

I love our free capitalistic economy. I am only pointing out that our corporations and politicians are all hypocrites if they think can continue growth this way.