On Hummers, Part III

The Hummer certainly seems to polarize. Many consider it to symbolize the worst of conspicuous consumption; a wasteful behemoth that is only bought for posturing and makes the roads dangerous for the rest of us. Others aspire to own one, or appreciate its offroading capabilities, and think the Hummer-haters would just get over it.

Me, I guess I don’t care too much. The disapproving busybody in me wonders if the people who buy them wouldn’t be better off with something more practical and less expensive, but that’s really none of my business. I have no plans to buy one, as its feature list doesn’t match well with my values. But it’s a free country. People can get whatever car they like.

I will say one thing, though. I get the feeling, browsing around, that some Hummer owners feel unjustly persecuted, and think that people have no right to mock their choice of vehicle. That just kills me. I mean, it’s a bit rich to buy an overexpensive SUV that is marketed almost purely on image, and then complain that people are judging you for that. (I’ll cut you slack if you bought your Hummer primarily for off-roading, but my guess is that very few people do so.) That’s like getting plastic surgery and then complaining that people think you’re superficial, or dying your hair pink and then complaining because people think you’re different.

On Hummers, Part II

I’m not really happy with how that last post turned out, but I’m not quite sure why. Let me add a few things.

It is interesting how uncritically that the report stating that Hummers are more energy-efficient than Priuses has been accepted, especially on some more conservative-oriented websites. Looks pretty clear that people are just reading the summary, or someone else’s post about the report, instead of actually reading the report itself.

If you actually read the report (available at http://www.cnwmr.com), there’s really not much there to give you confidence that it’s correct. It doesn't take more than a look at the format of the report to tell that it’s not something put out by some crack research team. The layout and organization is fairly primitive, and makes it clear that this is the job of some dude with a website. Not saying that means anything in the report is wrong, but if you are appraising the report with an open mind to see whether you can trust it … your suspicions should be tripped immediately. And that’s before you get to the ridiculous conclusion of a Prius consuming $384,000 worth of energy in its lifespan.

Let me pluck a few more statistics from the report. The main headline of the report, as mentioned before, is that the Hummer H3 is more energy-efficient than the Prius if you look at the energy consumed during the total lifespan of the vehicle. What’s interesting is that the report also shows that the H3 is more efficient than a non-hybrid Honda Civic. The relevant numbers are:

H3: energy costs are $421,000 over a 207,000 mile span.
Honda Civic: costs are $431,000 over a 178,000 mile span.

I can see in theory that a hybrid might have extra upfront costs, and the report takes pains to explain this, but the mass-produced, lower-end Civic is also more expensive? Oh, and let me give the numbers for the Toyota Corolla:

Toyota Corolla: energy costs are $130,000 over a 169,000 mile span.

So the Civic burns up three times as much energy as a Corolla, when all things are considered … really?

My overall point here is that even if you don’t think the report is dead wrong as I do, even a cursory scan of it should raise enough questions in your mind so as to make it highly dubious. I would certainly want further confirmation before going out on a limb and telling everyone it was the gospel truth, but maybe that’s just me.

Well, I should stop being naïve. People are uncritical when they hear what they want to believe. That’s not news. But why is this something that people want to believe? Are they pro-Hummer, or anti-Prius, or both? Why would you want to believe that a hybrid doesn’t deliver what it says it does?

My take, from surfing around, is that there are still segments of conservatives that are still fighting the small-versus-large car wars of thirty years ago. The rest of the country has moved on – some people buy small cars, some not, but for most of us it’s never considered a political statement. But apparently some people still feel the need to ridicule small cars and hope for their failure. Weird. Guys – wake up; that war ended twenty years ago, and the small cars won. They won because they were inexpensive, reliable, and efficient. Let’s move on.

On a side note, I get the feeling that some of these people are rooting for the Prius to fail because they perceive Prius owners to be insufferable elitist, tree-hugging, SUV-hating jerks. My personal experience here is that I know three Prius owners, and none of them fit that description in the least.

Me, I hope hybrids take off because greater fuel efficiency will be better for our society and our country. Why would anyone want them to fail? How would that help the U.S.?

Coming up: how I really feel about Hummers and their owners.

On Hummers, part I

One of the sillier articles floating around the internet lately is a report that the Hummer H3 is significantly more energy efficient than a Toyota Prius, when you consider the total amount of energy used to construct, drive, and dispose of the cars. This report is being referred to by a number of conservative-oriented websites as an in-your-face proof of the hypocrisy of those enviro-radicals who like hybrids. Google Prius + Hummer to see what I mean.

Guys, guys, guys, just because something implausible was published on a marketing website on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true, even if you sorely want to believe in it. You might want to apply at least a tiny amount of skepticism now and then. I was curious, so I actually read the report, available here: http://www.cnwmr.com. I mean the actual report, not just an article talking about it. And … it’s not very credible.

Before getting to the report, let’s look at this from a high level. The Prius does have some high-tech components and some advanced materials, so it’s certainly plausible that it takes more energy to design and manufacture than a run-of-the-mill vehicle. At the same time, a Hummer has high-tech components as well. The bottom line, though, is the fact that the Hummer costs more, and you would think that if the Prius used significantly more energy to build, or for R&D, then that has to show up in the price.

On to the report. It says that a Prius, over a 110,000 mile lifetime, uses an average of $3.50 worth of total energy per mile driven. A Hummer H3 uses about $2.05/mile over its 200,000 mile lifetime (numbers rounded up). Therefore, the H3 uses less energy and is better for the environment.

Ok, so skipping over questions about how someone would know that a vehicle that was released two years ago has an average lifetime of 200,000 miles, some astute people have pointed out that if you do the math, the report is claiming that on average, a Prius burns up on the order of $380,000 of energy over its lifetime, which seems a bit extreme. What’s funny is that I’ve seen “proponents” of the report debate that conclusion, saying that the critics have misinterpreted the numbers. Ummm, no. Read the report, which shows a table listing the average energy cost of a Prius to be $384,329.24. That’s not me doing math; that’s a direct quote from the report.

I thought about writing a detailed rebuttal, which would be easy enough, but I have better things to do with my time, so I’ll keep it short.

The breakdown of the Prius numbers are:

Fuel	$ 8,000
R&D	$ 30,000
Manufacturing	$ 13,000
Maintenance	$ 22,000
Recycling costs	$ 147,000
Landfill costs	$ 131,000
Reusable parts costs	$ 48,000
Other	$117,000

I’m not sure what exactly is in the ‘Other’ category, which I calculated by subtraction. The numbers quoted in the report didn’t add up to the stated total.

Some of these numbers look reasonable; some not. Let’s just look at the landfill costs. Actually, let’s take the stated landfill cost for the average car, which the report puts at $275,000 per car. According to the government data here: http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2005, there were 7.5 million cars sold in the U.S. in 2003. Multiplying the numbers, this puts the landfill costs of all cars sold in the U.S. in 2003 at around 2 trillion dollars. The total GDP for the U.S. was around 12 trillion dollars, so this is saying that one sixth of our economy was devoted to the landfill business for cars alone. Throw in another seven million trucks, and another two million “conveyances”, as the government puts it, and we’ve got the landfill segment taking up about half of the American economy. Right.

Look, I understand hidden costs, subsidies, externalities, and the like, and how real costs are not always what they seem. But there’s no way those are going to inflate the cost of a car that lists for $23,000 all the way up to $385,000 without someone in the consumer chain noticing. This report is severely flawed.

One of My Favorite Things

One of my favorite things in the whole world happened today. Went out for lunch with some friends. CU has their spring break this week; we decided it was a good time to hit one of the restaurants near the CU campus when it’s not overrun by college kids. So we’re sitting at The Sink, in a side room, waiting for our food. Out of the corner of my eye, for a split-second, I see a woman who looks like my wife walking through the front room, carrying a baby. Couldn’t be her, since she rarely goes to Boulder, and why would she be at the Sink of all places, but man, she really looked like my wife. A few seconds later I saw her sister walk by with my daughter, and it made sense – her sister works near the Hill, so they must have had a lunch date.

Anyways, I went over and said hi, took my son to hang with the guys (who very politely indulged us) and eat pizza for a few minutes, then traded him for my daughter who was feeling left out, and then we went our separate ways. Needless to say, it was all a complete coincidence, as I had no idea she was going to Boulder, and she didn’t know I was going out for lunch. That sparked an interesting conversation with my friends about weird random meetings with people you know – which apparently happens more than you’d guess.

I was totally pumped to see my family, and I had a smile on my face for the rest of the day. It’s hard to explain why I was that excited. I mean, I love my family and all, but it’s not like I miss them the moment I step out of the door. We just finished spending the weekend together and I was five hours away from being home in the evening, so it’s not like I’d been gone for a long time. Put it another way – we met for a planned lunch last week – and it was fun to see them, but it was a hundred times more fun to see them unexpectedly today.

I’ve run into my wife randomly like that once before. Just after we were married; I was between jobs and eating lunch at the Chipotle at 55th and Wadsworth – not particularly close to our house. I was reading some programming book; looked up, and my wife was standing there in line; she was coming home from her part-time job. I waved; after she got her food I put the book away and we had a thoroughly pleasant lunch. Again, it’s hard to explain why we got such a kick out of seeing each other, but that lunch is one of our favorite memories from all the time we’ve been together – in fact, we were just talking about it a few weeks ago.

So why are those random encounters so special? I think it has something to do with spontaneity, and stepping out of the roles in which we stereotype ourselves. Our lives are pretty structured, and we often view the present in terms of our expectations. Random surprises break us out of our mold and force us to encounter the present on its terms, to see each other with fresh eyes. Does that make sense? Maybe not. I’ll have to think about this some more. I’d sure like to find a way to replicate the experience.

Book Notes - Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades

Notes on Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades
By John Gever, Robert Kaufmann, David Skole, Charles Vörösmarty
1986; 2nd edition 1991

Read February-March 2007

This book, first published in 1986, argued that the fate of the American economy and our agricultural infrastructure is tied to the fate of oil, and that oil is running out soon. The authors predicted that the economy would be in a downward slide starting by 2000 at the latest, until we moved to energy sources other than oil.

From reading between the lines, it looks like this book is a response to actions by the Reagan administration which relaxed the Carter administration’s emphasis on conservation and energy independence.

Ok, so they were clearly wrong in their predictions. Even knowing that, I still chose to read the book for several reasons:

i) I wanted to see where they went wrong.
ii) The book has been described as “seminal” on several peak oil websites. Of course, such sites don’t consider that the book’s thesis has been disproven, just that their timing is a little off. So the underlying arguments may still be in play.
iii) It still looked interesting.

Let me see if I can summarize the book’s positions. I’ll try; I’m not sure I understand them completely. I’ll save editorial comments until later.


1. Human progress can be broken into two components: technological advances that let us take better advantage of energy sources, and advances that have increased the supply of energy. The technical advances in the former generally consist of ways to apply more energy to a given problem to reduce labor or capital needed, not to solve the problem using less energy. If the supply of energy ever decreases, then those technological advances won’t buy us much.

The standard counterargument by the “cornucopian” economists is that the resource extraction rate per worker-hour, or per dollar, has steadily decreased throughout the course of human history, and there is no reason to believe that this will not continue to be the case.

The counter-counterargument: (i) the quality of resource stocks is steadily declining, in oil, mining, and agriculture. For oil and minerals; this is natural, since the purest deposits are recovered first. It takes more and more energy to recover the same amount of resource from the earth. This hasn’t been a problem because the decrease in price of energy supplies has outpaced the decline of resource quality. But this doesn’t apply when the resource in question is energy. You can’t throw energy at the problem to create more energy.

2. The book’s analysis shows that per-capita GNP tracks very closely with energy consumption per-capita. If energy consumption goes down because of energy depletion, so does GNP.

The standard counterargument here is that according to the actual numbers, the ration of per-capita GNP to energy consumption has increased significantly over the last sixty years, indicating that our economy is becoming less and less dependent upon energy.

The counter-counterargument: (a) the composition of energy sources have changed significantly over those last sixty years, so it’s not an apples-apples comparison. (b) You can break energy consumption down into industrial + household usage. The household consumption is essentially defined as the energy that the workforce uses on its own time. It turns out that all the change in the GNP:energy consumption ratio is due to decreases in household energy. So industrial efficiency gains have been minimal, and this is actually the component that tracks one-for-one with energy consumption. Reduce energy supplies and industrial output is reduced by the same proportion.

Demand elasticity for energy is much lower than most economists think.

3. It’s the same story for agriculture. Farming yields have been rising impressively over the past century, but that has been mostly due to adding energy inputs. Mechanization and use of fertilizer are the most important.

4. The U.S. is running out of oil. By 2000 there will be no more domestic exploration, as it will take more than a barrel of oil to discover a barrel of oil. Moreover, we will not be able to rely on imported oil for long. I didn’t really understand the logic here, but it sounds like they are saying that if imported oil prices are too high, there will be no point in trading for it since the energy we import will all have to be consumed in manufacturing goods to pay for the oil. Honest, that’s what it says.

5. No good energy alternatives are in place. Hydro is maxed out; nuclear is problematic; coal quality is declining and mining efficiency will go down as strip-mining gets to be too expensive. Alternatives will eventually be developed, but not before we suffer a major hit to the GNP.

6. If all that doesn’t convince you, they also ran a computer program that simulates the U.S. economy. They punched in a bunch of inputs, and found out that yes, we’re screwed.

7. Policy recommendations: start fostering alternative energy. That probably won’t hit the mainstream in time to keep us from feeling pain, but we can get a leg up on it. In the meantime, try to educate the populace about conservation and energy efficiency, and try to slow the rate of population growth via popularizing birth control and limiting immigration.


Ok, that ends my summary of their logic. So where did they go wrong? Or maybe I shouldn’t get ahead of myself; did they go wrong? Certainly, their predictions have not come to pass, although some would say that we only need to wait a short while.

The argument that I found the least comprehensible was that in item #4, that compensation for our declining internal production of oil by importing oil would be limited in scope. That has clearly not turned out to be the case. The argument probably didn’t make sense in 1986 either; Japan was doing just fine despite its limited domestic supply of energy. And they actually raised the question of why the U.S. couldn’t be like Japan, but so far as I could tell never technically answered it. Maybe they bought into their energy reductiveness a little too much – saying that if GDP really does track 1-1 with energy consumption, then there is no point in trading for it, since you give out what you get back? They do mention that “the trade of services for fuel is not considered” because it was too hard for them to calculate. Nobody would possibly trade oil for technology, would they?

Once the assumption of declining energy is undermined, the rest of the book’s logic is somewhat pointless, as it’s all about how everything is peachy so long as there’s plenty of energy.

The chapter about running a computer program to simulate and forecast the American economy made me laugh. Like that’s supposed to prove anything. Maybe in 1986 that sort of thing impressed more people.

The economics arguments are interesting. What they’re saying basically sounds like it comes down to the fact that they don’t believe that there have been any industrial gains in energy efficiency in the sixty years prior to the book. I find that a bit hard to believe, but I don’t have the data to argue my point.

Actually, that really is the main point of the book, that our welfare, in terms of the economy and our food supply, is strictly tied to our energy supply. Cut the energy supply by 5% and you reduce our standard of living by 5%. And since so much of our energy comes from oil and coal, which are declining, we are looking at a dismal future.

One of the threads running through the book (and the peak oil movement in general) is a refusal to admit the possibility that pricing can affect demand. The claim that the elasticity of energy demand has been low in the U.S. might well be true, although it doesn’t impress me much. Electricity, for example, is such a low proportion of the average American household’s budget – and is steadily getting lower – that there has been little incentive to be respond to price changes. I find it hard to believe that would remain the case if prices rose to a significant amount.

A few other points stuck out. There’s a weird section in Chapter 3 about the true meaning of “conservation” and how it differs from what they call “curtailment”, the latter meaning what you think it does. To the authors, “conservation” means increasing efficiency, for example, adding insulation to your house, not lowering your thermostat. That whole passage was kind of funny since I’ve been reading other books that complain about people confusing “conservation” with “efficiency”.

Another funny note was in the introduction to the second edition, five years after the book was first published and ten years after the core data was collected. The authors had a chance to reconsider anything they said, any predictions they made … maybe tweak some dates … nope, in their words they were “proud” not to revise it since they got the assumptions and logic right the first time. Yikes. Of course, the U.S. was in a recession for much of that time, so maybe the data wasn’t trending that badly according to their predictions … but still, you think five years would be enough to learn at least something new, so that you’d want to fine-tune something. The final words of the prologue to the second edition are “In summary, the stagnation and eventual decline in the U.S. standard of living that is described in Beyond Oil is not pessimism, it is here.” Kind of funny as that was written as the American economy was preparing to skyrocket.

Ok, so you might be getting the idea that I think this is a pretty bad book. Certainly, it contains assumptions and arguments that are quite incorrect. That’s too bad, as I’m generally sympathetic with the authors’ end goals – reduced reliance on nonrenewable energy, and intelligent population growth, i.e. growth with an eye to what the earth can support and to the quality of life that we all want to have. But I can’t really buy the arguments in this book.

Book Notes: Why Energy Conservation Fails

Notes on Why Energy Conservation Fails
Herbert Inhaber, 1997
Read January-February 2007

The main point of this book is that government programs to foster energy conservation fail to work at the national level, and should be discontinued.

I’m glad I read the book, but I didn’t really like it – the tone is smarmy and the author clearly has an axe to grind, which potentially undermines whatever persuasiveness he was trying to effect. So I don’t trust him, but some of the arguments are correct, and the book as a whole was worth thinking through and understanding. I would have preferred reading a more balanced and considered approach, but this was one of the few books in the library I saw written with an economic slant to energy conservation, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.

The book doesn’t have much structure per se. Each chapter represents some line of attack against energy conservation efforts. Some chapters are more coherent and strongly argued than others, giving the book the overall feeling of “let’s throw slop against the wall and see what sticks.” On the plus side, I didn’t feel the need to linger on the chapters with weak arguments, so I went through the book pretty quickly.

The book begins with the observation that although it’s certainly possible to improve the energy efficiency of a given device or process, that doesn’t necessarily reduce national or even personal energy consumption. In fact, an arbitrary program of spot conservation can actually end up increasing overall consumption, much as an ill-conceived diet can end up causing you to gain weight. Much of the book is spent elucidating ways this can happen.

A good part of the book is spent arguing that energy is becoming cheaper and more plentiful, so there is no reason to apply conservation at all. Inhaber provides two telling charts:

1. The graph of the number of gallons that were purchasable by the average personal income, from 1950 – 1994. The trend is steadily increasing until the early 70’s, when it starts bouncing around, dipping by 40% off the peak in the early 80’s, and then rising steeply since. The value in 1994 (16,000 gallons) is 60% higher than in the previous peak year of 1972 (10,500 gallons).
2. Even more striking is the graph of the number of miles that you can drive on the average personal income, given a car that met the average mpg figure for that year. Here you’re combining the increase in income with the increase in mileage. So the pattern is similar, but the dip in the late 70’s is only about 20%, and the end value in 1994 is 150% larger than the peak in 1973. Inhaber concludes that the golden age of driving is now.

It would be interesting to bring the charts up to date, given the steeper gas prices of 2005-2006. But such statistics really do need to be reconciled by anyone claiming that we’re running out of oil.

So far so good, but now the wheels start to come off. Inhaber follows this up with a chart showing how average mpg tracks with percentage of oil imports. Average mpg increased steadily from the 70’s to the mid-90’s, but it didn’t seem to have much impact on the percentage of oil that we have to import. So, therefore, increasing mpg didn’t do us much good, so why bother.

Which is a bizarre argument. Reducing oil imports is a good thing, but there are other factors in that equation, namely, the fact that U.S. production has declined significantly over the last twenty years. If you want to argue that mileage doesn’t affect overall energy consumption, shouldn’t you track mileage and ummm, gasoline or energy consumption? That would be logical, but Inhaber doesn’t do that, probably because, ummm, the facts don’t exactly fit his theory. Here’s a great site for overall U.S. energy trends: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/ep/ep_frame.html. You can see that overall petroleum consumption (Figure 5) dropped sharply in the late 70’s, and we didn’t reach that peak again until 1999, when the country’s population was much larger (raw data here: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0103.html).

And indeed, these charts partially undermine the whole book. Take Figure 2, which shows that energy consumption per-capita peaked in 1978-9, dropped immediately thereafter, and has been fairly constant since, currently running about 7% below the peak. This contradicts claims throughout the book that conservation (or efficiency improvements, or whatever you want to call it) does not affect overall consumption.

My main point here is that Inhaber, shall we say, chooses his data selectively. It’s just hard to trust him.

Anyways, here are the parts that I liked:

· Discussion of Stanley Jevons, the 19^th century English economist, who pointed out that increasing efficiency can increase overall resource consumption. The example given is that of steam engines. The early ones were colossally inefficient, and for that and other reasons, were not used widely, and therefore used only a small amount of coal in the aggregate. Then Watt came along with a much more efficient engine, which was economically viable, and therefore was used in hugely greater numbers, which therefore consumed a larger amount of coal. (It should be noted that Jevons is a somewhat odd role model for Inhaber to use, as Jevons’ main concern was the potential of England running out of coal.)

· Two other examples of bounce-back effects:

o Conserving energy increases its supply, which reduces the price, and therefore increases the demand for it.

o When you make efforts to conserve energy in some areas, you often feel like you can now relax in other areas, because “you’ve earned it”. This can wipe out the original savings. Note the analogy with dieting.

· And my favorite: studies show that when some people look at conserving household electricity usage, they realize just how cheap it is, and understand that it’s no big deal to use even more. I’m down with that; once you know that burning a 60-watt bulb for fifteen minutes costs you .15 cents out of pocket, you’re not exactly motivated to follow your toddler around the house shutting off the lights after her.

I do like the analogies with dieting and a similar sort of endeavor, budgeting and saving money. I’ve personally had similar experiences there for some of these points.

But note that these are all qualitative arguments. Buying a more efficient refrigerator will certainly save energy, which you might use in other ways … but you might not. On that note, check out Figure 30 on the DOE web page cited above. Average annual fuel consumption per vehicle is down, significantly so for cars (see the underlying stats), since the 70’s. This doesn’t contradict Inhaber outright – maybe people are buying more cars since mileage is so good – but it doesn’t help either.

Interesting – my initial impression of the book wasn’t that bad, but I’m really turning against it as I wrote up my notes and am looking at other data. Which is funny, because I’m at least somewhat sympathetic to some of the economic arguments against government intervention:

• Energy is historically cheap, so why do we need to conserve at all, for reasons other than ordinary economy/cost-saving?
• Let the free market determine how best to conserve. Want people to use less energy? Tax the price.

Good points that need to be answered, I’d say. Too bad this book is so slanted, and written with such an obnoxious tone, that you need to summon all your objectivity to take it seriously.

Rocky Mountain High

The Colorado state legislature just passed a bill proclaiming the John Denver song to be Colorado’s second state song, after the original state song, whatever obscure tune that may be.

Good for them. The song is not to everyone’s taste, but a lot of people like it, as I do, because it captures what makes Colorado a great state.

Two comments.

1. The power of “tradition”. It’s not clear why the bill didn’t simply replace the original state song. My assumption is that the sponsor wanted to avoid resistance from traditionalists who didn’t want to lose the heritage of the original song, or some crap like that. That just kills me, since I’ve never heard the original song, have never heard anyone talk about it, and would be amazed if even a single-digit percentage of the state’s population has. I’m all for keeping links to the past alive, but can’t be bothered when those links are already dead.

2. There was some concern in the legislature that “Rocky Mountain High” is a drug song, and so by approving the bill the legislature would be promoting drug use. Apparently there was an amendment (later defeated) to make an Official Clarification to the Official Second State Song saying that it in no ways was about drugs. My response – oh come on. Yes, the word ‘high’ is an analogy, and the very last line can be read in different ways, but the song is in no ways “about” drugs. Listen to the lyrics. It's about Colorado, and what it means to one man. Any state should be proud to have such a song.

Update - just listened to the song again with my wife. The song, and John Denver, have become something of a cliche by now. But when I cut through the cliches and the stereotypes and listen to the song with fresh ears, hearing what he has to say, I'm reminded what a great song it is.

On a passing way of life – and justice

So I had something of a harsh thought while reading Backbone of the Mountains and the author’s lamentations of an old-West way of life that is disappearing. Traditional industries like ranching, farming (at least in the Rocky Mountains), and mining are becoming less and less profitable, and the population that was so employed must now do something else, perhaps even giving up their land in the process.

I don’t really have an opinion of whether that transition is a good thing or not. Certainly it’s painful for some of the people involved. But – harsh though it may be, I’m not sure you can call it unfair. What has been happening to them the past fifty years or so – a culture being squeezed and made irrelevant by a modern economy – is exactly how they acquired the land to begin with. In a sense, what is happening to the rural West now is what happened to the Indians, only now the current residents are on the receiving end.

Book Notes: Backbone of the World

Notes on Backbone of the World: A Portrait of the Vanishing West Along the Continental Divide

Frank Clifford, 2002

Read February 2007

In short, the book consists of about a dozen interviews with people in the Rocky Mountain states. Clifford’s goal was to talk to people with more traditional (or stereotypical, however you like) Old West livelihoods, generally meaning ranching and farming.

I have a weakness for these sorts of travel books, and generally read one or two a year. I love travelling, and always wonder about the people who live in the places I drive by. What kind of people are they, and how do they live. But I never have time to linger, and I don’t really like talking to people anyway, so I’m not likely to find out on my own. So it’s fun to visit vicariously through the experiences of others.

I ended up liking this one, although it was kind of annoying at first. I didn’t like the title – “backbone of the world” seemed a bit ethnocentric – I never thought of the Rockies exactly as having world-wide significance. Turns out the phrase is a Blackfoot Indian expression, although that’s never mentioned in the book. In fact, the book is not really about the Continental Divide at all. The Divide makes a few spot appearances, and a minor running theme is the development of the Continental Divide Trail, but all that is tangential to the book. Which is too bad; I was looking for some discussion about the Divide; some natural history, or what makes it special aside from being a line on the map would have been nice.

Prologue: Clifford’s goal is to talk to people who maintain a link to the pioneers and Old West past, as well as to ramble around on the land and muse about how best to preserve the wilderness while keeping some of the Old West spirit. Discussion for several pages about the Continental Divide Trail’s birth, and how he plans to hike it. The prologue ends with him starting the hike from the Mexican border … and you never hear of him hiking the trail the rest of the book. The first chapter starts in Wyoming.

There’s a very weird section in the prologue where Clifford assumes that the mountain west is a place that “extends a helping hand to travelers in need. Isn’t this the place where a warm pot of coffee is always waiting and the refills are free, where the gas stations let you pump first and pay later, where people leave their keys in the car and their front doors unlocked, where the farmer’s field is open to some hunter in the fall …” Umm, no, that would be the Midwest. Actually, people in the Rockies are generally friendly; same as they are everywhere else, but if you’re going in for Old West stereotypes, you should also remember the parts about rustling, shootouts, massacres, vigilantes, and the like. What makes the above passage extra funny is how much it’s belied by Clifford’s experiences in the rest of the book, for example the discussion among some Blackfeet about how to go from Montana to eastern Washington without passing through what they call the “Aryan panhandle” of Idaho, or when he rides shotgun with a meter-reader through a scary, crime-ridden part of rural New Mexico.

Once you exit the prologue, the rest of the book is a good read. Clifford connects with his subjects and does a good job of giving you perspective on all the issues. Lots of rumination about the future of the west, conflict between environmentalists, residents, and hunters. Nothing really profound or that I didn’t already know, but it was fun to listen to.

In brief:

Chapter 1 – Clifford goes on a pack trip through the mountains of northwestern Wyoming with an old-timer surveyor.

Chapter 2 – A visit with an old rancher in Catron County, New Mexico, home to an anti-environmentalist, anti-federal government movement a few years ago. Interesting passage where Clifford suggests that the notoriety for the county is not turning out well. Cheap land and a reputation of being a place where nobody can tell you what to do has attracted more people than the arid land can support, and the “nobody can tell me what to do with my land” attitude only works when population densities are low. Catron County had seven unsolved murders in the two years before the book was written. That’s a huge number for a county of 3500. By the way, I checked the official census estimates and they show the county’s population as growing 40% between 1990 and 2000, and being flat since.

Chapter 3 – Hanging out with a man who is running sheep in the mountains above Vail, Colorado. I didn’t know such people still existed. Not surprisingly, his sheep-herding, coyote-shooting ways do not endear him to the urban-yuppie hikers who traipse through the area.

In passing, Clifford described the towns of Silverthorne and Frisco as “stand-alone suburbs with deceptively exotic-sounding names”. I was curious, so I checked up on the history. Frisco has been around since 1880, although certainly there is nothing left of the original town, either materially or spiritually. Silverthorne is modern; it was founded in the late 1960’s as a tourist destination, although the name is somewhat authentic, as it comes from one of the pioneers in the 1880’s.

Chapter 4 – with the Blackfeet in northern Montana

Chapter 5 – with a game warden in Yellowstone who chases hunters when they cross the line. The issue here is that a number of outfitters set up salt licks fifty yards or so from the park boundaries. The elk, protected in the park and presumably feeling safe there, venture to the salt licks, and boom. Legal, but not very sporting if you ask me, but what do I know.

Chapter 6 – with a former uranium miner in Jeffrey City, Wyoming, site of a major mining operation from the 50’s through the 70’s. Sounds like an eerie place now; built up from scratch fairly late in the century but now mostly abandoned. Not a very happy place. Par for the course – the government and mining companies claimed that the mining was safe, saw no need to implement inexpensive ventilation mechanisms, and paid well so nobody worried too much, until the workers in their forties started dying of cancer.

Chapter 7 – a small cattle drive through the Great Basin of Wyoming.

Chapter 8 – the highlands of northern New Mexico. Scared me away from ever wanting to live there.

Chapter 9 – an old farming family on the bootheel of New Mexico.

Chapter 10 – with an environmental activist in Alberta.

Album Review: Lindsey Buckingham, Under the Skin

In short: good, if not the album I wanted him to do.

Lindsey Buckingham, if you didn’t know, was the guitarist for Fleetwood Mac in their glory days. You can’t really call him the brains of the bunch, as the rest of the members were quite talented in their own way, but he was the one who added that extra bit of artistry to turn them from a modestly popular band to one of the world’s most famous. In retrospect, his rise was astonishing: less than a year after he joined the band, they released the smash “Fleetwood Mac” album; “Rumours” came less than two years later and became the greatest-selling album of all time.

For my money, Buckingham is an absolute musical genius, with a gift for making excellent rock-pop songs. I don’t think he’s the greatest songwriter around, but he has that Midas touch of being able to take anyone’s songs, including his own, and turning them into gold with his performing, arranging, and producing skills. Unfortunately for me, he doesn’t seem that interested in exercising his gifts in conventional forms, no matter how good he may be at it. “Rumours” was followed up by the unconventional (but no less excellent) “Tusk”. But on his own, without the band to keep him honest, Buckingham’s work is much more uneven and experimental. His first two albums have a few good singles but in general fail to grab me. 1992’s “Out of the Cradle” was the album where he really reached his solo promise; I like that album very much.

I’ve listened to “Under the Skin” for about two weeks now. It reverts to experimental form, which is not necessarily a good thing in my book. For better or for worse, it’s not really a rock album. Not much in the way of electric guitar (or bass or drums, for that matter). Most of the songs are reminiscent of “Red Rover” from Fleetwood Mac’s last album, “Say You Will” – lots of finger-picking; muted and whispered vocals; most songs are a bit fragmented.

Songs: oddly, the album starts off weakly (in my opinion of course), and gets stronger song by song until two-thirds of the way through. My favorites are “Cast Away Dream” and “Down on Rodeo” which, probably not coincidentally, have the most conventional structure. Both are excellent; well worth the price of the album.

Overall, I’d say it’s about a solid ‘B’ – the best songs rate an ‘A’, but there are a few too many ‘C’s. I have to admit, the album gets a little better each time I hear it, but still I wish he had done something more straightforward.

A New Perspective On Modern Art

Took the kids to the Denver Art Museum yesterday. That was our first visit since they opened their new sharply-angular wing (see http://www.denverartmuseum.org/home for a picture). Actually, it turns out that the first Saturday of the month is a free day. Which was good, but it meant the museum was quite crowded. Between my daughter in the backpack and pushing my son in the stroller, trying look at the art and not to run into anyone, I actually didn’t notice the architecture at all, although we only went onto two floors in the new wing.

I’m not a huge fan of modern art. Some of it’s impressive, some of it’s cool, some of it’s moving, but mostly I don’t get it. Honestly, I look at a lot of the pieces and fail to see a great deal of talent underlying them.

But being there with a two-year old made me appreciate it more. My daughter was much more attracted to the the modern stuff, which is much more bright, colorful, and does a better job of grabbing your attention. By contrast, the old master wing was totally stodgy, and she couldn’t wait to leave it. Not that Denver has the best collection of that genre, but I can see that it really did stand out as being dull in a kid’s eyes. So I will grant that modern art does have some positive virtues. I should note that some of the modern pieces were definitely adult in nature; should make for some awkward conversations in future trips with the kids.

We only lasted about an hour in the museum. This was my favorite piece: “By June the Light Begins to Breathe”, by Keith Jacobshagen. It doesn’t look that great on a little computer window, but it was impressive seen up close.

One odd note: as we walked in, a museum employee told us that there are a few galleries where they don’t allow you to take a baby backpack in. I’m not sure which exhibits we were banned from, since we weren’t actually chased out of anywhere. I’d love to know what that’s about. I mean, they allow strollers, and I’m not sure why a backpack is more dangerous than a stroller. You can store just as much contraband in one as the other. I would think they would encourage the pack since it’s way better than having kids running amok. I’m glad we brought it; there were a number of exhibits that my daughter wanted to play on, including the “design” exhibits (i.e. chairs and sofas), and the brightly colored toadstool sculptures (forgot the formal name, but one of the cooler pieces there) in the modern section.

Trip Report – Durango 2007

Date: February 2007

Duration: 4 nights

Distance covered: 1030 miles

Itinerary:

Day 1: I-70 to Silt, CO. Dinner at Wendy’s, in Edwards. Snow squall going through Glenwood canyon but good weather otherwise.

Day 2: I-70 to Palisade; US 50 to Montrose; US 550 to Ridgway; CO 62 to Placerville; CO 145 to Cortez; US 160 to Durango. Left Silt at 0900; arrived in Durango 1630. Lunch: McDonald’s in Montrose; dinner: pizza (local chain; don’t know which) in the hotel room.

Outstanding views going over Lizard Head Pass. Roads were clear.

Day 3: Drove to Mesa Verde and back. Lunch: leftover pizza. Dinner: Tequila’s, in Durango (good).

Day 4: Drove to Aztec, NM and Aztec Ruins National Monument. Lunch: Steamworks Brewery in Durango (good). Dinner: Nini’s Taqueria (local version of Chipotle/Qdoba, only not as good). Ice cream at Cold Stone.

Day 5: US 160 to Del Norte; CO 112 then US 285 to Denver. Lunch: Taco Bell/KFC in Salida. Left Durango 0800; arrived home at 1530.

New Music:

Lindsey Buckingham, Under the Skin

Firsts:

Not much for me or my wife individually; we didn’t have time or energy to take any side roads. It was the first time we’ve been over Lizard Head Pass in winter. But it was the first trip for us as a family of four. For my son it was the

• first time in a hotel
• first time out of Colorado
• first time in a national park
• first time in a swimming pool
• first time in the ancestral home of Durango (my grandfather was born there, and my grandmother grew up there).
• first sunburn :(
  

and for my daughter:

• first time in a sleeping bag
• first time in a sofa bed
• first time let loose in a McDonald’s playland.

She did fine in the McDonald’s playland, but it was pretty nerve-wracking for me seeing her climb up fifteen feet of stairs and crawl through a tunnel ten feet over my head.

Wildlife Sightings:

The usual herd of Bighorn sheep on I-70 outside of Idaho Springs. Three immature bald eagles flying around near my father-in-law’s house. At least that’s what we think they were; definitely raptors, and too big to be hawks. He and I watched them for a while, circling around and hanging out in the cottonwoods. Herd of deer going up Dallas Divide. Herd of about a dozen deer at Aztec National Monument. Two raptors at Mesa Verde, one on the ground and one in a burnt out tree in an area that had a forest fire a few years back. Would have made a cool picture, but the camera wasn’t handy. Roadkill – dead deer in the median right at the New Mexico border (welcome to the Land of Enchantment); another on I-70. Two dead skunks.

Traffic Notes:

Saw two cars pass across double-yellow lines. Almost got front-ended in Durango at an intersection, when the car in front of me suddenly went into reverse and started backing up.

Thoughts:

As noted before, this was our first trip as a family of four. It was good to get away, but this was primarily a shake-down cruise, to see what travelling with two small kids was like, and see what needed tuning before we take any longer trips. All in all, things went well. The kids held up well in the car and we enjoyed the hotel stay.

Yep, like everything else, having kids changes the equation quite a bit. Travelling has long been one of my favorite activities in life. Before kids, it meant a chance to step out of your life; to take a break from work and most daily responsibilities (cooking, cleaning, etc); to see and experience different things, and to let your imagination open up. With kids, you can still get most of that … except the part about escaping responsibility. I think right now travelling is more strenuous than just staying at home – all the childcare still has to happen, but you’re in a non-childproofed environment unfamiliar to you and the kids, and you need to be on your toes even more.

On the plus side, having kids opens up the possible rewards – you can have fun with them in a special, more relaxed setting. You get to introduce them to new situations, and share experiences with them. My kids are a bit young to take in geography and history lessons, and maybe they’ll never really care, but it’s something I’m looking forward to. My daughter’s old enough for us to teach her that travelling is fun – she got to watch movies in the car, swim in the hotel pool, and have ice cream.

It’s fun to think of the round trip in terms of watersheds: in order, we drove through the watersheds of the Platte, Colorado, Gunnison, Dolores, Animas/San Juan, Rio Grande, Arkansas, and back to the Platte.

Lessons Learned:

Given that travelling with kids takes more energy, our old pattern of staying up late doing last-minute packing, then resting up while on vacation won’t work well. Need to do a better job of packing and sleeping in advance.

Scheduling was an issue; we were tired so we slept in every day except the last. That was a good decision under the circumstances, but it did mean that we didn’t do a whole lot in the way of seeing things. Need to do a better job of balancing relaxation with tourism. On the other hand it’s always going to be tough working in travel with nap schedules and the kids’ needs.

We got burned at Mesa Verde. When we went there two years ago, you could walk down to the big ruins at Spruce Tree House on your own (there was a ranger on duty there). Now it’s by tour only, and the timing didn’t work out for us when we showed up at a random hour. Wouldn’t hurt to check park schedules in advance.

I’m getting tired of plastic shopping bags that spill out when you open the car door … maybe we should get some higher quality camping sacks to put things in. Better packing organization would help too; we spent a lot of time shuttling items between the car and hotel ... I wonder if it would work to put the last day’s set of clothes for the whole family in a separate bag (like a camping stuff sack); that way you can be mostly packed up the night before. Have to think about this some more.

Picture: view of Shiprock from Mesa Verde