The Nonfiction Portions of Legacy: Chapter 7

In most novels, blurring the line between fiction and nonfiction is all part of the fun. In Legacy, understanding which items are really happening in our nonfiction world is an essential part of the project. Listed below are references to further information on many of the real parts of Legacy. These are presented in the sequence in which they appear in the book. See also the Resources section of this website, as well as Chapter 11 of the novel.

Caution: This page may contain plot spoilers!

Chapter 7

Party topics (Section 1)
* Jeffrey’s songs would be like these environmental songs http://www.planetaryexploration.net/patriot/albums.html
* Robert Kourik’s book Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally is very much what fictional character Jana’s book would be like.
* California High-Speed Rail: see Chapter 8, Section 31.
* High-Speed Rail cost compared to airlines http://www.artech.se/~sandblom/archive/hst.html accessed 7/25/05.
* Aircraft radiative forcing: “Sustainable Transport: The Bigger Picture: Aviation and Climate Change” http://gfleet.co.uk/sustainability.htm accessed March 24, 2005.
* Aircraft efficiency on short routes: Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2001 p. 111

Shannon’s recipes, Slow Food Fast (Section 2)
* Fictional character Shannon’s recipes would be like those found in the following cookbooks: Sally Fallon, Nourishing Traditions; Renee Shepherd, Recipes from a Kitchen Garden; Victor d’Avila-LaTourrette, Twelve Months of Monastery Soups; Sandor Ellix Katz, Wild Fermentation; Paula Wolfert, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. Shepherd’s and D’Avila-LaTourrette’s are notable in that the ingredients for a given recipe are easily harvested in the same vicinity in the same season, the plants would be yielding at the same time. In other words, these books are written for a home garden harvest.
* Biodynamic Association of Southern California http://www.biodynamics.com/regional.html
* Community Supported Agriculture http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/csa/csastate.htm

Carbon Tax (Section 4)
* Several nations in the EU have various forms of a Carbon Tax (Link to source)

Ogallala Aquifer (Section 5)
* Information about the limited sourcing and depletion history of the Ogallala aquifer is factual. [R115 A&B] Fictional projections have been made for time periods beyond 2005.

Hydrogen fuel-cell bus lines (Section 9)
* Bus lines will likely be the best ‘first candidates’ for hydrogen fuel cell applications because technology renders hydrogen as short range, at least in 2005, and busses run close to their depot. Per “National Energy Policy,” National Energy Policy Development Group, Chapter Six, “Nature’s Power,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/

Sea level rise (Section 11)
* The description of wave science is nonfiction.[R104]  The impact on specific Southern California human developments is a fictional projection.
* “Coastal engineers generally estimate that a 1 foot rise in sea level will cause beaches to erode 0.5 to 1 feet from New England to Maryland, 2 feet along the Carolinas, 1 to 10 feet along the Florida coast, and 2 to 4 feet along the California coast. Because many US recreational beaches are less than 100 feet wide at high tide, even a 1 foot rise in sea level would threaten homes in these areas. A study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated that about 25 percent of all buildings within 500 feet of the U.S. coastline will be taken by erosion in the next 60 years.” (link to source)

U.S. Department of Energy organizational structure (Section 13, 22 and 27)
* The Department of Energy organizational chart is printable at http://www.energy.gov/engine/content.do?BT_CODE=AD_O

Political ploys to hold on to unsustainable lifestyles (Section 15)
* "…one of the conclusions that we saw emerging from our discussion of Maya kings, Greenland Norse chieftains, and Easter Island chiefs is that, in the long run, rich people do not secure their own interests and those of their children if they rule over a collapsing society and merely buy themselves the privilege of being the last to starve or die.” Jared Diamond, Collapse?, p. 513

Local produce and seasonality (Section 18)
* See Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket by Brian Halweil

SEZ delineations and Insurance (Section 19)
* The University of California SEZ study is fiction as described, however UC Santa Cruz has done computer modeling of global climate change and of California impacts.
* “Disaster Losses Lead Insurers to Global Warming Debate,” by Miguel Bustillo, LATimes July 3, 2005 describes insurance company concern over climate change.
* “The impacts of climate change have significant direct implications for Swiss Re [the world’s second-largest reinsurer]. For example, more frequent flooding and changing disease vectors potentially alter the risk profile in terms of property and life insurance respectively. Swiss Re has responded strategically to the increase in frequency and severity of natural disasters and uses a series of models, scenario tools and rating tools to assess the risks associated with climate change.” From the website of The Climate Group, http://www.theclimategroup.org/index.php?pid=428  accessed 7/3/05
* The specifics of which Los Angeles areas would be impacted by sea level rise is fictional projection. Current elevation maps do not show this sophisticated level of gradient, although current technology would make it possible for such a projection to be made. A more general study of lands threatened by sea level rise has already been done for the low lying Carolina coast. Maps of Lands Vulnerable to Sea Level Rise for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts are available here.
As the Atlantic coast of the U.S. slopes more gently toward the ocean, sea level rise will be a much greater issue in the East than on the West Coast.  No such maps seem to have been prepared for the Pacific coastal regions, particularly with the fine definition imagined for the fictional SEZ maps.

Alden Administration Energy Plan (Section 22)
* There are so many references for the energy plan, that it has its own separate webpage [need link]

Building innovations (Section 23)
* Insulation currently made from recycled materials includes fiber glass made from post-consumer glass and cellulose insullation made from recycled newspaper.  JP’s note: cellulose would probably not be permitted in a government building due to public fire codes.

Photoremediation (Section 26)
* JP’s disclaimer: While I do not have the scientific ability to evaluate the validity of photoremediation as a potential solution to the nuclear waste problem, the writings of Mark Porringa, Gary Vesperman, Thomas Valone and overseas scientists seem to regard photoremediation as having true potential to solve portions of this toxic issue. See also K W D Ledingham et al, “Laser-driven photo-transmutation of I- a long-lived nuclear waste product,” 2003 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36 L79-L82, available online.  My intention with Legacy is to open minds to “thinking outside the box” and to evaluating, rather than discarding, potential solutions.

Agricultural issues (Section 29 and 34)
* According to an argument advanced by the Heritage Foundation and other critics of the farm bill, U.S. farm policy "is based on the premise that a surplus of crops has lowered crop prices too far and farmers need subsidies to recover lost income. However, the federal government's remedy is to offer subsidies that increase as a farmer plants more crops. This creates greater crop surpluses, driving prices down even further and spurring demands for even greater subsidies."  www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm quoting Heritage Foundation
* “According to U.S. Agricultural Census data, more than 60% of U.S. small family farmers aren’t even eligible for subsides.” www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm accessed April 12, 2005
* “71 percent of farm subsidies go to the top 10 percent of subsidy beneficiaries, almost all of which are large farms. In 2002, 78 farms, none small or struggling, each received over a million dollars in subsidies. The bottom 80 percent of recipients average only $846 per year.” Per Environmental Working Group, quoted in www.organicconsumers.org/ofgu/subsidies.htm  accessed 4/12/05
* “Congress should not fund agricultural disaster payments with money already dedicated for agricultural conservation programs.” per Environmental Working Group www.ewg.org/issues/agriculture/20041005/index.php  accessed 4/17/05
* “EWG’s analysis found that over 28 percent of the recipients … collected disaster aid from taxpayers at least one year out of three, accounting for 70 percent of total farm disaster aid. … One third of all disaster payments over the nine years analyzed went to farmers in 6 states: Texas, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Kansas and Missouri.” Per Environmental Working Group www.eqg.org/issues/agriculture/20041005/index.php  accessed 4/17/05.

FFCC Tax (Section 30)
* The FFCC tax is pure fiction: Taxes could be assessed based on the individual vehicle’s actual tested gas mileage. Like the smog certificate process California has in place, a vehicle could be brought in to a certified inspector, who could affix a calibrating device to record the vehicle’s mpg and transmit that calculation electronically to the Department of Motor Vehicles. For lower income taxpayers, state income tax credit could be given for half the FFCC tax paid, the remaining cost still providing incentive for transportation conversion. FFCC taxes could be collected with one’s annual registration and increase in magnitude as years stretched on. Where state registration charges are higher for newer vehicles and reduced significantly for older ones, FFCC taxes could run the other way, becoming higher with each successive year.

Sea level rise impacts (Section 35)
* “Changing climate also increases the vulnerability of coastal areas to flooding. A higher sea level raises the flood level from a storm of a given severity. A 3-foot rise in sea level (for example) would enable a 15-year storm to flood many areas that today are only flooded by a 100-year storm. A 1991 report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated that a one foot rise in sea level would increase the size of the 100-year floodplain in the US from 19,500 square miles in 1990 to 23,000 square miles, and increase flood damages (and hence flood insurance rates) by 36-58 percent. Coastal flooding is also exacerbated by increasing rainfall intensity. Along tidal rivers and in extremely flat areas, floods can be caused by storm surges from the sea or by river surges. Higher sea level and more intense precipitation could combine synergistically to increase flood levels by more than the rise in sea level alone.” (link to source)

I am doing what I can to curb global warming (Section 37)
* Learn what you can be doing to curb global warming:
* The consumer's guide to effective environmental choices : practical advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists, by Michael Brower. 
* Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change,Guy Dauncey.
* 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth, by Earthworks Group, circa 1990
* Guides to Greener Living, Action Tips and Tools, National Resources Defense Council http://www.nrdc.org/action/tips.asp  accessed 9/11/05

 

Photo credits: Power of the nature by Justyna Furmanczyk, Rotterdam, ZH, Netherlands; Wind mills by Sergio A Derio, Bizkaia, Spain; Bean by Joao Estevao A de Freitas, Santa Cruz, Madeira, Portugal; Solar power by Johan Bolhuis, The Netherlands; Power sunset by Joseph Siomek, Pttxtown, PA.