Checklist for Interdisciplinarians

I have grouped like characteristics together in an attempt to avoid redundancy in divulging personal experiences and gain.

Traits/Characteristics I have:

      Reliability -

Quality of trustworthiness, accountability, integrity; mark of a constant or known variable

Reliability is an attribute that I understand well.  I am a member of the Air Force whose core values begin with "integrity first."  A lot of airmen think that this refers to honesty- to doing the right thing even when no one is looking- and they are right.  It is more than that though.  It is behaving in a reliable manner.  It is being able to be counted upon to perform in a certain way.  It is stepping up and taking responsibility for your decisions and actions.

      Patience-

Willingness to ignore annoyance and anxiety; tenacity to pursue a task after failure without disruption of temper

      Resilience-

Type of patience dealing specifically with criticism or setback

      Having a thick skin-

Resilience specifically to criticism; not easily offended or hurt

      Tolerance for ambiguity-

Understanding and patience for the lack of absolutes; either knowing the different motives or catalysts involved in precipitating situations or at least being aware of and respectful that there are

I have learned all of these characteristics from dealing with people.  I like to think of the world as functioning in a clear-cut, concise and logical manner.  It's easier to understand that way.  When I was younger I used to think that people did too.  I spent a great many of my younger years in anguish about the decisions people made with their lives - what they said to me, how they acted towards me, how they treated themselves or others, and how they would say one thing and do another.  None of it made any sense. 

After awhile I began to ask why.  Then I opened my mind up to the only logical conclusion I could come to:  If I believe everything works logically by cause and effect, and the situations I encounter involving people cannot be explained in that way, then I must be wrong.  There must be more to it than that. 

If I was going to find out what it was, I was going to have to be patient with people, grow a thick skin and become resilient in order to endure the pain of their criticism and behavior.  That was easy. 

The tolerance for ambiguity, however, only came within the last few years.  I knew that people were complex and had many motives, but I did not understand and have tolerance for it until I experienced it within myself.  I had to make decisions that weren't clear-cut, were not black and white, with no guarantee.  But I had to make them none the less.  I wanted many things for just as many reasons and I was assured of only one thing:  I would never receive anything I was after as long as I stood still waiting for everything to become clear - to fit into my logical black and white color scheme.  And so, armed with these qualities, I stepped out into the abyss . . .

      Risk-taking-

Wisely reaching beyond grasp when the benefit outweighs the cost or risk; necessary for growth

      Adventurous-

Willingness to engage in and enjoying spontaneity, flexibility, curiosity, and exploration, but not fool-hardy

      Sense of adventure for the unknown-

Adventurous

      Flexibility-

Adaptability to a situation; openness to new scenarios and change

Growing requires movement, it requires stretching and expansion.  Necessarily, those require flexibility.  From time to time, growth requires a calculated shot in the dark.  You can have and do all of those things, but you are not going to grow unless you have this first:  a sense of adventure for the unknown with the joyful willingness to embrace it.

My husband is in the Army and has been for the last 12 years.  For the first two years we were together I stayed at home, only working occasionally at the local ice-cream shop.  Before that, my work history consisted of 6 years of waiting tables.  I looked into my future and easily saw that I was destined to one of two fates if I did not change my course.  I would either end up spending my life in the restaurant industry or be a stay-at-home mom/housewife.  The only thing I have against either of those noble pursuits is that they just weren't for me.  I knew with all sincerity that neither of those options would bring me happiness.  I wanted to travel, to learn a new skill, to go back to college and finish my degree, to apply myself, to challenge myself.  So one day, I decided to join the Air Force.

I already knew this would make our marriage difficult if not impossible.  He was stationed in Kentucky, and would be for the rest of his career.  The one thing they tell you when you walk into the recruiter's office is that "you can tell us what you want, but the needs of the Air Force come first. There is no guarantee."  So I did my research and chose a job that had the best likelihood of being stationed close to my husband.  I studied hard and did the best I could on the test to give myself the greatest chance of getting what I want (if you score in a certain bracket, they will give you what you want despite what they tell you).  No matter what I did to mitigate the risk, it was still a chance I was willing and knew I had to take.

If you're lucky, the universe will rain divine luck down on you every once in a while.  I won the cosmic lottery.  I got the job I wanted, at the closest possible duty station to my husband.  I have the option to stay here for an entire fulfilling career if I want (or at least until my husband retires).  We're close enough to live together.  Now we have a son.  I'm doing things I would have thought impossible 5 years ago.  I've already learned skills that will set up the rest of my life so that I'll never have to wait another table.  I've finished my Associates, and as you know am pursuing my B.A.  None of this would have been possible had I not stayed flexible and adventurous, and had I not taken the risk.

      Preference for diversity-

Observational fondness and inquisitiveness for the unknown; thirst for knowledge

      Preference for new social roles-

Experiential aspect of preference for diversity; desire for the opportunity to behave in different ways

      Broad interests-

Curiosity and willingness to learn or try many different things; thirst for experience

      A broad education-

Understanding of a variety of different, even opposing, disciplines and ideas

      A sense of dissatisfaction with monodisciplinary constraints-

Lack of fulfillment from a singular perspective and approach to problems

When I stop by the convenience store to grab something to drink, I rarely have a preconceived notion of what I want.  My drink selection process works like this: 

            How much time do you have?

            A) None.

            B) Plenty!

If A, grab something that has a pretty color but is non-alcoholic and most likely does not cause cancer in lab rats.

If B, pick something you've never tried before, or you haven't had in a long time.

I've been surprised at the drinks I never knew I liked, and from time to time that people can actually even market other ones. 

I had an interesting background.  My school system wasn't the best - I guess it was as good as you could expect from Paden, Oklahoma.  I'd be impressed if you didn't have to look that up on a map.  Our electives were AG and Home Ec.  We did have baseball and basketball, but we had to co-op with a town 6 miles away just to have enough players to make a team.  I didn't really learn anything there. 

But education doesn't just come from school.  Outside of the school system I learned many skills and subjects.  I play piano, guitar and sing.  I skate.  I draw and paint; I take photos and edit them.  I write poetry.  I studied religion, philosophy, astronomy, geology, physics (without all the math).  I dance.  I build circuit boards.  I practice jiu-jitsu. I participate in triathlons.  There is so much more, but that is not important.  I've done all this driven on interest in learning new things and finding new approaches to answer the questions I'm constantly faced with throughout life.  

      High degree of ego strength-

Self-assured of own ability and judgment, but not to cockiness

      Considerable initiative and assertiveness-

Product of self-confidence; unafraid to ask questions, explore ideas or express yourself (tactfully)

      Self-secure-

Self-confidence

When I was little, I was shy, but I was never afraid to ask "why."  Now, I'm the low man on the totem pole at work.  Listening certainly serves me well, but the inability to ask for clarification or explanation would only inhibit me, and sometimes even the project.  The way I see it, I have nothing to lose by expressing my ideas on a subject:  either I will be wrong and learn something, or I will stumble across something that wasn't thought of.  Win-win.

      Ability to work in groups-

Can practice the art of patience, communication, cooperation, constructive criticism, leadership and followership

      Sensitivity to others-

Empathy; sense of selflessness

In Basic Military Training, you are assigned to a flight of 50 individuals.  That group is then split into 4 "elements" each with its own respective leader.  Then there is a "dorm chief" who is responsible for the flight in the absence of the Training Instructor (TI).  The dorm chief is responsible for making sure the flight operates smoothly.  Because I was the oldest, I was picked for that spot. 

I learned a lot of valuable lessons packed into those brief weeks.  I learned that being a leader in a group is just as valuable as any other position in that group.  In fact, there is more of a responsibility on the leader to possess those qualities and facilitate group development.  It was difficult to be sensitive to everyone - at least I used to confuse that with pleasing everyone.  In the end I had validated that no matter how much you work your hardest to find the best solution for everyone involved, the larger the group, the more likely you will have people unhappy about one decision or another.  You need patience, communication, cooperation, constructive criticism, leadership and followership skills whatever part of the group you play your role.

      Competence in one's field

Justified self-confidence earned through experience and application of knowledge learned

You can study for years, but never gain competence without practical application of knowledge.  Likewise, you can repeat a task thousands of times, but never gain competence in your field without a deeper understanding of "why" and "how" your task is important. 

I always get nervous when I walk into a new field of work.  Everything is such a mystery - it seems so difficult, with so many steps, I'm taken aback that some tasks can even be mastered.  It's usually because I forget about time, and people's amazing ability to learn. 

Within a year, I have gone from knowing nothing to the lead technician in a field I didn't even know existed.  It's a combination of working closely with brilliant and patient individuals, an insatiable appetite for learning, and the opportunity, trust and responsibility given to apply what I've learned as well as experiment with new ideas. 

      Need for achievement-

Thirst for growth

I feel this is the most important.  Without this, I see attaining all those other traits as an arduous, painful and involuntary task.  But once you have this, everything else is simply a matter of time.  Those with a need for achievement tend to make the most out of every experience life gives them.  They desire to be better, to know more.  That is being alive.

Saving Our Nation

According to  Wikipedia's federal budget article,  the largest portions in 2010 were spent accordingly: 

·         $793 B (23%) - Medicare and Medicaid

·         $701 B (20%) - Social Security

·         $689 B (20%) - Department of Defense

These expenditure categories alone account for 63% - almost 2/3 - of all government spending.

All politics aside, the reason we budget these amounts is because these are the most important issues to society.  Specifically, everybody wants to feel secure whether it is to feel safe from attacks, to feel certain they will receive medical care should they need it, and also that they will be taken care of as they age and can no longer provide for themselves in the same way they were able when they were younger.

At our core, we are all the same.  We all have the same needs.  We all need to eat.  We need somewhere to live.  We need to feel safe.  We need these and more in order to become our full potential and actualize ourselves as humans. 

This was proposed in 1943 by psychologist Albert Maslow and is known as Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

This was recognized in the Declaration of Independence, and was supported by the framework of the United States Constitution.

I firmly believe that whether Republican, Democrat, Independent or otherwise, we all have one thing in common:  We want what's best for our country and in true American Spirit, we are willing to fight to the death to protect our way of life and make this country the ideal place for us to live.  We all want that, not just for ourselves, but our families and our children. 

What we disagree upon is simply how to get there. 

The fact is, unfortunately, that we don't know how.  No one person in this country has all the answers.  This is why we separated from England.

But the beautiful thing about our country is our freedom of choice.  Our ability to use our past experiences and freedom of thought and imagination to come up with possible solutions.  What we need is a little bit of adventurousness, experimentation and patience. 

Thomas Edison said about the light bulb, "I have not failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won't work. "

It's this kind of dedication and patience that created the light bulb and revolutionized the way of life for every American, and even the world.   It is the scientific method.

It's no secret that we're facing a National Crisis of epic proportions.  We are on the precipice of a new beginning, and the end to our old way of living.  The awesome thing is that we have everything we need to do everything we want.  Allow me to explain:

Problems our country faces

·         Unemployment

·         Health

·         Education

·         Fuel

·         National Debt/Economy

Unemployment

We are working ourselves out of jobs.  It's natural given the process of the technological revolution we've experienced.  When the automobile became commonplace, the horse was worked out of a job.

That's what we're feeling.  It's not from outsourcing, it's not from immigrants being paid lower wages.  Although these issues exacerbate the problem, fixing them alone will not change the fact that people have labored for years to the end of making their job more efficient and unnecessary.  It worked.  Most assembly line jobs can be done by machines, and even the service industry is gradually being supplanted by mechanized and computerized means. 

Health

Affordable health care seems impractical to maintain without a job which offers it as a benefit, or that can pay for it. 

Education

College is expensive.  Without a degree, it's nearly impossible to compete for a career in today's society.  Even if you have one, you still may be waiting tables for awhile just to make ends meet until you can find a company willing to offer you an entry-level position because of the lack of experience resulting from the time devoted to earning the degree itself.

Fuel

We need energy independence.  Period.  Our reliance on fossil fuels has been causing us to focus on relations and compromises with other suppliers since the '70s.  It's also very expensive.

National Debt/ Economy

Money isn't real.  Let me say that again:  Money isn't real.  It's only an idea - a tool which is quickly outgrowing its usefulness.

We used to base our currency system on the Gold Standard.  The first step in leaving the monetary system was already made in 1934 with the Gold Reserve Act.   Now, most everything in America is paid through the banking system using accounting of numbers of which there are not enough physical dollars to represent.  Almost every store takes debit and credit cards now. 

Even if you collected all the money in America, it would not touch the National Debt because of an expectation of receiving more than was given.  Or in other words, interest.   Everything created by debt could have been created out of altruism.  It is not there yet because of the fear of not being taken care of in return. 

What's the solution?

"No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."  - Albert Einstein

What we can do is modify our thinking, and our methods of approaching these problems.   We can shift our paradigm - the mechanism is already in place waiting to be activated.

Where do we start?

We need a new branch of service men and women.  The military has provided an excellent beta test for the structure necessary to solve all of these problems.  We need one that is non-militant.  It can consolidate and shift our resources expenditure into providing jobs for the general populace in return for voluntary civil service.  It can assure education, food, medical and dental, as well as housing for those that join. 

What would they do?

Rebuild America.  Build the national infrastructure necessary to support alternative energy sources.  Clean up the country.  Build our future. 

This would begin to rebuild the faith of the American people in a government long divided in bickering.  It would create jobs and educate people how to do them.  It would provide the basic security necessary to begin the self-actualization of every American- which is what we need.  We need to create our solution by creating extraordinary citizens. 

If you want to change the world, you start with yourself.  Then you become something other people and countries strive to be like.  Then,  then you can change the world.

Back to the budget

By the time we have rebuilt our country, we will have grown an army of citizens who know the value of selfless service.  We will have provided a way to keep families together, and instilled a greater sense of family on the branch of service level through teamwork - much like exists in the armed forces.   When this foundation spans the country, we will gradually begin to act without expectation just as you do with your own personal family.   Then it will have the basis necessary to resolve itself.

It's already out there, we just need to cultivate it on a national scale.  We already have everything we need - we have each other.

Let's use our brilliant minds and enslave science to work for us.  We can have the world we want because we have the power and ingenuity to create it.  

What Employers Like About Interdisciplinarians

      Abilities to understand and critically evaluate the work of experts and to make decisions based on that evaluation

Problems frequently encountered in today's workplace tend to have solutions from more than one discipline.  Therefore, as an efficient employee, you need to be more than a drone completing repetitive tasks - you need to be a problem-solver who can understand multiple perspectives, weighing and integrating them objectively.

Lacking an ability to do or develop the following qualities, you, as an employee, cannot be anything more to a company than a pawn with an expiration date.  In order to be competitive (and perhaps one day successfully run the family farm) these abilities are absolutely necessary.

      Ability to identify and solve problems

      Ability to evaluate alternatives

      Ability to decide on a course of action

In order to properly evaluate alternatives, you must be able to understand their significance.  When working with problems that can be solved with many different approaches, or with groups whose members come from a variety of fields, it is important to understand the origin and consequence of each solution in order to properly weigh it against the others.

By their nature, those who engage in interdisciplinary studies develop more confidence in their solutions as opposed to those who are educated in merely one approach.  Interdisciplinarians have the ability to identify and evaluate multiple rationalities and can objectify the most coherent course of action to all fields involved.

      Specialized backgrounds that are interdisciplinary

It is also important that as an interdisciplinary employee you have a thorough understanding of the specialties involved in the solution approach as well as developed communication skills.  You may very well find yourself working in groups with specialists from many disciplines.  In order to facilitate integration and mediate between them, you must be able to understand and speak the language of the respective disciplines as well as sometimes translate.  After all, what good is a good idea if it can't be shared or understood?

      Ability of students to think conceptually

      Training in synthetic thinking, in weighing arguments from diverse narrow disciplinary perspectives, and in placing them in the larger context

The ability to understand underlying issues (to detect recurring patterns and make an accurate assessment of connections between subtle or seemingly uncorrelated events) allows you to bring something to the table more than a band-aid.  Temporarily alleviating symptoms feels nice for awhile, but diagnosing the basal and concealed illness is always preferred - it cures the symptoms, prevents their recurrence, and conserves energy and resources.

In addition to deeply understanding the individual mechanisms in a system, having a grasp of how the machine works as a whole provides insight that maintains balance among the individual parts - something especially useful to growing businesses.

      Effective written communication skills

      Effective oral communication

Correspondence is probably the most common facet of communication in business, especially today when email is so pervasive in the workplace as a form of task delegation and idea sharing.  It is unfortunate but true that those who cannot express their ideas comprehensibly and effectively in writing will either not be taken seriously or simply misunderstood -  no matter how good the idea expressed truly is.  The importance lies in this:  when conveying your ideas in writing, anything that stands out as grammatically or clerically wrong takes the focus off of the idea you are presenting, drawing it to your errors and implying a lack of education.  This is a sincere disadvantage to the writer as well as the company that hires him.

An accurate example of the necessity of competent writing ability can be seen in online forums.  There is a prevalent prejudice against anyone using 1337 speak or txt type.  Those who chose to communicate in these ways are often dubbed ignorant and/or lazy.  Anyone with gross misspelling, horrible punctuation practices or a general inability to form a structured and coherent sentence are generally considered uneducated.  Either way, the point of the posts is lost on the audience who is typically unwilling to put the effort into sifting through the nonsense to sort out the meaning.

While written communication skills are imperative, most ideas are effectually conveyed face to face.  You must be articulate in order to persuade people.  When it comes down to it, you are not selling your idea, you're selling yourself.  If you come across as insincere or unintelligible, people will usually not give you the time.  Customers want to buy from people they trust or look up to.  It is in your advantage (as well as anyone who hires you) to not distract your point with idiosyncrasies.  It is even more beneficial to converse in a respected way, avoiding being overly wordy or gaudy with your language so as not to appear conceited or demeaning.  Fair or not, your communication skills are a direct representation of you and your company.

To communicate effectively, whether through writing or speaking, you must be able to keep your audience's attention.  We have all sat through that power-point presentation or that class with the monotone professor where at the end we were just proud of ourselves for staying awake.  We have all had to force ourselves to read that dry characterless book, finding in necessary to re-read paragraphs and pages because our minds wander to things more interesting.  How much of that did you really understand?  If your point is lost on your audience, you're just wasting words.

      Ethical sensitivity

      Ability to understand other value systems

      Effective group participation (team work)

It is ignorant to go through life believing that everyone has the same value set as you do, and coldly callous to be knowledgably indifferent.  There are as many value sets as there are people, and compassion for this when problem-solving in groups is imperative to the leadership quality of properly motivating others. 

Understanding your own set of values is just as important.  Integrity is based on reliably doing what is in line with your own value set - your ethics.  If you can't get behind something with your heart, how can you expect anyone to stand with you?  Conviction drives.  Know what you believe in and what you are willing to stand up for.

You must be a leader as well as a follower.  You cannot be timid with your ideas, yet you must have the ability to discern when others are better.  You must be just as willing to support the idea of another as you are to lead with your own, so long as your heart is in the best interest of the company. 

      Ability to change one's opinion in the light of facts

      Constructive response to criticism

Employees well versed in many fields are more open to different as well as differing approaches and facts.  In order to be a true interdisciplinarian (this is also true to work effectively in a group), your goal must be the greatest benefit of all.  You must put efficiency and the result for the greater good above your own beliefs, even if that means rewriting your previous mindset in light of new compelling evidence.

We are all human.  No matter what confidence you possess, always be open to growth.  Ability to identify help and realign your attitudes, actions and beliefs when given constructive criticism shows your willingness to grow in the direction those who proceed you deem beneficial to the future of their investment.  It instills confidence that what you will become will be better than what you are as well as what they will ever be. 

I work with a diverse group of people assigned to unique projects on a daily basis.  Being an effective team member and fulfilling my job requirements takes all of these skills.  Frequently I must understand and balance the demands of electrical, mechanical, aeronautical, and radio frequency engineers while working in the confines of limited resources and boundaries set by management, and effectively translating my needs for a project to machinists and technicians.

Even though I'm a junior member of the team, my input is valuable because I can understand multiple perspectives due to my broad education in diverse fields.  It is a daily process of asking questions, listening, processing with conceptual thinking, deriving solutions, explaining those solutions, and working with a large group as a part of a larger machine.  I must do this while maintaining awareness of individual sensitivities, motivators, limitations and value sets of my team members as well as keep flexible and open to criticism and new ways of thinking.

Alternative Renewable Energy - Windmills

Abstract

America is in a transitional time.  We are on the precipice of renovating the way we think, the way we produce electricity, and how we use it.  With our current usage of fossil fuels as a means to produce electricity as well as the expectation of energy consumption to increase dramatically world-wide, we are faced with important decisions to make.  Currently, we do not have the infrastructure capable of handling such a revolution, nor do we have the regional oversight to direct it.  Nevertheless, it is a problem that will inevitably be faced as our society continues to flourish.

Alternative Renewable Energy - Windmills

Many times throughout the course of history society has found itself in the midst of a transition from one way of living and thinking to the next.  Today is no different.  Right now we are making history - we are in the necessary process of shifting our ideas and methods of energy production from harmful, uncertain and out-dated fossil fuels to cleaner, renewable resources.  This is not an easy process.  This is a metamorphosis which inevitably involves a conglomeration of technological, political, economical, social as well as environmental movement on the whole of society carrying implications far greater than what we can yet imagine for our future.  Though there are many natural resources at our disposal to utilize in achieving this goal, solar and geothermal sources for example, I will focus on perhaps the fastest growing and cleanest one available to us at this time:  wind.

Facing the Facts

Certainly when oil and coal where first discovered, they were plentiful.  There was so much more being found and produced than we were capable of using.  It was a booming time for our country, with the advent of the industrial revolution on our horizon and cross-country transportation rising from its infancy to transform the nation's frame of mind about conducting business.  America easily and exponentially grew around this fast flowing supply of energy and for many years continued to do so without a second thought as to just how long this blessing would last.  By the time that became a concern, the infrastructure was already established to handle energy for the most part primarily in fossil-fuel form - coal and oil.  There was negligible, if any, foresight into a shift in energy dependence from these methods.  Consequentially, the infrastructure we rely on was not initially built with the capacity to store and transfer energy developed from other methods.  Furthermore, as the decades pass, the infrastructure we have relied on so heavily continues to crumble, prompting the necessity of swift and decisive action.

How much oil is left?

The truth is, nobody really knows for sure.  Even with all of our technological tools, the most we can do is derive an estimate or a best case scenario.  No doubt there are still reserves world-wide that lie in wait for their discovery.  However, it is never wise to make guess in the future trajectory of a country based on something so widely unknown.  There are numerous other ways to continue the production of fossil fuels from known resources, but they quickly begin to lose their cost-effectiveness when weighing the production and processing costs against the time and effort needed to replace and rework an infrastructure that will need such attention whether or not we continue down the path of using fossil fuels.

What is known is that within the contiguous U.S., we have long since passed our peak of production; we have already depleted the oil easiest to access.  Even with the exploitation of Alaskan reserves, America has been in a steady decline of oil production for the last two and a half decades.  America has long since shifted from an oil-exporting country to an oil-importing country.  In addition, there has relatively recently been the emergence and growth of industrialized nations all over the world who are also dependent on oil such as China and the Middle East.  Given the future of other countries still on the precipice of their own revolution, it is entirely logical to expect the reserves of the world's oil to follow at least the same curve of peak and decline in production that America's already has, or possibly even more pronounced if the demand sharply exceeds the world's ability to supply for it  (Czúcz, 2010). 

What is also known is how much oil we in America use.  Strahan (2009) said it in such a stark visual way, "Eighty-five million barrels.  That's how much oil we consume every day.  It's a staggering amount - enough to fill over 5,400 Olympic swimming pools - and demand is expected to keep on rising, despite the impending supply crunch."  Eighty-five million, a day.  That's over 31 billion barrels a year.  Just for America. 

Large numbers can be a little difficult to wrap your mind around, so let me illustrate a little further just what that number means.  One barrel of oil is 42 gallons.  If you used 42,000 gallons of oil a day, it would take you just shy of 2,738 years to have used merely one billion barrels.  In order to use 31 billion barrels in less than 3,000 years, you would have to use over 1.3 million gallons per day.  Every day.  No exceptions.  America uses that much oil in one year.  And America is still growing.

Keep in mind that America only produces about 2 billion barrels a year (Czúcz, 2010).  That means we have to import the other 29 simply to meet our needs - if we stay at the same rate.  But America is still growing.  Where can we expect this energy to come from?   

How much energy does America produce from wind?

We aren't entirely reliant upon oil for our energy needs.  In fact, coal is the fossil fuel of choice when it comes to electricity generation.  In addition, there is the silver lining that renewable resources have been on the rise for some time.  "Although wind energy accounted for less than 1 percent of total U.S. energy production capacity, its growth rate [from 1996 to 2006] was significantly higher than the . . . traditional electricity generation technologies that use oil" (Sine, 2009). However, wind only accounts for less than one percent of the total electricity yield, but it remains the fastest growing alternative energy available.

            "The North American wind power market experienced another year of sustained growth,    with 12 GW of new capacity installed in 2009.  Of which nearly 10GW was installed in the United States.  These new installations brought US installed capacity to 35,086 MW by the end of 2009 and it is expected to reach 39 GW by the end of 2010."  (Wind Power Report, 2010).

How much energy do we need from wind to replace fossil fuels in electricity production?

            At the moment, wind generated power accounts for 0.8% of electricity production, with 71.3% produced from fossil fuels, 19.4% from nuclear power, and an additional 8.5% from other renewable sources.  Future targets hope to increase electricity production by a factor of 10 by 2025, bringing wind power production to 8% of the whole.  Assuming proportional growth in hydroelectric, geothermal, biomass and solar sources, this rate would completely supply electricity demand with renewable resources instead of fossil fuels or nuclear energy.  (Talbot, 2009).   However, it doesn't have to be that way.  Wind can do more.

If electricity is produced from coal, why is our dependency on oil such a concern?

            No man is an island unto himself, and no one aspect of life can be affected without an effect rippling through many other portions of life.  This is also true for the web of energy usage. 

            It is no secret that there is a strain on our oil supply.  The importation of 29 billion barrels of oil a year drives our economy and our country to do what is necessary to ensure our quality and way of life.  This leads to wars or making deals with countries we would not otherwise support.  Without check, this dependence begins to force our hand ever and ever more toward the darker shades of moral ambiguity.  And it is a weakness.  America could soon be over a barrel itself if one of those countries we relied on to supply us with our energy fix decided not to sell.

            Deep down we know this.  We know we can no longer continue down this dark and destructive path.  There has been a hard enough push from environmentalists that this issue has become interwoven into the new fabric of American living.  This is evident in the shift in the manufacture of automobiles.  For a long time, there has been a call for electric cars.  Mostly, it has been as a repercussion for emissions, global warming and greenhouse gases, but recently it has also been about oil and energy conservation.  Electric cars or hybrids are quickly becoming the "green" thing to drive.

            But that energy still has to come from somewhere.  A shift in the way we build are engines will inescapably precipitate a higher demand on electricity, including the deep-rooted need for a stronger more sustainable source to produce it as well as the infrastructure capable of handling it properly.

            "Let's assume that, 10 years from now, 250,000 electric cars will glide home every evening in, say the Raleigh-Durham Triangle, and plug in.  If Duke Energy did nothing            from now till then to prepare, brownouts would be unavoidable, especially in the          summer, when the air conditioners would be working hard.  If Duke met the challenge in           purely conventional ways, by burning more coal and gas, it would just be shifting the             carbon footprint of drivers from vehicles to other, more concentrated generators.  One        recent analysis, by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, assumed a scenario in which 25           percent of householders drove electric cars and plugged in at 5 p.m.  Up to 160 large          power plants would be needed nationwide to supply the added electricity."  (Avishai, 2009).

Unfortunately, many obstacles must be overcome first.

            "While its size and complexity have grown immensely, the grid's basic structure has changed little since Thomas Edison switched on a distribution system serving 59 customers in lower Manhattan in 1882."  (Talbot, 2009).   This statement sums up perhaps the greatest physical difficulty in supplanting fossil fuels as a primary energy source with anything renewable.  The electric grid was built as needed, with little to no fore-planning or technological innovations integrated into the process.  The existing grid was manufactured around areas of high population density, and does not currently support the transmission distances necessary to carry power from the best renewable energy production areas.  It is also currently incapable of compensating for the instable flow of wind-production.  (Talbot, 2009).   "Researchers calculate, however, that reaching this goal would require a $60 billion investment in 12,650 miles of new transmission lines to plug wind farms into the grid and help balance their output with that of other electricity sources and with consumer demand."  (Talbot, 2009).  

            A considerably larger problem is the regulatory system in place responsible for effecting change in the infrastructure.  While there is an organization responsible for national electricity rates and licensure of transmission across state lines (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or FERC), it has no control over the location or the way in which the infrastructure is actually built.  That power remains in control of the individual states.  As the Lifeline for Renewable Power, 2009, points out:

            "In the 1990s, many states revised their regulations in an attempt to introduce          competition into the energy marketplace.  Utilities had to open up their transmission lines           to other power producers.  One effect of these regulatory moves was that companies had     less incentive to invest in the grid than in new power plants, and no one had a clear      responsibility for expanding the transmission infrastructure. At the same time, the more       open market meant that producers began trying to sell power to regions farther away,     placing new burdens on existing connections between networks.  The result has been a           national transmission shortage. 

           

            These problems may now be the biggest obstacle to wider use of renewable energy, which otherwise looks increasingly viable."

           

            Essentially, the problem of our crumbling and antiquated infrastructure is compounded by the lack of regulatory oversight consistently stratified across state borders.  There is no hierarchy in place with a centrally located governing body which is absolutely necessary to standardize such a nationally integrated system.

            Unfortunately, until either this body is created or the FERC is empowered with this responsibility, the hope for progressive and preventive infrastructure renovation on the scale necessary to facilitate our progression into the future of wind energy is somber.  Without the legislation in place, the best we can hope for at this point is a long and twisted road of hodge-podge patchwork band-aids to the system put in place only when the system fails.

            Furthermore, this is a capitalist society.  That reason alone stalls both the utility companies and renewable-energy investors in a holding pattern from fear of the risk of making a bad or non-productive investment. 

            What that means is that the interest of the utility companies is only in line with providing stable electricity to the populace inasmuch as it makes a profit.  The CEOs and those in control of these companies have a vested obligation to make decisions that produce a bottom line for the company.  They have a duty to the share-holders to expand the company in such a way that makes money.  For better or worse, the consequence of running business in this style is awareness of proper incentives.  Because it is simply not a wise business decision to pour the resources into building new transmission lines, they "are reluctant to build new transmission capacity until they know that the power output of remote wind and solar farms will justify it."  (Talbot, 2009).

            The same principle applies for the renewable-energy investors.  They are  ". . . reluctant to build new wind or solar farms until they know they can get their power to market.  Most often, they choose to wait for new transmission capacity before bothering. . ."

(Talbot, 2009).

So what is the next step?

            Urban planning is not a new concept.  Some of the earliest known examples in the world come from the Indus valley, notably Moenjodaro and Harappa.  It has revolutionized the way people live their lives in contributing greatly to the quality of life since the bronze age.  This system was utilized in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Rome, and Greece, continuing to be an effective way to create and expand cities and countries.  Urban planning was used to dictate where roads, sewers and market places were built.  It was the organizing concept responsible for allowing people to live in large cities effectively.  Many wonderful cities alive today, even in America, were built using this practical approach.  Though this method has been greatly exploited during the original construction of cities, this idea has even more gifts to give civilization if we would only apply it more forcefully towards maintaining our cities as well.

            On the bright side, America already has the workforce it needs to make this happen.  On a given day, and especially during election season, you can turn on any news channel and expect to hear about our current economic crisis -- how many factories are outsourcing and shutting down, how unemployment is on the rise, how Americans are losing their jobs or are not able to find work.  A unified attempt to rebuild the infrastructure would give job opportunities nationwide to laborers and engineers alike who are in desperate need of employment.  Featherstone points out one county's story in her article, Help Wanted for Green Jobs, (2009):

            Clinton County -- part of what is called the North Country -- has endured much upheaval   in recent years.  Plattsburgh Air Force Base -- the oldest military post in the nation --            closed in 1995 and has been turned into an industrial park, occupied by a mix of biotech,        pharmaceutical, engineering and other companies.  The area's many small farmers     struggle, like small farmers everywhere.  Manufacturing jobs have been gradually   ebbing.  But the North Country is one of the windiest spots in the nation and thus has            become a thriving Gold Coast for the wind industry, with five wind farms producing a   total of 690 megawatts of clean energy."

            We also already have numerous plans on how to make it happen.  There is a wealth of information and resources available.  There is a large community actively involved in researching the problems and developing solutions with a great interest in solving this problem before it becomes a crisis.  There have even been recent congressional hearings before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.  

            We certainly possess both the technology to start the process and the ingenuity to face the problems as they arise in accomplishing this enormous task.  What we lack at this point is the coherent oversight and the organizational structure to set this plan in motion and the drive to see it completed before it becomes a tangible threat to our way of life. 

            On the one hand, given the relative historical infancy of electrical technology (the first distribution system created a mere 130 years ago), perhaps we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves.  This is not the only issue our country faces, and though it has the potential to become critical if we ignore it, it is also not the most pressing.  We know it is a dilemma that we will have to focus on, and the sooner the better.  However imperfect we may be in our methods of operating as a country in an entirely coherent way, all signs point to the problem at least being addressed.

            What we need in order to expedite this process is a shift in priority that supplants using our many resources to make money with building our future and our country.   We need some champions that can get the ball rolling from the top by creating incentives that appeal to our best interest in a way that motivates the utility companies and investors.  Perhaps we need a little more of that original American spirit -- the one that encourages us to step out onto the ledge of the unknown and take risks for the promise of a better future. 

           

References

 (2010).  The Wind Power Report:  Seventh Edition, 2010.  Wind Power Report, 71-695.  Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

Avishai, B.  (2009).  THE CONNECTED CAR. Inc, 31(9), 74.  Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Czúcz, B., Gathman, J., & Mcpherson, G.  (2010).  The Impending Peak and Decline of Petroleum Production:  an Underestimated Challenge for Conservation of Ecological Integrity.  Conservation Biology, 24(4), 948-956.  doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01503.x.

Featherstone, L.  (2009).  Help Wanted for Green Jobs.  Nation, 288(6), 18-24.  Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Sine, W., & Lee, B.  (2009).  Tilting at Windmills?  The Environmental Movement and the Emergence of the U.S. Wind Energy Sector.  Administrative Science Quarterly, 54(1), 123-155.  Retrieved from Business Source Premier database.

Strahan, D.  (2009).  Scraping the bottom of the barrel.  (Cover story).  New Scientist, 204(2737), 34-39.  Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.

Talbot, D.  (2009).  "Lifeline for Renewable Power.  (cover story)."  Technology Review, 112(1), 40.  Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database.