(FP’ed 3:24 AM EDT, Friday, September 28, 2007.
Hat tip to NPK. – promoted by exmearden)
Don’t hear much about Paiutes. At least I don’t. Then again my hearing isn’t so hot. All I know about the Northern Paiutes or Snake Indians is that as warriors they were a match for the Apaches and lived large in high desert country where the Apaches might have starved.
I know a little bit about that because I was born in Adel, OR, named for somebody’s sweetheart or a cow. Nobody knows which. Here is a picture of the whole damn town. I suspect there were a lot more Paiutes living in Adel than later invaders.
Fort Bidwell in Northern California is far more urban than Adel and actually has Paiutes living there. See here.
The Paiute living in Fort Bidwell are said to have income 1/3rd less than the average of all Native Americans. That isn’t so good.
What they do have is smarts.
Some of the Vikings’ descendants, who couldn’t make a go of it in North America with the technologically advanced natives shooting long sticks at them, have managed.
In the 1970s, Iceland was one of the poorest countries in Europe. Today it is one of the richest, with a per capita GDP higher than that of Denmark, from which it won full independence in 1944.
How did it accomplish this remarkable transformation? A key element was the shift from imported coal and oil to geothermal energy. Iceland now uses geothermal energy to generate a large portion of its electricity and nearly all of its heating needs.
Iceland’s president Ólafur Grímsson was at Harvard on Tuesday (Sept. 25) to deliver this inspiring message and to announce that his country stands ready to lead the world toward a cheap and pollution-free energy future. His talk, “Geothermal Energy: Harnessing the Fire Inside,” was sponsored by the Center for the Environment, the Center for European Studies, and Bank of America.
The debate on global warming is really a debate about how we can satisfy our energy needs without endangering the planet, Grímsson said. Of the potential energy resources available to us, only two are completely clean: solar and geothermal. The second of these, however, has been neglected.
“We are reminded of the fireball inside the Earth when natural disasters such as earthquakes and volcanic explosions occur, but these disasters should also remind us of the colossal source of energy inside the Earth,” he said.
The Paiutes have a lot less to work with for now with very low temperature geothermal waters but things are heating up – so to speak.
Meanwhile the Pit River Indians to the south have listened to medicine men and forked tongues declare the “putrefying waters” of Mother Earth will pollute their sacred Medicine Lake.
Since I haven’t talked to God like George Bush and Oral Roberts or to the Great Spirit like shamans, I have no idea what the Deity wants. I suspect, however, He/She is fond of Mother Earth, tempestuous biddy though she might be.
Best, Terry
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i have so much to learn about geothermal energy…
but i have to say, your essay has such a personal component that it hardly feels like learning.
and meantime, our wonderful president is getting together with some buddies:
study as well. Many of the tribes are obtaining grants from the DOE, I believe.
It will be a wise investment, inevitably, if geothermal and wind energy is utilized.
Final Report and Strategic Plan on the Feasibility Study to Assess Geothermal Potential on Warm Springs Reservation Lands.
The plateau above the Columbia River is prime for wind energy…and the Warm Springs reservation isn’t named “Warm Springs” by chance.
great information and a fun read. Thermal is not discussed very much, And in my scientific ignorance I assumed only places like Iceland where ice and geysers existed would this be possible. Really opened my mind up as to the very nature of energy and it’s sources. Technology the fruit of science, often bamboozles us all.