Art Bell

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July 31, 2005 - Art Bell

02:31:06

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Jim Bell - Renewable Energy - Ed Dames - The Space Shuttle

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01:01:49

ed dames

15:22

jim bell

57:07

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Speaker	Time	Text
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The Bell, to update you, the Bell family barnyard is well.
		Our little bird, Tower, thrives and is a beef eater, among other things, and feeding it about eight times a day, of course, is Ramona.
		But Tower's growing, tower's happy, tower is flying, tower's.
		In fact, Tower escaped the cage during a cleaning yesterday, and my cat, Yeti, went running in as if to swallow that bird in one bite.
		And so I gave him a swat on the backside, and he promptly pouted and was depressed for two hours.
		Just a little.
		I mean, I've done it playfully harder, but he knew that I was saying, don't eat the bird.
		Now, we've tried water guns.
		There's a swat on the tail end.
		So these cats, I tell you, they have personalities that really make you wonder.
		Our little new cat, Dusty, is the subject of tonight's webcam photograph.
		You will see a listener made that giant panda bear for our cats, and we had no takers.
		But then along came Dusty, and you can see how Dusty has grown.
		That's a big panda, let me tell you.
		And that's one long Dusty bell.
		So all are well in the barnyard.
		NASA, actually, the headline is kind of worrisome.
		What exactly is the headline?
		It's discovery may need unprecedented repair.
		That might be a little strong, but NASA is saying it's discovered yet another problem on the space shuttle discovery.
		Engineers are still trying to determine what kind of repairs to make.
		They're looking at a couple of dangling strips on the belly of the shuttle.
		The strips are filler material of a felt-like material and ceramics.
		They fill the space between thermal tiles.
		Now flapping loose, the strips present a big potential risk of overheating during reentry.
		So everybody's scared.
		NASA Flight Director Paul Hill said Sunday, such material has come loose on previous flights and posed no harm then, but there's a lot of sensitivity at NASA right now.
		They say Eileen Collins, the commander, says it's definitely not a big concern to me right now.
		On Monday, NASA is going to decide whether to have two spacewalks, cut the dangling strips, or perhaps shove the material back into the cracks between the tiles.
		Such fix could involve the Canadian-supplied arm and would mean an astronaut standing at the arm's end to reach the underside of the shuttle.
		And, you know, there are complications in possibly doing that.
		In other words, they could actually do more damage with the arm.
		So, yes, this strange confluence of events, and that'll have that names here shortly.
		There was a downpour that struck Bombay Tuesday.
		500 people died.
		Did you know it?
		This is from Whitley Streebers, unknowncountry.com.
		500 dead, maybe more.
		Parts of the state of Masharada received 37 inches of rain over a very short time, and Bombay got 26 inches of rain.
		Can you imagine that?
		It was, of course, a record rainfall for India and one of the great deluges of history.
		Very strong monsoon storms.
		And by the way, here in the desert, we're also now experiencing the monsoons at their height.
		Every single day we wake up to crash, boom, lightning everywhere, and big thunderstorms.
		And yet the 13 bell towers to date, despite many close hits, remain as yet untouched.
		But it's bad.
		We're really getting monsoons here.
		Now, apparently, our government is considering changing daylight savings time.
		The idiots.
		They're going to change daylight savings time by a month.
		And I got somebody who sent me an email who points out, doesn't anybody realize, there are probably going to be hundreds of millions of gadgets, including, for example, VCRs, computers, digital clocks that automatically change their time setting for DST.
		None of these change according to some mystical vibration from the ether.
		Well, there are a few VCRs that do that, you know, but otherwise all are programmed to change the readings on specific dates.
		And so there could be, I suppose, a mini Y2K type disaster.
		These will all show the wrong time and for at least a month each year, causing much confusion.
		Missed appointments showing up late for work.
		And now there's a good excuse, actually, if you do show up late for work, blame it on the government.
unidentified		What the hell?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The United States would like to end the link between time and our sun.
		So time again is in the news.
		Time to change the way we measure time, according to a U.S. government proposal that businesses favor, astronomers abominate, and Britain sees as a threat to its venerable Greenwich mean time.
		Word of the U.S. proposal made secretly to a United Nations body of figures, right, began leaking to signed as earlier this month.
		Plan would simplify the world's timekeeping by simply making each day last exactly 24 hours.
		Right now, that's not always the case.
		Every now and then, you'll recall, they add a leap second to correct things.
		Also, they want to change all of this so they don't have to add the leap second anymore.
		So we're going to mess with time.
		Great.
		Oh, word from Susan.
		You remember, our older lady in a sailboat alone in the Pacific?
		Susan writes to me, really surprised to hear you, Art, on 3840.
		That's where we hang out on shortwave.
		I tune in quite a bit, but never hear a signal.
		But tonight at 11.30 in the morning, it came up out of nowhere very strongly.
		And then you're hearing me on 40 watts and a backstay antenna on 75 meters from Hawaii.
		Wow.
		Propagation from Hawaii, she says, is terrible.
		Can hear the mainland only from 5 to 8 p.m. on 20 meters.
		All bands dead otherwise.
		Ham radio here is big on Saturday because everybody's working.
		Now, she goes on to say, I should be leaving here.
		Now, this is a surprise.
		As soon as my autopilot is returned from repairs on the mainland, I normally sail with the wind vane, but to raise and lower my sails, I use the autopilot to keep headed into the wind.
		My next destination is an atoll in the Marshall Islands, hopefully, to teach basic electronics and tutor in navigation at their high school.
		So be looking for you, Susan, as you leave Hawaii somewhat earlier than I think you had planned for the Marshall Islands.
		That lady, you know, at 70-something.
		Taking off by yourself across the Pacific in a sailboat, leaving your home, going to find a new home somewhere in the South Pacific.
		Can you imagine that?
		Hey, we found a tenth planet.
		Well, I guess it is.
		You know, it's supposedly bigger than Pluto.
		Haven't named it yet.
		But there's another one out there.
		It's in the Kuiper belt, along with a lot of other stuff.
		Only it's a lot bigger, big enough, I guess, to be considered to be a planet.
		We just had an X-class flare.
		As a matter of fact, a couple of days ago, Sun Let Go with a giant X-Class flare, writes Jim in Riverside.
		It was Major Danes, wasn't it, who warned of the kill shot, said that we should be on the alert when a solar flare is emitted around the time of a scrubbed space launch.
		Both conditions have now been met.
		How about a little word from Ed?
		In light, here's another one.
		In light of the fact that we're having extraordinary solar activity, coupled with the fact that the shuttle is going to be returning around the time of the annual meteor shower, I would rather think that you should have Ed Dames on for at least a short time Sunday to get his view on that.
		All right.
		In a moment, we'll do exactly that.
		Major Ed Dames, indeed, has predicted an awful lot of what appears to be going on right now.
		So at the beginning of the week, I called him.
		I saw it all, and I called him, and he said, eh, no, maybe not.
		And then he called my producer and said, well, no, maybe we should do an hour.
		So he's got something on his mind coming up in a moment.
		He would appear on every single list of the loved, most loved, and most hated guests that I ever have on the air.
		The world's foremost remote viewing teacher, Edward A. Dames, Major, U.S. Army, retired.
		I've got his complete military record.
		It's all real.
		He's a decorated military intelligence officer, original member of the U.S. Army Prototype Remote Viewing Training Program, served as training and operations officer for the DIA's collection unit, intelligence collection unit, currently serves as executive director for the Matrix Intelligence Agency, a private consulting group, the technical consultant for the feature film Suspect Zero, a good movie.
		Tom Cruise, you may have seen it.
		Ed coached Sir Ben Kingsley for that, played the role of an FBI remote viewing instructor in the movie as well.
		And Ed, welcome to the program.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Thank you, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Always a pleasure to be back.
		I'm curious, from my own curiosity, Ed, I did place a call to you, you recall, and you said, no, you know, no.
		And then I found from my producer, you apparently had changed your mind and decided you did want some airtime tonight for, I guess, to sort of update people because of this confluence of events.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
		I wanted to make a statement based on some follow-up remote viewing that I did.
		And that's why I'm here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I hope it's good news.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		It's not.
		And I'm not going to be pulling any punches except for one that I'll talk about later.
		It's not good news.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Damn.
		Yeah.
		All right.
		Well, let's review a little bit.
		You had remote-viewed catastrophe involving a space shuttle which would be caught in some sort of meteor shower.
		And should we see that space shuttle returning to Earth or being forced down by a meteor shower, that would indicate the kill shot, this awful life-extinguishing event from the sun, was close at hand.
		Is that about right?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		That's about right.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		That's about right, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What's changed?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Nothing has actually changed.
		It's just that it's here.
		I mean, as a predictive tool, remote viewing can be pretty powerful in the hands of professionals.
		And as you know, for the last eight years, we've been looking at this thing over the horizon.
		remember we called it discontinuity because we didn't really know what it was it just It was like the great darkness or something that really put the kibage on cultural evolution on Earth.
		And over the years we checked and double-checked and triple-checked and found out that it was our own sun that does something and this something is.
		It begins to produce some very catastrophic solar flares.
		In terms of catastrophes, you might remember on your January 1st show that I predicted that there would be yet another earthquake in Indonesia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You did.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		9 plus.
		That turned out to be an H7.
		I said it would be in March.
		It was March 28th.
		I had the exact latitude, but the longitude was off.
		And it was off about 0.3 in a Richter scale.
		That's kind of like the degree of error that all experts have.
		Even the pros at NASA got the tile problem wrong, and they tried their best.
		So all experts or knowledgeable people have that little error rate.
		But it's small in the case of expertise.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Now, they're talking about adding an extra day now to the shuttle.
		But even with that, Ed, they're still, I think, going to come down two days before the official start of the meteor shower.
		Yes?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		The shower peaks on my birthday, August 11th, 12th.
		And it begins, though, a couple of days before that, every year.
		So it's so close temporarily and approximately to what we've been seeing as the Harbinger event, the beginning of the kill shot sequence, and because of the very, very interesting solar activity last week on the backside of the sun, very severe solar flares.
		And watch out this week.
		Just watch it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it is a confluence of events.
		That accurately described it.
		We have the sun, and it is going berserk.
		We just had a whopper of an X, and there's some big, bad stuff on the other side.
		So we've got that.
		We've got the space shuttle up with a lot of troubles.
		We've got the space shuttle very close to a meteor shower, if not in it, what, a day or so.
		What's the most dangerous period?
		Is it very close to the time they're coming home, Ed?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		It isn't.
		The only danger that exists.
		Remember the event that we described as the predictive event, the Harbinger event, the event that's closest to this sequence is this ensemble that you see now.
		It's not the Indy 500.
		For instance, last year I did a show for Japanese TV.
		They wanted to know when the next catastrophic earthquake would be in Tokyo.
		And the event that preceded that, the closest recognizable event, was an international kite festival in southern Japan.
		In this case, for the beginning of the kill shot sequence, we have these elements in place.
		We have a meteor shower, we have a shuttle up, and we have a shuttle coming back down.
		But remember, I didn't say it lands.
		I said it's coming back down.
		That's where I'm going to pull a punch on this show.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a pretty big punch because the implication of this is that it doesn't land, that something catastrophic occurs.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Or it doesn't pull out from its bay.
		But the point is that we have seen it pulling out.
		And all I'm saying now, when I say I'm pulling a punch, is say a prayer for this crew.
		That's all I'm saying.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've been doing that right along.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		We all need to say more because they need it.
		They're going to need it this time.
		But this ensemble, the danger, the danger to both the space station and the shuttle, if it's still docked, is that we may have unprecedented solar flares.
		And remember, the shot across the bow that I predicted would happen two weeks prior to its prediction, to its occurrence at the end of 2003, was something that NASA could never predict.
		And that's the value of remote fueling.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nobody could have predicted it.
		Scientists who had satellites up there with equipment to measure what they thought could be the largest event from the sun ever, it went right off that calibration, maybe by double or even more.
		We have no idea.
		That was such a big flare.
		If it had come toward the Earth, Ed, we'd have been pretty well scorched.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		They had to reconfigure the SOHO monitoring satellite.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a fact.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		They had to actually re-architecture them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you can depend on it, Ed.
		A lot of my friends have been calling me, and they're concerned about this.
		I mean, really concerned.
		Concerned, as in getting ready to get in a car and get out of Dodge, concerned.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think we have two years max is my call, and that's not as a remote viewer, as a gut feeling, that this thing will start slowly.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		That we'll have a series of hot flares and strong flares.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, that's interesting.
		I was ready for doomsday here.
		Now you're saying maybe a couple of years.
		In other words, the worst unfolds over a two-year period?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Possibly, because what we know as remote viewers looking over the horizon is the worst does not occur until the magnetosphere of the Earth collapses, and then we get the full brunt of any solar flare.
		That's when it really, when many, many people die, actually die.
		Prior to that, you have atmospheric heating and a lot of climate change, drastic climate change, very rapid, but none of this instantaneous rotisserie effect that we're going to get when the magnetosphere collapses and the Earth can't protect itself and us from very, very dangerous protons and X-rays.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that's such an unthinkable thing.
		I was wondering how quickly it would occur.
		I mean, if this shuttle, awful shuttle stuff should unfold.
		The rest of it then, maybe two years, huh?
		Not tomorrow.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		No, I think that's my guess.
		But then again, we just don't know.
		I mean, only recently, only recently have we developed the advanced remote viewing techniques to put a date on things.
		So my partners and I will be working that out in terms of the peak or the worst case events along this trajectory.
		But we were kind of taken by surprise by this particular ensemble of this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How many people are involved in this specific prediction, Ed?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Well, the kill shot, we've got many, many remote viewers over a number of years, as you know.
		But in terms of putting dates on the very, very big flares, you've only got three people who are really experts that can do this.
		And the reason, Art, is because the techniques are proprietary to us.
		And we haven't taught them to other people.
		However, I'm going to sit down with my business partner and suggest that maybe now people will use these techniques to look At their own survival sanctuaries and places like that, because the techniques can pinpoint not only places in time, but places in space geographically, where an individual should go to be safe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I knew that you had certain, oh, I don't know, specific proprietary techniques for nailing down dates and times.
		His very dire prediction.
		A prediction that we appear to be possibly very close to being right in the middle of.
		You know, he called it, he called it, and now he's calling it, and I'm a little worried that it's a little close to what he's calling.
		But I never remote view, and I don't do that because I don't want to know what's coming.
		I really don't.
		There are a lot of people who do.
		I'm hoping for the error.
		I'm hoping to be able to talk to Ed in a month or two or a year and say, hey, Ed, you got that one wrong.
		What happened?
		So that's me.
		I don't want to know, and I'm hopeful.
		And so if you need a little bit of cheer in light of the news that he's giving us, that's about the best I can do.
		Let's try this approach.
		Ed, look, enough has already happened with the sun and the shuttle and the timing and the meteor shower and all the rest of it that we could call this some kind of a hit.
		Is there any possibility that it's like close but no cigar, that events might not unfold exactly and the shuttle might come home just fine and for some period of time everything would be okay because you had it wrong?
		What percentage of possibility is there of that?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		We look at likelihoods in my business, the same as in the intelligence business.
		The shuttle could indeed make it back safely.
		It could indeed make it back.
		But what I'm saying is these elements are all lining up and point exactly to this Harbinger event.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know that much acknowledged, though.
		Is it possible?
		Is it possible, even though it seems, I grant you, unlikely given what's already happened, but how possible is it that it could be wrong?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I would put probably an 80 to 85 percent likelihood, based upon my own 21 years of experience in error rates, I'd say there's a maximum of 15 percent that it would be wrong.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm going to cling to that.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm going to hold to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any, assuming that these events continue to unfold and the shuttle is forced down, worst case by a meteor shower or there's a catastrophic event, is there anything that we can do collectively to prevent it?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think prayer works.
		I mean, it doesn't have to be the clock.
		You can see what focused consciousness can do.
		The problem that we have with us, Homo sapiens, is that we're not united and we're not congruent when we pray.
		The heart doesn't match the head.
		So that's a big problem.
		Otherwise, I think we could pull it off.
		I believe that much in human potential.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, based on just that statement alone, there's plenty of people who will begin concentrating, whether I tell them to or not, on averting this event.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're looking at a possible...
		I see no way of preventing geophysical events, no way whatsoever.
		I mean, even if we were all united, I'm not sure we could pull that one off.
		But as far as the shuttle goes, I'm hopeful in terms of prayer, at least.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder, Ed, if time travel was real and you could do whatever it took to prevent the shuttle situation, such as whatever it's going to be, from happening, whether that would then prevent the rest of the it would stop the rest of the events that otherwise would unfold or change the timetable in some way.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Negative.
		Negative.
		What we would then come up with as remote viewers is another event that would be the closest preceding recognizable event, and that might be anything, this particular Art Bell show or a presidential election of some type, that kind of thing.
		The geophysical sequence is so big.
		It's such a huge cosmic thing that I just can't see, and at least using my puny brain to look ahead, any way to prevent it.
		That's why remote viewing can see these geophysical events so clearly.
		The signals are so big.
		And unconscious does its best to protect its ward, the human being, the body.
		It always does that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm protected by not looking.
unidentified		Yeah, there's other ways of describing that, of course.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm protected by keeping my head straight in the sand.
		Yeah, sure.
		I can go with that.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		So anyway, I'm kind of getting close to retirement, too, so I would encourage a lot of people to learn remote viewing, really, really learn it and keep themselves safe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, here we've got a little hitch, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, I know that you produce remote viewing materials so people can learn to remote view themselves.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		And I offer unlimited follow-on training, too.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		At least I will be for the next whatever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You see what I'm referring to with the hitch.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I mean, what is the point of somebody buying remote viewing materials if you have just told Them that the size of the catastrophic rotisserie eventually in the Kill Shot DVD that I put out with all the detailed information, it outlines the survival zones, the eminently very good survival zones, because the entire earth is not going to be cooked.
		It's just belts that will be cooked at certain times.
		The general areas are outlined there, but learning remote viewing for yourself, and it's easy to learn, it's just that you have to practice it.
		That's why there's a sense of urgency here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, you're in California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		By looking at the area code, I'd say where are you in California?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I'm in Santa Barbara.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Santa Barbara, yeah, okay.
		I was going to say Central California somewhere.
		Are you going to remove yourself from Central California?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but only for personal reasons, not safety reasons.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		For safety reasons, not protective reasons.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is the area you're in now a safe area?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		No, not necessarily.
		It's not.
		It's not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, I'm looking for what you're doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		if you firmly believe this then uh...
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		let me ask you the area and the dvd are i i i think i i'm sure i think it You did.
		What we do is we point out something very interesting that the remote viewing supports this thesis.
		Those areas where crop circles have been produced, the center of mass for those areas are the safest areas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so that answers, presumably, the whole question about crop circles.
		These are marks placed there by extraterrestrial something or extras.
		A higher intelligence of some kind to warn us and to tell us where these safe, so-called safe areas are.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Correct.
		Correct.
		But you have to have the consciousness tool to know what they are.
		What they're saying is this area is, there's no message in the corrupt circles.
		What they're saying is the area itself is a message.
		And without being a trained remote viewer, you would not be able to get behind that superficial illusion and see the meaning.
		That's why remote viewing is so powerful and why I think it's the lingua franca out there in the Federation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How many people are going to survive this catastrophic event, Ed?
		Percentage-wise, how many will it take?
		How many will survive?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think we're probably going to lose 20 billion people, a whole bunch.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		We're probably going to lose a third of the folks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A third.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Over time, a six-month period, maybe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And again, folks, this is from a series of events from our own sun that begin to hit and hit and hit until finally our protection is gone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then, of course, once that's gone, you literally are in a rotisserie turning and being scorched.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think this is actually a cyclic event.
		My guess is that 11,500 years ago or thereabouts, the same thing happened pre-recorded history.
		That based upon our work.
		This is not the first time it's happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you believe the sun does this on a regularly scheduled basis?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think it has a long cycle.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		And it has an angry cycle, sort of like PMS or something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The sun has PMS.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So again, it would seem, I mean, who are you selling to at this point?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		What I'm doing is, and the reason I looked at the next global catastrophes, earthquakes and things like that, is to be able to act as a herald, to tell people to get ready and trust your own consciousness.
		Learn how to use it, trust it, or at least find somebody that knows how to use it and tell you where to go to save yourself and your family.
		That's all.
		Or to get out of the way.
		For instance, you know, predicting an earthquake.
		Not everybody's going to leave their home next to an, let's say, a volcanic eruption.
		We've got one scheduled for North Island, New Zealand.
		But a few people might, and that saves a few lives.
		But you have to build up a track record first.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Kind of like Luke used the force.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
		In terms of human potential, there's a lot of force to use, but we don't do it.
		We're too focused on other things.
		Even in my line of work, remote viewing, people want to use these precision tools to win the lottery, and they always can rationalize it somehow.
		I've got all kinds of winning lottery tickets on my LearnRV website.
		But now I think the priorities better change fast because you can't take it with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, assuming one was a survivor of this catastrophe in the world afterwards, would remote viewing continue to be an important skill?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm trying to help you sell here is what I'm doing.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		It will help you find water.
		It will help you find food, right?
		It will help you find other human beings to communicate with if you're cut off.
		It'll help you know which medicines or which natural medicines to do with if a member of your family is hurt or you are.
		That's what we use it for now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where will you be when it hits the fan, Ed?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		I will probably be in Eastern Europe because of personal reasons, but I'll want to be, in any case, next to the people I love.
		And I've considered strongly Whitefish Montana because I know that's, as I've mentioned before on your show, that's a very good survival spot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it sounds like you're going to be, and I know this to be true, folks, he's going to be in Russia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, Ukraine, right?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ukraine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you're in Ukraine for personal reasons.
unidentified		Correct.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Got to follow my heart.
		I just recently learned how to do that.
		Been following my head all these years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, then an obvious question is, how does Ukraine shape up in the coming lesser times?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Actually, the northern part of the country in Russia, the people stick together for the most part, and you do have crop circles up there.
		So it's, you know, heck, I may start a little community.
		Whitefish will be my sister city.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Let's risk a couple of, you know, unscreened calls and just see what people say.
		All right.
		Wild Carline, you're on the air with Major Ed Dames and Art Bell.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Mark.
		I have a two-part question, if I may, for y'all.
		Sure.
		Okay.
		The first one would be for Ed.
		And Ed is a one-committee astronaut.
		I'm going to hope like that you're wrong about the shuttle.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Me too.
unidentified		But my question for you is, realistically, how quickly or easily can somebody pick up remote viewing?
unidentified		And I say that from the experience of a jaded, cynical engineer who could never learn a foreign language.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, good question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If you really bored down on it, Ed, and went, you know.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I used to only teach engineers, scientists, and doctors.
		In fact, I've taught some of the best in the world.
		An engineer, despite any beliefs of that nature, can learn this in about three months.
		But you're going to need about another six months to one year, depending on how much practice you have, to really master the skills.
		And that I and my team of professionals teach that.
		We do not charge this unlimited instruction online, and we're there all the time.
unidentified		So the engineering background and I guess the logical, cynical nature of it wouldn't get in the way.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		No, not at all, because it's a skill.
		It's a skill.
		It takes an innate ability.
		Let's say I was teaching you how to ice skate, and you look at those ice skates, and you say, there's no way that anybody can stand on slippery ice with those skinny little things.
		And then a good coach can say, yeah, you can believe whatever you want, but you'll still be ice skating.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I would think, you know, as an engineer, you've got analytical abilities, and that would help.
unidentified		Okay.
		And Art, my second part of the question is for you, if I may.
		Sure.
		You have a guest coming up here in the next hour that will be talking about terrorism and a few other things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And a few other things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sustainable energy, that kind of thing, yes.
unidentified		And I was wondering if you might consider a roundtable thing about terrorism and al-Qaeda in general, perhaps with Steve Wynn and Michael Schuer, the guy that was head of the Osama bin Laden unit, the CIA, and maybe even your next hour's guest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we'll see.
		And we'll see what next hour's guest has to say.
		In the meantime, east of the Rockies, you're on the air with Major Ed Dames and Ark Bellheim.
unidentified		Subway and a tunnel system in Boston that have got a bad name recently.
unidentified		Would these be a temporary shelter for what he's talking about?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a good question, actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And Ed himself was a long time ago, was talking about a cave in the Hawaiian Islands.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Actually, you have to, when it gets real bad and the belts that are really hot, you are going to have to seek shelter underground.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So a subway would be probably, obviously, not bad.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		As long as you have water, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Huh.
		You also mentioned, of course, over the years Ed, seeing many people underground.
		You've gone back to that again and again and again.
		That applies to this situation, right?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		When the atmosphere really begins to heat up and when protons start coming down to the deck and x-rays in the out years, you have to be underground for periods of time.
		Not forever, but you have to sit out storms.
		Also, you're going to have vicious winds, too, because the atmosphere is going to transjaculate.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, our weather clearly has been in terrible flux.
		I mean, just terrible flux.
		Anybody can see it.
		You don't have to be a weather guy to see that things are very much in flux.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		We are just not going to be able to grow crops the way we have used to.
		I said that eight years ago on your show, and that's what it's going to come down too fast.
		We're not going to be able to grow crops the way we've used to expose to the vicissitudes of these climate changes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, listen.
		When can I have you It'll be two weeks, Ed, until I'm back on the air after tonight.
		That's my new arrangement.
		I do a couple Sundays a month.
		So two weeks from now, will we either this will have begun to have been fulfilled or already be fulfilled, or in two weeks it will not?
		Is that a fair statement?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I think what's fair is that we will probably see something solar-wise in the next, I'd say, max month and a half to two months, but possibly as early as the next two hours, depending on what's going on with SunSpot 0762, I believe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I hear that.
		But no, I'm talking about the shuttle situation.
		Within two weeks, it's obviously going to be resolved one way or the other, right?
		Correct.
		So if I have you on in two weeks and the shuttle has returned safely without any problems, no encounter with meteors, not driven out of back to Earth by a meteor shower or whatever, in two weeks would you come back on and say, well, look, maybe we're headed in a slightly different direction because it didn't happen?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		No, I would never say that.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		Because again, we've got an ensemble of elements that have lined up here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know, but what if it doesn't come to pass?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're still saying the rest of it will?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I'm saying that with what you're calling a confluence of events, these particular elements, yes.
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		I still hang my hat on the 85% likelihood that we're in the beginning of this massive series that I call it a kill shot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if the shuttle is not forced to Earth by meteors, would you come on in a couple weeks and say, thank God I was wrong, or what?
ed dames ▲ ● ▼		It's not going to be.
		That is an analytical call because when, as viewers, we saw a meteor shower and the shuttle flying, that was my call saying it looks like it's in trouble.
		And we felt that it was in trouble, but I jumped to the conclusion that it was trouble because of the meteor shower, which I think is incorrect now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		On all kinds of subjects, renewable energy, the way we make it through, if we make it through, and so much more.
		Jim Bell actually is an internationally recognized expert on life support sustaining development and has more than 40 years experience in the design and construction industry.
		He attended Palomar College, Long Beach State University, and graduated from SDSU with a bachelor's degree in art and art sciences.
		He speaks to many groups each year, is often interviewed rather on television, radio, and written press.
		He's the author of Achieving Economic Security on Spaceship Earth and numerous other articles and papers on creating sustainable economies.
		Jim currently serves as director of the Ecological Life Systems Institute and the San Diego Center for Appropriate Technology.
		He also is board member of Ocean Beach People's Food Co-op, has recently been working with the San Diego Apollo Project.
		During the late 60s and early 70s, Jim became concerned about the impacts of human activities on the environment and our quality of life.
		He became increasingly convinced that there were smarter ways to conduct our lives, smarter ways to build our communities that would just simply minimize negative impacts, making it at least a little bit better.
		In a moment, Jim Bell.
unidentified		Gunshot
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Writing a book is an interesting affair.
		A number of years ago, I saw a confluence of events around me.
		I was doing a talk show every single day, five or six hours a day, six days a week, and you read every speck of news.
		You know most of the important things that are going on in the world.
		And it began to occur to me that in every field, in our economic dealings, in our social dealings, in our ecology, things were beginning to speed up.
		Things were beginning to speed up exponentially.
		And that's when I wrote The Quickening.
		It's not one of those things.
		You concocted something that's in you.
		You feel it, you know it, and you write it.
		That's the kind of book The Quickening was.
		And I guess Jim knows of that book, because the first question is, how does your work relate to The Quickening?
		And can the quickening be positive?
		Both really good questions, actually.
		Jim, welcome to the program.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you very much.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you located?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm in San Diego County, or San Diego, California, in the community of Ocean Beach.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ocean Beach.
		Beautiful area.
		No question about it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		This is kind of the, you know, this is like where the co-ops are and things like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		It's like eternal springtime there.
		It's one of the best climates in the world, I guess.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and I've been hearing about, well, we've been having some pretty high temperatures in the backcountry, but, you know, nothing compared to what you guys are dealing with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, just over the mountains, you are having some similar temperatures.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, my area has been going on a somewhat regular basis, Jim, to 117.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course, we're out in the desert where one has that expectation, but it's been particularly brutal this year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And, in fact, all over the country, it's been brutal this summer, hasn't it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, they keep talking about more, you know, more and severe hurricanes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about all the horror stories because, you know, we've already heard them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The ocean waters are warming.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's like we're numbed, we're almost like numbed to them.
		And what I decided to do is say, hey, look, obviously, if we continue as now, we're going to damage our planet's life support system so severely it's going to fail in some fundamental way.
		I mean, whether it's global warming or soaking up too much pesticides or whatever it happens to be, I think the point is, well, gee, if we haven't reached that point yet, let's redesign how we do things so that we have good, strong, prosperous economies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's actually a pretty good argument about that, whether we've already gone too far.
		Now, I don't want to invalidate the rest of what you have to say.
		But I should ask you about that.
		How much of a possibility is there that whatever it is that might get us already is unstoppable?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You're familiar with many of the theories that I'm familiar with, and there's all kinds of things that seem to be able to happen, reverberations of the weather.
		You start going one way and it turns the other way because of climatic effects and stuff like that.
		But I just said, well, we can get all involved in those things and wonder about them and all that.
		But really, if we do have time, the best thing to do is develop life support sustaining economies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, once again, though, to focus on the question itself, which was rather direct.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Do I think it's too far?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have we gone too far already?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it too late?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I've been in this field for over 30 years, and I think when I first got in it, I was like, you know, young or younger anyway, and, you know, like, wow, look how bad things are.
		But our planet's life support system has been remarkable in terms of its ability not to collapse under the constant onslaught that humans, you know, it's not just like pointing fingers because, you know, we were born into this.
		We didn't make it up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you're saying very possibly not too late.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I think anybody who's going to try to work in this area has to assume that it isn't too late.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Only because it's better to be positive.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and it feels a lot better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know how strong an endorsement that is of, no, it's not too late, but we'll proceed anyway because I'm like you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I want to be optimistic about things, and there are things.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I tell you what, why don't we come back to this after I get to make my case a little better?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's the kind of thing you do at the end of the show.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, all this didn't mean anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're doomed.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I know.
		I know, but there's, I mean, they're actually in our society, because I talk with a lot of young people, and most of them are pretty pessimistic, you know, and there's...
		Yeah, yeah.
		But, you know, well, as long as we're kicking and breathing and we can communicate with each other, and, you know, I think there's still hope.
		And the human family has done amazing things when it understood what was necessary and how we had to get together and pull together.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's a really good question all by itself.
		And that is, if it's not too late, are we, in fact, waking up en masse to the fact that it, well, gee, either could be or might be too late, or we better do it.
		In other words, how awake are we right now?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know I'm sure awake.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know you are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's obvious.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But instead of, you know, it's almost like my job or I mean, this is really about consciousness on some level.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And, you know, I'm like a plumber.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but you used the word.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I know what I'll talk about is, well, how do we produce all our energy in a way that isn't polluting?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure, but you used the word numb a little while ago.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think that's true, too, but maybe a better word is bruised.
		We all feel so beat about the head and shoulders by the life that's coming at us that this area in San Diego is sort of a high income, though the cost of living here is certainly going up.
		But I think people here are working two jobs or three jobs or they got fired or whatever, and people are living with other people in houses.
		Even in my own building here, it's a 2,500 square foot building, got two people living here.
		We had a big fundraising party last night.
		We're working in the community and we're trying to shed light instead of heat.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Got it.
		Well, all right.
		So we have this quickening going on, and the question is, what can we do to affect the way it's going to proceed from here?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the key thing is energy.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I know you said you have enough solar out there to run all your equipment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're in even a better place than we are here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But what I've done, I'm sorry to say, Jim, is not necessarily economically a reasonable thing for people to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It costs a lot of money.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, and that's what I want to address.
		That's what I'm addressing in the book as a plan where, you know, people are going to pay money, but instead of having to come up with upfront money or going to Hawk or something like that, all they would have to do is just continuing paying their utility bill, and the bill would actually gradually start going down, and the solar might not even be on their roof, but it might be on a parking lot over a shopping center down the street.
		But their house would be made as energy efficient as possible, maybe even putting in the most efficient refrigerator and better lighting and skylights where it made sense to take advantage of daylighting.
		All the things that you can do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all these things are kind of at the margin of what you can do.
		You can do quite a bit.
		But again, it depends on how many people out there are really awake.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, and that's the wonderful thing about your show, is that every night, practically you and George and whoever else you have on, you're basically saying, hey, we're all trying to wake up.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I don't have all the answers, but let's wake up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's a theory now, Jim, that the oil, the first easy-to-get half of the oil is now gone.
		And we're at a point where we've got still a lot of oil to get out of the ground, but it's the second half, the hard-to-get, very expensive-to-get oil.
		In other words, we're at peak oil.
		Do you believe that?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think there's definitely an excellent case for it, and there's been a lot of people who I respect who have talked about, including some Republican.
		Sorry, I can't think of his name off the top of my head, but he's back east.
		He's a Republican representative, Roscoe Bartlett, I think it is.
		And he's been talking about peacoil for a long time, trying to get the Republicans to, you know, hey, get it.
		We've got to do something quick.
		So this is, on one level, it's kind of mainstream.
		And I've even seen Exxon studies where they're saying, you know, it's coming, it's coming.
		And I'm hoping it doesn't come as fast as a lot of these people are saying, because if it does, it'll make what I'm proposing more difficult as we lose the energy or the fossil fuel bridge we now have to move to the next way.
		I mean, let me just give one example.
		If we covered only 18% of existing buildings and parking lots in San Diego County, we could be completely energy self-sufficient.
		I mean, replace gasoline, diesel, natural gas, all imported electricity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		But, Jim, I don't see it happening.
		Not in San Diego.
		In fact, actually, not anywhere.
		Do you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm planning to live out my life here, so I'm going to work toward it.
		And we have the Apollo Project, which I've been working with.
		And it's a group of, it consists of labor, community groups, and environmental groups.
		And we're actually meeting in the Electricians Hall here in the United Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Hall.
		I apologize to Paul.
		I don't know what the number is.
		And the whole idea behind the Apollo project is to put the same kind of muscle we did in trying to get somebody to the moon into making our country renewable energy self-sufficient, starting community by community.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm with you.
		I mean, if the situation is as we have described, then why isn't there some kind of Manhattan-style emergency project to make America, not just San Diego, but America energy sufficient?
		To put solar cells and wind machines up everywhere?
		I don't see that happening yet.
		Do you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you're definitely right, but there's sure a lot of I mean, like there was, I just saw something in the news reports about the governors, no, it was the mayors, the National Association of Mayors, had come out supposedly unanimously to try to reduce global warming in their own cities.
		And here, I'm in San Diego.
		San Diego's done some pretty good things.
		As you say, and I agree with you 100%, if PCOL happens, they won't matter who, because they're just not significant enough to really make any difference.
		But we have the capability, if we recognize it as a real danger and we got our businesses and our military and really everybody on board with doing it.
		And actually in San Diego, the military, the Navy has a 750-kilowatt solar system over a parking lot.
		Right.
		So there's things happening.
		People are dabbling in it.
		It's kind of like the Emperor's New Clothes story where I guess I'm like the little kid who's saying, hey, the Emperor's naked.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, everything's money, Jim.
		Everything's money.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But this plan that I'm proposing and that I'm working with the Apollo Project more or less on basically says, hey, look, there are companies out there called Energy Service Companies.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you heard of those companies?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, okay.
		Well, they'd just love to bid a proof-of-concept project, say, for the city of San Diego that would match the energy profile use of the city of San Diego.
		You know, some commercial, some industrial, some of the things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but who pays for it, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they invest, they do their business right now.
		They'll come into your factory, they'll come into your hotel complex or whatever, and they'll invest the upfront money to do the retrofit, and then they share in the savings.
		That's how they get their money.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then they share in the savings.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and then once they've got all their profit and their initial investment out of it with a healthy interest rate, it's yours.
		And things like if you put in double-glazed windows, they don't stop working after you've paid them off.
		They continue working as long as you're in the middle of the market.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So then you're telling me going in and doing these steps to, say, a factory, whether it's doubling windows or putting solar cells on or working.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		To get really green, you're saying it's profitable enough that this company will come in, change the factory around, based, and do all the capital investment for just a share of the savings?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but they, see, we are so energy inefficient.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		There's just huge amounts of money to be made.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm totally there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I believe that.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		What's happened is with these, I mean, it almost sounds too good to be true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's when it usually is, Jim.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'm not sorry.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I've had several experiences with it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the San Diego Police Department just did it, and they're tickled pink, and they even included solar in it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How did it turn out?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, how much did it cost to install at the police department, and how much money are they saving?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think what happens in these deals, well, in every experience that I have had with it, is that what the Energy Service Company guarantees the Police Department or whoever they're working with, a positive cash flow day one once things are installed.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And they're real conservative about it, too, because they're looking mostly to get the low-hanging fruit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
		Again, for example, can you quote dollars?
		Do you know how much it costs to go into the San Diego Police Department and change it all around, make it available?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I wasn't privy to the budget, but it has been touted.
		And there was another building that was done even earlier about 10 years ago called the Environmental Services Building.
		And it was all retrofitted, existing building next door to another building that was identical.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you're saying an energy company is the one that put up all the money?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know specifically in that deal, but according to our local utility, that energy services building has been generating a 25% return per year since it was put in place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Impressive.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It is impressive, but I mean, that's probably gone up because the cost of energy has gone up, so that means that payback happens even faster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a good point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You see, I didn't think there was anything really profitable there yet in alternative energy, and you're telling me, oh, yeah, there is.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and it's kind of like, you know, you can do something stupidly or you can do it intelligently.
		And basically what I said, I said, well, what does everybody have in common in the city or in the region, at least in the county?
		And, well, one way or another, they all pay utility bills.
		They all go to the gas station and buy gas and all this.
		And when we do that in our region right now, all the money leaves the region.
		I mean, we import 90% of our energy, so we're extra vulnerable.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's an awfully good point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If your dollars are staying there in the community, that means a lot, doesn't it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It does mean a lot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure, you're right.
		All energy or most of our energy is coming from elsewhere.
		That means ultimately the dollars flow from your pocket to, I don't know, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela or even to another state other than yours.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Certainly not your county or where most of the things happen that affect your life.
		That's a very good point.
		And here in San Diego County, the figure fluctuates a lot because it depends on what the price of energy is.
		But I've kind of said, well, more or less $6 billion a year we export each year just to pay for the energy we import.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you say $6 billion?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		$6 billion.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In your area alone?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, San Diego County, 3 million people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Man, that's a lot of money, Jim.
		I have no illusions about energy in any way at all.
		I've taken a number of steps myself, as many of you know.
		I have enough solar power and wind power here to power my house.
		I have batteries, inverters, you know, I went the whole Megilla.
		And I know, and I can tell you that when I did it now several years ago, and so the situation might have changed, and we'll ask Jim about that, but when I did it, it was so expensive that I really wouldn't see the return in my lifetime.
		So obviously, I did it for other reasons.
		I wanted uninterruptible power.
		I wanted pure power.
		I wanted, there were a lot of reasons that I did it, not all of which are necessarily green.
		They're just things that I wanted.
		And I wanted to be able to see if I could do it, frankly.
		But it costs far too much money, and I'll be dead and gone by the time the payoff occurs.
		And that's just fact, or was a fact, when I did it.
		Now, Jim, you should know that as I do the program and people are listening to you, and they listen, believe me, to every word you and I say, I get computer messages from the audience.
		The audience can be cruel.
		Jim, Don in Tallahassee is a little cruel.
		He says, look, how can your guest say he's an expert in the field and yet not be specific on anything?
		He can say that so-and-so company saved X number of dollars or percent of money or something, but he can't give any specifics.
		I also cannot find any company named Energy Services Company.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a class of companies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A class of companies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any specific company involved in what you've been talking about tonight that you'd like to name?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't want to tout any particular company.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why not?
		I don't have a problem with that.
		I mean, if there's a company that's actually making money on saving energy, I want to know about it, and so does everybody else.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, this is such common knowledge in the field that I'm surprised there's even questions about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's not common knowledge to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know of energy companies, Shell, Mobile, BP.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, energy service companies actually get their money.
		I don't know if they get it from BP, but they get money, their upfront money that they invest comes from a utility consortium.
		And basically, they use that money.
		But I did give the example of the energy services company here in the city of San Diego.
		And this is the city of San Diego record.
		And according to San Diego Gas and Electric, which has no vested interest in showing the wonderful performance of this building, but there's good people in SDG ⁇ E, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My area, so they said what?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		They said that this building has been returning 25% on the investment in the efficiency improvements day one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And where did San Diego Gas and Electric make that statement?
		In the newspaper or what?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I believe it was in the newspaper because it's been a big deal.
		It's actually been one of the frustrating things, because I've been somewhat involved in politics here, and one of the frustrating things is they had this building showing this wonderful return, and I was asking the mayor, why aren't you doing all the buildings?
		I mean, this is a positive cash flow deal.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the answer to that was?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know.
		They just caught up.
		We've had a lot of scandals here.
		I guess they just caught up.
		I call it the quagmire of intrigue down at City Hall.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that goes on everywhere, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's just the way the world works.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but I...
		Well, but, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is there are ways.
		I mean, for example, in the economic model that I present in my book, and it's there, and it's all footnoted and everything else, it basically shows that initially you would invest 97% of the money that an energy service company would put up, or even if the city was going to put it up, it's actually better if the city did, because they can get a lower interest rate than the energy service company and do some kind of private public partnership.
		And that would be more lucrative for everybody, really.
		But basically, puts the money up and begins investing in efficiency.
		And the parameters are that you're going to save every kilowatt of capacity that you can save per $1,000 per kilowatt of capacity saved, assuming buildings being used 10 hours a day.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Governments are rarely into saving money.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They just spend other people's money, taxpayers' money.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think, you know, but the whole idea is that the.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if money is to be made, Jim, then you're correct.
		I mean, if a company can go in, make an investment and then reap enough profit, then it's going to happen all over the place.
		The marketplace will take care of it.
		You don't need government involved.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe there's some energy service person out there in that business listening who will fast-blast your email because this is a, I mean, there's actually a National Association of Energy Service Companies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		People aren't necessarily doubting you, Jim.
		They just want specifics.
		How much, you know, that kind of thing.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I think the best thing is just to listen to what I'm saying.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		When I say we could be completely renewable energy self-sufficient in San Diego County by covering only 18% of existing buildings and parking lots, I'm assuming, and I've got data for this, 500 square miles of buildings and parking lots and two square meters per day per kilowatt hour of energy produced, and then basically doing the math.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I had to eliminate that.
unidentified		Yeah, well, that's full of baloney.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, baloney.
		Dog poo.
		They get it.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you're saying you're not full of that stuff.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think if people give my book a fair read, and see, I'm offering the book free to the world online.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, there is something to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're offering...
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, what I figured out, it doesn't really cost me anything.
		And if the ideas get out and it changes consciousness and people say, hey, we don't have to wait for San Diego to do it.
		We'll do it in our own city, our own community.
		You know, nobody has to wait for us.
		I mean, it's almost like I think if ever any region on the planet really begins to do this seriously.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, I'm interested.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What's the name of your book?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's titled Creating a Sustainable Economy and Future on Our Planet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the subtitle is...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it's free.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and the subtitle is the San Diego-Tijuana Region, a case study.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A case study.
		And so all your work is in that specific area.
		You certainly keep referring to that.
		That's fine.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I did actually, because somebody said, well, people kept saying, well, gee, that's good for us here because we've got plenty of sunshine here.
		But what about Seattle?
		So I did run the numbers for Seattle.
		And whereas we have to cover 18% of our buildings and parking lots.
		And I didn't do a survey of per capita buildings and parking lots in Seattle.
		But I said, well, if there's the same number of buildings and parking lots per person in Seattle, they'd only have to cover 28%.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		28%.
		Gee, I figured people living in Seattle would have to walk around with solar-powered hats.
		No, huh?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It might happen there.
		But no, whereas we need two square meters per kilowatt hour per day on average, you know, for production, and we only get five hours of sun to light a day.
		So that's why the energy savings is so much better because you get to save energy longer.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, do you know where I live, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I live in Perump, Nevada.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you would.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We have, I can't even count them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We have so many days of really strong sun here.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		So the first thing you'd want to do, though, is to find all the ways you can save energy and maintain your comfort.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a bit of a problem.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You see, in areas where it gets to be 117 degrees, you depend on a compressor operating properly, Jim, and that sucks energy just like a cow does whatever it is a cow eats.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, like in your area, though, like doing something underground would make perfect sense because you're not going to have to worry about water getting into your basement.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But down there, the earth will help keep you cool.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that is true.
		How far into the earth must one go to reach a somewhat neutral temperature?
		Do you know?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		About five feet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Five feet.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe six feet there, you know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe six.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So if people built homes, literally, in the ground at five or six feet, the temperature would fall to a steady what?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Be about 65 degrees, I think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		65 degrees?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You would basically be heating it with outside air a little bit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, having to heat it in a land where it gets up to 117 degrees.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, maybe you wouldn't have to heat it, but you would certainly save on your compressor wear and tear if you can have a place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, 65 is just a very comfortable temperature for me.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but you're fighting the 117 on the outside.
		And if your house was really well insulated, or you could go down there and kind of shut it off from the rest of the house.
		Yes.
		But the idea is you design the building so that it's functional to you.
		You can make changes in different times of the year when the weather conditions are different.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you know offhand whether anybody out here in the desert actually has done that?
		I've heard of some pretty weird things.
		Has anybody actually put a house underground here?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		They actually have done it here in San Diego, which I wouldn't recommend it in San Diego in most cases.
		Well, maybe out in the desert part of San Diego, but not in the regular part.
		But just because of water, if you get a real heavy rainfall year, you might have a situation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you look up at your living room wall and it's pouring through.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There is that.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, if you do it with a little attention, like, you know, I mean, what I do professionally is I'm an ecological designer, so when I get my paid job, when I have one, is basically helping people do whatever they're trying to do in ways that are as non-polluting, non-toxic, non-you know, even designing buildings so that when they wear out, they're going to be relatively easy to recycle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you understand the implications of giving away a free book, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, to me, this is about our children and future generations.
		It's about us.
		I mean, I don't know how old you are.
		I'm 63, so I figure if I live another 20 years, I've had a pretty good ride.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll be darned.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm 60.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so it's like, well, gee, you look around and I see little children, and I just think, wow, what a world we're creating for them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But when I say The implications of giving away your book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm saying a lot of people are going to go for a free offer like that, and can you handle it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, as long as the website doesn't crash, you know, it's just going to crash, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As a matter of fact, we should give out the website number so we can get on with crashing it.
		So it's simple, right?
		www.jimbell.com.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		That's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		J-I-M-B-E-L-L.com.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And on that website, what do people have to do to get the free book?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		On the left-hand side of the screen, they're going to see some little click-on buttons.
		And the second one is going to say Jim's new book.
		So you just click on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And then the title will come up, and there will be a click here under that title, and it'll come up in the PDF format, which is 50 pages, including the covers.
		And if you're on the dial-up, it's going to take a while to get it to go down.
		But if you're on cable of some sort, it doesn't take very long at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So your book, then, is in aha, smart, Jim.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's in a PDF format available on the web.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you were right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		People will be able to get it into your website crashes, which will be...
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, my server, I talked to my server, and he said he could handle it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've had a lot of server guys say, hey, we can handle it.
		Big corporations, Jim.
		But maybe your guy's really good.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I've noticed, listened to your show enough to know that a lot of people's websites have crashed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		All right, folks.
		So once again, for your free book in Adobe format, you simply go to www.jimbell, J-I-M-B-E-L-L dot com.
		And you said about 80 pages, something like that?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		50.
		50.
		Including the cover.
		It comes out in kind of like a magazine format.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a smart way to have done it, Jim.
		And I guess after the crash, people can then slowly go in the next day or two.
		And when your website recovers, they'll get it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's going to be there, you know, and really everything on my website is free, so it doesn't really matter to me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is coming from your heart.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, and like I, you know, I, you know, like if somebody would maybe look at my life and say, well, I don't think I would, you know, like to live there, but I do like to live where I live, and it's actually comfortable, and I have good friends, and I think we're doing some important things, and I have a lot of fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You wouldn't go as far as to say you live a sort of a commune-type life, right?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's not really anything formal at all.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Your website's down, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'll talk with my server in the morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		At least that's what people are saying here.
		So we'll see.
		Maybe it's just stunned temporarily.
unidentified		Have some patience with it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so in this book, you can learn how to do what has been done in San Diego.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that a fair statement?
		I give examples.
		A third of the book is footnotes.
		So there's a lot of explanation that go with everything that's said in the book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But it's not fair to say that a third of what you've said here is footnotes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What we need are some of those footnotes, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, they're footnotes to validate the case.
		Yeah, I understand.
		You know, all that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Here's a question for you.
		Out of left field.
		You heard what I said at the bottom of the hour, Jim.
		I actually went out and bought all the stuff I needed.
		You know, solar panels, wind energy, inverters, battery banks.
		Oh, my God, I went crazy.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And probably when you did it, a solar panel was costing maybe $10 a peak watt.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Plus, you're kind of out there sort of remote, so somebody had to haul everything out there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All of that's true.
		In fact, I'll level with you.
		I spent 50, maybe 60 grand on the operation, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, it's horrible.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, people, even regular residential people that are doing this, if they were really going to pay the whole freight without the subsidies and things like that, it would be at least $20,000.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But my question to you is, today, right now, if I lived in California where they do have some kind of program, although they might be ending it, I heard rumors, by the way, they were ending the subsidies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that true?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It very well may be true because they've been cutting them down, I think, 40 cents every three months or something like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No kidding.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		For quite a while.
		Really?
		But there's this whole million-roof solar program in the state of California that actually Governor Schwarzenegger has been pushing.
		That has passed in some form.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why would they cut the subsidies down, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's the usual argument of, well, if it's being subsidized, it's not a free market and it's not fair.
		Other people point out that, well, gee, the oil companies are subsidized and the nuclear power companies are subsidized.
		And we subsidize them by breathing in their pollution and all that kind of stuff, too.
		I mean, when we pay our doctor bill, they don't sign a check.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But I mean, we're going to inevitably be talking about politics, Jim, whether it's at your local San Diego level or at the national level.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that's a political decision to begin ending subsidies that would encourage people to put in solar power.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, with my plan, you don't really need subsidies.
		Your plan.
		The plan that I presented in this book.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Because it basically makes a free market argument that if you, see, initially when you, you know, say you were going to do float a medicine bond or something like that to fund this for your city or for your region, you're still going to have to pay some interest on it, you know, but you probably get something less than 5%, which is a pretty good interest, whereas the energy service company is probably going to get 12% on their money.
		So it means some opportunities are not going to be as cost-effective as they would be if the money was cheaper.
		But you invest in the efficiency initially, that pays back very fast, so you get completely out of debt.
		And now you're basically rolling that money over and continuing to invest it.
		You have economy of scale production, you have crews that are trained that are basically just going right down the block.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, this is very attractive, if it's really true.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, well, people have to get together and they have to figure it out.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'm not trying to say that my idea is the only idea or even the best idea, but it's the best idea I've come up with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if your idea is a profitable idea, then it's a good idea.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's a very profitable idea, and because it brings the money back into the economy, it benefits everybody.
		Plus, it cleans up the environment.
		And another thing that happens is you get energy security insurance at no extra cost.
		And that's what you've got.
		That's what you did when you put your system in.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I got what?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Energy security insurance at no extra cost.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, well, I don't know about it.
		It made a lot of cost.
		I don't know about no extra cost.
		That's part of the reason I actually did it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But a city could do it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A big entity can do it very green things and end up making money.
		And making money is the only way that all of this is ever going to come to pass.
		Otherwise, it is nothing but a pipe dream.
		There are still things that stand in the way of doing this, even if you do make money doing it.
		And those things are in the political world.
		We're going to ask a little bit about that and more about what Jim says can be done.
		If it's real, it's important.
		His book is free.
		So go to his website and make, you know, decide for yourself.
		A lot of people are looking for answers.
		Jim Bell claims to have one of them.
		So whatever else you think, do go to his website, www.jimbell.com, download his book, and see for yourself if he's right.
		If he is, well, that means a lot.
unidentified		To be continued...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We certainly need people like Jim.
		With what we're facing, we need people like Jim.
		And I'm curious, Jim, all things said, won't be no country music, won't be no rock and roll, what they really mean is that, you know, we're toast.
		Yeah, you've got that.
		We're toast.
		Straight ahead.
		So my question is, how dire are the signs that we have right now?
		I mean, we do have weather changes, Jim.
		We have problems with our atmosphere.
		We have concerns about the sun.
		Just our general environmental situation appears to be dire.
		How dire?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we can't do anything about the sun, but we can do something about the earth.
		And it is very dire.
		I mean, I'm not trying to soft pedal it or say, hey, it's not as bad as we think.
		I think it's probably worse than we think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Probably worse than we think.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But our planet, our life support system has, you know, has been amazingly resilient.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		When you really begin to think about it, it's just amazing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're quite right, Jim, but is there a point, yeah.
		You know, where it's like somebody throws a switch.
		The human beings are on this planet and exist in a very narrow margin, actually.
		It wouldn't take very many degrees, one way or the other, to virtually make life not sustainable in many areas.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So a lot of people believe that one little thing, like the butterfly effect, will be done just sending everything over the top and causing some terrible climate catastrophe or something ecologically that will really hurt us.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, like the ozone layer was only discovered, you know, that it was being reduced was only discovered by accident.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, there's probably 10 things going on that we don't even know about yet.
		But it's like we, you know, that's what happens is maybe part of our malady as human creatures is we get stuck there.
		And what I'm trying to say, you know, let's not get stuck there.
		Let's go to the next level.
		Let's, you know, as long as we're kicking and breathing, you know, like if we were attacked by, you know, some people in our community, we definitely would defend ourselves and do all those kinds of things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Going to the next level, Jim, is going to absolutely require either a plan like yours that is so obviously profitable that people just do it because people do what saves them money.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or it's going to, and no doubt it would also, since it's probably so late, it's going to require some very difficult decisions by our national politicians.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if they were making the right decisions, it would certainly be a lot easier.
		But there's, you know, I think I mentioned Roscoe Bartlett.
		You know, he's a Republican.
		He's been in office for years, something like that.
		And he's trumpeting peak oil.
		And I didn't talk with him, but I talked with his second-in-command, a woman by the name, I believe, Lisa.
		And they're very on it, and they're sending me emails about new developments all the time.
		So it's a great source of information.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure people like yourself do the calculations, Jim.
		And I watch the price of gasoline and the price of oil.
		And it steadily jumps up two or three jumps and then goes back one, and everybody goes, oh, man, cool, it's going down.
		But then it goes up two or three more jumps.
		So, you know, it's slowly going up, up, up, up, up, up.
		How high does it have to get, Jim, before people begin to do drastic things and take drastic steps?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, as it goes up, more people do.
		It doesn't make the news.
		We're more interested in Michael Jackson or something like that, or at least the media is more interested in it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes.
		I have no answer for that.
		I don't answer for the media.
		I don't know what they're doing, some crazy things.
		But at some point, $3, $5, $6, $7 for a gallon of gasoline, at some point the world changes.
		Somewhere before that $7 mark, the world changes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, it's like the frog in the pot.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, actually, a guy who actually helped me on the book.
		He's a noted economist here in San Diego.
		His name is Dr. Alan Jenn, and he's a professor at USD University.
		And I came to him with this idea, and I don't even know how to do a spreadsheet on a computer.
		And so he basically plotted in the numbers to do the spreadsheet to represent what we were talking about.
		And also Dr. Heather Honet, who's her specialty is marketing, but she has a PhD in economics at San Diego State University.
		So these people are basically volunteering their time.
		And they're very, I mean, I feel honored that they would put the time into that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm glad they did.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did they make any such prediction about, you know, as we continue to cascade up, where all of this takes off?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, how I first met Dr. Jen was he had a, it was quoted in the newspaper of that every 10-cent rise in the price of gasoline meant $7 million left our county economy each month.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do that again.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		For every 10-cent rise in the price of gasoline, $7 million was exported out of our county's economy each month.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		So when you look at rises of 50 cents and stuff like that, starting to talk about big dollars here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, there's never been any question about that.
		And then there's this oil thing, Jim.
		Let's talk a little bit about the oil thing.
		Right now, we have an economy that runs on oil.
		If we were to attach a number to it, I'll bet you, I don't know.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I believe oil is definitely close to 50%, if not 50%.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And natural gas is the other bigger, you know, the other big...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But all of these.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, yeah.
		Those three things are really the whole ball of wax.
		I say I think when the final history of nuclear power is written, it's going to turn out to be a net thermodynamic energy loss.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You really think so?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I really think so.
		And in my first book, I cited some scientists who were saying the very same thing.
		I guess people that feel that way are a minority, but when you look at a waste that's going to be around 10,000 years and there's never been peace on the planet in two days, it's like, well, you think, well, we're taking that risk for future generations just to power our televisions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Our TVs are important, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Well, I watch it.
		And I use the same thing for a computer or whatever.
		I mean, we're all sinners, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
		And, you know, it's big of you to admit that.
		In other words, you, how about a car?
		Do you have a car?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I drive a 1989 Geo Metro, but still it's a car.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you're a GeoMetro fan.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I have Geos.
		That's where we do 95% of our driving.
		Only very occasionally do we use any of the three-cylinders?
		Yeah, as a matter of fact, XFI, yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Mine has almost just edging up to 200,000 miles, and I've never had to do anything to the engine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've been suspicious about this, Jim.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, I own two GeoMetros, and I must tell you that, well, the three-cylinder version, what kind of mileage do you think you get, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think I'm still getting close to 40.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		40.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, after all these years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you can get even quite a bit more than that.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it's 47.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What kind of driving you do, but I was always suspicious, Jim, that the GeoMetro is no longer sold.
		I'm very suspicious about that.
		How about you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		Well, no, it was definitely a wonderful, wonderful little, you know, and I'm six foot four, and there's more room for me to sit in that car and, you know, drive than there is in most.
		You're not making enough money on them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Could that be true?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, a car that goes a couple hundred thousand miles, a car that gets 40 or 50 miles or even 60 to the gallon, well, I guess we just can't have that.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		This gets into the whole issue of does our economy even create wealth?
		Does it increase the material and energy wealth of our planet?
		And the answer is no.
		I mean, even if it's because it's all dependent on these fossil fuels, basically a non-renewable world.
		And all you have to do is go to a landfill and watch what's happening there for five minutes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess what I'm getting at is there's a lot of people making a lot of money on these fossil fuels.
		There are entire industries and lives and careers based on these fossil fuels and the whole infrastructure that delivers them and lets us burn them.
		And that's not going to be given up easily, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, but there is Shell Solar and VP Solar.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, they've got their hand in it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, then let me ask you a hardball question.
		Right now, in the United States, what percentage of our energy is derived from alternative methods, anywhere from solar to wind to geothermal to whatever?
		What percentage?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know the exact number, but I would say even if you threw in hydropower, it's that's not right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We've got commercial dams.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, go ahead, throw in hydropower.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it's only like five or six percent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Five or six percent.
		The rest of it is all fossil fuel.
		Is all fossil fuel.
		So these are the folks that you're up against.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but see, the idea is not to be against them, but to show them a business opportunity.
		I mean, if they embraced what I'm saying, you know, it could happen much faster.
		And I don't have any problem with them making profits.
		You know, imagine making profits doing something everybody would be applauding you for doing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you see, I'm not sure that at the end of the day, what you're talking about would be a profit for Shell or Exxon or those kind of companies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would be profitable, but not to the end-service energy companies.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it's up to them.
		They have the investment capital.
		I invite them to invest in this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They really hate it when they don't make money.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		They hate it, but they hate it.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Hopefully in the book, they'll read it and look at it, and they'll see that they can make a lot more money doing the right thing than doing the wrong thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, at some level, I think that you're correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But again, I don't think these larger fossil fuel energy companies would look at it the way you're looking at it, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that gets back to consciousness.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it also gets back to politics.
		In other words, those big companies have a lot of money.
		They influence the people that are in elected office.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, one thing I've been in favor of is publicly financed campaigns on all levels.
		I mean, here there's a group that's promoting it, and I think it's about $3 or $4 a year per voter.
		And you get to run candidates who are beholden to the voters instead of beholding to special interests.
		And I think we need to move more.
		Common cause and groups like that are talking about these kinds of things.
		And we have a wonderful Constitution.
		Unfortunately, people are trying to shout it down in a lot of cases now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, I've had a lot of guests on the program, Jim, who recognize the trouble we're in, but they say realistically, our only understood workable savior right now is the nuclear power industry.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you're not one of those people, are you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I think it's just like it almost shows, you know, we're a very clever species, but we're not very wise.
		And this was one of the least wise things we've ever done.
		Because when you start leaving things behind after you're dead and gone and long forgotten, that are going to be dangerous to people for, you know, maybe 1,000 generations or 10,000 generations, not to mention it's going to be moving through the food chain.
		And once you put things like that into the world, there's really no escaping them.
		And we should not be doing that.
		We should be more humble or more cautious or try to become wiser.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We already, in other words, this is one of those areas where, in a sense, it's already too late.
		We already have so much waste that has got to be stored that we're going to be doing that no matter what, Jim.
		We're going to be storing it.
		That's a done deal, man.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But not, but not, but, you know, let's not make any more if we have to.
		And yeah, we're going to have to bite the bullet on that.
		We're going to have to bite the bullet on a lot of toxic waste.
		We're going to have to bite the bullet on a lot of things if we really care about future generations.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And speaking of bullets, let's for a second find out what you think about the war in Iraq.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Probably get you into a little trouble here, but do you believe the oil in Iraq was based on energy?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it certainly was a big issue, you know, I think, in the picture.
		And people have found lots of other ways to make money on the war, so it isn't just the oil.
		I mean, even I think they thought they'd make a lot more money on the oil, but they're making money in other ways anyway.
		And it's causing a lot of resentment from what I hear in the military.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They are.
		It seems like we're spending a lot of money on this war.
		I don't know that there's been huge returns.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, what I've heard is you get, yeah, no.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there's, I mean, like, you know, Halberton and there's some big companies.
unidentified		Oh, big companies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure.
		Yes, Halberton, I'm sure they're doing all right.
		But I mean, basically, nationally, we're spending a pretty big chunk of change on this.
unidentified		Huge, huge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Huge, yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, and when you think about this and you say, well, okay, what triggered this?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, well, you know, if you go back and back and back and back, you'll see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What triggered it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a big debate, Jim.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It wasn't weapons of mass destruction, I don't think.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, it's, you know, I think we were probably first on the block with those things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Bad intelligence.
		I don't know.
		People say a lot of things.
		But we're there now.
		So, I mean, the big deal is.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		let's just start with nine eleven because that was the big emotional thing that happened i'm not sure nine eleven yeah it was emotional you're right uh...
		but i'm not sure that nine eleven is any sort of reason for the iraq war well i you know are you well i thought the what i thought about this, you know, and I thought, you know, and what I was kind of hoping that President Bush would do was to treat this as a criminal act as it was.
		It was a murder.
		It was a, you know, 3,000, it was a murder of 3,000 people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		With you all the way.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And no question about that.
		And nobody should be doing that.
		And we should, you know, it's not, to me, it's not about revenge, but it's certainly about getting those people off the street.
		We don't want nothing like that running around.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, but you don't really think, Jim, do you, that the Iraq war was a direct response to 9-11, or do you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it was all kind of a slippery slope, I guess.
		Like I said, I'm more on the solution side.
		So I keep my ear open to this stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was going to ask, is the war in Iraq part of the solution?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In other words, ultimately, will we get a whole lot of oil out of it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't think so.
		That's a no.
		It's not going to matter who.
		And I mean, even if we got it.
		I mean, even if anything turned perfect tomorrow and we got it, it still ain't going to really matter who.
		It may give us a couple more years or something like that.
		It's like the Arctic Reserve, if they drill that, which will take them 11 years from what I understand.
		It's a few months of oil in terms of our consumption level.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A few months of oil.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And then, too, we're in competition now with China, of course, on the world oil market, right?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		So all of these things, Iraq, let me back up a second and give you what I think is the succinct view of this.
		First of all, if we had been doing what we should have been doing to become more, just forget about the renewable development, just energy efficient, we would have basically pulled all the energy, economic energy out of the Middle East that can be used for war.
		I mean, this was reported by the Rocky Mountain Institute.
		All kinds of different groups reported this.
		Like even if we made cars an average of 32 miles per gallon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So if we had done all this, we would not have gone to war, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we wouldn't.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I would say that the money in the Middle East that is now being used to attack us wouldn't be there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, everybody.
		We'll check into the details for you as they become available.
		But it would appear that there is breaking news that the president of Saudi Arabia, King Fahd, has died.
		And again, what that means, a little bit of time will have to tell, or if it's really true.
		But it does seem to be breaking news on CNN.
		You might want to take a look.
		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi, do you have a quick question for my guest, sir?
unidentified		Yeah, he had mentioned energy service companies.
		Actually, the way they seem to work is down in the southeast part of the country.
		And I actually just got back from China working on it also.
		It's called performance contracts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		And typically, many times it's not necessarily one technology such as solar or a transition from regular lights to fancy lights, things like that, that make it.
unidentified		It's the companies that are offering a combination of new technologies and programs combined on a performance contract.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you still there?
unidentified		Yeah, I'm here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, go ahead.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry.
unidentified		No, it's typically five to nine months of return on investment, a payback on performance contracts.
		It's a straight energy consumption.
		You talk about the politics a moment ago of energy, which is it is all politics.
		But when the politics step aside is when you don't have enough energy.
		China, I was in China for two weeks just recently, a week ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it's a very enlightening experience, isn't it?
unidentified		It is a very enlightening experience.
		And I tell you what's going on over there is that the politics play a part, but when it gets to the point where you don't have enough energy, period, and you're turning off skyscrapers for three or four hours a day, and the power is not there, that's when they start looking for alternative things.
		I mean, China's got probably the largest coal production in the world, or at least some of it, and yet it's still not enough.
		And so they're looking for solar answers.
		They're looking for, well, six nuclear reactors, I guess, is what I've been told.
		Things of that nature.
		So it is politics.
		We'll take a back seat to whatever's going on if desperation becomes strong enough.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure that's certainly true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, like I said before, it doesn't really matter who does it first.
		It's like somebody has to step up to the plate and say, hey, look, we're in a very dangerous situation, on a lot of different levels, and we need to develop a real, practical, cost-effective plan to get out of the mess we're in.
		And energy security plays one role in it.
		I mean, it's like we say, oh, gee, my payback is a long time.
		But what happens when your computer crashes because you don't have energy coming from the normal source?
		What does that cost?
		And what happens if you don't have energy and it's 117 degrees for five days because you don't have solar?
		It's almost like the poison is so cheap we have to keep taking it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, the poison is so cheap we have to keep taking it.
		And even though the gas prices are high, your statement is also true.
		People may be hurting, they may be screaming and complaining, but they're still paying and they're still receiving.
		So for as long as that can go on, Jim, is there any real chance, any real hope of the kind of change that you're talking about?
		It may occur on a small scale, but it's not going to really get underway until what this caller said begins to happen.
		Skyscrapers getting turned off for a couple hours.
		Oh, yeah.
		Then you start Looking at alternatives.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we have experienced that here.
		People are kind of aware, but we get lulled, like you said before, with the gas price.
		They go up and they go down a little bit, and what a relief.
		And then they go up a little higher.
		They always keep going a little bit higher.
		And we kind of get lulled into it, and it didn't devastate our life, so we put up with it.
		And with peak oil and things like that looming ahead of us, peak oil is basically the point where there's not enough energy on a day-to-day basis to supply everybody's demand for it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm not sure that's the definition of peak oil.
		Are you?
		I mean, I thought peak oil was when we had the first easy-to-get half of oil out of the ground, but it isn't where we start to get stopped.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but it sort of results in the same thing, that once you reach that point, then it's like you're up kind of up against two things.
		One is the amount of energy that's required to get the oil out of the ground and process it and deliver it versus the amount of energy that's in the oil.
		So that's another peak that we're heading for that will happen close after the other one, I'm afraid.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How do you change, Jim, the way people think?
		I'm 60 years old right now.
		All right.
		And I'm looking at, if I'm lucky, say, another 20 years of life.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, me too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the projections for the next 20 years aren't too bad, Jim.
		Things are going to get tough.
		They're going to get expensive, but they're still going to be livable.
		Frankly, the problem is going to be much worse after you and I are gone.
		And it's almost impossible to keep the human from understanding that and reacting as you would imagine them to.
		They'll be gone.
		What do they care?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess the way I look at it is I care.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I looked into my heart and I said, you know, when I see little kids and I think about the future and I think about, you know, all the generations of people that had to live and die and have kids and raise them long enough to, you know, so they could have kids and all that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I can clearly hear that you care.
		What I guess I'm asking about is the rest of most of everybody out there.
		How you change that?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I don't know.
		I'm just doing the best I can.
		But I think, you know, when I talk with people, it seems to me that everybody cares, but they're kind of, you know, their lives are, you know, in a way they need care too because the average person is working more than one job or something like that and trying to make the rent and they've got a problem with their, you know, with their other paramore or whatever.
		And like all of us, life is what happens while we're making plans.
		And I'm projecting economic plans to make regions energy self-sufficient.
		But nevertheless, I still think it's possible.
		And if you present a hopeful vision, practical vision, cost-effective vision, why not?
		I don't think we're quite that stupid not to take advantage of it, if we really understand it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You may be underestimating us.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean overestimating us?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, actually.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So anyway.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, I'm a bumbly.
		We're all bumbly.
		It's like we don't have to put on errors or anything.
		The sooner we respect that in ourselves, the sooner we're going to be able to work together and do something good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I think I meant clearly we could be that stupid.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I heard you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we're kind of going along in a.
		Well, as I described, how do you change a human being who doesn't think past the end of his life particularly?
		How do you do that?
		That's a sea change in a person's.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, look at slavery and look at women having to vote.
		I mean, that wasn't like all of a sudden 51% of the people signed up and said, yeah, this is a good idea.
		And it was actually a relatively small number of people, and it happened almost like faster than anybody imagined when it finally did happen.
		Well, that's true.
		So big things happen.
		And I think when you really present a good idea, and like when I say I'm presenting this idea, I'm presenting this book and all that, take it, my truth, with a small T. And I think we all should present our truth with a small T. You know, it's the best we come up with so far.
		That's all I'm sharing.
		I think there's some good ideas there, and I'm hoping people will give it a fair look.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about a small F like fusion?
		We talked about nuclear.
		Well, there are problems attendant with that.
		But fusion could be on, you know, it could be another 10, 15 years away.
		But when we get to fusion, it doesn't have the byproducts, but it's got a lot of real energy.
		What do you think?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if I can cover only 20% of my buildings and parking lots with solar panels and get all the energy I need with no danger of anything, you know, no 100 million degrees centigrade temperature to hold.
		I mean, magnetic bottles don't hold neutrons.
		I mean, yeah, maybe you can contain the positive and negative charges, but you're not going to contain the neutrons.
		So the result will be the whole plant will become radioactive.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, okay, you know, we don't have fusion yet, but I'm presuming that.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but I mean, solar panels are warrantied by Shell Solar, BP Petroleum, Sharp Solar.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		What about there for 25 years?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But what about the fact, Jim, that producing that massive a number of solar panels in itself is going to hit the economy really hard?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Those are not cheap to make.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're comparable to computer chips and all that.
		And they have been going down.
		I know now here, even like Germany has really kind of retarded the reduction in price because they are buying so much of them up on the world market.
		They're doing what something akin to what we should be doing here.
		And they're kind of in a pretty far north country.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is it that prompted the Germans to act so precipitously, so quickly compared to us as we still sit back and basically do nothing?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It probably has some influence.
		The Green Party there has had some influence on it.
		But I think, though, I'm more focused in my own neighborhood, but I think people are making good arguments that, hey, this makes more sense in terms of security, in terms of surety of energy, in terms of pricing.
		I mean, solar energy, once you have the capacity to collect it, the energy part doesn't go up in price.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Basically true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What kind of life do modern solar cells have?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're warrantied for 25 years.
		I mean, Shell Solar warranties in for 25 years, British Petroleum warranties in for them for.
		And this is a performance warranty.
		It's not that it fails, it's that the production goes down to a certain level.
		There's a little bit of, you know, there's some things that need to be done better in terms of being able to monitor them.
		Because, I mean, at the food co-op where I'm on the board, we have a 30-kilowatt system, and it provides about 30% or 35% of our energy.
		But it's hard to, you know, is any part of it malfunctioning?
		We're sort of trying to figure out, well, how can we measure that so if there is any problem, we can attend to it right away?
		Because if it isn't working properly, it's actually money out of our pocket.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		That's correct.
		So you feel there's not sufficient monitoring available for this stuff?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, like when you're like if you're net metered out, like a lot of people, you know, they put in enough so that they're actually pushing more kilowatt hours into the grid each year than they're using.
		Right.
		That you can measure.
		But when you're like a business and you're producing 30%, it's like, well, energy prices are going up and down, like we said before.
		So it's kind of hard to keep track of what is that system doing.
		And we actually have four systems because we wanted to avoid the net metering costs, or not the net metering costs, but if you're not on smaller meters, you're over 200 watts, if the price of energy goes up, then they ding you for that increased energy cost.
		So we insulate ourselves by doing it that way.
		But it's a little, it would be better to be able to understand exactly what's happening on a more moment-by-moment basis.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, going back again to make this happen, take the average homeowner out there listening to us right now, homeowner.
		Can they go out, Jim, and buy solar panels and the equipment it will take to power their home?
		And will it be economically feasible for them to do that or not?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if they focus on efficiency first, really just do everything to, you know, I just want to focus on economics.
		Well, but I mean, but see, that's where the economic comes in because you can save energy much less, you know, for much less money than you can produce it, no matter how you're producing it.
		And so the first step is that you put in that new refrigerator, you put in better lights, you do the things that are going to cut down your, you know, going to give you the same energy service, but you're not going to need very much energy to supply it.
		Then you size your system.
		if you do that you know your may probably talking about maybe nine eight nine ten year payback there are some actually some companies though that that will do That should be enough.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You really feel as though the average household could replace the hoggy appliances with good and efficient ones and then scale it and go out and get the solar and the wind and the rest and have a payback in eight or nine years.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's not bad.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, if you do the solar by itself, you know, like in your situation, it's probably a little more severe, but you're looking at maybe a 20-year payback.
		You know, at current interest rates, it's not too bad, but when you throw in the security and all that sort of stuff, you know, it sort of makes sense even economically.
		But the efficiency improvements is the key.
		Because if you can get the same energy service for a lot less energy, you don't have to pay very much for those panels.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Speaking of panels, has the price of panels, you mentioned that Germany is buying a lot.
		And you're suggesting what?
		That the price is artificially being held up by the German demand?
		Yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And this is reflected in most of the solar companies are like doubling our price.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And also, even though there is the pressure, I've talked with some local installers here, and they're still getting panels around 3 to 315, maybe a little under 3 per peak watt, which is, you know, when you bought yours, it was much higher than that.
unidentified		Yes.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Still been coming down.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, that's encouraging news.
		Plus, if the world can look at Germany, and Germany actually solves its problems to a large degree, there's a lot of incentive there, isn't there?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, they're not taking advantage of, you know, they're doing it as foolishly as we are, in my view.
		They're just doing more of it.
		But what I'm pointing out in the book, that there's some very intelligent ways to do it that were, you know, it's just all gravy.
		And you get the security, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why aren't they doing it the smart way?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's new ideas.
		I mean, I'm presenting with the help of my friends here in San Diego a new way of looking at this.
		What I saw was like, well, if you look at solar by itself or even wind, unless you have a lot of wind, the payback is a long time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If I were a billionaire, which I'm certainly not, Jim, and I looked at investing a couple hundred million dollars into this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How would the return that you claim I what kind of return would I get compared to other investments I might make with that $200 million?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		From my understanding after talking with people in the energy service industry, they call them ESCOs.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it what?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Is that it's a very good business.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I think their main problem is that it almost sounds too good to be true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's totally true.
		Try me.
		In terms of a return, what kind of return might I get versus other places I could put my money?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the last time I checked, they were getting on their money, and I think it's probably come down a little bit now because the interest rates in general were higher at the time.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But they were getting something like 14% on the money that came from the utility consortium.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's pretty good.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a big return.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it's a big return.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And then they got a profit on top of that.
		In the spreadsheet that's in my book, we assumed a 15% profit energy.
		If we were going to have to borrow the money, it would be the energy or whoever's borrowing it, it doesn't really matter, would be 15% return on the money and on top of that profit to basically do the plan where the work is done first and you just keep paying your utility bill and it gets paid off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's all very convincing stuff.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you're suggesting that all of this information is in your book.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I talk about becoming water and food self-sufficient as well in this region.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, definitely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		This is a worthwhile book.
		And where can you get it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, your website is www.jimbell.com.
		I like the way you say it better.
		And then you click on Jim's new book, which is the first page that comes up on the left-hand side.
		There's something at the top.
		I mean, that's the opening page.
		And then you click on Jim's new book.
		And then the title comes up, which is Creating a Sustainable Economy and Future on Our Planet, the San Diego Tijuana Region, a case study.
		So this gets into the nuts and bolts of how to do this.
		And really, to a certain degree, it's almost like a perspective to sell this to the public, to sell this to the average taxpayer and voter, that here's a wonderful opportunity that not only we can take advantage of, but pretty much anywhere in the planet, short of Antarctica.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And you're doing this completely on a non-profit basis, huh?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, you know, I did print up 6,000 copies of the book, and I'm giving out most of those for free, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know what he thought.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He may have thought that everybody went to sleep.
unidentified		I think he actually thought he put everybody to sleep.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll be right back and find out.
unidentified		We'll be right back and find out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That actually was pretty funny.
		I had to call Jim back, and I think he thought, I really think he thought that you put everybody to sleep or something.
		Is that what you thought, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		No, I just, there was just silence on the phone for a long time.
		I thought the show was over.
		And I was hoping you would come back on so I could thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, the show's not over.
		Listen, I've got five lines here sitting here blinking at me and people that want to talk to you.
		So no, it's not over.
		You didn't put them to sleep.
		Don't worry about it.
		I do want to quickly, though, just give you this latest from CNN.
		Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, whose reign was marked by unprecedented prosperity, but whose close ties with the United States stirred the passions of Islamic militants, has died.
		The Saudi monarch had been in and out of the hospital in recent months, most recently suffering from pneumonia-like symptoms.
		Fahd yielded day-to-day control of the kingdom a decade ago after suffering a stroke.
		So with that in mind, one might imagine that not very much is going to change, but I guess that tells you how important energy is to us when the king of Saudi Arabia dies.
		It flashes across the world as a gigantic bullet.
		I guess it would for any king.
		But I mean, the king of Saudi Arabia is very, very important.
		And Saudi Arabia is very important to us, isn't it, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, definitely.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I've heard some good things recently that they're actually installing a lot of solar in Saudi Arabia, which would, you know, why not keep your oil reserves and get your energy in a different way?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's kind of an interesting thing you've just said, that Saudi Arabia is putting in a lot of oil.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		i haven't done any exhaustive research but i know i get a lot of emails along these lines and i i know i just read something recently and i was saying that uh...
		that that they were doing it and and i i think it's a it's very what you know that that's what they should be doing in iraq as well and in iran instead of building nuclear power plants you know it's just They may be more interested, Jim, in the byproduct.
		Well, you know, that's a whole nother story.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, it is and it isn't, Jim.
		The byproduct, of course, would be enriched plutonium, which could be used to make atomic bombs, which could be used against us, which may be used against us.
		And really, a lot of it centers around United States policy in the world.
		And that policy is shaped to a large degree by our needs, our energy needs.
		None of that could be denied, could it, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if you look at it this way, if we were completely renewable energy self-sufficient in this country, which we could easily could actually accomplish, and we were helping those other countries do the same in their own countries, I think most of this conflict would go away.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you're probably partially right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of the conflict comes from very deeply held opposite convictions about things.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't think that's really true, you know, Because I think we hadn't gone to war and we would have treated what happened in 9-11 as a criminal act and we would have done the investigation and arrested people when we got them, like we did in Sarajevo and places like that.
		Once they really got down to doing the legal thing and trying an abstentia and all that, we haven't tried Osama bin Laden in abstentia.
		We haven't even tried, now that we have Saddam Hussein, we haven't even tried him.
		I thought it was, as tragic as 9-11 was, it would have been a wonderful thing if we would have actually used that opportunity to show how a country run on a constitution with a free society that's run under law treats crime.
		Instead of we seem to, like politically, we sort of regress to the very same tactics that the people we call so evil are using.
		And the other thing is that if we would have just left it alone, we were already winning the war just through television and I Love Lucy and music and all the cultural things that were happening, what we did is we created the environment where, say, the individual allies in these countries were subdued or less enthusiastic, and we emboldened the radicals.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, Jim, those radicals seem to believe that we should.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		We had no power before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		that we should be converted or killed.
unidentified		Now, that's a very...
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And if we were doing democracy around the world all these years, I don't think most of these conflicts wouldn't even exist.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, we are agitating, Jim.
		There's no question about that.
		We're making it worse, but it was already bad.
		And certainly Islamic fundamentalism is growing, amazingly growing.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		But we pushed the youth.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, instead of the youth wanting freedom and rock and roll and the latest clothes and all that, now they have a reason to become suicide bombers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		A lot of people want to talk to you, so let me do that.
		East to the Rockies, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Hi.
unidentified		Yeah, thank you for taking my call, Art.
		You bet.
		Yeah, your caller earlier had made a statement about China.
		They were having rolling blackouts and stuff like that.
		Well, I honestly believe that that's one of the main reasons everything was orchestrated and why we're in Iraq is to keep their war machines down.
		War machines will always run on fossil fuel in our lifetime.
		If we have every house with solar panels, that would be great.
		I'm all for that.
		But our war machines will not run on solar energy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yet.
unidentified		Yet.
		And until that time comes, we have to rely on fossil fuel.
		And I honestly believe China was preparing to make a move to collect oil, to get oil, to take it by force if necessary.
		They're rattling their sabers against Taiwan and even against us, rogue general threatened nuclear attack.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Caller, just a quick sort of poll question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		If China makes a move on Taiwan right now, do you think the United States should stand behind Taiwan, risking nuclear war over Taiwan, or step back and say, okay, China, she's yours?
unidentified		No, it had to be a United Nations deal, but I think we're going to have to step in and not let China do as they do.
unidentified		I don't believe a nuclear conflict will come about.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, all right.
unidentified		Well, they're more interested in oil reserves.
		They can't, of course, if they don't have all reserves, then the only thing they have left is nuclear.
		So it is a tough question to answer, I guess.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the whole China question is a very, very tough one, Jim.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're going to have immense...
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the whole issue with trying to buy Unical.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So as bad as the situation may be in the rest of the world, this whole China thing is coming up faster than anybody thought, having more of an effect than anybody thought, and driving up the price like crazy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So I suppose from your point of view, it'll just hasten the development of everything you've been talking about this morning, yes?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, if it happens too fast, we won't have time.
		I mean, even in the book, I lay out a very aggressive plan to make San Diego County renewable energy self-sufficient, and even that plan would take 27 years.
		And that's spending more money than would really make sense to spend initially, and we don't even have enough trained workers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do we have 25 years, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm hoping we do.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, it's like the way I look at it is the closer any region or country comes to becoming renewable energy self-sufficient, the better they're going to be able to withstand whatever comes our way on the energy front.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yes, Art.
unidentified		Good morning.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		Yes, in La Jolla, California.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		La Jolla.
unidentified		Okay.
		And actually, I wanted to say hello to my friend Jim Bell.
		We're a fellow alumni from Claremont High School in San Diego.
		Oh.
		Yes.
		Hi.
		And hi, Jim.
		It's great to hear you.
		It kind of blew me away when I heard earlier that you were going to be on the show.
		And I would like to say in your defense that I know you know what you're talking about.
		When Art was pressing you earlier for companies to name that are in the energy conservation service and that kind of thing, if you look in the current San Diego yellow pages, you will find 14 companies under energy conservation and energy consulting and documentation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so you're saying all the names of the companies are there?
unidentified		They are there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I don't mind naming them.
unidentified		Well, I don't want to do that either because I'm not on Jim's behalf, on behalf of his book, but he has run for mayor down here a couple of times.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's unusual that my callers are more unwilling than myself to name names.
unidentified		Well, no, there are over two dozen energy companies here that provide code generation, home energy conservation, as you have done with your place in Perrump and so on.
unidentified		And it has everything to do with solar panels and the rest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it sounds like it's become cheaper and more efficient since I did it, but it's still, let's see, eight to nine years.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And that's if you're doing it as an individual.
		I mean, if you have a, you know, like you actually have leadership in a community on the political level, and you do this efficiently and you set up the parameters.
		I mean, like the energy service company is not interested in your home because it's too small of a project by itself.
		But if it's a whole neighborhood, then they're totally interested.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, but I'm still, and I ask the question on behalf of all the homeowners because I want to know, and I think a lot of them want to know, can I do it?
		Would it be reasonable for me to do it?
		And a payback of eight or nine years for an individual, I think, is kind of encouraging.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It kind of depends on how much energy you use.
		I mean, like, if you're a bigger, you know, if you're like a more middle class or more affluent family, it's probably going to work better for you.
		I mean, if you're like a, you know, you're like you're a low-income and it's going to take, because you're not using so much energy, so the amount of money you have to actually make the payback over time is less.
		Yeah, sure.
		That's why you want to average it together.
		Instead of having these companies just pick the low-hanging fruit, we want you to have a good return, but we want you to maximize the efficiency improvements because that's what really improves the economic picture of the local economy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		You're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
		What is your first name, please?
		Now you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is your first name, please?
unidentified		David.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And where are you, David?
unidentified		I'm off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Absolutely excellent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, welcome.
unidentified		Well, thank you very much.
		Good morning, Art.
		morning, Jim.
		I am very impressed by your I don't have internet access or email or anything like that.
		I live on the ocean.
		But I have a friend who is living in a sprayed concrete seven and a half feet underground.
		It is a constant 14 degrees Celsius, no matter if it's rainforest winter or summer.
		He has set my vessel up, fully solar, fully wind, and he's working on energy for a propulsion system that is completely magnetic electric.
		And eventually I hope to get it, but I'm just calling basically to tell the world and whoever else is listening that it's about time someone came up with this kind of concept just to say it to the rest of the world.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good enough?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It's like the Emperor's New Clothes story.
		And your friend is a pioneer.
		And that's the inventive spirit of the United States.
		And really everybody has that in them.
		And we're the leader of that.
		And if we do the right things, there'll be so many ideas.
		Like the things I'm proposing will seem quaint.
unidentified		Well, I'm from Canada myself, but he also has water troughs and reserves for people if it ever came necessary.
		So he's got waterfalls and reserve tanks, and he's got a hot water heater built on my vessel, which is the simplest thing you could possibly imagine.
		A little bit of black spray paint, a piece of glass, and a nice small little unit that gets the water temperature in 15 minutes on a sunny day up to 140 degrees Celsius.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
		So there you have it.
		It's a good example.
		The truth of the matter is all of these things really can be done.
		And all it comes down to is the dollar.
		It always comes down to the dollar and how much it costs to do them and how much it costs not to do them.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think it comes down to leadership.
		You know, like we have a dearth of leadership in our country and in our world right now.
		Everybody is kind of going along to get along, and everybody's afraid to say the truth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the one guy who ought not be afraid to say the truth is our president.
		And no bushbash here, just the facts, if you would, sir.
		And I'm curious how you would rate our president.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, he's a dinosaur like the fossil fuels that he tries to keep us hooked to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
		Okay.
		I thought you might be afraid to say whatever you thought, but that obviously was not the case.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, and I feel he's got bad advisors.
		He's sorely misinformed and doesn't seem to want to have anybody else to and this is not just true for him.
		It's true of a lot of politicians.
		They get in there and it's just the game and they lose sight of why they wanted to run for office in the first place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You would think that the safety, the welfare, the prosperity of the American citizens would be like the number one thing on a president's mind.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, I think it was the number one thing on George Washington's mind.
		I think it was the number one thing on Abraham Lincoln's mind.
		I think it was the number one thing on Teddy Roosevelt's mind.
		I think it was the number one thing on a lot of presidents' mind.
		But I think we've kind of gone astray.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you named some pretty liberal leadership.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, Teddy was a Republican.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, some.
		Too.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
unidentified		Hi.
unidentified		Yes, my name is Mike.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, Mike.
unidentified		I live in Leighton, Utah, previously a resident of Northern California.
		And many of the things that you've been talking about, it's like I've seen different attempts with people in cities.
		One, I believe, was Colfax, Northern California, where the city was so tired of their high utility bills that they actually went to using, cycling their sewage and producing methane and other forms for the municipal buildings.
		And they found that it was paying back very well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Hold it right there.
		I mean, that's enough for us.
		Methane, just saying the word methane.
		There are a lot of projects in this area, Jim.
		What about methane as a source of power?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, we can produce all the energy we need with solar, but sometimes electricity isn't the best energy source to get the job done that we want to get done.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There are others.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		So you can use solar, like methane works best when the temperature is about 95 degrees.
		So you can use solar energy to maintain the temperature so you don't have to waste the energy.
		You don't have to burn some of the gas you're producing to maintain the temperature.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fair to say, you're really a solar advocate, aren't you?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mean, all renewable energy.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, wind, for example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand wind, Jim, is cheaper than solar.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, if you're in an area where you have good wind, I would be all over that and would be recommending wind.
		Here in San Diego, we have some wind up in the backcountry, but it's not really sufficient.
		Right.
unidentified		It's not really sufficient.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Once again, here's Jim Bell.
		Jim, Joe from Richfield Springs, New York says, all right, you know, one thing always avoided when anybody, any of your guests talk about oil, not just energy use, is the fact that most products, most things, are made of petroleum one way or the other or their compounds.
		Thus, although there are other energy sources, we cannot and will not eliminate oil.
		So President Bush or any other leader for national security right now has got to have oil.
		And I just noticed that for some reason we've lost Jim again.
		Maybe Jim, once again, thinks the program is over.
		I don't know.
		We'll call him back and find out.
		Maybe he didn't know how long his stay on the air would be.
unidentified		Anyway, it's kind of fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think, once again, he probably concluded that he put you all to sleep or that the program was over.
		I really don't know.
		We'll find out.
		Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Sorry about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What happened?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I was holding the phone to my shoulder trying to do something with my other hand, and my chin pushed some button.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't even know what happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
		All right.
		Well, tragedy like that aside, I asked you a really good question from Joe in New York.
		Did you hear it?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I did not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not figures.
		All right.
		Joe says art look.
		The one thing that always is avoided when any of your guests, you know, people talk about oils, not just energy use.
		It's the fact that most products are made of petroleum compounds.
		Thus, although there are other energy sources, we can't eliminate oil.
		So President Bush or any other leader for that matter needs oil anyway.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, what those, I mean, he's right, but in terms of the oil and other fossil fuels we use for energy, even the plastics industry is pretty small potatoes in the bigger picture.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And anything, I mean, since oil is ultimately made out of plants, anything made from oil can ultimately be made out of plants.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, that's a good answer.
		All right.
		First time caller line, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, gentlemen.
		Hi.
		Good to hear you all talking about this.
		I just, through being part of a family who's worked in the energy industry, have, I don't know, just absorbed some knowledge through dinner table discussions.
		And my father was talking about something that I thought I wanted to hear your comments on, which was he thinks the future is certainly solar and renewable energy sources combined with whatever is left in the older grit.
		But the whole idea is the way we have distributed computing today, he thinks the best way to go about integrating more power with less environmental impact would be integrating small fuel cells, solar cells, and a sort of like a distributed network.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A distributed grid, of course.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Joe, or I'm sorry, Jim, what about that?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, like when I look at our region here, I mean, initially we can use the grid as a battery.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, as we're doing this, we're going to be producing, pushing the goal is to produce more kilowatt hours into the grid.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But the question was, why not use the whole country that way, the whole country's grid?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Definitely.
		I mean, well, now, you know, there's the Western Strait grid and there's other grids, so we're not necessarily completely connected to the whole country, but we're connected to Canada, so it's a pretty big grid.
		And initially, we would be basically pushing energy into the grid and then buying it back at nighttime.
		But eventually we'd want to get completely free of fossil fuels, and that would mean we'd have to develop some storage.
		And there's some excellent storage processes, like pump storage is used in the hydroelectric industry right now because they don't like to change the speed of the generator or the turbines.
		So at nighttime, they're still producing the same amount of power, but nobody wants to buy it.
		So they use it to pump the water from the bottom of the dam back into the dam.
		And that's about 90% efficient.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, here in San Diego, we could pump salt water up to the top of the mountain and use something like that or even do it with fresh water.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's about 90% efficient.
		I'm caught on that.
		That's quite a statement.
		To actually pump the water back up the hill and then let it fall again is 90% efficient.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And it's more cost-effective because of the benefit of reducing the wear and tear on the turbines.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Good morning, Art.
unidentified		Bill calling from Jacksonville.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		I thought you might want to talk to Jim about your zero-point energy there on your antenna that you've got.
unidentified		And the next thing I was going to say is I subscribe to the C-Crane catalog, and the LED light bulbs in there are like $32, $37.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, you're bringing up a real good point.
		All right.
		Actually, two good points.
		I'll address both.
		One is the so-called zero-point energy in my antenna, hogwash.
		I never said any such thing.
		I said there was energy there, a lot of voltage, and probably not very much current.
		It hasn't all been measured yet, nor do we even know for sure that it might not be power line coupling or God knows what.
		It is a strange mystery.
		I'll give you that.
		We'll test it.
		We'll let you know.
		I doubt there's much there, although who knows what science could bring us with that as a starting point.
		Having said that, Jim, you want to take on the rest of what he had to say?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, initially with the Holes the Zero Power idea, I think we should keep researching, but it's kind of hard to beat a 25-year warranty with solar panels.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And even in a way, a longer warranty for double-glazed windows and insulation and skylights and things that will last the life of the building.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You actually had a question for some reason here about UFOs and space visitors and that kind of thing.
		How did you manage to throw it?
		Or did you just toss that in here so you'd have some sort of relevant question for some of this audience?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it was kind of a funny thing because I think the last time I heard, you have never seen a flying saucer yourself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's wrong.
		No, no, no, no.
		I've had two sightings.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you have?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I've had one.
		And this was when I was a kid.
		I was 10 years old, and I was actually living in Carlsbad, New Mexico, kind of outside Carlsbad, New Mexico.
		I had no idea or even imagined anything like a flying saucer.
		I went over to some kids' house, and they had captured some ground squirrels and had them in cages.
		I was 10 years old.
		I'm fascinated by the animals.
		And it was kind of like a Sunday.
		It must have been a Sunday or Saturday because there was a lot of adults around.
		They were kind of talking over the fence.
		It was a housing project.
		And somebody said, look up, and everybody ended up looking up.
		And there was this big white cloud.
		And then below the cloud was this shiny disk.
		And it wasn't like a wiggly light or anything that you see on TV and all that.
		It was like a jet plane.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let me make an attempt at making these two relate to each other.
		Any civilization capable of exceeding the speed of light to get here, to visit us, Jim, would have to have a source of energy that would be thousands years ahead of where we might be right now.
		I bet hundreds at least of years.
		And in other words, there's leaders in ufology who are taking this angle that the science we would learn from visitors would save us in terms of energy.
		So, you know, it does kind of fit in a way.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, I agree with you because the way I looked at it was, you know, because I had that experience, and this was like a jet, and it flew straight.
		It wasn't wiggly or wobbly.
		It was shiny.
		It was sort of silver, aluminum colored, and it came toward us, and it went to the 90-degree up and then disappeared into the cloud, and that was it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, congratulations.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I didn't really register because I was 10 years old, but I remember all the, you know, it kind of impressed me with the adults.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, but some leaders like Stephen Greer are saying, yes, it's real.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, you've seen it with your own eyes, so you might even say, yes, it's real.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That we are being visited by something.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And as Dr. Greer points out, the energy from a device like that could save the world.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, the way I look at it is until these people, beings, whatever, who are, if they are there and who are visiting us, either start helping us to create a life support, sustaining economy and way of life, or get in our way, I think it's just titillation.
		That we need.
		We're the biggest threat to our planet's life support.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Titillation, that's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So until they hand us a schematic and say, here, build this and your trouble's over, we had better get moving, right?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		And I don't want to dismiss zero-point energy or anything.
		Nor do I. Let's keep looking.
		But we don't have to, you know, we can solve our problems right now.
		We have the technology we need and it's warrantied for 25 years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I'm with you, Jim.
		You know, he who helps himself, you know, probably gets help from God and all that.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Good morning.
		Yeah, good morning, Art.
unidentified		This is Kintay.
unidentified		I'm calling from Iowa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		You're a scholar and a gentleman, and it's a privilege to talk to you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Privilege.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And to have you.
unidentified		The bells are ringing tonight.
		All right.
		I have a couple questions.
		One for you and perhaps our guest.
		Have you heard any technology on the quantum dot or the solar paint that you mentioned?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, the solar paint, I think, is off-the-chart interesting.
		So, Jim, what about that?
		Have you heard about this news?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Probably about as much as you have, but I just say bring it on.
		We're clever.
		All we have to do is mesh that with some wisdom, and we're home free.
		I think, you know, like I said earlier, I think what I'm presenting is probably going to seem quaint.
		You know, once more people start putting their mind and, you know, instead of thinking about how horrible it is and we're hopeless, they start going, well, gee, what can I do to contribute to solving the problem?
unidentified		My second question actually leads to that.
unidentified		How can one get a job being an ecological designer is what you are?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And don't people with your jobs frequently starve to death, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it's a little bit of an engineering feat in a way, but just so everybody knows, I eat regular, really good food, and I have a warm place to sleep and dry place to sleep and have a lot of fun.
		And I'm not so oriented toward money.
		Money isn't my measure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's clear.
		That's clear.
		You're giving your book away.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, in a way, if you just look at it from a selfish perspective, giving the book away will probably get me more money than if I tried to sell it if that was really my interest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I think, Jim, when we finally get millionaire people like you, then we'll really be there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the meantime, you're like starving artists.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I'm not starving at all.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Matter of fact, I got a little bit of a break.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, no, I got three meals a day.
		All right.
		Wildcard Line, you're on air with Jim Bell.
		Hello.
unidentified		Yeah, hello.
		Good morning.
		I just want to compliment you and thank you yourself, sir, because you've kept me awake most nights.
		And so I want to thank you very much because you've got Starbucks speed, I want to say.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you can keep them awake award.
unidentified		Cool.
		Oh, absolutely.
		So my question, I'm going to take off The air.
		I'm actually also in Canada and I also live on Vancouver Island.
		And I was just wondering if I could ask your guest's impressions and if he's aware of this new, I guess, process that they've been going through with local, like there's a company in Canada called Canadian Tire, and they've been putting out these integrated power packs that they sell in addition with solar cells.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
unidentified		So it's just, I've bought three of them and actually bought the solar panels that come with them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No kidding, tell us about them.
		What do they do?
		How much?
unidentified		The basic units started anywhere from about $80 Canadian to about $200 Canadian.
		And the solar panels that they sell along that lines are about the same.
		And I actually bought three of the heavy-duty units.
		And I put my entire cabin on this.
		And it cost me just about $750 for the whole entire thing.
		Now, my cabin hydro bill before that averaged about $600 a year.
		And since then, I've been able to take the entire thing off the grid.
		This includes fridges, TVs, microwaves, the whole nine yards.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's very impressive.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And again, for an investment of how much, totally?
unidentified		$750.
unidentified		And I was able to buy it right from the Canadian Tire, which is my equivalent of a local hard store and sporting goods store.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so it's solar panels plus.
unidentified		Well, the solar panels come individually.
unidentified		The solar panels, actually, this setup comes with conventional plug-ins as well as plug-ins.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, what is the cigarette lighter?
		Slow down, stop.
		The solar panels plus what device?
unidentified		Well, they're separate units, sir.
		So what you do is you can buy a solar panel that'll either plug into the wall or plug into a cigarette lighter conventional.
		So you can either do car batteries with these things or plug them into the power pack with its cigarette lighter and charge the unit.
		So it's like, that's what I do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, all right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So Jim, I mean, this fellow's talking about spending, what was it, hundreds of dollars.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		It depends on how much you use.
		I mean, if you are very efficient at using energy and getting whatever you need to get done, I talked with a guy a few years ago.
		He was up in I think in Vermont or Maine or something like that, and he was like bragging to me about how he basically ran a computer business and he ran it all on solar.
		And I'm going, well, gee, we're here in San Diego.
		And he was using a relatively small number of panels.
		Have you heard of HomePower?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I have.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		They do excellent work.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course I have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And of course, the Crane Company, they are very, very, very ecologically minded.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I wrote down the offer, the number for the offer, because I wanted to get one of those radios, but it was low out of my price.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, absolutely.
		It's serious stuff.
		I mean, these are some of the adjuncts you use to alternative power.
		They are sort of little alternative power things, but they meet needs.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		These new.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I do have one of their wind-ups.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		These new lights are incredible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		These white LED lights.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, I went to a workshop recently, and they didn't really save energy in terms of amount of lumens like fluorescents do.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the fluorescents have their problems too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Man, they got ones you go and plug.
		You can screw into 110-volt sockets now.
		And they're absolutely amazing.
		I mean, they'll be alive and going after we're dead.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, and these, but see, these are the positive things that are there, and it's almost like all I'm talking about is integrating them so that we look at it as a whole community, as a whole region, or even as a whole country.
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, like right now, I don't know what the exact number is, but I would bet it's in excess of $100 billion a year that we export out of our country just to pay for imported oil.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Very quickly, East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Jim Bell.
		Hi.
unidentified		The energy spent on World War I was three times all previous history.
		World War II was seven times.
		I'd like your guests to estimate what the Cold War costs up to the Berlin Wall.
		And even if we're getting more efficient at killing one another, as long as the competition between people is violent, it distorts all other priorities that this man wants us to work on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, that's a fair statement to work with right there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you know, it's kind of like I figured out a long time ago, the only person that I can change is me.
		And so I'm working on it.
		I figured, hey, life is short, and I care about the future, and I think most people do too.
		They just have kind of lost track of it.
		And, you know, because I care, I look at the world and I say, well, what can I do?
		And so I try to do what I can do.
		And if I, you know, if me trying to fix myself or improve myself, help other people do the same for themselves, you know, that's what we have to go to.
		Everybody has to really get in the driver's seat of their own life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Congratulations, Jim.
		That is what you have done.
		Your book is available on your website.
		Now we are ending the show, by the way.
		And it's www.jimbell, J-I-M-B-E-L-L, dot com.
		That's simple.
		And you can download his book.
		And the title of that again, Jim?
jim bell ▲ ● ▼		You click on Jim's new book, and the title is Achieving Eco.
		No, I'm sorry, I was giving you the title of the old book.
		The title is Creating a Sustainable Economy and Future on Our Planet, the San Diego-Tijuana Region, a Case Study.
		So this is the nuts and bolts.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good enough.
		Buddy, thank you for being here.
		I really appreciate it.
		Good luck with all you do.

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