IVR Deconstructed

The price of gas is through the roof (again). BP just trashed the Gulf of Mexico. Oil is going to run out at some point.

Why are we subsidizing the big oil companies?

We all know the reasons we still use oil—dependence, infrastructure, cost of transitioning to alternative energy sources, culture, the oil company lobbies, et cetera—but it’s still weird we subsidize it.

With gas prices up (again), oil executives are in the hot seat (again). Congress has been giving oil execs the what-for lately.

According to CNNMoney, earlier this month Sen. Jay Rockefeller told a group of oil executives at a Senate Finance Committee hearing that they were “deeply, profoundly out of touch.”

Chevron CEO John Watson disagreed.

“I don’t think the American people want shared sacrifice,” he said regarding ditching the tax breaks. “I think they want shared prosperity.”

“Oh, a lovely statement,” Rockefeller countered. “But do you understand how out of touch that is?”

In a hearing just this Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee was after the execs again. CNNMoney reported that Sen. Richard Durbin said: “Does it trouble any one of you—the costs you’re imposing on families, on small businesses, on truckers?”

“The people we represent are hurting,” said Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy. “While your companies are profiting.”

Yikes. No punches pulled. But…

Forbes.com recently reported first quarter 2011 profits for Exxon Mobil at $10.7 billion, for Chevron at $6.2 billion, for ConocoPhillips at $3 billion. And that the numbers were up significantly from last year.

President Barack Obama attacked the oil companies last month for making huge profits while raising prices at the pump. He’s called for the elimination of subsidies to the oil companies.

The U.S. government subsidizes the oil industry through tax breaks. Just like it subsidizes other energy industries like wind, solar and geothermal. But according to government sources, oil and other fossil fuels account for the majority of federal subsidies while green energy sources get a smaller slice of the pie.

Which makes you wonder how the green industries are ever going to take hold and actually compete with fossil fuels when fossil fuels are still getting most of the federal subsidies. You’d think they’d be getting more.

And, for the oil industry, we’re talking billions of dollars. Obama’s 2012 budget cuts included oil industry tax breaks that amount to about $4 billion a year, by all accounts.

According to the New York Times, the oil industry gets some of the biggest tax breaks of any industry, all along the “exploration and extraction process.”

For example, the tax on capital investments is effectively 9 percent, whereas it’s 25 percent for average businesses. For oil, it’s actually lower than almost every other industry.

Here’s a gut-check…

The Times reported that BP was using tax breaks to write off 70 percent of the lease—$225,000 a day, or about $80 million a year—for the Deepwater Horizon well. Yes, the well that trashed the Gulf of Mexico.

Last month an activist insulted the Egyptian army in his blog, saying members of the army tortured protestors and tried to put down the anti-Mubarak uprisings, according to the New York Times.

The blogger wrote about what he supposedly witnessed first-hand during the uprisings. He also cited press and humanitarian group reports and posted video showing evidence of torture on the bodies of protestors.

For his efforts, Maikel Nabil is serving a three-year jail term after being sentenced by an Egyptian military court, according to the Times.

In a related story, Twitter supposedly played a huge part in the January protests in Egypt, enabling organizers to get mass messages out instantly.

Because of its role, some people are suggesting Twitter should get the Nobel Prize. It’s an interesting notion, but did the telephone win the Nobel Prize for its role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s?

Regardless, new communications technologies are affecting activist movements, for sure.

Take the environment…

There are websites and blog sites everywhere—Environmental Communication Networks, Green Progress, TreeHugger, EcoGeek, et cetera. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of them.

But there’s also the ubiquitous Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Hulu and so on.

Here’s a scenario, past and present.

Some small-town kids somewhere get sick after swimming in a stream. Their parents discover that the industrial plant upstream is illegally dumping waste into the stream.

Past—Maybe somebody calls a local newspaper. Maybe the newspaper sends a reporter to check it out (maybe it doesn’t). Maybe the newspaper runs an article but no one beyond the region hears about it. Maybe people do hear about it and someone from the government comes to investigate (after several calls by concerned citizens in addition to the newspaper article).

All this over the course of weeks or even months.

Present—Maybe one of the parents goes back to the stream and videos suspect-looking water. Maybe the parents put the video up on YouTube. Maybe they tweet about it. Maybe environmental websites and blog sites pick it up and run links to it. Maybe it becomes international news. Maybe the government gets out there ASAP.

All this in 24 or 48 hours.

Yeah, today’s communications technologies are definitely changing the activist game.

The last couple days has seen a multitude of tornadoes cutting swaths across what’s known as Tornado Alley.

Those tornadoes have added to one of the most deadly tornado seasons on record. Over 1,000 tornadoes and around 500 people killed so far. It’s stunning and tragic.

And though people are undoubtedly searching for reasons behind this year’s torrent of storms, they’ll likely have to keep looking.

Tornadoes are the most violent storms, sometimes generating winds as strong as 300 miles per hour. While most of them are relatively weak (up to 70-mph winds), some are deadly violent, obviously.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tornadoes occur all over the globe but most frequently in the U.S. east of the Rocky Mountains during spring and summer. Tornado Alley is the area between the Rockies and the Appalachians.

Tornadoes are rotating columns of air touching both the ground and either a cumulonimbus or cumulus cloud. They form when warm, moist air meets a cold front.

Tornadoes can be small twisters that damage signs but not much else, or they can be monstrous cyclones that leave destruction in a wake a mile or more wide and 50 miles long. Reports from Monday’s storms estimated tornadoes may have reached as high as the flight paths of commercial airliners.

Tornadoes are difficult for scientists to get a handle on because they’re so unpredictable and trends are hard to identify, according to the Washington Post’s Andrew Freedman.

Environmentally speaking, tornadoes can destroy natural wildlife habitat and, obviously, affect the weather. But they can also destroy nuclear power plants and chemical weapons depots just as easily, creating environmental emergencies.

As far as looking for environmental causes of their increased numbers, however, we’re still in the dark. According to Freedman, global warming may be causing weather changes that create more tornadoes, but we’ve found no evidence of that yet.

This year I’ve written about severe cold weather, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis. Now, sadly, I’m doing it again…

On Sunday a tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, killing 118 people, according to CNN. It was the deadliest tornado since 1953, when a tornado killed 116 people in Flint, Michigan.

President Barack Obama declared the event a disaster, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies rushing to provide aid.

CNN reported that rescuers are still looking through the devastation for more survivors or otherwise. Hundreds were injured in the tornado and some 1,500 are still missing, although most of them likely fled the area and have yet to return.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service (NWS) has issued warnings for more severe tornadoes later today in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri again.

So far this year, the NWS has logged 1,000 tornadoes, which is above average this early in the year. Over the past decade, we’ve averaged 1,274 tornadoes a year, with 2004 logging the most ever with 1,817. The NWS began official recordkeeping in 1950.

Including the Joplin tornado, almost 500 people have lost their lives from tornadoes this year—a record high through this point, still in May.

I’m not even sure what to say about it, really, other than how sorry I feel. And I don’t know where to look for explanations.

Some people say we’ve changed our environment, and the crazy weather is a result. Others say that’s not true. I tend to think we probably have changed our environment, but how do I really know?

I don’t know. I can just act. I can only try to do my small part to make sure it doesn’t continue, or at least slows. It’s all any of us can do.

Conservation and environmental preservation have become hot-button issues as of late.  From air and water purification to the continued development and advancement of renewable energy sources, ensuring continued resource viability and sustainability is not only a heavily debated social issue, but also a great component of any business model.

For companies focused on technology, there are countless opportunities to incorporate green technology into products and services.  In the technological realm, there exist a multitude of opportunities for businesses to streamline and contribute to the development of emerging expertise in varying fields of technology.

Technology is at the forefront of revolutionizing the conservation process, and this week, we will be exploring telephony and technology’s contributions to some of the most pressing environmental issues.

Throughout the world, there are numerous agencies that attempt to preserve, rehabilitate, and rejuvenate animal populations that are threatened with various levels of extinction.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature offers the most comprehensive picture of the status of the world’s animal and plant species, having placed wildlife in categories from extinct, extinct in the wild, critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable, conservation dependent, near threatened, and least concern.  Additional laws have been enacted that promote the preservation of wildlife that include the Endangered Species Act and the European Union Wildlife Trade Regulation that establishes certain policies for maintenance of indigenous wildlife populations.

With some many communities of animals and plant life being listed as critically endangered (1,993 Animalia, 2 Fungi, 1745 Plantae, and 4 Protista according to the IUCN Red List) many populations of animal and plant life are simply unable to both rejuvenate and sustain themselves in the wild.  It then falls to humans to ensure their continued protection and preservation.

Telephony and telephonic applications can be instrumental in the environmental preservation process.  Typically, scientists and researchers tag wildlife and then continuously monitor their progress both onsite and remotely.  This can be an enormous undertaking, depending on the size of the animal, the scope of their habitat, their dietary needs, and their sleeping habits (diurnal vs. nocturnal).

An interactive voice response system can greatly assist researchers in staying alert and vigilant of a tagged animal’s status by triggering outbound telephone or text notifications when tagged animals encounter potential issues in their environment.  Tags can be used to monitor and transmit vital stats like blood pressure, temperature, and other information that can be valuable in monitoring an animal’s health and well being.  If any of these vitals drop below a certain level an outbound call can be triggered that informs researchers that there is a problem that they can then address immediately.

Additionally, scientists could utilize an IVR system to make inbound calls in order to monitor an animal’s progress on a daily or hourly basis, ensuring that the animal is getting the maximum required attention to keep it safe and healthy.  Dedicated researchers could utilize this type of telephonic technology to stay constantly updated about animal’s health and well being, thus ensuring animal’s chances for preservation and perpetuation.