The sun in your eye A visiting professor at Shenyang Aerospace University fromShandong province asked me to consider tutoring advanced engineering studentsin talking about solar energy in English. Being a strong proponent of alternative energy and power to fossil fuel,I said "Yes!" Oil fields off China Sea's continental shelf are privilege terrainof foreign oil companies who used to only play a minimal fee. In some recent arrangement, 45 percent of anexploration is owned by a transnational corporation, the other 45 percent belongsto a Chinese company like PetroChina listed in the Stock Exchange, and theremaining 10 percent owned by a government body. Our doggedly hopeful card sees the drilling of oil to eventuallytaper down to non-reliance as China fends off opportunism and intrusion on itssovereignty over the China Seas, while it pursues hydro, wind, solar, natural gas,biofuel, and nuclear alternatives to fossil fuel. Let us be clear about the issues ofsovereignty in the China Seas; it is all about access to oil, even as we watchthe same issue disintegrate South Sudan, and roil the normally passive folks ofMyanmar. We saw mini-hydro in the Zichuan's autonomous Zang country,and the practice is encouraging. Small-scalehydro, like those in Japan, can handle requirements of southwest China. Meanwhile, Nanjing's haze looks like Sherlock Holmes'London, not of inland fog but of mei-fired(coal) smog. The obvious task of developingalternative energy is most urgent in China. I live in Shenyang that straddles the low end of the Manchurian plain, atrough between two mountain ranges, which keeps the smog perpetually inbetween, so I am resigned to a respiratory ailment as I stay here longer. Late November this year in Qingdao, a Sinopec oil refinery pipelineexploded on what is blamed as human error, i.e., poor planning of pipe laying inan urban area, lackluster maintenance procedure, and susceptibility to dangerthrough the city sewage system. When aleak was discovered, the area was not immediately sealed and evacuated; theensuing explosion cost 55 lives and many injuries. Ironically, this was almost a replay of asimilar incident in 1988. In 2011, ConocoPhillips oil platforms had three leaks thatpolluted waters six times the size of Singapore on Bohai Bay north of Shandong(kept from news for a month until it slipped out in a blog). The third leak coincidentally occurred on thesame day as a refinery at the Daya Bay Economic and Technical Development zonein Guangdong exploded. The alarm was notonly on the flammable material in the refinery but also of its proximity to theNuclear plant situated close to the urban center of Hong Kong. We now know that 40 hours of solar energy reaching the earthis enough to power the whole planet's current annual requirement. The energy is free and the hustles on photovoltaiccatchments are now easily a walk in the park, or, a drive through in unpopulatedwide-open spaces like the grassland, or, on the sides and tops of citybuildings. The technology is available at cost par to coal, gas, and oil firedpower generation. So, why are we not doing it? Like any addiction, dependence on oil is like alcohol fume to the intoxicated. It is not easy to curtail. Production structures around the world thatharness fossil fuel, and the financial instruments that sustain them, hold legislativepower protecting turf as they guide global economic growth. Popular wisdom is still wary on why we would want a rapidchange. We are still on denial on theextent of human participation in climate change presently experienced aroundthe planet, no small thanks to oil money for distorting the science that feeds illusions. Wekeep to the comfort of the familiar. "Those who walk in darkness have seen a greatlight," is a metaphor from the Prophet Isaiah used during the Yuletide season. The light source Ra (sun) ruled in Egypt forcenturies, and a mythical journey of a nightly trip into Nile's nether lands toemerge again in the light of dawn, influenced the theme of exodus in the Torahand the resurrected image of the Christian faith. The experience of clear blue sea in the Aegeanwhere depth is seen from great distance above adds to the European philosophicalmetaphors of lucidity, enlightenment, and liberation. The big lie is the inevitability of polluting earth'satmosphere; we would rather trigger Armageddon over oilfields to ensurecorporate bottom lines than move away with determination from an addiction. But individuals can raise cane to demand thatcommunal resource be used to avert a natural catastrophe already at ourdoorsteps. Or, more quietly, like mybrother's house in Oahu's Ewa Beach, and of my classmate in Oakland, CA, gophotovoltaic! Self-interest can beenlightened. The arenga pinnata, atropical sugar palm tree that grows in Saipan and the rest of Micronesia also trapssunshine that converts into biofuel. Theresource is there. We only need to decide. Let's go solar. May your darkness see the light of day!