ANIMALS
In Polar Bear Politics, Milos Janus Outlook wrote: "Not without good reason is Alaska called the "Great Land," at least that’s what I thought the first time I drove the Al-Can north toward my new home. Its sheer immensity merits such a designation and makes the human population even paltrier than its numbers (600,000+ people, or about 1 person per square mile, as opposed to that population hotbed of Wyoming with about 5 persons per square mile). Polar bears are not nearly as numerous as humans, nor do they get to vote. Polar bears occur in two geographical populations: the Southern Beaufort Sea population shared with Canada (about 1,500 bears), and the Chukchi/Bering seas population shared with Russia (about 2000 bears). The best available information concludes that both populations are declining. Just over a year ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Alaska proposed to protect polar bears by putting them under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)."
In his latest installment of the Marine Life Series, Mark H explained Hermit Crab Basics to us: "Hermit crabs are found all over the world in shallow waters and are one of the more familiar coastal animals. Although they have an exoskeleton, as all crustaceans do, this protective covering only surrounds the head, legs and claws. To protect the soft rear part of the body they must find a suitable shell to crawl into."
Stuck at the office (or can’t get out of your jammies in the basement)? Just for you, lineatus provided a partial antidote in Dawn Chorus Birdblog: Birding at your desk - Nest Cams: "If anyone says you're spending too much time here at the Great Orange Satan, here's a simple defense: At least you're not watching nest cams. Spring is in the air, and you are in your office. How can you focus on the work at hand when you know that the flowers are blooming and, more importantly, the birds are chirping? I can't. Fortunately, technology steps in to the rescue with nest cams. All around the world, people are sneaking cameras into nest boxes or training video cameras on office building aeries - and anyone with a computer can watch things that used to be the province of field biologists. You see it as it happens - courtship, egglaying, hatching, chicks being fed and growing from balls of fluff to birds ready to go out and see the world. It is a reality show that is 100% real. And right now, cams everywhere are going live for the season."
GREEN PHILOSOPHY
In about the deepest of deep ecology looks at what’s happening, Compound F opined that We Are As Gods: The Anthropocene Marks Sixth Mass Extinction: "What remains truly urgent, yet NEVER uttered in the ruling classes who have proven themselves time and again incapable of thinking beyond their puny selves, is that we have to stop ourselves from ending the entire fucking Quaternary. I think that's a reasonably modest political goal."
In the most recent addition, BruceMcF got to work Burning the Midnight Oil for the Blue-Green Coalition: "I've argued elsewhere in some depth ... and probably excessive obscurity ... why the Green needs the Blue. Very briefly, a sustainable economy will require us to live within our means. That means zero material growth. And that means that we get economic growth from pure technological improvement. But pure technological improvement does not come at a steady pace ... it comes in waves. So a sustainable society must be one that is cool with the economy not growing all that much in a given year. Where does that stress our current political economy? In the question of whether people accept that the distribution of national income and wealth is fair. As long as the balance of power in the economy lies with large corporations, it is unlikely to be fair, and then social stability has to rest on a lie. Far better for there to be an even balance of power between large corporations and the people they employ. And that requires organized labor."
Eric Zencey offered A Green Immigration Policy Principle?: "My friend Ike--the guy who lives out in the woods, where he can read philosophy and shoot target practice whenever he likes from his back porch--has an interesting approach to immigration. On a recent visit I made to his cabin, Ike told me his idea: ‘I say shut the borders. Completely. Nobody else in.’ His reason wasn't xenophobic or racist, but purely and practically environmental. And since its provocative and troubling, I thought I'd ask for help thinking about it."
paradox asked us to Save Our Earth, Please: "The fix is already in for another ecological policy mistake, the Altamont wind farm in California. The first image was the first attempt at windmills, which are aesthetic eyesores that kill birds with vicious efficiency. Nearly two years ago Alameda County budgeted $540 million to replace them with these, windmills of breathtaking grace and beauty. I hopped a fence and stood among them at dusk, awed by their height and grace, the slow speed of the propellers easily seen and avoided by birds. How I wished every American could do it—finally, a blend of technology and earth that is so obviously perfect."
POLITICOS
fbihop pondered Domenici and Alternative Energy: "The New York Times took a look at Senator Pete Domenici's role in the opposition to any effort to end incentives for the oil and gas industries. Considering he is not only a good friend of George W Bush (see right), but he also has received more money from the oil and gas industry than any other sector... this shouldn't come as much of a surprise.After all, there's a reason the Sierra Club has a Don't Dim Our Future campaign aimed directly at the powerful Senator Domenici. Not that Domenici, on his way out as Senator, seems to notice much."
Jimmynap answered "no" to the question Doc Hastings Concedes Global Warming?: "Congressman Doc Hastings, R-4th District, during his Thursday visit to the Columbia Basin Herald, took time to discuss comments made by 4th district Democratic candidate George Fearing. When Fearing declared his candidacy last week, he said Hastings does not believe in global warming. Hastings told the Columbia Basin Herald he understands global warming exists. He said the cause of global warming is the concern. Hastings said he is not convinced people and their actions are the cause of global warming and questions if it is a natural process because the earth has warmed and cooled many times throughout history. At this point, I don't really believe Hastings has come to a sudden reversal on his position - even his half baked acceptance. Because frankly, I don't think he even believes his own words."
smoo broke the news that Nader thin on global warming: "Nader wants to ‘adopt a carbon pollution tax.’ I do not support carbon taxes; I did a writeup about carbon taxes and gasoline that explains this position in more detail. Carbon taxes generate revenue and encourage some substitution and innovation but they do not directly accomplish the goal of setting a cap on pollution. The demand for many types of energy does not respond well to price signals; gasoline demand, especially, is ‘relatively inelastic’ to price. There is literally nothing else on Nader's site. He does not even mention global warming or climate change by name."
Chick ghandil tried his hand at Setting the Record Straight Re the East Liverpool Plant: "As with all things Clinton, the smears against Bill Clinton regarding the East Liverpool toxic waste incinerator (which are then extended to Hillary) are based on innuendo and little else. The actual facts show this charge has even less substance than Whitewater or ‘travelgate.’ According to the smear, Bill Clinton promised to close a toxic waste incinerator being opened by a company called WTI, but after the election, he greenlighted the project to please its owner, Jackson Stephens, who was purportedly a big backer of Clinton's campaign. If this story seems straight out of Freeperville in the mid 90s, well, it is."
Scaredhuman penned another An Open Letter to Texas about Hillary and Monsanto and Your Farmers: "Hillary Clinton says she is terribly worried about future generations of farmers, so she strongly supports the Farm Bill's crop insurance. But, oh, look closer, it's kind of like that Technology Agreement, all in the fine print: the USDA-crop-insurance forces farmers to purchase Monsanto's GE-seed-corn to get it. So, Hillary Clinton is really pushing farmers into what sure looks from here like pure (impure?) GE-seed-hell, helping her friend Monsanto ensnare insurance-desperate farmers. Hightower is right. It's about democracy. And that's why Hillary Clinton's closeness - never disavowed - to Monsanto, and her slick words seemingly on behalf of farmers, don't cut it - not if farmers and democracy still matter in Texas."
kath25 gave us the skinny regarding how Obama Gets His Green On: "Which Presidential Candidate has pledged to commit $150 billion and 10 years of effort to bring clean energy to the United States? Which candidate has the ability to help bring enough good Democrats into office that we can take decisive action against global warming, and push for a sustainable energy policy? Which candidate has the potential to turn his grassroots campaign movement into a force to bring environmental issues to the forefront of our national concerns? These questions were on my mind this afternoon, as I attended a panel discussion organized by UT’s Students for Barack Obama on Obama’s energy policy."
On the other hand, Joshua Frank had less kind words for the Senator in The Obama Glow: The Nuke Industry's Golden Child: "Barack Obama, hoping to shore up major victories in the delegate rich states of Texas and Ohio early next month, is going after Hillary Clinton’s ever-dwindling base of working class voters. The Illinois senator is hoping to stimulate their passion for his campaign by proposing to stimulate the weak economy by spending $210 billion on new jobs. Obama says his government sponsored employment program would allocate $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million jobs in environmental industries. ... Many critics argue that Obama’s plan doesn’t exactly create jobs, but only redistributes money from one part of the economy to another. Even so, there may be far more sinister tenets to Obama’s economic plan."
TheGreenMiles wondered about Wagging the Dog: The Primary Debates and Global Warming: "Voters don’t care about global warming, so the candidates don’t talk about it, so it doesn’t come up at the debates. ... The coal industry sponsors the debates, so global warming doesn’t come up. The candidates don’t get a chance to talk about it, so voters don't think it's a major issue. There have been five presidential debates on CNN this year, all sponsored by the coal industry. Total number of climate questions asked? Zero. And the Sunday morning talk show hosts aren’t doing much better."
SUSTAINABILITY
gmoke informed us of his attendance at a talk on Plan B 3.0: Lester Brown at Harvard: "Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute is promoting his new book, Plan B 3.0, a set of policy prescriptions to help heal the ecological systems that support the biosphere and human life. On February 22, 2008, he was in Cambridge to speak at Harvard's Center for the Environment and address the Cambridge Forum. I attended the afternoon session at Harvard. Brown was introduced by Daniel Schrag, the head of the Center, and spoke for about twenty minutes. This was followed by a response from Michael McElroy, the first head of the Center, comments by Schrag, and then a question and answer session. The primary insight I took away from the event was Brown's statement, "The price of grain is directly tied to the price of oil." This coupling of oil to food is closer than ever as the effects of shifting grain to a fuel feedstock rather than human and livestock uses is already coming home in the rise in the cost of pasta in Italy and flour in the United States as producers plant corn for ethanol rather than wheat for food."
Guess what they're doing in Norway to help save the world? gave TigerMom the opportunity to let us in on details of a newly unveiled project above the Arctic Circle: "You may be famiilar with the concept of seed banks. These are depositories where seeds are saved and studied over the course of many years. Not only is it a data bank of seed varieties, but it allows scientists to study the genetic makeup of seeds and, more importantly IMO, the lifespan of seeds, i.e. how long a life they have before they stop germinating. The problems with many seed banks around the world, especially in lesser developed nations, is that the seeds in their seed banks are deteriorating rapidly, primarily due to dilapidating or poor storage structures. There is a real possibility of losing specific varieties of fruits, grains and vegetables that are integral to the diets of a particular area. Along comes The Global Crop Diversity Trust and the Norwegians."
How many of us big consumers can the earth support was Eric Zencey’s topic in Changing society: what Green might bring: "G2Geek tells us: if we want to live like Western Europeans, the sustainable world population level is about 3 billion. At 4 billion, the sustainable standard of living is Eastern Europe. And at the present American standard of living, the sustainable world population level is about 960 million. Anyone who knows a bit about peak oil, and who reflects a bit on how cheap energy is thoroughly encoded into the physical, institutional, and conceptual structures of our system, has got to recognize that culturally we are headed for big changes. James Howard Kunstler lays out what we're going to face in his book, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastropes of the Twenty-First Century."
ENERGY
BruceMcF led a Burning the Midnight Oil session on Sustainable Energy Independence: "What I wanted to do tonight is to connect the dots on this policy front and on the other policy front that so many Edwards Democrats hold near and dear ... Sustainable Energy Independence. Because there is no reason to doubt why we are in Iraq. We are in Iraq because of a neo-con fantasy to have a police-station-state smack in the middle of the Middle East, right next door to the largest oil supply and right on top of the second largest oil supply on the face of the earth. We are in Iraq, in other words, because we stopped being an oil exporters in the late 60's / early 70's, and have proceeded in the more than three decades since, with a brief respite under the Carter administration, to pretend that there is nothing special about being an Energy Dependent economy for the first time since the British first established colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America. Some of you may know that just before John Edwards suspended his campaign, I had set out the policy of Marrying Stranded Wind to Rail Electrification (Docudharma) as an electoral strategy for driving surprisingly strong showing out in "flyover country", and then after driving the campaign bus to Virginia, driving the campaign bus up and down the state of Ohio and breaking the race wide open."
Stranded Wind took an intense glimpse at Renewable Energy From Tides: "Last year I came across the story of Dutch company Kema and their energy island idea - basically a variant on the usual pumped hydro energy storage concept where water is pumped out of a space below sea level then allowed to flow back in, generating power as it does. The ‘island’ uses wind power to pump water out of the enclosed area. An obvious extension to this idea would be to harness ocean energy as well - letting wave and/or tidal power supplement the output of the wind turbines. An attraction of this concept is that it potentially allows a large amount of new energy storage to be brought online - and this storage would be along the world's coastlines, where most of the population lives. ...
Contributing Editor Devilstower showed how we should go about Plugging the Gaps in the Energy Bill: "It looks like the House is going to make another try. Congressional Democrats will try again next week to take away tax breaks for oil companies in order to finance renewable-energy and building efficiency projects, but success remains elusive amid a shortage of votes in the Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives is tentatively set to vote on Wednesday on the bill, which would repeal more than $17.6 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas producers over 10 years. Consumers would gain new tax breaks for buying plug-in hybrid cars. Companies would be able to continue taking tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable-energy projects, extending breaks that expire at the end of 2008. If it passes, it won't be the first time such a patch has made it out of the House. The real question is whether it will be met with the now automatic filibuster as soon as it reaches the Senate."
Wind, Solar, Efficiency: McCain To Miss the Trifecta? was chapter1’s poke at the Arizona Senator’s inability to show up for crucial eco-votes: "Bush famously laughed off his first years in office (recession, war, terrorist disaster) with the line ‘I hit the trifecta.’ Now, McCain is working on his own trifecta. Here's the background: last year, a majority of both Houses voted to roll back subsidies for Big Oil and extend and increase them for efficiency, solar, wind and other renewables. However, the Senate fell one vote short of ending a filibuster. McCain missed the vote-- the only one to do so-- and never announced how he would have voted. Earlier this year, the Dems tried again as part of the fiscal stimulus plan. Again, despite majorities in both Houses the Senate fell one vote short of ending a filibuster. Again, McCain was the only one to miss the vote. Again, he never announced how he would have voted. He was in a ticklish position: alienate his base by voting against oil subsidies, or most of the nation by voting against renewables? The Dems are now trying for a third time. Subsidizing solar, wind and efficiency (instead of oil) remains a no-brainer. But its difficult not to also wonder whether McCain will miss the trifecta."
WattHead pointed out that Oil Hits Record Price. Gas Nearing $4.00. President Bush, Clueless...: "We ALSO know that subsidizing the energy industries of the past will not help us solve the energy challenges of the future! To do that, we're going to have to be Energy Smart! We're going to have to invest in new, clean, domestic energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal, energy efficiency, new 100+ mpg plug-in hybrid cars and more in order to have an energy supply that is sustainable, both environmentally AND economically. WE know better, so let's let the Senate and President Bush know it's time to re-invest! Let your Senators know it's time to be smart with our energy subsidies."
In another Diary, WattHead claimed that A Spooked Coal Industry Fights Back, Trying to Buy 2008 Elections: "The coal industry, running scared from the increasingly powerful No Coal movement, is fighting back by trying to buy the 2008 elections. According to AP, the coal industry is spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising and fake ‘grassroots’ front groups to make sure that whoever wins in November, coal's future is secure. But the youth climate movement isn't going to let them get away with it!"
Someone who has been battling coal’s efforts for some time, A Siegel, discussed how we could go about Eliminating Coal from the Electricity Equation ...: "So, how can we eliminate the US dependency on coal-fired electricity while improving the economy and not increasing dependency on foreign energy sources? ... Energy Efficiency – The United States' greatest reserve of energy potential is not our coal, but our wasteful energy use patterns. Inadequate building standards (inadequate insulation, leakage, windows), inefficient appliances/electronics burning up vampire power, McSUVs and McMansions, etc ... The United States can achieve, without any leaps in technology required, a 20+% reduction in current electricity use via energy efficiency even accounting for projected economic growth over this time period."
Nuclear advocate davidwalters gave us Various Rants on Energy Happenings: "I usually don't rant, but I feel like ranting, for the good, the bad and the ugly: The Chinese broke ground on their first ever Generation III Nuclear Power Plant. They expect the new Westinghouse (A JAPANESE COMPANY FOLKS!) AP1000 to come in around $2500/KW installed. It'll be the 1200 MWs model. Of course they have to build tons more to effectively slow down coal production...but this will be worth about 3 coal plants the WON'T build (the Chinese build smaller 400 MWs coal plants it seems, but scads of them). The US has about 4 AP1000s in the planning stage. Of course it takes the NRC to go almost 3 ½ years to get through all the stupid paper work even AFTER they approved the design AND the site for the plants." To back up his stance, davidwalters pointed to the recent Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency: "Is this the future for boutique wind power? Clearly this is exactly what those of us here on the DK have been warning about: wind cannot substitute for BASE LOAD power. Period. ...Wind is 'boutique power' because it fills a very small niche of the generation demand because it is, uhmmm ‘unreliable.’"
pattyp took note that Cargill suspends construction of ethanol plant: "escalating grain prices" a factor: "Emerald Renewable Energy, a Cargill subsidiary, announced today that it's suspending the construction of an ethanol plant just outside Topeka, Kansas. In an interview with the Topeka Capital-Journal, company spokesman Bill Brady said, ‘The economics are not at a point where we see fit to move forward... the economics are not where they were a year and a half ago.’ Vague, much? >>Brady wouldn't discuss the factors contributing to the decision. But Jay O'Neil, a senior agricultural economist at Kansas State University, said escalating grain prices are making it difficult for ethanol plants to make a profit. Corn, used to make ethanol, is at a record price, more than $5 a bushel, and the cost to build an ethanol plant has doubled the past five years. If high corn prices continue, O'Neil said, companies could face losses."
NBBooks was delighted that Geneticist Craig Venter says fuel from CO2 only 18 months away: "At the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California today, pioneer geneticist Craig Venter revealed a "fourth-generation fuel" project he believes is about 18 months away from perfecting a bio-engineered life form that will produce fuel by feeding on carbon dioxide, a common waste product responsible for much of global warming. ‘We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry and becoming a major source of energy,’ Venter told an audience that included Al Gore and Google co-founder Larry Page. ‘We think we will have fourth-generation fuels in about 18 months, with CO2 as the fuel stock.’
gmoke explored Lifecycle Costs of Photovoltaics: "Treehugger had a squib about a recent Brookhaven Labs analysis of lifecycle cost assessment for photovoltaic panels. There wasn't a direct link so I had to do a little digging to find it but the conclusion alone is worth it: Using data compiled from the original records of twelve PV manufacturers, we quantified the emissions from the life cycle of four major commercial photovoltaic technologies and showed that they are insignificant in comparison to the emissions that they replace when introduced in average European and U.S. grids. According to our analysis, replacing grid electricity with central PV systems presents significant environmental benefits, which for CdTe PV amounts to 89–98% reductions of GHG emissions, criteria pollutants, heavy metals, and radioactive species. For roof-top dispersed installations, such pollution reductions are expected to be even greater as the loads on the transmission and distribution networks are reduced, and part of the emissions related to the life cycle of these networks are avoided."
The Big E gave us the latest edition of This week in peak oil: "Market analyst Edward Tapamor recognizes that the Chinese demand for oil is skyrocketing and bringing peak oil ever closer."
FOOD, AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE
Frankenoid was outdoors again in Saturday Morning (Home And) Garden Blogging Vol. 4.2: "Last Saturday morning as I wrote garden blogging I was bemoaning how long it would be before I could expect to see crocus blooming — only to discover a couple that had popped open by Saturday afternoon. As the week has gone on, Denver's been hanging in the 40s and 50s, and more crocus blossoms are scattered across the front beds. Tuesday morning was a shocker, though. Technically, there was a forecast that included a chance of snow but the blooming crocus somehow knocked that information straight out of my head. When I woke up and found my car covered with a thin layer of the white stuff I was, like, seriously bummed. Temperatures immediately shot up, the snow disappeared well before noon, and by Friday we'd gotten into the 60s. And today — whoo hoo! — 70s! To be followed by spits of snow tomorrow. Ah well."
Where Is the Beef? Where Are the Bees? Planet in Peril were the questions raised in Bcgntn’s Diary: "There was and is much to speak of, more to scrutinize. Infected food can cause death. Yet, no one places the onus on those who passively accept food industry standards, the American people. The official word of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, which relaxed regulations decades ago, escapes censure as well. Citizens no longer recall that this branch of government loosened standards, and allowed the industry to define what might be acceptable fodder."
Our old friend OrangeClouds115 had a question of her own: VMD: Why Wasn't the Largest Beef Recall in History TWO WEEKS AGO?: "In the last days of January, I got an email with an undercover video of cow torture in a beef plant. Probably some crazy PETA thing going around I figured. I ignored it. Not that cruelty to animals isn't a valid issue, but there are ALWAYS videos of animal abuse and they aren't news.
Then, I got a Washington Post article about the video in my inbox. This video WAS news! It was news for a few reasons. The cow torture was illegal and its result was sick animals getting into the food supply. AND - those particular sick cows were going to feed school children! Now it was outrageous! On February 1, I posted a diary. The diary was mostly ignored. Well, we're still in primary season. I forgot about it. On February 17, the company announced a recall. The largest one in U.S. history. The story hit the MSM. People at work started talking about it. During those two weeks, kids were eating that beef!"
christopherdcook had sharp words of his own for the food regulators and industry in Meat Roulette: Behind the Beef Recall: "Nauseating as it was, last week's record-setting beef recall and the apparent feeding of meat from crippled ‘downer’ cattle to our nation's children and others should come as little surprise. Although egregious to the point of obscenity, this latest meat scandal fits a pattern of regulatory anemia -- the byproduct of a decades-long bipartisan assault on ‘big government’ -- that has opened the floodgates to all sorts of contamination shenanigans. The deregulated chickens, cows and pigs have come home to roost..."
Deep Harm revealed that a Phony consumer group attacks activists who sparked meat recall: "If Jonathan Swift had written The Jungle, it probably would be a less outlandish story than the ongoing Hallmark/Westland meat recall. With the eager help of Republicans and Bush administration officials, a phony ‘consumer’ group called the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has launched an attack on the Humane Society of the U.S. for allegedly waiting too long to release a video documenting unsafe and abusive slaughterhouse practices. Per a news release, CCF is seeking perjury charges against HSUS Public Health Director Dr. Michael Greger, who testified this week about HSUS' findings. CCF alleges that HSUS ‘increased the possible public-health risk from potentially contaminated beef.’ Coincidentally, that is virtually the same complaint made by the Secretary of Agriculture at a hearing earlier this week."
Say it LOUD! We use rBST and we're rPROUD! introduced shirah’s angry Diary: "For months we have seen the results of Monsanto's stealth campaign popping up all over - a campaign to take away our right to know whether engineered hormones have been used to produce the milk we and our children drink. It's like a fungus growing underground until you see it pop up. Now the battle is on in Missouri, Ohio, Kansas, Utah, and more. The topic today is legislation introduced in Monsanto that would forbid milk labels that give us the information we want in deciding which milk to buy. Funny thing that if Monsanto thinks it's such a great product they don't want labels that tell us it's been used. Yep, a very funny thing."
elishastephens evaluated The food crisis: "The U.N. Food program is considering cutting food aid because of the rising price of food - 40% overall in just one year. Wheat prices are skyrocketing, as this graph (bottom of linked page) shows, due to a number of causes, but high on the list the conversion to corn for biofuel."
stillman found Another reason why monocrops and extinctions are bad: "For the eco-savvy amongst us monocropping is another dreadful incarnation that thins the diversity of the natural world. We poison the earth so that nothing except crop X will grow in location Y with fertilizer Z. In so doing we weaken soil and the interconnected life that relies upon it. So this is all bad of course...but reading over the weekend I learned why these could be worse than I had already thought."
OHIO Issue: Mega-Farms, Pollution and Rural Voters got the full treatment from Zwoof: "Dairy and livestock mega-farms are known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Many CAFOs choose the tri-state region of Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana because of its affordable land, access to water, favorable climate, and simpler regulations. Farmers have been moving here from the Netherlands for a few years, in part because environmental laws in the European Union have become so stiff, according to information from the Ohio State University Extension. Some of the nation's top scientists, including those from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine, have urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to look harder at health effects of long-term exposure to air pollutants from the large farms. The American Public Health Association, the nation's largest group of public-health officials, has called for a moratorium on the operations."
winstnsmth lamented Farmers penalized for utilizing subsidized land: "My cousin, Jack Hedin, is an organic farmer in Minnesota. He supplies fresh produce to local markets and ‘Whole Paycheck’ type high-end grocery stores in the Chicagoland area. Today he had an Op-Ed published in The New York Times wherein he told the saga of renting additional acreage and found out that he would have to pay a fine for growing fruits and vegetables on land where subsidized corn wasn't growing."
TRANSPORTATION
Dopeman told us about his high hopes in Planes, Trains, Automobiles, and Space Ships: "The world's first biofuel-powered commercial aircraft touched down in Amsterdam on Sunday following a demonstration flight from London's Heathrow Airport hailed as a first step towards ‘cleaner’ flying. The Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 flight was part of a joint initiative with planemaker Boeing and engine manufacturer GE Aviation to develop a ‘sustainable aircraft fuel.’ No passengers were onboard. Virgin Atlantic President Richard Branson said the test flight would help the airline to use clean fuel sooner than expected. Virgin said the fuel to be used for Sunday's flight -- a 20 percent biofuel mix of coconut and babassu oil in one of the plane's four main fuel tanks -- was of a type that wouldn't compete with food and fresh water resources amid mounting concerns among green campaigners about the environmental impact of biofuels."
mhanch raised some eyebrows in Your Electric Car Runs On Coal: "Yeah, they have been talking about this issue for a while now. Any time you plug in an electric car, you don't actually have a zero-emissions car, you have a displaced emissions car. The emissions from the power generation of your vehicle don't come from your car, they come from a central power plant. In Seattle (where I am), that's mostly Hydro Power, but we are the exception to the rule."
$4 per gallon gasoline coming? was a rhetorical question for a gnostic who had some rough words for Mister Bush: "As usual, the economy could tilt the election one way or the other. With America bogged down in Iraq and working Americans struggling with skyrocketing oil prices despite oil companies record profits year-in, year-out, economists say oil prices could be the difference between actual recession or just an economic slowdown."
Mumon suggested A modest proposal for saving energy & housing: Have a war on commuting!: "I know we've had this Energize America thing for a while now, but having the government intervene to curb excessive commuting seems like a Win Win Win Win Win to me: Families win. More time; Businesses win. More rested, awake employees; The environment wins. Less CO2; America wins. Less dependence on fossil fuels; Commuters win. Less people on the road means less congested highways, shorter commutes for all, and less road rage."
POLLUTION
Vets, Vietnamese People was the appropriately named War Comes Home’s reminder that a war that’s been over for more than 30 years still affects us: "Even as the costs of the Iraq war pile up, the human costs of the Iraq war continue to ripple out. On Friday, a federal appeals court rejectedan effort by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange to reinstate claims that U.S. companies (including Monsanto and Dow) committed war crimes by making the toxic chemical defoliant used in the Vietnam War. Incredibly, the three judge panel ruled that Agent Orange was not used as a weapon of war against human populations."
jazzence complained that EPA drops the ball again!: "The same agency that didn't catch the criminal meat process plant in Chino, CA, beating on their "downed" animals last week, are now bowing to pressure from the Bush Admin and Lobbyists to risk more lives for profit. The EPA has been asked to lower requirements for toxic gas emissions. Despite the conclusive evidence that high levels of ammonia have been polluting the waters of nearby communities."
Bush Policy of Spraying Poison on Children was redstatehatemonitor’s disturbingly illustrated Diary: "School children from both Colombia and neighboring Ecuador actually drew these pictures included in this diary. The United States government's primary strategy for combating the narcotics industry and the leftist FARC guerillas that control an area of Colombia the size of SWITERLAND involves aerial crop spraying with a deadly poison sold on the market as Roundup weedkiller. The spray not only kills coca plants, but any other, legal, crops in the vicinity. Sadly it also kills livestock and far worse it has also killed many children."
Hey BB alerted us to SCOTUS to review Exxon Valdez case: bets on the outcome?: "On the way into work today I heard on NPR about the Supreme Court taking the case. I admit I'm biased because I kind of want Exxon to pay for this. It makes me NOT very willing to listen to their ‘this is maritime law not state's law therefore no punitive damages’ argument as well as their ‘it wasn't our fault he was drunk, no wait, strike that... He wasn't legally drunk at the time, and there's no way we would have known’ (except for the overwhelming evidence that they did know.)"
NNadir wrote about Pimples, and Persistent Pentachlorophenols and Pharmaceutical Poisons: "If you're of a certain age and extremely ugly, like I am, you may remember an over the product that droves of anxious and vain boys and girls bought by the bucket load in the 1960's. The product was called pHisohex, and it was a real big seller. pHisohex was a formulation of hexachlorophene, which is an organic chlorine compound 3,4,6-trichloro-2-[(2,3,5-trichloro-6-hydroxy-phenyl) methyl]phenol. Despite the somewhat lopsided name, the molecule is actually highly symmetric. All chlorine compounds are suspected carcinogens, more or less, and around the time this property was recognized, pHisohex became suspect and was pulled from the market as an over the counter program although it remained available by prescription. Allegedly - since pHisohex was a very effective anti-bacterial compound and was used as an anti-bacterial soap - the act of pulling it from the market resulted in a huge increase in Staphylococcus infections in hospitals."
GLOBAL WARMING
In Sunstroke, Contributing Editor DarkSyde explored a subject much in the news last week: "A cool January has elicited gleeful celebration among conservatives still caught in the grip of climate change denial. A good illustration can be found in the blog section of a site called Daily Tech: Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming ... All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously. But the NASA GISS site referenced above says nothing of the sort about 2007."
ClimateLurker took some swipes at that story, too, in Did Global Warming Stop in January?: "According to the scientific groups that track global temperature, January 2008 was the coldest month in several years. Is it true, as DailyTech concludes (in a post picked up by the DrudgeReport), that January's cold ‘wipes out a century of warming’? Has global warming stopped? This is akin to the claim that ‘global warming stopped in 1998. ... Let's look at the data. They do indeed show that global temperatures last month were lower than they have been in several years." ClimateLurker also generously provided a Global Warming Crib Sheet: "Climate change science is, well, science, so it can get pretty technical. How much warming have we had, and how much more can we expect? How much global warming pollution is in the air right now, and how long will it stay there? What do all those funny abbreviations mean? Follow me over the fold for a handy global warming crib sheet."
Another take on this was put forth by Acebass in Global Warmings Over...or Report, Report, Who's got the Report?: "They come like clockwork, sometimes two or three a day. So the other day I get a newsletter from them, I knew it was going to be good just by the subject line. "Gore Went Nuts When He Read This", it promised to be really entertaining. I opened it up and began to read. There it was, According to a NOAA report, all the sea ice is back. The problem was we just measured at the wrong time of year, duh, just a blond moment I guess. Polar Bears, no problem, there must have been thousands hiding somewhere because the population has soared. The ones hugging the icebergs were just rejects that didn't meet the requirements. They were set a drift on purpose. Then it goes on to explain all the cold weather anomalies that have happened this year, using them to say that the earth is all right. In fact I'm going to enclose the letter at the bottom."
Also taking note of the cold snap, fulano weighed in with a semi-denier Diary, Where's the global warming?: For the past several years people such as Al Gore and the other easily swayed verdant leftists have been screaming about global warming. ... Some guy claiming to be a scientist even chewed me out on this forum for daring to ask for more evidence and a model that actually accounts for current observations. At this point in time, we are seeing one of the coldest and snowiest seasons in living memory. Alta, Utah, hit 500 inches of snow for only the 4th time ever. Snow cover in North America and Siberia haven't been this extensive since 1966. According to the NCDC, January 2008 "was 2000 (20th century) average." Arctic ice is 10cm thicker this year than last year. I know, it is wrong to gloat, but if - as the models of real scientists predict - the sun's lack of activity (ie: low count of sunspots) leads to another massive cooling period then gloating is the most satisfaction I can expect to have. Al Gore will never admit error, nor will that guy from realclimate.org - and what hope is there to have anybody who drooled all over their copy of Inconvenient Truth to admit that they were duped."
Target Global Warming pointed out that the Chamber of Commerce Steps Up Attacks on Climate Security Act: "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region, strongly opposes S. 2191, the ‘Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007.’ The Chamber instead favors a technology-based approach to limiting greenhouse gas emissions. I'm guessing ‘technology-based’ is Chamber-speak for ‘voluntary.’ The Chamber has also put out a video accusing climate action supporters of wanting to leave children shivering in the cold."
bklynarch turned everybody on to how to Reduce your carbon footprint now: Checklist Toward Zero Carbon: "In 2005 the eminent climate scientist Dr. James Hansen said, ‘We are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no redemption.’ Just three years later, we are now crossing some of those tipping points. It's time to stop talking. We must reduce now. Read the checklist. Download it, edit it, make it your own and distribute it."
Winston Apple suggested: Let’s Turn Down The Heat On Discussions Of Global Warming: "Whatever the explanation, global warming seems to have become one of those issues, like abortion or gay marriage, where no one is allowed to remain neutral. There seems to be very little middle ground. You either accept global warming as a serious threat, or dismiss it entirely. ... What if we do all this and it turns out that scientists have sounded a false alarm with regard to global warming? We will have saved a considerable amount of money on our utility bills. Those of us who have gone so far as to install solar panels or other devices to generate electricity for our homes will not even have utility bills."
The always prolific A Siegel wrote four Diaries on global warming:
GM's Lutz: Still a Putz on Global Warming: "General Motors' Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz is a bit perturbed about how the blogosphere called him out for calling Global Warming a ‘total crock of s--t"’ in a meeting with reporters. In a blog post entitled "Talk about a Crock", Lutz takes on those who had the audacity to criticize him for his idiocy and calls on people to focus on what GM is actually doing, rather than what its executives are saying. ... Yes, Bob, let's take a look at what GM is doing ... and saying: Developing the PHEV Volt. BRAVO. plus 1; Continuing with McSUV-heavy product line, with heavy advertising of it. minus 1; fighting (hard) against increases in the CAFE standard. minus 1; heavily engaged in distorting greenwashing ads. minus 1."
He warned about Harry & Louising Global Warming Legislation: "To be clear, the Lieberman-Warner Coal Subsidy Act (mischaracterized as the American Climate Security Act) is inadequate and bad legislation. It violates basic principles for Global Warming legislation. (For example, it does not meet scientific minimums for giving a 50% chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change.) And, the Coal-Subsidy Act is a corporate giveaway of resources (such as the air my and your children breathe) of almost unheard of proportions. Despite this, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America is not happy. Since the Chamber of Commerce simply is unlikely to be happy with any Global Warming legislation, we should make them fight from the right (actually, from the wrong) against legislation that is worth passing, rather than being able to frame inadequate and poor legislation as damaging to the economy."
There was also his Geoengineering: basic principles, some thoughts, some questions: "Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of Earth's environment on a large scale ‘to suit human needs and promote habitability.’ One can argue that all efforts to control carbon emissions (to reverse past emissions) falls within GeoEngineering, but that is not the general context of consideration, which often focuses on efforts that would, somehow, have a direct impact on Earth's temperatures (and not, necessarily, on carbon loads). One step back question, which does not necessarily seem to occur in many conversation, is what principles should guide Geo-Engineering efforts and prioritization of their potential."
And finally A Black Hole of Denial?: "Black holes collapse on themselves, with a such a density that they change the path of light with no light escaping them. In coming days, the Global Warming disinformation organization, the Heartland Institute (‘the leading propaganda mill sowing confusion about climate science’), will convene a Global Warming skeptic/delayer/denier coven with the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. RealClimate asked a great question: What if you held a conference, and no (real) scientists came?"
