Environment 10 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Potpourri on a Warm Tuesday Night

POLITICAL Obama’s Likes and Dislikes – Hold the Mayo – NYTimes.com – He dislikes mayonnaise. He must be our next president. Sound familiar? – So why are the pundits not calling Ahnold…

POLITICAL

Obama’s Likes and Dislikes – Hold the Mayo – NYTimes.com – He dislikes mayonnaise. He must be our next president.
Sound familiar? – So why are the pundits not calling Ahnold a looney-tune for his ding-bat fuel economy suggestions?
Limbaugh Falsely Claims America Is A ‘Conservative Nation’ – Actually, I know some liberals who would argue the same thing. In my opinion, the nation, as a whole, is “conservative” in values, but progressive/liberal in desires and aspirations. The GOP keeps playing the values card, with healthy dollops of fear-mongering, and paper over the rest with promises of tax cuts (or accusations of tax increases).
Video of attendees at AT&T’s “thank you for letting… – Which serves as a reminder that money knows no political party, and politicians are politicians no matter which party they hang their hat on.
Will McCain Poke The Right in the Eye? – I actually think Lieberman is the most likely pick, and that the conservative Right’s posturing about whether or not they will back McCain is just that, posturing. They will no more stay home than the Clinton supporters will.
Being a Former POW is No Excuse – Amen, sister.
Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain – And amen, brother. Can we please put this “He’s a POW, thus he is instantly gifted with whatever insight we wish to give him and immune to any sort of criticism for anything he says” rhetoric away? Please?
Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins tasked with ‘causing… – “Fair and Balanced,” right?
Alan Fein: On The Amtrak To Wilmington With Joe Biden – Worth a read.
Military Draft Required To Catch Bin Laden? – Is that really what McCain thinks? Or was it just another one of those off-the-cuff gaffes he seems to make on a regular basis? In either case … is that what we want from a president?

APOLITICAL

Google’s File-Not-Found Helper Widget – Marking for future reference for my own custom 404 pages.
USB Office Showdown: Tiny USB Office vs. Portable… – I’ve never had much need for living off a USB drive … but if I did, this would be a useful article.
Adding reCAPTCHA to Movable Type – Marking for future reference. I like TinyTuring, but the concept behind reCAPTCHA is so incredibly cool, I can’t stand it.
“A Free Thinker is Satan’s Slave” – And that is precisely why Christians are looked at askance by so many people.

Now available in convenient pouches!

Here’s your Food Quiz Question of the Day: What is the main reason some Australian scientists recommending that people shift from eating beef to eating kangaroo? A. Farm raised kangaroos only require…

Here’s your Food Quiz Question of the Day: What is the main reason some Australian scientists recommending that people shift from eating beef to eating kangaroo?

A. Farm raised kangaroos only require malt extract, rather than land-expensive feeds like lot-raised cattle.
B. Kangaroo depredations of Australian landscape are leading to near-Dust Bowl conditions, impacting the ecological balance of the continent.
C. Kangaroo farts have much less methane than cow farts, so this would reduce a dangerous greenhouse gas.
D. Kangaroos, being marsupials, are subject to neither Mad Cow Disease nor Hoof-and-Mouth Disease.

Results below the fold.

Continue reading “Now available in convenient pouches!”

Potpourri on a Sunny Sunday

A bit of this and that. A Government Of Laws And Not Of Men – After being told by no less a body that the Supreme Court, over a year…

A bit of this and that.

A Government Of Laws And Not Of Men – After being told by no less a body that the Supreme Court, over a year ago, that the EPA had to either step up with identify greenhouse gasses as harmful to human health and welfare, or else provide an explanation of why not, the EPA has decided … to ask for more public comment over the next several months. I mean, heaven forbid that this Administration actually have to obey anyone.
OMG! Gawker Q&A with Joss Whedon! [Interview] – There is pretty close to zero actual information in this interview with Joss, but it’s tremendous fun to read nevertheless.
Carafes like antlers – Guaranteed to be uncleanable without being broken — but very cool tose.
RJ Eskow: Have We Missed the Key to Obama’s Leadership… – I mistrust armchair psychoanalysis of people, but this identification of Obama’s leadership style with Japanese management techniques — seeking consensus and stability — is kind of interesting.
Aldrin Slams SF’s Effect On Space – I think Aldrin is way offbase. How many folks even in Aldrin’s era of NASA credited pulp SF and movies as an inspiration for getting into space science? Instead, I suggest that it’s more of a prosperous instant gratification society that has had an effect on people being willing to put up with a slow, careful space exploration program.
“I am Not Paid Enough to Deal with This Lying Bullshit” – Ah, yelling punditry, is there anyone whom you cannot disgust with the whole system?
Battlestar Galactica DVD news: Release Date for Battlestar… – I really, really, really wish the 4.0 season was going to be out before December, if only because I am tired of having to stick my fingers in my ears whenever anyone talks about it.

And in the category of “La-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you …”

What do you do when you don’t want to read the bad news? You refuse to read it. And if you’re really ballsy, you tell people you won’t read it….

What do you do when you don’t want to read the bad news? You refuse to read it. And if you’re really ballsy, you tell people you won’t read it.

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.
The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said.
This week, more than six months later, the E.P.A. is set to respond to that order by releasing a watered-down version of the original proposal that offers no conclusion. Instead, the document reviews the legal and economic issues presented by declaring greenhouse gases a pollutant.

Nice. Can the Administration be fined for Contempt of Court? (I mean, legal contempt, not the obvious contempt they already hold.) I suppose they could be — if such fines didn’t have to be carried out by (drum roll) the Administration itself.

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, refused to comment on discussions between the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency. Asked about changes in the original report, Mr. Fratto said, “It’s the E.P.A. that determines what analysis it wants to make available” in its documents.

Fascinating that when it comes to requests to review communications, the Adminstration claims Executive Privilege and that it is a “unitary executive” that acts as a single, unregulatable agency. But when it comes to this sort of thing, the White House fobs it all off on the EPA. Again, nice. And, to illustrate:

Simultaneously, Mr. Waxman’s committee is weighing its response to the White House’s refusal to turn over subpoenaed documents relating to the E.P.A.’s handling of recent climate-change and air-pollution decisions. The White House, which has turned over other material to the committee, last week asserted a claim of executive privilege over the remaining documents.
In an interview on Sunday, Mr. Fratto, the White House spokesman, said the committee chairmen did not understand the legal precedent underlying executive privilege. “There is a long legal history supporting the principle that the president should have the candid advice of his advisers,” Mr. Fratto said.

In other words, “If we don’t want to take the blame, it’s those other guys. But if you want to talk to those other guys — you can’t, because they’re really us.”

White House pressure to ignore or edit the E.P.A.’s climate-change findings led to the resignation of one agency official earlier this month: Jason Burnett, the associate deputy administrator. Mr. Burnett, a political appointee with broad authority over climate-change regulations, said in an interview that he had resigned because “no more constructive work could be done” on the agency’s response to the Supreme Court.
He added, “The next administration will have to face what this one did not.”

From your lips to God’s ear, Mr Burnett.

(hat tip to Margie for the post title)

Home Depot will recycle compact fluorescents

Because compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) contain trace amounts of mercury, there are concerns about their broader use (saving energy and reducing heat). Now Home Depot has announced it will recycle…

Until now, consumers had to seek out local hazardous waste programs or smaller retail chains willing to collect the bulbs for recycling, like Ikea and True Value. Some consumers have waited for retailers like Wal-Mart to have a designated recycling day. Others bought kits to mail the bulbs to a recycling facility.
The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into putting bulb drop-off boxes at post offices, said Jim Berlow, director of the agency’s hazardous waste minimization and management division. But those plans are not final, and across most of the country, recycling the bulbs has been inconvenient at best. Industry professionals estimate that the recycling rate is around 2 percent.
Home Depot’s program, which will accept any maker’s bulbs, will bring relatively convenient recycling within reach of most households. Mr. Jarvis estimated that 75 percent of the nation’s homes are within 10 miles of a Home Depot.

Cool. Of course, that means transporting them in your car, which means they could break and cause all sorts of evil.

Mercury is found in other common household items like electronics, appliances and pesticides. Its vapors, however, can harm people and pollute the environment, which is why recycling is encouraged. (In some places it is against the law not to recycle the bulbs.)
[…] The E.P.A. devotes pages of its Web site to cleanup instructions for broken compact fluorescents. Before even beginning to clean up a spill, consumers are advised to leave the room (along with their pets), open a window and shut off any operating air heating or cooling systems.
That may seem foreboding, but experts see a greater health risk from the mercury emissions produced by coal-burning plants to power less efficient bulbs. “The avoided mercury emissions are much larger than the mercury we’re using in the bulbs,” said [Steven Hamburg, interim director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown University], referring to compact fluorescents.

And, of course, there are probably even greater risks for those of us who, as kids, gathered around to play on our desks with little samples of mercury that some kid would bring from home …

The other drawback to CFLs has been, well, they’re fluorescent. But demand is driving improvements. There are dimmable (!) fluorescents coming soon, the start-up/warm-up time for the bulbs is improving, and the light quality is also getting better. I bought some replacement CFLs for some lamps in my office that came in a “daylight” frequency, and I like them very much.

Potpourri for a Tuesday morning

From my Google Reader shared items (formatted a bit better than the last installment): There He Goes Again, Again … from Obsidian Wings John McCain talks a lot about “cap and…

From my Google Reader shared items (formatted a bit better than the last installment):

There He Goes Again, Again … from Obsidian Wings
John McCain talks a lot about “cap and trade” on carbon emission issues — but he doesn’t seem to really understand what it means.
The Straight Dope: We know how many people die annually… from www.straightdope.com
Do handguns save more lives than they take? Not even Uncle Cecil knows …
Firefox 3 will be unleashed on June 17th. from Stupid Evil Bastard
Hey! That’s today! Woot! All the beta folks have waxed lyrically over this. Glad to see it’s finally leaving beta.
Surviving the unthinkable from Decrepit Old Fool
When disaster strikes, getting information demonstrably improves survivability. So why do the experts and authorities simply urge people not to panic and just stand by for instructions?

Corn!

One of the “sleeper” stories of the past few years — and probably the next — is how the government-subsidized shift in corn production (and, indirectly, other agricultural production) from food to biofuel is causing increasing ripples in the world food supply and the problem of world hunger.

Alas, farm subsidies tend to be among the most sacrosanct things in the budget, once established.

Ice, ice, baby

More massive Antarctic ice shelf breakup. A huge shelf of Antarctic ice has collapsed, satellite imagery has just revealed, and the Connecticut-sized shelf behind it is “hanging by a thread,”…

More massive Antarctic ice shelf breakup.

A huge shelf of Antarctic ice has collapsed, satellite imagery has just revealed, and the Connecticut-sized shelf behind it is “hanging by a thread,” scientists say.
Satellite images show the sudden disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica, according to a press release from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an AP report of the ice shelf breakup. It is part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, which covered 5,000 square miles) until it started breaking up in the 1990s. The only thing now connecting the Wilkins Ice Shelf to the Antarctic mainland is a thin “buttress” of ice.
“If there is a little bit more retreat, this last ‘ice buttress’ could collapse and we’d likely lose about half the total ice shelf area in the next few years,” CU-Boulder’s Ted Scambos said in a statement.

It’s not easy flying green

US airlines are facing possible retribution in Europe if they don’t fly “greener.” US airlines must pay for their carbon dioxide emissions or face a curb on flights to the…

US airlines are facing possible retribution in Europe if they don’t fly “greener.”

US airlines must pay for their carbon dioxide emissions or face a curb on flights to the European Union, the EU transport commissioner has warned.
The “go green” ultimatum was issued by Jacques Barrot as the transatlantic airline market undergoes its biggest shakeup in 30 years when limits on flights between the EU and US are lifted this month. Barrot said negotiations on a second phase for the treaty, will include a demand that US carriers join the EU emissions trading scheme or an equivalent system in the US.
[…] “It’s always possible to imagine reducing the number of flights or suspending certain rights,” he said. The commissioner added that a member of the US Congress environment committee believed a deal on emissions will be possible once the Bush administration ends.
[…] EU airlines must join the emissions trading scheme in 2012, which could add up to £13 to the price of a return flight as carriers buy “carbon credits” to atone for the emissions made during a flight. All airlines flying in and out of the EU must subscribe to the scheme, including foreign carriers, but the move is opposed by the US. The International Air Transport Association, which represents more than 200 international airlines, has warned that 170 countries oppose the move and it will result in states taking legal action against Europe rather than co-operating with it.

For myself, I applaud the European action. I’m not particularly fond of higher prices — but as a counter to the carbon emissions that jet aircraft put out, I think it’s perfectly reasonable as a recognition of the true cost of flying.

Fill ‘er with Ethyl!

I grew up, early years at least, in a world of “leaded” gasoline, where “ethyl” was what you wanted in your tank. I remember (as a kid) unleaded gas…

I grew up, early years at least, in a world of “leaded” gasoline, where “ethyl” was what you wanted in your tank. I remember (as a kid) unleaded gas coming in as a novelty, then as standard for vehicles, and finally the only thing out there for cars.

Though a bit breathless in tone (though it’s hard to be sanguine about, well, lead), this article charts the history of “ethyl” in US gasoline. Interesting stuff.

Taking action by typing about it!

DOF somewhat tongue-in-cheek mentions Blog Action Day, What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices….

DOF somewhat tongue-in-cheek mentions Blog Action Day,

What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day?
One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.

I’m not sure that having a single day a year for a single topic is all that big of an activism thing, but there you go.

Woodsy Owl - Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute!

This year’s (today’s) topic is: the environment.

(Use both sides of the paper if necessary.)

I actually have a lot I’d like to write about the environment — from alarmism to politics to popular culture to what the heck the “environment” is and how humans fit into it — but my thoughts haven’t quite gelled enough to do so. So I’ll throw out a few quotations (hat tip, DOF). I’ll also follow through on a notion I’ve had several times in the past several months to create a specific “Environment” category here (most Environment stuff has previously been found under “Science”), of which this post is the first.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments — there are consequences.
— Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator, “Some Reasons Why”

Whether we like it or not, the natural and the human environment are inseparable. It would be a great mistake to try to completely erase human traces from any part of the landscape. We need to protect the natural world, but we also need to protect reminders of the human past so that we can learn from them.
— Bonnie Stepenoff (b. 1949) American writer, “Landscapes Remember”

Scan any newspaper for stories about, say, the environment, and you will quickly discover that many journalists are predisposed to consider environmental activists the “good guys” and oil company presidents and loggers the “bad guys.” Or watch all the junk science television news specials about pesticides, food additives, breast implants, nuclear power, and global warming. Reporters are reputed to be natural-born skeptics, but they almost never challenge the alarmists on these important issues.
— Marianne M. Jennings, American educator, ethicist, Imprimis (Hillsdale College) (July 1999)

CALVIN (walking through snowy field): You know, Hobbes, it seems the only time most people go outside is to walk their cars. We have houses, electricity, plumbing, heat …. Maybe we’re so sheltered and comfortable that we’ve lost touch with the natural world and forgotten our place in it. Maybe we’ve lost our awe of nature. That’s why I want to ask you, as a tiger, a wild animal close to nature, what do you think we’re put on Earth to do. What’s our purpose in life? Why are we here?
HOBBES: We’re here to devour each other alive.
CALVIN (in the house): Turn on the lights! Turn up the heat!
— Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist, Calvin & Hobbes (6 Jan 1991)

Hmmm. Not terribly inspiring. Let’s see if I can throw out some quick thoughts.

Our environment is our home. As the saying goes, “don’t shit where you live.” To the extent that we are becoming a global community, there is a growing awareness that there is no back corner that doesn’t affect us, environmentally. “No man is an island” — and no island is an island.
The biggest problem we as humans face is that “out of sight, out of mind.” If we don’t see it, it’s not real to us. People in general aren’t worried about polar bears and Tibetan glaciers as much as they are about their drought-driven water restrictions and the price of vegetables.
There are way too many people who are willing to exploit that short-sightedness — which is short-sighted themselves. Yes, I’m speaking mostly here of businessfolk who are more interested in this quarter’s earnings — or where the stock will be when they exercise their options in a few years — and less about whether their company, or nation, or world will survive the next century or three. Oh, and the politicians who are focused on what contributions they need from whom to get elected next time around, not on whether people a century from now will remember their names as visionaries and statesmen.
Garnering the attention of the short-sighted requires a degree of apocalyptic hyperbole — bang them over the head to get their attention. Unfortunately, that’s just the sort of tactic that turns off some people who are observent and who are tired of apocalyptic hyperbole in their lives from all directions.
Nevertheless, public opinion is like a supertanker — very slow to turn, but it is turnable, and at some tipping point the politicians do have to follow, and the businessfolk with them. Looking at the changes in awareness and concern in the US about air and water pollution in the last 50 years shows that clearly. I suspect the global warming thang will follow the same course — indeed, the last decade shows that it is.

So — I guess now I’m good (from an activist standpoint) for another year.

And for today’s good news …

Denver has just about licked its carbon monoxide problems, a major component of dealing with its EPA air pollution problems. Gov. Bill Owens Friday called it a “historic achievement,” and…

Denver has just about licked its carbon monoxide problems, a major component of dealing with its EPA air pollution problems.

Gov. Bill Owens Friday called it a “historic achievement,” and noted the area once violated health standards for carbon monoxide almost every winter day. Indeed, an EPA official recalled days when colleagues were told to leave early to thin out rush hour pollution.
“It was not that long ago that carbon monoxide levels in Denver were among the highest in the nation,” Owens said. “To reverse that trend and clean up the air despite our growing economy is quite remarkable.”

The only pollutant left to deal with? Small particulates.