Gore versus the deniers

We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change

The heavy snowfalls this month have been used as fodder for ridicule by those who argue that global warming is a myth, yet scientists have long pointed out that warmer global temperatures have been increasing the rate of evaporation from the oceans, putting significantly more moisture into the atmosphere — thus causing heavier downfalls of both rain and snow in particular regions, including the Northeastern United States. Just as it’s important not to miss the forest for the trees, neither should we miss the climate for the snowstorm.


Here is what scientists have found is happening to our climate: man-made global-warming pollution traps heat from the sun and increases atmospheric temperatures. These pollutants — especially carbon dioxide — have been increasing rapidly with the growth in the burning of coal, oil, natural gas and forests, and temperatures have increased over the same period. Almost all of the ice-covered regions of the Earth are melting — and seas are rising. Hurricanes are predicted to grow stronger and more destructive, though their number is expected to decrease. Droughts are getting longer and deeper in many mid-continent regions, even as the severity of flooding increases. The seasonal predictability of rainfall and temperatures is being disrupted, posing serious threats to agriculture. The rate of species extinction is accelerating to dangerous levels.

Great op-ed piece. Read it! Send a copy to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity too.

No Nukes

Your Butt May Glow

Save Energy with Glow in the Dark Toilet Paper

This glow-in-the-dark toilet paper charges up during the day with natural light or ambient artificial light. Presumably the paper content is not recycled, but we can only hope the luminescence is recycled from nuclear power plants. In what's definitely not a lazy cop out, here is the brilliant product description in its entirety:


In a world where scientific discovery and exploration is slowly but surely unravelling the myriad mysteries of the universe, it's gratifying to know that some idiot can still find time to come up with such a ludicrous invention as Glow In The Dark Loo Roll. It may not be a Hadron Collider (the less said about black holes and anti-matter the better), but whilst it won't enlighten us as to what happened at the beginning of time, it will shed some light on the subject at hand, and it's a lot funnier.
Like all things luminous it needs light to charge itself up, so to speak, and the amount of light it gets will determine how long it glows for. Why we're bothering to get technical about it is a mystery, it's Glow In The Dark Loo Roll for heaven's sake. As serious as a giraffe in flippers, though considerably more useful, and isn't it reassuring to know that all those research grants aren't going unwasted?


If your bum glows after you get back to bed, I consider that a bonus.

Glow in the dark butt? No thanks.

Kudos to Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart to push suppliers to cut emissions

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants its suppliers to reduce 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2015.
The world's largest retailer's push goes beyond its efforts to date to reduce its own emissions by designing more energy-efficient stores and pursuing alternative fuels for its fleet of trucks.
The goal is equivalent to taking 3.8 million cars off the road for a year, the company said.
Wal-Mart is collaborating with the Environmental Defense Fund and other environmental experts to measure reduction. It said it won't force suppliers to make changes but will work with them on projects that will reduce both emissions and costs.
In the past few years, the company has been working with suppliers to reduce packaging, which has translated into such changes as more concentrated detergent products and toothpaste that's no longer in a box.

Sure, nice step in the right direction, but of course we all realize that...

Tofu Jerky

Tofu Jerky: "I went veg and missed jerky, so I tried this out and it actually turned
out really well. (It really does taste better than it looks.)
Ingredients Tofu Vinegar, either malt or apple cider Liquid smoke
Hot Sauce Soy Sauce Honey Veg Oil Garlic Salt Salt and Pepper Drain,
Cut and Marinate Drain ...


Continue Reading »"Off to the store to buy some Tofu!

The Science Guy Battles On

Wonder what Bastard's (oops Bastardi) response was to the question that I paraphrase as: Who benefits from denying global change and man's impact?

I think we know the answer by following the money trail. Yes we are looking at you ExxonMobil and all your friends.

Reduce your impact

Your Car & Your Meat-Eating: The Biggest Causes of Climate Change

A new study coming out of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that when it comes to the net contribution to climate change on-road transportation, burning biomass for cooking, and raising animals for food are the biggest culprits. Since I don't suspect many TreeHugger readers regularly use biomass stoves to cook, as do millions of people in developing nations, that leaves us with your car and your diet to tackle.

Solution: become a mass-transit riding vegetarian.

3 Cheers Vermont

Image via Wikipedia

Vermont Senate Wants Entergy Reactor Shut in 2012

The Vermont Senate said on Wednesday it has voted to shut Entergy Corp's Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant when its license expires in 2012, after a leak releasing radioactive tritium into the groundwater was discovered last month.


While the Obama administration advocates a nuclear revival to reduce dependency on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions, opponents of Vermont Yankee have used the leak to show Entergy is not operating the reactor safely and that it license should not be renewed.


Entergy applied with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2006 to renew the 40 year operating license for the plant, which began operations in 1972, for an additional 20 years.


"The effort to win a 20-year renewal of Vermont Yankee's operating license is far from over," Entergy said in a statement.


"We remain determined to prove our case to the legislature, state officials and the Vermont public."


If the vote is upheld, it would be the first time in more than 20 years that a state legislature has acted to shut down a reactor.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a new trend - pay attention Prez Obama! Your nuke bailout/loan is not welcomed.

My kingdom for a flat roof

Image via Wikipedia

Rooftop Farms Are The Growing Thing

Green roofs are wonderful things, keeping buildings cool and reducing heat island effects. But you usually can't eat them. Now, rooftops around the world are being put to productive use as sources of food. Often they are tied to restaurants; Uncommon Ground in Chicago has a 2500 square foot rooftop garden.

Just think, until deer learn to fly I wouldn't need fences and deterrents!

On my wish list

'Comploo' Design Heated Entirely by Organic Waste

Architects from the Japanese design firm Bakoko have developed a circular structure, called the Comploo, that could be the perfect sustainable compliment to Japanese Tea Gardens during chilly winters--heated by a unique composting system built in the walls. Designers say that the heat captured from the organic waste breaking-down could heat the space to temperatures nearly 120º F, all while producing compost for the garden.
The key to the design is in the special decomposing compartments that line the walls. When food or garden waste is put inside, the heat generated by the microbial processes is circulated throughout the room. A glass ceiling acts like a greenhouse to capture heat from the sun as well.


And, after the heat has been captured from the material, what's left is useful as well. According to the designers:
A steady supply of rich organic compost is extracted from a door at the bottom of each bin. It fertilizes new vegetation that will eventually become fuel for the next cold season. The concept is suited to large urban parks, community gardens, or even serving as an outdoor café - anywhere that generates a continuous supply of organic waste for fuel.
There are a number of kinks that need to be worked out before the Comploo can be considered a viable alternative to outdoor garden structures--namely the stench produced by the decomposing organic waste. Nevertheless, according to a report in Galileu, designers will be unveiling a prototype in the near future.

Stench? I'll put up with that for a warm spot to enjoy a beer and a good smoke!

Senator Mellencamp

Ice Cream Heaven

Image via Wikipedia

Ben & Jerry's Converts All Flavors to Fair Trade Certified

I'm always an advocate for making your own ice cream, because it tastes so delicious and it gives you time to think about your guilty indulgence before you dive right in. But for those days when only a pint of Chunky Monkey or Chocolate Fudge Brownie will do, Ben & Jerry's is making high quality, Fair Trade Certified ingredients a little easier to find.


Ben & Jerry's has recently committed to sourcing every possible ingredient from Fair Trade Certified producers. In 2005, it became the first ice cream company to use Fair Trade Certified ingredients and today it has announced that all flavors will be Fair Trade Certified by the end of 2013.


According to the company, this means significant changes:


Globally, this involves converting up to 121 different chunks and swirls, working across eleven different ingredients such as cocoa, banana, vanilla and other flavourings, fruits and nuts. It also means working with Fair Trade cooperatives that total a combined membership of over 27,000 farmers.
Ben & Jerry's has long been a leader is global activism. In 2008, Ben & Jerry's and Greenpeace introduced "Greenfreeze," a climate-friendly ice cream cooler. The company also supported the Climate Change College, which funded a six-month, part-time program for six people to complete a course of study, including a ten-day field trip to Greenland, in order to become ambassador's for the World Wildlife Fund's Powerswitch Campaign.

I really didn't need another reason to eat Ben & Jerry's.

The wisdom of Palin

From Palin's Facebook page:

Over the last few months, and even again today, very unsettling revelations have come to light about the “settled science” of man-made global warming. With all of these shoes dropping you’d think every member of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be barefoot by now.

One thing after another keeps popping up to further discredit the theory of man-made global warming. The IPCC’s supposedly definitive report proving the theory is riddled with serious errors. The organization has been publicly chastised by everyone from its former chair to the heads of the UK’s biggest funder of climate research and Greenpeace UK. One of the world’s top climate change scientists, Prof. Phil Jones, has conceded that there’s been no significant warming since 1995; that the medieval period may have been warmer than today; and that he’s had trouble even keeping track of raw data crucial to the global warming theory. Yet President Obama still seeks to create a federal office for global warming, and they’re still talking about mandating their cap-and-tax plan that's based on discredited data.

The Obama administration’s environmental extremism also shows up in its aversion to oil and gas development. A true all-of-the-above approach to energy would mean allowing oil and gas explorers to drill here and drill now because America has the proven reserves needed to meet our energy challenges. A new industry study reveals that the federal government's current restrictions on oil and gas drilling in Alaska and off the U.S. coastline will cost us $2.36 trillion through 2029. Think of the millions of U.S. jobs we could create, and how much more secure America would be, if we had a true free market approach to energy independence that allowed us to finally drill!

And though I applaud the President’s newly declared interest in nuclear power, it should be noted that he’s merely following through on loan guarantees authorized during the prior administration. What’s more, while the White House now touts the building of new nuclear power plants, its budget inexplicably calls for cutting funding to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. A real nuclear energy plan requires a strategy for dealing with nuclear waste storage and recycling.

The man-made global warming hysteria isn’t based on sound science, and the Obama administration’s energy policy isn’t based on sound economics. If the climategate revelations teach us anything, it’s that we need to cool down the rhetoric and fire up our common sense.

After reading this I realize I don't even have to provide a comment!

Dealing with deniers

Of the three choices on how to deal with them - I pick the first and third methods.

Crazy Train rides through Texas

Image via Wikipedia

Gov. Rick Perry Sues The EPA Over Greenhouse Gas Regulation

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) announced at a press conference Tuesday that he's suing the Environmental Protection Agency on behalf of Texas over its December decision to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. Perry stated the intent of the lawsuit was to "defend Texas' environmental successes against federal overreach."


Perry cited in both the press conference and in his lawsuit the controversial leaked "ClimateGate" emails as evidence that the EPA's decision to regulate carbon emissions was inappropriate -- suggesting the science of global warming is somehow in doubt.

Following in Utah's steps.

The state that gave us "planes into Fed buildings", George W. Bush and the Dallas Cowboys. That explains all.

Global Weirding

Is it Time to Rename Global Warming? The Case for 'Global Weirding'

I prefer the term "global weirding," because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.
The fact that it has snowed like crazy in Washington -- while it has rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada, while Australia is having a record 13-year drought -- is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.

Sure there are arguments against the name since it...

... carries the connotation of "related to the supernatural"

But it really does paint a true picture. And how can Beck rail against Global Wierding?

It's a sign

Image via Wikipedia

The joy of dirt

Soil is as essential a natural resource as air and water. Yet we’re running out of healthy, fertile dirt at an alarming rate. One man’s odyssey to retrace and reduce his soil footprint.


At the heart of Jeavons’ system is a maniacal focus on composting. Now, when he uses the term he is not merely referring to the quaint re-circulation of leftover bits of lunch. Jeavons recommends that a gardener devote a full 60 percent of planting space to growing crops the principal purpose of which is to add biomass to compost piles. Cereal grains, giant overgrown daikon gone to seed and six-foot-tall (two-meter-tall) cardoons are among the many plants born to die and rot un-tasted, cut down and fed through the system, capturing more carbon with each generation.

The sign?

Yes, you read that correctly. I have been composting my own dung in my backyard. Like many advances in human technology, the hegemony of the flush toilet is not forever, and as the planet has grown increasingly crowded, more people are reevaluating its merits. Every day, millions of tons of potential soil nutrition are sent downstream to treatment plants, where they are mixed with industrial effluent and spent pharmaceuticals, chlorinated, dechlorinated and condensed into a material that the industry likes to call “bio-solids,” but everyone else prefers to call by its old name: “sludge.” Most of this sludge ends up covering over the layers of garbage in landfills, contributing to the aforementioned methane problem. Then there is the dubious practice of soiling and cleaning our drinking water in an increasingly thirsty world.


On top of this, the nutrients contained therein are effectively lost forever. According to John Jeavons, all but a tiny percentage of the minerals necessary to produce a year’s worth of food for one person can be found in a year’s worth of that person’s waste.


My first step was to get a copy of The Humanure Handbook, published in 1995 by Joseph Jenkins, a slate roofer in western Pennsylvania. The Jenkins method is the model of simplicity. One merely expresses oneself into a bucket and covers it over with a carbonaceous material such as sawdust or rice hulls or ground coconut hulls or even finely ground leaves. Each bucket is then added to a compost heap, which is monitored with a thermometer to see that the pile generates enough heat to destroy any pathogens. After a year, the pile is closed down and a new one started, and after the second year the first year’s contents are ready to feed to plants.


I won’t lie to you: It took some skill and some tools to build my rodent-proof urban composting cage. Nor will I pretend that maintaining the system is as easy as pushing a little lever. There is significant hauling of buckets in and out of my house these days. I had to find straw to line the cage and I may spend the rest of my life on the prowl for suitable carbon-heavy cover materials.


The latter is crucial to the process for two reasons. First, its small particles cover your effusions, all but eliminating the stink factor. Then, when they are dumped into the compost pile, the dry carbonaceous stuff balances the wet nitrogenous stuff that comes out of your body, creating the ideal environment for the thermophilic bacteria already present in your gut to thrive. The fury of bacterial activity drives the temperature of the pile high enough to kill off pathogens. It takes 24 hours at 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) to kill all the bad bugs. At 115 degrees Fahrenheit, 46 Celsius, it takes a week.


The path of humanure is not one of instant gratification. Jenkins recommends you wait two years before feeding your plants, three if your pile did not get hot enough for long enough. For the time being, my reward came when I uncovered mine after a few weeks and discovered that every last vestige of stink had been gobbled up. What remained was the benign, earthy smell of a forest floor in spring. It will be years before the contents return as apples or tomatoes, so until then, this will have to do.

Yes, there it was staring at me. The humanure concept again. A sure sign that this may be my spring project. The muse is speaking to me.

Chewing Gum Dangers?

Gum ingredient may cause cancer

A substance used to make chewing gum could soon be declared toxic by the federal government after an international agency found that it might cause cancer in lab rats.


On May 17, the government will publish a list of 17 substances that may be labeled as toxic in a draft report on risk assessment. Acetic acid ethenyl ester, or vinyl acetate -- commonly used as a base in some chewing gums -- could be on that list, Health Canada said Monday.


The substance is a colourless liquid with a strong, sweet scent that can be used as a flavouring agent. When made into a polymer, it becomes useful in the production of chewing gum.


However, tests completed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer found evidence that vinyl acetate could be linked to instances of cancer in rats. No similar results have been found in humans.

This article was first published in 2008. Why haven't I heard this from US Media outlets?

Nuke Loans? WTF!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Next in Line for a Bailout: The Nuclear Industry?

The Obama Administration has been pretty upfront about its support for an energy policy that promotes both clean energy technologies and renewed investment in old technologies such as nuclear, coal and offshore drilling. "I think that on energy there should be a bipartisan agreement that we have to take a both/and approach rather than an either/or approach," the President said just last week.


Friends of the Earth released a statement this weekend criticizing the Obama Administration's reported decision to provide loan guarantees for the construction of two nuclear reactors in Georgia. The reactors would be part of the first new nuclear power plant to be built in the US in almost 30 years.


President Obama has presented his support for nuclear power, so-called "clean coal" projects and offshore drilling as both a gesture to Republicans and a pragmatic approach to supplying America's future energy needs, arguing that "we can't overnight convert to an all-solar or an all-wind economy."

How abour bailout loans for those suffering from cancer clustered near nuke plants? How about bailouts for those whose lives are ruined by mining "clean coal?"

Thoreau's Wisdom

"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify."

We are what we eat

Image via Wikipedia

Why Other Countries Are Scared of GMOs and We're Not

It's in a majority of the processed foods that we eat in the form of high fructose corn syrup or soy. GMOs have a scary monopoly over our food system and we have yet to know the full extent of the problems that will come in the future. So why aren't Americans more skeptical? Well, to start off, pricey marketing hides these unhealthy foods in very pretty wrapping paper. The Corn Refiners Association released a $30 million marketing campaign that claims that high fructose corn syrup has the "same natural sweeteners as table sugar and honey." But in reality most corn is grown as a monoculture and large monocultures are usually genetically modified. Not to mention the health risks associated with high fructose corn syrup.


Additionally, we aren't as culturally connected to our food as Italians, French, and other cultures. We are instead, more connected to science than that of food. It's for this reason that we view food as the enemy. A substance that makes us fat, rather than what it should be, nutrient dense and meant to sustain us. Instead science (though I'm not saying science doesn't have its place) has taken over the food system. Instead of listening to what our bodies need and eating all whole foods to supply ourselves with nutrients, we choose processed junk that makes scientific claims to be enhanced with calcium, protein, and vitamins. Stripping foods of nutrients and then trying to add them back into foods does not a healthy body make. And the mega-corporations that have taken over our food industry make purchasing high quality whole foods more and more difficult.

The first reason - advertising - is what really gets me thinking. We are so weak when it comes to media. We fall for the ads, we go crazy for the latest story about some pop star, we rush home to watch American Idol. Our lives are run by ads and consumerism. We eat what they tell us will make us stronger, thinner, stronger... We eat on the run because we can't get off that treadmill of work harder to make more money to buy more and more. It's time to simplify. Time to slow down. Time to think about what we are eating, how we are living, what is most important.

The Right's Inability to Grasp Climate Change May Be Funny, But It's Also Very Dangerous

Climate change conspiracies are hardly new, but the so-called Snowpocalypse in Washington D.C. has returned them front-and-center to every single right-wing media outlet.


Fox News anchor smugly claimed that the record snow had not only buried people's cars -- it was also "burying" global warming theories. In a World Net Daily radio segment, someone joked that liberals would soon be claiming the snowfall -- and global warming -- was the Tea Party movement's fault. And the family of Sen. James Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, built a six-foot-tall igloo on Capitol Hill and topped it off with a sign that read, "Al Gore's New Home," before posting it on Facebook to the delight of climate change non-believers across the country. (From a commenter: "What if the D.C. tent cities became IGLOO cities?? The irony!" Bashing global warming and the homeless in one fell swoop -- classy.)


Of course, this completely ignores evidence that the last decade was the warmest ever on the meteorological record, and that while in the long-run we can expect winter squalls like the one that just ravaged the Beltway to be far more uncommon, in the meantime, all this snow may very well be the result of warmer air supercharged with moisture that will result in snowstorms rather than in torrential winter rains, as long as the temperature remains below freezing. In fact, precipitation of all kinds is up -- way up. A recent study by the U.S. Global Change Research Program found that levels of very high precipitation from Maine to D.C. rose by 67 percent from 1958 to 2007; the Midwest has seen a 30 percent increase. Global warming holds that weather of all sorts -- warm and cold -- will be extreme, as we trend to an overall hotter planet.

But facts don't get checks placed into your wallet by the oil companies.

Is Utah part of the USA?

Utah House of Reps Passes Resolution Calling Climate Change a Conspiracy

In an effort to urge the Environmental Protection Agency to "cease its carbon dioxide reduction policies, programs, and regulations until climate data and global warming science are substantiated" the Utah House of Representatives has passed a resolution (HRJ012) which basically states the climate change in a conspiracy and efforts to stop it will bankrupt the nation and are precursors to global governance.


WHEREAS, global temperatures have been level and declining in some areas over the past 12 years; WHEREAS, the "hockey stick" global warming assertion has been discredited and climate alarmists' carbon dioxide-related global warming hypothesis is unable to account for the current downturn in global temperatures...

Utah - a State I don't have any interest to visit at this point. The Crazy Train made a stop in Salt Lake City.

Factory Meals

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Jonathan Safran Foer
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Economy

Foer's "Eating Animals"

Jonathan Safron Foer, the author of 'Everything is Illuminated' has been following Michael Pollan's lead as of late--his latest book is called 'Eating Animals', and it calls for, among other things, a closer examination of our nation's food system. He sat down with Stephen Colbert last night, and explained, among other things, why hot dog makers won't eat hot dogs. And then Colbert ate a huge pile of bacon in front of him.


Along with a call to eat less meat, a reassessment of our food labeling process, and an urging to reconsider the factory farming complex that dominates our nation's food industry Safron Foer raises some pretty good points....

Cover of Eating Animals

I haven't read Foer's new book, but he makes some points in dire need of better publicity--our food system is a giant mess. It shouldn't be acceptable to pump animals full of antibiotics to get them to grow faster and more cheaply--for ethical reasons as well as human health reasons. As Foer notes, people are actually getting sick from the practice--and the longer term detriments are still largely unknown.


But as Pollan says, we all get three votes a day to push for healthier food--every time we sit down to a meal. So don't feel too unpatriotic turning down that hot dog.

So drop that dog, drop that chalupa, drop that burger and raise your veggieburger high!

Coal dust washed down by beer

Image by ndh via Flickr

Two of my favorite subjects: beer and environment.



Cool old-timey beer production video reminds us how far we’ve come

We’ve definitely come a long way from loads purely coal fueled breweries to trends toward wind and solar powered sustainable, green breweries. Brooklyn Brewery was early in the trend in 2003 when they converted to 100% wind powered energy.
Of course as we’ve posted here before, New Belgium Brewery’s 870-panel solar array is nothing to sneeze at, with Odell Brewing Company not far behind getting 39 percent of energy needs covered by their solar array.
And there are other cool energy-saving marvels, too — different varieties of heat recapturing are used at New Belgium, famously at Sierra Nevada in California, and Canada’s Steam Whistle Brewing might have one of the more unique green strategies–using a deep lake water cooling refrigeration system.
As long as you’re asking, you’ll also get people reminding you that consuming locally-brewed beer (as with consuming locally-produced anything) uses less energy, so the craft brew boom of the last decade and a half, along with changes in packaging and shipping (how heavy did those crates of bottles look in the video?) have cut down on the total energy needed.
Not only are sustainable breweries good for the environment, but they also help brewers cuts costs, which is probably a big part of why greener brewing is on the rise.

Suddenly I am very thirsty.

Peak Oil in the Headlines

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Peak Oil in 5 Years: Virgin Boss Branson's Warning

It's always hard to know what to make of Richard Branson. From his reported $3bn investments to fight climate change to his offer of cash prizes for removing atmospheric carbon, the man certainly talks a good talk when it comes to green initiatives. And then the waters get muddied by his plans for space tourism and underwater planes for the super rich. So where do all these plans fit with his well-documented belief that peak oil is coming, and it's going to be a major challenge to the world economy?

Branson's Virgin group has already voiced its concerns over peak oil as part of the UK-based Peak Oil Task Force. Now the group, which also includes Arup, Foster + Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury and the Stagecoach Group, is getting ready to launch its second report. looking at peak oil within the context of the recent recession, and making the case for why acting now to help the UK kick its fossil fuel habit is vital for long term economic prosperity.

According to The Guardian, Branson's foreword to the report (due out tomorrow) includes an urgent message to Government:

"The next five years will see us face another crunch - the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well. [...] Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."

Of course it should be taken into account that Branson runs a major UK rail operator when he talks of the urgency of government action on peak oil. Similarly, Solarcentury founder Jeremy Leggett is hardly an impartial bystander. But then, neither party claims to be. Leggett, whose awesome vision for a solarized world I reviewed a few weeks ago, had this to say in support of the group's activities:

""[We are] in regular contact with government; we have reason to believe their risk thinking on peak oil may be evolving away from BP et al's and we await the results of further consultations with keen interest."

Only a few short years ago, Peak Oil seemed to be the topic of choice for paranoid bloggers, the more radical environmentalists and fringe survivalist groups. Now the conversation is getting decidedly mainstream. Heck, even some folks at the IEA say peak oil could come sooner than we think. Given the context of our recent financial upheavals, Branson and Leggett's warnings to play it safe rather than sorry seem timely indeed. How else are we supposed to vacation in space when the oil runs out?

The real question, 5 years or is it here already? Reached the top already?

Climate versus Weather

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Sen. DeMint: DC Snow Is Revenge on Gore

Sen. Jim "Health Care will be Obama's Waterloo'' DeMint of South Carolina is once again making his state proud by posting on his Twitter account the following: "It's going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries 'uncle'". Classy, Senator, real classy. It's to be expected that climate change skeptics and deniers would use any strange weather to back up their case that climate change is a hoax, but this is beyond the pale. It does snow in February in DC, Senator. You've been in DC long enough to have realized this.

But...

Weather is basically the way the atmosphere is behaving, mainly with respect to its effects upon life and human activities. The difference between weather and climate is that weather consists of the short-term (minutes to months) changes in the atmosphere. Most people think of weather in terms of temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, brightness, visibility, wind, and atmospheric pressure, as in high and low pressure.
In most places, weather can change from minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and season-to-season. Climate, however, is the average of weather over time and space. An easy way to remember the difference is that climate is what you expect, like a very hot summer, and weather is what you get, like a hot day with pop-up thunderstorms.

Hell, he is only a Senator. Do we really expect him to comprehend the difference between weather and climate?

Follow the Money...

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Think-Tanks Take Oil Money and Use it to Fund Climate Deniers

An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment
experts claimed last night.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

Can't let the public change their habits and use of petroleum-based products. That would take money out of the wallets of a few. The Earth may be in jeopardy, but the mighty dollar is much more important - for some!

We need ASTERIX!

Join the Revolution

Why Small Organic Farming Is Indeed Radical (and Beautiful)
The radical idea behind by organic agriculture is a change in focus.

So if we go back to the two questions about what is "radical" and what is "beautiful" they come down to the same thing -- the passion for quality food and sustainable systems that the new young farmers brought to American agriculture. There is no reason that large farms, whatever path they may have been on, cannot learn to meet those standards if they understand that it is not the scale of the farm but the attitude of the farmer that the public is interested in. I think if the large farmers used all their experience and natural advantages to try to lead food production along ever more nutritious and sustainable lines, they would have the respect that so many of them obviously feel they deserve.


But there is one other connection between the word "radical" and small farms that I need to mention. The small organic farm greatly discomforts the corporate/industrial mind because the small organic farm is one of the most relentlessly subversive forces on the planet. Over centuries both the communist and the capitalist systems have tried to destroy small farms because small farmers are a threat to the consolidation of absolute power. Thomas Jefferson said he didn't think we could have democracy unless at least 20% of the population was self-supporting on small farms so they were independent enough to be able to tell an oppressive government to stuff it. It is very difficult to control people who can create products without purchasing inputs from the system, who can market their products directly thus avoiding the involvement of mercenary middlemen, who can butcher animals and preserve foods without reliance on industrial conglomerates, and who can't be bullied because they can feed their own faces.


So I'd like to suggest a foe of Rome's power as the perfect figurehead for the small family farmer holding out indomitably against the economic forces trying to subjugate the whole planet. Our hero's name is ASTERIX, and he is an immensely popular French comic book character. In France there is a natural connection between the persona of Asterix and the fight against all things corporate.

A Storm Is Coming

Big Slide by James Howard Kunstler

“Big Slide,” by James Howard Kunstler, is a three-act play set in the autumn of an unspecified near-future year, at an Adirondack “great camp” where three generations of the Freeman family have taken refuge from New York and Boston during a severe national political maelstrom. We are never fully apprised of the exact nature of this event, but it appears to involve a coup d’etat in the White House and the uprising of local militias all over the nation in response. The estate at Big Slide is isolated from these events, but news dribbles in by radio. The electricity has stopped working and law enforcement seems to have been suspended, making it dangerous to travel even to the nearest town for food and necessities. The thirteen members of the family, ranging from the dying patriarch, Clifford Freeman, to his grown children and their spouses, to the two teenage step-siblings, Raven and Zach, struggle to work out how they will organize themselves for survival in the months ahead against a background of old and deep personal grievances with each other.

What to do...how to prepare? How about this from Cluborlov?

...local resiliency and self-sufficiency...

Also from Cluborlov...

Act I of James Kunstler's new play "Big Slide" is now available as a staged reading via KunstlerCast, with Acts II and III to follow, and the entire text also available as an e-book.

The play is set in the not-too-distant future, after West Los Angeles has been obliterated by a bomb, Chicagoland's drinking water has been laced with Botox, the President has been suicided, gas is at $10 a gallon and mostly not for sale, stores have been looted, electricity is off for good and armed gangs in police uniforms man checkpoints and confiscate anything edible. Other than that, everything is fine. It is a story of three generations of the prosperous and privileged Freeman family, who flee the growing mayhem in New York and Boston and hole up at Big Slide, which is their family compound in the Adirondacs.

Big Slide comes complete with a stalwart and competent caretaker, a large collection of guns and fishing tackle, a nearby lake stocked with trout, a forest full of deer, rabbit and seasoned timber felled by a winter storm, a greenhouse and an ample garden plot. If only the Freemans had prepared... but then their varied needs include morphine, a replacement hip joint, a strict vegan diet and plenty of booze—all inaccessible or in short supply, now that even venturing into the nearby town has been deemed inadvisable. Also, with family tensions worthy of Anton Chekhov, can they avoid shooting each other?

Podcasts here I come!

The Green Police

Cheap Trick and the Green Police. Might not be a bad idea. Just wish a car company didn't think of it. Sure a "green" diesel Audi - but it still feels strange.

Mouse Condoms?

Image by laurenatclemson via Flickr

So You Wanna Stop a Massive Extinction? Wear a Condom

Matthew has written about the connection between population growth and climate change before. Improving access to family planning services and contraceptives, and ensuring that low income is no barrier to access, is crucial. But recently The Center for Biological Diversity took it a step further with its new Endangered Species Condom Project. All month long the organization will be handing out condoms which feature a series of six original artworks of endangered animals.


Through Center for Biological Diversity's Endangered Species Condom Project, the organization will be handing out information along with specially ornamented condoms to bring attention to the connection between an exploding population and recent spikes in species extinctions. The human population doubled from 1 to 2 billion between the years 1800 and 1930 and then again by 1975 and today our population is at 6.8 billion, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. And it's no stretch to realize that's there's only so much space on the planet. And as we develop formerly unspoiled areas of land, we spread into delicate habitats and lead to massive extinctions rates. From the bison that used to spread all the way to West Virginia to the massive Caspian Tiger in the Middle East, and the Dodo bird in Mauritius, wondrous creatures are consistently going extinct due to human activity.

They should expand the concept to include all animals - lions, tigers, mice...depending on your mood or prowess.

All kidding aside, the population explosion and the sustainable level of human population rarely enters conversations concerning the ecological future of our planet and our race. It may be a touchy subject but a subject that must be addressed if we are to talk about survival.

Lost in the green

From Camping to Polar Bears: 7 Green Themes in ABC's Lost
My favorite:

Lost Green Theme #5: John Locke is a TreeHugger


More than any other character, John Locke is completely at home on the island -- building shelter, bringing home the bacon (he tends to shoot wild boar). Of course, this might have something to do with the fact that Locke can suddenly walk again after years of paralysis. As he says in season 5, episode 13: "It's not an island, it's a place where miracles happen."


Locke's love for the island doesn't necessarily bode well for the other survivors, as he often goes out of his way to destroy any chance to leave (blowing up submarines et al, not exactly TreeHugger). Yet Locke is still the first of the survivors to really value its beauty and the back-to-basics way of living it brings.

Say No to GMO

Image via Wikipedia

Speak Out on Genetically Engineered Alfalfa

In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. USDA failed to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) before deregulating the crop. An EIS is a rigorous analysis of the potential significant impacts of a federal decision. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the GE plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in an EIS. They released a draft EIS on December 14, 2009. Draft EIS | Supplemental documents
It appears USDA again intends to deregulate GE alfalfa without any limitations or protections for farmers, consumers or the environment. In the new EIS, the USDA has completely dismissed the fact that GE contamination will threaten export and domestic markets and organic meat and dairy products. And, incredibly, USDA is claiming that there is no evidence that consumers care about GE contamination of organic. We know that's not true.
Your Participation is Critical! Take Action by February 16
A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this analysis for any GE crop, so the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops. The failure of the agency to address the impacts of GE alfalfa will have far-reaching consequences for farmers and organic consumers. Let's not be Monsanto's guinea pigs!

Whether you call it GMO or GE - not for me. It is amazing how GMO/GE are creeping their way into our food stream and even our own gardens through seed companies. A little scary? No, a big scary!

Jackson's Earth Song

Nice to see that last night's Grammy had an environmental message amidst the glitz and consumerism of the event. What was the event's carbon footprint? Maybe they should have listened to the song before planning the extravaganza.

Not all hybrids are created equal

Image via Wikipedia

Concerned Scientist Group Says Many Hybrids Aren’t a Good Value

All hybrids have some type of premium associated with them that makes them more expensive than their conventional counterparts, but is that premium really worth it when you consider cost versus reduced environmental impact and fuel savings? It’s a question that thrift-conscious and green-minded consumers often find themselves asking when doing new car research.


It’s a tough question to answer and one that will clearly be different for each individual based on how important it is to reduce environmental impact and fossil fuel use. Yet, even though the process is highly subjective, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) has developed the Hybrid Scorecard to help consumers determine if that premium is worth it for each hybrid on the market.

Visit the Hybrid Scorecard... before that next car buy.