And the oil keeps flowing

Best Chance To Stop Leak Won't Be Ready Until August

The best hope for stopping the flow of oil from the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico has been compared to hitting a target the size of a dinner plate with a drill more than two miles into the earth, and is anything but a sure bet on the first attempt.

Bid after bid has failed to stanch what has already become the nation's worst-ever spill, and BP PLC is readying another patchwork attempt as early as Wednesday, this one a cut-and-cap process to put a lid on the leaking wellhead so oil can be siphoned to the surface.

But the best-case scenario of sealing the leak is two relief wells being drilled diagonally into the gushing well – tricky business that won't be ready until August.

Welcome to the Summer of Environmental Disaster.

O Canada!

Canada Considering a Plan to Slaughter 220,000 Seals

What is a troubled industry to do in order to survive? Well, if you're a lobbyists for Canadian fisheries, the answer may be to simply massacre the competition. A recently disclosed proposal calls for the killing of a whopping 220 thousand grey seals to combat declining fish stocks in the waters off Nova Scotia--lobbyists say the seals have been eating too much cod. The details of the plan are quite nightmarish, involving the use of guns, clubs, incinerators, and even logging equipment to aid in the slaughter of unsuspecting seals, during nursing season, no less, when the beaches will be crowded with newborn pups.

The proposed seal slaughter, according to a study obtained by The Coast, would be carried out on Sable Island in Nova Scotia, one of the species' main breeding grounds. It all stems from the fact that fisheries have been facing declines in fish stocks over the years, a reality they're blaming on the grey seals and not on their own activity. So industry lobbyists have urged the government to snuff out their competition, and the commissioned study confirms that officials are considering the grim plan.

As it turns out, killing 220 thousand seals over the next five years poses a logistical challenge. Rifles would be used to take down adults while pups would be bludgeoned to death with clubs, amounting to 100 thousand seals killed in 25 days the first year. Foresters, equipment normally used to collect felled trees, would gather the carcasses into dumpsters where they would then be set alight.

"At this production rate, a tandem dump truck would be filled with seals approximately every 10 minutes...seven hours a day for 25 days," notes the study.

Kill off natural predators. Wait, follow the logic. Seals killing cod, we kill cod... O Canada, will the Gorton's Fisherman be clubbed next?

L.O.V.E.

LOVE for the Environment

All we need is LOVE.

There are many things and we can (and should) do to preserve and protect our environment if we want to preserve and protect life on Earth. Reducing consumption of resources, reusing products and materials, and recycling what can no longer be reused are all critical to being more sustainable. However, the most important personal thing we can each do for the environment is to fall in LOVE: Local, Organic, Vegetarian/Vegan Eating. (Vegetarians don't eat any animals; even better, vegans don't consume any animal products, including eggs and dairy.)

There is consensus amongst the overwhelming majority of the world's scientists, environmentalists, governments, major corporations, and many others that climate change in the form of global warming is, by far, the most important environmental problem facing life on Earth. Carrying reusable bags, changing to energy-efficient light bulbs, saving water, and driving less are all very good things to do, yet they all pale in comparison to the cool effects of LOVE.

None of these or other positive actions prevent us from doing others, and we should try to do everything we can to live more sustainable lives. However, eating has a much bigger personal impact on the environment - as well as our health and the health of animals - than anything else most of us ever do.

Spread the Love!

Kudos Bernie

New Bill Would Ban Offshore Drilling and Increase Fuel Economy Standard

We learned yesterday that if the average American were to drive 5.4 miles less every day, we'd eliminate the need to drill in the Gulf -- that would be enough to relieve the demand for the 1.75 million barrels that gets pumped out. But could saving gas really be enough incentive to cut out the drilling? Vermont senator Bernie Sanders thinks it could -- he's just introduced legislation that would ban offshore drilling and boost the national fuel economy standard to curb oil demand accordingly. It's a great idea...

The idea is, simply by making our cars as efficient as those in most of the industrialized world, we could eliminate the need for dangerous offshore drilling.

Though some will inevitably view such legislative efforts as pie-in-the-sky ambition, the only reason that's the case that oil has such a stranglehold on our economy -- and creative efforts to start staving it off are met with the well worn narrative that it'd be too harsh for the industries; not just oil, but auto, and manufacturing as well, to start backing off petroleum.

Well, I say it's high time we get creative, and applaud Sanders' vision here. Let's hope that in the face of this devastating disaster in the Gulf, Congress takes this great bill as seriously as it should.

Finally. Too late? Just Words?

Obama’s finally connecting the Gulf spill and clean energy.

"The reason that folks are now having to go down a mile deep into the ocean, and then another mile drilling into the ground below, that is because the easy oil fields and oil wells are gone, or they're starting to diminish.

That tells us that we've got to have a long-term energy strategy in this country. And we've got to start cultivating solar and wind and biodiesel. And we've got to increase energy efficiency across our economy in our buildings and our automobiles."

Today at the Solyndra solar panel plant in Fremont, Calif:

"Climate change poses a threat to our way of life -- in fact, we're already beginning to see its profound and costly impact. And the spill in the Gulf, which is just heartbreaking, only underscores the necessity of seeking alternative fuel sources ...

Fifteen years ago, the United States produced 40 percent of the world's solar panels -- 40 percent. That was just 15 years ago. By 2008, our share had fallen to just over 5 percent. I don't know about you, but I'm not prepared to cede American leadership in this industry, because I'm not prepared to cede America's leadership in the global economy.

So that's why we've placed a big emphasis on clean energy ... But we've still got more work to do, and that's why I'm going to keep fighting to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation in Washington. We're going to try to get it done this year, because what we want to do is create incentives that will fully unleash the potential for jobs and growth in this sector."

"We're going to try to get it done this year" doesn't presage a full-court press. But it's a step in the right direction.

Redesigning cities and towns

New Urbanism Evolves; The Future is "Agrarian Urbanism"

Greg Lindsay of Fast Company attends the 18th annual conference on New Urbanism, the architectural movement founded by Andrés Duany that tries to imbibe new communities with lessons from the old. But he finds that Duany has moved on. Lindsay writes:

"Duany believes the metaphorical asteroid -- call it peak oil, climate change, the collapse of complex structures -- is on its way. He's trying to push the body of planners and architects toward a small-town America that more closely resembles pre-1850 America than pre-1950."

Duany is now talking about the next big thing: agrarian urbanism.

Lindsay continues:

Agrarian urbanism, he explained, is different from both "urban agriculture" ("cities that are retrofitted to grow food") and "agricultural urbanism" ("when an intentional community is built that is associated with a farm)." He was thinking bigger: "Agrarian urbanism is a society involved with the growing of food."

ames Howard Kunstler was there as well, and gives his overview in Clusterf**k Nation, including a bit of history of the New Urbanist revolution:

The basic idea behind the New Urbanism was that the quality and character of the places where we spend our lives matters, and that the surrender of the entire American landscape to Happy Motoring was an historic aberration that had to be corrected if the USA was going to continue as a viable project. Among other things, they noticed that if people live in places that aren't worth caring about, sooner or later they end up being a nation not worth defending -- and this is on top of the daily personal punishments suffered by hundreds of millions of people dwelling in a geography of nowhere.

He points out that the New Urbanists were fiercely opposed and often mocked as "being slaves to worn-out traditions -- like walking from home to work."

Now that people are finally catching up to these basics, the movement is evolving again. Kunstler writes:

The most forward-looking leaders in the New Urbanist movement now recognize that we have to reorganize the landscape for local food production, because industrial agriculture will be one of the prime victims of our oil predicament. The successful places in the future will be places that have a meaningful relationship with growing food close to home.

Seize the Moment

We are now in the 36th day of a man-made environmental disaster which is fast becoming an ecological apocalypse for countless species of marine life. The ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico cannot survive wave after wave of toxic substances hitting the beaches.

The ultimate surprise is not that it happened. Oil companies, and Democratic and Republican administrations, refuse responsibility and rejected alternatives. In this privatization of the natural world, damage to sea life is the cost of doing business. The ultimate horror is that we can't stop the oil flood, won't stop consumption of oil products and fail to admit the limits of technology.

This is a morality play writ large as environmental collapse becomes the new normal. Can we realistically look to Washington alone to protect the natural world? More permits for offshore drilling have been issued. We must look to the consequences of our own demand and consumption: the energy we use, the kind of cars we drive, the products we buy, the food we eat, and our individual impact on the natural world.

We can seize this moment. We as individuals can begin a green wave of sustainability to save the planet--and ourselves.

Always liked Dennis.

Enemy Earthworms?

Image via Wikipedia

Invasive Worms Eat Baby Plants

Earthworms, it has long been thought, benefit plants by recycling nutrients—leading to richer soil for the plants to grown in. New research, however, has uncovered some unexpected—and potentially unsettling—worm behavior.

Instead of simply rejuvenating the soil, these studies have found, earthworms actually hunt for young plants and seeds—devouring them before they have a chance to poke through the surface.

To study the worms' dietary preferences, researchers offered them a variety of seeds and seedlings. The noticed that the earthworms selectively fed on slow-germinating, nitrogen-rich seeds and seedlings. This behavior inevitably led to the death of the plant but the worms that were able to find these meals grew larger and performed better than those that did not.

For gardeners who see a clear benefit from increased earthworm activity, these findings could help them attract even more into their beds. Indeed, because of javascript:void(0)their important role in maintaining soil health, earthworms cannot in most cases be considered pests.

Still, when exotic worms enter non-native habitats, endemic plants may be unable to cope with the new predators. These recent findings support field observations that the introduction of earthworms is sometimes followed by the extinction of local plants.

Nico Eisenhauer, who led the study, explained:

The finding that earthworms function as seedling predators highlights the necessity to prevent the further anthropogenic spread of exotic earthworms.

Hope my local earthworms don't fall into this camp. Sort of reminds me of Dune's spice eating worms.

Last year's experiment

Image via Wikipedia

Growing Vegetables Upside Down

Growing crops that dangle upside down from homemade or commercially available planters is growing more popular, and its adherents swear they’ll never come back down to earth.

“I’m totally converted,” said Mark McAlpine, a body piercer in Guelph, Ontario, who began growing tomatoes upside down two years ago because cutworms were ravaging the ones he planted in the ground. He made six planters out of five-gallon plastic buckets, some bought at the Home Depot and some salvaged from the trash of a local winemaker. He cut a two-inch hole in the bottom of each bucket and threaded a tomato seedling down through the opening, packing strips of newspaper around the root ball to keep it in place and to prevent dirt from falling out.

He then filled the buckets with soil mixed with compost and hung them on sturdy steel hooks bolted to the railing of his backyard deck. “Last summer was really hot so it wasn’t the best crop, but I still was able to jar enough whole tomatoes, half tomatoes, salsa and tomato sauce to last me through the winter,” said Mr. McAlpine, who plans an additional six upside-down planters this year.

Tried last year by planting tomatoes in some 5 gallon buckets. My result? The stems were cracking and twisting from the weight. Had to be watered every day. So this year? All in the ground the traditional (?) way.

Too ambitious for the US?

Why not try?

Indian State of Kerala Starts 10-Year Conversion to All-Organic Farming

The southern Indian state of Kerala has officially announced a new farming policy which aims to covert all agriculture in the state to organic methods over the next ten years. In the first phase 30,000 hectares converted, The Hindu Business Line reports, and then proceeds in a "phased and compact manner."

The policy advocates adopting a compact area group approach in organic farming by encouraging formation of organic farmers groups, clubs, self-help groups and cooperatives for the purpose of cultivation, input production, certification and marketing.

There is need for ensuring organic farming approach in all the watershed development areas and extend support, including capacity building and financial assistance, for soil and water conservation measures through ongoing programmes.

In order the facilitate the transition, the policy highlights the need to provide interest-free loans to small and marginal farmers.

Recently, the state of Sikkim, in the northeast part of the country, announced that it had converted 6,000 of its 70,000 hectares of agricultural land to organic agriculture, on way to converting it all by 2015.

More reasons...

vegetarian or at least know where and how your chickens are raised.
More Factory Farming Means More Antibiotic-Resistant Urinary Tract Infections

Chalk up yet another reason to oppose factory farming: BBC News reports that scientists from the University of Hong Kong have found evidence that overuse of antibiotics on farm animals is leading to an increase in antibiotic-resistant human urinary tract infections.

Tough oil...

Peak Oil

Be Prepared for a Lot More Eco-Disasters: We're Entering the Age of 'Tough Oil'

Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history. Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time of ever increasing reliance on problematic, hard-to-reach energy sources. Make no mistake: we’re entering the danger zone. And brace yourself, the fate of the planet could be at stake.

ow, in the rush to develop hard-to-reach reserves in Alaska, the Arctic, and deep-offshore waters, we’re returning to a particularly dangerous version of those swashbuckling days. As energy companies encounter fresh and unexpected hazards, their existing technologies -- largely developed in more benign environments -- often prove incapable of responding adequately to the new challenges. And when disasters occur, as is increasingly likely, the resulting environmental damage is sure to prove exponentially more devastating than anything experienced in the industrial annals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

While poor oversight and faulty equipment may have played a critical role in BP’s catastrophe in the Gulf, the ultimate source of the disaster is big oil’s compulsive drive to compensate for the decline in its conventional oil reserves by seeking supplies in inherently hazardous areas -- risks be damned.

So long as this compulsion prevails, more such disasters will follow. Bet on it.

It is going to be interesting in the next few years.

Rush on the Crazy Train again...

Image via Wikipedia

...or is it that he just never got off.
Make The Sierra Club Pay For The BP Oil Spill Clean Up

Loudmouth, crank and comedian Rush Limbaugh has spewed some serious whoppers over some serious environmental problems such as climate change and offshore drilling. A few months ago, he told New York Times blogger Andrew Revkin to "go kill himself" after Revkin blogged abut a new report that shows that access to reproductive health care could be an important tool to help stop climate change. Now Rush is asking, "When do we ask the Sierra Club to pick up the tab for this leak?"

Limbaugh seems to think that the Sierra Club, the nation's most venerable group that works for the protection of the natural world, is somehow responsible for the spill because of its campaigning against offshore drilling, which, according to Rush, has made the oil companies drill "way, way, way offshore."

Never mind that the Club is actually campaigning against any new drilling, let alone that which is far offshore and more dangerous for oil workers and the ocean.

Last month, Rush told his millions of listeners that the spill is really nothing to worry about at all: "The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there," Limbaugh said. "It's natural. It's as natural as the ocean water is."

Love Rush. Always good for a laugh!

Root

Forget the root beer. Gotta get me some Root!

Here at Art In the Age we’ve worked diligently to reproduce colonial Root Tea in all of its genuine glory. Well, we’ll be honest, you can’t use sassafras root anymore since the FDA banned it in 1960, but we’ve gotten pretty close with our special essence of sassafras made from citrus, wintergreen, and spearmint. Our certified-organic ROOT is a truly contemplative quaff, rooted in history and our own cultural landscape. It’s certainly like nothing we have ever tasted before. It is not Root Beer-flavored vodka or sickly sweet liqueur.

Anyone going to be in Pennsylvania in the next few days?

Haiti's answer to GMO

Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds

"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent of May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the Executive Director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds..., and on what is left our environment in Haiti."[1] Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Some may scoff at burning the seeds when there is hunger in the country. But is the solution introducing pesticide laced GMO seeds the answer? Don't think so.

Just another reason...

Image via Wikipedia

Pesticide Exposure Linked to Increased Risk of ADHD

An interesting new study from scientists at the University of Montreal and Harvard University has found a connection between exposure to organophosphate pesticides, at levels common among US children, and increased risk of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

How many more reasons/clues/signs do we need to realize that we are poisoning ourselves?

It's a gusher

Gulf Oil SPILL: What a Lie

Spill? The corporate media continues to call the volcano of continuous gushing oil, in the Gulf, a spill. How insulting. A volcano that shoots out a million gallons of crude oil a day, or a week, is hardly a spill.

The common definition of a spill is the liquid that fell out of a container, a one time occurrence, not a massive flow that has no known end. An oil tanker can spill oil; but not Mother Earth, who has been, and still is, continuously gushing oil from 35,000 feet from within her bowels.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill, of about 10.8 million gallons of crude, on the 24th of March 1989, in the Prince William Sound of Alaska, is considered by many to be the most devastating humanly-caused environmental disaster ever to occur in history.

Currently, the oil gusher in the Gulf produces an Exxon Valdez disaster about every four days to a week.

Spill or Gusher? No matter which word you use - it is still devastating!

A not too bright future

Global Warming: A localized pause and then the end of our civilization

The majority of the American population now thinks that global warming probably doesn't exist. Part of that is the huge amount of money which has been spent on propaganda, but part of it is that the only continent which is not experiencing increased temperatures right now--is North America. If you want to be a climate change denialist, America is a great place to live.

It is also true that the speed of global warming has slowed down. This is primarily due to two factors:

1) The sunspot cycle. Solar radiation is currently at its lowest level in some time. Less heat equals, well, less heat.

2) The icecap and glacial dump. The polar icepack being dumped into the oceans has had a cooling effect.

The sunspot cycle can change pretty much any time it wants. Probably we've got a decade or so at lower heat levels, but that's not a sure thing. As for the icecap and glacier dump: well, once the ice is gone, it's gone.

The bottom line is that we are going to see things get worse, more slowly, in terms of temperature rises. We will, however, keep getting crazy weather, changes to weather patterns are an early sign of climate change.

Once the mitigating factors are gone the pace of global warming will pick up again, and it will pick up fiercely.

Now, as for fixing it--there are two main problems. The first is the will to do something. While there may be technical solutions which would reduce the amount of carbon we are dumping into the atmosphere, there is no will to deploy them on a wide enough scale to matter. This is as true in China as it in the US, and without China and the developing world coming on board, what the US does, assuming it does anything, will not be sufficient (and the US will not do anything, the propaganda campaign claiming there is no Global Warming has been successful.)

The second is that there will come a point where global warming becomes a self reinforcing cycle. With no glacial caps and with the methane released from Siberia, even radical decreases in human CO2 dumping will probably not be sufficient to stop the cycle.

Add to this the severe water shortages we can expect, which will hit large parts of African, a huge swathe of China, much of India and a big chunk of the US, as aquifers are drained down to effectively zero, and you have a recipe for huge loss of life and destabilizing migratory movements.

It is also entirely possible that large parts of the tropics will become effectively uninhabitable, the combination of humidity and temperature will be so high that it will literally be lethal to be outside air conditioning for any length of time for much of the year.

If world population is only reduced by a billion, I will be amazed. I also expect some serious wars. Our civilization will not go quietly into that long long night.

Need more exciting news about the future? Tomorrow is back-to-work Monday!

Buyer beware

Companies Misleading Consumers with the Word 'Organic'?

Some food companies have found a way to cast their processed foods as organic without going through the inconvenience of using certified organic ingredients in their products. By incorporating "organic" into their names, these companies have been able to display the magic word on the packaging of food products that are not in fact certified organic.

This deception has recently been called out by the Cornucopia Institute, an organic watchdog group, which has filed complaints with the National Organic Standards Board and Federal Trade Commission.

The alleged infractions run the spectrum from blatant misrepresentation, in the case of Oskri Organics, to stretching the limits of evolving definitions of organic, in the case of a surprise entry in Cornucopia's list of shame: the much-loved Newman's Own Organics.

Regulations and standards needed.

GMO litmus test

Image via Wikipedia

Is Elena Kagan Leading Us Toward a Pro-GMO Supreme Court?

It's a good thing for Elena Kagan that there's no non-GMO litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. She'd flunk.

As solicitor general, Kagan is supposed to represent the interests of the American people in matters that come before the Supreme Court. Instead, she has gone to bat for Monsanto. In a case that the court is currently considering, Monsanto is trying to overturn a 2007 California decision that imposed a nationwide injunction on planting the company's genetically modified alfalfa. In March, Kagan's office interceded on Monsanto's behalf (click here for a PDF of its brief) even though the government was not a defendant in the appeal. The original suit was brought by Geertson Seed Farms and a collection of environmental groups, who claimed that pollen from Monsanto's Roundup Ready alfalfa could contaminate neighboring plots of conventional alfalfa, causing irreparable harm to Geertson's non-GMO business.

Not too green is she!

Oil money in her pocket

Big Oil Keeps Its Bailout -- For Now

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski moved today to guarantee a bailout of BP and other parties responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil catastrophe. Senator Robert Menendez had introduced legislation, (The Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act) that would have ensured BP can't hide behind the $75 million liability cap that the oil industry had previously lobbied and obtained from Congress for damages from an oil spill.

But Murkowski, once again using the Senate's "Polish rules" by which a single senator can prevent the majority from legislating in a crisis, blocked consideration of the bill. By objecting to proceeding with the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act, Murkowski did a huge favor for her allies and financial supporters in the oil industry. That's because Menendez's bill not only would have protected fishermen and communities in the Gulf of Mexico from being stuck with the bill for Big Oil's recklessness at Deepwater Horizon -- it would also have ensured that, as the oil industry moves into even more-dangerous Arctic waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, it would be held accountable for future catastrophes.

Pissed at Lisa for two reasons. One because she bowed down to the mighty oil dollar. And two - having Polish heritage - am appalled that a tactic called "Polish rules" will benefit Big Oil.

They didn't learn

Shell Arctic Drilling Plan Gets Court Approval

A federal appeals court Thursday removed a legal challenge standing in the way of Shell Oil's plans to drill wells off Alaska's shore this summer.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a case that challenged federal approval of Shell's exploratory drilling plans in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

I guess those three judges aren't watching BP's little problem.

Shake the habit

The Dementia of Petroleum Addiction?

Petroleum executives assure us that their giant tankers and offshore oil rigs pose no danger to the environment; coal company CEOs insist that their mines are safe and that blasting off mountaintops is ecologically benign; natural gas companies claim that "fracking" deep underground geological formations will not contaminate fresh water aquifers; and nuclear power promoters tell us not to worry about core meltdowns or the disposal of millions of tons of highly radioactive waste.

Do we have S-T-U-P-I-D written on our foreheads? Or do we just choose to swallow these lies because, like addicts everywhere, we need these pushers to provide us with our daily energy fix?

These energy "suppliers" have a sordid history of crimes against nature, and their assurances of safety have proven tragically wrong time and time again. Clearly their drive for profit knows no ethical or legal bounds. So why do we continue buy their lies, and reward them with lavish subsidies and tax breaks, instead of kicking our habit and sending these petroleum pushers to prison?

It's time to purge our petroleum-clogged economic arteries and clear our heads of gasoline fumes and high-octane dementia. Fossil fuel addiction is distorting our judgment and allowing these energy pushers to get away with murder and ecocide. Unless we come to our senses soon, we will have sacrificed the planet to feed our addiction.

It is in so many things we wear. It is involved in food product. It is all around us. It is time to rethink our consumer habits. Time to simplify for our future.

Peaking

DOE Still Disavows Peak Oil Forecast, Despite New Studies

The U.S. Department of Energy has long disavowed peak oil theory: the notion that annual world oil production will peak, plateau, and then enter a decline. But the agency’s stance appears increasingly at odds with the future predicted by many world energy analysts, including the US military.

In February, the United Kingdom Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security—a group comprised in part by renewable energy companies—published a report warning that global peak oil would probably occur within the next decade.

And in March, the U.S. Joint Forces Command released its Joint Operating Environment 2010 report, a forecast of likely national security challenges. Drawing on several energy information sources, the report concluded that "world surplus oil production could disappear by 2012, and shortages of 10 million barrels per day could be seen as soon as 2015."

With the BP Gulf oil disaster continuing with no resolution in sight and mounting public concern over the wisdom of offshore drilling, more pressure is mounting on DOE to justify its optimistic forecasts and its belief that the nation will be producing millions of more barrels of oil a day within two decades.

So the truth may win out. Is this the proverbial "every cloud has a silver lining?"

Finally...

Cancer Warning Ring Any Bells?

A recent New York Times column from Nicholas Kristof illustrates, almost inadvertently, why the rise of new, less cautious reporting outfits (WhoWhatWhy for example) is so crucial. Headlined "New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer," the essay describes a new report on cancer from a presidential board...

But why have we--and columnists upon whom we depend for our analysis, waited until the mainstream finally confirmed the warnings of the "fringe"?

Why wait until establishment bodies finally do their thing?

As I said - we already knew. Baker says it better than me. Wait - am I "fringe" since I knew?

King Radish

Image via Wikipedia

Roasted Radishes: So Who Knew?

OF all the things you can do with a radish — slice it into salads, chop it into salsa, shred it into slaw or, better, top it with a thick layer of sweet butter and a sprinkling of flaky sea salt — the last thing I’d thought to do was cook it.

But last spring I started noticing roasted radishes sprouting up on menus all over New York City. Even the fancy takeout shop near my house was offering them every now and again. Clearly, there was a reason to cook a radish, and I wanted in.

So I gave it a try, roasting a bunch of halved radishes in a hot oven with plenty of butter and lemon juice.

One mouthful, and I immediately got the appeal. Instead of spicy, crisp and crunchy, these radishes were sweet, succulent and mellow, vaguely like turnips but with a softer bite.

I continued to cook radishes all season long, pan roasting them instead of oven roasting when the weather became too hot. I usually ate them for lunch sprinkled with feta cheese and herbs, or sometimes left them naked but for extra sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Then winter came. Tender radishes vanished from the farmers’ market, and I forgot all about them, until a friend served them at a dinner party in January. They were prepared raw, slathered with an anchovy-and-garlic-laden bagna cauda sauce. The combination of garlic, anchovy, butter and tangy radish hit the exact umami notes that I always crave. So I knew that the moment radishes came back into season I’d try the same thing.

At last I had the chance when they reappeared at the farmers’ market last month. While the radishes were roasting, I stirred together a quick sauce similar to bagna cauda. Then I piled the soft radishes and pungent sauce onto toasted crusty bread, crostini style.

The toast sopped up the sauce, making it possible to get an even greater garlicky sauce-to-radish ratio in each bite than without the spongy cushion. It also made the radishes seem like more of a meal than my usual bowl of warm salad.

Sometimes the most familiar ingredients are the ones with secret lives.

And you thought it was for salads only.

Sauteed radish with the tops is great. You'll find a reason to grow them more often!

Front gardens

Edible Estates

Have we convinced you yet that there are better things to do with the water, equipment, fuel, energy and pesticides that go into maintaining a traditional lawn? If we haven't, add this voice into the mix: Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn by Fritz Haeg. This expanded second edition won't overwhelm you with how-to minutiae or examples of perfection you could never hope to achieve on your own. Instead, you get a steady stream of inspiration: region-by-region prototypes, planting calendars, yes, but also full-blown essays by sustainability supporters such as Michael Pollan and Lesley Stern.

"By attacking the front lawn," writes the author, "an essential icon of the American Dream, my hope is to ignite a chain reaction of thoughts that question other antiquated conventions of home, street, neighborhood, city, and global networks that we take for granted. If we see that our neighbor’s typical lawn instead can be a beautiful food garden, perhaps we begin to look at the city around us with new eyes. The seemingly inevitable urban structures begin to unravel as we recognize that we have a choice about how we want to live and what we want to do with the places we have inherited from previous generations. No matter what has been handed to us, each of us should be given license to be an active part in the creation of the cities that we share, and in the process, our private land can be a public model for the world in which we would like to live."

Will we be able to overcome our American preoccupation with lawns that project the right image to the neighbors? It's a major shift for many—but perhaps planting a book like Edible Estates on your neighbor's coffee table might inspire more fruitful plantings in the front yard.

My garden out of necessity is in my front yard. And the lawn spaces are not what my neighbors would call grass. Think moss, dandelions, violets...

Hey I like it.

Last frost?

How to Cover Plants for Frost Protection

A fabric covering will allow moisture to escape but will still protect plants from frost by preventing the freezing air from coming into direct contact with the moisture. Bed sheets work well for covering large plants and shrubs, as well as young sprouts. Newspaper can be used on low-growing foliage, but won’t stay on top of larger plants well.

Bed sheets and newspapers over my tomatoes, peppers and potatoes. Lettuce, beets, bok choi - you guys have to fend for yourselves but I know you guys can take it. Basil - you are nestled snug and warm in the garage.

What we do for our gardens. Covering plants in the dark guided by flashlights. Waking early, before work, to check on the garden and remove the covers.

Whole Earth Catalog to...?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stewart Brand
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

"Thirty years ago, the environmental movement sort of decided some things, and it hasn't changed much since, and the world's changed a lot," Brand said. "So I think now that cities are green, nuclear power is green, genetically-engineered crops are green..."

Nuke power green? I don't believe that. I clearly don't think GMO is green. Both are dangerous!

Time to take my "Whole Earth Catalog" off the shelf?

Organic for Health

President's Cancer Panel

If you haven’t yet heard the news, you will. Yesterday the President’s Cancer Panel released a report that is nothing less than monumental for the organic food movement.

It urges consumers to choose food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, antibiotics and growth hormones to decrease their exposure to chemicals that can increase their risk of developing cancer.

This landmark report by a prestigious mainstream scientific panel is recognition at the highest level that the chemicals present in our environment have direct and serious consequences for human health — especially for children, who are far more susceptible to damage from environmental chemical exposures than adults.

Finally the halls of the White House are telling us what we knew for so long.

Problem? E Coli

Lettuce in 23 states recalled over E. coli fears

An E. coli outbreak possibly linked to tainted lettuce has sickened at least 19 people in Ohio, New York and Michigan, including students on at least two college campuses, prompting a recall throughout much of the country.

Freshway Foods of Sidney, Ohio, said it was recalling romaine lettuce sold in 23 states and the District of Columbia because of a possible link to E. coli.

The FDA is focusing its investigation on lettuce grown in Arizona as a possible source for the outbreak...

Solution: Grow your own!

Biochar in my garden

Image via Wikipedia

An Introduction to Biochar

Additional excitement came with the discovery of deep dark areas of “terra preta do indio” — Indian black earth — in the Amazon rainforest where the soil generally is thin, red, acidic and infertile. The patches of terra preta are alkaline with a high carbon content, and contain pot­shards indicating that it was not natural: a pre-Columbian civilization had created it. It is extracted and widely used by garden contractors because it is so fertile. It has remained fertile and retained its carbon content through the centuries.

Terra preta is black because it contains large amounts of charcoal. Infertile land had been converted to fertile land that supported a thriving civilization through the wise use of the trees that had been felled. Could charcoal, therefore, not only be a vehicle for reducing global warming but also a means to increase the fertility of degraded land, and help feed the world?

Charcoal used for this purpose is referred to as biochar. Biochar is pulverised charcoal made from any organic material (not just wood) and, when mixed with soil, it enhances its fertility. It locks carbon into the soil and increases the yield of crops. To many, this appears the closest thing to a miracle.

I have added biochar to my garden along with compost and am amazed at the positive impact it has had on my soil and crops. How to make Biochar?

To make biochar, pile up woody debris in a shallow pit in a garden bed. Burn the brush until the smoke tins and then damp-down the fire by covering it with about an inch of soil. Let it smolder until the brush is charred, then put the fire out.

Unlike tiny tidbits of ash, coarse lumps of charcoal are full of crevices and holes, which help them serve as life rafts to soil microorganisms. The carbon compounds in charcoal form loose chemical bonds with soluble plant nutrients so they are not as readily washed away by rain and irrigation. Biochar alone added to poor soil has little benefit to plants, but when used in combination with compost and organic fertilizers, it can dramatically improve plant growth while helping retain nutrients in the soil.

Try it. Just don't stand in the smoke like I did. You'll be smelling like an open fire for two days!

Catch Levon Helm in concert

It's too late baby...

Lovelock Tells BBC That Mankind Cannot Save Gaia

James Lovelock, the scientist who put forth the Gaia Theory, has told the BBC it is too late for us to save the planet. According to Gaia Theory, the entire earth is a single organism, connected and interactive. Only just over a month ago, Lovelock called for authoritarian intervention while questioning whether humans are clever enough to respond correctly to the complexities of global warming.

In this newest interview, the perpetual pessimist seems to have made his peace with the inevitable, perhaps even with the end of mankind (though not the planet)....

With the BP disaster, freak weather...we may know sooner than later whether he is right.

The Increasing Impact

Texas Governor on the Crazy Train

‘An Act of God’

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas says he has “full confidence” in BP; he says the spill was “an act of God.”

Sure and God told BP to not install back-up emergency shut-offs.

Drilling for trouble

How Can You Even Think of Drilling at a Time Like This?

That's what I want to know. Yesterday, I blasted some particularly ignorant pols and pundits who were still including shout outs to offshore drilling in their standard boilerplate speeches -- but nobody would be seriously seeking to advocate a policy of expanded drilling right now, would they? Rational pros and cons aside, it'd just be politically, well, stupid, right? Evidently not to Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, who represents the very state that stands to get pummeled by the oil, and House Minority Leader John Boehner. They're both seriously seeking to approve more offshore drilling right now.

Yes -- right now, as a bare minimum of 200,000 gallons of oil (higher estimates put it closer to 1 million) spews into the Gulf a day, and a supreme case of negligence (albeit legal) from BP that allowed the disaster to happen unfolding before our eyes, these politicians are seriously already trying to lobby for expanded drilling

They think that Climate Change is a figment of the imagination. When the slick comes ashore will they think it is just some CGI trick? Or will they simply ignore the facts so their wallets can benefit?

Ginger Beer Kombucha

Homebrewed Berry zinger kombucha +
homebrewed Ginger Beer =

YUMMY!

Had a little of each left over in the bottles and mixed them together. Took a hesitant sip and then downed it with gusto.

Fermenting madness has come over me!

Oil is everywhere

Scientist Doesn't See a Way for Preventing Oil From Reaching Florida Keys, Eastern Seaboard

Scientists say the Gulf oil spill could get into the what's called the Loop Current within a day, eventually carrying oil south along the Florida coast and into the Florida Keys.

Nick Shay, a physical oceanographer at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said Monday once the oil enters the Loop Current, it likely will end up in the Keys and continue east into the Gulf Stream.

Shay says the oil could affect Florida's beaches, coral reefs, fisheries and ecosystem within a week.

He described the Loop Current as similar to a "conveyor belt," sweeping around the Gulf, through the Keys and right up the East Coast.

Shay says he cannot think of any scenario where the oil doesn't eventually reach the Florida Keys.

Thanks BP. We are all in deep oily doo-doo! That's the oil scientists' term for Deep Shit!

Plow to Pint

That is series put out by Fullsteam.

Fullsteam is a Durham, North Carolina brewery-in-planning set to open in late spring. We are not yet open to the public or distributing our beers, but we can’t wait to do so! Our mission is to create a distinctly Southern beer style using local farmed goods, heirloom grains, and Southern botanicals.

The Sweet Potato Ale sounds great but I cannot wait to try....

Hogwash! hickory-smoked porter
Crafted to pair with North Carolina barbecue, this hickory-smoked porter is special. Malted barley is home-smoked over local hickory, creating a dark-and-smoky beer. Light on the hops. Here, the emphasis is on the smoke, bringing out just a touch more of that Carolina ‘cue trademark subtle smoke. Western or Eastern…for once it don’t matter none. 6.5% ABV

As a non-meat eater maybe I can have Carolina BBQ in a bottle.

Should I not drink beer?

Image via Wikipedia

Study: Mosquitoes Prefer the Blood of Beer Drinkers

Barley and hops means more bumps and itching, according to a recent study that says mosquitoes prefer to bite beer drinkers. As if we needed more reasons to kill mosquitoes.

Back to the study, researchers exposed mosquitoes to body odors from water drinkers and beer drinkers. The bugs preferred the "breath and skin emanations" of beer drinkers. (Insert joke here about attractiveness of beer-drinking men to single ladies).

According to an abstract, the study was done "to ascertain the effect of beer consumption on human attractiveness to malaria mosquitoes in semi field conditions in Burkina Faso" in West Africa.

Researchers concluded that "beer consumption is a risk factor for malaria and needs to be integrated into public health policies for the design of control measures."

So stop the suds or get ready for some scratching? The votes are in - scatching it is.

Rush on the crazy train

Image via Wikipedia

Rush Says Greens Might Be Behind BP Disaster

I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. ... Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade, that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they're sending SWAT teams down there, folks, since they're sending SWAT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing here.

He is not the only passenger on the train. From Infowars

Oil rigs are being attacked in order to shut down oil production, not nationalize it. The name of the game is artificial scarcity designed to further cripple the economy.

On Friday, Obama promised that no new offshore oil drilling leases will be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion that unleashed the massive spill threatening the Gulf Coast, according to the Associated Press.

The number of structures in the Gulf is roughly 4,000, with 819 manned platforms. How long do you think it will take an ossified federal government to install these safeguards?

As Lindsey Williams has noted, the global elite are manipulating oil in order to create a world-wide economic depression. “America will see a financial collapse so great that it will take years to come out of it,” Williams told Alex Jones on November 21, 2008.

The same crew call global warming a major hoax. Those glaciers that are melting? Look for soldiers with very large blow torches...

If it kills bugs...