She Flies With Her Own Wings

Jon Huntsman: I will not run for President in 2012

2011-05-17T13:11:00.001-04:00

I'm not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we'd listen to them.

This is good news

2011-05-14T17:14:00.003-04:00

We're producing more renewable energy than we can use!

PORTLAND, Ore. – The manager of most of the electricity in the Pacific Northwest is running such a surplus of power from hydroelectric dams that it put wind farms on notice Friday that they may be shut down as early as this weekend.

In a few months, of course, there won't be as much hydroelectric power available as the summer dry season takes its usual course. Given that this is an unusual year, it presumably doesn't warrant building additional power lines. But if this is becomes more of a regular phenomenon--it's wet and windy in the spring in the Northwest!--more power lines will have to be built to send the juice to California. Siting will be an issue, power lines are ugly, but Eastern Oregon has a number of fairly uninhabited places that don't all have the most spectacular scenery in the world. For instance, I wouldn't want a wind farm on the top of Steens Mountain, but there are other areas down in the Southern part of the state that could reasonably accommodate additional wind farms and power transmission lines.

Methane leaks

2011-05-14T16:52:00.002-04:00

This is preposterous

Their work updates earlier findings that unaccounted-for gas amounted to eight billion cubic feet in Massachusetts, costing about $40 million. Such gas leaks have been implicated in damage and mortality of urban and suburban street trees. Evidence from other cities indicates that the situation in Boston is likely similar to cities and towns across the nation. [...]

Recent measurements indicate that urban emissions are a significant source of CH4 and in fact may be substantially higher than current inventory estimates. As such, urban emissions could contribute 7-15 percent to the global anthropogenic budget of methane. Although it is known that the per capita carbon footprint of compact cities such as New York City, Boston, and San Francisco are smaller than sprawling cities such as Houston, the strengths of individual sources within these cities are not well known.

But the moment anyone suggests we write regulations forcing companies to not lose as much gas, we'd be labelled anti-inudstry.

Because I am who I am...

2011-05-10T14:24:00.003-04:00

...I look at the raw data first.

Yesterday, the right wing media was all in a tizzy about a report [PDF] describing long waiting times in Massachusetts for primary care physician appointments. Of course the right wing tried to tie that in with the horrors of ROMNEYCARE. Jonathan Cohn makes a good argument against these claims, but I have one more thing to add to that [click to enlarge the example from pediatrics specialties]:

Notice the enormous standard deviation in each county except Dukes (Martha's Vineyard) and Franklin (rural Western MA). Imagine you were to live in suburban Middlesex county and want a [first doctor's] appointment for your son or daughter, and one place you called told you to come by 8.5 months later. You'd probably call around a little and eventually find the one that tells you that you can come by the next day. Considering that the averages are towards the lower number, that tells us that many doctor's office waiting times cluster toward lower rather than the upper extreme, and that the outliers likely skew the average upwards. In other words, you'd be more likely to find a physician who could see your child earlier rather than later. Additionally, many people in Middlesex have relatively easy access to the larger university medical centers in Boston, so they could find someone who could take them earlier there as well.

Clearly, Franklin and Dukes county need some work, though.

Kidz Koal Korner

2011-05-10T13:55:00.005-04:00

What's funny about the Coal Cares spoof website is how well it emulates the real highest-quality BS coming out of so-called "free market" think tanks and fossil fuel lobbying groups.
Anyone who could come up with this sort of billboard...

...might be expected to come up with statements just like this:

Some environmentalists have suggested that coal companies should install an untested technology called "scrubbers" atop coal plants to make them burn more cleanly, reducing coal particulate exposure as one cause of childhood asthma. There are two problems with this idea. For one thing, these "scrubbers" will by no means remove enough of the coal particulates to avoid causing asthma. More importantly, the "scrubbers" are very expensive, and would inevitably result in a rise in the price of energy—hammering already hammered American household budgets. Locating the filtering mechanism at the point of consumption (i.e., your child's mouth) is dramatically more cost-effective than locating it at the point of emission (smokestacks), and in turn means less need for intrusive and costly regulation. You and your child can choose how, when, and if to apply treatment—and, thanks to the Puff-Puff™ line of inhalers, what that treatment will look like!

If you wouldn't know it's a spoof, you'd be fooled into believing it's true.

Case in point, Peabody Coal responds to the spoof thusly:

Peabody is proud to help hundreds of millions of people live longer and better through coal-fueled electricity. A growing collection of studies demonstrate the correlation between electricity fueled by low-cost coal and improvement in health, longevity and quality of life. The United Nations has linked life expectancy, educational attainment and income with per-capita electricity use, and the World Resources Institute found that for every 10-fold increase in per-capita energy use, individuals live 10 years longer.

And no, even though it sounds like it, it's not a spoof [via David Roberts].

2011-05-01T11:00:00.001-04:00

Bostonography. So true.

A heartwarming video

2011-04-29T15:24:00.001-04:00

at Dogwork. For the weekend, and because I'm a little busy these next couple of days.

I do hope Trump doesn't lose focus on what really matters

2011-04-28T11:43:00.006-04:00

Releasing Obama's college transcripts.

The electrical poles are not the problem...

2011-04-28T10:30:00.001-04:00

...but the solar panels on them are.

WTF?

But...but...speculators are innocent bystanders!

2011-04-27T12:36:00.002-04:00

Weigel on why the DOJ needs to look at oil price speculation at this time, and the problems associated with doing so:

None of this would be particularly easy for American politicians. Is there anything they could do? Why, yes. The president—or members of Congress!—could skip the coming, predictable assault on oil company subsidies, and take on speculators instead. Wars and economic distress are not new to the oil market. But the market for oil futures has never been as big as it is now. It's basically quadrupled since the start of the financial crisis, as investors and funds have sought out safe, reliable commodities to invest in.
That's the political opening. The only question is whether anyone's actually able to go through it. Theoretically, the president of the United States could talk about this aspect of the gas price problem and elevate it. Unfortunately, the president is Barack Obama, whose every economic move is labeled "socialism" by the opposition, and who has already alienated some of the hedge fund managers in the center of this. A move against the commodities trade from Obama would be less Nixon goes to China than Johnson goes to Vietnam.

The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard is the new Spotted Owl

2011-04-27T12:28:00.004-04:00

I Canadian oil suppressing demand for your oil at an already overloaded oil storage facility, thereby driving prices down and threatening your profitability?

No problem! Blame it on an Endangered Species!

A three-inch lizard that thrives in desert conditions could shut down oil and gas operations in portions of Southeast New Mexico and in West Texas, including the state's top two oil producing counties.

Donald Trump's balanced energy policy

2011-04-25T12:44:00.001-04:00

Is this what they mean by an "all of the above" energy strategy?

In other words, because OPEC controls the price of crude oil, all we need to do is tell OPEC to reduce oil prices and Ta-Da! – cheap gasoline for everyone forever and ever.

Wow. Why didn’t we think of this before?

That's OK, go ahead and drill

2011-04-25T11:46:00.002-04:00

We'll just sit here and watch. [the website won't allow me to C&P, so go to the link to read it.]

Basically, Ohio is missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of severance tax revenue (taxes on gas extracted from their shale). Neighboring states (W. Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky, even indirectly Pennsylvania, though their taxes are structured differently) charge a tax based on the value of gas or oil extracted whereas Ohio charges only a flat fee. As expected, Gov. Kasich will not bring Ohio's severance fee in line with those states. Meanwhile, he's planning to allow for drilling within state parks, including one of Coeruleus' favorites, in order to raise revenues for the maintenance of those parks.

These underground gas reserves don't move, and though in limited instances you can choose to drill in one state over another, it's foolish for any state to think they can attract more drilling if they keep severance taxes low. The drillers will want to drill, regardless! The worst that could happen is that they could wait a few years to see if they could force the state legislature to reduce their severance tax to keep them in line with neighboring states. But the incentive for that just doesn't exist: drillers want to drill!

The real climate alarmists...

2011-04-23T15:44:00.002-04:00

...are not the Green Dragons:

One of the most disturbing arguments made by Religious Right in its defense of corporations and big polluters is the claim that environmental protections are intended to hurt the poor.

In Resisting The Green Dragon, Bishop Harry Jackson accuses the environmental movement of leading “the war on the poor,” Jackson founded a group with Niger Innis of CORE and Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference which derided clean-energy policies as “dangerous and immoral.” His Affordable Power Alliance relied heavily on research from a corporate front-group that received funding from ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy and other energy corporations.

Concerned Women for America’s Wright lamented that “the policies that environmental groups and even these evangelical groups got behind were ones that would consign the poorest of people around the world to grinding poverty, to disease, to premature death,” adding that environmentalists “don’t see humans as the Bible, as God sees them.” Beisner argues that “climate change is the totalitarian’s dream come true” and efforts to fight climate change would “make millions jobless” and “hurt the poor worst of all.”

Corporations and their front groups are increasingly using this rhetoric as well. For example, the pro-corporate American Action Network ran campaign ads featuring a senior citizen suffering through cold winter nights, claiming that the American Clean Energy and Security Act would make energy unaffordable and devastate the economy. Peggy Venable, the Texas state director of the Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity, claimed that “the Global Warming hoax is imperialism allowing a vehicle for environmentalists to dictate the way of life for us all - and is most harmful for third world countries where children often don’t see their fifth birthday.”

Where are the concern trolls who demand environmentalists not point out the dangers of climate change since that might be construed as "alarmist"?

Not at all alarmist

Climategate

2011-04-23T13:25:00.002-04:00

As expected, Kate Shepard does an excellent job summarizing that crazy time.

Though I feel she lets journalists off a little too easy. I downloaded the hacked e-mails as well, and it took me all of one afternoon to understand that these e-mails were normal when you're working in a field that is so excessively competitive due to the high stakes. All they had to do was ask a scientist--any scientist working in any high-stress setting: doesn't even need to be a climate scientist!--and they could have seen what was going on.

The big unanswered question is still, however, who hacked CRU and who paid the hacker? Part of me says that it must have been orchestrated through some think tank that was pissed about the FOIA being ignored. Most likely a think tank not headquartered in Washington, but an overseas think thank with ties to some of the organizations here. But after all that I've read, and thought about the timeline of the events that transpired...there's no evidence for that. Many of the usual suspects seemed as surprised by this as our side was, and it was only after a few hours (days), that they got their story straight and had a coordinated message ("HIDE THE DECLINE!!").

Still, it'd be nice to know whodunnit.

SUPERTRAINS

2011-04-22T12:58:00.002-04:00

Guess what! They might not be so unpopular after all:

Fueled by higher gas prices and what state transportation officials say is greater awareness, the number of Amtrak riders has exploded on the Blue Water route that runs from Port Huron to Chicago and stops daily in Flint.

The increase in passenger traffic on the route during the last six months -- 26.2 percent -- is among the highest in the nation, and gains at the Flint station -- 34.7 percent -- are even higher during that same period.

Thanks Scott Walker, John Kasich and Rick Scott!

Not so green

2011-04-22T12:41:00.004-04:00

As a general rule, if you can spot the disconnect on the title page of a report [PDF]...

... the rest of it might contain some factual errors.

Senior executives in the fossil fuel industry have launched an all-out assault on renewable energy, lobbying governments and business groups to reject wind and solar power in favour of gas, in a move that could choke the fledgling green energy industry.

Multinational companies including Shell, GDF Suez and Statoil are promoting gas as an alternative "green" fuel. These companies are among dozens around the world investing in new technologies to exploit shale gas, a controversial form of the fuel that has rejuvenated the gas industry because it is plentiful in supply and newly accessible due to technical advances in gas extraction known as "fracking".

The expansion of shale gas holds out the promise of a glut in gas that is driving down prices and creating a bonanza for the fossil fuel industry. Burning gas in power stations releases about half the carbon emissions of coal, allowing gas companies to claim it is a "green" source of fuel.

Central to the lobbying effort is a report claiming that the EU could meet its 2050 carbon targets €900bn more cheaply by using gas than by investing in renewables. But the Guardian has established that the analysis is based on a previous report that came to the opposite conclusion – that renewables should play a much larger role. The report being pushed by the fossil fuel industry has been disowned by its original authors who referred to it as "biased" in favour of gas.

So now we have to see through the propaganda of not just the coal industry shills bullshitting about how the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow and how horrible all of these new technologies will be to the world economy, causing millions of deaths, etc., etc. We'll also need to be wary of the very fossil fuel industry that the alternative industry needs to become viable (gas turbines respond faster to supply fluctuations and are thus desirable to promote greater renewable production).

And while we're at it, let's mention that solar panels increase home values.

Fun with maps

2011-04-22T10:50:00.001-04:00

Environmental performance index

Dear President Obama,

2011-04-21T15:50:00.002-04:00

We stopped calling them "deniers." Preferring to call them rejectionists instead

When you call them deniers, you stir up all sorts of pond scum, and don't insult them adequately enough.

Sincerely,

Coeruleus

Why oh why...

2011-04-20T13:29:00.002-04:00

Would we ever want to change the frame from climate change is really really bad, scientists say so to energy efficiency will give us jobs and fun new toys to play with?
Hmmh.

Whatever happened to DRILL BABY DRILL?

2011-04-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

Bob Dudley

In the last few months, we have shut down several platforms to request modifications consistent with BP's standards. One of these was our Holstein platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which was shut down after we discovered incorrect specifications for some bolts.

It's hard to imagine, however, how the improved safety could have been achieved without the temporary moratorium on new deepwater drilling. Even with the moratorium, not enough has been done to improve safety. 4.9 million barrels of oil, 1 million gallons of dispersants, causing 90,000 square miles to be closed to fishing, devastating a local industry (if only temporarily) [numbers here]. Another spill like this, and deepwater drilling would be as dead as the nuclear industry after 3-mile-island.

So what has happened since? The Obama administration has moderately improved safety: as with most actions by this administration it's not enough, but it's a good first incremental step towards reform. Meanwhile, the industry shills have bitched and moaned relentlessly. How much has offshore oil production decreased as a result? 13%. That's right. 13%. You'd think the world was coming to an end listening to these yahoos. And it's had its effect: of the 101 bills introduced to Congress to attempt a legislative improvement in oil drilling safety, 0 were passed.

You'd think that those interested in improving safety and public confidence in offshore drilling would be lauded for their efforts. Instead, in this strange alternate reality we live in, they are described as "anti-industry."

Never forget

2011-04-20T12:26:00.002-04:00

Attention internet:

2011-04-17T15:06:00.000-04:00

This is a penguin being tickled.

ZipCar IPO...

2011-04-14T11:56:00.002-04:00

...and the sharing economy:

Without getting too deep into it here, because I have a forthcoming post that does, Zipcar is representative of a MONSTER trend that is taking place within our economy right now. You can think of an investment in Zipcar as an investment in this trend, not necessarily an investment in this specific company. Yes, if you read this blog and understand my approach to the market, you know that investors often do not look at single company in a vacuum, they often invest based on broader themes they see developing. You can think of Netflix this way.

Zipcar is the perfect representation of the fact that our economy is shifting, drastically, from people wanting to own things, to people wanting to use things, but have no desire to own them. This shift is made possible by recent technological advances in peer to peer networks. These services are sprouting up in every industry, even baby toys. Instead of buying baby toys which you will throw out in a year when your kid outgrows them, why not rent them when it makes sense, with a subscription service, and send it back when your kid is done playing with it, like a video game rental.

More on this IPO here, and how Goldman Sachs just shafted ZipCar.

Some water treatment plants refuse to take fracking fluid

2011-04-14T10:28:00.002-04:00

Good for them! Until we know more about what flows out the other end and what is effective at keeping the population safe, more wastewater treatment plants should refuse to take this fracking shit.

Several wastewater treatment plants in Western Pennsylvania have stopped taking in waste from natural gas hydraulic fracturing amid controversy about potential waterway contamination.

Testifying before a Senate committee examining natural gas extraction, Environmental Protection Agency deputy administrator Robert Perciasepe was asked about a recent flap over stream contamination related to wastewater treatment plants. A New York Times report about radiation found in Pennsylvania streams near plants that treat fracking "flowback" water prompted additional testing and information gathering from EPA and state officials.

Mr. Perciasepe also revealed that, "In many cases, those plants have stopped taking some of those fracking fluids."

The article goes on to compare the geology of Pennsylvania and Oklahoma and how the fracking fluid is dealt with in either state. And ends with a quote from Sen. Inhofe:

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a leading EPA critic, lauded the economic benefits of increased natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania and other states.

"A virtual boom in natural gas development is transforming America's energy security -- due in no small measure to the absence of federal regulation," he said.

Frack you, Sen. Inhofe! It's pitiful how political demagoguery is getting in the way of attempts to safely extract the gas. I'm all for natural gas and for fracking, and for that opinion I get quite a bit of flack (frack?). But being for extraction also means being for effective regulations that keep the population safe, informed and comfortable with the practice of what's going on beneath their feet. And the only way to accomplish that is for the federal EPA to step in, because there's clearly too much money on the table for state regulators to be impartial about this matter.

Solar Roundup

2011-04-13T11:10:00.002-04:00

In Pendleton, OR

Rural Pendleton is blazing an unlikely renewable energy trail, offering no-interest loans to spark interest in solar power and a group-buy philosophy to get better prices. More than 50 residents installed systems last year, and the program was expanded to more residents and to include businesses this year. [...]

"We're a Western community, and we're proud of that, but we're also in the 21st Century," city manager Larry Lehman said. "There are people here who are interested in renewable energy, and we wanted to make it easy for them."

In many ways, solar makes a lot of sense in communities such as Pendleton: it's far more sunny than in Western OR, the days are hot in the summer (when A/C is needed, solar can power it) yet nights are comfortably cool, and the enormous amount of wind energy produced in the area can primarily be sold for profit to the ever increasing number of data centers located in that part of Oregon. It only cost the city $10,000, but the investment will probably yield far more revenues down the road. Winning the future!

Natural gas

2011-04-12T11:00:00.002-04:00

Here we go again.

Even as natural gas production in the United States increases and Washington gives it a warm embrace as a crucial component of America’s energy future, two coming studies try to poke holes in the clean-and-green reputation of natural gas. They suggest that the rush to develop the nation’s vast, unconventional sources of natural gas is logistically impractical and likely to do more to heat up the planet than mining and burning coal.

The problem, the studies suggest, is that planet-warming methane, the chief component of natural gas, is escaping into the atmosphere in far larger quantities than previously thought, with as much as 7.9 percent of it puffing out from shale gas wells, intentionally vented or flared, or seeping from loose pipe fittings along gas distribution lines. This offsets natural gas’s most important advantage as an energy source: it burns cleaner than other fossil fuels and releases lower carbon dioxide emissions.

I do sometimes wonder whether these studies and articles, etc., aren't in some way related to the coal industry. And I also kind of agree with the Nat Gas industry rep who's basically saying "WTF would we want to lose almost 8% of our product?"

The idea here is not to defend the natural gas industry--they have plenty of their own problems associated with the rush to profits--it's rather to say that: 1.) methane escape is bad, really bad: but it dissipates quickly (as the article mentions), 2.) if we're going to increase the percentage of wind and solar capacity, we'd better build more natural gas power plants, because they're currently the only spinners that can react quickly enough to production and demand flutatuations, but finally, 3.) WE NEED GOOD REGULATIONS, here folks!

Studies like this are a good thing: they point out where potential problems lie. Pipelines have to be tightened all the way from the well to the house: there's also plenty of natural gas seeping out of urban area underground pipes. Inspections of private gas pipelines as well as infrastructure investment in the distributed networks in town. Plus, there are ways to use the gas coming directly out of the ground for local energy production to run the wells and pipeline compressors, rather than flaring the gas. These are economical (lots of companies are buying them right now), so it shouldn't be difficult to make a federal law requiring all wells currently flaring gas to be outfitted with local energy generation systems like this.

50 mile evacuation zone

2011-04-12T10:51:00.002-04:00

It's easy to criticize the Japanese government for not evacuating a greater area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant until you see what that would mean to us.

Of course Fukushima is far less inhabited, but I doubt we'd be willing to quickly evacuate all of Philadelphia at once if something like this were to occur here.

Facebook's energy efficiency plans

2011-04-11T17:41:00.001-04:00

Free and open for everyone to see. Impressive!

As a result of the Open Compute Project, Facebook's Oregon data center is now one of the most efficient in the world:

Facebook’s energy consumption per unit of computing power has declined by 38%.

The new data center has a PUE of 1.073, well below the EPA-defined state-of-the-art industry average of 1.51. This means 93% of the energy from the grid makes it into every Open Compute server.

We've removed centralized chillers, eliminated traditional inline UPS systems and removed a 480V to 208V transformation.

Ethernet-powered LED lighting and passive cooling infrastructure reduce energy spent on running the facility.

The Rabett has it right

2011-04-11T12:36:00.001-04:00

Here, and here. Climate science rejection is the proper term, not "denial."

Zipcar IPO

2011-04-08T14:23:00.000-04:00

$14 - $16 next week on the NASDAQ

Go Navy!

2011-04-08T13:54:00.001-04:00

We can all use some good news on a Friday

"With a strong metal market, these recoverable metals could bring a return of up to $30 million," Self told msnbc.com. "After accounting for the ship purchase price by competitive bid, towing, environmental remediation of toxic materials and labor rates, the recycling of this vessel should be a profitable venture for the domestic ship recycling industry and should give the local economy a great boost."

Question

2011-04-08T10:34:00.002-04:00

Aren't the riders Republicans are attaching to the budgetthat specifically de-fund certain sub-programs of agencies...

A measure to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions came up for a Senate vote on Wednesday and failed. If Republicans want to have yet another legislative debate about abortion and family planning, let them try to pass a separate bill containing their restrictions. But that bill would fail, too, and they know it, so they have chosen extortion.

...pretty much the same thing as attaching one of those evil earmarks to the budget, just in reverse?

The Hype-o-campus and O-M-G-dala

2011-04-08T10:21:00.000-04:00

Via BoingBoing

Cool new energy graph

2011-04-07T13:12:00.000-04:00

From Good.

Shut 'em Down!

2011-04-07T08:05:00.003-04:00

Being a 40-yr old scientist sucking from the teat of government largess, it appears there are two choices ahead: either government shuts down now and I'll have to go without pay for a few weeks, or a compromise is reached with the Tea Party radicals which will embolden them to propose cuts to the budgets for the next howevermany years that are even deeper than Paul Ryan's (this is how they operate, we all know it). That means that for at least the next 5 years, grant paylines will be so low it'll be almost impossible to get funding if you're not an older, more established scientist with a large lab and lots of resources already.

The first option is cruel to people currently requiring government money, but it might just convince people how crazy the Tea Partiers are. The second option is devastating for a generation of scientists who spent the last 15-20 years living in poverty relative to their peers who did not enter science (because of the relatively long education time and the relatively low postdoctoral pay). These next 20 years were planned to be the time when we could increase our savings and catch up to where everyone else has already been all this time. Without a decent chance at funding, we'll have to leave the field, spend the next 10 years losing ground again, and then, in 25 - 30 years, when it comes time to retire, we will have our Medicare and our Social Security taken away from us.

So, in the words of Public Enemy, I say:

Someone should get a "coeruleus.blogspot.com" tattoo

2011-04-06T13:23:00.010-04:00

I came across this collection while doing a little googling on behalf of a reader's e-mail. I had no idea!

It appears we have a new banner:

[Via]

20% sounds like a lot!

2011-04-06T11:09:00.002-04:00

Not sure if it actually is worrisome, but 20% is usually a non-trivial number. But then again, we must remember that climate change is good, and natural and nothing to worry about

Scientists are monitoring a massive pool of fresh water in the Arctic Ocean that could spill into the Atlantic and potentially alter the key ocean currents that give Western Europe its moderate climate.

The oceanographers said yesterday that the unusual accumulation has been caused by Siberian and Canadian rivers dumping more water into the Arctic and from melting sea ice. Both are consequences of global warming. [...]

German researcher Benjamin Rabe, of the Alfred Wegener Institute, said the Arctic’s fresh water content had increased 20 percent since the 1990s — about 8,400 cubic kilometers. That is the equivalent of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron together.

Green jobs aren't "real"

2011-04-05T16:53:00.002-04:00

And only King COAL provides real jobs.

Ehh...maybe not.

For the study, Ochs analysts looked at the projections and final actual jobs from the six largest new plants that began operations between 2005 and 2009. They were in Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina and Wisconsin.

Key findings include:

• For every 100 new construction jobs promised, just over half, 56 percent, were realized.

• In four of the six counties where new plants were built, coal plant construction projected 6,370 jobs and delivered just 1,730 jobs— just over 27 percent.

• In all six counties, jobs declined during construction, suggesting that many new jobs were going to workers coming from outside the county.

The study says the nature of coal plant construction makes it possible that much of a plant’s $1 billion-plus investment will “leak” out of its host economy because labor and materials are specialized and often imported.

“It is possible that employment impacts will be minimal — or even negative,” the report states.

Paul Ryan's World

2011-04-05T12:49:00.002-04:00

From Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" [PDF]:

Eliminating welfare for energy companies

Sounds like a good start! Hey, maybe he'll propose to cut those oil subsidies!

Since his inauguration, the President has promoted a heavy-handed compliance culture in the energy sector, brimming with regulations and reckless spending on government-appointed winners and losers. Instead of promoting policy rooted in innovation and the entrepreneurial strength of American business, the President’s agenda has consolidated decision-making in Washington through a toxic mix of increased spending and more regulations.

Alright, whatever. We know this is all BS, but Paul Ryan is highly partisan, and it's to be expected he's going to try to lie his way into things.

Regulations have extracted some $1.75 trillion per year from the economy, according to a recent report from the Small Business Administration, including $281 billion for environmental regulations that disproportionately hit small businesses. The President has also stiﬂed domestic energy production by blocking or delaying production both onshore and offshore, destroying jobs and idling American energy sources. The stimulus alone allocated $80 billion of taxpayers’ dollars speciﬁcally for politically favored renewable-energy interests.

The results are plain to see: Gas prices have more than doubled since the President took ofﬁce. Burdensome and ineffective regulations on businesses in the service of dubious environmental goals have driven up the prices of many products and services, while creating barriers for needed capital investment and job creation.

Eh, OK, time to get down to business now and stop bullshitting. Paul, will you cut the $20 BILLION in oil/coal/gas subsidies?

To stop Washington’s policies that are driving up gas prices, and to expand American energy production and create more American jobs, the new House majority launched the American Energy Initiative earlier this year. This initiative provides a critical check on policies that make it more difﬁcult to reduce dependence on fossil fuels from foreign nations.

It scales back spending on government bureaucracies seeking to impose a job-destroying national energy tax. It assumes increased revenues from bonus bids, rents, royalties, and fees as a result of lifting moratoriums and bans on safe, environmentally responsible exploration for domestic energy supplies. And it encourages the development of American-made renewable and alternative energy sources, including nuclear, wind, solar, and more, afﬁrming the position that environmental stewardship and economic growth are not mutually exclusive goals.

This budget would continue funding essential government missions, including energy security and basic research and development, while paring back spending in areas of duplication or non-core functions, such as applied and commercial research or development projects best left to the private sector. Ultimately, the best energy policy is one that encourages robust competition and innovation to ensure the American people an affordable and stable supply of energy. This budget would roll back federal intervention and expensive corporate-welfare funding directed to the president’s allied industries. Instead, it would promote policies aimed at reliable energy, lower energy prices, greater revenue generation through prosperity, and market based solutions to the goal of sustainable energy.

No! Of course not! Why go after the huge, low-hanging fruit of oil, coal and gas extraction subsidies, when you can cut the tiny bit of money we invest in solar and wind?

The problem with hydrofracking...

2011-04-05T10:01:00.002-04:00

...isn't that some people fear it's dangerous, it's that we don't have enough evidence to tell whether it is or is not dangerous and from where that danger is coming (the fracking itself or the well casing or the disposal of hydrofracking waste water. Libertarians used to be in favor of greater information availability, apparently this has changed.

Barack Obama is Fat!

2011-04-02T11:15:00.001-04:00

It is true. Like Al Gore before him, Barack Obama is now fat.

Barack Obama's presidential limousine will be exempt from his drive to make all government vehicles environmentally friendly, the Secret Service has revealed.
The president last week insisted that he would use the government's purchasing power to promote fuel efficient cars - insisting 100 per cent of new government vehicles would be 'green' by 2015.
But the Secret Service said that the directive would not apply to some vehicles used for law enforcement and security including the president's Cadillac limousine, according to the Detroit News.

Best in-flight safety video ever

2011-03-31T11:26:00.001-04:00

America's Energy Security

2011-03-30T14:09:00.002-04:00

Lots of criticism on the left today against Obama's Energy Security Plan. Here, here, here, amongst other places. But most of this criticism is somewhat misplaced. Would it have been nice if the President had said "tomorrow I'm putting the smack down: no more carbon dioxide emissions!"? Sure! But in this political climate of overwhelming political opposition and the inability of the environmental community to counteract that, what we got isn't that bad, and could turn out to be quite good, actually. In his speech [video], he mentioned oil is going to run out, future oil production will be more expensive, price shocks interspersed with periods of complacency hurt American consumers, electrical cars and how and where batteries are produced and keeping the costs down, and that the best way to reduce gasoline costs is to conserve! That's a lot! Remember, this speech was not about averting global warming: the Congress has already nixed that one.

Let's go through the Fact Sheet point-by-point:

Expanding Safe and Responsible Domestic Oil and Gas Development and Production

In the end, these are things that the administration doesn't have that much control over: the price of oil goes up, more drilling occurs. That's what we've seen over the last few years. Anything but making sure it's done safely (which Obama has tried), and making sure it doesn't happen in wilderness areas or other unseemly places is out of the Administration's control. More or less. As we all know, whatever we begin to allow to be sucked out of offshore (onshore oil won't ever produce as much as hoped for) will only come out of there years from now and not last us very long. So the President can say that he's all for expanding production...nothing is going to change either way, barring another Deepwater Horizon incident. He walked a good line between "DRILL BABY DRILL" and "let's make sure we do this safely" here.

Securing Access to Diverse and Reliable Sources of Energy: The U.S. is acting in the international arena to moderate global oil demand and secure additional supplies of liquid fuels and clean energy. We are working with our international partners to increase natural gas supplies, replace oil with natural gas in power generation, and increase responsible oil production in a manner that ensures safety . We are also increasing sustainable bioenergy production, building a new international framework for nuclear energy, and promoting energy efficiency.

This one is about helping other countries reduce their demand, thereby lowering prices worldwide. This is a good thing, as it will reduce commodities prices where those high prices really hurt: in poorer countries. Did I mention commodities...?

Developing Alternatives to Oil, Including Biofuels and Natural Gas

Biofuels. Yuck. I hate 'em. But considering the political corruption surrounding this subsidy...it's going to be difficult taking that away. So the best way of doing that is to propose a safe alternative: responsible natural gas production. Government information gathering and oversight is something that is sorely needed in this sector.

Cutting Costs at the Pump with More Efficient Cars and Trucks

This point includes increasing CAFE standards beyond what we currently have (up to 2016), and including trucks. This actually has a good chance of passing through Congress: the auto industry can't officially admit it, but they actually like the certainty behind a predictable regulation. And, if you couple increased drilling with increased CAFE standards, you get double the bang for the buck. This point also includes a tax credit for electric vehicles, which unfortunately has a good chance of failing in Congress, but it's worth a shot.

Leading by Example With the Federal Fleet
The Federal government operates more than 600,000 fleet vehicles. We have already doubled the number of hybrid vehicles in the federal fleet. Today, the President is calling for administrative action directing agencies to ensure that by 2015, all new vehicles they purchase will be alternative-fuel vehicles, including hybrid and electric vehicles.

This point is the real kicker. Government vehicles not including the military, consumed a total of 322 million gallons of gasoline in 2010! The US Postal Service, Homeland Security and Department of Justice (FBI) were top of the list of government consumers. The President has direct control over this: he can sign an executive order demanding government vehicles change. Moreover, once companies start making these alternative vehicles (natural gas- or gasoline-electric hybrids, etc.) for the government, they will be able to start making them available to the general public. And quite possibly at a lower price as the costs decrease with increased production.

Let's not try to knock this proposal: it's actually quite specific, and could do a lot of good while avoiding a lot of political nightmares in the short term.

Obama to proceed with federal clean vehicles

2011-03-30T08:13:00.004-04:00

I'm sure the right wing will say that this means we're DOOOMED, but this is actually a "yes we can" sort of start to an energy policy, even in light of heavy resistance from Congress:

At a speech at Georgetown University, Obama also will unveil his strategy to cut U.S. oil imports by a third in 10 years, by stepping up domestic oil production and requiring a major increase in fuel economy for the 2017-25 model years.

We all know what the response by the President of Facebook and her allies will be: big government, Government Motors, Socialism, losing American jobs, our idea of an "all of the above" energy policy doesn't include the efficiency part of the above, etc., etc.

That's not to say there won't be criticism from the left as well, but this is actually a pretty good deal, consistent with the original Obama, and it's helping the US create jobs. One example is this.

More from the White House:

Encouraging responsible development practices for natural gas: The Administration is committed to the use of this important domestic resource, but we must ensure it is developed safely and responsibly. To that end the Administration is focused on increasing transparency about the use of fracking chemicals, working with state regulators to offer technical assistance, and launching a new initiative to tap experts in industry, the environmental community and states to develop recommendations for shale extraction practices that will ensure the protection of public health and the environment. [...]

Setting historic new fuel economy standards: Standards for model years 2012-16 will raise average fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, and save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of the vehicles covered. In July, the Administration will also finalize the first-ever national fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for commercial trucks, vans and buses built in 2014 - 2018. These standards will cut oil use and promote the development and deployment of alternative fuels, including natural gas. The Administration is also developing the next generation of fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for passenger vehicles 2017-2025 and expects to announce the proposal in September 2011.
Paving the way for advanced vehicles: The President has set an ambitious goal of putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. To help us get there, the President’s FY 2012 Budget proposes a redesigned $7500 tax credit for consumers, competitive grants for communities that encourage the adoption of electric vehicles, and funding for R&D to drive innovation in advanced battery technology. At the same time, the President is calling on Congress to move forward with policies that can help unlock the promise of natural gas vehicles.
Leading by Example With the Federal Fleet. The Federal government operates more than 600,000 fleet vehicles. We have already doubled the number of hybrid vehicles in the federal fleet. Today, the President is calling for administrative action directing agencies to ensure that by 2015, all new vehicles they purchase will be alternative-fuel vehicles, including hybrid and electric vehicles.

This isn't a "Biofuels, Bitches" plan. Sounds a little like the T. Boone Pickens plan. If this is implemented correctly (i.e. identifying which federal vehicles are driven the most and changing those first), the price of batteries shouldn't rise too quickly, and it shouldn't add too significantly to the deficit; or rather, it will help the longer-term deficit picture since less money will be spent on fuel. And, it will continue what appears to be a longer-term trend of reducing oil imports:

Who said cutting taxes doesn't create jobs?

2011-03-29T16:08:00.003-04:00

Via

They want to ban cars and make the baby Jesus cry!

2011-03-29T10:07:00.004-04:00

As expected, this hysterical headline,

EU to ban cars from cities by 2050

has drawn quite a bit of hysteria from those who call environmentalists hysterical alarmists.
But, if you actually read the white paper [PDF], most of what's in it is very reasonable. For instance, point 4 of section 2:

Curbing mobility is not an option

Much of the hyperbole on the right involves statements that are self-fulfilling anyway, similar to someone in 1970 saying that by 2010 no one will drive cars with big-block engines that take leaded gasoline anymore. Given how Europeans already diversify their daily transportation needs (some people I know register their cars only during the summer vacation season), we can expect that, given how congested the roads in cities already are, people 40 years from now will choose to go over to micro-electric personal vehicles and maybe keep their ICE vehicles in the garage most of the time. The white paper addresses questions of how to do that safely and how to make it possible for people to choose those options in the future. But, you say something like that, and in the world of the crazy right, they hear SOHSHALIZM! GRR!

Interesting

2011-03-29T09:43:00.002-04:00

Pretty stupid, but interesting:

In theory, the Tokyo area could import electricity from the south. But a historical rivalry between Tokyo and the city of Osaka led the two areas to develop grids using different frequencies — Osaka’s is 60 cycles and Tokyo’s is 50 cycles — so sharing is inefficient.

There are transfer stations, but they have limited capacity. And the hand-off is comparable to two railroads that use different gauge tracks and have to unload cargo from one train and reload it onto another at the place the tracks meet.

Short-term, energy efficiency will be the name of the game. Longer-term, it might just be best to integrate the grid.

Rachel Maddow on oil rig blow out preventers

2011-03-26T13:45:00.002-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

While it's true that the cause of this disaster wasn't the failure of the blow out preventer, but the idea that the operator blasted too much pressure onto the B.O.P., it'd still be nice to have, you know, have blowout preventers that actually prevent blowouts.

Winning Selling the Future

2011-03-26T10:54:00.002-04:00

In Pennsylvania

HARRISBURG — Members of Gov. Tom Corbett's Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission left their first meeting Friday with plenty to think about during the four months they have to recommend how state can best stoke the economic potential of natural-gas drilling and stave off environmental problems within the constraints the Republican governor has imposed. [...]

Cawley said the panelists are likely to consider the prospect of empowering local governments to levy an "impact fee" to help pay for highway repairs and other effects of natural-gas drilling.

Local governments will have to demonstrate a clear need for an impact fee before it would be seriously considered as one of the recommendations they must make to the governor by July, he said.

"It will be a discussion point," he told reporters. "We want to understand what the actual impact is."

But a statewide severance tax "is off the table," Cawley said emphatically. "It is not something that is going to be considered by us." [...]

But Pennsylvania has left a number of protections undone, some lawmakers say.

Some lawmakers want to increase the minimum distance between Marcellus Shale wells to minimize the environmental impact on drilling regions. Some also want to expand the buffer that is required between shale wells and wetlands or water sources.

In addition, Pennsylvania's $1,000 per day penalty on drillers for violating state regulations lag many other states. The $25,000 per-company insurance bond that the state requires to plug abandoned wells is out of date, as well, since plugging a single well can cost as much as $100,000.

At the top of the industry's wish list is a controversial provision called pooling, which could be used to force holdout landowners, under certain conditions, to lease their below-ground gas rights, and limits on the ways that municipal zoning ordinances could affect drilling activity.

And, in Wyoming

In a move that is likely to go down as one of the largest energy policy blunders of the Obama years, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday announced that his office was opening the door for 2.35 billion tons of new coal mining operations in Wyoming's stretch of the Powder River Basin.

It's all about the money, of course and it shouldn't come as a surprise that Ken Salazar pressed the green light for more dirty energy development instead of funding renewables.

The Powder River Basin (PBR), like most coal producing regions in the county, is not certified as such. Meaning, mining operations in the area do not entirely fall under the rubric of the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1976 (FCLAA). As such, taxpayers are being hoodwinked into believing leasing our public lands to Big Coal is good for the government's piggy bank.

It's not. Here's the story. During the 1970s there was a public lands coal-leasing moratorium put in place for the United States because of wild mining speculation and lack of transparency. The moratorium ended in 1980, and then acting Interior Secretary James Watt began selling coal leases all over the Powder River Basin. Then, in the late 1980s, PBR was decertified as a coal-producing region; therefore leases on public lands would no longer have to follow the guidelines offered up in FCLAA.

I get the idea that if you want to attract businesses to your state vs. some neighboring state, you might want to consider a tax break to entice them to set up shop where you're at. But you can only dig for gas and coal in very limited areas around the country, and if you have something like the Marcellus shale--THE MARCELLUS FUCKING SHALE--or the Powder River Basin under your feet, you could probably come up with a law that requires companies to buy every resident in the state a vacation home in the location of their choosing so that they can temporarily escape the noise and dirty water and they'd still clamor to develop those resources. It boggles the mind how this is happening at both the state and the federal level.

Compassionate Conservative

2011-03-26T01:04:00.002-04:00

Haley Barbour is going for the soccer mom vote:

I think the prudent thing for us, when you consider the potential risk, the prudent thing is to proceed as if global warming is an issue.

Translated: guys, I don't give a shit about all that global warming malarkey, but if your wife is refusing sex again because you're voting Republican...again...you can tell her Haley's like W: charming. And you'll rest easy because he doesn't have the whole Kyoto lie problem.

A Few Good Men

2011-03-25T13:25:00.000-04:00

The Marines need our help.

The Corps also wants to increase the fuel efficiency for its tactical vehicle fleet while sitting at idle. At small outposts, Marines often use idling vehicles as power generation sources, and in doing so, the Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement can suck up .8 gallons of fuel per hour—not much of an improvement over a 10kW tactical generator, which consumes .92 gallons per hour. To try and cut the amount of fuel used, the Corps wants to improve fuel efficiency by asking industry to supply ideas for bolt-on auxiliary power units; improved engine/power train efficiencies, “as well as any other automotive technologies such as cold and hot weather idle free solutions for vehicle climate control, reduction of parasitic loads, or any other automotive solutions designed to improve vehicle fuel efficiency.”

Autocorrect

2011-03-24T07:47:00.002-04:00

Nothing to see here, move along

Nuclear power is a textbook example of the problem of “regulatory capture” — in which an industry gains control of an agency meant to regulate it. [...]

Even before Three Mile Island, a group of nuclear engineers had proposed that filtered vents be attached to buildings around reactors, which are intended to contain the gases released from overheated fuel. If the pressure inside these containment buildings increased dangerously — as has happened repeatedly at Fukushima — the vents would release these gases after the filters greatly reduced their radioactivity.

France and Germany installed such filters in their plants, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission declined to require them. Given the influence of America’s example, had the commission demanded the addition of filtered vents, they would likely have been required worldwide, including in Japan. [...]

The commission’s defenders often argue that it must be cautious because increased costs from safety requirements could kill the nuclear power industry. But the cost of generating electricity from existing plants is actually low: the construction expenses have been paid off and running them is relatively cheap. Requiring the operators of plants to install new safety systems would not result in them being shut down.

Therefore, perhaps the most important thing to do in light of the Fukushima disaster is to change the industry-regulator relationship. It has become customary for administrations not to nominate, and the Senate not to confirm, commissioners whom the industry regards as “anti-nuclear” — which includes anyone who has expressed any criticism whatsoever of industry practices. The commission has an excellent staff; what it needs is more aggressive political leadership.

Once again, as so often in so many industries "anti-[fill-in-the-blank]" means those people who enthusiastically support the industry, but want to make sure things get done right.

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Haven't we been there before?

2011-03-23T07:46:00.002-04:00

Atrios links to David Roberts:

So I'm reading in Politico about Democratic fecklessness. (Yes, half my posts begin this way.) The problem is, whenever gas prices go up, Republicans benefit. They have a simple, powerful message ready to go, right off the shelf: drill here, drill now, pay less. Not enough drilling: that's why gas prices are high. Drilling more: that's how to lower them.

If a Republican is president, congressional Democrats and hippie enviro groups are blocking new drilling. If a Democrat is president, he and his cronies in Congress are pandering to liberals by blocking new drilling. It's the same every time, so it's all but inevitable that as gas prices rise they're trying to tag Obama the "pay more at the pump" president.

In response, Democrats ... flail. Every time. They say "we can't drill our way out," but they pretend like we can get out by punishing commodity speculators, opening the strategic reserve, or implementing "use it or lose it" gimmicks. They accept the fundamental falsehood at the root of the conservative position -- the way to lower gas prices is increase supply of U.S. oil -- and then reject the most obvious implication of that premise, i.e., we should drill more. [...]

So I'm reading in Politico about Democratic fecklessness. (Yes, half my posts begin this way.) The problem is, whenever gas prices go up, Republicans benefit. They have a simple, powerful message ready to go, right off the shelf: drill here, drill now, pay less. Not enough drilling: that's why gas prices are high. Drilling more: that's how to lower them.

If a Republican is president, congressional Democrats and hippie enviro groups are blocking new drilling. If a Democrat is president, he and his cronies in Congress are pandering to liberals by blocking new drilling. It's the same every time, so it's all but inevitable that as gas prices rise they're trying to tag Obama the "pay more at the pump" president.

In response, Democrats ... flail. Every time. They say "we can't drill our way out," but they pretend like we can get out by punishing commodity speculators, opening the strategic reserve, or implementing "use it or lose it" gimmicks. They accept the fundamental falsehood at the root of the conservative position -- the way to lower gas prices is increase supply of U.S. oil -- and then reject the most obvious implication of that premise, i.e., we should drill more.

Dave Roberts makes some very good points about oil and about policy and about messaging. Points that this blog has made for years (except for the times when I haven't been blogging).

The problem, however, is that we always come back to one unavoidable conundrum: reducing oil usage will require some sort of pain spread out over most of the population. Let's leave aside the crazies in this debate. We know who they are: the ones who are convinced that the US is sitting on top of a "sea of oil" that we only need to lower a straw into to suck the yummy milk shake out of the ground...they will never be convinced that this sea of oil lies in the Bakken and extracting it will be about as easy and cheap as extracting all the oil found under the surface of the moons of Endor. Also, there are a number of people on the right who believe that reducing our oil consumption by just a drop will lead to DOOM, where MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE as a combined result of smaller cars, higher food and heating prices and the collapse of the world economy. Most of the people who believe those things are pretty much never going to vote Democratic anyway, they're just too far gone in the fantasy land that oil money has created.

I, Atrios, Dave Roberts et al., I believe are talking about convincing "moderates" or "independents" by countering the DRILL BABY DRILL argument with something as possibly catching as "Yes we can." Those who can still be convinced by the truth. Those who occasionally read the Wall Street Journal and watch CNBC in the mornings thinking there might be some kernels of wisdom that the "people involved in money things" might have, but knowing deep down inside that it's all just a bunch of BS. For them, the question of "how are we going to reduce our oil consumption" is important. They believe that we've been trying that for decades and nothing government has offered as a solution has worked, ergo government is completely ineffective at steering the market towards lower oil consumption. Oh, and then there's Devon's paradox, which, like the Laffer curve, gets pulled out by so-called "free-market" (SCFM) libertarians on occasions like this.

For them, there are two choices: lower oil consumption by a combination of stricter CAFE standards, greater dependence on mass transit and higher gasoline taxes. The image that's conjured up by these three scenarios is thusly: smaller cars, dirty expensive transit running on someone else's schedule to places I don't want to go, and guaranteed pain at the pump. Or, we do nothing and at least we won't have to drive around like we're gay Frenchies and risk our wives dying in car crashes, and we don't need to sit next to sweaty undesirables, and, maybe most importantly, outside of the occasional nuisance of a gasoline price surge, we might get away with decades of damned cheap gasoline. Because we already have. And there's the promise that we just might get that yummy milkshake for a buck a gallon again one day...if only we give the oil companies a chance to DRILL BABY DRILL, who knows, they might actually find that sea of oil!

Any arguments to counter that don't ever seem to work: gas taxes can be raised moderately over time, be used to push the minimum income tax bracket well up into middle-class territory and provide funding for really cool and effective mass transit. Also, if industry knows it has 10 years to come up with fun and safe alternatives to the vehicles they offer the US market now they will have plenty of time to do so (hint: they're doing it in other countries). And, we don't really need people to go from a 10 mpg SUV to a plug-in electric hybrid...we just need them to switch to a 25 mpg SUV in the next 10 years or so. But there's fear.

So. Nice policy. Good message. How to make this work?

The good old days...

2011-03-22T10:52:00.001-04:00

December 27, 2000

"Bush's people will remind Greenspan that giving back $1.6 trillion in tax cuts sure beats $1.6 trillion in new spending, and that if the budget gets tight a few years hence, a tax cut is a lot easier to ditch than an entitlement."

March 22, 2011

"Conservatives have grown increasingly worried that Republicans in Congress may accept a tax hike as part of a broader deal to reduce discretionary and entitlement spending.

But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) have pledged to Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist they will not support any deficit reduction package that increases taxes."

Garbage is Good!

2011-03-21T13:40:00.001-04:00

The obvious message from this research

Tree islands are patches of relatively high and dry ground that dot the marshes of the Everglades. Typically a meter (3.3 feet) or so high, many of them are elevated enough to allow trees to grow. They provide a nesting site for alligators and a refuge for birds, panthers, and other wildlife.

Scientists have thought for many years that the so-called fixed tree islands (a larger type of tree island frequently found in the Everglades' main channel, Shark River Slough) developed on protrusions from the rocky layer of a mineral called carbonate that sits beneath the marsh. Now, new research indicates that the real trigger for island development might have been middens, or trash piles left behind from human settlements that date to about 5,000 years ago.

These middens, a mixture of bones, food discards, charcoal, and human artifacts (such as clay pots and shell tools), would have provided an elevated area, drier than the surrounding marsh, allowing trees and other vegetation to grow. Bones also leaked phosphorus, a nutrient for plants that is otherwise scarce in the Everglades.

“This goes to show that human disturbance in the environment doesn't always have a negative consequence,” says Gail Chmura, a paleoecologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and one of the authors of the study.

[via Revkin]. How long before the conservative anti-enviro blogs pick up on this?

The spin cycle

2011-03-18T14:32:00.005-04:00

First, they came for the light bulbs....Sam Kazman:

Efficiency standards for washing machines aren't as well-known as those for light bulbs, which will effectively prohibit 100-watt incandescent bulbs next year. Nor are they the butt of jokes as low-flow toilets are. But in their quiet destruction of a highly affordable, perfectly satisfactory appliance, washer standards demonstrate the harmfulness of the ever-growing body of efficiency mandates.
[...]
Front-loaders meet federal standards more easily than top-loaders. Because they don't fully immerse their laundry loads, they use less hot water and therefore less energy. But, as Americans are increasingly learning, front-loaders are expensive, often have mold problems, and don't let you toss in a wayward sock after they've started.
[...]
The situation got so bad that the Competitive Enterprise Institute started a YouTube protest campaign, "Send Your Underwear to the Undersecretary." With the click of a mouse, you could email your choice of virtual bloomers, boxers or Underoos to the Department of Energy. Several hundred Americans did so, but it wasn't enough to stop Congress from mandating even stronger standards a few months later.

Oh my! Several...hundred pairs of virtual soiled underwear were sent? Must have made for a shitty day at the Undersecretary's office. But we have to admit, as the saying goes, this truly is what democracy looks like these days! The nanny state picking up after we discard our soiled underwear. And, being the fierce advocate of personal responsibility that he is, I would guess that even Sam Kazman would agree that no one should have to pick up Sam Kazman's droppings.

Of course Sam Kazman's whole point is that they just don't make warshing machines like they used to in the old days:

In 2007, after the more stringent rules had kicked in, Consumer Reports noted that some top-loaders were leaving its test swatches "nearly as dirty as they were before washing." "For the first time in years," CR said, "we can't call any washer a Best Buy." Contrast that with the magazine's 1996 report that, "given warm enough water and a good detergent, any washing machine will get clothes clean." Those were the good old days.

In 2007, only one conventional top-loader was rated "very good." Front-loaders did better, as did a new type of high-efficiency top-loader that lacks a central agitator. But even though these newer types of washers cost about twice as much as conventional top-loaders, overall they didn't clean as well as the 1996 models.

And what does Consumer Reports have to say about all this? In response to an earlier similar article by John Tierney in the New York Times, which actually quotes Sam Kazman, Consumer Reports responds:

We can’t say whether energy-efficient washers are spurring Americans to do more laundry. But we can confirm that Tierney's interpretation of Consumer Reports’ washer tests is misleading. Consider what he says about top-loading washers: "To comply with federal energy-efficiency requirements, manufacturers made changes like reducing the quantity of hot water. The result was a bunch of what Consumer Reports called 'washday wash-outs,' which left some clothes 'nearly as stained after washing as they were when we put them in.'" That is, indeed, true for the biggest duds in our latest washer report. But we also recommended a dozen top-loading models online with very good washing performance for as little as $500.

Tierney also notes that back in 1996, Consumer Reports said "any [top-loading] washing machine will get clothes clean," whereas now, only some manage that feat. But that face-off compares apples to oranges: Our testing and scoring protocols for washers are significantly tougher than they were when Bill Clinton was in the White House. Explains Mark Connelly, Consumer Reports’ Deputy Technical Director:

"As an organization that tests both performance and energy efficiency, Consumer Reports has seen product performance improve or remain at high levels, while energy efficiency standards have become increasingly stringent over the years. Washing machine performance has actually improved while dishwashers and refrigerators performance has remained at high levels."

Tierney's column also neglects to mention that the latest Energy Star standard for washers, requiring that machines use 11 percent less energy and 20 percent less water, just took effect in January. Consumer Reports often sees a drop off in performance as manufacturers adapt to tougher rules. But the products almost always improve, whether you're talking cars, low-VOC interior paints—which now top our Ratings—or even energy-efficient washers.

No fucking way. That's how societal progress is achieved? I'm just going to make a wild guess here and say that neither Kazman nor Tierney ever bothered to pick up the phone and call someone at Consumer Reports for more information.

Economics vs. Envrionmentalism

2011-03-17T16:14:00.002-04:00

I really don't mind that academic economists disagree. Every academic line of inquiry should have vigorous debates! It's when the impression is created that the only "serious" stance on the issue of climate legislation is to believe the alarmist opinion that anything we do to reduce carbon emissions will destroy the world economy and kill us all, and everyone who says differently is brushed off as a "climate alarmist."

Wind Farms Kill Whales!!!1!

2011-03-17T16:10:00.002-04:00

Uhm, or maybe not.

Are there any lengths these people won't go to to try to make the case that coal is clean and safe and wonderful, whereas solar and wind are damaging to the environment and ruin jobs and kill people?

So wind farms don’t just despoil countryside, frighten horses, chop up birds, spontaneously combust, drive down property prices, madden those who live nearby with their subsonic humming, drive up electricity prices, promote rentseeking, make rich landowners richer (and everyone else poorer), ruin views, buy more electric sports cars for that dreadful Dale Vince character, require rare earth minerals which cause enormous environmental damage, destroy 3.7 real jobs for every fake “green” job they “create”, blight neighbourhoods, kill off tourism and ruin lives, but they also

KILL WHALES!

Capstone Microturbines

2011-03-16T12:27:00.002-04:00

How domestic energy policy can help promote jobs. Testimony on Capitol Hill today [PDF]

"We sell 95 percent of our product outside of California, and 70 percent of our product overseas. We believe that the key to increasing exports is by strengthening the domestic market for clean and efficient energy technologies. A strong domestic market would enable newer companies like ours to increase production capacity that will make them more competitive overseas. Capstone Turbine sees value in adopting a long-term energy policy in the United States as a means of not only protecting our environment, but also as a way to decrease reliance on foreign oil while creating American jobs."

Palin review process

2011-03-16T10:01:00.005-04:00

We really shouldn't be paying any attention to her anymore at all...but, Sarah Palin has a new FB update. As we can expect from her, some of her "facts" are patently false. Like most of "Exhibit C." Of the 90 billion barrels she says are in the oil fields in the Beaufort and Chuckchi Seas, only about 1/3 are reasonably recoverable from US shores, and most of the recovery won't happen for at least another decade, thereby having no effect on current gasoline prices PDF here. But that's still a lot of oil and a lot of profit for oil companies! Which is why, even after the ~~Evil~~ Environmental Protection Agency asked Shell to clean up their emissions, Shell decided to comply with the Clean Air Act AND WILL START TO EXPLORE during the summers of 2012-2013, a direct contradiction to her point. But we all know that we can't actually expect Sarah Palin to know what's going on in...uh, well, Alaska.

The broader point, however, is the incessant undertone from those on the right, exemplified (simplified) here:

The evidence of the President’s anti-drilling mentality and his culpability in the high gas prices hurting Americans is there for all to see. The following is not even an exhaustive list:

Exhibit A: His drilling moratorium. Guided by politics and pure emotion following the Gulf spill instead of peer-reviewed science or defensible law, the President used the power of his executive order to impose a deepwater drilling moratorium. [...]

Peer review? Isn't that exactly what the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling was all about? They looked at the causes of the spill and recommended regulatory guidelines for future offshore drilling permits, which are now implemented. The so-called "free market" has traditionally been founded on the principles of gathering as much information as possible, and taking reasonable action to reduce potential of harm onto others. Nowadays, however, gathering and disseminating information is "anti" industry. Studying the effects of timber harvest is anti-timber-industry, gathering information about how much radioactivity seeps out of wastewater treatment plants in Pennsylvania due to hydrological fracturing liquid disposal is anti-industry, and, after Fukushima, when we begin to ask whether our nuclear plants are well equipped, we will once again be described as "anti-industry" just like Jimmy Carter was when he decided to focus resources towards existing nuclear power plant safety following Three-Mile Island. We did it all for the nookie.

Indeed

2011-03-15T13:17:00.001-04:00

Never a bad time for hackery

2011-03-13T15:29:00.002-04:00

Fred Upton:

"We want to find out why it takes so long to go from start to finish on a new nuclear reactor," Upton said Thursday — a day before the earthquake and tsunami struck. "Why does it take us 10 to 12 years and it takes the French and Japanese four to five years? We want to see what we can do to change that. By lowering the number years, we can lower the cost."

Ooops

It really is too early to start thinking about what the effects will be on public perception of the US nuclear energy industry, which is probably why everyone was talking about exactly that on the Sunday morning talk shows. So let's just address the "the French and Japanese are building them faster" canard. There are multiple reasons why nuclear power plants aren't built as fast here as in Japan, however, the governmental regulation side has recently been fixed:

In the U.S. many new regulations were put in place in the years before and again immediately after the Three Mile Island accident's partial meltdown, resulting in plant startup delays of many years. The NRC has new regulations in place now (see Combined Construction and Operating License), and the next plants will have NRC Final Design Approval before the customer buys them, and a Combined Construction and Operating License will be issued before construction starts, guaranteeing that if the plant is built as designed then it will be allowed to operate — thus avoiding lengthy hearings after completion.

In Japan and France, construction costs and delays are significantly diminished because of streamlined government licensing and certification procedures. In France, one model of reactor was type-certified, using a safety engineering process similar to the process used to certify aircraft models for safety. That is, rather than licensing individual reactors, the regulatory agency certified a particular design and its construction process to produce safe reactors. U.S. law permits type-licensing of reactors, a process which is being used on the AP1000 and the ESBWR.

In light of what might happen with Japan's nuclear power plants following the tsunami, it is appropriate to now impose a limited moratorium, assess what went wrong and what went right in Japan and where our vulnerabilities lie. Especially, however, the older plants, some of which are getting to around 40 years old, which is about the same age as the at-risk Japanese plants, should be re-examined.

An environmental magazine?

2011-03-11T23:45:00.005-05:00

Sounds like a [wingnut] porn front to me.

Because wingnuts don't read Grist for the articles.

How Much Do We Need Greenhouse Gas Regulations?

2011-03-11T10:41:00.002-05:00

Today, we feature a guest post by Nicholas Scott, a health, safety and environmental advocate and aspiring writer.
--Coeruleus

With the recent legislation [pdf] proposed by the GOP that requests for the removal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, one has to wonder if such a move is in the best interest of the average American family. Carbon emissions, cigarette smoke, lead-based paint, asbestos, and house hold chemicals are environmental toxins are scientifically proven to be harmful, especially to children. Removing the authority of the EPA to regulate emissions will put many urban, inner city communities with high concentrations of industry at significant risk.

After the recent release of the 2012 White House Budget plan, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has made a request for a multi-billion dollar increase to the EPA budget. Such an increase could be necessary given the rise of environmental toxins. This request, however, was not met without a fight.

The Hill Reported:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be three floors above in the Dirksen Senate office building. He’ll be defending the request for a multi-billion dollar increase before the Senate Budget Committee. The Energy Department budget plan focuses heavily on expanding renewable energy and efficiency R&D and science programs.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will appear in the afternoon before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The panel’s top Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), is among the leaders of GOP attempts to strip EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases.

Obama has already proposed a 2012 budget cut of $1.6 billion dollars to the EPA, which was intended to reduce funding for states’ clean water and drinking projects. As if this wasn’t enough, it seems like the GOP will not stop until the EPA is left with nothing.

The only way to minimalize the risks of environmental hazards is to limit exposure to them. By removing the EPA’s authority to regulate emissions, we are putting ourselves at risk. This is particularly frustrating, because unlike certain health problems that we have no control over, environmental health hazards are issues we can prevent from happening. One thing to consider is that we are usually unable to see the effects of environmental toxins until children have grown into adults. For instance, mesothelioma symptoms, a lung disease caused by exposure to asbestos, have a latency period of as long as twenty
years.

Children are especially vulnerable to environmental toxins. When children are growing, their behavior puts them closer to the ground ultimately promoting closer proximity to potential toxins. Additionally, their organs are developing, their bodies are smaller, and they breathe faster and take in more substances than adults. An increased breathing rate raises an individual’s susceptibility to the fibrous asbestos material that can cause mesothelioma and other lung cancers. Furthermore, the risk is compounded for families that can’t afford to live in places that are environmentally safe.

The Greater Birmingham children’s Environmental Health Initiative (GBCEHI) did a study targeting 12 zip codes in the Birmingham area. Their focus of study involved mostly populations that were primarily

African-American and low-income. They found that these communities had high population densities with even higher concentrations of heavy industry. They have since discovered that one of the most prominent environmental hazards is poor indoor air quality, citing it as a massive contributor to asthma. More frighteningly, asthma shares the basic symptoms of most lung diseases: coughing, shortness of breath, and chest heaviness. Because of the similarities, most lung disease is not diagnosed until it is far too late. With the mesothelioma life expectancy being as short as fourteen months, the impact of environmental toxins can be devastating to a community.

Organizations such as the EPA and the GBCEHI are attacking the problem of environmental hazards on several fronts. To slash the EPA’s budget and remove their power over the regulation of carbon emissions seems to be counterproductive to the health and wellbeing of American citizens. We can only hope that our representatives examine this issue thoroughly and come to a conclusion that finds a favorable balance for both environmental safety and American industry.

Senator Inhofe using the "they're hurting our fee-fees" argument

2011-03-10T15:05:00.003-05:00

Waaaahhhhh

"A lot of people are saying that the gas prices that are going up are a result, partially, of what's happening over there," said Senator James Inhofe, his party's senior member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a vocal climate change skeptic. "That isn't the real problem."
Inhofe said that "the real problem" was Obama's efforts to enact a cap-and-trade plan to curb emissions of greenhouse gases blamed by scientists for global warming.
"My message today simply is the higher gas prices are simply a product of this administration's goal," said the lawmaker.

Via Washington Monthly.

In a way, we're all guilty of increasing the price of oil. Any one of us who reduce our nation's demand by simply driving a little less is pissing off oil industry executives, and because their feelings get hurt by that sort of behavior they punish us by raising the price.

The White House did respond:

"In fact, oil production last year rose to its highest level since 2003," Obama's deputy assistant for energy and climate change, Heather Zichal, said in the post.

Notice the big spike in oil production since Obama took office in my post below. It's hard to know what else to do in the face of such utter absurdity besides repeating over and over again: offshore drilling is not halted, oil production in the US is running on all cylinders, the price of crude is probably correct right now (it was too low in the past given how unstable the apparently stable Middle East regimes actually were: externalities are priced correctly now), and this price of oil is actually a sweet spot that will lead to more production and greater efficiencies, both of which lead to more, not less, jobs!

ZOMG!!1! Teh greatest science conspiracy EVAR imagined!!!!

2011-03-10T11:15:00.003-05:00

Yawn.

But he did delete emails after receiving Jones’ request. He says he deleted the emails cited in the request that Mann forwarded to him from Jones. In response to Jones’ request that Mann ask Wahl to delete emails. But — and here’s where us non-scientists are missing the boat, it seems — Jones’ request was to Mann. You see? To, well, to ask Wahl to do what Wahl did. In response to which Mann forwarded the request. From Jones.

Via Memeorandum.

We've been here before, and we all know how this is going to go: Chris Horner, Charles Watts, Steve McIntyre et al. will keep posting about this until the story is breathlessly picked up by larger conservative websites, who will continue the ZOMG!!!1! Scientists deleted e-mails!!! meme. Eventually, Mike Morano will call up Fox News and schedule an interview with Sen. Inhofe who will then describe the grave consequences of scientists deleting e-mails. Eventually the serious faces of Hannity and Rush and O'Reilly that Tom Tomorrow so accurately displays will come around asking why the mainstream media is not reporting this?!? Why, it's a conspiracy, of course! And the discussion will be on their terms: e-mails, vague innuendos of conspiracies, gazillions of dollars spent on climate legislation that will bring the world's economy to its knees, and not about the facts that the effects of global warming are already measurable and that other countries are already successfully diversifying their electricity and transportation infrastructure and that the world economy was already brought to its knees without US climate legislation, thank you very much.

A little while back, Alex Steffen tweeted a serious of tweets that ended with "...we've built the wrong environmental movement." Indeed we have. Time has a piece attempting to address the question of what to do now? in light of the vast number of primarily conservative Americans who steadfastly refuse to accept the science of global warming.

What's the answer for environmentalists? Change the message and frame the issue in a way that doesn't trigger unconscious opposition among so many Americans. That can be a simple as using the right labels: a recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that Republicans are less skeptical of "climate change" than "global warming," possibly because climate change sounds less specific. Possibly too because so broad a term includes the severe snowfalls of the past winter that can be a paradoxical result of a generally warmer world. Greens should also pin their message on subjects that are less controversial, like public health or national security. Instead of issuing dire warnings about an apocalyptic future — which seems to make many Americans stop listening — better to talk about the present generation's responsibility to the future, to bequeath their children and grandchildren a safer and healthy planet.

Meh. I'm not sure that will do the trick. Just a brief perusal of conservative blogger's opinions on the piece will show why:

Gee, the nonstop gloom and doom scenarios have people tuning out? Crazy how that is. Maybe if even a single dire prediction had ever come true people might listen to the scaremongers.

The people responsible for messaging the need for action were sort of forced into describing the worst-case scenario as to what humans can expect and to make that scenario seem far more imminent than it is. Yes, if we keep doing what we're doing, our children will likely live in an entirely different world than we do and have no options of reversing the ever-worsening trend. But the messaging had to be Inconvenient Truth style, glossing over the timeline and emphasizing the worst case scenario because the other side made an effective case by saying "Who cares if some bugs or worms are dying now, we have an alarmist interpretation of our skewed economic model that predicts millions of deaths if we reduce carbon emissions, so you need to come up with at least an equally alarmist interpretation of your climate models to convince people to act." Once Al Gore came up with that, all they needed to do was wake up every morning and ask "did your home get washed away by rising sea levels yet?" And they'll keep saying that because these changes are going to be relatively gradual outside of the storm-of-the-century happening more frequently than every century and the city of Atlanta having to make plans to evacuate its citizens because it only had 2 weeks of water supply left in the reservoir. But those events can be easily brushed aside in the minds of some by a senator building a snowman in DC.

What to do? Over time, this blog will attempt to address this question, hopefully while re-gaining some of its readership, and maybe even some more. We'll continue to have some snarky humor every so often as well. But first, to those who remain--or rather those who have re-discovered that I'm posting again--we'll look forward to a guest post I will put up tomorrow.

Pirate Party

2011-03-09T18:19:00.002-05:00

Overall, most of the party platform is pretty good (maybe the copyright infringement stuff their party is named after is a little extreme). Being a Masshole, maybe I'll have to join! Of course no one here could ever pronounce "Pirate Parrrrrrty, me hardies!" correctly.

Dear David Koch,

2011-03-07T22:20:00.004-05:00

We, the scientists, deeply appreciate your generous gift supporting cancer research. Even though it's not my area of biomedical science, your philanthropy is a tremendous accomplishment that all of us are excited about.

However, given that we, the scientists, heavily depend on NIH funding, including those working in the institute that bears your name; and given that you yourself admitted that this funding is in jeopardy during the opening ceremony of your institute last week; and given that that funding is in jeopardy because of the budgetary decisions politicians you financially supported are making right now, wouldn't it be a good idea to make your subsequent political philanthropy dependent upon whether these politicians support the NIH budget when they come 'round asking you for more money?

I realize that your goals in supporting politicians are primarily focussed on things that I don't support, like tax cuts and limited pollution regulations, and that is your right to do with your money as you choose. But by asking those politicians to support NIH funding that does not lead to a mass exodus of highly trained biomedical scientists out of science--and a $1.6 billion cut will certainly have that effect!--you'll actually get more bang for your philanthropy buck.

Sincerely,

Coeruleus

Cool stuff

2011-03-06T18:06:00.002-05:00

I saw this on GPS, the Fareed Zakaria show on CNN earlier today.

Gapminder.org

It's a fun little graph to play around with. I highlighted all the countries I've visited. Boy, WW1 and WW2 really made things bouncey in Europe! For some of the less-developed countries I've noticed that much of the data from the 1800s isn't very useful (maybe life expectancy wasn't recorded). But there are clearly inflection points where life expectancy dramatically increases. Why is that? Sewage systems or electricity or both introduced?

Play around with it!

FOX News is destroying the global economy

2011-03-05T14:58:00.004-05:00

and fattening Al Gore:
News Corp. Meets Carbon Neutral Goal, Looks for Next Challenge

And, according to this report, they did so by partaking in a number of conservative no-nos: changing the light bulbs, installing PV solar panels and buying carbon credits.

Making News Corp.'s operations more efficient will save the company millions of dollars, Murdoch wrote. Just consolidating its data centers will save News Corp. $20 million a year and reduce related emissions by 15 percent once fully implemented.
The investments in energy efficiency yield an average of $180 per ton of carbon avoided, according to Liba Rubenstein, the company's global energy initiative director. That can add up when you consider that News Corp.'s absolute emissions in fiscal year 2010 were 2 percent lower than 2006 levels, and 9 percent lower than peak emissions in 2008. [...]

"Even with global energy initiative in place and the strong business case, the reason it took so long to get the project going is because the numbers were too good," Rubenstein said. "No one in finance could really believe an investment of that scale could pay off so quickly."

Presumably this is in part because News Corp operates in countries that already have cap-and-trade systems, like Great Britain, and countries it believes (or believed) will soon have those, like the US. A lot of companies have already done their energy efficiency calculations in anticipation of cap-and-trade, I suspect, and were just waiting for Congress to pass it.

Sound science always says exactly what I expect it to say.

2011-03-04T16:50:00.002-05:00

That's why it's easy for me to believe what FoxNews tells me is true.

Except, uh, FoxNews totally made that story up.

Today in Sociopathy

2011-03-04T14:23:00.003-05:00

The people have spoken and the people just don't want the government interfering when they get poisoned.

Eliminating nearly all the money for poison control centers would save $27 million — not even a rounding error when it comes to the deficit. Yet it is so foolish that it perfectly illustrates the thoughtlessness of the House Republican bill to cut $61 billion from the budget over the next seven months. [...]

While a single visit to an emergency room can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars (often paid for by the government), a call to a poison center costs the government only $30 or $40. A study in the Journal of Medical Toxicology estimated that the poison centers saved the State of Arizona alone $33 million a year. Louisiana eliminated its centers in the 1980s but restored them when it realized how much money they saved.

Sometimes all it takes is a little push

2011-03-04T11:16:00.004-05:00

I've left this place horribly neglected for the last few...years? But that doesn't mean I've not been lurking around the dark and dirty underbelly of the internets. Just to shake my head and laugh at teh stoopid.

Which isn't to say I've not also run around in some of the more civil corners of the interwebs. Like today, when I popped by this old fart's place only to find no real difference between the ironic, satirical snarky comments and the real deal. Should we be worried that the astroturfing commenters have exceeded even our wildest craziness satire?

But I digress. What I really meant to show in this post, after reading about the Antarctic, was something that caught my eye on how our very own hemisphere's pile of ice is doing.

Going on a hunch, here, but this is bad, isn't it? Notice how this winter went by and the Arctic didn't even make it up to where it used to be in the summer? If this were a stock price chart, I'd say short it ASAP.

But being the cautious investor that I am, I went on over to Eli's and noticed that someone actually still occasionally visits this site. That, and an e-mail I received recently, pushed me over the edge.

So now here I am. Blogging again. 'But...Coeruleus, we've all heard that before!' Yeah, but this time might be different, you never know.

While I'm in the mood to display graphs, let me show another interesting and informative graph. Via The Oil Drum:

Keep that in mind, now that Newt Skywalker is probably running for 2012, and everything will again be about DRILL BABY DRILL! USA USA USA! BLARGEDY BLARG BLARG because Nobama in his ruthless Islamvironmentalism single-handedly shut down the entire domestic oil industry. As the TOD article linked to above wryly opines,

In my view, if additional US oil is produced, it actually helps increase US demand for oil products–in fact for all products. More people are employed, and this puts more money into the economy. It also helps keep world oil prices from escalating as fast as they would otherwise. The net effect is that I would expect higher US oil production to increase US imports (or maybe, keep imports from falling as fast), because they will help keep the US out of recession. I am sure some will disagree with me on this, however.

Maybe I'll have something to say about fracking, or biofuels, soon. Stay tuned!

Mapnificent

2010-11-10T12:29:00.001-05:00

A neat little tool that tells you how far you can get within a given amount of time on public transportation in 17 cities around the world (mainly US).

Mapnificent from Stefan Wehrmeyer on Vimeo.

Mapnificent.

The Shinkus video

2010-11-10T10:55:00.003-05:00

Since most sites' embedded YouTube videos of Rep. Shimkus informing us that God will stop climate change are down, here's one that's working:

Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though all inclinations of his heart are evil from childhood and never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease.

Shimkus continues: "I believe that is the infallible word of god, and that's the way it is going to be for his creation... The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."

Give it back!

2010-11-10T09:59:00.001-05:00

Anything else would just be a waste of taxpayer money.

And that will help?

2010-11-10T09:51:00.000-05:00

trashcare

2010-11-09T15:24:00.002-05:00

I wonder when Tea Partiers will begin to denounce municipal sewage as a socialist plot to require us to poop into toilets.

The Arizona Republic reported this weekend about the intense debate surrounding a change to the community's garbage collection services. Currently, Fountain Hills' 25,000 residents can choose between five different collectors. Under the new system, the community has hired a single trash collector to meet the town's garbage hauling needs, collection days will be reduced to once-a-week, and curbside recycling services will be added. ABC15 reports that Town Manager Rick Davis estimated "total savings to reach about $1,000,000 a year," and that officials also hope the changes will cut down on pollution, noise, and traffic.

Tea Party groups have come out strongly against the measure. The Republic reports some people have dubbed it "trashcare," as if it were the local, municipal waste-related cousin of "Obamacare." Fliers were distributed that read "The Hills Will Have Eyes," and which raised the specter of a "Fountain Hills Green Police" poking around citizens' garbage bins. On its website, Arizona Campaign for Liberty warned that "The Fountain Hills Mayor & Town Council is attempting to restrict resident's choice in trash services by forcing residents into a single payer system!" The Fountain Hills Tea Party's website reads, "Once more, government is trying to interfere with free market economics."

God hates bears!

2010-11-09T14:31:00.001-05:00

Bryan Fisher

One human being is worth more than an infinite number of grizzly bears. Another way to put it is that there is no number of live grizzlies worth one dead human being. If it’s a choice between grizzlies and humans, the grizzlies have to go. And it’s time. [...]

God makes it clear in Scripture that deaths of people and livestock at the hands of savage beasts is a sign that the land is under a curse. The tragic thing here is that we are bringing this curse upon ourselves.

God's plan.

Science!

2010-11-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

Yes, indeed. I can assure you, not much has changed.

Scumbag PHDs working 3 days a week

2010-11-07T23:37:00.002-05:00

Bring it!

Faced with rising political attacks, hundreds of climate scientists are joining a broad campaign to push back against congressional conservatives who have threatened prominent researchers with investigations and vowed to kill regulations to rein in man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The still-evolving efforts reveal a shift among climate scientists, many of whom have traditionally stayed out of politics and avoided the news media. Many now say they are willing to go toe-to-toe with their critics, some of whom gained new power after the Republicans won control of the House in Tuesday's election.

Post title taken from the comments section.

non sequitor

2010-11-07T23:29:00.001-05:00

Shorter John Kasich

2010-11-05T13:37:00.001-04:00

Shut up and drive!

This will surely create jobs

2010-11-05T13:20:00.002-04:00

Money for Scientific Research May Be Scarce With a Republican-Led House

An analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science looked at what would happen if all of the agencies were cut to the 2008 amounts. The National Institutes of Health would lose $2.9 billion, or 9 percent, of its research money. The National Science Foundation would lose more than $1 billion, or almost 19 percent, of its budget, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would lose $324 million, or 34 percent.

Since industry isn't hiring that much these, I'm sure it'll be no problem for thousands of 30-something postdocs to use their skills, and with just a little bit of re-training, become...uhm...unemployed in their new profession?

That didn't take long

2010-11-05T12:20:00.003-04:00

New Court Filing Charges Agency with Concealing Evidence of Climate Data Manipulation.

The requested information pertains directly to issues of national significance, including the integrity of “warming” claims NASA makes about U.S. and global temperatures and the extent to which NASA scientists have utilized a third-party advocacy ‘blog’ to respond to and attack critics of the agency

This should compliment all the other Congressional inqui~~sitions~~ries quite well.

Also, this doesn't politicize the science at all, it reduces government interference and enhances competitiveness of the free market. Or something like that.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

2010-11-04T10:24:00.002-04:00

I present to you the new Speaker of the House:

I think we can find bipartisan agreement that carbon dioxide is, in fact, not a carcinogen.

Is it over yet?

2010-11-03T18:12:00.001-04:00

Might be time to start blogging again. Anyone still out there?

Economic Alarmism

2010-04-11T15:32:00.001-04:00

Krugman:

The truth is that there is no credible research suggesting that taking strong action on climate change is beyond the economy’s capacity. Even if you do not fully trust the models — and you shouldn’t — history and logic both suggest that the models are overestimating, not underestimating, the costs of climate action. We can afford to do something about climate change.

Deep thought

2010-04-04T11:53:00.000-04:00

I wonder if am April heat wave also disproves global warming.

Weather and climate

2010-04-01T11:24:00.002-04:00

Joe "goes there." But someone had to point that out, especially after the media coverage of Sen. Inhofe's snowstorms = no global warming stupidity earlier this season.

It's a moderate el niño year which might have been made more extreme by climate change. No one really know yet.

Drill Baby Drill

2010-03-31T16:06:00.002-04:00

At first glance, this is an incredibly short-sighted capitulation:

The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday.

Why give up the ultimate bargaining chip in the climate legislation debate so soon in the process? Maybe because the real bargaining chip is state revenue sharing:

One major flashpoint in the negotiations has been whether to share drilling revenue with states and to allow states to opt in or out of drilling along their coastlines.

It was unclear late Tuesday whether Obama endorses revenue-sharing for states.

This way Obama has taken a Republican talking point out of the way (if one can even call "drill baby drill" a talking point), and dangled a carrot in front of each of those Senator's heads where drilling will be allowed. Notice that it won't be allowed along the West Coast or the Northeast, where most Senators are already on board with energy policy reform.

That being said, this seems like an incredibly risky strategy. Hopey the changey works!

Conservative reasoning

2010-03-17T12:22:00.002-04:00

Deep thought

2010-03-05T15:09:00.003-05:00

A couple of years ago we burned through a trillion dollars of the US economy for petroleum, helping plunge us into recession. The same people in power then are now telling us the economy will be DOOMED if we use free-market mechanisms to reduce the amount of petroleum we use.

Jon Swift, RIP

2010-03-03T23:01:00.002-05:00

Al Weisel has passed away. Obviously a great writer. Always loved visiting the site. And he linked here a time or two (he knew how to find the small blogs). He will be missed.

2010-03-03T08:11:00.002-05:00

Ron Gettelfinger's column's title might be a bit too forward thinking.

've heard a lot about advanced technology vehicles such as hybrid, pure-electric, natural gas and biofuel-powered, which the UAW supports. But even the most ardent advocates acknowledge these technologies won't be fully a part of the American mainstream for many decades. Until then, Americans will be using the reliable internal-combustion engines for the majority of their transportation needs.

Until then, you're going to drive our gas guzzlers and you're going to like it! Yes we can!

Labor has always sided with industry to screw over environmentalists. Wouldn't it be nice if this were to change some day?

95% political confidence level

2010-03-03T07:58:00.002-05:00

Rep. Burton's wankery is trending towards statistical significance:

You know, science is verifiable. Science is something that can be replicated. This whole theory of global warming is just that: It’s a theory. It’s based on models. Models are based on variables, and conditions that the modelers that develop the models put into them. And the models don’t replicate what’s happened. So they need to go back to square one, look at the empirical data, look at alternative theories, and see if they can find a theory that actually fits the facts.

Can't make this stuff up

2010-03-02T16:04:00.002-05:00

South Dakota State House writes my parody blog posts for me:

A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Calling for balanced teaching of global warming in the public schools of South Dakota.
WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; and
WHEREAS, there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere where the majority of warming would be taking place; and
WHEREAS, historical climatological data shows without question the earth has gone through trends where the climate was much warmer than in our present age. The Climatic Optimum and Little Climatic Optimum are two examples. During the Little Climatic Optimum, Erik the Red settled Greenland where they farmed and raised dairy cattle. Today, ninety percent of Greenland is covered by massive ice sheets, in many places more than two miles thick; and
WHEREAS, the polar ice cap is subject to shifting warm water currents and the break-up of ice by high wind events. Many oceanographers believe this to be the major cause of melting

polar ice, not atmospheric warming; and
WHEREAS, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life on earth. Many scientists refer to carbon dioxide as "the gas of life"; and
WHEREAS, more than 31,000 American scientists collectively signed a petition to President Obama stating: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, or methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide will produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the earth":
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-fifth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming include the following:
(1) That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;
(2) That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; and
(3) That the debate on global warming has subsumed political and philosophical viewpoints which have complicated and prejudiced the scientific investigation of global warming phenomena; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Legislature urges that all instruction on the theory of global warming be appropriate to the age and academic development of the student and to the prevailing classroom circumstances.

Astrological dynamics? That's why this is all one big hoax!

Weatherization

2010-02-19T08:11:00.002-05:00

Remember the big weatherization scandal yesterday in the blogosphere?

The GAO report cites figures from September 2009 -- almost five months out of date. Since then, we have resolved Davis-Bacon wage issues in all 50 states, clarified how states should handle historic preservation and worked with states to resolve any remaining barriers. As a result, by the end of 2009, our programs had weatherized about 124,000 homes in total, and we are on track to weatherize more than 250,000 this year. In fact, since September 2009, we have tripled the pace of Recovery Act funded home weatherization. The report also erroneously implies that our goal was to weatherize 593,000 homes in 2009. That is wrong. The goal has been to weatherize that number by March 2012, and we are on track to meet that goal.

Another thing I found weird was that they basically take the fact that only $522 million of the stimulus money has been spent on weatherization thus far, divide it by the 9000 homes that have been weatherized and come up with $57,362 per home.

Thing is, much of the early stimulus money designated for weatherization has been spent on low income housing and low income housing usually isn't single-family housing. So I wonder what is meant by 9000 homes. Searched around the internet a little yesterday but couldn't figure it out.

Either way, stupid LATimes blog post.

Let's say...

2010-02-19T08:03:00.003-05:00

...the suicide note had talked about the evils of mountaintop removal and clear-cutting and SUVs and ended with something about the ELF creed. I'm guessing then he'd be called a terrorist.

...adding: Atrios just posted this. Brown has two years before his re-election (Kennedy was up for re-election in 2012). Presumably in the first year, he'll act as the 41st "no" vote for anything that is dealt with by the Senate. His second year, however, should be interesting. He could either say eff-it and run for President, or vote for for federal goodies for MA thereby alienating the tea-partiers, or stick with the Republican/tea party line thereby alienating the majority of MA voters who aren't tea-partiers. In making a statement like this, he offers us a glimpse into his persona, and thus makes it appear as though he'll go with the tea-partiers. Good luck with that, Brownie!