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Me, elsewhere

Two things I wrote yesterday are now up on other sites. Over at the Guardian‘s opinion site, I’ve got a piece on Obama’s new energy plan. (Wow, the comments are really awful over there.) Over at TPM Cafe, I’m taking part in a "book club" roundtable on S&N’s new book Break Through (heard of it?). […]

Politicians are still pumping biodiesel

Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) will be speechifying today at 11:00am at the opening of the first of many biodiesel pumps to be installed in the Seattle area by Propel Biofuels. According to a press release I just received from Duff Badgely, there will also be a handful of protesters on hand to greet them. Don't these people have anything better to do than to run around speaking truth to power?

In her speech, Cantwell will tell us all about how this fuel will fight global warming, reduce local air pollution, make us energy independent, and be made from crops grown by Washington State farmers. Here is a picture of Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, Congressman Norm Dicks, and Imperium President John Plaza with looks of absolute glee on their faces at the grand opening in August of the largest industrial agridiesel refinery in North America.

Never mind that according to a recent paper in Science, one in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, and this paper (PDF) co-authored by Ron Steenblik, the fuel being served at this pump is far more environmentally destructive than the fuel it replaces. The peer-reviewed paper in Science says it will release about five times more carbon over a thirty-year period than if you had simply let the cropland grow into a forest. The journal study (by a multinational team of researchers including a Nobel Prize winner) says it releases 70% more greenhouse gases (in the form of NO2) than diesel. To ice the cake, the paper co-authored by Steenblik has a chart on p. 35 that gives biodiesel made from rapeseed an overall environmental rating 2.5 times worse than diesel:

A first-hand view from Chicago’s overheated marathon

Chicago's annual marathon was shut down early on Sunday due to oppressive heat and humidity, which led to dozens of hospitalizations. Grister Sarah Hardin was on the scene and offers this first-hand report:

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It's become a tradition for my geographically widespread family to converge on Chicago in October for the city's annual marathon. We've been volunteering at the marathon ever since my cousin married the operations manager for the event. This was the first year I was able to join in -- and what a year, too. While 2006 saw 37-degree temperatures and cold rain all morning, this year's runners experienced some of the hottest weather Chicago's seen in October since the 1970s.

I witnessed up close and personal just how much planning goes into coordinating such a large-scale event (the race draws around 45,000 runners and 1.5 million spectators annually), and then I saw hundreds of people suffering from the effects of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and hyponatremia. Kudos to the marathon coordinators for making a difficult (and perhaps unpopular) decision to shut the course down and encourage people to reroute or walk the rest of it. It can't be an easy task to convince stubborn marathoners to stop running.

Large wild animals frolic, elicit ooh’s, aah’s

OK, this is just stoopid cute. (via Pat Joseph)

Organisms living in toxic waste pit may help fight cancer

Montana’s Berkeley Pit, containing 40 billion gallons of poisonous copper-mine runoff including arsenic, aluminum, cadmium, and zinc, has two claims to fame. One, it once killed a flock of hundreds of geese the moment they touched down on its surface. Two, the 40-billion-gallon pit houses 142 organisms — some of which have shown success in […]

European Commission springs to action

For bluefin tuna to have any chance of survival, we've got to make sure proper legislation is in place to protect them and, more importantly, that it's enforced adequately and effectively.

With that in mind, it's a welcome sight to see the European Commission threatening countries like Italy and France with legal action for failing to adhere to fishing quotas and not accurately reporting catches.

The Commission's decision, though welcome, is long overdue.

Electronics makers lament E.U. phaseout of lead

Electronics makers are lamenting the European Union’s phaseout of lead from electronics, claiming that the heavy metal is the best-known defense against “whiskers,” splinters that sprout off of tin solder. Tin whiskers can cause short circuits, which some estimate have caused as much as $10 billion in damage since they were first noticed in the […]

Utility company AEP to pay billions in acid-rain settlement

The utility company American Electric Power has agreed to pay some $4.6 billion to reduce acid-rain-causing emissions from some of its power plants in the U.S. Northeast, as well as $60 million to clean up specific waterways and parks, and $15 million in civil penalties, all to settle a long-running lawsuit brought by the U.S. […]

Gore thought likely to take home the Nobel Peace Prize

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but lots of folks seem fairly convinced that Al Gore is going to win a Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. (Haven’t they heard about his house, and how he eats meat, and how one time he threw a bottle in the trash instead of the recycling?!) Naturally, the U.S. media […]

More toys recalled due to lead, Congress vows to move ahead on climate legislation, and more

Read the news items highlighted in this week’s podcast: The Lead Badge of Discourage Legislate Bloomers Ice Free or Die Wait and Sea Read the articles mentioned at the end of the podcast: How Green Is Your Candidate? Last Swim with Henry Dave A Better Mousetrap