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NASA invests … on the moon

Typically I am in the tank for investment in basic science. But it mystifies me that NASA would announce they are going to set up camp on the moon's south pole as a galactic jumping off point. Gives new meaning to the idea of forward basing -- something that isn't working out too well in practice here on Earth.

If we are going to make a super-sized investment in science, how about jumping on the climate bandwagon here at home, an area where NASA already does some good work, like here or here or here or here.

A blistering report on biofuel from the tropical south.

In today's Main Dish, Julia Olmstead surveys the environmental liabilities involved in biofuel production -- stuff you don't typically hear about in, say, an Archer Daniels Midland press release or from celebrity biodiesel enthusiasts.

One of Julia's focuses is industrial biodiesel production, which, she writes, is increasingly focusing on tropical palm as a feedstock:

Throughout tropical countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, and Colombia, rainforests and grasslands are being cleared for soybean and oil-palm plantations to make biodiesel, a product that is then marketed halfway across the world as a "green" fuel.

As if on cue, today's Wall Street Journal features (sub required) a blistering report on that very topic.

Look, he’s on the teevee!

I just got back from taping my first ever appearance on national teevee. I'm here to report that it is a truly surreal experience. There I am, sitting alone in a room, with awkwardly rigid posture, speaking to a yellow arrow above a camera in response to a disembodied voice that keeps telling me to "smile more," struggling to recall the snappy talking points I'd written down at 2am the previous morning. Totally natural!

The show is The Climate Code, a Weather Channel program hosted by Heidi Cullen (who we interviewed last year). They're interviewing five or six people about the top 10 climate stories of the year, and then they'll smoosh the whole thing down into a half-hour program, so it will probably be a blink-and-you-miss-me sort of thing.

Nonetheless, if you want to see me looking like a deer in headlights, speaking in a slightly-too-loud voice and an ill-fitting earnest tone, tune your idiot boxes to the Weather Channel on Dec. 17, 5pm EST. It should be good for a laugh.

In Sickness and in Wealth

Bush administration apparently tried to limit payments to ailing nuclear workers You know you’re in trouble when America’s bubblegum newspaper nails you. According to a memo obtained by USA Today, the Bush administration has tried to avoid compensating Cold War-era nuclear workers sickened by radiation. Under a federal program created in 2000 to pay claims […]

Zombie hens survive euthanasia

In a truly bizarre story, laying hens who have survived euthanasia have walked out alive from compost piles. Neighbors in Sonoma County dubbed them "zombie chickens."

They don’t ignore it

In order to further elucidate the role of animal welfare issues in environmentalism, let us examine mission statements from some of the top environmental organizations in the world.

Let's start with the first line of the mission statement from the World Wildlife Fund:

"Protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species."

Notice that WWF talks about protecting wild animals independently of whether they are endangered (only later do they go on to discuss the sustainability of resources).

Here's the first sentence from the mission statement for the Defenders of Wildlife:

Al Gore’s tragic humor

Al Gore, funny guy:

Do you know if President Bush has seen the movie yet?

Well, he claimed that would not see it. That's why I wrote the book. He's a reader.

And a personal anecdote:

Huh?

People who want to poo-poo the environmental movement are fond of making a particular argument. It goes like this:

You go on and on about how the earth is "in trouble" and "out of balance." But guess what, dude, the earth is billions of years old. Nothing we could do could hurt it.

Yes. Right. Obviously. Though we may take ourselves out, and a good chunk of the earth's current biodiversity with us, the planet itself will survive and eventually regenerate new species.

What I don't get is ... so what? Why does this pop up so often? What's the force of the argument supposed to be? It mystifies me.

Gore: Oscar winner

An Inconvenient Truth will win the 2007 Oscar for Best Documentary. You heard it here first.

On a related note: below the fold, you can watch video of Al Gore's surprisingly funny appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last week. (Thanks to Treehugger for uploading the video.)

Is hydropower really low-carbon? Time will tell

Back in early November, I noted information suggesting hydropower may not be as carbon neutral as we thought. The word "may" was deliberately chosen.

At the time, I received an angry email from a leading hydropower supporter, which included links to some studies suggesting the data for high emissions was cherry-picked, or didn't take net emissions into account adequately.

I soon found other studies dealing with these objections and suggesting significant net emissions from hydropower. At this point, I was reminded of the debate between warming deniers and climate scientists, except I was not sure which side was which.

The December 2006 issue of Nature contains a fascinating article on the subject: "The green image of hydropower may have been seriously overstated, warn Scientists." The key paragraphs: