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UN fails to ban bottom trawling

Warning: If you don't want to know the ending to Happy Feet, read no further.

On its opening weekend, the tap-dancing penguin raked in $42.3 million, topping the debut of the much-anticipated Bond flick Casino Royale. If you thought your eight dollars would buy an hour and a half of a warm and fuzzy penguin love story set to music, you'll be surprised by the realistic and serious tone of the film (as well as the penguins with Mexican accents ...).

Efficiency is the key

I previously noted that efficiency is essential to eliminating fossil fuel use, because non-fossil sources have an overall market price cost higher than coal, natural gas, and even oil. This is not as obvious as it seems. Up to a point, renewable energy is competitive with fossil fuels; the problem is, that point is never a majority of consumption.

Take electricity.

For Every Action, There’s a Reactor

Russian spy death linked to nuclear black market, and other glowings-on Oh, nuclear — will it ever cease to amaze? As authorities probe the radiation-poisoning death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, they’ve suggested a link to Russia’s robust radioactive-materials black market. The market’s deals, said an International Atomic Energy Agency rep, “are of little […]

Nothing New Under the Sea

After days of negotiations, U.N. fails to pass high-seas bottom-trawling ban In a roughy outcome for conservationists, the U.N. failed to adopt a high-seas bottom-trawling ban supported by countries including the U.S. and Australia. The controversial fishing method, currently used by 11 countries including ban-busters Iceland and Russia, involves dragging vast nets and coral-crunching rollers […]

Pratt’s Creatures

Community organizer Sam Pratt, featured in a new PBS documentary, InterActivates Sam Pratt spent six years fighting the polluting plans of the largest cement company in the world. His story, and that of fellow citizens of Hudson, N.Y., is featured in the soon-to-air PBS documentary Two Square Miles. As InterActivist this week, Pratt speaks out […]

Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another

As climate evidence solidifies, some U.S. energy companies request regulations This climate-change conspiracy is getting elaborate: now leaders of some of the largest energy companies in the U.S. are in on it. Faced with a mish-mash of state-level regulations, behemoths like Shell Oil and Duke Energy are pushing for a federal cap on greenhouse-gas emissions, […]

They’re coming around

Everyone's excited about the Washington Post piece "Energy Firms Come to Terms With Climate Change," but I can't figure out what's new in it.

Restored bald eagles will kick them off Santa Cruz

The latest edition of the Nature Conservancy's quarterly magazine featured an article describing restoration efforts on Santa Cruz Island, sometimes referred to as The Galapagos of North America.

Bald eagles disappeared from the island in the 1960s. Just across the bay a chemical company had been making DDT and dumping it into waterways. A survey two decades later found a hundred tons of the stuff in local ocean sediments.

The bald eagles got nailed because they primarily prey on water species. Golden eagles took over the island and because they primarily prey on land-dwelling animals, the local fox population was being decimated. This is an example of how ecosystems unravel.

Bald eagles, which do not tolerate golden eagles in their territories, are being reintroduced to the island. Once reestablished they will drive off the golden eagles, thus sparing the endangered foxes.

Yes, charcoal

I'm shamelessly spreading this link around, because it's one of the most interesting pieces I've read in a while: Engineer-Poet at his blog The Ergosphere has a detailed and fascinating exploration of the possibility of using charcoal (derived from biomass and wastes) to fuel America, with many, many charts and numbers for the wonkishly inclined.

The short version is: If we're smart about it, we can generate enough electricity and liquid fuels from biomass in the United States to replace all fossil fuels and then some, plus rejuvenate long-suffering American soils, plus sequester billions of tons of CO2. Check it out here.

Washington Post says so

That's the underlying message from two remarkable stories published this weekend in the Washington Post.

On Saturday, Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin reported that "top executives at many of the nation's largest energy companies have accepted the scientific consensus about climate change and see federal regulation to cut greenhouse gas emissions as inevitable."

They include a great quote from Duke Energy executive John Stowell: