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Low-oxygen event troubling in Hood Canal

Arrr mateys, there's nothin' like a noggin o' rum cuppa joe to sober wake ye up on a Thursday morn. And there's nothin' like a depressing video of a fish die-off to harsh ye mellow. The footage of Hood Canal comes from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and includes a brief explanation of the problem:

Green building convention is abuzz

I'm currently attending GreenBuild, the U.S. Green Building Council's big annual convention. This is just the fifth iteration, but already it's a behemoth. Last year it drew over 10,000 attendees, and this year it's expected to best that record.

The vast trade show floor (over 700 exhibitors) testifies to the big business of green building. The show places leviathan bridge-builders next door to some guy selling composting toilets. An entire aisle is lined with suppliers of modular green roofs.

What I find interesting, though, is less the breadth of exhibitors than the depth.

Dear Sir, you know about that global warming thing?

U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) yesterday sent the following letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to commit to working with the new Congress to pass meaningful climate change legislation in 2007.

The Senators are the incoming chairs of three important Senate committees on global warming: Boxer in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; Bingaman in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Lieberman in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The senators' letter to the President follows:

France to slap tariff on U.S. over Kyoto non-compliance

For the non-nerds out there, that's "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Everybody's gotta pay sometime.

Which brings me to this: The European Union may apply a tariff on nations that don't sign on to Kyoto, or who fail to meet their obligations. This would include America and Canada.

Is a smart guy

Earlier today I had a nice long chat with Terry Tamminen, who until recently was Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top environmental advisor.

It's safe to say that Tamminen is one of the most influential figures in environmental policy in the country, though he's not widely known. Through his friendship and professional association with Schwarzenegger, he helped develop a whole range of innovative policies, including the biggie: AB 32, California's greenhouse-gas reduction bill. (See also the low-emissions-vehicles regulations that got the state sued by automakers.)

Time for the feds to step in

My previous post about CyberTran described a mass transit system that is highly energy efficient compared to conventional transit, and is inexpensive enough, and supports small stations well enough, to work in suburbs as well as cities.

Some readers were disappointed to find that CyberTran is not currently running anywhere -- that it is still experimental.

Hope you weren’t planning a protest

If there's one creature that animal-rights activists should not try to save (and should instead attempt to quietly euthanize), it's a lame duck.

The House of Representatives on Monday passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, extending current federal law to specifically criminalize not only interfering with "animal enterprises" -- a commercial or academic enterprise that uses or sells animals or animal products for profit, food or fiber production, agriculture, research, or testing -- but also interfering with organizations that do business with "animal enterprises," such as their lawyers or insurance companies.

As AP says:

Violators could be sentenced up to a year in jail for economic damages of less than $10,000, and up to five years in prison if a threat produced a "reasonable fear" of bodily harm. Prison sentences of up to 10 years could result if someone is actually injured.

Press coverage of climate change is … changing

Am I the only one who senses a remarkable shift -- or, really, three shifts -- in how the press is covering climate change?

You’ll never guess

Carbon neutral.

How Sunpower plans to do it

Sunpower, a darling of the investor community, has the highest efficiency solar cells on the market. If you are interested in how they think they can reduce costs by 50% by 2012 and thereby reach grid parity -- that is to say, the point where solar is cost effective without subsidies -- listen here.