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New safeguards created to protect whales
Following up on my previous post, the legal battle between the Navy and the environmental community has come to a close (at least for now). Last Friday, a settlement was reached ensuring that measures will be taken to reduce the harm to whales, dolphins, and other marine life caused by high-intensity, mid-frequency sonar. Great work by NRDC and others. Stay tuned for the next episode of this contentious issue ...
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STFU
God, this drives me craaazy.
So, Long Island. Known for beautiful, sweeping scenic vistas, right? Oh, no, sorry, that's the Rocky Mountains. Long Island is a grimy industrial smear with some dirty beaches.
The Long Island Power Authority wants to build an offshore wind farm off the island. Great, huh? Close to an urban center for efficient transmission. No smog. No CO2. Barely visible at all on a clear day, totally invisible on a hazy one. What do you want, eggs in your beer?
But nooo. The locals are bitching. From Peter Applebome's column in the NYT ($):
Jayne Johnes lives and breathes for her proximity to Gilgo Beach.
"This is heaven, this is my church," she said. "And now they want to put a power plant in the middle of it?"Yes, Jayne. Yes. You use power. Every day, you enjoy more power than 95% of the planet's residents -- arguably more than your share. Right now that juice is probably coming from coal that got ripped violently out of a piece of scarred land and burnt in a plant that's sickening local residents and spewing CO2 into the atmosphere.
That's heaven, Jayne: the atmosphere. My heaven too.
You want to use power but you don't want to deal with it. You don't want to see it -- oh, I mean barely see it, on a clear day. You think it should be in somebody else's back yard.
Jayne, a message from all us out here getting warmer and worrying about our kids' futures, to all you Long Islanders -- salt of the earth folks, I'm sure -- aghast that your familiar stretch of beach will have new features:
STFU.
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Desalination
One of the things that got left out of my recent interview with the water experts was a question about desalination. A reader just emailed to ask about it, so I thought I'd share:
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Ignoring the feast, obsessed with the ramen
Via TH: GE has collaborated on a report concluding that America could meet its entire electrical demand through offshore wind power alone. This may not be an altruistic gamble (hi Dave!), but I'll sure take it.
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Now that’s a flex-fuel
An Iowa judge has denied unemployment benefits to a man who claimed discrimination after being fired from an ethanol plant for drinking "automobile fuel" produced by the company.
(via OD)
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Inhofe media critic turns attention to TV
Sweet Jeebus, he's at it again.
Yesterday I mentioned that Tom Brokaw is hosting the Discovery Channel's special, "Global Warming: What You Need to Know." This has enraged the hack factory that is the Senate Committee on Environment under the hacktastic proprietorship of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Clowntown).
Apparently unbowed by the outcry that greeted his previous missive, committee spokeshack Marc Morano has issued another blast:
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Newsweek greens
Newsweek -- no doubt still irritated about getting burned by Time on the green front -- devotes its cover this week to the "greening of America." Most of the cover story is a recitation of facts and trends familiar to Grist readers. I was happy to see some skepticism sneak into the cheerleading:... these are thrilling times, the beginning of a technological and social revolution that could vault our society into a post-post-industrial future. ... On the other hand, we may just be kidding ourselves. Can bicycles and switch grass really offset the effects -- in pollution, resource depletion and habitat destruction -- of a billion Chinese lining up to buy cars for the first time? ... It's nice that Jane Cremisi ... washes and reuses her aluminum foil and patronizes ecofriendly hotels .... But you cannot save the world with anecdotes. Is the relevant statistic that sales of hybrid cars doubled last year to 200,000 -- or that they were outsold by SUVs by a ratio of 23-1?
Unfortunately, that is the sum total of the skepticism in the piece, and it more or less goes unanswered. Still, it's a nice, optimistic read.
Far, far more annoying is the sidebar about Bush's record on environmental issues, which reads like a parody of the widely loathed he-said, she-said style of journalism. Have a look at this:
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Jump for joy! Grist loves readers, readers love Grist!
From our new office, we have a view of Seattle's two sports stadiums. And we'll tell you what: put together, they're still not big enough to contain our immense gratitude to those who donated during our recent fundraiser -- and to all of you for putting up with our "please give us money" emails. About 1,400 of you opened your wallets and hearts to Grist, helping us raise nearly $85,000. Thanks a million! (Or at least $85,000.) Besides the new digs, your donations are helping us move forward with plans for bigger, brighter content -- so keep an eye on us. Keep an eye out later this month, too, as we draw the winners of our fabulous fundraiser prizes. And hey, if you meant to give but didn't get around to it, it's never too late. Operators are standing by -- though they do occasionally sit for a spell.
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GE’s Green Gamble
Today's must-read comes from our very own Amanda Griscom Little, in Vanity Fair: "G.E.'s Green Gamble" is an in-depth look at the roots, impact, and larger meaning of GE's ecomagination campaign. It's the best, fairest piece I've read on a subject that tends to receive excess hype from the business press and excess scorn from environmentalists.
One thing that comes across clearly: this is purely a business move on the part of CEO Jeffrey Immelt. It's a gamble, but it's a business gamble, not an altruistic gamble. If he succeeds, it will show pretty conclusively that green and green are, as he claims, aligned.
