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It’s Hard Out Here for a Chinook

Fishing ban considered for Klamath chinook along West Coast With chinook salmon runs in the Klamath River plummeting, federal regulators are considering an unprecedented ocean-fishing ban on chinook along 700 miles of coast, from northern Oregon to just south of Carmel, Calif. A combination of factors on the Klamath River, including warm, low-flowing water and […]

Wattle envy

My youngest had her first practice "chicken showing" at the fairgrounds yesterday. She oiled up his beak, comb, wattle, feet, and legs while he stood on the kitchen table the night before. She could not have been prouder walking about with her giant rooster, which she can barely get her arms around. Roosters are just guys (with feathers) and can get pretty aggressive. Bumblebee, however, is as gentle as a lamb (and a whole lot louder). We were sorry to learn that the 4-H spring poultry showing at our local fairgrounds has been cancelled, suggesting that there may be no birds at our fair this summer. Oh well.

I honestly don't know if this move makes sense from a statistical perspective or not. Some fairs in North America last year did not show poultry, and the French government banned poultry at their big fair just last week. But, having witnessed the rash of public event cancellations and the spike in duct tape sales following 9/11, one can hazard a guess as to what the public reaction might be, regardless of statistics, now that word about poultry show cancellations is getting onto the front pages of America's mainstream press.

Big Pig, pollution, and poverty

As pigs were targeted as pork for profit, isolated areas throughout the United States were targeted for huge sow farms. These facilities, some up to 25,000 sows on one farm, were built in isolated areas for the benefit of bio-security. They were usually poor communities and sparsely populated. Resistance was challenged by those in the business community expecting to profit from the adventure.

What first affects the community is hardly noticeable. How these facilities and the manure are handled are not readily noticeable, thanks to the restrictive nature of "bio-security." No one can enter without permission, leaving the opportunity to make any observation minimal.

Is poo power sustainable? Depends on scale.

Nicolette Hahn Niman's op-ed in today's New York Times about the use of manure for electricity reminds me once again that the difference between sustainability and not is often a matter of scale.

Niman contrasts the use of manure on traditional farms, where it plays an important role in maintaining soil health, with the manure-disposal problem faced by large livestock operations. Increasingly, manure from these large operations is being used to produce electricity through various processes, something I like to call "poo-powered power plants" (P⁴). Niman rightly points out the downsides to using manure on this scale for electricity production.

But as with many things, you can't say that capturing methane from manure is always bad. It all depends on the size. For example, this January I helped build a biodigestor on a small farm in Costa Rica as part of a class on Renewable Energy in the Developing World organized by Solar Energy International. (For pictures see the bottom of this page.) Once it is fully operational, the manure from Don Sedro's pigs will provide methane for cooking -- replacing the cylinders of propane that cost him $60 per month -- and a liquid that will fertilize his small garden. Is that the sweet smell of sustainability (or just the pigs)?

The flying car has arrived

In a relatively short time, the dreams of sci-fi and Jetson fans will finally be realized: the flying car has arrived. (I can just hear the collective groan of the environmental community.)

Let me repeat that: someone has finally designed a flying car. According to Newsweek, in two years MIT student Carl Dietrich plans to have his flying car (named the Transition) on the road and in the air, and selling for about $100,000:

The Transition runs on regular gas. But you can drive it to the airport, extend its origami-like wings, take off at double the highway speed and fly up to 500 miles away, then touch down and park it in your host's garage. With the wings folded, the Transition is about the size of an Escalade, with a little less cargo space. Of course, it's a little more difficult to maneuver -- it requires a sport pilot's license -- so it's not likely to replace your standard flightless car. "It's not like every Joe Schmo and soccer mom on a cell phone is going to be driving one," says Dietrich, an MIT grad student who won the school's top prize for young innovators.

And just to top that, his next project will be: a desktop nuclear-fusion reactor. Really. Read the press release.

(Via BB)

Barton investigates oil company that dared lower prices

I meant to mention this a couple weeks ago, as it is truly hilarious ... in a macabre, recoil-in-horror sort of way.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) has used his position as head of the Energy and Commerce Committee to launch an investigation into Big Oil. Not Exxon or Chevron, mind you, and not about record profits or price gouging. No, he's going after Citgo, the oil company that actually dared lower its prices for low-income customers:

Public service announcement

My second favorite movie of all time, Network, has recently been released as a two-disc special edition. Watching it will make you a better person.

Sierra Club direction

This is good news:

If greens stopped driving and flying, not much would change

In the course of an unrelated post, Tim Lambert makes a point dear to my heart. Like so:

And what of environmental activist-author Dr Tim Flannery, who believes climate change to be "the greatest threat facing humanity", yet who is able to put aside his worries about human-driven ecological destruction long enough to conduct a 20-city US tour promoting his latest book about climate change?

I used a calculator linked from Flannery's site and found that Flannery's tour would release about 6,000 kg of CO2. Flannery says that we'll have to reduce our emissions of CO2 by about 70% to stabilize the climate. That's 17,000,000,000,000 kg less CO2 per year. This is somewhat more than 6,000, so if Flannery did not go on the trip it would not solve the global warming problem. If Flannery on his tour is able to persuade a few people to reduce their emissions the reduction will be much more than 6,000 kg.

Lambert is more concise and artful than me, as usual, but I keep making the same basic point: The constant charge of "hypocrisy" against anyone who a) advocates against global warming and b) contributes to it by driving/flying/owning a house/having a child/whatever is dumb. It's a game best left to the rightwingers and climate contrarians who so fervently love it.

The collection of public figures -- scientists, celebrities, environmentalists -- publicly advocating for action on global warming is, in relative terms, tiny. A generous estimate would put it in the thousands. There are, in contrast, billions of people driving/flying/owning a house/having a child/whatever. If every single person who spoke out publicly on climate change stopped driving/flying/owning a house/having a child/whatever, it would make no appreciable difference on the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

It would, however, massively curtail those folks' ability to spread the word and create change. Is that what we want?

I won't say that the personal habits of environmentalists have no symbolic value, but it's only a little bit -- and it's meaningless in substantive terms. It's a weapon used to bludgeon socially and environmentally concerned public figures into silence. The last thing greens should do is join in.

Is this thing on?

If any more proof were required that nobody reads Gristmill, it came this week. You may recall that almost a month ago, I discussed the merits of Barack Obama's scheme to give the auto industry help with their healthcare costs in exchange for more research on fuel-efficient cars. Then last week, I posted Obama's speech on energy independence -- mere hours after he delivered it!

Days later, Kevin Drum discovered both the scheme and the speech via some shady fly-by-night "news agency" called Knight Ridder. "News agency"?! It's the age of blogs, dude. Look it up.

Then Matt Yglesias picks it up, also citing an old Prospect article by the Reapers on the subject -- and conspicuously failing to cite my response to said article. Then Oil Drum picks it up "courtesy of Kevin Drum" -- scarcely a grist or a mill to be found.

Clearly something is badly broken in the blog world. And that something is that I'm insufficiently famous and revered.