It’s a weekend and my browser overfloweth. You know what that means. Lightning round!
Over on DKos, Devilstower is writing an excellent series of posts on mountaintop-removal mining. Pay attention:
However, you have an option. You can call your representative and ask them to support the Clean Water Protection Act. The act already has
103,105, 107 cosponsors. Check the list to see if your representative is already on board. If so, thank them and let them know this issue is important to you. If not, it’s even more important that you contact them and tell them to sign on. It wouldn’t hurt to follow up with a visit to the public comment page for the Bush administration’s efforts to weaken existing laws and expand mountaintop removal mining.
A quarter of China’s GHG emissions are due to exports, mainly to the U.S. and the EU. If we weren’t buying all the crap, China wouldn’t be emitting so much. Then again, if we weren’t buying the crap, China wouldn’t be bringing millions of people out of poverty. Seems rather churlish to commit them to poverty. There’s really no way around this bitch of a dilemma except for decoupling economic growth from ecological destruction in China, and everywhere else. No problem!
Details about what Rudy Giuliani might do as president on climate and energy are scarce. But there’s plenty in his past to indicate that he would continue the Bush course. Read Ari Berman’s fantastic piece on Rudy’s lobbying for big energy companies, their large donations to him, his tight connections to the big oil money barons in Texas, and more. On energy, as on terrorism and foreign policy, Rudy would be Bush Only More So.
Kevin Drum reviews Break Through. He loves the description of the problem (the first half) but finds the solutions (the second half) heavy on pompous philosophizing and light on details.
Over on Worldchanging, Jeremy Faludi has an interesting piece on terra preta and gasification, combined to create a carbon-negative fuel cycle. This is a biofuel I could get behind. [caveats here]
Jamais Cascio has a long, thoughtful overview of ways to address climate change. Don’t miss it.
Solar thermal power … as art.
Two new (to me) sites: R2.org, a news and discussion site on energy from Robert Rapier and Robert Rohatensky (wouldn’t that be R4?), and Green Thoughts, host to a great series on "the renewable electron economy."
What is it about food politics that causes people to write gimmicky pieces like this? Turns out it’s better to eat chicken (with no beef or dairy) than be a vegetarian (and eat dairy), because dairy is worse than chicken. I tell you, it’s getting tough to keep score. Buried inside, the sensible advice:
How can you combat global warming with your fork? Simply by consuming less beef, pork and dairy. Choose beef products produced in the U.S. rather than in Latin America. And generally speaking, pick grass-fed meats and those produced on small, local farms rather than in industrial operations.
Apple tries to argue that it is too green. Or at least greening.
We often hear that climate can’t be predicted because the atmosphere is a chaotic system. Michael Tobis explains (quite elegantly) why a system can be both chaotic and broadly predictable.
Pictures from Lights Out San Francisco:
(San Francisco City Hall – Copyright 2007, Djoa Oct 20)
This is really old now, but the radio show Living On Earth has done a nifty series of stories on coal.
Looking to liven up your work environment? Cuss more!
This test wigs me out. I’ve seen both directions, but I can never intentionally change the direction. It’s just different each time I look at it. Am I both-brained? That would explain the confusion.
