Latest Articles
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Could lime absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide?
If this pans out, this is a huge idea -- and potentially a reprieve from climate disaster:
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Committee hears testimony from whistleblower on EPA dealings
Jason Burnett, the former associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who resigned last month over the Bush administration’s unwillingness to address greenhouse-gas emissions, provided more details to a Senate panel Tuesday about how top White House officials worked to quash new regulations on greenhouse gases. Appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works […]
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It’s a 1980 flashback, as energy price spikes make oil shale economical once again
The Bush administration’s latest push to force dirty energy extraction down the throats of Americans living in western states has some historical pedigree. Extracting oil from keragen — somewhat misleadingly known as "oil shale" — by cooking the rock at high temperatures is an environmental, social and economic nightmare that’s been with us since the […]
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Snippets from the news
• British eco-town plan could be illegal. • Climate change could mean more kittens! • Women exposed to high levels of PCBs are less likely to birth boys. • Ford shifting to smaller cars. • Wildfire smoke could ease warming in Arctic. • General Motors and utility group will collaborate for electric-car infrastructure. • California […]
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Bush admin’s effort to spur oil shale production won’t do much for consumers in short run
New regulations proposed by the Bush administration are aimed at tapping the country’s huge reserves of oil shale, steps Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said are intended to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil in the short term. But one man’s short term might feel like eternity to consumers paying $4.50 a gallon, as it would […]
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Oh, wait, we don’t have a national water policy
This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom's kind permission.
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"Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don't have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn't they?" -- Homer Simpson
On June 24, 2008, Louie and I curled up on the couch to watch seven of the nation's foremost water resources experts testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment.
This was a new experience for us. For my part, the issue to be addressed -- "Comprehensive Watershed Management Planning" -- was certainly a change of pace from the subjects I ordinarily follow in Judiciary and Intelligence Committee hearings. I wasn't even entirely sure what a "watershed" was. I knew that, in a metaphorical sense, the word referred to a turning point, but I was a bit fuzzy about its meaning in the world of hydrology. (It's the term used to describe "all land and water areas that drain toward a river or lake.")
What was strange from Louie's point of view was not the topic of the day, but that we were stuck in the house. Usually at that hour, we'd be working in the backyard, where he can better leverage his skill set, which includes chasing squirrels, digging up tomato plants, eating wicker patio chairs, etc. On this particular afternoon, however, the typically cornflower-blue San Jose sky was the color of wet cement, and thick soot was charging down from the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains. Sitting outside would have been about as pleasant as relaxing in a large ashtray.
It would have been difficult, on such a day, not to think about water.
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Google Maps adds walking directions
Taking another step toward complete indispensability, Google Maps on Tuesday became the first service of its kind to add walking directions. In addition to searches for car and transit travel, pedestrians — and, hell, Segway-ers too — can now find the most direct and flat route from Point A to Point B. The function works […]
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Memo calling for increased offshore drilling and shale development
I have received the text of an Alice-in-Wonderland memo (below) that House Republican leaders will circulate today on legislation they plan to offer. It claims:
To increase the supply American-made energy in environmentally sound ways, the legislation will:
* Open our deep water ocean resources, which will provide an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day;
* Open the Arctic coastal plain, which will provide an additional 1 million barrels of oil per day; and
* Allow development of our nation's shale oil resources, which could provide an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil per dayFirst off, we opened the vast majority of our deep water ocean resources to drilling two years ago and oil prices doubled.
Second, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts, ending the federal moratorium on coastal drilling would add perhaps 150,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s and have no impact on prices through 2030, unless, as seems likely, California blocks drilling off its coast, in which case it would add well under 100,000 barrels of oil per day in the 2020s.
Third, opening up the "Arctic coastal plain" (GOP-speak for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) would also have no impact on prices, according to the Bush administration's own energy analysts.
Fourth, you can't develop U.S. shale in environmentally sound ways.
Yet Republican leader John Boehner, Republican Whip Roy Blunt, Conference Chairman Adam Putnam, and Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor still have the chutzpah to write:
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Guy who understands oil drops knowledge on folks who don’t
“I’m not a big believer. I think you’re going to get a rude awakening as to the value of the East and West coasts when it’s opened up and when it’s put up for sale. When it’s put up for sale, I think you’ll be surprised at the price you get for the tracts.” — […]
