Latest Articles
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Complaints Choir looking for members
Got good chords? Got stuff to bitch about? The first official U.S.-based Complaints Choir is forming in Chicago, and they’ll be debuting on Nov. 3. The Complaints Choir is performance art — people send in their complaints about life, the world, the environment, whatever’s pissing them off, and then everyone gets together and makes a […]
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In a privatized war, mercenaries outnumber soldiers — and bring home cash for their bosses
Everybody thought it was a big deal last spring when President Bush announced his "surge" of 20,000 troops in Iraq, which brings the total number to 160,000, four years after the invasion. Meanwhile, with little public or Congressional scrutiny, the president has been eagerly shelling out billions to maintain an even larger private armed force […]
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Hastert aging, mellowing, retiring … going green?
Also via Brian Beutler (TOWTM) comes the exceedingly strange news that Denny Hastert (R-Ill.), former Speaker of the House and heretofore undistinguished party apparatchik, wants to leave Congress with a bang by … passing climate change legislation with Nancy Pelosi. Wonders never cease.
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Really?
The Electric Power Research Institute just released "The Power to Reduce CO2 Emissions" (PDF), its discussion paper to "provide stakeholders with a framework [to] develop a research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) Action Plan that will enable sustainable and substantial electricity sector CO2 emissions reductions over the coming decades."
It is crazy, mathematically bogus, economically disastrous, and generally inane ... but will reach an audience vastly larger than its rigor warrants.
First, a bit about EPRI. It is the research arm of the nation's regulated utilities. It has historically been funded by charges on electric bills, but with restructured markets, it's had to adapt its revenue model. Still, it has not strayed too far from its funding sources, and has been chronically unwilling to recommend any course of action that:
- would be contrary to the interests of regulated utilities, or
- requires anything other than massive technology R&D from which regulated utilities benefit.
That's all personal opinion, which readers may choose to ignore. Let's take a look at the facts -- what they recommend to control carbon. (I should note that they describe this path as "aggressive but feasible.")
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Charlie and the Optimism Factory
Florida’s governor names climate panel, talks up green economy Used to be the greenest thing in Florida was a golf course — or maybe an old lady’s dye job gone slightly awry. But something’s happening in that sunshiny state. This week, Gov. Charlie Crist (R) followed up on an early-summer commitment by picking 21 business, […]
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Strange Riverbed Fellows?
IBM partners with New York institute to create river-research center Tech giant IBM is partnering with a state-financed science organization in New York to create a cutting-edge river research center. The project, launched with the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, will tap into the mad skillz of IBM engineers to provide 24-hour data collection […]
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Peekaboo, ICU
Hospitals opt for less-toxic medical equipment As the wee tots who end up in neonatal intensive care tend to be a bit on the vulnerable side, leading medical organizations are urging hospitals to swap medical equipment containing icky chemical DEHP — which can include IV tubing and blood bags — for safer alternatives. The good […]
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Dust to Dust
NASA recalculates, 1998 becomes second-hottest year in U.S. The year 1998 has dropped from the hottest-year-ever-in-the-U.S. throne after NASA revised calculations, allowing Dust-Bowl-affected 1934 to claim the title. Despite triumphant cackling from climate skeptics, the rejiggering does not affect global climate records, and really is, for all intents and purposes, a technicality — globally, 1998 […]
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Dying For a Change
Pollution causes some 40 percent of deaths worldwide, says new research Here’s one small reason to join the save-the-environment cause: new research indicates that some 40 percent of deaths worldwide are a direct effect of air, water, and soil pollution. Dirty air contributes to cancer and birth defects; unclean water accounts for 80 percent of […]
