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DeLay indicted

FYI.

Who would have thought?

When I wrote about robots months ago, it didn't occur to me that robots could be used to grow our food. And if it had, I probably wouldn't have thought they would be doing it so soon. Ah, but they are! I guess Todd is right: the future is now.

Thanks to Wired, I give you OrganiTech:

Tens of thousands of empty storage containers are stacked in towers along I-95 across from the harbor in Newark, New Jersey. They're heaped there in perpetuity, too cheap to be shipped back to Asia but too expensive to melt down.

Where many might see a pile of garbage, Lior Hessel sees, of all things, an organic farm. Those storage containers would be ideal housing for miniature farms, he believes, stacked one upon another like an agricultural skyscraper, all growing fresh organic produce for millions of wealthy consumers. And since the crops would be grown with artificial lighting, servers, sensors and robots, the cost of labor would consist of a single computer technician's salary.

...

OrganiTech can supply a complete set of robotic equipment plus greenhouse for $2 million. A system the size of a tennis court can produce 145,000 bags of lettuce leaves per year -- that's a yield similar to a 100-acre traditional farm. According to the company, it costs 27 cents to produce a single head of lettuce with its system, compared to about 18 cents per head of lettuce grown in California fields. Factor in the transportation costs and suddenly the automated greenhouse grower saves as much as 43 cents a head.

Apollo Alliance now shooting for the statehouse instead of the moon

By now the mission of the two-year-old D.C.-based Apollo Alliance — to mobilize a grand-scale federal commitment to energy independence, with the triple-whammy promise of creating good jobs with new technology, bolstering national security with energy independence, and saving the planet from carbon emissions — has become something of a cliché. Apollo: No longer shooting […]

Let No Good Seed Go Unpunished

Exposure to heavily polluted air can damage sperm DNA Turns out air pollution can make a man into a eunuch. Research published this month in the journal Human Reproduction found that the sperm quality of 35 men in Teplice, Czech Republic, diminished significantly in the winter when more fossil fuels were burned and the area’s […]

You’ve Got Gale

Interior Secretary urges more energy extraction on public lands According to Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the current vicious hurricane season has taught the Bush administration a lesson, namely: Keep doing the same stuff. She says that Katrina and Rita show the folly of concentrating the nation’s fossil-fuel infrastructure in one geographic area, and that the […]

Re-Pete Performance

Endangered Species Act coauthor wants to oust fellow Republican Pombo Former Rep. Pete McCloskey (R-Calif.), coauthor of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, is considering a 2006 primary-election run against the man who wants to kill it: Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.). McCloskey, who served in the House from 1967 to 1983, has denounced Pombo’s proposed rewrite […]

Umbra on bicycle commuting

Dear Umbra, My question regards my daily half-hour (each way) bicycle commute through fairly heavy city traffic. I’ve been wondering if the benefits (exercise, sunshine, free and fast transport) are outweighed by the negatives (primarily breathing in diesel and other exhaust, but I’d also throw in the risk of almost getting run over, despite the […]

Who’s going to push the new New Orleans in a green direction?

It sure would be nice if New Orleans would be rebuilt with an eye toward sustainability. And yet, all indications are that it will be a characteristically Bushian undertaking, riddled with inefficiency, waste, vice, cronyism, and wishful ideological thinking.

How to avoid this? Well, people need to organize. Quickly. Only voluble, sustained political pressure will push Bush and Congressional Republicans toward transparency, accountability, and social/environmental responsibility.

I was heartened, then, to see an article on Alternet called "Green Relief and Reconstruction." It contained many such inspiring assertions as the following:

Eco-friendly companies, social justice groups and concerned professionals are forging a nascent "Green Relief" movement that is already delivering results on the ground, working to replace today's snapshots of oil-soaked abandon with visions of locally-crafted communities bustling with bike paths, sidewalks, lots of green space, healthy housing, and powered by clean energy.

They are? Awesome! Uh ... who? Where?

It goes on in this vague way for a while, eventually outlining some sensible principles of progressive reconstruction. But where's this budding movement he keeps talking about? Who are these people? What have they done? Where can I sign up?

Bizarrely, it is only toward the end that a link is provided -- but the reason becomes clear once you click on it.

GreenRelief is an effort organized by the Healthy Building Network (www.healthybuilding.net) and others to encourage and assist Hurricane Katrina relief efforts that promote environmental restoration, environmental health, and environmental and social justice.

GreenRelief will bring international expertise, resources, and materials to achieve the goals of restoring community, rebuilding homes, restoring the environment, and rebuilding the economy.

Site under development.

Godspeed, fellas. Hurry up.

The latest bid for Arctic Refuge oil

As everyone surely knows by now, Republicans are using the devastation of a region of our country to push for their long-time goal of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The idea is, depending on which bullshit happens to be flying at the moment, that oil sales will bolster the federal budget, or that the oil will make up for shortfalls caused by the hurricanes, or that the oil will lower gas prices. All these claims are, as has been demonstrated ad nauseam, quite obviously false.

According to a July 2005 report (PDF) by the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration, it will take 10 years to get the first drop of oil out of the Refuge. In 20 years, when production is at its peak, Refuge oil might bring down the price of a gallon of gas ... by a penny. The Wilderness Society has a one-page summary of the report here (PDF).

Why do Republicans really want to drill in the Refuge? Well, oil-service companies are hot for it. And also, well ... because it's there.

L.A. Weekly on smog

The entire current issue of L.A. Weekly is devoted to the issue of air pollution in Los Angeles, a battle once hailed as a victory for environmentalists that is now slipping into the loss column. There are oodles of stories, and many lessons for those of us in other parts of the country. Give it a look.