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Umbra on clotheslines

Dear Umbra, We would like to install a clothesline this summer to take advantage of the few months of sun that we get here in Oregon. Any advice on the best kind, and how to keep air-dried clothes from feeling like cardboard? German WhitleyPhilomath, Ore. Dearest German, Excellent. If your power supplier is, as I […]

A link dump.

Is there some sort of news and commentary deluge this week? It's enough to overwhelm a blogger, I tell you.

Anyway, since there are 50 new things to blog about, I'll leave the subject of peak oil behind for a while, with a final round-up of links.

• Despite my critique of his positive proposals, Kevin Drum really did do a public service with his peak oil series. Read it.
• Also worth reading -- though much of the material overlaps -- is Drum's review of Twilight in the Desert, by Matthew Simmons, wherein he makes the following points: a) most of the reasonably optimistic forecasts of our oil future rest on Saudi Arabia's spare capacity; b) Saudi Arabia doesn't actually have much spare capacity (the subject of Simmons' book), and thus, c)
  

  ... it's likely that we're now in a permanent state of near zero spare capacity, which in turn will lead to an increasingly unstable world. As we enter an era in which even Saudi Arabia has no spare capacity to smooth out supply disruptions elsewhere in the world, any blip in supply, whether from political unrest, terrorism, or merely unforeseen natural events, will cause prices to carom wildly. A world with $100 per barrel oil is bad enough, but a world in which a single pipeline meltdown could cause prices to skyrocket to $300 per barrel for a few months and then back down is far worse.

• Speaking of Simmons, The Agonist has an excellent three-part interview with him. Simmons says: "The current model is not sustainable. It is not sustainable but it is insatiable."
• Speaking of Drum (ha ha), The Oil Drum has an excellent rundown of the many ways that cheap oil undergirds our food production system.
• There's not much new in this E Magazine piece, but, well, there it is.
• And in the Macon, GA, Daily of all places, James Kunstler does that thing he does.

Oil industry compares fuel prices to liquor.

Methinks the oil barons might be getting desperate. Either that, or they're doing their brainstorming in, uh, new locations. A new industry "study" makes the following startling announcement: Gas is cheaper than booze!

Here's what the study said: "On a per-barrel basis, gasoline is America's bargain liquid: 10 percent cheaper than bottled water, a third the cost of milk, a fifth the cost of beer, and less than 2 percent the cost of a bottle of Jack Daniels."

I guess that whole "you're only paying half as much as they do in Europe" argument didn't work. Thanks, guys, for bringing it to a level we can all comprehend.

Creating an Aquaculture of Life

Bush admin proposes massive U.S. aquaculture expansion Just in time to celebrate World Oceans Day (happy WOD, by the way!), the Bush administration has unveiled a plan to open up 3.4 million square miles of U.S. coastal waters to aquaculture. Demand by hungry humans for seafood is expected to reach about 121 million tons in […]

Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

San Francisco named most sustainable city; Houston least San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Berkeley, Calif., and Seattle took the top four spots in a new ranking of 25 U.S. cities based on sustainability practices. Bay Area green group SustainLane created the list after scrutinizing the metropolises based on 12 criteria, including air quality, transportation, green building, […]

Puh-lease Academies

Science academies from 11 countries say global warming is, yes, real Yesterday, national science academies from 11 nations cosigned a letter to the world’s leaders, making an unprecedented joint statement: Global warming is almost certainly caused by human activity; it’s the biggest risk we’ve ever faced as a species; please #$&!*% do something about it. […]

Get Me Rewrite!

Bush official edited gov’t climate-change reports to play up uncertainty Philip Cooney, a former top oil lobbyist now serving as chief of staff for President Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, edited scientific government reports on climate change to exaggerate the appearance of uncertainty and doubt, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. Cooney, […]

Debunking the rainforest myth.

Henry Chu writes in the LA Times this morning on the myth that the Amazon rainforests are the "lungs of the world." June is the start of the burning season in the Amazon, which sends up "inky billows" of smoke every year. Some tidbits:

"It's not the lungs of the world," said Daniel Nepstad, an American ecologist who has studied the Amazon for 20 years. "It's probably burning up more oxygen now than it's producing."

But setting those inky billows aside:

Even without the massive burning, the popular conception of the Amazon as a giant oxygen factory for the rest of the planet is misguided, scientists say. Left unmolested, the forest does generate enormous amounts of oxygen through photosynthesis, but it consumes most of it itself in the decomposition of organic matter.

Chu still implies that treaties like Kyoto need to provide incentives to discourage rainforest destruction.

Regarding the resilience of the perception that the rainforests are the lungs of the earth, I'm reminded of that infamous framing guru and the aphorism, "If the facts don't fit the frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off."

Bush dodges question about whether climate change is caused by humans

After making kissy-face in front of the press corps at the White House today, Bush and Blair took a couple of questions. One reporter asked Bush whether he believes global warming is an anthropogenic problem (without using any big words, of course):

And, Mr. President, if I may, as well, on climate change -- you didn't talk about climate change -- do you believe that climate change is manmade and that you, personally, as the leader of the richest country in the world, have a responsibility to reverse that change?

Naturally, Bush dodged the causation issue:

In terms of climate change, I've always said it's a serious long-term issue that needs to be dealt with. And my administration isn't waiting around to deal with the issue, we're acting. I don't know if you're aware of this, but we lead the world when it comes to dollars spent, millions of dollars spent on research about climate change. We want to know more about it. It's easier to solve a problem when you know a lot about it. And if you look at the statistics, you'll find the United States has taken the lead on this research.

[More blather ensued; check it out in the transcript, if you're the masochistic sort.]

As it turns out, even as Bush was bragging about the millions the feds are spending on climate-change research, The New York Times was posting an article by Andy Revkin alleging that the administration is doctoring that very same research to jive with the oil industry's preferred version of the "science":

A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.

Wouldn't want those millions of taxpayer dollars to result in any too firm conclusions, now would we?

Inside the Bush-Blair ‘working dinner’

While I don't know exactly what is being discussed when President Bush and Prime Minister Blair meet, sources indicate that the two items on Blair's agenda ahead of the G8 Summit are aid to Africa and climate change. Item one has taken the front seat at the moment, but it also seems to be nearing a resolution.

Blair has his work cut out for him on the second one though. Even the "working dinner" failed to bring the two any closer on the issue.

For all his inaction, I think Bush does realize that it would be good to reduce emissions, all other things being equal. And maybe he honestly believes the tradeoffs that may come with reducing emissions will be too great to justify taking action.

So what's a prime minister to do? If I might be so bold as to offer a one sentence suggestion on strategy (aside from drilling home the point that the choice is not the economy or the environment), it would be to engage Bush on his own terms.

Further instructions for Mr. Blair below the fold.