WCI #9: The new honeybee

From, you guessed it, SciAm:

"Colony collapse disorder (CCD) has killed more than a third of honeybee colonies since 2006. Farmers who depend on bees to pollinate such crops as almonds, peaches and apples are looking to the blue orchard bee to pick up the slack. One efficient Osmia lignaria can pollinate as much territory as 50 honeybees, but the bees are harder to cultivate because of their solitary nature. These pinch hitters won't completely replace honeybees, but as scientists continue to grapple with CCD, they could act as an agricultural safety net."

A Blue Orchard Bee

Denialists "smear campaign" leads Obama advisor to resign

I'm too irritated to write anything on this.

I'll let Democracy Now tell the story.

Yup, it's humans

According to the article "Arctic Warming Overtakes 2,000 Years of Natural Cooling," humans are indeed responsible for the current watery state of the Arctic.

The final paragraph states:

"'If it hadn't been for the increase in human-produced greenhouse gases, summer temperatures in the Arctic should have cooled gradually over the last century,' says Bette Otto-Bliesner, an NCAR scientist who participated in the study."

Read the full article here.

Houston petroleum plant sued for emissions

The Sierra Club and Environment Texas are taking the Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. to federal court in order to force it to reduce harmful emissions at its Cedar Bayou chemical plant in Baytown, according to the Houston Chronicle.

It's not unprecedented. In 2003, the groups sued Shell Oil and its Deerpark refinery and petrochemical complex. The company agreed to reduce emissions and paid $6 million for past violations of the Clean Air Act.

A spokesman for Chevron Phillips said that "the company is committed to complying with laws and has reduced emissions."

The violations primarily arise from events called "upsets." Upsets occur "during startup and shutdown, equipment malfunctions, unscheduled maintenance and other unforeseen events." According to the environmental groups, this has occurred hundreds of times over the last six years.

The groups say most of these upsets are preventable if measures are taken and proper technology is installed.

To be fair, this is probably not entirely true.

Situated on the Gulf Coast, the plant has often fallen victim to damage and power outages caused by hurricanes and other phenomena that are beyond the company's capability to control.

Part of the problem, says a representative of Environment Texas, is that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is not doing enough. They want the state to take a harder line.

The TCEQ has fined the company $250,000 since 2003.

The plaintiffs want to see them further penalized and forced to upgrade.

Unfortunately, tying up the courts seems to be the only way to address the issue, especially since Governor Rick Perry, in his infinite and greedy wisdom, has given the leadership of the TCEQ to Bryan W. Shaw, an industry stoolie who doubts the human contribution to climate change.

Gotta keep the oil lobbyists happy, right Goodhair?

Federal courts, however, are less easily bought and will probably fine Chevron Phillips, hopefully reducing the emission-causing upsets.

Pond scum gets a good rap

That's right, algae looks to be the new corn when it comes to ethanol production. Recently, it has become apparent that corn is not actually necessary for the production of ethanol - virtually any plant matter will do and now Dow Chemical and Florida's Algenol Biofuels see algae and the Texas Gulf Coast as the prime source and place of new developments, as the Houston Chronicle reported Sunday.

Dow's huge Freeport complex will be the center for this new experiment. The idea is to set up long clear plastic tubes filled with salt water and algae across the flatlands of south Texas and then pump CO2 from refineries and chemical plants in the area through the tubes. The yield: ethanol.

This would promote both ethanol and biofuel production, a much cleaner source of fuel than petroleum and is just as versatile (it can even be used in plastics) as well as capturing and using CO2 in a sustainable way.

By making waste CO2 the carbon component in the production process, it cuts down on emissions. The CO2 output from biofuels is a fraction of that from petroleum.

Let's hope the experiment works.

Bad news

Even if we make massive changes now, the damage to out ecosystem may be irreversible, according to a team of US, Swiss and French researchers.

It has already been established that CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer after it is emitted. (For example, emissions from an Edison experiment in the 1880s are still present in the atmosphere.)

"'Current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,' said the report's lead author, Susan Solomon, from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

But this doesn't mean that we have gone past the point of no return.

The effect is more like nuclear waste than acid rain, meaning it won't go away but it is manageable.

In other words, the bottom line is that we have to reduce our carbon output or face conditions similar to the 1930s Dust Bowl. Permanently.

Sorting out soot

Common soot from things such as cooking fires is one of the main culprits of climate change. Fortunately, it is also very easily combated.

In the September issue of Discover magazine, the subject of soot is dissected by Peter Fairley.

You see, CO2 is not the only bad guy when it come to ice loss. Common soot, aka black carbon is doing its fair share of damage. It comes from engines, power plants and forest/field clearing as well as the aforementioned open cookstoves of developing countries.

Unlike light-colored sulfates produced by combustion that reflect sunlight and therefore help cool somewhat, soot is is black, settles and absorbs sunlight, heating it and melting any ice it is resting upon.

(Here's where I say to the denialists: "Now tell me humans have nothing to do with rising temperatures and the shrinking of our planet's ice shields." Read on.)

Although sulfates do lend themselves to cooling, measures enacted in the 1970s to combat acid rain have minimized this effect. Worse, when soot and sulfates combine in the atmosphere, they absorb sunlight and enhance the warming effect.

Soot primarily affects the northern hemisphere; the ramifications in Antarctica are negligible because there are almost no major population centers anywhere near it (ahem, denialists?)

It is a different story in the Arctic, however. As the ice cap shrinks, more ships can sail through the waters, adding more soot and shrinking the ice cap further in a positive feedback loop (nothing positive about that). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the Arctic could contain year-round shipping lanes by 2030.

"Then again," according to the article, "by 2030 soot emissions may largely be a thing of the past. Capturing soot is a lot easier than controlling carbon dioxide."

Automakers are even now phasing in "baghouse filters" that act as particle traps, cutting tailpipe emissions from diesel engines.

The positive (this time for real) impact on climate would practically occur overnight because soot has a short life span. CO2, apparently, stays in the atmosphere for quite some time. The article states that the "tiny amount of CO2 relaeased when Thomas Edison cranked up his pathbreaking Pearl Street generator in Manhattan is still circulating 127 years later (yipes! and another reason to refute Edison's so-called "genius.")

And the EPA has already stated in May that "'Eliminating black carbon can immediately slow down the loss of Arctic ice.'"

Hillary Clinton, NASA's James Hansen (the New Yorker's "catastrophist") and Al Gore have all called for immediate action against black soot and Congress is considering legislation aimed at reducing it.

This is good, VERY GOOD, news.

Or, to put it in the words of Fairley:

"In the war on climate change, tackling black carbon may be a relatively simple and powerful fix."

And hopefully one that will be free of the usual political wrangling.

The 2009 Millenium Report

A rundown courtesy of ENN:

Millennium Project Report Issued on the Future of the World

A major report issued by the United Nations Millenium Project has just been released. It finds that half the world appears vulnerable to social instability and violence due to increasing and potentially prolonged unemployment from the recession as well as several longer-term issues: decreasing water, food, and energy supplies

per person; the cumulative effects of climate change; and increasing migrations due to political, environmental, and economic conditions. It also finds some good in the global financial crisis, which may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centered adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood.

After 13 years of the Millennium Project’s global futures research, it is increasingly clear that the world has the resources to address its challenges. Coherence and direction has been lacking. But recent meetings of the U.S. and China, as well as of NATO and Russia, and the birth of the G-20 plus the continued work of the G-8 promise to improve global strategic collaboration. It remains to be seen if this spirit of cooperation can continue and if decisions will be made on the scale necessary to really address the global challenges discussed in this report.

Major Findings include:

• The vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade, cross-cultural dialogues are flourishing, and intra-state conflicts are increasingly being settled by international interventions.

• The world is beginning to wake up to the enormity of the threat of transnational organized crime.

• Freedom House’s 2009 survey found that democracy and freedom have declined for the third year in a row, and press freedoms declined for the seventh year in a row. It estimates that only 17% of the world’s population lives in 70 countries with a free press, while 42% lives in 64 countries that have no free press.

• Although government and business leaders are beginning to respond more seriously to the global environmental situation, it continues to get worse. Each day, the oceans absorb 30 million tons of CO2, increasing their acidity. The number of dead zones—areas with too little oxygen to support life—has doubled every decade since the 1960s. The oceans are warming about 50% faster than the IPCC reported in 2007. The amount of ice flowing out of Greenland during the summer of 2008 was nearly three times more than that lost during the previous year. Arctic summer ice could be gone by 2030, as could many of the major Himalayan, European, and Andean glaciers. Over 36 million hectares of primary forest are lost every year. Human consumption is 30% larger than nature’s capacity to regenerate, and demand on the planet has more than doubled over the past 45 years. This growth continues as, for example, more cars are expected to be produced in China in 2009 than in the U.S. or Japan.

• World energy demand could nearly double by 2030, with China and India accounting for over half of the increase. China uses more coal than the U.S., EU, and Japan combined, but it now has a policy to close an old coal plant
  
  for each new cleaner burning plant that turns coal into a gas before burning it. Without major policy and technological changes, fossil fuels will meet 80% of primary energy demand by 2030. If so, then large-scale carbon capture, storage, and/or reuse should become a top priority to reduce global climate change.

• In March 2009 an asteroid missed Earth by 77,000 kilometers, 80% closer to the planet than our moon is. If it had hit Earth, it would have wiped out all life on 800 square kilometers. No one knew it was coming. The time between its discovery and close approach was very short.

• Nearly 25% of humanity is connected to the Internet. There are more people using the Internet in China than the total population of the U.S. Mobile phones are becoming handheld computers. Humanity, the built environment, and ubiquitous computing seem destined to become so interconnected that collective intelligences with “just-in-time knowledge”� will emerge for improving civilization. With an increasingly educated world and the majority of humanity connected to the Internet over the next 20 years, new forms of political power may emerge, growing beyond the control of traditional hierarchical structures.

• The world’s population is 6.8 billion. It is expected to grow to 9.2 billion by 2050, but it could shrink by 2100, creating a world with many elderly people. Nearly all the population increases will be in developing countries; hence, today’s first world will be tomorrow’s elderly world.

• Infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide. About half the people in the world are at risk of several endemic diseases. More than 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and 74% of these infected people live in sub-Saharan Africa. For the first time in 40 years, WHO declared a pandemic: the H1N1 influenza (swine flu) rapidly infected 60,000 people in nearly half the countries of the world, resulting in 263 deaths between April and June 2009.

The Millennium Project also explored future possible outcomes using its Real-Time Delphi online software. The RTD is a relatively new and efficient method for collecting and synthesizing expert opinions. According to the report, the value of futures research is less in forecasting accuracy than in focusing attention, planning, and opening minds to consider new possibilities and in changing the policy agenda. The goal is not to know the future precisely (how could that be possible?) but to understand a range of possibilities that lead to better decisions.

For More on this important report: http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/sof2009.html

Economy and environment: a boiled frog?

Paul Krugman uses the boiled frog analogy to comment on the economic and environmental policies that are not doing enough in his most recent column:

Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?

I’m referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it’s in and is boiled alive. Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind. The hypothetical boiled frog is a useful metaphor for a very real problem: the difficulty of responding to disasters that creep up on you a bit at a time.

And creeping disasters are what we mostly face these days.

I started thinking about boiled frogs recently as I watched the depressing state of debate over both economic and environmental policy. These are both areas in which there is a substantial lag before policy actions have their full effect — a year or more in the case of the economy, decades in the case of the planet — yet in which it’s very hard to get people to do what it takes to head off a catastrophe foretold.

And right now, both the economic and the environmental frogs are sitting still while the water gets hotter.

Start with economics: last winter the economy was in acute crisis, with a replay of the Great Depression seeming all too possible. And there was a fairly strong policy response in the form of the Obama stimulus plan, even if that plan wasn’t as strong as some of us thought it should have been.

At this point, however, the acute crisis has given way to a much more insidious threat. Most economic forecasters now expect gross domestic product to start growing soon, if it hasn’t already. But all the signs point to a “jobless recovery”: on average, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal believe that the unemployment rate will keep rising into next year, and that it will be as high at the end of 2010 as it is now.

Now, it’s bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it’s much worse being unemployed for months or years. Yet that’s exactly what will happen to millions of Americans if the average forecast is right — which means that many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.

To head off this outcome — and remember, this isn’t what economic Cassandras are saying; it’s the forecasting consensus — we’d need to get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.

This will probably change once the reality of the jobless recovery becomes all too apparent. But by then it will be too late to avoid a slow-motion human and social disaster.

Still, the boiled-frog problem on the economy is nothing compared with the problem of getting action on climate change.

Put it this way: if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.

But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won’t be apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable.

And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of what the planet really needs — and despite this faces steep odds in the Senate.

What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to be so favorable to action.

After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. And this isn’t the old Democratic majority, which was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid progressive bloc.

And let’s be clear: both the president and the party’s Congressional leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well. So if we can’t get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?

I don’t know the answer. And that’s why I keep thinking about boiling frogs.

Not so cool. At all.

Again from the Environmental News Network:

Nearly a third of U.S. bird species in trouble

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly one-third of all U.S. bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline, with birds in Hawaii facing a "borderline ecological disaster," scientists reported on Thursday.

The State of the Birds report, issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar along with conservation groups

and university ornithologists, also noted some successes, including the recovery of the bald eagle, the peregrine falcon and other species after the banning of the chemical DDT.

"When we talk about birds and we talk about wildlife, we're also talking about the economics of this country," Salazar told reporters as the report was released.

Wildlife watching and recreation generate $122 billion annually, the report said.

Salazar mentioned revenue from hunting, fishing and bird-watching, but added that President Barack Obama's stimulus package and proposed federal budgets for the remainder of 2009 and 2010 offer more money for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which aims to protect birds and other creatures.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE52I72C20090320?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

This is just cool

From the Environmental News Network:

UK team builds robot fish to detect pollution

LONDON (Reuters) - Robot fish developed by British scientists are to be released into the sea off north Spain to detect pollution

.

If next year's trial of the first five robotic fish in the northern Spanish port of Gijon is successful, the team hopes they will be used in rivers, lakes and seas across the world.

The carp-shaped robots, costing 20,000 pounds ($29,000) apiece, mimic the movement of real fish and are equipped with chemical sensors to sniff out potentially hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from vessels or underwater pipelines.

They will transmit the information back to shore using Wi-Fi technology.

Unlike earlier robotic fish, which needed remote controls, they will be able to navigate independently without any human interaction.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE52J1RY20090320?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

Some potential problems with Exxon Mobil's natural gas mining in Colorado

This relates to the previous blog (see below).

While natural gas is a cleaner alternative to petroleum fuels, Exxon Mobil may be harming the environment while getting at it in the following ways:

- They are drilling into a region that consisted mainly of wilderness and ranches. Local folks appreciate that the company is replanting grass and placing cattle guards to protect ranchers livelihood and minimize harm to local fauna, some ranchers worry that "the drilling will pollute the water table and drive out wildlife from the area." - Larry Robinson, a rancher in the Piceance Basin, west of Denver. From The Houston Chronicle.

- What fuels the drills? Many use gasoline, while other are powered off of electricity from coal-powered plants.

- A lot of energy and manpower goes into the drilling. Why not invest in grassoline and other biofuels that are more readily available?

These are some questions that should be answered, but one would assume Exxon Mobil is counting on the amount of natural gas mined will make up for the energy expended.

Here's to hoping that assumption is correct and won't lead to the ass out of you and me thing.

Exxon Mobil has found a way to get to heretofore unreachable natural gas

From the Houston Chronicle:

Going deep in the Rockies

At one time, even nuclear bombs couldn’t loosen ‘tight gas’ trapped in sandstone. Now Exxon Mobil says it has a way.

By KRISTEN HAYS
Copyright 2009 Houston Chonicle

July 11, 2009, 10:08PM

1 2 3

Johnny Hanson Chronicle

In search of natural gas in Colorado's Piceance Basin, Matt Harrington, with drilling contractor Helmerich & Payne, climbs a drill on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains last month.

Resources

RIFLE, Colo. — Oil and gas producers have known for decades that a massive bounty of natural gas lies beneath western Colorado's mountains. Getting at it, however, can be costly and complicated.

With a potential gain of 1 billion cubic feet per day of output from its leased land in the deepest part of the gas-rich Piceance Basin — which would be about 2 percent of all U.S. gas production — Exxon Mobil Corp. spent the last decade perfecting a way to drill less for more gas.

Now, the Irving-based behemoth is ramping up its Piceance project with more drilling and with new, largely automated gas gathering, treatment and monitoring facilities.

Armed with the financial heft to shrug off low natural gas prices that have prompted other Piceance producers to move out or slow down, Exxon Mobil is running seven rigs, five more than two years ago.

“Now that we have this level of rigs, we can drive down costs,” said Jim Branch, Exxon Mobil's Piceance Project executive.

The Piceance is a bowl-shaped underground basin that covers 6,000 square miles in five counties on both sides of the Colorado River.

Its allure isn't new. Southern Union Gas drilled the first well there in the mid-1950s.

The federal government exploded nuclear bombs underground there in the late 1960s and early 1970s, hoping to unleash natural gas and to demonstrate the bombs had peacetime uses. The explosions yielded no gas other than some of the radioactive kind, and public opposition squelched the blasts. So, Piceance activity was light until recent years, when technological advances caught up with the challenges of getting at so-called “tight gas” trapped in pockets of concrete-like sandstone in remote mountain areas.

Despite natural gas prices that have fallen below $3.50 per million British thermal units from last year's highs of $13, Exxon Mobil is banking on the Piceance for years to come. The company has leased about 300,000 acres of mostly federal land that Exxon Mobil says could contain 45 trillion cubic feet of gas. That's about twice the amount of gas consumed in the U.S. each year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“That potential is huge,” said Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. “They are doing it in the methodical Exxon way. Exxon is very bullish on natural gas globally, not only in the U.S., and they are putting their money where their mouth is.”

‘Elegant ballet'

Exxon Mobil spent a decade tinkering with technology used to extract gas elsewhere to adapt it to the Piceance. The company came up with a way to drill deep, then blast holes in the pipe next to pockets of gas. A mixture of chemicals and water shoot into the well at high pressure to crack open the rock, while sand that's mixed in holds the fissure open so gas can flow.

The process involves repeated fractures in up to 50 zones that contain gas pockets on the way back up the well, like opening an elevator door on various floors, to maximize gas flowing from each well.

“We use the term ‘elegant ballet' because we can actually do multiple wells now,” Branch said. “The key to improving the cost is to keep this equipment working constantly.”

That process, combined with directional drilling that deviates from a straight vertical line, means Exxon Mobil can drill up to 20 wells per site. That translates to fewer rigs sharing space with the basin's mountains, pinyon pines, sagebrush and grazing cattle.

The company says the method dramatically cuts operational costs. Exxon Mobil won't disclose the Piceance project costs, except to say that it's part of the company's plan to spend $125 billion on projects over five years, including $29 billion this year.

Exxon Mobil is among many producers in the Piceance. Others include EnCana, Williams, XTO Energy and Chevron.

Williams tried Exxon Mobil's technology in 2006 but found no cost benefits above what the company was already doing, spokesman Jeff Pounds said.

Exxon Mobil began increasing its Piceance presence two years ago. At the peak of construction, 600 workers were on the payroll. Now, about 60 employees run the operations, mostly from a control center, while contractors do the heavy lifting with drilling and seismic imaging.

Falling gas prices

Work in the area has slowed since natural gas prices dropped.

“We had 105 rigs in the basin last year; now, there are 25,” said Shawn Brennan, manager of Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners' new gas treating plant in the basin.

Besides moving gas, Brennan said, the company's Piceance operations extract up to 70,000 barrels a day of natural gas liquids, such as propane, butane and ethane, which can be sold outright or used in processing at refineries and chemical plants.

“That's a lot of diversity to weather the markets as they are now,” he said.

Exxon Mobil faced some lingering ill will when establishing its gas operations. In the early 1980s, the company had a major oil shale operation in the Piceance. That decade's oil bust prompted an abrupt pullout, throwing the Rifle-area economy into a tailspin for years.

To make itself more welcome, the company donated $500,000 to help pay for a new helicopter ambulance pad at a hospital in Grand Junction.

Co-existing

Other community service outreach efforts include an academy for math and science teachers in area public schools and an annual sheepdog championship competition.

“We were certainly mindful of that history,” Branch said. “I know there is some legacy there, but it has not complicated our work here.”

For the ranchers in the Piceance, it's sometimes a challenge to co-exist.

Exxon Mobil and some other producers try to limit traffic by busing workers in to work and having them live on site for 14 days, like offshore crews. The companies replant grass and trees after clearing right of way for pipelines, and cattle guards prevent free-roaming livestock from wandering too close to plants.

Larry Robinson, 63, a third-generation rancher, said he sees evidence of environmental sensitivity, but there's no way to pretend the producers aren't there.

“The solitude's gone, and we're getting more and more wells and more and more pipelines, more and more compressors,” Robinson said. “It isn't like it used to be for us, and I don't think it will ever be the same.”

Thomas Friedman on E.T. China

On Independence Day, Thomas Friedman explained why the U.S. needs to up research into E.T. (that's energy technology, not the cute little guy that phoned home).

In his column, he states, "this energy thing isn't just about global warming. In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof. Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board. Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T."

Although China was once (and in many ways, still is) one of the dirtiest countries in the world environmentally speaking, "[it] is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change."

In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing required an enormous overhaul because the air was worse then L.A. on a bad smog day and countries were worried about the health of their athletes and the long-term effects the atmosphere of the city may have had on them.

But China is working it and working it hard. In a list compiled by the investment bank Lazard, China is third in alternative energy manufacturing and production behind #1 Japan and #2 Europe. The U.S. places fourth.

So what, one might say. Obama has put the energy bill on the back burner and focused most the administration's energy on health care. While this is an important subject and one that has been a major issue in elections and administrations throughout this century and the last, Friedman says that the energy bill needs more attention and needs it now.

"If we do not impose on ourselves the necessity to drive innovation in clean-technology — by imposing the right prices on carbon emissions and the right regulations to promote energy efficiency — we will be laggards in the next great global industry," he states.

But he is not poo-pooing the need for health care reform.

He puts it in no uncertain terms:

"Health care and the energy/climate bill go together. We need both now. Imagine how poor we would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies. Well, if we don’t dominate the top 10 E.T. rankings, there is no way we are going to be able to afford decent health care for every American. No way."

Makes sense, no?

It's begun

The House of Representatives narrowly passed an energy and climate change bill designed to revamp the nation's industrial economy.

But it barely passed by a vote of 219-212, which does not bode well for the fate of the bill in the senate where it is expected to undergo changes and rewrites. Even with Democrats holding the majority vote, 44 of them voted against the bill, although only three Texas dems voted against it.

Going back to what I said about pawns of the petroleum industry, Texas Republicans called the bill a "'monstrosity' that would result in 'epic job losses' and 'largest tax increase in history'," according to an article in the June 27th Houston Chronicle. To those and their ilk, I refer them to yesterday's column about cap-and-trade that distinguishes between cost and price.

Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, on the other hand stated that the result "is a reasonable first step to protecting our energy infrasructure and keeping good-paying jobs here at home." This seems more consistent with the projections of non-partisan experts.

Only time, of course, will tell. But here's to hoping the Democrats and the experts are right.

Cap and trade

In a June 26th column in the Houston Chronicle, Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund and Andrew M. Liveris, CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Dow Chemical Company lay out the benefits of such a policy.

Cap-and-trade is a free market way of ensuring environmentally and economically sound ways of reducing our dependence on carbon-emitting fuels while allowing companies to continue their business almost as usual. Companies are given carbon credits.

The column explains it thus:

"Companies that are under their emission targets can sell their allowances on a new carbon market. Companies that cannot meet their targets can buy extra allowances from the same carbon market. Cap-and-trade uses the efficiency of the marketplace to drive innovation, creating new carbon-reducing technologies at the lowest possible cost."

When acid rain became a true menace in the '80s, the Clean Air Act was instituted and "the cap-and-trade approach reduced emissions faster, and more cheaply, than anyone predicted. Under cap and trade, government doesn’t pick winners and losers — private markets do that job."

The tag team columnists go on to say, "This is how it should be."

For those who argue that this could be crippling to the economy, especially in its current state, the pair clarify:

"Opponents claim that this bill will result in higher energy costs. They are confusing price with cost. Although this legislation will lead to modestly higher energy prices, this, in turn, will lead to greater energy efficiency and new, cleaner energy technologies. This will, in all likelihood, result in lower overall energy costs. A true win, win, win — lower energy costs, greater energy security and fewer carbon emissions!"

Not only that, but the policy has the potential of creating new jobs in the lagging manufacturing industry.

"A single wind turbine, for example, contains 250 tons of steel and 8,000 parts, from ball bearings and electronic controls to gearboxes. Jobs manufacturing those parts can be created right here in America, especially in our manufacturing heartland, the Midwest. Ohio has lost more than 213,000 manufacturing jobs since 2000. For Michigan, the figure is almost 497,000 jobs lost. One way to jump-start our economy is with a cap-and-trade bill."

Another win, making it a win, win, win, WIN situation.

And keep in mind, one of the co-authors is the head of Dow Chemical, a company not exactly renowned for its environmental and social responsibility.

Wake up, America!

More Sci-Fi becomes reality

Some scientists have realized that the quickest way to cool the earth is to shade it from the sun.

The November issue of Scientific American lays out three of these plans. "A Sunshade for Planet Earth" by Robert Kunzig illustrates the ups and downs of these hypothetical projects.

The first involves the same scenario that quite possibly killed the dinosaurs. Sulfur, Brimstone, the Devil's smoke is the key but may become a culprit. The theory that volcanic activity killed the big lizards gained credence when Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991. The earth's overall temperature went down by one degree that year. Rainfall also dropped because evaporation was retarded by the lack of sunlight. This may help topsoil maintain its humidic integrity, but it also robs the rest of the planet of rainfall and fresh water. It also requires less carbon emissions or the upkeep would be more than it's worth.

The second involves making our clouds' metaphorical silver lining a thing of reality. Huge, satellite-guided ships would troll the oceans, shooting sea water into turbines (fueled by the churning of water and wind - NICE!), shooting vaporized sea water into the air. The sodium would bond to the clouds, making them thicker to block out solar radiation. However, rainfall would drop, brightening of the atmosphere may be unpredictable and the political repercussions are unknown. What happens in the ocean would affect airspace not necessarily belonging to the country involved and could cause problems. And, again, if carbon emissions are not curbed, it may be a moot point.

The third involves launching a cloud of satellite controlled plastic disks out of the atmosphere to deflect harmful sunlight while letting enough through to ensure survival of the flora and fauna that rely on it (i.e., every living thing on the planet). The prototype is a silicon nitride ceramic paid for by the Discovery Channel. Fractions of the width of saran wrap, it is far stronger and channels the good energy in, bad energy out. Set at L1, a Lagrangian point where the sun's gravity is equal to the earth's, the discs would act like a cosmic parasol, letting some energy in and scattering the rest.

All amazing, awesome ideas to cool the planet and keep the polar bears and penguins living in the style to which they are accustomed, but the underlying problem still exists.

Carbon emissions must be restricted, outlawed or replaced altogether. The above are referred to as a "quick fix."

As cool as they are, does that ever really work?

Texas coal-powered electrical plants

According to a Daily Texan article, Texas currently has "10 coal plants permitted or awaiting approval," says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. "Three more have been proposed."

At a panel discussion and film screening Thursday night, representatives of the Sierra Club, ReEnergize Texas and Power Vote organizations promoted alternate energy sources. Citing the fact that Texas produces a third of the nation's wind power, the panel lamented the fact that companies prefer staying with "ancient technology" - because the infrastructure is in place, it's cheap and there really isn't a profit in cleaning up carbon emmissions.

Cyrus Reed of the Sierra Club stated that only "One-tenth of one percent of profits is dedicated to developing new energy technology," adding "Even the dog food industry spends more of its money on development."

What needs to happen is politicians need to quit worrying about oil industry lobby money and become more involved in ensuring that the climate doesn't get any warmer and that Texas stays as clean as it is.

The by-gone "Don't Mess With Texas" anti-pollution campaign now seems hypocritical when the leaders of the state are allowing dirty coal plants to continue proliferating.

T. Boone Pickens: "A Surprising Environmentalist"

The Republican Party should listen more carefully to one of their own.

T. Boone Pickens, long-time oil baron and author of the entrepreneurial treatise The First Billion is the Hardest has become one of America's leading proponents of alternate energy. He is calling for government vehicles to run on natural gas, replacing natural gas powered electric plants with wind power and encourages off-shore oil drilling to end our dependence on foreign oil once and for all.

He calls it the PickensPlan and the website offers any visitors a chance to sign a petition or pledge their support.

And although some environmentalists have problems with off-shore oil drilling, such as the Committee Against Oil Exploration (CAOE - pronounced "K-O") due to the possibility of oil spills and the environmental impact inherent in fossil fuels, some of his other ideas are sound, safe and ecologically sensitive.

For example, Pickens recently invested billions in a West Texas wind farm that could conceivably power 1.3 billions homes with almost no emissions of any sort.

Perhaps some of his fellow oil-rich right wingers will finally see the light and follow suit.

Welcome to A Cooler World

The world is hot. And not in a good way.

Ecologically fragile species are dying out, glaciers are shrinking and experts predict that there is the possibility that within a decade arctic ice may be non-existent during the summer.

This blog will explore the implications of climate change and new technologies designed to minimize it.

But this is not a blog for the doom and gloom crowd out there. There will be some humorous asides to take the seriousness out of the preaching that invariably comes with such subject matter.

As an introduction, here is a link to a column I wrote last year.

Yes, it's "An Ode to Molly Ivins" but the content addresses the current administration's blatant and purposeful ignorance of man's effects on the planet.