North Coast Online

Environment's Gotten Better -- Who Knew?

The UK's ever so much cleaner than it used to be.

Britain’s green and pleasant land has just got that bit pleasanter, researchers have concluded after measuring pollution levels.

Levels of a group of toxic chemicals polluting gardens and fields have fallen to their lowest point for more than 100 years, a nationwide survey has revealed.

Emissions of dioxins from factories and power plants have been stemmed so effectively by bans and caps that contamination levels in soil have fallen for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

The most comprehensive survey of toxic chemicals polluting Britain’s towns and countryside has revealed that carcinogenic dioxin levels have fallen by 70   per cent since the late 1980s.

“Britain is definitely a pleasanter land than it was 30 years ago,” said Declan Barraclough, of the Environment Agency, who led the research that measured toxins at 200 locations across Britain.

The same has happened here, too, as anyone who remembers what driving down Route 5 when the Bethlehem Steel plant was still operating can attest.  I wonder sometimes if the current push to label CO2 a pollutant isn't partially the result of how successful we've been in controlling the real ones.  It's informative, I think, that the environmental movement never takes a time out to reflect on how far we've come.

You'd think they might want to pat themselves on the back occasionally for the huge strides America has taken to clean up its environment in the last 1/4 century.  But they never do.  I tend to interpret that as evidence that purifying the air or the soil isn't their primary objective.  Getting rid of the industry that caused the pollution is the real goal -- and they have to keep upping the ante to try and make that happen.

Is There A Doctor In The Car?

Hypermillers sound like your average, run-of-the-mill obsessive-compulsives to me.

Who Rejected Kyoto?

And here I thought that the rejection of the Kyoto Accords was settled science history, but Captain Ed cites an AP article that once again chastises the Bush administration for it.

President Bush rejected that accord, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and unfair excludes developing countries like China and India from its obligations. Pelosi, who strongly disagrees with that decision and many other of Bush's environmental policies, said Friday she said she wants to work with the administration rather than provoke it.

It's true that Bush has not embraced Kyoto but he wasn't the President when it was rejected.

Once again, the AP has failed to report the history of this treaty correctly. While Bush does not support the Kyoto approach, he had nothing to do with rejecting the pact. The Senate rejected it in 1997, almost four years before Bush took office. When Al Gore pushed Bill Clinton to sign the treaty, the Senate reacted by passing a resolution informing Clinton that Kyoto would not get ratified.

That resolution got sponsored by Chuck Hagel and Robert Byrd, and it passed by a roll call vote in which not a single Senator voted to support Clinton and Gore. The final vote was 95-0, and it included such Democratic luminaries as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barbara Boxer rejecting Kyoto. I have the resolution itself in the extended entry, and it makes clear that the Senate would not abide a pact which excluded the developing nations of China and India. Since it still does not include those countries, there is no reason to think that the Senate has changed its position, nor should it.

Clinton never lobbied to influence that vote and after the Senate's withering refusal, simply dropped the entire matter.  Either journalists at the AP are stupid and ignorant or they're wily and dishonest -- repeating a lie over and over might just convince enough people that it really happened the way they wish it had.

First, They Came For The Toilets

First, they mandated toilets that can't do the, um, job.  Now they've dictated washing machines that don't wash.  Even if you believe that mankind is ruining the earth (and I certainly don't), do you really advocate cheating people out of their hard-earned money for things that don't work?

Still A Go For Saving The Climate

Virginia Postrel has more on the fluorescent light bulb mercury kerfuffle. Yeah, they sound safe enough -- but I still don't think government should dictate them.

Surprise. DDT Works

DDT has been reintroduced in South Africa and initial figures indicate a 73% reduction in deaths from malaria.  Now, the 30 year long world-wide ban on allowing the use of DDT certainly doesn't justify a knee-jerk response against anthropogenic global warming -- but it does support skepticism about smug, environmental consensus.

Adding Insult To Injury

The Welland Canal strikes again.

A virus that has already killed tens of thousands of fish in the eastern Great Lakes is spreading, scientists said, and now threatens almost two dozen aquatic species over a wide swath of the lakes and nearby waterways.

The virus, a mutated pathogen not native to North America that causes hemorrhaging and organ failure, is not harmful to humans, even if they eat contaminated fish. But it is devastating to the ecosystem and so unfamiliar, experts said, that its full biological impact might not be clear for years. It is also having a significant impact on the lakes’ $4 billion fishing industry.

There is no known treatment for the virus. As a result, scientists are focusing on managing its spread to uncontaminated water — quite a challenge since the Great Lakes are linked and fall under the jurisdiction of several states and provinces in Canada.

“Updates over the winter suggest it has spread further than we thought, even last year,” said John Dettmers, a senior fisheries biologist for the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission in Ann Arbor, Mich.

“It’s really early,” Mr. Dettmers said. “As much as I’d like to say we know exactly what’s going on, we don’t. We’re all sitting here on the edge of our chairs waiting to see how bad it’s going to be this year.”

Besides killing Buffalo's economy, the Canal is now severely damaging our lake.  One bit of development we'd have been much better off without.

Rubbish, Literally

When regulations ostensibly designed to encourage recycling have the opposite effect, wouldn't you expect that the government might reconsider?  Nah.

A man who was fined for putting the wrong rubbish in a recycling bag has lost his appeal against conviction.

           

Michael Reeves, who denied putting paper in a bag meant for bottles and cans, said he was "devastated" by the decision.

The 29-year-old sports reporter must now pay an extra £350 costs in addition to the £100 fine and £100 costs imposed by Swansea magistrates last October.

Reeves, who was living in a flat at Carlton Terrace, Mount Pleasant, Swansea, at the time of the offence, said he would not be recycling his rubbish again.

He said he had tried recycling for a short while after moving to his current home in Tredworth, Gloucester, because all recyclables can go in the same box.

But he added: "After that decision I won't be doing it again. At the moment it's optional and I think that's the way it should be."

Swansea Crown Court heard evidence from Trevor Thomas, a member of the fly-tipping crew at the city council, who was called in to investigate the contents of a recycling bag outside Mr Reeves' flat on June 8.

Mr Thomas said: "It clearly states on the green recycling bags that cans and bottles go in together and paper must be put with nothing else with it."

He said that outside Mr Reeves' flat there was a bag containing half paper and half cans and there was a letter among the papers at the bottom bearing his name and address.

He said Carlton Terrace was a well-known hotspot for the dumping of all kinds of rubbish.

Even George Orwell would have found that story too unbelievable for publication.

Pigeon Birth-Control

How long before the environmental activists attack the GOP for this assault against nature.

It's That Easy

From Everybody's Column

It is gratifying that the topic of global warming has reached the politicians. The overwhelming complexity of the problem makes us feel that, as individuals, we can do nothing. Of course, we can tell our congressmen and other legislators that this is a problem that cannot be addressed too soon. This is probably the most important action we can take. But it is not completely satisfying.

There is something else one can do, that is, to buy fewer consumer goods. Every new product we purchase has used fossil fuels in its production as well as in its transportation to market. Some use fossil fuels in the product itself — just consider all those plastic bottles and plastic bags we use every day.

Making even small changes in our consumer habits will make us feel that we are helping. Awareness that a carbon fingerprint is involved when we purchase goods will result in fewer purchases. Setting an example for one’s family and friends may result in their taking a different attitude toward their purchases. This grass-roots efforts will complement and support the needed government action.

Beth Ruszczyk

Buffalo

No mention made of the people put out of work by our newfound eco-friendliness.  Though, I suppose they could all start selling carbon credits. Hello, is this Mr. Gore?  Yes, my name is Beth and I'm calling to tell you about. . .
 

Urban Pioneers

Many of you no doubt have read the New York Times account of the plucky Manhattan couple who are attempting to reduce their impact on the environment.  It's called "A Year Without Toilet Paper." They compost in the apartment, baby wears cloth organic cotton diapers with "enormous boiled-wool, snap-front covers," and Mom commutes to her job at Business Week on a scooter.

Mr. Beavan looks to groups like the Compacters (sfcompact.blogspot.com), a collection of nonshoppers that began in San Francisco, and the 100 Mile Diet folks (100milediet.org and thetyee.ca), a Vancouver couple who spent a year eating from within 100 miles of their apartment, for tips and inspiration. But there are hundreds of other light-footed, young abstainers with a diarist urge: it is not news that this shopping-averse, carbon-footprint-reducing, city-dwelling generation likes to blog (the paperless, public diary form). They have seen “An Inconvenient Truth”; they would like to tell you how it makes them feel. If Al Gore is their Rachel Carson, blogalogs like Treehugger, grist.org and worldchanging.com are their Whole Earth catalogs.

In an effort to live without electricity except for cooking of course, they no longer use the elevator but trudge the nine flights up to their "lower Fifth Avenue pre-war" where, presumably, open fires would compromise their probably rent-protected lease. Scott Burgess puts the noble experiment into perspective. 

For reasons that remain unexplained, computers and being online are just fine.

Incidentally, please don't ask the obvious question: Why don't they just wait for someone else to use the elevator, and get on at the same time? To do so brings down much of the (metaphorical) edifice that Mr. Beavan has so carefully constructed. For, by the same obvious logic, one might ask: Why not take the subway? An airplane? They're going to be running anyway.

Please read the whole thing -- it is, as they say, all good.

Correction

In all fairness I should mention that the company Al Gore co-founded, Generation Investment Management, insists that the former vice-president does not profit personally from the purchase of carbon-offsets.  The company buys offsets for all its employees but does not sell them itself.

I still think carbon-offsets are a silly idea, the purchasers go on their merry way spewing the same supposedly-damaging "greenhouse" gases they always did.  But I'm pleased that Gore, at the least, isn't making money off them.

A Tale Of Two Houses

With the attention paid to Al Gore's, um, environmentally wasteful lifestyle, this little nugget provides a nice counterpoint.

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude.

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

And so who's the enviro-wacko who built it?

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fellow citizens into following the pristineness of his self-righteous example. And no, it is not the wilderness retreat of the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council, a haven where tree-huggers plot political strategy.

This is President George W. Bush's "Texas White House" outside the small town of Crawford.

Nice contrast I think between one man who exhorts the rest of us to live green while failing to do so himself and another who goes ahead and actually sets an example while allowing the rest of us the freedom to follow suit or not.

Clean Energy -- Just Not Much Of It

You might want to let those new windmills in Lackawanna prove themselves before you rush out to buy one for your house.

Having spent £13,000 on installing a wind turbine at his home, John Large is disappointed at the return on his investment, which amounts to 9p a week.

At this rate, it is calculated, it will take 2,768 years for the electricity generated by the turbine to pay for itself, by which time he will be past caring about global warming.

The wind turbine was installed at the engineer’s home in Woolwich, southeast London, four weeks ago and has so far generated four kilowatts of electricity. An average household needs 23kw every day to power its lights and appliances.

Mr Large said that his difficulties highlighted the problems faced by consumers who wanted to buy wind turbines to save money and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Like many small turbines, the model owned by Mr Large puts power directly into the national grid, but the requirements of the grid mean that power can start being transferred only once blades have been turning fast enough for several minutes nonstop.

Hm, those fluorescent light bulbs look better and better.

Angry Seas

Shades of Jaws.

A crew aboard a shrimping boat were rescued after a group of bull sharks rammed and bit the vessel until it eventually sank off the Florida coast, according to an Associated Press report.

Captain Roger Schmall said a group of sharks had been slamming into the Christy Nichole's hull for four days. But then a 14-foot bull shark broke the boat's tail shaft, leaving Schmall and his crew of two adrift about 100 miles off the coast

The sharks were no doubt pissed off over human-caused global warming.

Jacques Chirac's Last Croak?

46 Nations Back Body to Protect Planet

Forty-five nations answered France's call Saturday for a new environmental body to slow inevitable global warming and protect the planet, perhaps with policing powers to punish violators.

Absent were the world's heavyweight polluter, the United States, and booming nations on the same path as the U.S. - China and India

Another world body.  Well now, isn't that a brilliant idea.  I suppose, though, that given all the success the United Nations has achieved in maintaining world peace that it's a natural -- if you're French.

Blinding Us With Science

Henry Waxman misspeaks.

The Democratic chairman of a House panel examining the government's response to climate change said Tuesday there is evidence that senior Bush administration officials sought repeatedly "to mislead the public by injecting doubt into the science of global warming."

There's no need to inject doubt into the science of global warming, the doubt already exists.  What the administration is trying to do is inject some doubt into the crusade to insist that there is no doubt.

Don't believe me?  Here's an example.  The father of a California student found out that his daughter's school was to show the Al Gore film, An Inconvenient Truth, with no opposing views.  After complaining to the school, the showing was cancelled -- but only for a few days.  Seems the teacher just couldn't find any opposing viewpoints -- her underfunded district no doubt couldn't afford computers that could access Google.

In this case, Walls told the Washington Post that she could not find any authoritative articles that counter "An Inconvenient Truth" -- other than a 32-year-old Newsweek article. CNN apparently went to the same school as Walls, as it aired a segment in which University of Maryland professor Phil Arkin asserted, "I don't think there is legitimately an actual opposing viewpoint to the 'Inconvenient Truth' film."

Allow me to present a few names. Massachusetts Institute of Technollogy's Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology Richard S. Lindzen complained to the Boston Globe about the "shrill alarmism" of Gore's flic. Neil Frank, who was considered authoritative when he was the director of the National Hurricane Center, told the Washington Post that global warming is "a hoax." Hurricane expert William Gray of Colorado State University believes the Earth will start to cool within 10 years.

University of Virginia professor emeritus Fred Singer' co-authored a book," Unstoppable Global Warming -- Every 1,500 Years," that argues that global warming is not human-induced but based on a solar cycle. Last year, 60 Canadian scientists signed a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in which they argued that there is no consensus among climate scientists.

Odd, isn't it? Global warming believers heap scorn on religious zealots for not valuing science and knowledge. Yet the thrust of their argument to prove apocalyptic global warming relies on denying the existence of views and scientists who clearly exist.

As the science of climatology improves and as more and more scientists begin to express doubts about the validity of the theory of human-caused global warming, we could expect people on both sides would be studying each other's data with equal interest.  But as it is now, the skeptics study while the advocates exaggerate, hurl insults and insist on drastic governmental action now.

Scientific debates aren't carried on in such a manner; political debates often are, though.

An Inconvenient Lie

Mine Your Own Business exposes the side of environmentalism that no one wants to discuss -- their policies will condemn the undeveloped world to poverty.

Gives A New Meaning To Carbon "Emissions"

After a prolonged, but obviously profitable hiatus, the Daily Ablution draws our attention to this bit of green news.

Could it be the first flush of environmental awareness in China? One of the country's leading airlines has begun encouraging passengers to use the toilet before they board flights as a way of saving energy.

Chinese Southern Airlines hopes to reduce costs with the new policy because it estimates that a single flush at 30,000 feet uses a litre of fuel, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. "The energy used in one flush is enough for an economical car to run at least 10km," pilot Liu Zhiyuan was quoted as saying.

Oh, God. How long before this idea spreads to the west?

Are we now to be made to feel guilty for using the aircraft toilet?  Will our fellow passengers soon exchange disapproving glances when those of us without the foresight to have "gone" before departure squander a couple gallons of precious Jet-A just to take a piss?  Will the next release of An Inconvenient Truth have a track dedicated to the ugly toll of carbon emissions caused by in-flight defecation?

It was tough enough to get used to flying without smoking.  I can't even comprehend what discomforts this latest environmental dictate will entail.

But I "Feel" So Good

Consuming fossil fuels with abandon while proclaiming one's environmental bona fides with a well-placed bumper-sticker is a hallmark of the new left.  Pleae pay a visit to the Concourse of Hypocrisy.

Don't Worry So Much About The Polar Bears

Are polar bears in danger of extinction because of global warming? You'd sure think so judging by the headlines.

Polar bears will be extinct within 25 years, scientist warns

United States ponders listing polar bears as endangered species

Not so fast, says Dr. Mitch Taylor, polar bear biologist for the government of Nunavut, and one of the leading experts in the world on Ursus maritimus.  Polar bears have encountered similar climate change in the past and they've adapted -- they will now, too.

There are 20 significant populations of polar bears around the top of the globe. Of the 13 in Canada, 11 are either stable or increasing in size. "They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present," according to Taylor.

The bear population of western Hudson Bay (the one most often cited by environmentalists) has declined over the past 25 years "and the reproductive success of females in that area seems to have decreased." Yet the reason seems to be that conditions for the bears there in the mid-1980s "were exceptionally good."

Every ecological cycle has its peaks and valleys. For bears in western Hudson Bay, the latest peak occurred two decades ago. The decline since has been neither precipitous nor unnatural.

What makes Taylor so sure man-made climate change is not causing the Hudson Bay bears to disappear? Some population has to be the first to feel the brunt of any disaster, after all.

"The neighbouring population of southern Hudson Bay does not appear to have declined," and another nearby population "may actually be over-abundant.

And just why, then, is the US considering adding them to its list of endangered species?

Well, the real reason is politics. The White House has decided to go a bit "greener." Rather than attempt to explain the science behind climate change, and why most of the current change (if not all of it) is likely natural, the Bush administration has decided to pander to voters who have been whipped into an environmental tizzy by constant scaremongering by scientists, environmentalists and the media.

The official reason given for changing the bears' designation is that the ice they hunt on is melting.

So? The ice cover is cyclical, too. And in the past, as the ice has receded, the increased sunlight in the water has increased the food available to seals, who have themselves increased in number, providing polar bears with more food to eat.

Indeed, 50 years ago, when there were fewer than half as many bears are there are now, the planet was in the midst of a prolonged cold spell. Ice covered more of the Arctic and there were fewer seals.

Decreased ice also means the bears find it easier to get to land where there are more berries and other foods the big beasts love.

This is science, too, folks.

   

Pants On Fire

Did you happen to catch this alarming news article last week?

Disappearing world: Global warming claims tropical island

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal

It ran first in the British Independent but was later picked up by papers and wire services around the world.  When I read it, I remember thinking that there weren't many details, but I've become so immune to global-warming-alarmism that I just, um, moved on.  Tim Blair was a bit more curious than I, and bothered to follow up.

Terrifying! You’ll note, however, that Lean doesn’t tell us exactly when Lohachara vanished. Was it last week? A few months ago? Maybe we’ll find out later.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

It’s the domino theory of island obliteration! As environmentalists always warned, once Lohachara falls, that’s it for Egypt.

The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

Got that right, Geoffrey. I can’t remember Lohachara ever disappearing previously.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years’ time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

By quite a margin, as it happens. Lean doesn’t say so, but Lohachara apparently vanished two decades ago. So much for Lean’s scoop; the event took place back when Lean had hair, and several years before he emerged from a coma. Some locals aren’t buying that global warming line, by the way:

Atanu Raha, director of Sundarban Biosphere Reserve, said the islands were getting eroded by oceanic currents, not by rising sea levels.

“Erosion and accretion are natural phenomena. Across the world islands submerge and new ones emerge. This is natural,” Raha said.

To the never-ending dismay of the true, human-caused-global-warming believers, most Americans aren't terribly worried -- even given Al Gore's silly "documentary."  And I think it's probably due to the succession of lies and exaggerations that they continue to publish and which the media just can't resist passing on.

The global-warmers insist that they have science on their side, but they've interpreted scientific research to fit their preconceived ideas and concocted computer models to "prove" them.  Human-caused global warming is a theory and nothing more.  It's a compelling theory, to be sure, but there is plenty of science that disagrees.

While there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the earth is warming, there is also a lot of evidence that it's cyclical, caused by natural forces and may even have started to reverse.  Scientists will no doubt continue to debate the issue, but in the end they should have no more say in the political decision about meeting or ignoring the potential problem than any of the rest of us.

And they don't do themselves any good by printing whoppers like this disappearing island.

And Yes, The Kitchen Sink, Too

Don Boudreaux recycles -- a lot.

After I awaken, I shower and dry myself with a towel that I’ve had for a few years. I don’t discard it after one use. When it gets dirty, I rejuvenate it by processing it through recycling machines that my wife and I own: a washing machine and clothes dryer.

Then I brew coffee and fix breakfast. Each day, I use the same coffee maker that I used the day before. I clean it after each use, recycling it for the next brew. My wife and I drink the coffee from mugs that have been used many times in the past. (One set of our coffee mugs was handed down to us after my wife’s parents used them for several years.) We also eat our breakfasts using dishes and utensils that are recycled from countless past uses. After breakfast, we recycle our mugs, dishes, and utensils with the help of another recycling machine: an automatic dishwasher.

He really does make a good point. 

I'm remiss, I'll admit it, in recycling the stuff we're "supposed" to:  newspapers, glass bottles and jars, tin cans, etc..  But I still live with the same household essentials I lived with 10 years ago, and many of you will be surprised to know that's not all that common.  In fact, one of the most interesting spectacles you'll ever witness happens twice a year in Buffalo -- major-trash pickup day.

If you don't know what I'm talking about then you really should take a drive into the city during the next one (keep an eye on the Buffalo News, they'll announce the next date shortly.)  I've lived on the West Side for over 13 years now and I'm still astounded by the mountains of stuff that ends up on the curb.  Understand that I'm slightly embarrassed this year.  I'll be tossing out 4 old kitchen mops, a semi-toothless yard rake and some ceiling tiles from an old remodeling project which I've ashamedly hidden in the attic for 10 years.

Dad is no doubt projecting wasteful psychic-noogies from his grave even as I write.

But I'm actually a rather thrifty environmentalist-type by today's urban standards.  During your major-trash-pickup-tour, you will pass through blocks and blocks where the space between the sidewalk and the curb is piled high with the detritus of entire households: sofas, beds, tables, bookshelves,toys, lamps, and boxes upon boxes the contents of which I don't even want to speculate on.  And in April, when the Spring pick-up comes along, the very same households which had apparently emptied themselves of all traces of human habitation in the Fall, will reliably disgorge yet another pile of life's over-used and under-maintained refuse.

How they continue replacing it two times a year is beyond me, though I do comfort myself that the area's landfills are much less overburdened by my cat's 5 tins of Friskies each week than they are by the household contents of some of my neighbors.  It's interesting to me that America's wasteful ways are blamed on our wealthiest.  I suspect that the truly wasteful are the very poor.  Nothing seems to be of value to them and so they just throw it away.

While Eliot Spitzer vows to add 5 cent deposits to juice and water bottles, I wonder if he wouldn't help us all more with a deposit on sofas and bookshelves. 

Woo-Hoo!

Looks like El Nino might be heating up.

. . . the weak El Nino developing this autumn may deliver a mild winter for the upper Midwest, but it isn't likely to have much of an effect on Southern California's weather, Pierce said.

Works for me.

Like A School Board With A Failed Budget -- Just Keep Pushing

Sometimes you've just got to scratch your head.

Study ties warming to intense hurricanes

Most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, says a study that one researcher says "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.

A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures.

And most of that temperature increase can be blamed on global warming caused by human activities such as automobile and industrial pollution, scientists report in Wednesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

In a year which has seen almost no hurricanes due to cooler sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic, what do you suppose prompted them to tout this report now?  I'll admit that part of one hurricane season does not constitute a trend, but neither did last year's heavier than normal storms.

Do they think we're not paying attention?

Ethanol Bad

The announcement a few weeks ago of an ethanol plant in Buffalo came as an unexpected breath of the proverbial fresh air in this dying town.  It represented everything that we could hope for:  creation of wealth, new jobs, markets for local farmers and reuse of city buildings.  I said, at the time, that it doesn't get any better than this.

But, never fear, someone in Buffalo is concerned that it's a bad deal.

The impact of the Buffalo plant on clean water, clean air and climate change, both here and wherever the corn is grown, will be devastating. Of course, it's all legal. Pollution for profit is a long-standing policy of the expansive U.S. economy.

When exposed to the light of day, the real costs of these kinds of projects are enormous, dangerous, life threatening and truly unsustainable. Someday, the lack of recognition of these real costs may be considered a crime.

Meanwhile, the real costs of these environmental disasters will be born by citizens and taxpayers for generations. We are the architects of our own destruction.

In addition, the promoters of the proposed Buffalo plant suggest that "up to 60 lake freighters will service the plant annually." Will this require new dredging of the Buffalo River, and if so, who will pay the cost of this, the taxpayer? And what effect will these lakers, requiring an open water channel, have on the potential plans for removing the Skyway?

Clearly, there are a number of costs that need to be considered when evaluating this project as a good economic investment. In the world of sustainability, an easy test consisting of two questions is used to judge whether or not a project supports a future that works: 1. Who benefits from the project, and how? 2. Who is harmed, and how?

This is a good test to evaluate the concept of "energy independence," which is often cited as a reason to exploit, grow and destroy environment. Quantify these answers honestly, and you will get a more clear picture of how the contemporary economy works for some and works against the many.

Finally, it seems clear to those in the industry that the use of corn to produce ethanol is almost obsolete. It is not as energy-efficient or as cost-effective and is more polluting than other potential fuels, including switchgrass or even hemp.

"Devastating," "life-threatening," "our own destruction."  In short, many must die in order that the rich may live.  If I hadn't read the story closely, I'd have thought he was writing just one more screed against the casino.  At some point, won't the left realize that foolish apocalyptic predictions like this are so ridiculous as to build support for the projects it opposes?

The More We Gets, The More We Wants

Kathleen Parker, whose columns I usually like, writes today about Tallahassee's struggle over the decision to build a new coal-fired power plant.

Although a local issue, Tallahassee's struggle is universal as communities everywhere grapple with rising energy demands and the need to wean Americans from fossil fuels. Other, more eco-friendly energy sources require thinking in new ways and demand some degree of personal adjustment. It's hard for most of us to wrap our minds around the notion that buying an energy-saving refrigerator - or swapping one type of light bulb for another - in a place like Tallahassee is going to keep polar bears from drowning in the Arctic.

Tallahassee's dilemma is also richly ironic. The Democrats who run the town - a tree-hugging Mecca whose city charter prohibits coal-fired plants - are having a hard time sticking to the script as practicality clashes with ideology. Mayor John Marks even signed the U.S. Conference of Mayors agreement to reduce carbon emissions to pre-1990 levels. How does one reconcile that commitment with building a new coal-fired plant?

Of course it's alway fun when environmentally-minded liberals come face-to-face with their desire to live 21st century materially-Americanistic lives.  But, and maybe her tongue's in her cheek, Kathleen's suggested solution falls oddly flat.

What if Tallahassee handed out one free CFL to each of its 80,000 households? I called Fishman to find out. He suggested giving 10 CFLs to each household at a cost of about $1 million.

Given that one 60-watt bulb replaced saves 65.7 kilowatt-hours per year - and a typical U.S. household uses 10,700 kilowatt-hours a year - Tallahassee would save enough power to light 4,881 homes. That's an energy savings of about 5 percent, small in the grand scheme but a pretty good return on $1 million. Plus, that leaves $399 million to direct toward other alternatives and innovations that don't involve producing more greenhouse gasses or polluting someone else's backyard.

This meme of replacing our bulbs with CFL's (compact fluorescent bulbs) has been growing around the country lately.  Why, they're so energy-efficient that if American's only replaced just one of their old incandescent bulbs, we could last till the next century with nary a new power plant -- or something like that.

But even if the energy savings proved true, there's one flaw in the proposal.  History shows us that when we come up with energy-saving proposals, Americans tend to buy even more energy-consuming products to use up the energy saved.  When the first round of oil price increases really hit home in the '70s, regulations were passed that required American auto makers to reduce their average gas mileage.

They did, dramatically.  The result was that Americans bought more fuel-efficient cars and started driving more -- eating up the potential oil savings.  I can't think of a reason why the same wouldn't happen with the installation of the vaunted CFL's.  Everyone wants to save money, but once we're used to spending a certain amount on it, then saving a portion of that just invites an increase somewhere else.

My advice to the good people of Tallahassee is to go ahead and pass out the CFL bulbs and build the powerplant, too.  If you don't, you'll probably need two powerplants before long.

Woe Is We

Global warming will evidently so reduce rainfall in the upper Great Lakes region that Environment Canada isn't scared to predict the possibility of a drastically-smaller and shallower Lake Erie.

Beaches that stretch hundreds of feet from the water's edge.

Great Lakes shipping grinding to a halt.

Hydroelectric power plants left high and dry.

New wetlands unlike those seen in centuries.

Lake Erie's water level could fall by as much as 32 inches by 2050, due to changes in global climate, according to the latest estimates by Environment Canada, driving sweeping changes through the region's environment and its economy.

All told, the lake could lose up to 15 percent of its surface area.

Well, who knows?  I mean, I could imagine a climate-change scenario that would dramatically increase rainfall in the area resulting in higher water levels and an improved farming climate.  And well -- since we love to imagine the worst -- my wild-assed guess theory might also see a devastating increase in shore erosion that would wipe out billions of dollars in real estate values and turn Buffalo's nascent waterfront into a flooded no-man's land.

Seriously though, there is one point in the story that no one would contest.

"Global warming can possibly make a few new jobs for lawyers."

That's a given and the Kyoto Protocol won't change it.

How Did We Miss This?

Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years: study

Greenland's glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.

You can guess what's coming next, can't you?  Here we are near the end of August without a single hurricane to date because, as we're told, the surface waters of the Atlantic have cooled.  What do you want to bet that someone will  soon blame those cool waters on those melting glaciers.

And, ipso facto, global warming will have caused the dearth of hurricanes.  That nugget will be followed by a spate of stories explaining how the Everglades and the "fragile" wetlands that make up our coastline actually depend on hurricanes for their renewal and are now facing extinction [cut to pictures of dead crocodiles.]

The Thermometer's Half Full

Mr. FreeMarket reminds us that, if global warming is truly occurring, it may not be so bad -- an inconvenient supposition -- I suppose.

A few years ago, I read a letter in a well known motorcycling publication. In it, the author explained that because of global warming, the UK would have a Mediterranean climate in 20 years – the author went on to implore all reader of the magazine to use as may CFC’s as possible so as to expedite these changes- as any British biker knows, our current climate is bl**dy awful.

We all know for every action there is a reaction. Therefore if we apply the Laws of Physics to global warming, whilst there will be a few minor problems their will also be a legion of positive aspects. If I were to be charitable, I would put all of the negativity about climate change down to the greenies having their collective objectivity obscured by an excess of facial hair. Therefore, this weeks competition is to properly itemise the benefits of climate change. My first offering is that rising sea levels will mean that large areas of France will be submerged, which will be nice. Belgium & Holland will disappear completely – no loss there then. I’m sure dear readers, you all have many more.

Um, maybe San Francisco and Boston will disappear?  Buffalo's tourist trade and growing season will almost certainly be extended. If anyone stands to benefit from global warming, it's we.

Fill-In-The-Blanks Advocacy

Have you ever suspected that environmental activists are purposely exaggerating in an effort to scare us into following their cause?  Well, Greenpeace has inadvertently proved it.

The environmental activist group Greenpeace wanted to be prepared to counter President Bush's visit last week to Pennsylvania to promote his nuclear energy policy.

"This volatile and dangerous source of energy" is no answer to the country's energy needs, shouted a Greenpeace fact sheet, decrying the "threat" posed by the reactors Bush visited in Limerick.

But after that assertion, the Greenpeace authors were apparently stumped while searching for the ideal menacing metaphor.

"In the twenty years since the Chernobyl tragedy, the world's worst nuclear accident, there have been nearly [FILL IN ALARMIST AND ARMAGEDDONIST FACTOID HERE]," the sheet said.

It was all an accident of course -- just a joke really, they say.  And it no doubt was, but a joke that reveals their thinking nonetheless.

Off With His Head

I suppose it had to come to this.  Global-warming activists are no longer content to merely debate the issue.  They're now insisting that public officials who disagree with them resign.

SILVER SPRING, MD – Hundreds of concerned citizens and leaders from across the nation will join Hurricane Katrina survivors Wednesday to call for the resignation of the heads of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the NOAA Headquarters just outside of Washington, D.C. During an 11 a.m. demonstration, advocates will demand that NOAA stop covering up the growing scientific link between severe hurricanes and global warming while insisting on real solutions to the problem of global warming.

Crazy.

Global Warming -- Maybe Not So Bad?

Gregg Easterbrook writes about his conversion from global warming skeptic to believer -- and throws in a nice plug for Buffalo, too.

Many greenhouse uncertainties remain, including whether rising temperatures would necessarily be bad. A warming world might moderate global energy demand: the rise in temperature so far has mostly expressed itself as milder winters, not hotter summers. Warming might open vast areas of Alaska, Canada and Russia to development. My hometown of Buffalo might become a vacation paradise. (Buffalo lakefront real estate is cheap. Here's a tip: buy some now.)

Good advice.

This Is News?

1. Environmentalists object to County plan to cut down trees.
2. County cuts down trees.
3. Environmentalists criticize County's cutting down trees.

Global Warming Is So Over (?)

Here's an interesting take on climate change -- There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998.

For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).

Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

You can see where this is heading.  Professor Carter's theory will at first be ignored completely by the feverish "pro-warming" establishment.  But when and if he begins to be cited widely among climate-change skeptics, he will likely find himself attacked, belittled and demonized.  That of course is exactly what happened to statistician Bjorn Lomborg when he published The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Although he believed that global warming was a reality, he disagreed that we should spend trillions in what he saw as a futile effort to reverse it.  And it was just that difference in opinion that invited world-wide outrage and smears against his reputation.  It's that sort of personal attack against those who disagree with climate-change proponents that continues to indicate to me that the issue is more political than it is scientific.

And that's what, more than anything else, keeps me in the skeptics' camp.

Still Beating The Drum

David Ignatius is shocked over Bush's seeming lack of concern over global warming.  But Bush is not alone this time -- Tony Blair's backing out, the Canadians have admitted they won't make their goals and have stopped trying and Australia never signed on in the first place.  India and China have never given it a moment's thought.

I realize that doesn't make Bush's decision right (or wrong for that matter,) but let's not pretend that he's somehow isolated in his opinions on this matter.  He's is quite good company actually.

Cattails and Reeds

A few years back a big to-do was made over a local company that had come up with a means of de-icing planes without chemicals.  A hangar was constructed at Buffalo International, planes would enter and microwaves would heat up the skin.  The idea struck me as pure genius as it would do away with the environmental hazards caused by hundreds of gallons of anti-freeze draining into the ground (yes, even I worry about such things.)

And so I I was inspired to make one of my only forays ever into the world of individual company stock investment.  The thing was a license to print money and besides,  I rather fancied myself a day-trader.  I promptly lost that investment when the company collapsed a month or so later; haven't heard another thing about the concept. 

So to read today that Buffalo-Niagara International is now planning a plant-based system to absorb the chemical run-off caught my attention.

Cattails and reeds will help break down chemical de-icers at Buffalo Niagara International Airport under a $10 million project that could be done by next year.

The Cheektowaga airport will be the first in the United States to use the biologically based method to treat the glycol runoff, said Rep. Brian M. Higgins, D-Buffalo. His office announced this week that he has obtained $500,000 in federal funds to help pay for the project's design.

Six glycol-treatment reed beds will be built on about nine acres along or between the main runway and a taxiway, said C. Douglas Hartmayer, director of public affairs at the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority. Then, about 138,000 reeds and cattails will be planted.

     "They will break down that glycol  and turn it into water and oxygen," he  said.

Very cool.  Now if we can only figure out how to make ethanol from the reeds when they die, I think we'll really be onto something.

 

No Results, Please -- We're Leftists

Forgive me the easy metaphor; but the greenhouse gases emanating from Montreal in the form of hot air regarding the conclusion of the Kyoto confab goes beyond anything I've heard from the Left in years.  It's almost staggering in its willful evasion of the fact that the Kyoto Treaty is effectively dead.

Virtually none of the signatory countries have attained anything close to the goals they pledged to, the U.S. and Australia (not to mention China or India) still haven't signed and show no desire to do so, and none of that changed in Montreal.  Yet almost like high-schoolers at a pep rally, the participants are almost breathless with excitement over the fact that we'll all, um, keep talking about doing something.

I suppose that the attendees can be forgiven somewhat for trying to put a good spin on the lack of results -- after all most of them make a living by screaming "disaster" so as to attract contributions to the PAC's and NGO's that hired them.  But the media, BBC and NPR in particular, are simply going along with their pronouncements without the least effort to put it all into any sort of context.

Nothing was achieved, and I, for one, am damned glad of it.  Here's a prediction.  Ten years from now the U.S. will lead the industrialized world (Europe included) in the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions.  We will have done so voluntarily and by the application of new  technologies that permitted the reduction without reducing our standard of living.

That drop will be obvious to the entire world and we'll get not a bit of credit (unless there's a Democrat President) because we, well, we're just not "team players."  And so it goes.

The Cathedral of ANWR

Robert H. Nelson on opposition to drilling for oil in ANWR

The symbolic value of great sacrifice explains why [ANWR] has become so important to the environmental movement. Its importance springs not just from the on-the-ground environmental features of the area, many other equally desolate and isolated places are also important to some group of wild animals. The truly distinctive feature of ANWR is that by leaving it untouched, so much valuable oil would potentially be sacrificed. Protecting the area offers a rare opportunity to make a powerful religious statement. An analysis of the benefits and costs of ANWR oil development thus becomes in major part an assessment of a trade-off between two alternative uses of the oil: (1) as fuel for a modern economy, and (2) as a symbol signifying the willingness of society to commit vast resources to preserve a multibillion-dollar cathedral, a religious edifice requiring such large sacrifice that it would stand as one of the greatest {certainly most expensive) testimonies ever made to the glory of the faith.

Blair Kills The Kyoto Treaty

Blair's flip-flop on the Kyoto Accord didn't get much coverage last month (hmm, wonder why?) but the Guardian has decided to stop ignoring it.

Tony Blair was accused last night of backing down on the Kyoto agreement to tackle climate change after he confessed to 'changing my thinking about this'.

In comments earlier this month which have only just emerged, the Prime Minister talked about a 'post-Kyoto' era, appearing to predict the death of the multi-lateral treaty. A total of 156 nations have signed it, but the US, the world's biggest polluter, has refused to do so.

In a debate, hosted by former US President Bill Clinton in New York, Blair said he was not hopeful of another major agreement on targets to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

Instead, he talked enthusiastically about focusing on technology-led solutions, the process favoured by America, Japan, China and India, but rejected by environmental campaigners and other leaders, including Britain's own minister responsible for climate change minister.

He also back-tracked on his previous insistence that tackling climate change would not damage economic growth, warning 'no country is going to cut its growth or consumption substantially' - a phrase that echoes anti-Kyoto arguments of President George Bush.

Why only a few weeks ago there was great speculation that Blair would call in his chits and get George Bush to come on board the Kyoto train.  But instead, he's taken Bush's position instead, and thereby effectively killing it.  Kyoto has become nothing but a talking-point anyway.  Even its most fervent European admirers have realized that they can only meet its targets by stunting their own industrial growth (even more than they already are.)

With Britain's joining Australia, China, the US, Japan, and India the tipping point has been reached.

Bring On the Windfarms

Wind turbines would be beautiful lakefront addition

Tom Golisano does not want any wind farms in the Finger Lakes region. I am in complete agreement with him. Why should we have to drive 100 miles to enjoy the beauty of the turbines? Let's all write Gov. George Pataki and get them placed right here on the Buffalo waterfront.

Henry Binkowski

I've said it before, all it would take to end America's burgeoning love-affair with monstrous windmills would be a single 60 Minute episode showing dead bird carcasses lying at the foot of one of these beautiful turbines.

I suspect that the distaste for pitting the energy-greens against the wildlife-greens is what prevents the (reputedly left-leaning) media from covering the story.  Eventually it will be covered -- but after how many billions of government subsidies to support inefficient, ugly wind-power I can't say.

A Rancher's Revenge

Here's a heartening story about a tenacious Arizona rancher who fought back against the radical environmentalists -- and won.

Like Lightning

I remember my Grandmother saying that a car was the safest place to be in a thunderstorm because you're "behind glass and on rubber."  Granny may have been mistaken.

A rock chip this isn't! How about a lightning bolt! It's what's left of a Salt Lake woman's windshield after lightning struck as she was driving down a highway.

Aline Devaud: “I thought the tire had blown out. My car was just in the shop yesterday, so I thought, ‘those darn mechanics. What did they do wrong?’ (laughs).”

She can laugh now, but at the time it wasn't funny at all. Her windshield is half gone, her airbags popped out, and her side mirror is blown off. And the road she was on was damaged after the lightning went through her car.

Yikes.

Can't Win for Losing

The air's cleaner, that's good, isn't it?

Our planet's air has cleared up in the past decade or two, allowing more sunshine to reach the ground, say two studies in Science this week.

Reductions in industrial emissions in many countries, along with the use of particulate filters for car exhausts and smoke stacks, seem to have reduced the amount of dirt in the atmosphere and made the sky more transparent.

That sounds like very good news. But the researchers say that more solar energy arriving on the ground will also make the surface warmer, and this may add to the problems of global warming. More sunlight will also have knock-on effects on cloud cover, winds, rainfall and air temperature that are difficult to predict.

Sigh.