Last Gasp?

(Cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 6/3/14 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image to enlarge.)

The head of the EPA and President Obama have announced a new rule which is intended to cut CO2 pollution and to clean our air.  Like most of President Obama's "initiatives", the move is at best a modest one, a baby step, if you will.

But the critics aren't happy, especially those with a financial stake in coal and oil-burning power plants, in other words, our owners are not happy, even if we can't breathe.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy offered a blunt defense Monday of the Obama administration’s new rule to cut carbon dioxide pollution, touting its benefits against mounting criticism from the coal industry and some members of Congress.

“Given the astronomical price we pay for climate inaction, the most costly thing we can do is to do nothing,” McCarthy told a room full of staff members and environmental allies at the EPA headquarters in Washington.

 

She added: “There are still special interest skeptics who will cry the sky is falling. Who will deliberately ignore the risks, overestimate the costs, and undervalue the benefits. But the facts are clear. For over four decades, EPA has cut air pollution by 70% and the economy has more than tripled.”   [Emphasis added]

 

Much of the gain Ms. McCarthy is talking about are attributable to measures taken before President Obama took office, but at least he is making some kind of effort, for which I am grateful.  Perhaps Congress will now revisit the issue and move us even closer to some kind of sane energy policy.

Like I said yesterday ... an old lady can dream, eh? 

 

The Cuckoo's Nest: The Earth Moved



It wasn't the typical weekend here in the Cuckoo's Nest, the assisted living joint I happily reside in.  About 9:00 PM on Friday a 5.1 earthquake rolled through, waking me from a sound sleep.  I lay in bed for about 5 seconds before I realized just what was going on, and just as I was reaching for the clothes and shoes I set out each evening for the next day, it stopped.  I got dressed, turned on the light, and opened my door to see what was happening outside my room.

Not much.

A few people were in the TV room, and they motioned me in to hear the news that had just been posted. The epicenter was about 20 miles away, which explained why we had just a gentle rolling motion.  A 5.1 on the Richter Scale is technically a "moderate" quake, but I lived through the Whittier and Northridge quake, so this one was merely cookies and milk.  Still, I went to the USGS site to get further data, and discovered while nosing around the site that Oklahoma was having a lot of earthquakes.

Oklahoma?

Yep.

Every state in the union has geological faults running through it, which I knew, it's just that most of them are not as active as they are in California.  So I did a little more searching on the internet and came across this article in The Nation:

The US Geological Survey found that from 1975 to 2008, central Oklahoma experienced one to three 3.0-magnitude earthquakes a year, compared with an average of forty per year from 2009 to 2013. And it looks like that number is going to get bigger. It’s only February, and the state has already logged more than twenty-five quakes of 3.0-magnitude or larger this year, and more than 150 total quakes in the past week alone.

This startling graphic, from The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday, shows a massive spike of 2.5-magnitude or larger earthquakes, starting last year (the yellow portion of the last bar represents earthquakes that took place between Maddow’s shows on Monday and Tuesday):

(Click on image to enlarge.)



No one is disputing that such a dramatic spike is unusual. The question is why it’s happening now, and science suggests that the fracking boom may be, at least in part, to blame.

Scientists have drawn links between earthquakes and wastewater injection wells used for oil and gas production, including fracking. Researchers say the toxic wastewater, stored thousands of feet underground, reducing friction along fault lines, which can trigger earthquakes. The ongoing fracking boom has led to a growth in national demand for disposal wells, according to Bloomberg. [Emphasis added.]

So, not only does fracking foul the water supplies and pollute the land, it also may be causing earthquakes in places where earthquakes are not common.  And then, to complete the picture, once the oil and/or natural gas is obtained and then burned, it pollutes the air.  All so a handful of people can go from billionaires to trillionaires.

And that's no joke.

Note:  go check out the USGS website.  It's very educational for all sorts of things.

Ahem, Cough, Gasp

(Cartoon by Lee Judge published 3/3/14 in the Kansas City Star and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then drag yourself back here.)

Unfortunately, it's not just the conservatives burying their heads in the sand when it comes to climate change.  Most of the world is ignoring the consequences of using carbon based fuel.  Maybe the latest report from the World Health Organization will get some attention.  Maybe.

From the L.A. Times:

Air pollution kills about 7 million people a year and is linked to 1 in 8 deaths worldwide, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Health Organization.

 

The finding more than doubles previous estimates “and confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk,” the agency said.

 

An estimated 4.3 million people died in 2012 as a result of indoor air pollution, mostly from cooking inside with coal or wood stoves in developing countries, according to the report by the public health agency of the United Nations. An additional 3.7 million died from outdoor air pollution.

Many people are exposed to both indoor and outdoor air pollution, so deaths attributed to each cannot simply be added together, the agency noted. Because of the overlap, the combined estimate for 2012 is about 7 million deaths.

“The risks from air pollution are now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes,” said Maria Neira, the agency's public health and environment director.   ...

The greatest health risk is posed by fine particles -- also known as PM2.5 -- which include diesel soot, wood smoke and chemical-laden droplets. Experts say those combustion particles, less than 1/30th the width of a human hair, cause most of the fatalities because they penetrate deep into the lungs, inflame the airways and put strain on the heart and other organs.

”People don’t die of air pollution alone; they die of other things the pollution tends to exacerbate,” said Michael Kleinman, a professor of toxicology at UC Irvine, who was not involved with the report. “It's a contributor to many deaths, and the more we learn, the more effects can be attributed to air pollution."

Last year the WHO's cancer research arm declared air pollution a human carcinogen, saying it increases the risk of lung and bladder cancer.

Reducing pollution levels could save millions of lives, according to the agency.
 

“The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up the air we all breathe,” Neira said.  [Emphasis added]

The report attributes many of the deaths, especially in Asia and other lesser-developed nations to the use of coal and wood burned to cook meals.  That said, in the industrialized nations much of the air pollution is caused by the burning of carbon-based materials such as natural gas and oil as demands for energy increase, especially in areas hard hit by climate change.

Yes, reducing pollution levels would save millions of lives, and, yes, a concerted action to clean up the air (and the water and the ground) is necessary.  Now, all we need is the will to do so.

How long, O Lord, how long?

 

NOTE:  The W.H.O report is available here.

Ahem, Cough, Cough...

(Cartoon by Tom Toles, 11/25/12, and found here.   Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

I've been a whiny-ass titty baby for the past week to ten days, primarily because I've been fighting off another infection, which increased my need for drugs which, in turn, required going off ice cream (my favorite food group) until the antibiotic regimen ended.  Then I fell into some financial difficulties which required me to haul out the begging bowl, always a blow to my ego.  And then ...

This news didn't exactly cheer me up:

In a Louisiana swamp several miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico, about 3,000 construction workers are building a massive industrial facility to liquefy natural gas, preparing for a new era when the U.S. will begin exporting energy around the globe.

The $12-billion project is one of the largest single industrial investments in the nation, part of a massive transformation of the energy sector that has led to a boom in drilling, transportation and refining from coast to coast.

Five years ago, the idea of exporting U.S. gas and oil was not only unheard of, but, in the case of most U.S. crude oil, illegal. At that time, the United States was facing a future of dwindling domestic supplies and vulnerability to foreign producers. It was anxiously building facilities to import natural gas, worried about ever-higher prices and building much of its foreign policy on the need to secure energy supplies.

But U.S. energy production has boomed with the technological revolution of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, and the ability to tap newly accessible massive reserves. The nation surpassed Russia in 2009 as the largest producer of natural gas and is expected to zip past Saudi Arabia next year to become the largest oil producer in the world.

Now, the U.S. energy industry is pushing for a new era of exports.   [Emphasis added]

What the frack??!!!??

I mean, really.

Here in California we're in the fourth year of a drought because the jet stream has been pushed northward, sending our badly needed precipitation eastward.  Folks in the eastern half of the country have had a brutal winter, with snow and ice storms as far south as Atlanta, and that weather is freaking continuing even as I pound on my poor laptop's keys.

The UK and parts of Europe have been hit with similar disastrous weather and Beijing China has had several bouts of smog radiating out for over 400 miles which amounted to at least ten times the particulate level marking extremely unhealthful air.

The whole world and all of the living things in it are suffering because we continue to use carbon-based fuels for energy.  And now we've found a new way, a dangerous way, to pump even the most difficult-to-reach pockets of oil and natural gas, so that our water supplies are even more directly affected.

For what?

So that a few rich titans, like the Koch Brothers, can get richer and richer as the rest of us die off.  And our government is going to help them do it.

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy

I have none to spare.

 

And Yet Again ...

(Cartoon by Ted Rall and swiped from his blog, which you all should visit anyway.  Click on image to enlarge.)

For the second time this year, Duke Energy has hit the news with another nasty bit of dumping. 

From the Los Angeles Times:

While poring over regulatory documents for Duke Energy coal ash ponds, environmentalists at the Waterkeeper Alliance grew suspicious of the way the giant utility was handling the toxic ash waste left over from burning coal.

They decided to send up a team in an aircraft to photograph Duke's shuttered Cape Fear coal-burning power plant and ash ponds, tucked into piney woods in this tiny community in central North Carolina.

The photos revealed what the Waterkeeper Alliance says is evidence that Duke, the nation's largest electric utility, is deliberately pumping toxic coal ash wastewater from the containment ponds into a canal that eventually feeds into the Cape Fear River, a source of drinking water for downstream cities.

In the photos, two portable pumps and hoses can be seen drawing water from a coal ash pond and dumping into the canal and into nearby woods. According to the environmental group, that is a criminal violation of the Clean Water Act and state laws.  ...

State regulators said the pumping could be illegal, and added that they were investigating the incident.

The allegations came as Duke and state regulators are under intense public and political pressure following the massive Feb. 2 Duke Energy coal ash spill that coated the Dan River with toxic coal ash sludge for at least 70 miles in North Carolina and Virginia. Hazardous heavy metals such as arsenic and lead were dumped into the river.   [Emphasis added]

What is so maddening about this news is that it took a citizen's group, Waterkeeper Alliance, to uncover this latest dump.  The state agency was fully aware of the prior problems, yet it appears it simply closed the books after the February 2 spill, not checking out the other sites within the state. 

What is up with that?

That's what the feds wants to know:

Federal prosecutors have announced a criminal investigation into the relationship between the state agency and Duke Energy. They have said they are seeking evidence of any money or gifts exchanging hands.

Kudos to Waterkeeper Alliance for doing another fine job.  I suggest you click on the link to their official site, nose around a bit, and check to see if they have a local unit you could support in some fashion.

Frackin' Mess

(Cartoon by Steve Sack/Minneapolis Star-Tribune (2/23/14.  Click on image to enlarge.)

The president still hasn't given any strong hint as to his decision on building the Keystone Pipeline.  In fact, he made it clear that the decision won't come any time soon.

From the L.A. Times:

 President Obama told the nation’s governors Monday that a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline could come in a matter of months, signaling he did not intend to let a recent court ruling derail his decision on whether to approve the much-debated project.

If that decision comes in the next two or three months, it just might land near the Primary Elections in many states.  I suspect that is his plan:  if he gives the green light to the plan, he's removed one of the issues from the GOP, at least temporarily.   The trouble is that he is going to piss off the environmental and liberal wing of his party who just might not show up.

And the excuse suggested by Steve Sack in his cartoon, that shipping by train is much more dangerous than a pipeline, just doesn't wash.

Stopping the fracking here and urging Canada to do likewise just might.  In the meantime, we'll just hope that governor's will get involved, like the one in Nebraska who got behind some property owners and who convinced a judge not to let the pipeline go through that state.

A pox on all their houses.

More Hot Air

(Cartoon by Bill Schorr (2013) and found at Cagle cartoons.  Click on image to enlarge.)

There are some benefits to getting old.  The biggest one to my way of thinking is that in all likelihood I will miss the coming environmental cataclysm.  In my less selfish moments, however, I worry about what the coming generations will face as a result of the mistakes made by my generation and the ones before mine with respect to the environment. Sometimes sadness damn near overwhelms me as I see those mistakes being repeated time after time by the greedier and more short-sighted people currently running the world.

From the 2/22/14 L.A. Times:

The Obama administration's drive to regulate greenhouse gases could hit a snag at the Supreme Court next week as industry groups and Republican-led states ask justices to block what they call a "brazen power grab" by the president's environmental regulators.

Amid legislative inaction in a deadlocked Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted regulations in 2011 that require new power plants, factories and other such stationary facilities to limit carbon emissions.

The agency said the rules were justified by a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that held that carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — seen as the chief culprits behind a warming planet — are air pollutants subject to EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act. ...

Now, the dispute is back for Round 2 in the high court in a legal fight over how far the EPA can go in adapting the 1970s-era antipollution law to the 21st century's gravest environmental problem.

It is also a political fight, with a partisan lineup similar to the healthcare case two years ago. ...

...when the EPA tried to expand those rules to stationary facilities, industry leaders and Republican-dominated states argued that the agency had gone too far. Justices agreed last year to consider six different appeals of the rules.

Typically, stationary facilities would include power plants, but the challengers said the regulations could potentially extend to millions of others, including hospitals, shopping malls and universities.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the new rules, if put into full effect in 2016, would "erect the costliest, farthest reaching and most intrusive regulatory apparatus in the history of the American administrative state."   [Emphasis added]

Apparently the members of the Chamber of Commerce and oil industry groups don't much care about their own kids' and grandkids' future.  Maybe they are banking on their wealth and connections to keep their own families warm enough and cool enough inside their air conditioned estates, regardless of the conditions outside. 

I'm not so sure their gamble is going to pay off in quite the manner they think.

It's My Birthday

Today is my 67th birthday.  Presents are not mandatory, but if you are fortunate enough to have some spare cash lying around, please feel free to hit the donate button.  No, I'm not about to be evicted or thrown into debtors' prison, but it would be nice to have a little walking-around money, enough cash to make my Medicare co-payments at the time of the doctor's visit and such like.

As I've said in the past, August 6 is an interesting date.  Orthodox Christians celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration on this date, when Jesus went up on Mount Tabor to pray with his disciples and they saw him suddenly start glowing.  That's kind of ironic, given what else the date is famous for.

On this date in 1945, the US dropped in atomic bomb on the people of Hiroshima, causing a deadly glow of its own and ushering in the nuclear age.

And then in 2001, on August 6, President George W. Bush waved off a CIA officer trying to deliver his Presidential Daily Briefing warning that Al Qaeda was about to attack.  On September 11, they did just that and set in motion events which have essentially defined events since then.

With the post 9/11 attacks came the Patriot Acts which get renewed with great regularity.  Those acts made it possible, even justifiable for the massive spying program of the NSA, a program with no real oversight.  We are all now subject to having our emails, our regular mail, and, yes, our blog posts monitored by the government, First and Fourth Amendments be damned.

It's been a rough year for civil libertarians, especially progressive ones.  More time and effort has been spent on spying on us than dealing with very real problems like the economy and the environment. 

So it hasn't been a very good year for me, or the rest of the world for that matter.  I guess our charge is to keep plugging along and doing what we can to change things.  But I'm 67 and I'm getting worn out.

I'm counting on you folks to keep things moving.  That would be the best birthday present of all.

What The Frack?

(Cartoon by J. David Bell and published at Bell's Yells on 1/5/11.)

We all await President Obama's decision on the Keystone Pipe Line.  He keeps on saying that his decision will be based on the environmental safety involved, but I think we may already have a clue as to what that decision will be, based on this article in the Los Angeles Times.

In an internal EPA PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Tribune/Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau, staff members warned their superiors that several wells had been contaminated with methane and substances such as manganese and arsenic, most likely because of local natural gas production.

The presentation, based on data collected over 4 1/2 years at 11 wells around Dimock, concluded that "methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality." The presentation also concluded that "methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking [hydraulic fracturing] and other gas well work."

Critics say the decision in July 2012 by EPA headquarters in Washington to curtail its investigation at Dimock over the objection of its on-site staff fits a troubling pattern at a time when the Obama administration has used the sharp increase in natural gas production to rebut claims that it is opposed to fossil fuels.

In March 2012, the EPA closed an investigation of methane in drinking water in Parker County, Texas, although the geologist hired by the regulator confirmed that the methane was from gas production. In late June, the EPA dropped a study of possible contamination of drinking water in Pavillion, Wyo., despite its earlier findings of carcinogens, hydrocarbons and other contaminants in the water.

"We don't know what's going on, but certainly the fact that there's been such a distinct withdrawal from three high-profile cases raises questions about whether the EPA is caving to pressure from industry or antagonistic members of Congress," said Kate Sinding of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.   [Emphasis added]

It certainly looks like the administration has made up its mind.  I mean why bury some studies or follow up on preliminary findings if you intend to approve the pipeline.  What is so maddening about this is that we've seen not only the effect of fracking on ground water, but the danger of transporting the natural gas in a pipeline (the people of Arkansas will attest to that).

And it's not as if this country will get the benefit of all that glorious Canadian natural gas.  It's being piped to the Gulf Coast so it can be sold and shipped to the rest of the world.

Halliburton wins again.

We lose again.

David Shows His Cynicism

Well, David Horsey has a cynical side.  His latest column certainly matches my mood of late, so I can't really blame him.  Unfortunately, I can't cheer him up either. 

In the movies, when humanity is faced with imminent doom, whether from a massive asteroid or an invasion of space monsters, the people of the world forget their differences, band together and save themselves. In the real world, such unanimity of purpose is far more rare. When it came time to help their fellow Americans whose lives were upended by Sandy, quite a few members of Congress balked, delayed and refused to let go of their compulsive quest to scale back government spending. Ideology trumped compassion. ...

If a gigantic asteroid were barreling toward impact with our planet, you can bet there would be at least a few members of Congress who would insist on leaving it alone, either because they would see it as a warning shot from the Almighty or because a mining company with a savvy team of lobbyists had laid claim to the big rock. Two minutes before Armageddon, somebody will still be trying to figure out how to make a quick buck off of it and he’ll have friends in Congress insisting that it’s the American way.

Ouch!

But, oh, so true.  As Horsey notes in the rest of the column, we are  seeing that play out in the climate change arena.  We should have been doing something a decade ago at least, but even now, when we are seeing the dramatic storms, the crippling droughts, the huge swings in temperatures, the climate change deniers, fueled by the dollars from the oil, gas, and coal companies have our congress critters on both sides of the aisle looking the other way.  Money today, even if (or especially because) catastrophe tomorrow.

We are so screwed.

More Like This, Please

Over the weekend, I came across this article and found myself smiling.  Not too much has made me smile so far this year, so I thought I'd share it with you.

Decades ago, the Colorado River was dammed in an attempt to control the flooding along its banks.  The damming was successful, but it had some unintended consequences.  Lake Havasu, which long had been the recipient of tree limbs and brush as a result of the flooding was now crystal clear.  Now that might not sound like a bad thing, but it was:  the fish in the lake nearly all died out because there wasn't a ready source of food (the decaying vegetation) nor a sanctuary for young fish to hide from predator larger fish.

Then, 1992, a plan was implemented to try to resolve the problem.  That plan involves Christmas trees.

Structures were formed by sinking PVC pipe, concrete sewer pipe and cinder blocks in 42 coves. Then, discarded Christmas trees were lashed together, weighted down and dumped around the structures. Piles of brush were added.

As the trees and brush decomposed, the pipe and concrete structure grew a biological skin of mosses and algae that was then colonized by insects. In addition to providing shelter, the Christmas tree structures also became a source of fish food. ...

It takes a Christmas tree five to six years to decompose under water. So each year, volunteers toss in as many as 500 additional trees and a thousand brush piles to replenish the reefs.

Part of the benefit of creating habitat with Christmas trees is that it's cheap — trash haulers are happy to unload onto others what they pick up at the curb.

The result is that the fish are back and the lake is healthy and diverse.  Fewer Christmas trees are going to landfillls, which is an added bonus.  The project has been sufficiently successful that other jurisdictions (including Riverside County in California) are planning similar ones.

I think that is pretty cool.  And, like I said, it made me smile.

Good News/Bad News

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (October 17, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

I understand I missed a really feisty debate on Tuesday.  I almost regret retiring to my bedroom with my cat and my Kindle.  I've done plenty of reading about the debate, however, and it was nice to see that Barack Obama is capable of sharp responses at appropriate times.  That's part of the good news.

The other part is that the MSM is actually doing a half decent job in "fact checking" both candidates.  I don't recall seeing this much in past election cycles.  For an example, take this column from the Los Angeles Times:

Mitt Romney said "the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters."

According to the Bureau of Land Management, in fiscal year 2011, 2,188 leases were issued for energy development on federal lands.  Four years earlier, in fiscal year 2007, 3499 leases were issued. So, not quite a 50% drop, but a drop nonetheless.

However, the biggest drop-off came in fiscal year 2008, to 2,416 leases. The fiscal year for the federal government starts Oct. 1, 2007, so that decline began under the Bush administration. Leases under President Obama took a precipitous drop in 2010, because of the moratorium the administration implemented in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which occurred on federal land and was the worst offshore oil spill in federal history. The number of permits has started climbing since then.

Politifact.com noted the following about drilling on federal lands: "From 2004-08, well into Bush’s tenure, oil production on federal lands and waters fell in four of five years, for a net decrease of 16.8%. From 2009-11, the Obama years, oil production rose two of three years, for a net increase of 10.6%."

Sadly, those facts also pretty much set forth the bad news:  President Obama has re-opened federal land to oil drilling, some of it in pretty environmentally sensitive areas, even after the blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico.  Off-shore leases and leases in federally owned wilderness areas means we can expect more such accidents as the oil companies have to drill deeper and to use such techniques as fracking.  Besides that, the new leases mean that the federal government continues to support the use of carbon-based energy sources, one of the major sources of climate change.

In other words, this administration seems willing to ignore both the short-term and the long-term consequences of more drilling.  And that's really bad news for all of us.

Epic Fail

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

OK, I'm back. My burn-out lifted with a few extra hours of sleep and this cartoon and column by David Horsey.

If life were a movie, the president of the United States (probably played by Will Smith) would be leaping into action to save humankind from the calamity that a new scientific report says is about to befall the Earth.

A paper prepared by 22 international scientists and just published in the journal Nature warns that overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change have pushed the world toward a tipping point beyond which lie irreversible, frightening alterations in the biosphere that supports life on this lonely planet.

Of course, since this is not a movie and is, instead, just another surreal election year, the scientists’ alarming analysis will go unheeded. If the report is addressed at all by Republicans, it will be dismissed as another attempt by fiendish environmentalists to destroy the American economy by reining in polluting industries. If Democrats take note, they will tout their green jobs program as a panacea and quickly move on to a different, less disturbing, subject. [Emphasis added]

Yes. And yes.

Part of the problem is that Americans are by and large an impatient people. We insist on immediacy: immediate "solutions" to immediate problems and instant gratification. Deficit getting out of hand? Cut social welfare programs and taxes on the wealthy who purportedly provide jobs. What do you mean I can't have cheap gas to operate my beautiful new guzzler? Give tax breaks to the oil companies to provide more gasoline and roll back regulations on drilling operations. A national debate on environmental issues pre-empting "Dancing With The Stars"? Screw that. A long term investment to restore natural habitats and forests? What? That would have an impact on the next quarter's profit. You must be mad.

A larger part of the problem is a failure of leadership at all levels of government, which Horsey notes quite clearly. For every Bernie Sanders there's a Dianne Feinstein and a Max Baucus in the Democratic party, some 35 other Dems who keep checking their campaign funds, Joe Lieberman of the Joe Lieberman Party, and 47 Republicans. The numbers are even worse in the House, where other than the few members of the Progressive Caucus we are represented by two parties owned by the corporatocracy.

And the one institution which could bridge the gap has abdicated its responsibility. The mainstream press may have published articles about the report contained in Nature, but most, if not all, "balanced" the argument with the truthy responses of those who do not want their immediate interests impaired, the rest of us and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren be damned (as they surely will be). The only exceptions have been the cartoonists such as David Horsey. And that's one of the many reasons why I've taken to posting editorial/political cartoons as often as I can.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, in a conversation yesterday morning at Eschaton, noblejoanie posted this:

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off. Faxes, letters, emails, telephone calls, vigils, letters to the editors: they may be just momentary distractions, but at least we are doing something.

And we are bound by honor to at least try.

Somebody Needs His Diaper Changed

Extortion is such an ugly word, but it's the right one for what Sen. David Vitter (Moron, Louisiana) is pulling right now.

From an editorial in the New York Times:

It sounded like a simple bit of noncontroversial Senate routine: raising the salary of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to the level of his cabinet peers. Then, with all the finesse of a shakedown artist, Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, declared that he will keep a legislative hold on the $19,600-a-year raise until Mr. Salazar has his department approve more deepwater drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I cannot possibly give my assent,” the senator wrote to Mr. Salazar. Far from any concern about laws against quid pro quo Washington deals, Mr. Vitter vowed in a press release to keep his “boot on the neck” of the department until his drilling demands are met.

In the wake of the gulf oil spill disaster, the senator wants to regenerate industry jobs, and he is demanding an approval rate of at least six drilling permits per month. Most of the 15 approved since the oil spill, he contends, amount to reissuings.

Apparently the inestimable senator was dissatisfied with the job BP did last year so he wants a do-over. He wants the Gulf completely destroyed.

Tidings of Great Joy

I had fully intended to take today off from blogging. It is, after all, Christmas and as a practicing Christian (OK, so I haven't gotten it right yet) I treasure this holy day. I meant to just slap up a Christmas Tree graphic with a few well-wishes and to leave it at that. But I came across this article in the New York Times and couldn't resist.

It's about the use of off-the-grid electricity generated by renewable energy sources such as solar panels, biomass, and mini-hydroelectric dams by poor people in the third world located far from traditional power sources. The lead example is the torturous path a woman had to take to recharge her cell phone (the only access many have for financial transactions in rural areas in this part of the world). Finally, she scraped together enough money to put a single solar panel on the roof of her home. That provided enough electricity to not only recharge her phone, but also to run some LED lights so that her children could study at night. She's saving money now that she doesn't have to pay for a wild three hour ride to the closest charging station and she doesn't have to pay for kerosene for the only light source her kids had.

The article notes that such devices are gaining in popularity, and are providing an alternative to waiting for the governments of poor countries to find the money to extend power far from the capitals. And these devices are not adversely affecting the environment the way traditional energy sources and the grid to deliver that energy would.

As small-scale renewable energy becomes cheaper, more reliable and more efficient, it is providing the first drops of modern power to people who live far from slow-growing electricity grids and fuel pipelines in developing countries. Although dwarfed by the big renewable energy projects that many industrialized countries are embracing to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, these tiny systems are playing an epic, transformative role.

It's healthy trend, but it's limited at the present for a number of reasons, not the least of which is economy of scale, as noted by John Maina, executive coordinator of Sustainable Community Development Services based in Kenya.

“Finally, these products exist, people are asking for them and are willing to pay,” he said. “But we can’t get supply.” He said small African organizations like his do not have the purchasing power or connections to place bulk orders themselves from distant manufacturers, forcing them to scramble for items each time a shipment happens to come into the country.

Part of the problem is that the new systems buck the traditional mold, in which power is generated by a very small number of huge government-owned companies that gradually extend the grid into rural areas. Investors are reluctant to pour money into products that serve a dispersed market of poor rural consumers because they see the risk as too high.

Developed countries are more interested in the grandiose: the huge windmill farms, the major hydroelectric projects. Simple devices which would serve the millions of poor rural dwellers are just not sexy enough for the much smaller investment which would be needed to proved such a major difference in the lives of so many people.

The United Nations is beginning to "get" the benefits of the smaller but wiser projects involving single solar panels and individual biomass tanks filled with the manure of the family cows. Now it's a matter of educating the rest of the world, and, quite frankly, this article does a fine job along those lines.

Another Fine Mess

So, what does an army do when it exits another country after pounding it into the dirt? Just go, leaving all the destruction and the base garbage for the conquered nation to deal with?

Oh, no, no, NO! We are being reassured by the military that the troops are busy cleaning up all the hazardous waste it can find in Iraq, labeling it properly, and shipping it out.

Where it's being shipped to exactly is not made clear in this McClatchy DC article (originally written for the Christian Science Monitor with whom McClatchy has an agreement), but what is clear is that the Pentagon got riled by some articles in the world press alleging the US was ignoring the mess it had made, some of it containing hazardous chemicals and materials. So it invited folks from the press and the appropriate agencies of the Iraqi government to tour one of its state of the art disposal facilities in Tikrit.

American commanders in Iraq are working to demonstrate that they are clearing the country of tens of millions of pounds of U.S.-made hazardous waste in an effort to rebut claims that U.S. troops are leaving behind a toxic legacy as they withdraw.

Hundreds of barrels of all types and all colors — filled with everything from discarded lithium batteries and oil filters to powerful chemicals such as hydrochloric acid — are stacked in a dusty compound on a U.S. base at Tikrit, north of Baghdad.

This and a sister facility on another base have so far processed 32 million pounds of "regulated" waste — more than half of it soil contaminated with petroleum products. The material has been decontaminated, crushed or shredded, and then sold as scrap in Iraq, or recycled and shipped abroad. [Emphasis added]

I have to admit that's a pretty impressive undertaking, and I also have to admit that I am glad to see it. What I don't see in the article is the reprocessing of dirt loaded with lead from bullets and shells from their practice ranges or battle sites, but then the military hasn't been real good about voluntarily cleaning the lead out of US bases that were closed, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

Nor was their any mention of removing unexploded ordinance (such as cluster bomblets) or nuclear tipped ordinance from the fields of Iraq. Properly disposing of unused paint and paint thinner is nice, but in the long run Iraqi kids are going to lose more limbs from our left behind shells.

But here's the fun part: our military admits that some of the problems are caused by their civilian pals, the contractors. Check out this admission from an officer charged to clean up the mess:

Reports of "regulated waste being left all over the countryside" also prompted the U.S. military to investigate — and then to counter the claims, said Army Brig. Gen. Kendall Cox, the U.S. commander in charge of engineering in Iraq.

"The intent was to insure, through the media ... there's a clear understanding that we are taking every measure possible ... to protect the environment and treat all regulated waste and materials appropriately," he said.

"We have a very systematic process in place to receive materials, treat them and dispose of them properly," he added. "We haven't identified any problems with our processes. What we did identify is potentially there are contractors who aren't dealing with their regulated waste properly." [Emphasis added]

What a surprise, eh?

So, the war is winding down, another 20,000 US troops are scheduled to leave in the reasonably near future (leaving around 50,000 others), and the US is scurrying to clean up one inevitable part of war: the environmental disaster.

Well, sorta. Kinda.

Off Key

Chris Ayres has a snarky commentary on Tony Hayward in today's Los Angeles Times. Ayres suggests that BP take a spare containment dome and drop it over its CEO before he does any further damage to the company's public image.

Here's what I consider to be the money passage in the piece:

Perhaps it's inevitable that any human being, no matter how skilled in communicating with the public, is going to err when faced with a calamity of the scale of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. But Hayward hasn't made just one or two off-key statements. Oh no. Like the oil spill itself, the torrent of Hayward's anti-charm has been a slow-motion disaster, at first seeming almost containable, but then accumulating hour after hour, day after day, week after week, until Toxic Tony became a black stain on the Gulf Coast in his own right. If only there were a berm that could keep him out at sea, away from the population.

"This is America — come on. We're going to have lots of illegitimate claims," he sneered to one British journalist, as if the deaths of 11 oil rig workers and the injuries of 17 others in a more reasonable country would simply be considered an acceptable cost of doing business. Then came the terrifying logic of: "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." This set the bar for future Haywardisms pretty high, but the BP chief hurdled it nevertheless with his assessment that "I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest." [Emphasis added]

I happen to think that Mr. Hayward's gaffes are actually quite helpful in a twisted and perverse sort of way. He has managed to confirm what many of us have long suspected: that for corporations deaths and injuries are to be expected and computed into the cost of doing business in the US and around the world. Rather than work to prevent the loss of lives and livelihoods, major corporations are perfectly happy to allow for them in the business plan so that profits can be maximized. That the rest of us might be unhappy with such unholy computations doesn't matter. Only the bottom line matters to the Captains of Industry.

Will Mr. Hayward, BP, and its devastating Gulf tragedy prove to be the final tipping point, motivating the rest of us to hit the streets and Congress in protest?

Probably not. Already the general population is salivating at the curiously synchronous announcements of abiotic oil and the earth's replenishing of oil fields long thought to be depleted. In other words, they are ready to climb back into their automobiles and to crank up the air conditioning for the summer. Our national leaders haven't bothered to step up and call for the end of energy wastefulness and over-reliance on the fossil fuels which will choke the life out of the planet and its inhabitants. As a result, when the dramatic pictures of oil soaked birds, dead fish, and tar balls on beaches from one end of the coast to the other fade, it will be back to business as usual.

There is some benefit to be being old. I won't have to be around to watch the further devastation. In the meantime, however, my heart hurts.

That Other Energy Company

The BP-caused tragedy in the Gulf has replaced the Massey Energy-caused mining tragedy in West Virginia on the list of horrendous, death-dealing accidents which could have been prevented. I suppose that's understandable, given the wide area of impact and given the short attention span of the media. However, there is a small cadre of activists who are still challenging Massey Energy on its unholy practices, and, surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times has taken notice.

Although public scrutiny of Massey has focused on the April 5 mine explosion that took 29 lives — a congressional committee grilled company executives last month — the battle between the company and activists has largely escaped notice outside West Virginia. The conflict has dragged on for 16 months, and there is no end in sight.

The group Climate Ground Zero has performed 21 acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, including shackling themselves to towering draglines and bulldozers, canoeing across a toxic waste impoundment, and occupying a Massey subsidiary's office for 10 days. Most notably, members have camped out in trees to fight the practice of blowing up mountains to expose coal seams.

Coal giant Massey has labeled the protesters "criminals" and "environmental terrorists." The company is pursuing court injunctions against them and seeking financial damages. The group has not been cowed.

Activists say they are breaking the law to halt mining damage so grave it amounts to a crime. Mountaintop removal has left valleys and rivers clogged with debris, wells ruined and nearby homes uninhabitable.

The actions of Climate Ground Zero are impressive, especially given the power Massey Energy holds over West Virginia. As I noted in my April post (first link, above), Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy "...owns West Virginia's legislature, governor, and even the state's supreme court. Bought and paid for by generous campaign donations, the state wouldn't dare cross this major Republican player." The activists don't seem to mind that the odds are stacked against them, however. For the past sixteen months they have continued to cross every line Massey has drawn.

As the months rolled by, however, Massey and the public authorities have upped the ante considerably:

When arrests began, the activists were released without bail or were required to put up a modest amount. Now bail is set in the thousands and is often required in cash for offenses as minor as trespassing. Two activists spent two weeks in jail waiting for funds to be raised. Bail was initially set at $100,000 in the latest case.

Punishment has been increased as well. Although plea bargains have been accepted in most of the cases, none of which involved jail time, one activist with the temerity to demand her constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial was slapped with a sentence of 60 days in jail. Another activist, offered a plea bargain of only 30 days in jail, has also chosen to go to trial. There's no telling at this point what she will face for a sentence.

This may look like small change to those activists who were killed trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, but the actions of Climate Ground Zero are cut from the same cloth and deserve the same respect. It would be nice if the media, whether the traditional main stream media or the new electronic media, would accord the West Virginia battle some attention.

The Los Angeles Times did just that, even if it wasn't front page news. For that I am grateful.

Honestly, I Am Not Snickering ...

...No, really. I am always pleased when the youth of our nation finally effin' GET IT.

Young Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana, the guy who gave a mostly dull speech on limiting the size of government as the GOP's response to President Obama's first address to a joint session of Congress, has come out swinging on the Gulf spill disaster.

He has been in motion non-stop since the disaster started unfolding, pestering the federal government for supplies and assistance and personally visiting the scenes of the disaster. He has also touted plans to trap the oil before it fouls the beaches and estuaries along the coast.

The "burrito levee" and the "boudin bag" are part of a vast effort, overseen by Jindal, to hold back a slick that is already spitting tar balls onto the state's coast. He also has a plan to create more Louisiana, building new barrier islands in the oil's path.

"It makes so much sense. It's so obvious. We gotta do it," Jindal said into his headphones. His call for a major government response stands in apparent contrast to his previous calls for small government.

That's also quite a contrast to the position held by Haley Barber, another governor in the path of the oil spill. Gov. Barber doesn't see any problem and invites people to come down and, well, water ski in the water now fouled by the oil.

Now, I suppose one could argue that Gov. Jindal is simply doing a little bait-and-switch, that when the excrement hits the fan in his state, he's perfectly happy to have big government take care of the problem caused by the excesses of unregulated capitalism. I'm not so sure about that. I think he's finally beginning to see the larger picture:

As they flew, Jindal laid out the state's plans -- the boudin and the burritos and the sandbags -- to a collection of local officials strapped in around him. After he had finished, [New Orleans Mayor Mitch] Landrieu spoke up.

"At the end of the day, they've gotta cap this well, period," he said. "And they better hurry."

"Amen," the governor said.

Welcome to adulthood, Bobby.

Somebody Said It Much Better Than I Could

The incredible unfolding of the results of greed and mammon worship in the Gulf of Mexico has me flummoxed, so flummoxed that I am speechless.

Fortunately, one wise woman has her act together on the issue.

Go read what Southern Beale has to say.