Posts Tagged ‘climate change’
News Analysis: To Save Beer from Global Warming, Stop Having Kids
Here is a little “news analysis” I think our City Paper constituency can appreciate.
Yesterday, beer lovers were devastated to hear global warming is hurting beer production. While that news was bad, the Washington Post followed up with a dispatch today suggesting that we can solve global warming if we stop having kids.
Put the two news items together in time-honored “news analysis” tradition and what do you get? A solution! To assure a lasting supply of quality beer, forget about having that The Waltons-style family you were considering. In fact, better not too have any of the little darlings, according to a crack team of researchers at the London School of Economics.
That’s right, if we stopped having kids, we’d pretty much wipe up the climate change problem, according to the U.K. study. And, we’d presumably still be able to drive around in Hummers, live in sprawling suburban McMansions, shop until we drop, and spend every evening at the pub - mugs of a top of the line pilsner in each hand.
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Build Your Own Wind Turbine, Then Crow about It
After a few weeks of micro-blogging, I think I’ve figured out what Twitter is good for: all manner of information whizzing by haphazardly. I miss 90 percent of this stream-of-consciousness info. stream, what with real work to do. But when I take the time, there is usually some funky item worth crowing about.
Check out this set of instructions for building your own wind turbine. OK, most of us aren’t going to rush out and erect one of these above our row house or apartment building. But isn’t it nice to know you could?
The Yes Men Take to the Airwaves Tonight but Still Unlikely to Change the World
You know the dog days of summer are upon us when the Washington Post’s television highlights include tonight’s The Yes Men Fix the World, a new HBO documentary about those zany activists/performance artists, who go around impersonating corporate executives.
Their particular form of protest comes from poking fun at serious issues such as world trade rules, corporate greed and the human role in global warming. And, they are so good at it that the suits usually don’t know the joke is on them until it’s way beyond face-saving time.
They’ve pinioned officials at the World Trade Organization, FEMA and Halliburton. In my book, I included their 2007 antics at a Canadian oil convention. Impersonating executives from ExxonMobil and the National Petroleum Council, The Men had a roomful of industry types on their feet and solemnly lighting candles made from what they claimed to be the next big renewable energy source: Vivoleum, a “fossil fuel” supposedly made from the human flesh of people killed in hurricanes, floods and other global warming-related disasters.
Given what's on TV this time of year, there are many worse ways to spend a Monday night. But even before seeing it, I have a complaint for the filmmakers: the title. The Yes Men certainly make it more fun to fret about corporate corruption and lack of political will, but change the world? At best, they call attention to its many dysfunctions.
Biofuels Not Likely to Save Us + Planet, Study Suggests
A new study casts yet more doubt on the notion that biofuels are going to save the planet from global warming and us from paying high gas prices. The report just published by the Government Accountability Office, found much ballyhooed “next-generation” biofuels are likely to have the same kinds of pitfalls plaguing the last.
By now, the downsides of the oh-so-last-year corn-based fuels are well known; they use too much water, harmful chemicals and petroleum. This has led some biofuels boosters to place their bets on cellulose from such things as grasses, wood chips and even algae.
Cellulose, however, has never been grown on a commercial scale, as the GAO points out in its new study. That means relatively little is known about how much water, fertilizer and pesticides it will take to grow it in industrial quantities. There’s virtually no information on what impact that’ll have on soil and water quality either, not to mention how much water and energy it will take to turn harvests into biofuel.
This is just the latest news – much of it bad – for the emergent and yet booming biofuels industry, which begs the question: Isn’t it time to give up this pipe dream?
But that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. The buzz around biofuels is propelling any number of hair brained schemes. Besides cases of out-and-out fraud, there are plenty of dubious projects underway. Investor excitement over fuels made from such crops as corn and palm oil have driven up the prices of tortillas in Mexico and led to food riots in other countries. Plans to log this country’s publicly owned forests to feed biofuel plants, meanwhile, seem to make little sense for many reasons. One biggie is that climate scientists say we need to keep the world's remaining forests upright if we are too stave off more global warming.
If we are going to burn it, why bother turning wood into cellulose anyway? Why not just cut down the trees for firewood? O.K., O.K., before some smarty pants chimes in with a reason why burning woody biomass is better than lighting up a plain, old fashioned log, let me just say my point is rhetorical: Why embrace dirty alternative fuel made from finite resources when there are cleaner, more renewable options out there?
The House Just Passed “Historic” Climate Legislation
The House of Representatives just passed cap and trade legislation to combat global warming.
The final tally - webcast live on C-SPAN - was 219 to 212, largely along party lines, though more than three-dozen Democrats defected to vote against the legislation.
The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 comes three years after the world scientific community warned the planet was on the brink of dire climate changes. The bill has been flogged in the press as a “historic” first step by the United States to show leadership in combating global warming.
But it is not without serious critics. House Republicans spent hours today railing against the legislation. They say it'll cost the country jobs and destroy the economy. That's a big contrast with the picture presented by President Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership, who say the legislation will create jobs and spark a whole new "green" economy. At the same time, many environmentalists charge that the bill has been watered down with so many concessions to corporate polluters that it will do little to stave off the worst impacts of climate change.
Anyway, it goes to the Senate next, where it's expected to face even more opposition.
Out with the Trash, In with the Air Pollution?
Did you know that much of the city’s trash is trucked to Fairfax County, where it is incinerated and turned into electricity? According to the Department of Public Works and the “waste-to-energy” industry, it's a "win-win" scenario; the trash disappears and the country reduces its dependence on foreign oil. What could be more patriotic, especially since officials say filters on the smokestacks keep nasty pollutants from escaping into the air around the Lorton plant.
Well, in a report released today, environmentalists take aim at those claims. Clean Water Action, the Toxics Action Center and six other groups from around the country are seeking to debunk the growing buzz around waste-to-energy plants as sources of clean “alternative” fuel. Their conclusion: an incinerator is an incinerator is an incinerator.
"The core impacts of all types of incinerators remain the same: They are toxic to public health, harmful to the economy, environment and climate, and undermine recycling and waste reduction programs,” according to the report, “An Industry Blowing Smoke."
