Texas oil firms behind California greenhouse gas initiative
California is headed for another showdown over greenhouse gases.
A citizen’s ballot initiative approved Tuesday could suspend AB32, the state’s landmark 2006 law mandating a 25 percent reduction in industrial greenhouse gases by 2020.
Backed by manufacturers and Texas oil companies Valero Energy Inc. and Tesoro Corp., the ballot initiative would halt enforcement of the law until California unemployment, now at over 12 percent, sinks to 5.5 percent for at least a year. The “California Jobs Initiative,” as it is called, is necessary to protect Californians from financial hardship at a time when they can ill afford it, its backers say….
Several state officials and national environmental leaders have already gone on the offensive to protest the initiative. With the backdrop of the San Francisco Bay – where the Cosco Busan oil tanker spilled 53,000 gallons of oil in 2007 – Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sierra Club Chairman Carl Pope and Bay Area environmental leaders held a press conference Wednesday calling on Valero and Tesoro to stop “bankrolling a deceptive, special interest effort to repeal California’s clean air and clean energy laws.”
The passage of the initiative benefited from significant out-of-state influence, say backers of AB32. Records from California’s secretary of state show more than $3 million has been spent to qualify the initiative, says Steve Maviglio, who has formed a committee called “Californians for Clean Energy and Jobs” to fight the initiative. Eighty percent of that money came from special interests outside of California, and 78 percent is oil money, he says.
The coalition of politicians and environmentalists issued a statement that referenced the environmental destruction brought on by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “It will be interesting to see how Californians react to a local environmental mess in the making that’s been bought and paid for by out-of-state oil companies that are already polluting our Golden State,” it read.
GE Looks to Smart Grids for Airports, Railroads in Ecomagination 2.0
General Electric will double down on the environment.
The sprawling conglomerate will spend $10 billion on research and development for products for the ecomagination group over the next five years, doubling the $5 billion spent in the inaugural five years of the program.
GE has also identified areas that will potentially allow it to cut $150 million per year out of its operating costs while reducing its environmental footprint.
“We will double everything that we did,” said Steve Fludder, the vice president of ecomagination at GE. “With the $5 billion investment in R&D, we sold $70 billion worth of eco-certified products.”
Revenue in the dismal economic year of 2009 alone came to $18 billion, a six-percent increase over the year before.
An LED That Mimics an Old Standby
The ubiquitous 40- and 60-watt incandescent light bulbs are supposed to be in their last few years of existence; a phase-out of incandescents mandated by the federal government begins next year with the 100-watt model and works its way down to the smaller bulbs in 2014.
Bulb manufacturers are working on a variety of replacements, including halogens, which, like incandescents, make light by letting current flow through a filament. Others will be replaced by compact fluorescents.
But in August, Osram Sylvania will introduce another lamp it hopes will take a share of the market, using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.LED lamps are already showing up in Christmas decorations, flashlights, traffic signals and the occasional street lamp. Another marketing target is the thousands of freezer cases and refrigerator cabinets at supermarkets and convenience stores. The ones with glass fronts keep the lights on even when the doors are closed. Most use fluorescents, and every watt they consume becomes heat that must be removed by the cooling system. A lower-wattage LED would mean less work for the whole system.
SunPower Announces Efficiency Record: Is the End Near?
SunPower announced today that it produced a full-scale solar cell in one of its factories in the Philippines that can convert 24.2 percent of the sunlight that strikes it into electricity, which constitutes a record in the industry.
That’s both good and scary news for the solar efficiency leader.
First, the good news. The new cell demonstrates that SunPower continues to be able to increase the efficiency of its products. The company now sells modules containing solar cells exhibiting a 22 percent efficiency. (Module efficiency is lower than cell efficiency, but higher efficiency cells lead directly to higher efficiency modules.) Later this year, the company will begin to commercially produce solar cells with 23.4 percent efficiencies. SunPower produces monocrystalline silicon solar cells, which are generally higher in efficiency than multicrystalline silicon cells. The new record cell was produced using the same basic technology SunPower uses in its production line today.
Other firms in the industry have had trouble keeping up with SunPower. Suntech Power Holdings out of China announced the high efficiency line of Pluto cells and modules a few years ago to close the efficiency gap with SunPower. Earlier this month, however, Suntech admitted it was having trouble producing the Pluto cells in volume. As a result, the company will keep Pluto production at the 4-megawatts-a-month level for now. Before, it had hoped to increase production to 450 megawatts a year by the end of 2010.
A Winsome Climate Panel Presents Its New Cast
Embarking on a bit of a charm offensive, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change just released the names of more than 800 scientists selected to take part in writing its fifth assessment report on climate change, due out in 2014. The panel is charged with releasing periodic reports summarizing the state of knowledge about climate change as a guide to policy makers.
For much of this year, the panel has been under attack for lax vetting procedures in incorporating scientific information into its last report, the fourth assessment, which came out in 2007. That report concluded that the planet was warming and human activity was to blame. But critics say that the report in some cases overstated the level of scientific certainty on the issue or simply got things wrong.
For example, the report misrepresented the rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers, and the panel was slow to correct the error after it was pointed out. So-called climate skeptics complained that the report did not adequately reflect the fact that scientists are not in full agreement on the pace of manmade climate change.
California alternative energy legislation gets broad backing
The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is spurring California legislators and conflicting interest groups to settle past differences and adopt the nation’s toughest renewable energy law to reduce the state’s dependence on oil and serve as a model for other states.
The effort is supported by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is eager to burnish his environmental legacy before leaving office in January even though he vetoed a similar bill last fall.
Both the governor and the Democrats who control the Legislature want to require privately and publicly owned electric utilities to generate one-third of their power from wind, solar and other clean sources by 2020.
Dems, Natural Gas Industry Negotiating Fracking Disclosure Plan
Rep. Diana DeGette and the natural gas industry are actively negotiating a plan to require public disclosure of the sometimes toxic chemicals that drillers use to flush gas out of the ground, according to sources on both sides of the talks.
The Colorado Democrat has authored a much tougher bill calling on U.S. EPA to regulate fracturing. Now she is trying to hammer out a deal with industry representatives, but the industry is reported to be split about whether to cut a deal with Democrats or hope that Republican gains in November’s midterm elections will stamp out any regulatory efforts.
Rep. Diana DeGette and the natural gas industry are actively negotiating a plan to require public disclosure of the sometimes toxic chemicals that drillers use to flush gas out of the ground, according to sources on both sides of the talks.
The Colorado Democrat has authored a much tougher bill calling on U.S. EPA to regulate fracturing. Now she is trying to hammer out a deal with industry representatives, but the industry is reported to be split about whether to cut a deal with Democrats or hope that Republican gains in November’s midterm elections will stamp out any regulatory efforts.
“There is an ongoing dialogue about disclosure that would be kept within the parameters of the states,” said Jason Hutt, an energy lawyer with Bracewell & Giuliani representing gas producers.
Dubai Seeks Energy Mix With Nuclear, Renewable Power
Dubai, the sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates, is developing a strategy to diversify power- generation sources and improve efficiency to ensure an adequate energy supply through 2030, the government said.
The emirate’s Supreme Energy Council held a two-day workshop with advisers McKinsey & Co. to devise plans that would include using “clean” coal, nuclear power and renewable-energy, according to an e-mailed statement.
Dubai, the second-biggest of the seven sheikdoms in the U.A.E., produces less than 4 percent of the nation’s oil. The emirate is seeking to guarantee power supply and reduce emissions that contribute to global warming, according to comments made by Saeed Mohammad Al-Tayer, the Council’s vice chairman, in today’s statement.
The U.A.E. holds about 7 percent of the world’s crude reserves, with most of the country’s deposits of oil and natural gas located in Abu Dhabi, its national capital and largest emirate. Oil and natural gas production made up about 5.5 percent of Dubai’s $62 billion economy in 2007, according to data from the U.A.E. Economy Ministry.
UPDATE:Canada To Invest Added C$400M On International Climate Change
The Canadian government said Wednesday it will invest an additional C$400 million this fiscal year to help with international climate-change efforts, an announcement that comes just days before the country hosts the G-8 and G-20 Summits.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice, who unveiled the plan, said the spending is part of Canada’s commitment under last December’s Copenhagen climate-change accord to help the poorest nations fight climate change.
When Will the Sunshine State Embrace Solar Power?
Florida is famous for its abundant sunshine. Yet the state’s small solar businesses are expecting cloudy skies this summer. The Florida Legislature, citing another tough budget cycle, has failed to renew a state rebate program which provided incentives for solar providers working to sell renewable energy to Florida customers.
It was called the Solar Energy Systems Incentives Program, and it sunsets (no pun intended) June 30th. A firm called Blue Chip Energy recently announced it’s launching its own solar rebate program to fill the gap; however, the loss of the statewide incentive program is seen as a blow to the development of renewables here.
I recently interviewed Frank Erickson, CEO of Jacksonville-based Erickson Energy, about the alternative and renewable energy picture here. He presents a gloomy forecast for renewable energy development in Florida — the very location bracing, along with other Gulf states, for the worst as the Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to spew millions of gallons of crude every week.
Duke Energy Backs U.S. Carbon Cap for Electricity Sector Only
Congress should pass legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector if a bigger plan to cap carbon dioxide from most of the U.S. economy can’t become law this year, Duke Energy Corp. said today.
“We’re still hopeful there can be consensus for an economy-wide climate bill,” Tom Williams, a spokesman for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based utility company, said today in a telephone interview. “If that doesn’t happen, we think the utility sector could be ready to step up.”
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation last year that would regulate greenhouse gases from nearly every sector of the economy with a cap-and-trade program, in which companies buy and sell a declining number of carbon dioxide allowances. The cap-and-trade bill stalled in the Senate.
Guaranteed Risks in America’s Green Loans
Uncle Sam is betting huge sums that a good cause can ultimately be a good investment.
Through the Department of Energy, the government is guaranteeing loans to clean-energy companies. But the loan program’s success depends on the viability of firms involved. And a closer look at two big recipients shows some of the risks in store for taxpayers.
Take Solyndra, which makes solar-energy panels for commercial rooftops, and has a $535 million government-guaranteed loan. Solyndra’s chief selling point is its cylindrical panel design, said to reduce installation costs for users.
Carbon Gap Narrows on Outlook for Fewer Credits: Energy Markets
The gap between carbon permits in the European Union and United Nations markets reached the narrowest in three months on speculation that the world organization will restrict credits for hydrofluorocarbons.
A UN panel meets this week in Bonn to consider limits on how many credits are provided to investors who pay to reduce so- called HFCs, which can trap about 12,000 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide, after allegations of misuse.
EU carbon permits for 2012 have advanced 17 percent this year as the economic recovery leads to greater demand for power from utilities and factories, which must simultaneously curb greenhouse gas emissions. The cheaper UN credits have risen at a faster pace since the end of May, narrowing the gap between the two to 3.05 euros a metric ton today on London’s European Climate Exchange. The spread tightened 27 percent from this year’s high of 4.20 euros on May 13.
Environmental groups poised to spend $11 million on climate ads
Four liberal groups are planning an $11 million campaign beginning next week on ads designed to pressure Senators on the need for comprehensive energy reform.
The money, which is coming from the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, Service Employees International Union and VoteVets.org, will be spent primarily on television ads targeting a half-dozen Senators for their recent vote on a proposal that would stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. (The measure failed 53-47.)
“We will hold key Senators accountable who vote the right way and who vote the wrong way on comprehensive energy and climate reform,” promised LCV president Gene Karpinsky.
The ads are rightly regarded as a warning shot for wayward Senators ahead of what many in the environmental community expect will be a debate on the floor over the idea of comprehensive reform sometime next month.
It’s far from clear — ads or no — that Democrats have the 60 votes for any sort of comprehensive plan, however. (President Obama canceled a bipartisan meeting of Senators to discuss a way forward yesterday as the firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal dominated his time.)
In Fertilizer, a Climatic Dividend
A commonly held belief is that modern agriculture, which depends heavily on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, is bad for the environment.
Although the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers has sharply increased crop yields, these fertilizers emit nitrous oxide, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas that is 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
A new study makes a slightly more counterintuitive point “” that without fertilizer and other high-yield agricultural techniques, humans would have emitted significantly greater amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by cutting down trees, which sequester carbon dioxide, and by farming more land.
“Every time forest or shrub land is cleared for farming, the carbon that was tied up in the biomass is released and rapidly makes its way into the atmosphere – usually by being burned,” Jennifer Burney, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, said in a press release.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Regarding: “GE to spend $10 billion on cleantech R&D this decade”
Great for GE!
Can cash-rich insurance, finance, oil and other industries be convinced to do the same or better?
Not content with the disaster of the blow-out and oil geyser in the Gulf of Mexico the oil companies want to increase the devastation planet wide now.
California Initiative Targets
Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products
California officials have proposed strict new rules to reduce the toxic chemicals used in everyday products, including children’s toys, plastic bottles and furniture. A draft of the regulations, released by the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), prioritizes a list of “chemicals of concern” — including carcinogens, mutagens, and neurotoxins — that could pose risks to human health or the environment. Products containing those chemicals would then be prioritized based on public exposure — particularly among children, pregnant women and other sensitive populations — and how those substances are eventually disposed.
http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2477
Cancer linked to Fossil Fuel Combustion
Maybe Dr. House’s investigations have led Americans back into their houses to look for causes of unexplainable health issues, but the President’s Cancer Panel just released a new report environmental toxins and their role in cancer, acknowledging that the “true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated.”
It’s horrifying to look at the numbers – 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die. Weren’t we free from cancer if we just stopped smoking and used sunscreen?
Not according to the report. Our use of fossil fuels is another major cause. Pollution from mobile sources like cars, trucks and ships are responsible for approximately 30 percent of cancer resulting from air pollution. The types of cancers that have a strong and suspected link to the combustion of fossil fuels are lung, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, soft tissue sarcoma, skin, bladder, breast, esophagus, larynx, multiple myeloma and prostate cancers.
http://community.planetforward.org/profiles/blogs/cancer-linked-to-fossil-fuel
Wilfong is the rancher north of Gordon who found 15 of his 20 cows dead and dying at his 320 acre ranch a couple of weeks ago. One cow was sent to Texas A&M to try to determine the cause of death. This week, A&M had no answers as to what led to the deaths.
Wilfong contacted both TCEQ and the RRC to get some help to determine if their water had been poisoned, either inadvertently or maliciously. Wilfong said TCEQ sent a solid-waste specialist to take water samples. Those tests showed traces of barium and chloride.
According to Wikipedia, one use of barium is as an insoluble heavy mud-like paste when drilling oil wells. It has also been used as rodenticides.
Chloride is also associated with the oil and gas industry.
“In the petroleum industry, the chlorides are a closely monitored constituent of the mud system,” Wikipedia notes. “The increase of the chlorides in the mud system could indicate the possibility of drilling into a high-pressure saltwater formation. Its increase can also indicate the poor quality of a target sand.”
The railroad commission regulates the drilling industry, thus if there are indications of possible contamination from drilling, the logical agency to contact would be the RRC. Wilfong said people there are not interested.
This is no different than any other situation that has been reported over the last couple of years. Benzine contamination in Stephens County and the saltwater contamination of other areas in Stephens County come to mind.
http://www.lakecountrysun.com/news/get-news.asp?id=9076&catid=5&cpg=get-news.asp
BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky
All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.
But BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP.
Rather than conducting their own independent analysis, federal regulators, in a break from usual practice, allowed BP in 2007 to write its own environmental review for the project as well as its own consultation documents relating to the Endangered Species Act, according to two scientists from the Alaska office of the federal Mineral Management Service that oversees drilling.
The environmental assessment was taken away from the agency’s unit that typically handles such reviews, and put in the hands of a different division that was more pro-drilling, said the scientists, who discussed the process because they remained opposed to how it was handled.
“The whole process for approving Liberty was bizarre,” one of the federal scientists said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/24rig.html
Spaceship Earth: Navigators Wanted
Forty-one years ago, Buckminster Fuller published his “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth: A Bold Blueprint for Survival that Diagnoses the Causes of the Environmental Crisis.” In it, he claimed humanity would not survive the 21st century if it continued to build an economy based on mass consumption, inequitable trade relations, short-sighted allocation of fossil based resources, and lack of consideration for holistic systems.
A decade later, Jimmy Carter gave his “Crisis of Confidence” speech during which he famously said, “We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.”
Right this very moment, scientists and citizens who recognize that we are quite a ways down the path that leads to failure – failure of our society to find common ground and to care for that ground – are in the midst of a teachable moment. And we are bungling it.
http://www.truth-out.org/spaceship-earth-navigators-wanted59735
U.K. to continue deep-sea oil exploration
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/06/britain-oil-exploration/1?csp=34
A Road Not Taken: Solar Panels, Jimmy Carter, and Missed Opportunities for Change
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6640
NOAA: Undersea oil plumes came from BP well
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/24/1697742/noaa-undersea-oil-plumes-came.html
BP: the quiet rage that may become the perfect storm
In towns all around the initial spill zone – which are also the same towns that suffered under Katrina’s wrath – there is fear, sadness, and growing anger. Those who live there and those who are covering the ongoing story have reported just how disturbing the situation has become – and it still has no end in sight.
Outside the Gulf region, the situation is different. Virtually every American is aware of the disaster, but most don’t feel it personally. They just sense, deep in the core of their being, that something is very, very wrong.
There is rage here.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/24/bp-the-quiet-rage-that-may-become-the-perfect-storm/
93L still disorganized; extreme heat wave hits the Middle East and Africa
Extreme heat wave sets all-time high temperature records in Africa and Middle East
A withering heat wave of unprecedented intensity and areal covered has smashed all-time high temperatures in four nations in the Middle East and Africa over the past week. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Chad, and Niger all set new records for their hottest temperatures of all time, and several other Middle East nations came within a degree of their hottest temperatures ever. The heat was the most intense in Iraq, which had its hottest day in history on June 14, 2010, when the mercury hit 52.0°C (125.6°F) in Basra. Iraq’s previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F) set August 8, 1937, in Ash Shu’aybah. It was also incredibly hot in Saudi Arabia, which had its hottest temperature ever on Tuesday (June 22): 52.0°C (125.6°F), measured in Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. The previous record was 51.7°C (125.1°F), at Abqaiq, date unknown. The record heat was accompanied by a sandstorm, which caused eight power plants to go offline, resulting in blackouts to several Saudi cities.
In Africa, Chad had its hottest day in history on Tuesday (June 22), when the temperature reached 47.6°C (117.7°F) at Faya. The previous record was 47.4°C (117.3°F) at Faya on June 3 and June 9, 1961. Niger tied its record for hottest day in history on Tuesday (June 22), when the temperature reached 47.1°C (116.8°F) at Bilma. That record stood for just one day, as Bilma broke the record again on Wednesday (June 23), when the mercury topped out at 48.2°C (118.8°F). The previous record was 47.1°C on May 24, 1998, also at Bilma.
Three countries came within a degree of their all time hottest temperature on record during the heat wave. Bahrain had its hottest June temperature ever, 46.9°C, on June 20, missing the all-time record of 47.5°C (117.5°F), set July 14, 2000. Temperatures in Quatar reached 48.8°C (119.8°F) on June 20. Quatar’s all-time record hottest temperature was 49.6°C (121.3°F) set on July 9, 2000. It was also very hot in Kuwait, with temperatures reaching 51°C (123.8°F) in the capital on June 15. Kuwait’s all-time hottest temperature was 51.9°C (125.4°F), on July 27,2007, at Abdaly. According to Essa Ramadan, a Kuwaiti meteorologist from Civil Aviation, Matrabah, Kuwait smashed this record and had Asia’s hottest temperature in history on June 15 this year, when the mercury hit 54.0°C (129.2°F). However, data from this station is notoriously bad, and each year bogus record highs have to be corrected, according to an email I received from weather record researcher Maximiliano Herrera. Asia’s hottest temperature in history will very likely remain the 53.5°C (128.3°F) recorded at MohenjuDaro, Pakistan on May 26 this year.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1516
Touch: How a hard chair creates a hard heart
June 24, 2010
Through textures, shapes, weights and temperatures, the sense of touch influences both our thoughts and behavior. In a series of six experiments documented in the June 25 issue of the journal Science, a team of psychologists demonstrated how dramatically our sense of touch affects how we view the world.
Psychologists report this week in the journal Science that interpersonal interactions can be shaped, profoundly yet unconsciously, by the physical attributes of incidental objects: Resumes reviewed on a heavy clipboard are judged to be more substantive, while a negotiator seated in a soft chair is less likely to drive a hard bargain.
The research was conducted by psychologists at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale University. The authors say the work suggests physical touch — the first of our senses to develop — may continue throughout life as a scaffold upon which we build our social judgments and decisions.
“Touch remains perhaps the most underappreciated sense in behavioral research,” says co-author Christopher C. Nocera, a graduate student in Harvard’s Department of Psychology. “Our work suggests that greetings involving touch, such as handshakes and cheek kisses, may in fact have critical influences on our social interactions, in an unconscious fashion.”
http://www.physorg.com/news196605902.html
Protection against glacier melt
The Zugspitze gets a summer hat
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fwissenschaft%2Fnatur%2F0%2C1518%2C702433%2C00.html&sl=de&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Finally, a real plan to cut emissions for good
Australia has been confined to endless discussion of abstract policy mechanisms designed to deliver only modest reductions in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions at best. It could well be characterised as a debate between doing nothing at all, or almost nothing, to address climate change in the Australian context. That all changed this week with the release of the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan, a detailed and pragmatic blueprint for transitioning the Australian stationary energy sector to 100 per cent renewable energy within a decade.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/finally-a-real-plan-to-cut-emissions-for-good-20100623-yyhd.html
http://www.popsci.com/node/46267/?cmpid=enews062410
This comes from Popular Science by Suzanne LeBarre:
“The Future of Green Architecture: A Live-In Power Plant
“This concept skyscraper could generate enough energy to power 4,000 homes.”
Amazing nanoparticle sponge that sucks up oil
http://naturescrusaders.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/amazing-nanoparticle-sponge-that-sucks-up-oil/
Regarding the last article, “In Fertilizer, a Climate Dividend”:
The article assumes, without mentioning the assumption, that organic agriculture produces less food per acre than chemical ag. The fact is that when done right organic yields are just as high as chemical yields. E.g.: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/July05/organic.farm.vs.other.ssl.html Organic permaculture, by avoiding monocultures, using plant communities and specific plants and animals to fix nitrogen and to accumulate and deposit phosphorus and other nutrients, does even better. The related idea of locally-grown food, on small farms, homesteads and home gardens, will also reduce GHGs and is not possible with large-scale chemical/machine agriculture. Physicist Allen Yeomans has said we can sequester all the carbon produced by the industrial age by increasing soil organic matter on all arable land by 1.8%. Even if this figure is off by a bunch, we can certainly count organic agriculture as a wedge or 2 at least. http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2006/s1885881.htm (says 1-6% here)
We have no choice about this: oil supplies and EROEI are irrevocably declining, and oil prices will keep rising over the long term until it is impossible to use it to grow food. We can and will feed the world with organic agriculture, and we will eat better, be more healthy and probably enjoy life more doing it.
POWER OF EARTH’S CO2 SPONGE UNKNOWN – SG exclusive
http://spacegeographic.com/?p=498
Water Rhapsody shows Mossel Bay an Alternative Way
http://www.waterrhapsody.co.za/2010/06/24/water-rhapsody-shows-mossel-bay-an-alternative-way/
BP continues to use surface dispersants despite EPA directive
BP PLC has applied 272,000 gallons of dispersants to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in the four weeks since U.S. EPA directed the company to stop using the chemicals, except “in rare cases” when other approaches to fighting the ongoing oil leak proved unworkable, according to government records
http://www.eenews.net/gw/
http://www.eenews.net/Greenwire/2010/06/24/2/
Worth a Thousand Words
http://everyone.plos.org/2010/06/24/worth-a-thousand-words-24/
Markey: Why’s BP Still Getting Away With Heavy Dispersant Use?
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/markey-presses-epa-coast-guard-dispersants
Big Money Alert: Oil Companies Spend Millions to Overturn CA Climate-Change Law
http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/06/23/big-money-alert-oil-companies-spend-millions-to-overturn-ca-climate-change-law/
Louisiana Declines to Immediately Penalize BP for Drilling Disaster
http://healthygulf.org/201006241369/blog/bp-s-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/louisiana-declines-immediately-penalizing-bp-for-drilling-disaster
Massive Spill Swirls in the Gulf: Big Pic
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-slick-satellite.html
Researchers Consider Impact of Active Hurricane Season on Gulf Oil Spill
http://www.physorg.com/news196619082.html
Investors want hydraulic fracturing disclosure
STRONG VOTES ON HYDRAULIC FRACTURING SEND CLEAR MESSAGE TO NATURAL GAS DRILLERS
Investors seeking more disclosure of corporate steps to reduce hazards
[..]
Disclosure is NOT enough. Hydraulic fracturing should be regulated by the EPA under the SDWA and nothing less than full, public disclosure will do.
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2010/06/investors-want-hydraulic-fracturing.html
“Hurt” – A Perspective on the BP Oil Spill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lz2ZpU_CTg&feature=player_embedded#!
Oil blackens Florida beach, heads into bay
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2010/06/florida-beach-oil-spill/1
Was Venus Once a Waterworld?
Ever read Isaac Asimov’s 1950′s novel “Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus”? Maybe Asimov wasn’t so wrong about Venus after all. Analyzing data from ESA’s Venus Express, planetary scientists are looking at the possibility that the planet may have once harbored oceans, and potentially could have been habitable when it was young.
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/06/24/was-venus-once-a-waterworld/
Harry Reid’s high-stakes climate bill gamble
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is planning a high-risk, high-stakes strategy for bringing climate and energy legislation to the floor ahead of the August recess.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38999.html
Hope.
NOAA reports underwater cloud of diffuse oil
http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/5178791134/articles/oil-gas-journal/general-interest-2/hse/2010/06/noaa-reports_underwater.html
Senate Dems vow action on energy bill
Moved by photos of the devastation from the Gulf oil spill, Democratic senators emerged this afternoon from a caucus-wide meeting determined to tackle a comprehensive energy bill this summer — regardless of legislation’s ability to win the 60 votes needed to pass.
Senators called the meeting “motivating” and “almost like a little revival – a lot of clapping, a lot of yelling” as one speaker after another voiced a desire to debate the thorny issue.
“It’s one of the best caucuses I’ve seen and I’ve been here over 25 years,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).
“There is an incredible moment in front of us that has in many ways unified the public — and that is how do we stop the terrible thing that happened in the gulf from being repeated,” he said. “Even if we lose, we carry a message that has meaning.”
What remains to be seen are the details of a bill that Senate leaders plan to craft from various measures and whether it would contain a provision to cap carbon – essentially a tax on polluters.
Senators spoke repeatedly of the need for legislation that, as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.) put it, “makes polluters pay” – which has emerged as a new way of framing the issue of carbon pricing.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2010/06/senate_democrats_vow_action_on.html
Report: Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans
Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth’s oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_sc/whaling
Councils warn of low water levels
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hseGRGz7rD9iYc64a0gncKZsR1Wg
‘War-like’ scenes in Brazil’s flood-hit states
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/latin_america/10400010.stm
In a few decades it is likely that we pass a local population threshold when we find not enough people for mass scale negative carbon action.
To combat desertification – loose of natural carbon sinks. To remove carbon mass from the atmosphere.
We should start rightnow with worldwide biochar and reforestation affords and natural affords alike. Also see temperature around desertification zones and forests. There is a project for a green sahel belt.
Push for ‘Great Green Wall of Africa’ to halt Sahara
http://news.yourolivebranch.org/2010/06/21/push-for-great-green-wall-of-africa-to-halt-sahara/
Israel projects showed that it is possible – even on salted soils to fast scale small ecosystems. To protect soil, water (agriculture sector) and the domestic food economy.
These projects could be the start for a global leap forward. Extended with clean energy projects these can help to sustain locals and in turn generates carbon negative goals – which contributes to worldwide national security. It also helps to curb climate refugee numbers and is crucial for a global economy.
Biochar replaces/reduces petro-oil fertilizer usage and stores water longer in soils – helps in drought stricken areas and provides a solid ground to temperate heatwaves. It creates longer roots in the ground which will help in flash flood situations – work against soil erosion.
Overall it can contribute to a more secure food production on land.
Methane in Gulf ‘astonishingly high’-US scientist
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2221822720100622
Passaic County honors ‘Green’ companies, colleges for use of wind, sun power
http://www.northjersey.com/news/062410_Passaic_County_honors_Green_companies_colleges_for_use_of_wind_sun_power_.html
Fannie and Freddie Attack Clean-Energy Plan:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-23-fannie-and-freddie-attack-PACE-property-assessed-clean-energy/
Airborne Wind Turbines?
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/airborne-wind-turbines/