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« Older Entries | Newer Entries »BP Makes Ugly Oil Spill Stains Disappear With Magical Corexit
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on January 13, 2011 by admin in Clean & Green
Thursday, January 13th, 2011No one knows the long-term effects of Corexit, the toxic dispersant used to clean up the Deepwater Oil Spill, but one short-term effect seems to be invisibility in the media.
 This is part two of our Gulf Oil Spill Weather Report . The forecast still calls for widely scattered blamestorming, with high-pressure greenwashing continuing through 2050. |
After spending about an hour looking for information on the long-term effects of Corexit, the dispersant used during the BP Deepwater oil spill in the gulf last year, I’m convinced that it not only does a great job of making oil disappear from sight, it also magically leaves few traces of itself in the media. The unfortunate thing about the fact that it does such a great job of making oil disappear from sight is that it apparently accomplishes this by just shoving it underwater, making it nearly impossible to ascertain its effects on human or sea life. Which in my view, makes it more of a public relations tool than an oil cleanup tool. I’ve been perplexed for some time about why – after being told to stop by the EPA to stop using it – that BP chose to dump over a million gallons of a substance known to be horrifically toxic into the gulf, especially when there were more effective, less toxic options available. Well, the fact that the company that makes Corexit was started by Exxon, meaning the shareholders of both the energy company that caused the spill and the company tasked with cleaning it up would profit certainly explains part of it. But another critical part of why BP was probably so emphatic about using it was simple PR. No one seems know what the long-term effects of Corexit are, nor do they seem to know what the long term effects of oil on the ocean bottom are. I guess we’ll be finding out in the coming years, because that’s where a lot of it remains. I can’t imagine oil on the ocean bottom is a good thing; last I knew, the bottom of the ocean was still directly connected to the top of it by a bunch of water. Part of Corexit’s disappearing act was made possible by the fact that Nalco, the company that makes it, was way ahead in the PR game, plucking the best of DC’s revolving door lobbyist talent way back in June. And it’s interesting to note that one of the key points in the government’s Oil Spill Commission report on the disaster highlights one very significant fact – not only do the agencies assigned to regulating oil drilling lack the teeth to enforce any useful safeguards, they’re out-gunned and out-financed by an industry that is magnitudes ahead of them in technology and knowledge as well. The first video production from the commission’s report is below; it views a bit like a damage control piece for US regulatory agencies. Read the rest of this entry »
Global Warming And Ebola Economics
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on January 2, 2011 by admin in Clean & Green
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011I don’t mind all this global warming stuff as long as the air doesn’t stink. I just don’t understand why Democrats hate science and Republicans love filthy air so much
Some of my views on environmental issues tend to vex my liberal treehugger friends, and cause my more conservative friends to chuckle, thinking that I’m somehow “on their side”. At the heart of this occasional confusion between me and my friends is the issue of the nearly-useless term “global warming”. I say “nearly-useless” because the term has become so politicized as to be rendered devoid of any clear meaning. This little rift became apparent recently when a liberal friend shared the startling image at left, which shows the arctic sea ice at the north pole over nearly thirty years, from September 1979 to September 2007. As you can see, there’s been a rather shocking loss of arctic sea ice! Things like this are the most obvious irrefutable evidence that the Earth is getting warmer, and one can only conclude that someone who claims otherwise has either not done their research, or is an utter moron. Or of course, a liar with vested interests. What got my friends going recently was the fact that I said I wouldn’t mind some global warming if it ended winters in Michigan, because then I would not only not have to move, but Michigan’s sputtering economy could enjoy explosive revenue growth from its hundreds of miles of suddenly-warm-enough beaches. Adding that the Earth is going to warm up someday anyway, so it might as well be now. This little bit of semi-serious humor started a debate that went on for some time, mostly because someone used the term “global warming”. Someone whom I must hasten to remind you was not me. You see, I’m not convinced that the industrial revolution and the last century’s air pollution are the only cause of the Earth warming up. We had an ice age without man-made pollution, and the planet has gone through plenty of other dramatic changes without the help of the combustion engine and coal-generated electricity. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think that the energy or motor industries shouldn’t be heavily regulated to control emissions. In my opinion the big mistake on this topic was a political one, when Democrats made this a key issue, and branded it as “global warming”. Which then gave industry a handy language mechanism to fight being regulated. As in this New American piece that references a lot of honest science but then crumbles through logical fallacy to conclude with the bizarre statement that the “intent of global-warming alarmists is to set up an energy-regulating global government and an international carbon-trading market worth billions”. Absolute facts on the broader topic of what’s causing the recent rise in temperature are not likely to be obtainable; even many scientists will admit this. In spite of the Union of Concerned Scientists solid stance that man is directly responsible for current global climate trends, the fact is that when you ask a larger group of scientists, their answers – although in agreement that man has some influence – will depend on whether they’re meteorologists, climatologists, or geologists, and so on. But when you say “greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming so we should regulate them”, you’re sunk. Because then the argument is no longer about whether industry should stop dumping pollutants into our air because it’s just plain stupid, and bad for our air, it becomes about whether or not it causes “global warming”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the “survival of the fittest” underpinnings of capitalism, until “the fittest” becomes an absolute monopoly, as in the case of energy companies and oil cartels. Because organisms as large as BP – or even Microsoft, Google, or NewsCorp – become less like a healthy part of an economic ecosystem and more like an Ebola virus that doesn’t care if it kills its host. And in this case, the host is you and me, and the air we breathe. Maybe we should stop trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions because they cause global warming and start regulating them simply because cleaner industry simply makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »
Shining Some Light On The Death Of Incandescent Bulbs
[ Comments Off ]Posted on December 17, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Friday, December 17th, 2010Is the plan to do away with incandescent bulbs part of a vast energy industry conspiracy? Probably not. But that sounds a lot more interesting than “hey, get ready to change your lightbulbs in a couple years”.
  The future’s looking bright, but at a price. 33 bucks , to be more specific. |
It’s kind of interesting that many of us are not aware that there’s a massive plan underway to do away with the incandescent bulb by 2014. I say “most of us” because I’m not aware, and I say “massive plan” because there are an estimated 3 billion to 4 billion screw-in sockets in the US, accounting for about 10 percent of all US electricity consumption. According to the SYLVANIA Socket Survey, only 36 percent of Americans are aware of the planned phase out, which was legislated by the federal government in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. So what are we switching to? This Washington Post item provides a nice summary. The three main options are LED’s (only 33 bucks per bulb on Amazon!
Celling Your Soul – The Staggering Global Impact Of Cell Phones
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on December 4, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Saturday, December 4th, 2010Forget your CARBON footprint, what about your KARMIC footprint? We have barely begun to assess the devastating environmental, social, and ethical effects of the life cycle of mobile phones and other electronic devices that rely on rare earth minerals.
The other day a friend was rather pridefully showing off the Prius they had just bought. I thought it was pretty cool that this person (who travels quite a bit) was actually excited about getting greener. We started joking about their carbon footprint, because they fly regularly, and obviously it’s hard to offset that by simply buying a car, which we acknowledged with a little humor. But then I said “what about your karmic footprint?”, which drew a perplexed look. I explained that as cool as a Prius is regarding energy consumption, it’s loaded with electronics and rare earth metals, and its parts must be made in at least a half-dozen countries. What about the labor conditions? The fuel used for transport? The environmental impact where the rare-earth metals were mined in China? My friend is a shamelessly ruthless capitalist, and although the biggest part of my carbon footprint is probably my cigarette smoking, I’m more of a hopeful realist than a teary-eyed treehugger, so the conversation got pretty interesting after that. We shifted the focus to other products, especially electronics, and agreed at the end that there was one product that packed more evil per pound than anything else in the world of consumerism: The Cell Phone. From the beginning to the end (and perhaps especially in the middle) of its life cycle (which is far too short) the cell phone does more human harm than any product ever imagined, with the exception, of course, of those produced for the military, which are intentionally designed to cause death, destruction, and suffering. This all sounds like hyperbole, but although the hard facts about environmental impacts aren’t in – and may never be unless China stops selling us rare earth minerals and we start making the things here – some basic numbers about volume of production and consumption are available, and they’re staggering. Just look at the figures below. If there’s someone you want to kill but you find the thought of ending a human life abhorrent, get over it. The impact of your lifetime cell-phone usage will probably accomplish the same thing, but at the expense of a total stranger. Read the rest of this entry »
The Nissan iV Replaces Production Lines With Production Vines
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 19, 2010 by admin in Clean & Green
Friday, November 19th, 2010You may grow tired of looking at the swooping contours of concept cars, but with the Nissan iV the only thing you’ll grow is the car itself. It’s green because it’s made of ivy.
I think I’ve found the perfect car to drive on that solar highway that I reference whenever I can because I can’t believe it doesn’t get more press. Even if you’re into auto design, your eyes eventually grow immune to the dazzling swoopy contours of the concept cars like the ones presented at this year’s LA Auto Show . Although one assumes the designs are driven by aerodynamics, you eventually begin to feel that they’re just seeing how many swoops they can include in a design and still have it look like a car. At first glance, the Nissan iV gives the same impression, but if you look into the reasons behind the iV’s design, you find a mind-blowing futuristic functionality. Even the most sophisticated cars in production right now are still based on the basic idea of wheels on rods, with a box sitting on top. One of the most unusual design elements of the iV – the ribbon of material weaving through the wheels – is in fact brilliant functionality. You see, there’s no “hood” on this car, because there’s no engine compartment. The motors are in the wheels, freeing the design of all the additional structures necessary to hold an engine in a box and link it with a transmission, driveshaft, and gearing. But that’s just the beginning. The “biopolymer” chassis material is synthetically grown and formed from fast-growing ivy, and re-enforced with spider silk composite. Because of the lightweight yet rugged material used in the chassis, the interior (which seats four) provides a panoramic passenger experience, because it’s constructed from photovoltaic material that weighs 99% less than traditional glass. The car’s incredible range is because most of the body is a solar collector, and regenerative “super-capacitor” technology recoups 60% of the kinetic energy spent while the car is in motion. If this is the future, I’m sticking around. More images below. Read the rest of this entry »