This is an interesting new addition that could solve a lot of problems in many parts of the world. It may not generate substantial water everywhere, but even if it's only for some regions this could make a big difference. Single purpose products seem so outdated. CNN:
"This technology could enable rural areas to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply," says Thibault Janin, director of marketing at Eole Water. "As the design and capabilities develop, the next step will be to create turbines that can provide water for small cities or areas with denser populations," he adds. Eole Water is currently displaying a working prototype of the 24 meter tall WMS1000 in the desert near Abu Dhabi that has been able to produce 62 liters of water an hour, says Janin.
You have to click through to see the video of Iceberg, the killer whale. It's amazing to see the what they claim is the only all white killer whale in the world. (Which sounds doubtful, but possible.)
Only on CNBC's Kudlow Report can you get such priceless discussions that completely ignore the problem of earthquakes and polluted water sources. In the fantasy land known as The Kudlow Report, it's all about the wet dreams of Big Energy including the usual demands for scrapping pesky regulation, as in the already anemic regulation that is supposed to protect people.
Forget if you can that ever so small problem of cities like Youngstown, Ohio purchasing earthquake insurance or the EPA study that linked fracking to water pollution. Clean drinking water is probably overrated anyway, right?
What is missing (again) from this pro-fracking love fest on CNBC is a debate about why it's OK for business to pass on costs of fracking to everyone else. If Big Energy wants to destroy the environment to make a few bucks, why shouldn't they also be responsible for funding the cleanup and after effects of their destructive practices? With the economy still weak and Americans wondering about job security, how is it fair to push these costs onto others rather than asking the always profitable energy industry to foot the bill?
If you believe BP, there's nothing wrong with the seafood in the Gulf of Mexico. You probably also don't believe in climate change or any other science that shows the negative impact of oil on the environment. As this Al Jazeera article explains, it took nearly four years for the impact of a spill in Alaska to be fully understood but the results are showing much faster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Fishermen and scientists are alarmed by the significant increase in mutated fish and shellfish, including eyeless crabs and shrimp. Overall catches have dropped as well, which should be setting off alarms. The studies will continue but until the court case starts against BP it may be a long time until everything is known.
When discussing domestic oil drilling, Big Oil and their apologists (also known as the GOP) always ignore critical issues such as the negative impact of lost tourism, lost jobs related to the seafood industry as well as lost food sources for Americans. How are those not also important? Just because they don't have the deep pockets to smear everyone else doesn't mean those industries aren't also important, no?
So besides the Big Energy industry, who is this really helping? Youngstown, Ohio had to purchase earthquake insurance following problems there related to fracking. Why should any city or individual have to fork out cash like this when the problem is completely caused by fracking? The political class never minds throwing costs at individuals, yet they can't stop whining about the costs of regulation.
Why is it OK for individuals to pay higher medical costs due to pollution or for earthquakes yet it's somehow a crime for business to pay for their own costs? This an indirect tax on everyone else but in the minds of the political class, this is not a problem. It's pretty clear whose side they're on and it's not on the side of voters. More on the fracking approval process in the UK at The Guardian.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone. After spending half a year in rural Africa where there was hardly any noise, my adjustment time back to Paris living was constantly troubled by the screaming of annoying scooter and cheap motorcycle engines. Even now I still detest those sounds but have grown used to hearing them, so don't notice them quite as much. What I don't see in this article is anything about the noise from scooters, which is much more of an issue than car noise.
On a related issue, scooters and cheap motorcycles churn out a lot of air pollution, even more than cars. Any noise or air pollution policy that doesn't address scooters and motorcycles is really off target. EurActiv.com:
Road traffic noise is Europe’s most ubiquitous environmental health problem, with more than 44% of the population – 210 million people – estimated to regularly suffer volumes above 55 decibels.
At this level, voices must be raised to become audible and medical risks increase correspondingly, according to the World Health Organization.
Traffic noise can raise blood pressure, increase stress hormone levels and trigger cardiovascular problems, hypertension and mental illness. It can also cause insomnia, poor work performance and annoyance.
One recent study by CE Delft found that 50,000 people died prematurely and 200,000 suffered from cardiovascular disease each year in the EU because of traffic noise.
Temperatures in the lower 48 states were 8.6 degrees above normal for March and 6 degrees higher than average for the first three months of the year, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That far exceeds the old records.
The magnitude of how unusual the year has been in the U.S. has alarmed some meteorologists who have warned about global warming. One climate scientist said it's the weather equivalent of a baseball player on steroids, with old records obliterated.
"Everybody has this uneasy feeling. This is weird. This is not good," said Jerry Meehl, a climate scientist who specializes in extreme weather at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. "It's a guilty pleasure. You're out enjoying this nice March weather, but you know it's not a good thing."
This is a great watch, and Hayes does a terrific job. (My alternate title, by the way, is Hayes' great line midway: "The earth's atmosphere does not care about the filibuster.")
Our backgrounder on this BLM (Bureau of Land Management) practice is here. Do read if you can; it covers a lot.
But for the basics, keep this in mind:
Homesteaders after 1916 never owned the mineral rights (including water rights) under their own land. The federal government does. This is called "split estate."
These BLM "auctions" are where oil and natural gas (i.e. "fracking") companies buy and lease the mineral rights under land already owned by others (as well as on or near federal land).
Let that sink in. If you own a farm or ranch in the west, the BLM can (and will) lease your land's mineral rights to Exxon (etc.) and force you to accept their wells on your property. Aerial views of "fracking" (natural gas) lands show these "small footprint" wells are everywhere. See below; also the google.
You also get their fracking fluid in your water and air. Probably forever.
Fracking destroys. Money talks. Is the government corrupt and complicit? (Do the math; you'll get there.)
Now Mr. Hayes. Please do watch if you can. This is too low on people's radar, and too important. This is the State in action (h/t Digby).
(To play this large in a separate tab, click here.)
There's more of this coming. Occupy was peaceful protest. This is peaceful protest. As Mario Savio said:
"One thousand people sitting down can stop any machine, including this machine."
But this time people are starving and broke, not just war-weary and draft-eligible. As the rich and the right (including our whistleblower-hating current resident) crack down harder and harder, it will be harder and harder to keep violence away from the movement that's growing.
The province of Quebec has moved from a de facto ban on shale gas development to a "complete and total moratorium," lamented Calgary oilpatch executive Michael Binnion on Tuesday, following news that a review on hydraulic fracturing won't include any demonstrations in the province.
A committee named by Quebec Environment Minister Pierre Arcand to determine whether shale gas can be extracted while respecting the environment released plans Tuesday for further study and recommended the minister not authorize hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, even for research purposes during an ongoing halt in development.
Arcand, in announcing the strategic environmental assessment last May, had said fracking would be allowed for research purposes. Committee chair Robert Joly said in his report that Quebec could rely on laboratory experiments on fracking.
The boat was swept out to sea during the tsunami last year and had been approaching the west coast of North America. There was no way an unmarked ship drifting into a busy shipping area was going to continue. MSNBC:
The Coast Guard says the fishing vessel set adrift by the tsunami in Japan has sunk in the Gulf of Alaska after a cutter fired at it.
Petty Officer David Moseley told msnbc.com that the vessel caught fire and took on water after the Coast Guard Cutter Anacapa fired its 25mm cannon at the derelict ship on Thursday, aiming to sink what it called a threat to shipping.
Citing a Coast Guard spokesman, the Associated Press reported the firing began after a brief delay caused by a Canadian ship that wanted to salvage the Ryou-un Maru -- but then quickly found it it wasn't able to tow it back to shore.
For allergy sufferers, this is probably not the news that you want to hear. An important point to consider as well is that there will be a financial cost to this. There will most definitely be a cost for patients who will be purchasing more medication to combat the allergies, but there will also be a business cost due to employees being sick or at least not 100% during the work day. Other researchers are pointing to higher asthma rates as well as longer allergy seasons.
Climate change is not some distant issue that doesn't have a direct impact on people, as we are seeing here. The right wing smear machine has done it's best to discredit the problem and they've largely been successful. Fewer people today believe in climate change than a few years ago though the numbers are starting to slowly come back.
Jobs are always going to be important, but the health and well being of the population is important as well. Why do the anti-environment types always ignore health care costs? NY Times:
“There is data showing that pollen is not only more prevalent as a result of the effects of carbon dioxide and greenhouse exposure, but that the pollen proteins are more potent,” said Dr. Clifford W. Bassett, an allergist and assistant clinical professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.
In a study published last year, Agriculture Department researchers found that at certain latitudes, especially north of 44 degrees, the pollen seasons were up to a month longer than usual. In Wisconsin, for example, ragweed was in the air two weeks longer in 2009 than it was in 1995.
I want to add to your list of replacement phrases — substitution words that make right-wing statements make sense. For example, when a right-wing politician says something he wants is going to increase "jobs" he really means "profits" — try it yourself; works every time.
Your new replacement phrase — "natural gas" means "fracking". Thus:
"We need more natural gas" = "We need more fracking"
"I favor natural gas production" = "I favor fracking"
"I'm a natural gas company"= "I'm a fracking company"
See how simple? Every word a true one.
I'm seeing a glut of "natural gas" commercials, an absolute flood. "Natural gas is clean" they say. Yes, true of the gas as it burns, relative to other carbon-based products. But what about its production? (Remember your replacement phrase, which hides the truth.)
In the U.S. today, much new natural gas comes from western states where homesteading farmers were prevented by the government (per the Stockraising Homestead Act of 1916) from owning the mineral rights to their own property. This is the meaning of the term "split estate." Western homesteaders after 1916 owned only the surface.
In the east, you own your mineral rights (unless you or your ancestors had sold them). In the west, you don't — the government did and does.
This is what those BLM auctions, by the way, the ones that Tim DeChristopher disrupted and publicized, are all about — natural gas (fracking) leases.
To produce new natural gas from anywhere in the country almost always requires fracking. The perniciousness of western fracking is that the government can give away (sorry, lease) the fracking rights to fracking companies (see, substitution at work) without the landowner's consent.
Do you want to see how widespread fracking is in the U.S.? Click here for the map (it opens in a new tab).
And for a definition of all these terms — fracking, fracking fluid, and so on — go here, a great, bookmarkable resource.
So two points:
� "Natural gas" means "fracking" and "Increasing natural gas production" means "Increasing fracking."
This is the carefully hidden fact behind all those music-sweetened, "jobs"-dangling, mixed-race–friendly commercials that some highly professional PR firm has created to confuse you. (Stay in school, soulless right-wing kids; you too can be paid for such work.)
� Watch this trailer for the excellent film Split Estate. A great entry point into this little pocket of evil in the world.
And remember, the more we "succeed" at carbon production, the more we fail, since everything we "produce" goes into the air. A time-bomb of our own making, and why you should care.
Pennsylvania goes from bad to worse with fracking. Besides the earthquake risk, besides the flammable tap water, besides the tax free business of fracking and besides the dangerous impact of chemicals being pumped into the ground with costs left for taxpayers to cover, Pennsylvania is now blocking medical doctors from having honest discussions with patients about the impact of fracking chemicals on their patients. Is there any question as to what industry owns the political class of Pennsylvania? The Atlantic:
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction -- but they won't be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will "gag" doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.
Pennsylvania is at the forefront in the debate over "fracking," the process by which a high-pressure mixture of chemicals, sand, and water are blasted into rock to tap into the gas. Recent discoveries of great reserves in the Marcellus Shale region of the state prompted a rush to development, as have advancements in fracking technologies. But with those changes have come a number of concerns from citizens about potential environmental and health impacts from natural gas drilling.
There is good reason to be curious about exactly what's in those fluids. A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer.
And to think the Republicans are worked into a frenzy about health care coverage rather than doctors having an honest discussion with their patients. Interesting.
The new rules will only impact new plants and not existing plants, though that's not likely to make a difference for extremist Republicans who hate any regulation that protects consumers. Obama, ever the moderate, has not often reached out to environmentalists and even now, this probably won't do much to win them over since it is limited to new power plants.
Limiting carbon emissions is a great idea and necessary, but the problem is too serious for yet another middle of the road response. The time for timid responses is long gone.
The Obama administration will propose as soon as Tuesday the first ever standards to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new power plants, sources involved in talks on the matter said—a move that is likely to be hotly contested by Republicans and industry in an election year.
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to propose the long-delayed rules, known as New Source Performance Standards, that would effectively limit emissions of all new U.S. power plants to those of efficient natural gas plants.
It's good to see the White House hitting back. Though, like everyone else, I'd like to see this continue after the President gets re-elected, and that isn't a given. From the Hill:
Senior White House adviser David Plouffe defended President Obama’s embattled energy policies Sunday by calling GOP attacks on alternative energy sources “dangerous.”
“Sadly . . . this used to be a very bipartisan idea, sadly, the Republicans running for president, many Republicans here in Washington, kind of vilify this, almost mock it, and it is only going to determine our future. It is a very dangerous thing,” he said on Fox News Sunday.
It's difficult to win on an issue after you appear to have given up on it. The environment is yet another issue that the left let the Republicans roll them on. How in God's name did the GOP win on global warming, for example? And they are winning. They're winning because they lie, but also because our guys don't fight back adequately. When's the last time you've heard anything from an environmental group? I can count the crickets. Remember when polar bears were drowning? I remember begging environmental groups to jump on that issue - again, crickets.
There's no excuse for letting the GOP get the upper-hand on these issues. But the organized left, the folks who get all the advocacy money in this town, tend to, on average, be rather lousy at their jobs.
Japan had used a lot of nuclear energy until the Fukushima disaster, but that changed everything. The transition from nuclear to other energy sources (fossil fuel, in this case) has been rapid and likely expensive, though there was a heavy cost to nuclear energy. BBC News:
Japan has shut down another nuclear power station, bringing it a step closer to suspending atomic energy, following the Fukushima disaster.
Only one of the 54 nuclear reactors remains in operation, and it is due to be switched off in May.
Residents have demanded reactors not be turned back on after routine maintenance due to safety fears.
In the US, nuclear looked like an increasingly popular option in certain circles before Fukushima but that has slowed significantly. Many of the US reactors are aging and need maintenance but we still desperately also need an alternative plan for the future.
In the coming months, we're likely to see a lot more of this reach the west coast of North America. CNN:
A fishing trawler swept away more than a year ago by a tsunami off the east coast of Japan has been spotted floating near British Columbia, Canadian officials said Friday.
"It looks fairly sound and has rust streak from being out there for a year," said Marc Proulx, the maritime coordinator of the Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Victoria, British Columbia.
The trawler is part of a giant debris field that was generated by the giant wall of water that struck the east coast of the island nation following a 9.0 earthquake, sweeping everything from cars to houses into the ocean.
UPDATE: This is getting awfully confusing. The administration is saying that this isn't a flip-flop. They're saying that this is what the President said he'd do last January - that he'd fast-track the non-controversial part of the pipeline, the lower part.
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 18, 2012
Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline
Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.
This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.
_________________
Although I can imagine a lot of Americans, not on the left, thinking that additional drilling will help lower gasoline prices - even though AP showed that this is untrue - we're hearing that the Obama administration is speeding up approval of the controversial Keystone pipeline. Even though we now know that it won't help lower gas prices. But people will "think" it will help, and rather than actually solve the problem, let's play the Republican game where we simply pretend to solve problems since it will fool the public and maybe help us in the polls.
Not to mention, I thought we just killed this thing? So now our side is bringing it back up, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
The tar sands oil extraction process is the last thing the environment needs. Heaven forbid anyone discusses how dirty the process of oil extraction is or makes an effort to get serious about moving away from an oil based society. But hey, there's a campaign to win and Republicans to appease. The Guardian:
The president will use a stop in Cushing, Oklahoma on Thursday morning to announce an executive order directing government agencies to speed up permits for the southern US-only segment of the pipeline, running from the town to Port Arthur, Texas
The approval – which brought angry reactions from environmental groups – could allow construction on the southern portion of the pipeline to begin before the November elections, instead of next year.
In addition, White House officials indicated in a conference call with reporters that Obama was likely to improve the entire route, which stretches more than 1,600 miles from the tar sands of Alberta to the refineries of Texas.
Oil executives being held responsible for spilling oil and creating a natural disaster? What a novel idea.
A federal judge in Rio de Janeiro state granted a request from prosecutors who are pressing for charges against both firms, a spokesman for prosecutor Eduardo Oliveira said in a phone interview. George Buck, who heads Chevron's Brazil unit, and the other 16 executives must turn in their passports to the police within 24 hours, the spokesman said. Charges are expected to be filed on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to the prosecutors' press office. The court decision came a day after the Brazilian navy spotted a thin stain of oil extending for about 0.6 mile (1 km) in offshore field Frade, which was also the site of last year's spill. U.S.-based Chevron said in a statement it halted production at Frade on Saturday after winning permission from Brazilian oil industry regulator ANP.
