Colorado's On Fire

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Hard not to root for it, one of about only 3,000 tigers left in the world thanks to poachers. I rooted for Grendel, too. My bad.
Fabulous writing.

The temperature is 30 below zero and yet, here, the snow has been completely melted away. In the middle of this dark circle, presented like some kind of sacrificial offering, is a hand without an arm and a head without a face. Nearby is a long bone, a femur probably, that has been gnawed to a bloodless white. Carrion crows flock in the trees overhead, and their raucous kvetching tells Trush that whatever murdered this man is still around; the kill is being guarded.

The Big One

My old colleague updates the earthquake situation.

A bright-red splotch on a map of earthquake hazards marks the Kitsap Peninsula as one of the hottest danger zones in the United States.

I live 50 miles north.

It's Not Easy Being Green

I guess you have to use math to figure embodied energy, but on the other hand, I hardly ever fly.

10 Years And Counting

At least, that's what they tell us we have to change the way we live or else it's too late. It haunts me, I don't know about you.
Home debuted today to explain what's at stake. It's not a sermon, it's a beautifully photographed and simply narrated science lesson, 1 hr. 33 min.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU
Embed disabled, so you'll have to click. I encourage it.
Oh, happy Environment Day. Didn't know there was one.

And Then There's Black Carbon

How's that wood-burning thing working out for you, huh?
And Surprise O' Teh Week (it's only Tuesday), Inhofe want's to know more.

Big

is the headline TPM gave this NYT story yesterday. I agree.

President Obama on Monday will direct federal regulators to move swiftly to grant California and 13 other states the right to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.
The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and marks a sharp reversal from Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions is one of the most dramatic actions Mr. Obama can take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Friedman Units

is what the progressive bloggers began calling six-month periods of time, snarkily alluding to NYT columnist, social gadfly and self-proclaimed know-it-all Tom Friedman's record of being consistently wrong about the Iraq war. He was prone to repeating every six months or so that it would be just another six months and everything would turn around.
He's been wrong about more than that and is a blatant hypicrite, as so many pundits are.
Which is why I resisted vociferously a friend's urgent call to read his new book.
Now Matt Taibbi puts it in eloquent perspective (although I have no idea what porn-stached means.)

When some time ago a friend of mine told me that Thomas Friedman’s new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, was going to be a kind of environmentalist clarion call against American consumerism, I almost died laughing.

Beautiful, I thought. Just when you begin to lose faith in America’s ability to fall for absolutely anything—just when you begin to think we Americans as a race might finally outgrow the lovable credulousness that leads us to fork over our credit card numbers to every half-baked TV pitchman hawking a magic dick-enlarging pill, or a way to make millions on the Internet while sitting at home and pounding doughnuts— along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-stached resident of a positively obscene 114,000 square foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism.

Climate Change And Meat Eating

Michael Tidwell makes the case. C'mon, you knew, right? But damn, that bacon sandwich was tasty.

So while some of us Americans fashionably fret over our food’s travel budget and organic content, Garnett says the real question is, “Did it come from an animal or did it not come from an animal?”

A Heartwarming Tail

From Treehugger News

Sheepdogs have helped to guard a colony of fairy penguins, and proven themselves to be very good at their job. So good, in fact, that conservationists are pondering what other threatened animals these K9s can protect.

Get Rid of Those Old Electronic Items

Free and environmentally safe for WA residents. h/t AL
http://www.ecyclewashington.org/

Still, though, how do I get all the crap off my old PC's hard drive?
Any takers?

Barbies To Grow On Trees

This is serious environmental stuff.

Coal Plants So-o-o Last Millennium

In a move that signals the start of the our clean energy future, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled today EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.

“Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club Senior Attorney who argued the case. “This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America.”

“The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century,” continued Spalding

The decision follows a 2007 Supreme Court ruling recognizing carbon dioxide, the principle source of global warming, is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.

“Coal plants emit 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution. Building new coal plants without controlling their carbon emissions could wipe out all of the other efforts being undertaken by cities, states and communities across the country,” said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. “Everyone has a role to play and it’s time that the coal industry did its part and started living up to its clean coal rhetoric.”

The Sierra Club went before the Environmental Appeals Board in May of 2008 to request that the air permit for Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s proposed waste coal-fired power plant be overturned because it failed to require any controls on carbon dioxide pollution. Deseret Power’s 110 MW Bonanza plant would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.

“Instead of pouring good money after bad trying to fix old coal technology, investors should be looking to wind, solar and energy efficiency technologies that are going to power the economy, create jobs, and help the climate recover,” said Nilles.

To get background information and see how the case unfolded visit www.sierraclub.org/coal/plantlist.asp

A copy of the decision can be found here: http://yosemite.epa.gov/...

Da Bears

You already know all this stuff so you don't have to follow the link to feel bad.

"The Arctic sea ice melt is a disaster for the polar bears," according to Kassie Siegel, staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. "They are dependent on the Arctic sea ice for all of their essential behaviors, and as the ice melts and global warming transforms the Arctic, polar bears are starving, drowning, even resorting to cannibalism because they don't have access to their usual food sources."

Scientists have noticed increasing reports of starving Arctic polar bears attacking and feeding on one another in recent years. In one documented 2004 incident in northern Alaska, a male bear broke into a female's den and killed her.

Politically Correct Fish: News You Can Use

w/recipes. Eco best fish, eco ok, and eco worst.

I've had deep fried catfish twice in the last 10 days. It's delicious.

Catfish Tidbits

Contributed by Environmental Defense Fund staff

Serves 4 to 6 as an appetizer
1 pound catfish fillets
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 beaten eggs
1 cup breadcrumbs
¼ vegetable oil

1. Rinse fish under cold water. Cut into bite-size pieces.
2. Mix flour and seasonings and place in a plastic bag. Add catfish pieces a few at a time and shake bag until fish is well coated.
3. Remove pieces from plastic bag, and dip flour-coated fish in beaten eggs and drain off excess. Then dip in breadcrumbs.
4. Heat oil in a frying pan. Fry fish a few pieces at a time until golden brown. Drain pieces on paper towel.
5. Serve with your favorite spicy cocktail sauce for dipping.

Sawdust, Lawn Clippings, Old Magazines

We should be more like termites.
Or something.

If we could turn wood waste into fuel with even a fraction of the termite’s efficiency, we could run our economy on sawdust, lawn clippings, and old magazines.

Oil. Water. Dirt?

"It must be one of the greatest wastes of human labor in history," Smil says. "Tens of millions of people forced to work night and day on projects that a child could have seen were a terrible stupidity. Cutting down trees and planting grain on steep slopes—how could that be a good idea?"

Okay, We DO Need The Stinkin' Oil

Apparently, you can't trust MIT. And watch out for anybody announcing any breakthroughs, solar or otherwise


1. Despite the hype, it doesn't appear that Nocera et. al. have made any significant advances in water electrolysis.
2. Even if the researchers drove the cost of the oxygen-evolving anode to zero and its efficiency close to 100%, we are still only marginally closer to being able to produce significant quantities of hydrogen from solar energy.
3. Want to invest in cobalt futures? Too late.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Oil

or coal, or natural gas. 'Cuz, Dawg, we got the sun.
Ten years from their lab to my house.

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

Bottled Water

From a book review in The Economist cited on Andrew Sullivan today.

It should be easy enough to pillory bottled water. It costs between 250 and 10,000 times more than tap water and in blind tastings people cannot usually separate the fancy beverage from the ordinary stuff. Then there is the environmental cost: according to one estimate, the total energy required to make and deliver each bottle of water is equivalent to filling them a quarter of the way with oil. While New Yorkers enjoy the services of water sommeliers, millions of people in developing countries lack access to any clean water at all.

But although Ms Royte displays all the usual prejudices—private enterprise bad, collective provision good—her book concludes that even in rich countries tap water sometimes contains small quantities of harmful chemicals. She also points out that in water shortages, local authorities may supply people with water reclaimed from sewage without telling them. Bottled water, therefore, “has its place”: a confused message, if an honest one.