Saturday, August 7, 2010

[UPDATED] They laughed at Al Gore - now the "Inconvenient Truth" starts to make its presence felt

by frisco

A few items from the recent news and a note to readers - "weather" and "climate" doesn't just affect your city, state or country. Open your eyes and smell the GLOBAL warming happening all around you.

Please follow me over the fold. I've tried to take a look at five or six current and very recent events that I think foretell the consequences of the sequence of inconvenient truths that await us, our children and their children after them if we cannot find the political and organizational will to enact major measures slow and then halt global warming as soon as possible.



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Meet deepwater drilling's doppelgänger: Corn-based ethanol

by Jed Lewison

In the off chance that you were looking for yet another example of just how terribly screwed up our national energy policy is, consider this fact: as bad as BP's oil spill was, it may not have caused any more long-term damage to the Gulf than has corn-based ethanol. Corn-based ethanol, the federally subsidized biofuel, is largely responsible for the Gulf of Mexico's 7,500 square mile dead zone -- the second-largest dead-zone in the world. San Francisco Chronicle:

While the BP oil spill has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" the size of New Jersey that scientists say could be every bit as harmful to the gulf.

Each year, nitrogen used to fertilize corn, about a third of which is made into ethanol, leaches from Midwest croplands into the Mississippi River and out into the gulf, where the fertilizer feeds giant algae blooms. As the algae dies, it settles to the ocean floor and decays, consuming oxygen and suffocating marine life.

Known as hypoxia, the oxygen depletion kills shrimp, crabs, worms and anything else that cannot escape. The dead zone has doubled since the 1980s and is expected this year to grow as large as 8,500 square miles and hug the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Texas.

As to which is worse, the oil spill or the hypoxia, "it's a really tough call," said Nathaniel Ostrom, a zoologist at Michigan State University. "There's no real answer to that question."

The Chronicle reports:

  • Corn-based ethanol is heavily subsidized by the federal government, including a 51 cent per gallon tax credit. Ethanol receives two-thirds of all subsidies for renewable fuels, costing nearly $20 billion between 2005 and 2009.
  • In large part thanks to federal subsidies, farms growing exclusively corn or soybeans have replaced diversified farms. This has led to an explosion in the use of fertilizer and pesticides and now more nitrates come from corn-production than from any other crop. Those nitrates leech into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the algae blooms that lead to the dead zones.
  • The dead zone has doubled in size since the 1980s.
  • Currently, 10% of gas must consist of ethanol. The EPA is considering raising that requirement to 15%. In 2007, Congress enacted legislation that will triple ethanol output, including refineries in every state.
  • There are more environmentally friendly alternatives to corn-based ethanol, but thanks to the subsidies for corn-based ethanol, they will never be used.

Of course, as bad as ethanol is, it doesn't let BP off the hook, not for one minute. After all, BP stands to claim $600 million in federal subsidies this year alone for ethanol production. So for BP, it's been a real twofer -- they've not only devastated the Gulf region with their oil spill, they're also one of the biggest contributors to the ethanol problem.



continued at Daily Kos...

News from the Arctic: July summary edition

by billlaurelMD

This is the next in a series of diaries on the state of Arctic sea ice (and other topics as warranted) in memory of Johnny Rook, who passed away in early 2009. He was the author of the Climaticide Chronicles.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center NSIDC issued its July 2010 report on 4 August 2010.  I'll start with the news therein.  Then, I'll show you what's been happening since 31 July in weather and sea ice, hopefully through 6 or 7 August, if the data is updated promptly.  Finally, I'll have a few comments on how I expect things to pan out for the rest of the melt season.

More below.



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Carbon Taxes, Clean Energy, WPA style Jobs, and a "Two For-One"

by joedemocrat

I used to oppose new environmental and energy taxes. I always believed the climate crisis was very real, but was cautious about any bill that would cause higher energy prices. I understood if people and industries had to pay the true cost of carbon based energy, we would both conserve energy and develop clean energy alternatives. But the economic populist in me just didn't like it. In my mind, we all had to use energy meaning such taxes would be regressive and hurt poorer people.

I was also worried about the political ramifications. I was in 7th grade when Jimmy Carter won the Presidency. I remembered the public reaction when he encouraged people to conserve energy. This caused me to prefer direct and aggressive clean energy subsidies (often abused by special interests - ethanol). I also knew more taxes, except on the rich, doesn't poll well. This may be changing with regard to energy and cap and trade systems- Nate Silver points out the cap and trade bill polls fairly well.

But I've been reading. And I've been learning - such taxes are not per se regressive and can even be progressive if structured correctly.



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The Fightback against Cutting Electric Prices with Wind Power

by BruceMcF

Burning the Midnight Oil for Living Energy Independence

Recently, Jerome a Paris and afew from the European Tribune published a piece in New Scientist on why having sufficient wind turbines in an energy portfolio has been observed to lower energy prices to consumers.

After tweeting that article, I started to receive tweets with links to the anti-wind conservative echo chamber, including The American Thinker, and the Oil-money founded and partly funded Cato Institue.



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Madder Than Mad — The "Outrage-Lib" Climate-Change LTE!

by WarrenS

If you're even paying attention a little bit, it's pretty clear that Mother Earth is in a very bad state.  She's got a horrible fever, and she's developing oozing sores all over the place, and....oh, hell.  You know this as well as I do.  Better, if you're one of the dedicated ecodiarists on this site who actually go to the trouble of learning about our planet's crises in enough detail to write terrifying diaries that scare the crap out of me.
Not only is 2010 the hottest year on record, it's also reaching new heights in denialist stupidity.
For example, every day our news outlets print articles or run pieces on one or another of the terrible catastrophes that are taking place.  The disaster du jour is of course happening in Russia, where drought and wildfires are making people's lives awfully close to pure hell.  And the New York Times ran a front-page article about it...without mentioning the phrases "climate change" or "global warming" once.


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Understanding Consumers’ Responses to Genetic Engineering

by NourishingthePlanet

This is the third and final part of an interview with plant geneticist Pamela Ronald and organic farmer Raoul Adamchak. They are co-authors of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food. You can also feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 on the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.



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BP Catastrophe Liveblog Mothership: 74

by Gulf Watchers

The current ROV DIARY: Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 280 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - khowell

Rules of the Road

  • We take volunteers for subsequent diaries in the sub diaries or ROV's as we have playfully coined them.
  • Please rec this mothership diary, not the ROVs.
  • Please be kind to fellow kossacks who may have limited bandwidth and refrain from posting images or videos.

PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!



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Gore's right![Alarm] The hottest 6 months globally on record produces 100 sq mile broken ice sheet.

by Democrats Ramshield

Alarms are now going off around the world as the hottest 6 months globally on record have affected the planet with innumerable deleterious outcomes, one of the most salient of which is a 100 square mile ice sheet which has now broken off from Greenland. This isn't a daily occurrence, in fact this hasn't happened since 1962. It is essentially a once in a lifetime event that we are now witnessing.

This is something that all of the paid prostitute lobbyists who would be willing to sell their mother in order to maintain their waterfront recreational property, can't hide, along with all of the paid whores that they bribe and otherwise buy from the scientific community, who with sophistry laden rhetoric will sell their credentials to say whatever their highest bidder or pay masters tell them to say, as part of the lockstep Gregorian chant, that seeks to confuse and eviscerate the truth. The truth is the planet is now in serious trouble, Mr and Mrs America and citizens of the world..please know this the inconvenient truth is we were warned!  


Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...



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GULF COAST MEMORIAL DAYS

by Knucklehead

  It`s Friday again, time to temper my anger with a sharing of some of my images from my reef tanks.
You may have noticed that my images are  often of a same specimen.
I liken that to taking more than one picture of your cat, dog, bird, lizard or child.
Every image is a close encounter with what one loves doing with the loved ones one does it with.
 

HAWKFISH

DSCN1937



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