Disqus - Latest Comments for J.L.

Re: http://tins.rklau.com/2003/10/dan-conley-is-off-bandwagon.html

J.L. — Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:04:00 -0000

Keep the faith Rick. I agree with Luke about Conley. While it's true he writes well, Conley was right to give up writing under the name Deanblog. Writing there implied somehow he was hoping for the best for Dean, a role he never wanted. Conley seems to have a deaf ear to a lot of what makes Dean appealing, so I doubt he was ever really on the bandwagon. Instead, in my opinion, he places appearing presidenial as more important than anything else. Me, I've know Dean's faults from the beginning, and never needed to build him up more than he is. As for Conley, I know he's supposed to be an expert because of his past experience, but some of his commentary proved dead wrong, like predicting it was a terrible mistake to put up five bats at the end of September. While I respect him for giving up the Deanblog name, after reading him saying there's little difference between Dean and Bush, I'm probably not going to be visiting him much at danconley.com.

Re: Contest! Win a great prize!

J.L. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:43:33 -0000

#1 Aubrey ODay, Kelly Ripa, Keeley Hazel

Re: CONTEST! Win one of three prizes!

J.L. — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:28:00 -0000

Group #3

Rihanna, victoria beckham, katie holmes

Re: Contest! Win a couple of great prizes!

J.L. — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:54:00 -0000

Audrina Patridge
Kelly Brook

Kelly Ripa

Re: Caption this…

J.L. — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:20:00 -0000

"Did you hear that he wants to rear your child"

Re: Caption this…

J.L. — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:26:00 -0000

At least I don't have blue balls

Re: Katt vs. spegelkatt!

J.L. — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:48:21 -0000

Kan uppstoppade katter röra huvudet? o_O

Re: The Ultimate Bike Room

J.L. — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:35:10 -0000

Bad post, very bad post.

I now have a vision in my mind that will eventually smash my bank account!

Re: The Morning After - Some Thoughts

J.L. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:46:00 -0000

Hey y'all, I'm white, southern, over-30, female and obsessed with Barack Obama. I will NEVER vote for HC because I am deeply offended by her attempt to generate racism in the Democratic Party. Our party, which stands for equality and justice... it is disgusting and unacceptable. Thanks for the great posts... we gotta keep our chins up and keep fighting. YES WE CAN!

Re: Missed Miscellaneous Masterpieces: Mark Mulcahy – Fathering

J.L. — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:09:38 -0000

dude, can you post "I woke up in the mayflower". That song is the best on "fathering".

Re: Roklintu - Kirjastollinen musiikkiplagiarismitapauksia

J.L. — Tue, 18 Jan 2005 12:05:55 -0000

Linkki o thjä.

Re: Introducing A New Zen Master From The Poontang Clan!

J.L. — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:43:00 -0000

Very interesting. I am dealing with major approach anxiety and have been working my social circle like this guy.. but I still can't cold approach for shit. I need to possibly follow the same path as he as it sounds like our situations are quite similar.

Thanks for sharing this... I'm very intrigued.

Re: Rien a voir : Fuzz condamné, sale jour pour le web Français. - By Pierre Lecourt - - Blogeee.net

J.L. — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:35:21 -0000

En même temps (et surtout sans méchanceté aucune) on vient pas sur ton blog pour avoir ton opinion personnelle sur telle ou telle affaire de justice, même si celle-ci concerne les bloggeurs en général.

Il y a d'autres endroits accessibles à tt le monde pour s'exprimer et perso ca me saoule que tt le monde se permette de donner son avis sur tt et n'importe quoi sur des sites qui sont pas faits pour ça... et si je me fous de la"petite" vie de cette tête de con de Martinez, ton opinion sur la question ne m'intéresse pas non plus.

Voila , c'est mon avis, et encore une fois il n'y a aucune méchanceté dans mes propos.

Sinon, sur le fond, je suis d'accord avec toi, c la porte aouverte à ttes les fenêtres...

En ts les cas, merci pour ton blog qui vraiment génial et longue vie à vous deux.

Re: Le EeePC 900 à 569.99$ chez AllAsus.com - By Pierre Lecourt - - Blogeee.net

J.L. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:20:31 -0000

"un salmigondis" !!!!!!????

Fictre alorsz ;-)

Re: Wide-Eyed 3AM Thoughts

J.L. — Sat, 28 Oct 2006 12:41:57 -0000

very well written post u got there. enjoyed reading it

Re: Things I Learnt About College And NYC Part 1

J.L. — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:30:29 -0000

Hi pinkpau's makcik, can we send sea mail through Pos Malaysia (Post Offices)? If not, any good recommendation? Thank you!!!

Re: Schrijf ‘t in je agenda: 21 december 2012 einde van de wereld

J.L. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:23:33 -0000

God heeft alles in Zijn hand..

Maak je geen zorgen:

Maar vertrouw op HEM (L)

Johannes 3:16 geldt voor jullie allemaal !!!

Re: Photos of 50 Cent on set of “Streets of Blood”

J.L. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:15:45 -0000

I dunno bout this movie. it goin direct to video?

Re: Snoop Dogg’s Jesus ad for Catholic Church

J.L. — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:27:10 -0000

Its creative to say the least

Re: Video: “Iron Man” deleted scene w/ Ghostface Killah

J.L. — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:28:06 -0000

Sorry. I can see why they cut this scene. It makes Tony Stark look too extreme and unlikeable. Yea I know your not supposed to like him in the beginning but I think this scene is a waste. Too bad GFK was in it. I would have liked to see him in it still

Re: Video: MC Hammer’s new ESPN Monday Night Football ad

J.L. — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 20:03:10 -0000

So excited about football season. GO RAIDERS. The year of Jamarcus baby

Re: Exclusive new photos of Ludacris from “Rocknrolla”

J.L. — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:45:07 -0000

Got some potential. Luda is blowin up. Him and Common got movies on lock these days and are the few that can act

Re: Video: Master P & Romeo’s trailer to “The Pig People”

J.L. — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:45:27 -0000

I could make this in high school

Re: Pharrell’s “Voltron” movie gets the Hollywood green light

J.L. — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:47:46 -0000

I hear Robotech coming out too. Id like to check this out just for the soundtrack b/c like u said, Pharrell can do something crazy with that neptunes sound.

Re: Video: New trailer to “The Secret Life of Bees”

J.L. — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:42:47 -0000

Alicia is still hot to me. Id still tap dat ass fro or no

Re: Sears launches LL Cool J Clothing marketing campaign

J.L. — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 02:43:20 -0000

LMAO @ Matt and Mike D

Re: R.I.P. Sho’Nuff of “The Last Dragon”

J.L. — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:34:37 -0000

One of the best villains in film. RIP Julius

Re: TAG Records and Jermaine Dupri land first major promotional deal

J.L. — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:48:00 -0000

Heard of TAG Records but never this Q Da Kid. Hope hes good

Re: Video: New “Soul Men” trailer starring Sam Jackson & Bernie Mac

J.L. — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:26:38 -0000

Will their deaths hurt or help this movie? I dunno bout this one.

Re: Will Smith rumored to play Captain America

J.L. — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:27:19 -0000

You got my hopes up then end it with that update. Thanks.

Re: Movie Trailer: Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna”

J.L. — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 13:30:17 -0000

This looks like a great movie. Spike is back!

Re: Exclusive preview of Clipse’s Play Cloths clothing line

J.L. — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:23:19 -0000

Any idea how much this is gonna cost? It best not be BBC prices cuz this looks hood.

Re: Preview of T.I.’s AKOO clothing line

J.L. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:45:45 -0000

Dig the music dont dig the clothes. Why does every rapper think its their right to launch a clothing line with this generic ass shit?!

Re: Featured Site: The Hip Hop Chronicle

J.L. — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:46:13 -0000

I can dig it, UK represent hip hop to the fullest. Checking out the site now

Re: Choose the poster for the “Notorious” movie

J.L. — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:50:13 -0000

Can I vote for none of these? Its more about voting for the best of the worst here in my opinion. I would go with 1 though cuz then u know its biggie and not necessarily this dude in a big hat like 3.

Re: Exclusive first look photos of Bow Wow in “Hurricane Season”

J.L. — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:50:45 -0000

shad is really that short? this movie looks ok

Re: Video: Alicia Keys & Jack White “Another Way to Die”

J.L. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:44:14 -0000

the video is worse

Re: Video: Mary J Blige’s new Chevrolet commercial

J.L. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:44:31 -0000

diggin this ad

Re: Big Boi partners with Full Throttle energy drink

J.L. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:44:55 -0000

never heard of it. Maybe thats why they need to relaunch

Re: Mary J. Blige launches fragrance line

J.L. — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:48:30 -0000

It is every diva's right to have her own perfume.

Re: Video: 50 Cent’s “Before I Self Destruct” movie trailer

J.L. — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:17:56 -0000

This is a joke. A joke of a movie. A joke of an actor. A joke of a music career.

Re: Scratch: The Ultimate DJ video game

J.L. — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:23:52 -0000

Or you should be DJ vlad and get yo ass kicked

Re: Breaking news! Photographs reveal T.I. was a cop

J.L. — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:31:47 -0000

What a tease I knew this was too good to be true. Flick looks interesting though.

Re: Video: Trailer to 50 Cent’s new MTV show “The Money & The Power”

J.L. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:51:27 -0000

Hes no donal trump. But i cant hate on a man who has made it this far on really no skill so props to him

Re: New Notorious B.I.G. toy figurine

J.L. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:52:07 -0000

thats b/c this is art. not just a cheap toy. maybe kid robot will git in on this too.

Re: Video: Soulja Boy claims he is the best Xbox 360 player ALIVE

J.L. — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:52:41 -0000

desperation sittin in homie

Re: New line of hip-hop sculptures amaze artists and fans

J.L. — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:29:55 -0000

The first two especially with Rock Steady are amazing.

Re: Photos of Eminem’s exclusive Nike Jordan sneaker line

J.L. — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:30:44 -0000

@Alfie - Yea I'm one of them who are willing to pay for these. Who cares what you think anyways cuz these are ill for sneakerheads.

Re: Excerpts from Eminem’s upcoming book “The Way I Am”

J.L. — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:24:51 -0000

So he is going to make money off telling everyone what an ass he really is. Only in America.

Re: Louis Vuitton and Gucci stop T.I.’s latest music video

J.L. — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:25:13 -0000

LV and Gucci still are making bank though off of hip hop, id have to say its more TI specifically in this case. Or else they would complain about EVERY song since every one mentions LV or gucci.

Re: Master P launches “shady” self-travel agency website

J.L. — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:25:52 -0000

Interesting post. I just checked the site out. Pure scam crap just like you said.

Re: T.I. to remix famed NBC jingle

J.L. — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:46:38 -0000

More like they probably dont even know about his record

Re: T-Pain is new Hyundai spokesperson

J.L. — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:46:56 -0000

SMH

Re: “Smokin’ Aces” prequel with plenty of cameos gets greenlight

J.L. — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:09:34 -0000

dope. Alicia Keys and COmmon were both great in thsi movie.

Re: Pharrell survives the hate, celebrates 3 Year Anniversary of BBC

J.L. — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:00:16 -0000

BBC and Pharrell has haters because it is succesfull. That's why.

Re: Snoop’s show “Father Hood” ready for guest-filled Season 2

J.L. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:26:37 -0000

Yea where are some REAL guest appearances? Dre, Em, The Dogg Pound

Re: Video: Ludacris gives a tour of his new restaurant Straits

J.L. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:46:23 -0000

This isnt Luda. This is Chris Bridges. The transformation is amazing but man is making his paper so I respekt the hustle. The restaurant looks good too! Making me hungry.

Re: Video: Trailer to Jim Jones’ musical (not a joke)

J.L. — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:23:23 -0000

Creative? We shall see. Ballsy? For sure. Still, no one cares about Jimmy. He as washed out as all Dipset.

Re: Lil Wayne gets the cover of Mad Magazine as MAD TV is canceled

J.L. — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 11:35:56 -0000

I dont care bout the coonery, I care bout the fact my favorite show is going to be no longer, why would they let one of the best shows go......

Re: Exclusive first look at T.I.’s AKOO ad campaign and website

J.L. — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 21:17:19 -0000

Yeti and Woooha is bringin the heat the past couple weeks. You on a mission here yeti??

Re: Diddy’s newest “I Am King” cologne ad

J.L. — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:54:29 -0000

sell out

Re: Diddy’s newest “I Am King” cologne ad

J.L. — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:54:47 -0000

this guy would sell his children if it got him more press and more money

Re: The real reason Kanye West changed his clothing line name

J.L. — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:51:39 -0000

I'm glad he changed it, like you saying here, the original name was way too "SOFT" like a female clothing line.

Re: Ray J VH-1 reality show is really happening…now

J.L. — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:58:27 -0000

THis is a joke right? Like an early April Fools joke?

Re: The real reason Kanye West changed his clothing line name

J.L. — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:59:02 -0000

Let me repeat - Kanye is a joke too.

Re: You can play with Rihanna every day…well with her doll

J.L. — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:21:45 -0000

Its just a Barbie with the forehead covering weave on top of it. How much this gonna cost? $200?

Re: The failed business ventures of Damon Dash

J.L. — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:25:57 -0000

I was just reading Augusto's first comments. I agree that it would be nicer to have more financials but at the same time this pretty much gets the point across. Homie is broke. And I assume Augusto is a financially educated man but even he should know leveraging your investments just means greater financial risk. The results of his investments? Read the articles all over about Dash.

Re: Video: Big Boi in tonight’s episode of Law & Order: SVU

J.L. — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:06:44 -0000

Thanks for the heads up Ill be watchin this even though Big Boi is a terrible actor here.

Re: First look at Clipse’s entire Play Cloths Winter ‘08 Collection

J.L. — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:11:56 -0000

Varsity jacket is where I would be. But anyone know how much this stuff costs?

Re: Video: Common & Bambaataa in Zune commercial

J.L. — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:20:44 -0000

What's a zune again?

Re: The official “Notorious” movie poster

J.L. — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:46:26 -0000

Diggin it. Better than the earlier ones i saw on the net.

Re: Yung Berg filming a dating reality show

J.L. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:48:33 -0000

AN ass. No one will pick up this show. No one has originality.

Re: Shwayze signs Nike workout video deal

J.L. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:49:13 -0000

Woooha does he even qualify as "urban" music? He as white as Vanilla Ice

Re: Method Man & Redman Adidas print ads

J.L. — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:07:37 -0000

Red looks really happy and meth looks intrigued. Like they found a new super weed or something. Hey when is How High 2 coming out? They should cross that with harold and Kumar also.

Re: Video: Common launches “Softwear” clothing line with Microsoft

J.L. — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:41:55 -0000

Feelin that first shirt. I would actually get that. Good move by Microsoft to change their image. They were old before. No one likes old.

Re: Soulja Boy signs Xbox 360 video game deal

J.L. — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:27:08 -0000

That pic of master chief is priceless

Re: Pharrell invests in cutting edge fabric company Bionic Yarn

J.L. — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 11:27:57 -0000

A o this is a good move by Pharrell. I've worn this stuff before and its like nothing ever before. Hey and it's good for the environment too.

Re: Video: Jimmy Fallon officially introduces new Late Night house band The Roots

J.L. — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:23:04 -0000

Yea 2nd and 3rd that. Roots crew is ill.

Re: T.I. renews movie deal with New Line Cinema

J.L. — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 03:33:58 -0000

This movie could be cool or REALLY bad

Re: Video: Trailer to Angela & Vanessa Simmons new MTV show

J.L. — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:43:12 -0000

Yea I dont watch the hills either (Yea right). But it does look EXACTLY the same. I still will watch though. Sisters are fire

Re: Video: Russell Simmons talks partnership w/ Kay Jewelers

J.L. — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:43:48 -0000

This is still around? Eh its not that bad actually

Re: Nas helps design new FILA track suit

J.L. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:54:06 -0000

Those red kicks are pretty nice too. The suit is a good look but you can't rock it without the gold rope either.

Re: Old Skool Ads: Notorious B.I.G. x St. Ides

J.L. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:54:25 -0000

IDES!

Re: Video: LL Cool J’s new Sears holiday season TV ads

J.L. — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 16:16:52 -0000

As long as Sears doesnt bite the dust then its a smart move. His rap career is long over just like every one says, so cash in while you can. A mogul move in my book too.

Re: Ice Cube & Lebron James team up for ABC TV show

J.L. — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 19:04:03 -0000

Cube partnering with King James is no doubt a mogul move.

Re: Singer Keisha Chante chosen to play Aaliyah in biopic

J.L. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:37:18 -0000

Thats my girl there. And yes it is pure exploitation. Im down with the BIGGIE movie because his mom is invovled and such but to have that and then Aaliyah movie is just bad for the industry. Tupac should go next...thats it. Thumbs down on this.

Re: Mike Jones signs deal w/ House of Dobbe Cognac

J.L. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:38:10 -0000

Who knew Mike Jones is still relevant but I also dont trust that company as part of it. I looked at their website and they look a bit shady to me.

Re: The Trendz Report: Week of 12/14-12/20

J.L. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:12:46 -0000

Interesting read. Seems like labels would benefit from this type of info

Re: The Trendz Report: Week of 12/14-12/20

J.L. — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:12:46 -0000

Interesting read. Seems like labels would benefit from this type of info

Re: First “Notorious”, next a Diddy biopic spin-off?

J.L. — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 17:27:58 -0000

Terrible idea. No ones cares that much about Diddy even if he did have a rags to riches story.

Re: Kidz in the Hall and Cisco Systems video contest

J.L. — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:36:01 -0000

Yeti - I cant see the video

Re: Lupe Fiasco releases “Trilly & Truly” jacket & jeans

J.L. — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:46:30 -0000

I like the puff jacked but not the jeans

Re: Video: Soulja Boy’s new video “Grind On” on Xbox 360

J.L. — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:46:58 -0000

Soulja Boy can suck it. He is dead to hip hop.

Re: Common’s “Terminator: Salvation” action figure

J.L. — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:02:03 -0000

LOL - yes women around the world are rejoicing.

Re: Beastie Boys art exhibit in Los Angeles

J.L. — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:33:37 -0000

BB are the ONE group that needs a comeback

Re: Letter From Yeti

J.L. — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:39:33 -0000

I liked it so bring it back. Course I never voted but I still liked seeing what others thought.

Re: New Diddy “I Am King” cologne print ads

J.L. — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:53:35 -0000

The girls in the chopper are 10s. Diddy doin it right in these ads. they classy and got hot ones at the same time

Re: Kanye West judges Wallpaper 2009 Design Awards

J.L. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:24:50 -0000

This is a cool awards thing. That heater is ill too

Re: Judd Apatow says Diddy is funny

J.L. — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:56:24 -0000

I agree - diddy tries too hard to ever realyl be funny in comedy

Re: FRIDAY FACT: Kanye’s Pastelle.com site is 2,439 days old

J.L. — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:51:50 -0000

Kanye probably is already bored of Pastelle and moving on to the next thing. Didnt he say he was going to release it in Dec of 2008 on his blog? And never did.

Re: PICS: First pics of DJ Hero turntable/controller

J.L. — Fri, 08 May 2009 13:52:21 -0000

HAHA this looks like complete junk!

Re: ? OF THE DAY: What are your top 3 favorite urban blogs?

J.L. — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:06:48 -0000

I want in on some taken action. ProHipHop for the business, RapRadar for the exclusives, Nah right for the music. And well you already know I hit up WoooHa on the daily.

Re: PICS: Adidas x Def Jam sneaker collab w/Jeezy, Meth, Ghostface, Redman

J.L. — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:42:31 -0000

I'm diggin both of the Method Man kicks.

Re: 50 Cent’s new video game with SHOCKINGLY low sales

J.L. — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:43:14 -0000

I bought the game for $15 on ebay. It is much better than the first game but overall it still is a lot of the same ol same ol

Re: PICS: A closer look at Jay-Z’s new Rocawear sneakers

J.L. — Tue, 12 May 2009 13:20:11 -0000

Am I the only one that thinks these are really really really ugly?

Re: Eminem in Judd Apatow movie “Funny People”

J.L. — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:39:39 -0000

It sounds like he is in the movie for all of about 30 seconds. But will probably get paid bank.

Re: VIDEO: Eminem’s banned “Relapse” TV ad

J.L. — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:40:06 -0000

No wonder its on Fear.net - it looks like a horror movie.

Re: WoooHa featured in AdAge Eminem article

J.L. — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:22:33 -0000

Good look. WoooHa always brings the heat. I have Em's album and its delivering. Beats are sick as always.

Re: VIDEO: RZA in “Funny People” TV ads

J.L. — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:27:52 -0000

I saw it too and thought it was a bit off beat but I will still check it out. RZA looks funny.

Re: Rick Ross wants to launch “Big & Tall” clothing line

J.L. — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:28:14 -0000

Luxury Tax = a big joke

Re: VIDEO: Young Buck really has money; shows off his bikes

J.L. — Sat, 23 May 2009 10:17:46 -0000

Young Buck is played and old. Who cares that he has his toys when no one will give him the time of day in the industry no more.

Re: VIDEO: The Cool Kids music used in Kobe vs. LeBron Nike ads

J.L. — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:41:38 -0000

So is this the NBAs way of saying they want Lebron vs Kobe in the finals?

Re: VIDEO: On set of 50 Cent’s new movie “Caught in the Crossfire”

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:31:05 -0000

If chris klein is your biggest star next to 50 then your movie has BIG problems.

Re: VIDEO: Jazmine Sullivan’s “Fabric of Cotton” commercial

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:31:49 -0000

This is a good look. Jazmine has been around for a bit now and getting her recognition.

Re: WORD ON THE STREET: Eminem back in movie biz

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 12:32:15 -0000

He is one note.

Re: Lil Jon’s wine wins International Wine & Spirits Award

J.L. — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:20:30 -0000

I tried it and I liked it. Didnt think it was no award winner but im not a self proclaimed wine expert

Re: Joven de senos excelsos

J.L. — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:26:16 -0000

Si no fueras tan rata y pusieras las imagenes con mejor resolucion se podria saber si están operadas, ¿crees que se puede hacer uno una pajilla en condiciones con ese tamaño de foto?

Re: The Wall Guestbook

J.L. — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:59:24 -0000

Love the new site SF

Re: Joke of the Day

J.L. — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:15:16 -0000

It rises your interest until the end A+. Echadorsito el niño!
JL

Re: ¿Quien es Domo-kun?

J.L. — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 18:30:44 -0000

UNA REALIDAD LATINOAMERICANA... QUE LOS VENEZOLANOS GRACIAS AL BUEN HUMOR
Y

HEMOS SUBLIMADO PARA CONVERTIRLA EN UN SIMBOLO DE NUESTRA IDENTIDAD... SALUDOS

Esto es parte de una entrevista a Laureano Márquez.

¿No está conforme con lo que está pasando en Venezuela ?

Al contrario, lo estoy. En los países desarrollados se sufre, aquí no.

Allá todo se lo toman con angustia, en serio, hasta las caricaturas.

En cambio, nuestras inconsistencias

e incoherencias son parte de nuestra identidad.

Aquí uno sale en la mañana de su casa

y no sabe si va a volver en la noche.

Allá un esposo le dice a su mujer: "See you tonight".

Aquí, en cambio, puesto que no sabemos si el hampa nos dejará volver,

Vemos a nuestra esposa con amor, antes de despedirnos de ella en la mañana Le decimos, con la vista clavada en sus ojos:

"Te Quiero, Mi Reina".

Aquí tenemos que ser creativos para sobrevivir.

Cuando llegan las 10 de la mañana un venezolano

ya ha mentado la madre 500 veces y eso te da adrenalina.

A uno le dan el pasaporte con errores y tu lo agradeces:

"Por lo menos me lo dieron".

Así que usted no sufre de estrés?

Para nada.

Estrés lo sufre un francés, que entra a su trabajo a las 8

de la mañana y se levanta faltando 7 minutos para las 8,

como no se bañan,

están en la parada a 5 para las 8 y un minuto después

Pasa puntualmente un autobús, que está pasando a la misma hora hace

por lo menos 200 años desde que habían carretas.

Entra a su oficina y la encuentra limpia, con los aires acondicionados

funcionando, con el comedor abierto,

con diferentes dietas para todos los gustos.

Si le pasa algo, lo llevan a un hospital que funciona.

Y cuando envejecen lo llevan a un geriátrico

instalado en un antiguo Monasterio Románico,

desde el cual se ven los atardeceres con sus 128 tonos de

anaranjados difusos en degradé, lo cual induce a un estado místico.

¿Y cómo mueren? Suicidándose.

Sufren un estrés que llaman positivo:

se estresan porque no tienen estrés.

Acabo de ver las estadísticas de Bélgica

y su primera causa de muerte es el suicidio.

"¡Belga!" dije yo cuando me enteré.

Aquí, en cambio -nadie se suicida-.

Claro, aquí nadie quiere perderse el final de esta vaina.

Como Pinky y Cerebro

"Nuestra creatividad nos hará dueños del mundo,

como Pinky y Cerebro",

Se solaza Laureano Márquez, avizorando ese día futuro en que nuestra

Proverbial viveza tome el mando

de todas las palancas del poder universal,

Tal como lo aspiran los famosos personajes de la comiquita.

"Tenemos todo a nuestro favor" analiza él.

"Para un inglés, un semáforo es algo simple.

El rojo significa stop y el verde go.

Ellos pueden ver que por la vía

contraria viene un tren a 380 kilómetros por hora,

pero si la luz está en verde, ellos pasan, confiados en que el tren se parará.

Ellos no ven el entorno, sólo ven la señal.

Allá nadie mira a nadie, aquí en Venezuela no.

Uno no ve la señal sino el entorno.

Aquí vemos directo a la cara del tipo que está tras el volante del carro

Al otro lado del semáforo en rojo, nos introducimos en las intenciones

de su alma y llegamos a la conclusión: Ese c... de m... se la va a comer.

Y entonces los dos nos comemos la luz.

Cuando un inglés dice que te verá a las 8 o´clock, es a las 8 en punto.

Aquí en este país no, aquí tenemos una puntualidad virtual.

Vamos a vernos a golpe de 9´,

dice uno y el otro ya sabe que eso incluye

un lapso entre las 8 y un minuto y las 9 y 59.

La puntualidad del inglés es algo de gente enferma.

Normales somos nosotros.

Tenemos que comprender esto para lograr grandes éxitos históricos.

Aquí somos desobedientes frente a la ley, somos contradictorios.

Pero todo esto existe en medio de un gran fervor por la vida.

Porque cuando la gente es feliz, como nosotros,

lo demás viene por Añadidura"

JL

Re: Plazafest 2006

J.L. — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 17:19:39 -0000

Chamo que te vaya bien, me gustaria ir a verte,con toda esa gente delante aplaudiendo. Que tipo de musica tocas??
JL

Re: Ya voté

J.L. — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:14:59 -0000

Me gusta tu dedito..tienes una cara de angel el la cedula que me parece muy familiar.

Re: Despues de la tormenta

J.L. — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 23:49:52 -0000

Que te pasa pajarito.. porque no tienes nada que decir?
JL

Re: Something to cry about.

J.L. — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 02:34:13 -0000

According to reports about Mr. Parlock, he should be investigated for child abuse. He takes his children to Democratic events to spread his political opinions. All the while he hides behind them. I don't believe his child Sophia was hurt at the event, she probably was scared. According to the press, he has done the same thing in the past with the same results. The press, even reports that people at the events believe the whole thing is staged. Which I believe too. American's in general are peaceful, however I wouldn't use a child at a Republican rally for political gain. That's disgusting. I feel deeply sorry for his children. They have an asshole for a father.

Re: Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 Released

J.L. — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 10:11:48 -0000

Supuestamente casi ninguna extension funciona, tendrias que usar las versiones (si se encuentrs) de las extensiones compatibles on los night-build.

pero si, esta muy bueno.

Re: Introducing A New Zen Master From The Poontang Clan!

J.L. — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:43:00 -0000

Re: Hackable Products Better For Planet

J.L. — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 13:11:34 -0000

My rhomba is now two years old and going strong. At one point it seemed to have a complete robo-breakdown and I ran all the debug routines recommended online. No help. Finally, in desperation I drenched the drive wheel bearings and guide bushings in WD-40 (operating on a hunch that dirt had caused a sensor over feedback). It worked! I do this now about once a month. And it continues to work perfectly. If you don't like WD 40 Windex will be almost as good but not last as long between lube jobs. JL

Re: Time To Grow, Cut and Use More Wood

J.L. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:57:23 -0000

Fine with me (obviously) if they put beetle-killed trees to good use. I'd love one of those cabins: to own or to visit.

However, the understanding I have of the proposal is to harvest living trees outside of infested acres as a means of curtailing the spread - which as I indicate in my post may pose serious unintended risks and may or may not be effective, as intended. More analysis by third party, unbiased experts is my bottom line.

Things I would object to in any case are: 1.) leveraging fear of climate catastrophe to promote logging; 2.) making scientifically and economically unsupported claims of carbon neutrality that would, hypothetically, result from such logging; 3.) positioning for NAFTA negotiations with the arguments of 1. & 2., above.

Re: Contest! Win a couple of great prizes!

J.L. — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:53:29 -0000

#2

Anna Paquin, Famke Janssen, Megan Fox.

Re: British Journalists Take On Skeptics, Liars and Incandescent Bulbs

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:09:29 -0000

Just in case the flicker comments are not meant in jest: ordinary 60-cycle current causes incandescent bulbs to flicker at a much slower rate than do CFL's. This AC flicker can be perceived more easily when there is a power brown out - just before the bulbs dim away. If you were sensitive to flicker than incandescents would be worse.

What you may actually be reacting to is color temperature, which is expressed on a scaled of degrees. Cheap fluroescents have a very low color temp. Those are the annoying ones: good only for closets and garages and basement work areas.

Look at the rack in your hardware store and you are likely to find "daylight true" CFLs now being offered. These are the types used in expensive clothing and butcher shops to make colors look supranatural.

Re: Did Darwin Invent Environmentalism? What Evolution and Green Revolution Share

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:21:46 -0000

Human cultural evolution is happening at a far faster pace than human biological change. Culture directs environmental impact.

Changing gears: how many of our readers have actually read Darwin's "Origin" cover to cover?

How many contemporary scientists have read it?

How many contemoprary biologists have?

Politicians passing laws on teaching creationism?.

I know I did read it; but I bet less than 1% of the people throwing themsleves into the modern debate over Darwins ideas have even read the first page.

Its as if there was no impact at all.

Re: Hunting & Fishing Regulations Have Serious Unintended Consequences on Animal Size

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:31:53 -0000

Pretty obvious outcome to anyone who has studied evolution or say wildlife biology.

Human sport hunters predate most heavily against the fittest animals in a population.

Conversely, wolves and such predate mostly the old, sick, and very young, generally promoting fitness and balance of both prey and predator.

Wildlife biologists have known about this since probably the early 1960's, and develop management plans accordingly. That's what a doe permit is all about, for example. That's also why hunting seasons are short in duration, and during periods when breeding and nursing of young are finished.

Commercial fishing and hunting are far less discriminatory, but are even more potent a force. Take examples as the crash of ocean fisheries and the rapid extirpation of wild American bison.

Once fishing becomes capital intensive and global in scale, with multiple economic interests involved, large scale population collapses are a certainty. I'd be much more concerned with badly managed sport fishing and also with poaching than with well managed sport hunting.

Re: Wind vs. Nuclear Energy: Wind Power Deemed Far More Dangerous

J.L. — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:39:11 -0000

The original article did NOT offer a side by side comparison of occupational injury and mortality rates, relative to construction, operation, salvage, and disposition of the two energy systems,

Did you see any occupation injury figures for construction and process erection workers at nuclear plants. I sure didn't. The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) states on their website that: "In 2006, our lost-time accident rate was 0.12 accidents per 200,000 worker hours."

http://www.nei.org/newsandevents/newsreleases/alexflint

This number is commonly referred to as an "LTA" rate and a per worker hour unit is the only objective means of making such a comparison. Further, to be fair in the comparison it must not only encompass the operating LTA's but also the LTA's during construction and during maintenance and demolition, which would NOT be included in the 0,12 number cited above. It would appear that the John Birch piece includes LTA type stats for construction and maintenance - not merely operation.

I am frankly surprised that only one other commenter noted that the propaganda hit piece cited in this post is from a "wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society." JBS is an extreme right wing organization. It is not a credible source of occupational health and safety information.

Re: Spend your Weatherization Money Wisely

J.L. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:15:39 -0000

Important caveat. On south facing walls, windows frequently become unseated and warped from expansion and contraction, sometimes so severely that only a replacement or complete reconstruction will suffice to produce a weather seal.

It is messy and time consuming to rebuild a window, adding a labor cost that does not exist with replacements. In reality this is what often gets a homeowner looking at window replacements. A whole-house job follows. It has happened to me twice.

Re: What Should We Do About the Car Industry?

J.L. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:44:11 -0000

I second Steaming Pile's recommendation and up the ante. No lawyers, MBA's, or Accountants allowed above the director level and certainly not in charge of R&D or marketing. Get the number crunchers out of the way (like Honda does) and let the good times roll.

Secondly, forget boosting gasoline tax or a creating mileage tax. Both are dead in the water politically. Instead, tax all new vehicular transactions on a curb weight basis, and leave the existing fleet alone. Then you'll see the HP/weight ratio for new vehicles skyrocket and operating efficiency climb.

Exemptions only for businesses and self employed tradesmen: so step vans and trucks remain affordable where they are really needed. The average person simply does not need one. And if you have a horse trailering or boating hobby and you can afford those big kid toys, you can afford the weight tax.

Re: Cleaning Up the Capitol: Reid and Pelosi Want to Power DC with 100% Natural Gas

J.L. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:53:48 -0000

Natural gas, CH4, is ,by weight, 1/3 hydrogen. Hydrogen plus oxygen = water. The carbon produces Co2 no doubt,

NOX formation in the gas fired turbine is a byproduct of high heat and nitrogen pulled in with the combustion air. NOX formation occurs in coal fired boilers as well, so that in a comparative analysis it is a wash.

Acid rain causing SOX however is a serious problem with coal combustion and a trivial one with gas combustion.

Gas combustion produces a trivial amount of particulate matter.

Gas combustion emits an order of magnitude less mercury than coal does.

Gas prices are falling. Coal prices will be going up as soon as a cap and trade mechanism is put in place (as it will and must be).

So there you go. No math needs be done.

Its the obvious choice to make.

Re: Trend Watch: New Skins on Old Icons

J.L. — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:14:02 -0000

When the hawk flies in Chicago, terlets on the top floors of the Un-Sears slosh back and forth to the point where sometimes there is splashover. This will force installs of waterless versions: hence a self-made green tower.

Re: Which Milk Container Has the Lowest Carbon Emissions?

J.L. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:23:28 -0000

When I grew up in WI (1950s) a time when all milk was sold in glass bottles, most large communities had their own dairy with bottling capability. Small clusters of communities had their own as well. Both delivery and return trip for bottle washing was relatively short, perhaps orders of magnitude shorter than todays distribution mechanisms and recycling programs allow for.

For washable glass bottles to work out on the transit end, small community dairies would have to be resurrected. Any other view is academic and that does not address states without their own dairy industry.

It was the same with breweries and soda bottlers by the way: WI had over 80 breweries when I was a kid. Probably only 4 or so now.

The scale of the needed re-transition to community bottling is huge.

We must learn to think beyond the abstraction of LCA transit distances in making these comparisons.

Re: The Transsexual Fish Mystery

J.L. — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:38:35 -0000

Rocky Horror Pisces Show

Re: Do CFLs Increase Greenhouse Gases? No.

J.L. — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:38:49 -0000

Always a risk to give the 'dim bulbs' of academia ready access to computers and calculators.

There remains this thing called "peer review." Doesn't seem right that a traditional academic function like that be acceded to blogging tree hugger types. (knife twisting around and around)

Let's hope the that the tenure committees of the absent minded university professors cited have an opportunity to read the work of this 'SOB blogger!'

Re: Organic vs Local? Who Cares. Neither is Sustainable.

J.L. — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:07:16 -0000

Forgot to figure globalism into the equation. Cancel Guatemalan grapes from the grocery list and forget about sustaining other cultures which have overshot their populations.

No need to worry about more rainforest clearing either if you drop global tradeoffs.

What WILL have to be sacrificed is sprawl and woodlots owned by the gentry on second homes. Land that was farmed in the 40's will have to revert to farm land again. College kids will pick veggies for a summer job instead of humping across Europe with a backpack.

Re: Would You Purchase a “Made in China” Electric Vehicle on Blue Light Special?

J.L. — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:01:34 -0000

A plausible argument can be made that three things excluded drastically more efficient autos from the US market place. (Smoking gun: the far more efficient models sold elsehwere.)

Factor one is US culture, which "demands" weighty, powerfully propelled, feature filled monsters for all their driving needs, even if that mainly boils down to a 30 mile trip to work and the grocery, and which excludes comfortable mass transit and hike/bike alternatives.

Factor two would be safety regulations which because of design choices made by marketing directors instead of engineers, have gone the route of mass=safety.

Factor three would be emphasis by stock and financial experts on "Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

The electric car holds the promise of cancelling factors one and three and transforming factor two into a new paradigm of safety vs design.

Re: Proposed Law Could Hit Farmers' Market Vendors with $1,000,000 Fines

J.L. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:30:05 -0000

Folks. If you are concerned about this proposed law, make yourself heard!

Contact your elected officials starting at the state level (especially if you have an ag economy of significance) and of course at the US Congress. Remember to hit on the old "what why when where how's" progression. And be polite. If you want to be taken seriously its best to skip the hyperbole.

Point out that the last thing needed in an economic recovery is a heavy handed discouragement of small businesses. Ask for an exemption or a voluntary inspection regime for example.

Re: Seattle's Streetcar: Modern, Efficient, Mass Transit (Video)

J.L. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:27:44 -0000

The trolley routes that were everywhere in US cities during the 1920's and up through the 1950's in some places, were torn out one block at a time. Like sidewalks they will come back one block at a time.

Re: Broadband in America - Fat Pipes for Old Glory a Questionable Green Plan

J.L. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:23:45 -0000

There are a few good reasons to do this.

One is to support "micro-farming" techniques where the tractor actually has a wireless link with satellite feedback loops controlling seed application and fertilizer application rates in relation to soil moisture and plant health signature date. This is not a dream...it is already fairly common and being improved. The result is a much greater cost effectiveness in resource applications. Banks even use the data to justify loans!

There are many similar applications that would help justify it, such as surveying, enviornmental auditing, and water resources management.

Re: ETech 2009: New Materials for Sustainable Products

J.L. — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:03:22 -0000

Irony - if all dairy farmers used it, there would be no competitive advantage, which is the same if no one used it.

When this has happened in the past it sometimes had something to do with government stockpiles for lunch programs being full up. Another factor is when sales of processed foods fall or when dairy exports crash. This time I bet export loss is the major aspect.

Re: Cars Are Taking Over the World, Inch By Inch

J.L. — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 12:28:55 -0000

I thought those were bike racks at first glance!

Re: Is the IPCC Assessment on Global Climate Change Wrong?

J.L. — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:41:22 -0000

Great analysis, yes.

I think you are being quite conservative though. You had to assume a steady state, instantaneous conditions for your analysis.

In reality, of course, C02 has dynamic flux rates in both directions. Bad news is that the relatively high up-take we formerly assumed for native forests, grasslands, and the ocean are shrinking due to multiple stresses on them, some not really climate related.

The analysis overlooks ocean acidification which by all indications is a much earlier hit than catastrophic climate change.

Re: The Days of Oil are Far From Over, Says Saudi Arabia

J.L. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:19:51 -0000

I remember once reading that in SA, there was an inverse correlation between personal wealth and level of education. They can't keep all the people stupid all the time!

Re: Alice Waters Doesn't Have a Microwave - Should You Ditch Yours?

J.L. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:15:47 -0000

MIcrowave use is the single greatest enabler of processed food. Consequently it is the single greatest enabler of packaging waste - especially single serve packaging.

When asked by pollsters what a home microwave is used for, people will give the answer that makes them look virtuous "I use mainly to re-heat my home made beef stew made with grandmas organic heirloom tomatos."

Baloney.

Re: Shell Gets Out of Wind & Solar Power, Backs Biofuels and CCS Instead

J.L. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 14:24:52 -0000

It's outside their core competency. They can't figure out how to get a comparable rate of return.

This is a classic outcome when transformational technologies begin to scale up. Very seldom does a business being displaced figure out how to innovate in the new space.

Re: Will Scion Sell the Toyota iQ Urban Micro-Car in the US?

J.L. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 19:16:57 -0000

I have a Scion Xa in same color. In fact. this micro much resembles a photo-shop shrunk version of an Xa Scion.

The Scion is way over-powered and as a result gets relatively bad mileage: 26 on the highway, and 20 is average. Of course, my kids lovethe SCion specificallyy because it flies, which means mileage even worse when they use it.

I'd have been happy with literally half the horsepower.

Another example of design decadence for the US market.

All makers use same rationale to make cars overpowered as was used to make SUVs huge: "consumers want them". I'm convinced that car reviewer in magazines and papers accelerated this decadent market requirement. Throw those bums out and let the people decide for themselves what they want.

Re: The Obama Cap and Trade Debate Rages On

J.L. — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:24:01 -0000

"Black Coal" Democrats

Re: Are Greener Big Companies Beating the Recession?

J.L. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:42:44 -0000

Apple's high reputation for quality also has something to do with it. People want quality long lasting products period.

Re: Out, Monsanto! No GMOs in National Wildlife Refuge, Says Federal Judge

J.L. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:39:10 -0000

First question ought to be: "Why are any crops being grown commercially on wildlife refuges?"

Not a problem if the purpose is to provide food for waterfowl so as to decoy them away from private farms where they do damage. Somehow this smells like a different animal.

Re: US Turtles Being Unsustainably Harvested for Asian Cuisine

J.L. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:36:20 -0000

They ate all of their own to extinction. Now they want ours. NOT

Re: Cyclists and Pedestrians Were Jerks In 1908 Too

J.L. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:54:33 -0000

Given the constant camera interaction of the darting fools, one wonders if perhaps there was advance notice of the filming and whether so many were looking for their ten seconds of fame?

Re: Amateur Climate Change Deniers Still Rampant in Congressional Hearings

J.L. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:41:06 -0000

Smells like Eue'de Inhoff

Re: Yet Another Salmonella Scare: 1 Million Pounds of Pistachios Recalled

J.L. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:12:06 -0000

The causation chain has to be followed back further. Pistacios are not grown at ground level.

So the operant question is:- "How did salmonella organisms get on raw pistacios?"

Bird turds on a few nuts could have contributed.

But rodents in the orchard or in the distribution warehousing seem a more likely vector.

Floodwaters or leaky roof-tops, espcially if pigeons present on the roof, could be a source.

Contaminated rinse tanks in a packing house could also be a vector.

Re: Rash of Infiltrated Computer Systems Prods Question: How Safe is Smart Grid?

J.L. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:11:17 -0000

They are going to follow a Microsoft protocol for computer sercurity? Talk about the goats sent to protect the cabbage patch. Baaaaaaa. Now I'm really worried.

Re: Monsanto "Seedless" Corn Sold To South African Farmers

J.L. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:21:08 -0000

db.

We have no way of knowing what portion of the 2008 harvest was of Monsanto seeded crop. Nor do we know the GM seeded portion of SA's corn crop increased, or decreased, from 2007 to 2008. Therefore, a correlation of of the "seedless" variety harvest losses with the national chart is not possible.

My point in including the chart was two-fold. One was to illustrate that cumulative national yield varies greatly from year to year, regardless of what seed types are used. (In any country, for any grain, really.)

The second reason, which I thought I had spelled out fairly clearly under the analysis section of the post, was to portray the risk management dimension. Based on the evidence presented in the cited source, seed selection could have had an impact on national yield food supply: specifically, if most of the seed sold in SA had been of the cited types, the impact of the seedlessness incident could have been much more serious.

Diversity brings stability. That is the point

Re: Artist's Forest Disappears

J.L. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:18:33 -0000

In "plain American" language: the owner clear cut the woodlot for the cash and is forced by law to replant with trees that will be even more economically useful.

Re: Conservation Groups Fight to Get Northern Rocky Mountain Wolves Back on the Endangered Species List

J.L. — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:14:37 -0000

Are not damages paid when wolves kill free-roaming stock? (And have they thought we would not notice that those cattle roam to great extent on public land?)

Maybe it's just that cattlemen/women are scaredy cats - afraid of wolves.

Re: Greenpeace Anti-Nuke "Anti-radiation Pill" Campaign Backfires

J.L. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:27:17 -0000

Fear mongering always vulnerable to blow back. At some point such tactics from the left resemble those from the other political end of the spectrum, denying any and all risks of nuclear power.

Re: Converting Sewage Treatment Plants Into Playgrounds

J.L. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:01:29 -0000

These are sludge digesters, not "treatment plant" tech per se. The main settling and aeration tanks for sewerage treatment are generally open topped and would smell awful and present a health hazard to the public. These digester tanks must be isolated physically from the actual sh** works.

Re: TreeHugger Becomes Ford Fiesta Agent

J.L. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:59:05 -0000

Profit margins on the truck-framed SUV's and megatrucks were huge compared to the margins on reasonably efficient cars. Americans happily spent 30 to 50K each for these cheaply made clunkers while criticizing Prius owners for spending a few thousand more than what a comparably-sized ICE-only car cost - and failed to see the irony of their attitude. In other words, blaming the car companies only is a mistake. American car culture is bankrupt. Change will come slowly.

Re: Okay, We Know You Love Polar Bears, But Please NEVER DO WHAT THIS WOMAN DID

J.L. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:30:12 -0000

Darwin Award nominee for sure.

Re: How Overfishing Almost Got Capt. Phillips Killed by Pirates

J.L. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:27:16 -0000

Who supplies subsistence "fishermen" automatic weapons I wonder? Ammunition over US$1.00/round? There is plenty of blame to spread for the arms trade in the Horn of Africa: http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/594793

In the US we romanticize our "Wild West" area, which lasted several decades as well. John Wayne the icon of law and order; the numerous black-hatted bad guys and the outlaw Jesse James, a Robin Hood figure who robbed trains and banks of gold , were rowdy guys all. These are viewed as essential parts of our national character. Why denigrate a r country that suffers from lack of governance? Somehow I doubt they are all bad buys in Somalia.

Re: Survey: Do We Run Too Many Surveys?

J.L. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:16:14 -0000

TH is a blog, not a newspaper or peer reviewed journal.. Standards are good, yes. But process of deciding which journalism standards apply to bloggers and which to journalists only and which to both is evolving.

With the demise of newspapers of record, I imagine this subject will be revisited many times.

Re: Jargon Watch: Is "Sustainable" Over?

J.L. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 16:01:42 -0000

Looks like another lackluster blockbuster tea party to me.

Re: “Cool Globes” traveling exhibit arrives on Earth Day

J.L. — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:51:07 -0000

Many of those developing nation boom cities are coastal: subject to climate change induced flooding; completely lacking in basic sewerage treatment; dependent on global trade driven industrial jobs; and fed on food grown elsewhere.

Good luck with that.

Re: Americans Still Getting Water in Wooden Pipes

J.L. — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:50:30 -0000

Wooden pipes last much longer for sewers because they are not under pressure and completely anaerobic (so rotting is curtailed)

FYI modern water pipes are composites: often cast iron with polymeric coatings for the mains. Even the feeder tubes that go from street to homes are composite plastic layers with fiber reinforcement. Copper way too expensive and energy intensive.

In drought affected cities like Atlanta GA, there is little point in installing water conserving appliances and shower heads when water supply pipes are leaking like sieves. Its like hand baling a sinking ship with a tiny cup. Businesses operating in stressed watershed areas (like Atlanta, or Phoenix, or San Diego) are beginning to realize that water is a growth limiting and hence a business opportunity limiting issue. Agribusiness included. Water intensive businesses are also seeing that by supporting the stimulus package their own futures can become more sustainable.

Re: Rush Limbaugh Celebrates Earth Day – By Saluting Coal and Overconsumption

J.L. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:15:35 -0000

Updating the 60's phrase "That's a rush, man!"

Re: Can The Environmental Divide Be Healed? Whatever Happened to Civil Discourse?

J.L. — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:42:35 -0000

Nixon decided to support the nation's major environmental efforts and sign the clean water act, clean air act, etc after he saw the poll results around Earth Day. WIthout those results he'd never had gone there.

So, not only do we need leadership in the Executive Branch, we need the Peoples House to get the message from the people - so that extremist propaganda takes a back seat to risk management.

Let your representatives know what you want from them. It is the only path forward.

Re: Aquatic Energy to Open Demo-Scale Algae Biofuel Facility in Louisiana

J.L. — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:52:17 -0000

Seriously, a design and an business model like this are unnecessary. All on one needs to to do is collect the discharge water from eutropic lakes (of which there are thousands), and collect the massive algae blooms of summer with micro-screen filtration devices. Water pollution is the fertilizer, nature is the reactor vessel and downstream waters will be the beneficiaries.

Re: European Union to Ban Goods that aren't Energy Efficient

J.L. — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:36:49 -0000

Hate to sound cocky, but… well… called it :)

I should have made a bet with someone, but i can take no credit – the writing was on the wall…

This is the beginning of a crucially important – but inevitably rife – shift to eco-protectionism…

…its going to tick off foreign manufacturers (especially in the developing world), and rightly so. But it’s going to happen regardless, so let’s hope they can leapfrog.

…the next rational step will be banning ‘unsustainable’ goods and even unsustainable produce… the question is who will define sustainable, why, and how…

…this is why i think a global life-cycle assessment initiative tied to something like the (floundering) WTO would be a rather good idea.

Here’s to hoping!

Re: Who Purchases the Most Green Power in the US? Top 50 Buyers Revealed

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:55:28 -0000

To Monthy. This is not an offset purchase rank. It means they actually purchased low carbon sourced electricity to run their operations and (to the extent those operations are US-based) made their products with it. CAVEAT: if a supply chain is mainly in Asia and Mexico, as it would be for consumer electronics, for instance, then it would be only the final assembly steps and corporate offices plus distribution operations that consume the green juice. One has to think of the entire supply chain to evaluate this.

Re: Plastic Bags to Contain 40 Percent Recycled Content by 2015?

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:48:15 -0000

The only feasible means of making a new plastic film product from reclaimed polymer that has been in food contact would be through the energy intensive process of breaking used plastic down into a monomer and re-polymerizing it, blending with "virgin" monomer as needed to meet demand.

There is no reason that the starting point for the backward conversion of waste plastic to monomer has to be "used plastic bags," as any comparable polymer could be reclaimed and processed into film for bag making. In other words they could make bags from milk bottles or any other "white" polyethylene.

Thus, the argument being posited looks more like advocacy politics than science.

Re: Using Face Masks Properly To Help Avoid Most Kinds Of Yucky Airborne Things

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:37:58 -0000

Facial hair must be removed for masks to effectively screen inhaled air.

Persons with very wrinkled skin may not benefit as much as they think either.

Re: Geoengineering to the Rescue! Climate Change Deniers' Latest Foot-Dragging Tactic

J.L. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:46:37 -0000

As has so often been the case on these pages, this debate is more about ethics and less about science.

The listed Tink Tanks are doing exactly what you'd expect of them, given their historic motives and ideological bent.

There is no objective reason why prevention and treatment of symptoms can not be done in parallel.

If the motive for considering geo-engineering techniques is to have all emergency response preparedness options available, we can have a practical discussion on the merits. If emission reduction and geo-engineering are considered in parallel, the debate is taken out of the good guys versus bad guys context and we can stop the finger pointing based on ethics.

The think tanks have once again succeeded in putting the green movement in a reactive position. The only way to retake the lead is to stop looking at everything in a them versus us context, and stop being drawn into the debate on their terms.

Alex Steffan's thinking as displayed in that quote is linear and does not (apparently) leave any room for critical path management.

Geoengineering techniques may allow for Patient Earth to be stabilized in the same manner that a human patient is in the ER.

Re: Do Bicycle Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good?

J.L. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:24:39 -0000

There is a possibility that helmet law creation and biking frequency are independently correlated with perceptions of bicycling hazard: e.g. law makers mandated helmets in response to a hazard that coincidentally, and in the same time frame, caused people to bicycle less.

Re: Carbon Labeling Toilet Paper: Who Does it Help?

J.L. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:01:47 -0000

I think Mr.Hickman misses the point entirely. Such calculations are useful in the same manner as comparing Brand X to Brand Y in terms of average cost/sheet: to help with comparison shopping.

Those carbon/unit comparisons would be valid if and only if the enumeration methods were independently validated by a third party. But lets assume they were and therefore consumers can decide between cost and carbon as to what motivates them. If there were multiple brands, a consumer could boil it down to the two cheapest and then choose the one with the lowest footprint.

The cheapest brand ought also to be the one with the lowest fooprint, assumming that externalities were pulled into the equation by a carbon tax, for example.

This is pretty straight up stuff. Surprised it was overlooked by the Guardian's editor.

Re: Clean Water Appears Out of Thin Air with EcoloBlue

J.L. — Fri, 01 May 2009 23:39:12 -0000

A dehumidifier with a water filtration unit built in. This is about as energy intensive a way to get water as I can imagine.

I have a bridge that customers of this device may wish to purchase.

Re: George Will Disses the Prius, Obama and the Facts

J.L. — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:02:26 -0000

Really, you have to wonder who is passing the talking points on to George Will,and why he isn't at least a little more skeptical when writing about them?

As well, if it sells papers who cares?

Re: Inhofe Joins Gore: Another Sign of the Apocalypse?

J.L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:27:17 -0000

Because if he can show that developing nations that issue soot from home cooking fires can be a major contributor to climate change (reversing albedo effect on the poles); then he can argue that Cap & Trade is pointless. Its a typical manipulation,

Re: No Longer Endangered, Gray Wolves to be Hunted by the Hundreds

J.L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 22:19:45 -0000

Brett...I have bad news; only persons owning a pickup will be issued a permit. Wolves in sheeps clothing. :)

Re: Russian Nuclear Power Station Takes an Axe to Santa's Workshop

J.L. — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:41:57 -0000

Twenty years from now: "Who could have imagined that something like that would go wrong?"

Re: Hilarious Old Timey Country Ringtone Sings Praises of Coal

J.L. — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:58:17 -0000

I loves me that Ol' Timey music; but, honestly, that was more like Earl Scruggs meets Sons of the Pioneers on Wall Street. Betting this will be a knee slapper for any actual hill folk that have it brought to their attention.

By jove it's Fox News on Fox Fire!

Re: Bay Area Towns Reconsider Support for High-Speed Rail

J.L. — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:11:17 -0000

THOM. France is roughly the size of Texas and produces far far less energy with nuclear power than does the US currently. What is to emulate?

Re: Did Obama Forget to Trash His Green Stimulus Bill?

J.L. — Mon, 11 May 2009 23:13:50 -0000

Wet trash does not burn on its own. Huge amounts of natural gas must be consumed to keep the fire going, and the carbon footprint is immense.

Landfills emit methane it is true, but no methane need be added to operate them!

From a pure effiiency standpoint, it is better to burn nat gas and make electricity directly.

Re: Algae Biofuel Pioneer GreenFuel Technology Closes Down

J.L. — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:03:29 -0000

This was sadly predicable.

Monoculture leads to instability. Make the lawn perfect and birds and insects die. Same thing here.

Much easier to microfilter algae blooms from eutrophic natural waters and use the resulting biomass as an input to derive fuel or energy from a patented process.

Re: Bush's Enviro Team Returns to DC to Once Again Fight Climate Progress

J.L. — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:48:29 -0000

mark...Done to win the votes of alienated, uneducated, resentful, superstitious people: and it worked for two decades.

Re: Greener by Design 2009: Joel Makower and The New Normal (Video)

J.L. — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:52:13 -0000

Think about it.

'Sustainability VP laid off.' The irony "right-sizing" someone with that title would not be lost, even on the HR department.

To get the puck past the goalie, first the title will have to changed to something like 'green business innovator.' Toast on both sides for a year or so and then gone with the wind he/she will be.

Re: Energy Secretary Chu Says Emission Reduction Targets Politically Hindered... So, Let's Allow More Coal Plants!

J.L. — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:22:34 -0000

A fair compromise is easily within reach: mandate that any greenfield (not expansions but totally new coal fired plants) facilities built must have a process train which includes the piping, pads and hookups in place and proximity to an injection site for C02 that will be captured later (when the tip is hit). This will add some cost and convince banks and investors and board members that they can not pull a fast one and grandfather their way out of future responsibilities. JL

Re: What's The Most Dangerous Room in the House?

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:49:42 -0000

Slips and falls are the most prevalent causes of household injury: most commonly on the stairs. The absolute most dangerous practice there is is to store: things on the stair case, even temporarily. Just don't do it...ever. Not shoes, not a purse, not a letter.

Re: Calling All Americans: We Need to Recycle More Glass

J.L. — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:32:46 -0000

Yes glass melts in the range of 2600-2900 °F (1425-1600 °C). At which point any paper and plastic bits are turned into water and C02 - whatever of them are left after a cullet washing (which happens anyway).

Something is not making sense. Perhaps the problem really is that glass makers wish to keep clear glass separate from colored glass so they can meet product color specs. If that is the case, then the critique of single stream recycling is bogus.

Re: "Hope you're f%#&@% proud of yourselves."

J.L. — Fri, 29 May 2009 15:40:01 -0000

No prouder than farmers who intentionally misuse pesticides to poison lions and cheetahs in East Africe (a known problem),

No prouder than the working poor who cut trees and poach in nature reserves.

No prouder than the gun runnrers who sell AK-47s and ammo to rebels hiding in nature reserves, who then use the weapons to poach meat and sell ivory and organs to Asian traders.

No prouder that loggers who illegally clear cut in African reserves to seel the wood to Asians.

No prouder than the Chinese "traditional" medicine dispensers who keep the poaching market going.

And so on.

Re: Mechanical Animals to Terminate Poaching

J.L. — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:32:20 -0000

Several things drive poaching:. The local forces are deterred with these robo-game creatures

Hungry, jobless rural folk wanting something to eat.

People with nothing else to do (teens shining deer).

Competition for the biggest baddest trophy animal (typically a local person who bags it early, puts it in the freezer, and pulls it out when season opens.

However, high paying, global markets make it tempting to just keep on doing it after paying a few hundred bucks. Examples:

Trade in rare animal parts and skins (often sold to the very wealthy)

So-called "wild game" restaurants in big cities that claim to use only ranch-raised game.

Re: Jargon Watch: Committed Warming

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:38:25 -0000

Energy Collective has mixed up their science and their metaphors.

Committed warming is real; but reefs and other marine organisms are more immediately subject to ocean acidification, a parallel but entirely different issue than warming per se.

A more precise and metaphorically powerful term for both is to refer to it as "The Carbon Bomb" It's already been detonated and the schrapnel is penetrating marine ecosystems with deadly effect.

Re: Jeffrey Sachs Tells TreeHugger: Forget Carbon Caps: We Need Clean Coal and Nuclear (Video)

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:19:12 -0000

Important point JS overlooks.

Uranium extraction and manufacture of nuclear power plants are extremely energy intensive - some experts argue that on a net basis nuclear is not carbon neutral.

Why does the utility and coal production industry need government to do all of it's "Clean coal" R&D for them? To create waste management schemes at taxpayer expense? No other industries require it. (Superfund long term cleanups are done to rectify past mistakes not to plan for the future.)

Let these two sectors put their money where their mouth is, and stop acting like they need an industrial welfare state to survive. Let government coordinate the R&D work but make industry have some buy in up front. Only then should they expect the critics to quiet down.

His outlook also strikes me a politically very naive. US Voters and Congress can only handle one or two Big energy or climate related issues at once (the limitations of attention span and budget). Polls show environment and energy no longer so high on the public's list of priorities.

So, get a cap & trade framework in place, make lasting incentives for renewable power, and if that is insufficient, then ask for billions more for nuclear subsidies (again).

Re: The Best Protection Against Global Warming is Better Hurricane Insurance, says CEI

J.L. — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 11:16:39 -0000

Did they really say 'caused by lack of proper enforcement of zoning codes?'

WHOA. I thought CEI was for free enterprise, meaning less government interference with property rights through socialistically inspired local zoning codes.

Just goes to show that Treehugger values are corrupting even the staunchest of true patriots.

Re: Retooling the Auto Industry for a Smaller (Yet Profitable) Future

J.L. — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:53:20 -0000

Excellent post.

One other factor that deserves to be brought into the discussion is cumulative manufacturing capacity. The global auto industry has traditionally been operating at way above capacity: e.g. if customers would buy them, the set of all car factories could churn out maybe 20 or 40% more cars each year without any company retooling.

Switching to a "common platform" lets companies switch between models depending on the whims of consumers without having to keep excess inventories of parts not in demand,and to continue to play the game of stealing market share from each other with minimal impact.

The market share game maker for the last decade or so has been power increasing. Each year the makers added more horsepower hoping to get customers to leave the competitor's show room and come to their to get a car that was even more dangerously and wastefully overpowered than last year's model. This has to stop. How to stop it I have no idea.

Re: Is Energy Saving Weatherization Being Wasted in Florida?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:59:39 -0000

This is not just about politics: it is the natural outgrowth of the engineering mindset.

Re: Gas Prices Have Risen 41 Days in a Row: Is It Good for the Environment?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:34:40 -0000

Conspiracy theory, gasoline version:

Democrats are in power, jack it up so we can get a turnaround next election.

Re: What?!? Green Coalition Calls For Forests to Be Left Out of Carbon Offset Programs

J.L. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:29:06 -0000

This "consensus" policy recommendation is simply an ethical position based on a belief system that the 'historical polluter must pay' - a position intended for fixed industries, not for mobile pollution sources nor individual citizens.

Other, more broadly constructive responses by developed nations and industries certainly are as plausible, or even more plausible, than the one pre-supposed by these organizations.

I'm tired of NGO's acting like they are entitled to shape the strategies for multinational agreements between sovereign governments.

Let democratically elected leaders and their agenct appointees have the bargaining chips they need and let enforcement agencies define and exact the necessary penance to change behavior.

Re: EPA to Regulate Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining More Stringently

J.L. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:13:35 -0000

It probably took a few months to smoke out the Bush/Cheney "embeds" and get them out of the way.

Now we're having some good fun!

Re: Greenpeace Frowning at HP, Lenovo and Dell in Latest Electronics Guide

J.L. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:59:39 -0000

I sure it makes a huge difference to "the environment" if a PC has a quarter of gram of vinyl coating on some wires, given that the plumbing, gutters, and siding on mosts new building have 100's or even 1000's of pounds of vinyl that is unrecyclable.

GP has not a clue about setting risk management priorities. Their "eliminating vinyl" crusade is what now, 2 decades old? And exactly how much progress have they made? Last I check global vinyl sales are increasing yearly.

This is silliness.

Re: HP Tops Its Own Woeful Packaging Record

J.L. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:45:26 -0000

Anyone who has worked as a warehouse item picker or talked to one can see how this would be the norm. Supplemental parts arrive from a subcontractor, out of phase with the main product shipments and are stocked individually, not knowing how many each future customer will need. They must be boxed for storage and so it goes. Purely a matter of logistical practicalities.

Why is this even a mystery?

What solutions would you propose.

Re: Sen. Inhofe to Congress: Oil and Gas Don't Pollute (VIDEO)

J.L. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:41:12 -0000

Easily explained. He has taken note of how much media attention Sarah P gets with her run-0on sentences and insensible ideas: he stands in imitation of the master.

Re: "Wind Turbine Syndrome" Allegedly Causes Heart Disease and Panic Attacks

J.L. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:52:40 -0000

One of anecdotes contained in the news coverage cited indicates the study included person(s) living around a fifth of a mile (1,200 feet) " from a wind farm." Of course a wind farm may be dispersed over square miles and we are not told if that was from the nearest turbine, from the property line, or from a central point.

While I would agree with anyone who asserts that permanent residential structures should not be located closer than 2,000 from an operating, commercial scale turbine (just on to err on the side of comfort) I would also like to know whether any of the complainants neighbors had health complaints as well so as not to pre-select only for hypocondriacs. It would also be important to know whether uncomplaining neighbors receive a stipend or lease payment because of their proximity and whether the complainants did not!

Re: Republicans Begin Campaign to Dismantle Super Popular 'Cash for Clunkers'

J.L. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:25:02 -0000

As a political strategy, the opposition may be about preventing the opposition party from having a success that can be cited during the next election.

Re: 98% of Scientists' Clean Energy Research Proposals Rejected by Obama Admin

J.L. — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:40:44 -0000

Criteria for acceptance of grant proposals surely include much more than size of organization and financial condition (although those reasonably should matter). Other typical criteria are proof of citizenship; demonstration of insurance, technical and personal references, educational background of vested partners, liquidity of financial backers, indebtedness, past performance with government contracts, potential conflicts of interest, ownership of patent rights, and many more.

Lets not assume its all about money and politics.

Re: Should I Dump My Old Sigg That Was Made With BPA?

J.L. — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:20:13 -0000

Re-read the post before you abandon or recycle or toss any SIGG or even think about finding a lawyer. Lloyd points out quite specifically that no BPA was measured leaching out of any SIGG bottle, (based on the data presented). In other words, there was and is no personal risk.

Almost counts in a game of horsehoes, but not in toxicity.

Re: How Long Will Tomorrow's Automotive Lithium Batteries Last?

J.L. — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:44:17 -0000

LT, the last two batteries I bought online did not work properly (one after the other). The OEM replacement I finally got was US$140, plus shipping.

My service provider offered a new phone if I extended contract for $20.

Similar things have happened to me previously. Exact serial number matching with batteries is also an issue. My point stands.

Re: Ex-Enron Speechwriter Starts New Anti-Climate Action Group

J.L. — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:22:45 -0000

These very 'un-merry' Pranksters await their acid test. Wish I could be spider on the bus window for few minutes just to sample the ambiance.

Re: World's Largest Companies Need to Double Pace of CO2 Reductions to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change

J.L. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:15:29 -0000

Probably half the companies listed on the stock exchange have not been in existence for 50 years and in another 50 years most of those mentioned in this work will not exist.

Re: Improving Efficiency at Washington's Hydropower Projects Could Boost Output 3x More Than Building New Dams

J.L. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 19:34:58 -0000

All the hydro facilities built before 1950 could get efficiency boosts like this: and guess what? All are controlled by the government. JL

Re: Stephen Fowler: Environmentalist Behaving Badly

J.L. — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:38:32 -0000

Even if he really felt that way about the host family, by mouthing off on camera, he has made enemies for numerous others who know better than to proselytize others in an attempt to make the world a better place.

Rush Limbaugh now has enough anti-green grist for several shows. Jeez.

Re: Crop Failure Drives 1,500 Indian Farmers to Suicide

J.L. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:45:54 -0000

Wonder if the inventor of the Green Revolution (N.Borlog) has any extra money for them?

Re: The Onion on the Global Rotation Crisis

J.L. — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 06:35:28 -0000

Why are not the big trees all falling down?

Wait...you mean it's not flat like I thought?

Re: Seth Godin: "Global Warming" is Badly Marketed

J.L. — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 12:37:00 -0000

Let's revisit this conversation about mid-way through the comming hurricane season. Right after the "God is doing this because you are sinners" cult makes their prouncement. The door to public consciousness will remain open a small crack for maybe a few weeks. We've got til then to find a better monicker.

Re: Crazy Solar Shield Not 100% Crazy

J.L. — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 10:48:58 -0000

None of these proponent's appear to have a background in biology or medicine. Ponder if you will prospective inpacts on photosythesis, human biorithyms, spawning and migratory cycle re-boots, vitamin D synthesis, and lots more. This is a a ghost shirt mentality that will do more harm than good.

Re: New York Times on Real Estate: Not the Green Issue

J.L. — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 08:50:47 -0000

Pipe fitters union will love the black iron plumbing. The switch to lapboard shielding from pressed board, however, brings hidden trade offs, such as increased site labor costs and far greater wastage of lumber to sawdust per area shielded. We would need to know that the sawdust is either put in someone else's ply board or perhaps fermented into ethanol, for example, before it can be declared "better" to revert to this old technique.

Re: Toxic Metals Test: Kyeann Unleaded?

J.L. — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 12:37:05 -0000

Be cautious about chelation therapy. There may be counter-indications for some individuals. Several adverse incidents recently were reported as potentially attributed to one of the chelating agents. (Please do not ask for brand names or detailed anecdotal information Lawyers will be watching). Common sense recommendation: have your doctor look at the literature and go over the pluses and minuses.

Re: EEStor Capacitors- \"This could change everything\"

J.L. — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:59:07 -0000

With a capacitor, unlike a battery , no chemical reaction is needed to free electrons for completion of a circuit. Both store electricty in a way of speaking, but capacitors function somewhat like what happens when you slide across the car seat on a cold dry day and touch a "ground". Your body and clothing are a capacitor of sorts!

Barium and titanium are not noted for high toxicity and also are reasonably abundant. If cost is low enough, this design could y disrupt the alkaline battery industry and change many appliance and device designs.

As fast as a capacitor can charge it can also discharge. There is a risk, therefore, of short circuiting, or of "shock", which requires some design protection appropriate to the use.

Critical thinkers will ponder the connection between disposable or short design life electronics technology (toys for example) and an electicity storage device with near infinite life. For short lived devices,the carbon based capacitor may make more sense, depending on price. Better still, increase the design life of the toy and make the capacitor easy to dissassemble and re-use elsewhere.

Re: Finally Something To Do With All That Styrofoam?

J.L. — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 06:55:01 -0000

There is more than just styrene polymer in the end use product. Catalysts, reaction promoters, and processing aids. Anyone ever wonder what the bubbles come from that make it foam? Formerly was a hydrofluorocarbon, but there is a change to pentane blends, C02, or other volatiles.

Re: Fuel Cells for Laptops: The Wait is (Almost) Over

J.L. — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 18:03:07 -0000

The MeOH vs EtOH question continuously comes up so I'll try to address it in an abbreviated fashion. Ratio of hydrogen to carbon moles for MeOH is 4 to 1. For EtOH the ratio is 3 to 1. Methanol has one-third more hydrogens per mole of fuel molecule. Unlike a combustion generator, a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) like this one pulls its electrons directly out of the hydrogen: albeit one third more efficiently with MeOH than with EtOH. Please pass along to your friends.

Re: New Organic Sugar for Domino

J.L. — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 22:12:35 -0000

I was not aware that sugarcane was treated with pesticides. Perhaps the only difference would be whether mineral fertilizers were used. Seems rather a stretch.

Re: Alaska's North Slope: Biggest Oil Spill Yet

J.L. — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 14:44:38 -0000

Five questions:

Why does Congress want ANWR drilling so much? One seeminly plausible explanation is that the fields already served by the Prudhoe Bay pipline are "at Peak". If production in those old fields slows down soon or is interrupted, the pumps in the piplien won't be able to keep an even flow, leading to pressure swings and possible freeze ups. The added ANWR production will be needed to keep the PB system working and be able to deliver previously projected reserves. Because the State of Alaska gets most of its revenues from this oil (unlike the rest of us who pay income and property taxes to our states), this possible explanation indicates a positive feedback loop stuck in full open position.

Re: Philips Smokeless Stove Uses 80% Less Fuel, Saves Lives

J.L. — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 18:37:09 -0000

A similar problem exists in China. People use coal in small poorly designed stoves. Sometimes the gap between the wall top and roof eave serves as the vent flue, which results in continuous exposure of the inhabitants to sulferous oxides,ash, and PAH's. Worse, Chinese coal tends to have very high levels of mercury lead arsenic and flouride, so much so in some regions that food flouride poisioning is a serious public health issue.

Benjamin Franklin was inspired to develop his "Franklin Stove" though his experiences with terrible fire place designs. He wrote humorously about how he could tell how bad a person's fire place was made by the extent to which he/she smelled like a Virginia Ham. There are several reasons why the avearge life span of North Americans increased steadily from the Civil War on: one of these reasons was the improvments made to cooking and heating system designs!

Re: Turn Off The Lights America

J.L. — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 16:34:20 -0000

Under the category of better things to do with coal power: the technology which we should have long ago implemented to adequately control mercury and sulfer dioxide emissions from existing coal combustion plants would "parasitize" 10 to 25% of existing production capacity. This is a trade off I would gladly make on behalf of human health and a non-contaminated fishery.

Re: CNN: We Were Warned - Tomorrow's Oil Crisis

J.L. — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 14:22:36 -0000

Under the category of "unintended consequences" a public awareness of peak oil will take some of the pressure off politicians to do stupid things like de-regulate air emissions from refineries on the knee jerk theory that doing so will somehow lower cost. None too soon either. Financial Times is reporting that the shift from MTBE as an oxygenate to corn based EtOH will result in fuel shortages this summer that are similar to what happened from Katrina. Prices in the $3/gallon range are being projected. Layer that over the coming hurricane season (early July on to November) and things could get drastic much sooner than peak oil would indicate.

Re: CNN: We Were Warned - Tomorrow's Oil Crisis

J.L. — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:54:36 -0000

Not really about peak oil at all. My guess is they started out to produce a segment on Peak Oil and some VP jumped in and said the script was too boring and they had to bump it up with scare stories. Eventually it turned into a garbled Scenario that had low plausibility for the average person who was not familiar with all the future drivers being cited.

The scenario they cited does have some plausibility but the problem is that other scenarios are equally plausible, and viewers know it. Unless they gave equal time or gravity to those other scenarios (each of which has its own scary side or positive side) it is easy to dismiss this one and go back to "the official future".

Re: Quality of Organic Dairies Ranked by Survey

J.L. — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 12:33:47 -0000

Bit of a free market problem here. Demand for organic dairy production is way up and still accelerating. Coops already signed contracts to meet demand but now can't find enough milk to meet it. Underlying this: many diary farmers held onto the notion that organic was a "fad" and refused to convert their practices in time to pass the standards. It reportedly takes years to get to that point wehre you pass inspection and start getting premium organic prices. The transition is hard as you put at stake loosing existing customers. Moreover, if you look at the average age of diary farmers it is way up there. At the same time their debts are high and income low. THese are old guys who might rather retire if they really wanted change. All the true believers changed over long ago and the ones left will need help from their customers and the government to ramp up the rate of changeover. The only alternative would be for talented organic dairyment to syndicate their management practices, and become business managers. Rough times this shakes out.

Re: EPA Test Confirms Fuel Economy of Smart Car Americanized for ZAP at 40 MPG

J.L. — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 12:55:37 -0000

Love this comment thread, but want to point out something being overlooked. All agree we want to see small, efficient, safe, attractive cars become popular in the US, just as they are in Europe and elsewhere. By focusing just on the mileage (a situation reinforced by my choice of headline) we are overlooking style and crash worthiness. These are the things that mainstream buyers will first look at. Once SmartCar comes in and gets popular, competition will emerge. It's a start.

Re: EPA Test Confirms Fuel Economy of Smart Car Americanized for ZAP at 40 MPG

J.L. — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 07:42:02 -0000

Argument can reveal useful insights. Let me please suggest that the level of understanding revealed here already is way beyond what most consumers are capable of comprehending. That's what we have a 'partly-free' market for (to sort things out). One example to illustrate.

We've all seen 20 and even 30 year old dump trucks on the road belching diesel smoke. Sure they can last forever, in comparison to a gasoline engine; but overhauls often get skipped, with the gross results visible to all. Inspections and regulations that mandate fines for non-compliance are needed to make the design benefits work for society.

There is an additional issue with diesel vs gas: design-life matching. The design strategy of most car makers started out with a target of the vehicle lasting about 70K. Obviously a diesel engine can last way longer than the body and accessories, if well built. That is why easy replaceability and simplicity of disassembly of all vehicle parts have to be included to make the diesel's longevity worthwhile. It can't happen unless the intention is to make the car stay on the market as long as the design life.

Re: Breakthrough: Vanilla Produced From Cow Dung!

J.L. — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 11:12:04 -0000

Rename Bessie "Orchid"?

Re: Eco-Celeb Q'Orianka Kilcher

J.L. — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 10:43:09 -0000

Think of a fuel cell as analogous to a battery. Then compare the life cycle toxicity issues associated with lead, Lithium, or any other high performance battery design. Consider the power plant emissions associated with battery charging or embodied in the battery manufacture. The risk management issues are multiple and complex. A simple trade-off analysis based on life cycle Joules input per mile traveled is only a partial insight into pros and cons. At the end of the day, there is room for both subjective judgment and for unexpected technology breakthroughs in both systems. May the best one(s) win.

Re: Eco-Celeb Q'Orianka Kilcher

J.L. — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 14:29:35 -0000

Ironically, one very large market for hydrogen right now is to cool the turbines used in coal fired generation plants. And guess where is is inefficiently made? We did not leave the stone age for running out of stones.

Re: Eco-Celeb Q'Orianka Kilcher

J.L. — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:33:34 -0000

I like LiP batteries too. Not putting them down at all. However, at my last look, the PVDF flouride encasements common to most LiP battery production (rigid and film) is the identical material used in most fuel cell assembly casements. Chase that doggy back up the supply chain and you'll be in for a toxic surprise. Chase it down at end of life and answer me how something with such tremendously high material and energy inputs will be recycled, especially the Li-Polymer version? Nothing is perfect and to imply that one vs the other is a chasm is just wrong.

Re: Eco-Celeb Q'Orianka Kilcher

J.L. — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 16:44:56 -0000

Hazards of Li Carbonate

======

Toxicological Data:

Oral rat LD50: 525 mg/kg. Investigated as a tumorigen, mutagen, reproductive effector.

Reproductive Toxicity:

Has caused teratogenic effects in humans.

See also prop 65 link here: http://www.lbl.gov/ehs/chsp/html/repro__toxins....>

Re: A Year Ago in TreeHugger: A Defence of Vinyl

J.L. — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 17:32:03 -0000

I've had many an inner city apartment where I'd wake up on a cold winter's morning to find small SNOW DRIFTS coming in from window cracks. On windy days the draft could blow out candles on the bed table. Landlords go with the cheapest alternative. Raise the cost bar of cost too far and they leave it like it is. We need to be more empathetic to the poor who have to choose between paying the heating bill, eating, rent, or living on the street.

Your analysis may be applicable to the middle class home under certain circumstances but that is not where my argument was centered.

Incidentally, I replaced all the windows in my home and chose vinyl because it was thousands of dollars cheaper in capital cost than wood or fiberglass. After 8 separate bids and quite a bit of research I became convinced that the quality and methods of window replacement are as important to efficiency as the window design and OEM performance specs. This is consistent seemingly with your statements. However, poor installation can put a structure at risk regardless of what the window is made of.

Please show your references for the thermal coefficient of expansion for fiber glass vs all vinyl windows. I doubt there is the significant difference you infer.

Have a look at the chemistry of polyester resin and organic peroxide manufacture before you conclude that one is so superior to the other.

Finally, I'd like to mention that since the new windows were in (three years ago) our home is more comfortable by far, we no longer have any spiders or beetles (a constant problem wit the old warped and leaky wooden ones) and the therms consumed have been reduced signficantly.

Re: A Year Ago in TreeHugger: A Defence of Vinyl

J.L. — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 06:38:50 -0000

Don't trust everything you read in the newspaper, even if it is BBC! The number for design life cited (20 years) is flat wrong. My own home has 35 year old vinyl siding and showing no signs at all of failure -- it was properly mounted of course. Ofttimes people confuse warranty with design life and these are very very different. A reasonable design life estimate for a vinyl window would be 60 year plus.

Re: Forest Stewardship Council's New Program

J.L. — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 18:06:05 -0000

Another trend is converging with stewardship. And it may not be net for the better. Paper and timber companies that have owned vast swaths of US forest land for a century or more in some cases and are on hard times are putting their best properties up for sale. Often for residential or recreational use. Sometimes plots are being subdivided by traditional developers. In other cases the former owners have gone into the business for themselves and are offering plots via their websites. This is on a huge scale and FSC would have to deal with myriad of individual owners now instead of large holders. Gets really interesting when European companies buy big blocks.

Re: Federal Government Provides Incentives for Replacing US States' Gasoline Tax With GPS/Distance Tax

J.L. — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 07:14:52 -0000

Great comments. I am getting the impression from them, however, that I was unclear about a major point in my post. Politicians have levied a road tax at the pump for two reasons. One is that it reflected use of the public resource (highways). Reason two is that because it gets taken a little bit at the time most of us put up with it - unless there is big increase proposed it goes largely unnoticed,

The alternative is to meet more of the needs with an annual or quarterly wheel tax which is rated based upon the projected highway construction and maintenance needs. That would be democracy in action. Either we want the roads or we don't. What better way to confront the question.

Although tax fraud of all sorts is a common problem, we continue amble on as a nation. Somehow I think there are ways to work through the vulnerabilities of far simpler systems than real-time based GPS ones.

Re: Coming Soon: Greenwashed Lumber

J.L. — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:16:48 -0000

Late to the market, Green Globe is unlikely to get more clearcut timber used in the light industrial and office sector, which is where the LEED action is.

Re: EPA Headquarters Goes Green... Finally

J.L. — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 07:16:35 -0000

Most of these positives are "trailing indicators" unfortunately. Predictably, Congressional committees have already looked into to cutting DOD environmental program budgets. And, there have been strong moves to lessen remedial action cleanup standards on contaminated bases; from one quarter even comes a request to universally exempt bases from EPA cleanup standards. All this after decades of progress. I am assuming this comes "top down" from a political perspective rather than "bottom up" from folks on bases who want to do the right thing.

Re: 2007 GM Saturn Aura to be Available as Hybrid

J.L. — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 17:17:27 -0000

This 'GM come lately' retrofit approach to getting "hybrid" status reminds me, unfortunately, of lame attempts at meeting emission standards in the early 1980's. While the Japanese and German cars then easily met standards with few unanticipated quality issues, the US models were sad affairs. That of course led many to "blame EPA".

Re: Beijing to Get Busy Scrubbing the Air for Olympics

J.L. — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 23:21:42 -0000

A few days ago the US EPA administrator lectured the Chinese SEP (quivalent to USEPA) on the need to clean it up before the olympics were held. From an agency seemingly focused on cutting back regulations this seemed ironic.

Re: Natural Products Expo West 2006 - Can Organic Wine Have Sulfites?

J.L. — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:59:53 -0000

Lots of misinformation floating around about this topic: and plenty of marketing spin as well. Lets go back to basics. Modern inorganic chemistry began mid-1800's with advent of periodic table. The actual substance added is sodium meta-bisulfite, a synthetic compound. Sulfites can take many forms and an analysis for "total sufites and sulfates" will capture meta-bisulfites and sulfates that are formed when sulfites combine with oxygen. To some extent sulfur compounds will be present in the soils and small amounts will be taken up into fruit. However, the original source of the sulfur may be elemental sulfur used as an "organic" pesticide. The amount of sulfites needed to create an anaerobic fermentation environment (and retard native yeasts as well as prevent oxidation of aromatic compounds wanted for flavors) is around 2 to 10 parts per million range. There is no way that that level is naturally present in the grape mast and juice. It is added. Having said all that, lets keep in mind that the tradition of excellent reds existed prior to the mid 1800's. Remember the Last Supper? This is all about optimizing production and minimizing product loss to keep profits high. All other claims to the contrary are bogus.

Re: Natural Products Expo West 2006 - Can Organic Wine Have Sulfites?

J.L. — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:12:11 -0000

Couple of additional points. FDA not too many years ago banned the spraying of meta-bisulfite solutions on salad bars and cut fruit bowls in restaurants and cafeterias due the allergic and other sensitivities that came to their attention through public complaint. Until political forces were put in play the standard line was that "there was no scientific proof" of harm. Right. So if it is NOT alright to put it on salad why is still OK to put it in wine. Perhaps a better question is: why are there not specific not to exceed concentration limits for sulfites in wine?

I have a hunch that great red wine was being bottled and aged for many years back in the Middle Ages, but that the spoilage rate was relatively high. Perhaps someone knows about this?

The post bottling preservative function of sulfites is often overlooked. I suspect this is more significant to the wine industry than processing efficiency per se.(but will stand corrected). Meta-bisulfite serves as an oxygen scavenger, tying up any before it can "brown" the white wine or support aerobic bacterial decomposition of fragrant molecules. You can test it yourself by overwhelming the sulfite oxygen scavenging function. Put in two drops of ordinary dilute hydrogen peroxide per liter of open wine. Within a day or two the wine will be noticeably brown and the taste will become slowly flatter, less aromatic. There are ways around this such as drinking the bottle once opened!

Re: An Inconvenient Truth Trailer Available at Apple

J.L. — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 09:45:21 -0000

He stopped listening to consultants and to his heart and intellect instead. So begins reality.

Re: GE Invests in Wave Energy

J.L. — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 17:39:25 -0000

Waves generate "eddy currents" which scribe a cylinder of water movement with an axis parallel to wave direction.

Imagine you are looking at wave passing from left to right in front of you. These waves spin the cylinder of water "clockwise". At the base of this cylinder, if wave energy is high enough, another is created that spins counterclockwise. When wind direction shifts there is a period of great turbulence, after which the eddy currents realign with wave direction, etc. The wave energy generators will sap energy that ordinarily would have been dispersed to the eddy currents, Thus, they will be smaller in diameter or slower. If deployed in shallow (littoral) zone, the impact could be accretion (buildup) of sediments down-field of the generators.

Re: Pygmies Sing to Save Their World

J.L. — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:14:21 -0000

I've read several cultural anthropology books about the these people. To my understanding, elephant hunting was a mercenary task undertaken at the urging of their Bantu trading partners who, wishing to make money from the ivory, required them to do this in exchange for iron tools and /or by threat. Kind of like a gangster deal where you pay the man or your store is trashed.

Re: In America, Global Warming Doesn't Even Register.

J.L. — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 09:21:23 -0000

If you read the full poll the subject of environment is framed badly, as if you can not have conservation without loss of economic growth for example; and "environment" is inferred to be "epa regs",. The results are just what one would expect from a bad design. Sadly, this is what will inform our leaders.

Re: Green Homes going Mainstream

J.L. — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:09:27 -0000

There are two common certification schemes in the US. One the owner actually is held accountable for the outcome. The other is...well you get what I mean. Add them up and a lot is "certified".

Re: Gas too Expensive? Dump Environmental Rules.

J.L. — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:21:23 -0000

Appearances matter more than substance. We already know that so this was predictable. In spot markets for gasoline there can be shortages caused by low supplies of particular gasoline formulations needed to reduce the formation of carbon monoxide in exhaust. THis can happen any time of the year with a refinery BOOM, or pipeline leak, and can be managed by granting an immediate temporary exemption for affected regions, as was done last summer and the summer before. Carte blanch exemption is unneeded in otherwords. By making it nation wide we are certain to have worse summer air quality in several urbanized areas that were not experiencing a gasoline shortage.

Incidentally, the higher the cost of a gallon of gasoline, the smaller the percentage can be attributed to environmental regulations. THe refineries already have their permits and pollution controls and their fixed price is amortised save for the energy needed to run them which is NOT gasoline.

Re: Gas too Expensive? Dump Environmental Rules.

J.L. — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 08:28:53 -0000

SUV/Truck owners are still living in a fantasy that prices will come down and paying off their loans on gas guzzlers. Short term fixes are just not available, as demonstrated by the ethanol supply shortfalls. The signal to noise ratio on this entire topic is very low indeed. The prospect for another bad hurricane season are more relevant. What will the President do to ensure more fuel is stockpiled for that eventuality, regardless of its composition?

Re: "Unexpected Green" Contest: Sponsored by Earth

J.L. — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:52:35 -0000

Good for downhill only. For uphill grade, switch to regular.

Re: Plan B: 2.0 by Lester Brown - Available Free Online

J.L. — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:58:45 -0000

People who scout the future are destined to take arrows in the back. The good ones know that no one can predict the future with precision, including themselves. But they also know that many highly plausible future directions can be described. Lester is pretty good at describing forces that will shape the future. Most of his visions are fairly optimistic.

Re: Recipe of the Week: Very Spicy Asian Vegetable Salad

J.L. — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:07:46 -0000

Looks delish alright. But those Japanese mushroom varieties, Shitake especially, can create a very strong allergenic reaction in some individuals. I went to the emergency room once after my first and only meal of them, having broken out in a rash and finding myself unable to breath. From a literature search: "Flagellate skin lesions occur in some patients after eating the mushroom Lentinus edodes, and they are called shiitake dermatitis in Japan". Exposure to sunlight may aggravate the condition: see this link for details. http://www.bfr.bund.de/cms5w/sixcms/detail.php/... />

Re: Will Hybrids Ever Save You Money? Yes! (Maybe)

J.L. — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:47:46 -0000

Factor in also the social good, which is 80% fewer emissions per mile driven. This factor results in a lower health hazard for everyone, plus a lower requiired investment in end of pipe pollution control and greater economic development potential for "fixed sources" of emissions in compromised "air-sheds". If half the fleet were hybrid, air quality standards in would be easy to meet, which would mean no "exemption" need be issued to lower the price of fuel. What's hard to grasp about this?

Re: Largest Solar Park in the World Opens in Germany

J.L. — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:40:01 -0000

Won't work in Murruca 'cause the shotgun slugs will be falling on them during deer season.

Re: Will The Dongtan Development in China Be The World’s First Eco-City?

J.L. — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 16:02:16 -0000

Very little in the way of design vision is being discussed publicly except the hint that possibly only electric vehicles would be allowed. THis came from a government minister speaking on the record: he's probably in trouble for it by now. The most problematic aspect would be stormwater runnoff and wastewater treatment, either of which would trash the surrounding wetlands if done in typical western style.

Re: Wretched Excess: The SUV's of Appliances

J.L. — Tue, 02 May 2006 15:32:52 -0000

High output burners are important where customer service speed is essential. High speed cooking may be a rewarding pastime at home, but it's clearly not a necessity for culinary excellence in general. The downsides of very high capacity burners include: warping of ordinary pans, requiring you to buy more massive expensive ones that take more energy and materials to create; thermal output on even a low setting greatly exceeds the ability of average pans to conduct the heat to the food, thereby "wasting" much of the energy; higher emissions of aldehydes, CO, particulates and, believe it or not gang, mercury, into the home air/flue. Yes, natural gas contains some mercury; distributors generally scrub much of it out for delivery to domestic customers but may not for commercial ones. Then too, as pointed out previously, you are adding to the air conditioning load of the home, either by makeup air for the high speed externally vented flue hood or by radiative and conductive transfer to the inside. Considering that the average size of an American family is hovering around 2 and that holiday cooking for a big gathering is a relative rarity: most of us do it because we want to. Just like driving an SUV.

Re: WSJ on Gasoline Prices

J.L. — Tue, 02 May 2006 07:06:37 -0000

It's worthwhile spending about the minutes cruising the local cable channel talk shows. The shallowness and incorrectness of what is being said about fuel prices and economic impacts on consumers are -- no surprise -- astounding. Confusion and outrage are ensured outcomes for those who listen.

Re: Experimental Bamboo/Inner-Tube Cucumber Trellis

J.L. — Thu, 04 May 2006 16:51:32 -0000

Prices vary widely and seem to have gone way up from when I bought my bundle 6 years ago! Here's some choices I found.

$3/pole in bundle of 50 from http://www.bamboogardener.com/objects.html

$1.12/pole in bundle of 50 http://www.sukkahcentral.com/sukkah-accessories...>

$1.30/pole http://www.esroghq.com/Bamboos_1412.htm

$1.40/pole in bundle of 50 (#6) http://www.gardeners.com/Bamboo-Stakes---Poles/...>

The latter one looks good, but ask if a local nursery can special order for you from one of their suppliers. May save on shipping.

Re: Solar Powered Electric Bicycle. Now We're Talking.

J.L. — Fri, 05 May 2006 09:49:16 -0000

Where are the pragmatists among us? In the 10 well lit hours of a work or school day, you are only going to be actually peddling for perhaps 2 at the very most. That leaves 8 hours in which this bike or one like it could be out in the sun, adding to the total available charge for the return home. A trickle charger may only take it up 10% but who's to complain about that if the cost benefit tradeoff is good? What law requires bikes to be parked in an upright position? What principle of design requires that the traditional silicon-slice SPV type be used instead of thin film, low cost, low effiiciency polymer?

Added theft risk does seem to be the most significant drawback. For this we need LEED certified work places with showers for bike riding employees and a secure lockup as well.

Re: A Guide to Veggie and Organic London

J.L. — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:50:15 -0000

A trip to the grocery in a major city with large Hispanic population will reveal dozens of exotic root-, stem-, and fruit-type starchy vegetables from tropical places, including plantain, which, I think, is second only to rice as a major dietary item in large portions of the world. Sometimes naive shoppers buy the plantains, thinking that they are gargantuan bananas. :)

Re: Testing the Tips: Gas-Saving Driving

J.L. — Mon, 08 May 2006 13:57:35 -0000

Most cars generate low frequency, obnoxious sounding "beats" at sustained speed over 45, if windows are left partially open. This overwhelms music, and the turbulence created by fully opening them far enough to stop the beats generates complaints about hair blowing. More than one reason to leave the windows up when AC is most needed.

Re: Testing the Tips: Gas-Saving Driving

J.L. — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:16:28 -0000

Relationship of velocity to fuel efficiency is a function of aerodynamics. A boxy Scion xB or Ford 150 is going to throw a turbulent wake of air 75 compared to the Toyota M2 (a sporty model). If all vehicles were similar in shape, added speed, reached through slow acceleration, would make little difference in relative efficiency. The change from linear to turbulent air streams will, however, be at a different speed per each design/shape. As someone else said, it's not a one size fits all situation.

Re: Wal-Mart is Going Organic

J.L. — Sat, 13 May 2006 11:04:55 -0000

Think about this scenario. Commodity producing farmers are having tough time making a go of their businesses. Whether they're big scale or family farmers, the going is tough for most of them. Because of this action by WM, they'll be encountering the "organic" brand identity for the first time on a mass scale in the one place the people with limited income will shop. And they'll be seeing it on familiar brands and products. The light bulb does on: "h'mm maybe I should go organic?"

What we want to see is a price reduction that is gradual enough to let them in the door, keeping the premium up enough so they have an incentive. The next step is for WM to use local suppliers and pay them a fair rate for produce. but one step at a time.

Re: Light Green is the New Black

J.L. — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:39:27 -0000

For some useful insights into these questions, the book "Tipping Point" is a good reference: some of us are "connectors", some "mavens, and so on. A simple tri-chotomy of green, light green and dull trivializes the broad scale social movements underway.

Re: Instant Survey: Mosquito Management

J.L. — Tue, 16 May 2006 11:22:11 -0000

After the hatch, wear a life jacket in case the skeeters drop you over open water.

Seriously, Consumer Reports recently ran an exhaustive comparison and included some totally new formulations that look benign and more effective than DEET.

From my days of field work, I learned to soak the outer brim of an old cotton wide brimmed hat in DEET, keeping it in a plastic bag when not out and about. Keep in mind that it's the vapors that "repel". What's on your skin does nothing to the skeeters. In fact DEET does not even repel: it randomizes flight patters so only the odd bug will light upon you. True repellants do not exist to my knowledge.

Re: Asthma Sufferers Will Soon Help the Ozone

J.L. — Thu, 18 May 2006 07:02:41 -0000

If I am not mistaken there is a patent on a C02 powered inhaler. MIght be by 3M. ONe factor in this is that CFC's as controlled substances can no longer be made but only sold as "recycled" and very expensive from the phase out tax. Recycled CFCs may not meet the FDA purity requirements.

Re: “Whole Foods Talks Dollars and Cents”

J.L. — Sat, 20 May 2006 09:49:03 -0000

I believe that "industry experts" are missing the whole point here. If you walk though ACME and look at the "organic" carrots they have no appeal because they are not appealing, and the price is maybe so so. At WF, however, the bulk organic carrots look wonderful and you are paying a bit more for wonderful bathed in a warm light and kept in a nice misted display. Then tour over to the WF Seafood department and the difference is an order of magnitude higher. Regular grocery store seafood generally comes in frozen, and is thawed out in the display case; and the non-WF salmon, for example, has no glisten, and tissue separating at the muscle boundaries, reflecting a state of semi-decay. Anyone who has caught a salmon and cleaned it themselves knows this is a sign of long past good. Of course it is more expensive to get it actually fresh. And there is no proper comparison here as a result. But folks do it subconsciously. Perhaps they don't realize the difference they are paying for at WF?

Re: Latest Attack on An Inconvenient Truth

J.L. — Mon, 22 May 2006 18:54:24 -0000

I think it was grade school when I learned that gross exaggeration and passing false rumors were unacceptable means of getting attention: what teachers these days call "bad attention".

Re: Good News: Exposure to Vinyl is Less Risky than Car Accidents or Strokes

J.L. — Wed, 24 May 2006 09:10:54 -0000

Beware hyperbole. We have all seen photos of carrots exhumed from landfills, looking wrinkled but still orange and "carrot like" in shape, and newsprint still readable 50 years after the tip. Why then would we believe that vinyl products, with an original design life of over 50 years ,would decay sufficient to cause a serious leachate problem?

The risk comparison to vinyl chloride monomer is just wrong. I will demonsrate by analogy. Walk into an organic farm...pick the cleanest nicest looking one you can find... and scoop up big handfull of dirt and eat it just as it is. The odds of contracting a serious and possibly mortal parasite infection is moderate in the northern hemisphere and higher the further toward the equator you go. And on this basis should I claim that organic farming is hazardous to your health? 'A plague on the planet as it were?" You know I am poking fun to make a larger point. Risk comparisons designed to elicit outrage instead of rational analysis are a distraction from the principal hazards of our day. VCM is a well contrained hazard, and representing its hazard as comparable to vinyl polymer's hazard is absurd.

As for fire and smoke: Vinyl burns very poorly. Solid vinyl products are up to 50% mineral content by weight and too dense to be easilly ignited. Foam upolstery and carpeting will go first. Pyrolysis products of wool are probably no less immediately hazardous to the occupants of a burning dwelling than those generate by a polymer product on fire.

A wise man once told me that "when people tell you about an environmental or safety problem they are almost always right. But that when they tell about why it is a problem they are almost always wrong." Vinyl's problem is manifest prospectively. It can not be recycled in the presence of other polymers. Gums up the works. It, takes vast amounts of extra energy (natural gas inputs) to combust it at temperatures that will preclude dioxin formation (remember climate change?). And, the residual wastes created by vinyl incineration are full of hazardous metals that, if landfilled in those forms, can indeed contribute to leachate issues.

An analysis of pro verus con on the signficant hazards is best done if vinyl products are put into two categories: those with a long design life such as a window or drain pipe and those made to be usd briefly and tossed in the trash such as a plastic wrap or a child's toy. My defense of vinyl is on the former category only. All throw away polymer products are fundamentally unsustainable in my view.

Re: Good News: Exposure to Vinyl is Less Risky than Car Accidents or Strokes

J.L. — Wed, 24 May 2006 10:57:09 -0000

Check your statistics. The single most hazardous to human health occupation by a wide margin is logging. So wooden windows are better than sarcoma causing vinyl vapors? My aim is not to mock here or to put down discussion and debate. I only wish to make clear that risk comparisons need to be clearly research and understood in both objective and subjective terms. Risk seen as involuntary (caused by someone else) is perceived as far less acceptable than voluntary risk, which is why people sky dive and skip the seatbelts. Involuntary risk that creates a sense of personal dread (cancer cause by rich factory owners) elicits outrage, the most irrational human state of mind. Outrage is part of the human condition I know; but my point is that we need to acknowledge all of these forces in coming to a consensus.

Re: Milwaukee's New Sustainable Garden Park

J.L. — Wed, 24 May 2006 18:09:59 -0000

There are several species of 'mountain bamboo' that can handle cold pretty well. Not as tall and fast growing as the familiar lowland varieties...and perhaps not as dramatic looking but they might work, sans steam.

As an aside, waste heat from a local power plant, especially a CHP unit would be very appropriate. Lets hope they are thinking along those lines.

Re: Oil On Ice - Arctic Wildlife Refuge Documentary

J.L. — Mon, 29 May 2006 13:15:10 -0000

There are only four plausible reasons for politicians to vote now for ANWR drilling. One is to look like they're doing something about high gasoline prices just before a contentious election. This notion is easily debunked, as it will take several years before holes are even in the ground, etc. Number two reason is that Alaska gets almost all of it's revenue to run government services from oil levies. This results in a vote "horse trading" that makes no sense to those of us outside Congressional deliberations. Number thtree reason is to tip a sacred cow of environmentalists. The third reason may be a bit surprising. The Alaska pipeline will need more oil input to function properly in coming winters, as the Prudhoe fields are becoming depleted faster than was anticipated. The pipeline will be at increased risk of freezing up unless future input volumes at the pipe-head are kept above a minimum. Its not a conspiracy theory, just common sense that ANWR is envisioned as the solution to that problem; and it only underscores the precariousness of relying on oil as our sole transportation fuel. Were this to become a high profile pubic issue, it would symbolize that it is not possible to "drill our way out" of Peak Oil problems. Perhaps our Represenatives and Senators are aware of this?

Re: Toxic Shock: Avoiding Dangerous Chemicals Around Us

J.L. — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:41:47 -0000

Glass baby bottles. You can microwave them or hot water bath them.

Glass microwave dishes..better all around.

Old fashioned metal canteens instead of water bottles.

Hard to avoid prepared food container coatings. All are coated with various polymeric materials.

Don't view the tradeoff in terms of "all or nothing". Simply minimize exposure to polymers in food packaging and preparation and maximize use of whole and/or locally sourced foods, You'll have two incentives: saving money and reducing a possible (no scientific consensus yet) health risk.

Alsways avoid inhaling smoke from packaging material fires or buring plastic.

China has the lowest standards bar to leap and yet they are the predominant supplier of plastic consumer items to the west. We can assume that people who want to buy organic clothing also want to avoid buying synthetics made with potentially hazardous additives. You can satisfy this market best by solving both problems at once. Theoretically, entirely safe polymers are within grasp. But you may have to pay a bit more. Big box retailers likely realize they also face this flip side of the organic coin.

Re: How To: Avoid Toxic Chemicals in Your House

J.L. — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:16:29 -0000

This is all good advice...for now. But expect a huge change starting this July. Thereafter, the European regulation known as RoHS mandates that all goods containing several heavy metals and the fire retardants mentioned be not present in goods sold in the EU. If they are present a large (up to 18%) duty is imposed. Companies that market globally are rushing to catch up so as not to loose profit. Caution: because the US has no equivalent regulation that applies to all states, there could be a transitional period where goods containing the restricted materials are "dumped" in the US.

My main point here is for readers to keep their minds open about which rules of thumb apply going forward.

Re: Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel Coming to the USA

J.L. — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:14:14 -0000

The reason to get sulfer out of course is to reduce formation of SOX, which leads to the corrosive acid gases that are so familiar to the ugly rusting urban cores, and a major cause of acid rain. To meet the standard, US refineries must accomplish major retooling of their processes, a huge investment that they will no doubt argue should now be better spent on making more gasoline. The other interesting dimension is that making low sulfer fuel is far more difficult when using high sulfer crude as originate from Alberta Tar Sands Venezuelan reserves. The geopolitical dimension of this could throw a real crimp in the ascendancy of fuel efficient diesel engines in passenger cars. Lets hope not.

Re: 2 Interviews With Al Gore & Box Office News

J.L. — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 07:19:50 -0000

Naomi Oreskes' literature review also was critiqued on RealClimate a while back. While there were indeed some serious flaws pointed out, they were not philosphical in nature, at least not at the level inferred by comments here. (By my recollection of the review, her portrait of the consensus on climate causation was not seriously undermined.) Gore's point that a false dichotomy about climate science consensus has been sustained in US media is supported by other anecdotal evidence. One only has to scan the decades worth of opinion page letters and self published essays by the "skeptics" to see that most have no current scientific work underway and a sparse history of relevant peer reviewed publishing. Many of the prominent skeptics have no research background in climate. One of the most laughable symbols of this is when meteorologists and engineers portray themselves as in the same league as atmospheric chemists or physicists, signing petitions which state that the UN position is flawed. These are technicians, not scientists. Easy to fool politicians I guess.

Lately some skeptics are claiming that they, as a group ,lack peer reviewed climate science publications only because the major scientific journals are steered by biased peer panels who have for decades overlooked their brilliant insights. If we accept that at face value, then the same bias must explain why they also don't get top jobs at NOAA and also do not get grants to do original research. The whole world is biased. Yeah...that's the reason.

Re: Major Toronto Export: Crap

J.L. — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:23:18 -0000

In the free market of international turd-wrestling, why is Michigan the reigning dump champion? Lack of other economic opportunity? Saving up a mountain of Canadian excreta to run a methane plant? Done in exchange for letting MI citizens commute to Canada for work?

Re: The Truth About Coconut Oil

J.L. — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:21:51 -0000

Like any other plant oil, properties may depend on species (variety) and tissue from which the oil is extracted.

Re: Reader Question: Eco-Friendly Kitchen Gloves?

J.L. — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:01:06 -0000

True dilemma. Latex and PLA are the only biopolymers in commerce so if you are looking for recyclability and life cycle friendliness that's it. However, a number of people are severely sensitized to latex; for some it is life threatening (can't go to the hospital, can't be around even rubber tubes). Latex being an organic material, with big pore spaces, it is also a very poor barrier to many solvents. There are no PLA based gloves offered to my knowledge.

I suggest you turn the problem around. Look at the big picture by identify cleaning technologies and personal protective devices (like gloves) the minimize consumption of energy and toxic or sensitizing materials.

Part of the selection process is to look at the material safety data sheets (MSDS) for each cleaning product considered. All materials over 1% by weight should be characterized. If the maker won't provide a good MSDS you should not buy it period.

Glvoe compatibility charts are available to help you determine which glove material will work best to exclude the liquids and vapors you might be in contact with, per the MSDS. Keep in mind that if vapors of a solvent can permeate the glove it might also permeate your skin. THe ability to prevent liquid intrusion is not an adequate demonstration of exposure control!!!

Re: TreeHugger News: Green Alcatraz, Cool Cob and Toxic Companies

J.L. — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:55:17 -0000

The reason that ratings based on release of toxics is confusing is that for some substances hazard is under-estimated, while for some it is over-estimated (or irrationally and unreasonably freared), and for a third group hazard is not adequately understood. Fixing the latter situation is why the European Union has embarked on the REACH program. Once hazard is adequately understood, one must know the exposures fully, another weakness for many substances. The only wonder is why people are not more confused.

Re: Dude, Torch My Ride

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 07:37:00 -0000

Consumers who are really not able to afford the behemoth SUV's and trucks were enticed by low interest incentives and then were hit by the realization that the payments AND the gas costs were too much to handle. My instinct tells me that these are the same people who buy McMansions and then (according to what my deliver man tells me) can not even afford to furnish them. SO many incentives for decadent consumerism across the board. THis symbolizes the result.

Re: Solar Powered Air Conditioning Just Makes Sense

J.L. — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:08:54 -0000

Ammonia sorption chillers are extremely efficient...and they have no moving parts outside of the air handlers. Ice rinks and large grocery store freezers commonly use them. Brine is used only as the heat transfer fluid from the sorption unit to the air handler/freezer cabinets. Waste heat is quite efficient with these as well and several distributed power domestic fuel cell designs work with them.

Re: Solar Powered Air Conditioning Just Makes Sense

J.L. — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:46:34 -0000

My old Servel ammonia frig contained a pound of ammonia. We kept it on the screen porch, just to be extra safe about the CO level from the propane it burned. Ammonia is accutely toxic only in very high concentration and there was not enough in the unit to do anyone any real harm, even if it were released all at once (which is almost impossible unless a car crashed into it).

Ammonia also is highly soluble in water and it is easy to design a sorption system with double hermetic enclosures, a dump tank filled with water to catch any vapors emanating from inside the enclosure, and if needed an emergency "knock down" spray system for aerosols if the ammonia heat exchanger volume is very large. The tradeoff is the local toxicity hazard of ammonia versus the global toxicity hazard posed by C02. On balance I opt for the controllable ammonia risk if it results in less C02 emissions.

Re: Solar Powered Air Conditioning Just Makes Sense

J.L. — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 17:05:07 -0000

OK you got me. CLimate change impact is indirect to the usage of toxicity is improper --- strictly speaking. But my tradeoff analysis still stands.

Re: TH Interview: Sheryl O’Loughlin, CEO of Clif Bar

J.L. — Fri, 26 May 2006 17:30:23 -0000

White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia has worked on this issue extensively to be able to expand capacity and build a loyal suppliers for their own operation and then going on to expand it to supply other restaurants with fresh locally produced food.

Re: Zerofootprint: More Reasons to Hug a Tree

J.L. — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:23:31 -0000

Excellent post. But overlooks the role that oceans play in carbon fixation. While we can't plant trees in the seas, "Mr. Pico" is ready to lend a hand. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/plankto...>

Re: Ugly Fruit Movement Could Help Organic Farmers

J.L. — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 11:47:38 -0000

Anyone who drinks store-bought fruit juice of any kind whatsoever is definitely drinking the "ugly fruit" pressings. As somone who has squeezed his own apple juice, I can testify that tree-picked premium apples result in a pale brown liquid unlike that which comes from picking up the wasp covered "ground-falls" and cracked/picked fruits that go into commercial juices. Americans have become superstitious and foolish about avoiding things on visual cues when they are practically immersed in them invisibly.

Re: Chemical Factory in a Suitcase?

J.L. — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 06:52:32 -0000

A micro reactor allows researchers to synthesize a sample product many times over, using linked computers to help engineers "optimize" yield and minimize waste generation or energy inputs per unit of production. After hundreds of optimization runs you'll only produce a handful of hazardous waste, as compared to the tons that might from a traditional pilot reactor. The information output allows chemical engineers to scale up designs that preserve the efficiencies. Very little capital is wasted trying out new ideas on how to make commercial chemistry more resource efficient and contain less toxic byproducts for example. Think of it as a design/prototype tool, a linkage of CAD and a bench scale chemical reactor. THe market is quite vertical so I doubt that commercial units will ever be advertised.

Re: Stephen Hawking: Space Is the Place?

J.L. — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 16:46:53 -0000

Famous people often get attention for public fantasies. Meanwhile, millions of non-famous people have been overlooked for their designs or theories. Can someone tell us of a business, product, publication, or patent from S.H. that has significantly contributed to the material benefit of the earth's environment or to human health?

Pragmatism is more important than speculation.

Re: Phloating Photovoltaics — Sunengy's Liquid Solar Array

J.L. — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:50:01 -0000

The light spectrum is not absorbed evenly in water. The "red" end (just below invisible infrared heat) is absorbed first, and blue last. Blue being the most penetrative, it goes to the bottom and bounces back up, giving the sea its blue appearance. So a question is: to what extent will the food chain be interrupted with photosynthesis inputs reduced by the shade of the devices. Probably only a concern near the coast.

Re: New Company to Produce Biodiesel From Algae

J.L. — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:28:33 -0000

Biomimicry point: some blue greens produce oil-filled vacuols to let them adjust bouyancy (oil floats on water), thus enabling them to stay at top position in the water column and shade out competitive species below. The dirtier the water the higher they float to achieve the right sorbancy.

Re: Crowd Power: The Latest In Renewable Energy

J.L. — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:27:21 -0000

Not many people realize that the pickups commonly used to amplify acoustic instruments use a polymer with long lasting piezo-electric properties called polyvinylidene flouride. A tiny strip of it vibrated is sufficient to power a small bulb. Piezo electric crystalls are even more efficient and long lasting. The problem is not in collecting a useful amount of electricity in a cost effective manner; rather the obstacle is in determining what to do with it that is cost effective: e.g. harvesting is easy, processing is not! To prove this to yourself, the next time you are standing next to an office tower with metal or glass exterior, located on a busy urban street, put your ear right up next to an exterior wall. The conducted vibrations and resonances from wind stress and general city noise levels are quite obvious to the human ear. Were an entire exoskeleton of one of these buildings covered in a piezoelectically active material the generating capacity would be significant. But how would you feed the electrcity into an internal grid? That is the design challenge.

Footnote: pyroelectric generation is also possible, harvesting the heat flux generated by the sun's rising and setting. Some common and relatively benign materials display both piezoelectric and pyproelectric properties. A commonsense approach might be to marry these materials to solar photovoltaic panels, piggy backing on the system's electricity processing capability.

Re: China, Mexico, and Others Would Pay More for Green PCs

J.L. — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 23:12:34 -0000

Keep an eye out for companies late to the RoHS ball, "dumping" lead laden electronics in the US because they are not able to sell them in the EU after July 2006 unless they pay a stiff duty. "On Sale" will have an entirely new meaning in the US, since the Federal government has chosen to do virtually nothing to step up to the progressive standards set on other continents while US consumers will welcome the low prices, ignorant of the true costs that will follow.

Re: America's Air Conditioned Nightmare

J.L. — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 19:05:27 -0000

Long term, as warm seasons lengthen, this increases AC loads on the South as well as the North, but reduces the heading degree days priimarily in the North. Air conditioning becomes the most critical dimension of operating cost and comfort all over the nation. It therefore becomes less expensive to live in regions with fewer days requiring AC. Said another way, the poor will suffer inordinately in the South due to AC expenses.

Re: Freeganism: The Art of Dumpster Diving

J.L. — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 22:51:59 -0000

Store pitch soft or over-ripe looking fruit instead of marking it down because they fear it will alienate shoppers, sending them to a competitor. Its like a hornet at a picnic sending the insecti-phobics into a panic. There ought to be a way to donate the past-peak veggies and fruit to charity causes.

Re: Drammatic® Liquid Fish Fertilizer

J.L. — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:05:36 -0000

CORRECTION: Lake Michigan salmon fishery is not present due to "invasive" species that reproduce and disperse on their own. There is insignificant or "no" natural reproduction in Lake Michigan by Coho or Chinook salmon for example. Therefore, it is only due to the "invasiveness" of humans that they are continuously present from stocking. Caveat: one school of thought posits that fecundity of these stocked fishes is low in the Great Lakes because of man-made pollutants that have adverse impact (on fertilized eggs and/or developmentally, in adult fish). If those pollutants were made less abundant in the food chain, (a process that seems to be underway), then these salmon populations could theoretically become invasive. A strange dynamic.

Re: Apple Lags Behind In Recycling and Toxicity

J.L. — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 23:25:06 -0000

As pointed out above, RoHS is a good start in the right direction, phasing out the obvious nasties with powerful disincentives (up to an 18% tariff). We should keep in mind that not all parties agree on what is unacceptably toxic: e.g. that the intrinsic hazard poses undue risk due to documented exposures. If we asked TH readers to list everything they felt was too toxic to be in a computer, or that it required a product take back program, I have a hunch the list of "toxics" would be very long and impossible to implement. J

Not long ago much was made of how Dell actually was accomplishing the recycling in terms of labor practices. Without going into the details here, I would just like to point out that a full life cycle review of environmental burdens and labor practice is needed before anyone claims company X is better than company Y interms of product design or recycling.

Re: Sting's Limited Edition Guitar

J.L. — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:13:41 -0000

Hooray for Pennsylvania's CF Martin Co. (dating from the early 1800's). Add them to the list of other PA companies focused on sustainability for many years: JI Case Knives; and Armstrong Flooring http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/05/armstro...>

Re: Grass Banks: Sustainability or Stopgap?

J.L. — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:25:15 -0000

The biggest gains are in preventing over-grazing, which completely destroys native plants and compacts soil, and in keeping the animals out of waterways, which otherwise results in water pollution, erosion, and loss of fisheries. Many a trout stream has been lost to the beef industry. A common "eco-myth" promulgated by lovers of all things organic is that organic meat is good for the environment. That is absolutely untrue unless animals are properly managed on the rangeland. The Conservancy deserves high praise for tackling this issue: not crticism. And the organic meat industry deserves serious scrutiny...They are ducking this one up till now but truth will out.

Re: Is Recycling Utter Rubbish?

J.L. — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 10:04:51 -0000

Grotesque oversimplications indicate the lack of serious thought and research. For example: "trading in" a car only increases material consumption, as someone else will buy the used one you traded in, and there is no consideration of environmental debits from the manufactrue of either the new or the old one. Simplistic thinkers class all recycling the same way because they do not understand the fundamental differences. In general, all open loop recycling ('down-cycling or over-cycling if you prefer') of all materials is economically and materially inefficient. THe more expensive fuel becomes and the greater the risk of climate change becomes, the worse it gets. The smaller and more dispersed the objects to be reclaimed, the worse the economics/.benefits. Conversely, all closed loop recycling (refilling beer bottles for example) has at least a fair chance at efficiency. The smaller the loop, the greater the efficiency. Hence. having numerous mini-breweries close to their customers and sharing a single bottle design, is the pinacle of recycling efficiency. This is the 19th Century model of local production that we must return to.

Summary: open loop bad, closed loop good. Small loops best.

Re: Is Recycling Utter Rubbish?

J.L. — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 15:18:11 -0000

Less than 7% (might be closer to 3% by now) of all plastic and aluminum used in packaging gets actually recycled. Steel, however, which is not used in packaging much, is recycled at a rate up to 95%. Glass bottles are disappearing from the marketplace because plastic and aluminum bottles can be made so much cheaper and faster and printed up without a paper lable. The feel-good act of curbside redemption sorting is doing nothing at all to change this reality.

Re: 800 Watt Hours A Day! The Most Efficient Modern House?

J.L. — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:55:27 -0000

I have neighbors who still dry all their clothes outdoors when weather permits. And in a screened in porch when it does not. Mom stays home. SOcietal transformation needed for that to happen broadly.

Re: Electric Car with the Real Stuff

J.L. — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 10:54:34 -0000

The car will need to have wipers inside the windshield to cope with the splatter emanating from drivers constantly saying "Vrooom Vrooom".

Re: Agifish: Fill 'Er Up With Catfish Unleaded Please

J.L. — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 10:42:25 -0000

For years there has been a plea from US catfish farmers to cut off Vietnamese catfish exports to the US, under charges of price dumping that makes it impossible for US farmers to make any money. There are also charges that the Vietnamese cats are raised with all sorts of nasty additives. Wanna bet that the Vietnamese fish farms are importing corn from the US cornbelt to feed those cats? And with the corn farmers under US subsidy? What a crazy world.

Re: Porous Paving: Open Cell Concrete Block

J.L. — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:43:19 -0000

Developers may object to use of permeable pavement on the basis of future cost liability; should the permeation feature diminish, re-paving after a short design life would be required at a higher future cost. When I have heard this arguement it sounded specious. My suspicion was that the real reason to oppose was that the total amount of runoff detention per acre per 25 year storm was under zoning spec with permeable lots alone, meaning that the developer also had to foot the bill for a smaller detention basin. That translates to higher total cost in labor/materials than for just a big whomping basin.

Re: Reader Question: So how is the planet doing?

J.L. — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 09:37:20 -0000

UN Environment Program

Re: (Street) Lights Out in Essex

J.L. — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:35:32 -0000

Agree with DWA. To date I have not been able to find a peer reviewed study that demonstrates conclusively that there is any link at all between street light levels and crime. If you think about how tightly coupled street crime is with demographic stucture, income, density, police efficacy, and so on, sorting out the effect of light over a period of years is going to be difficult especiallly as no one wants to participate in a controlled lights off experiment on a large scale. My guess is that street lights do affect traffic safety and that'sa bout it.

Re: The LumiWall: Solar Glass That Lights Up At Night

J.L. — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 09:58:17 -0000

Absolutely brilliant idea (pun intended). Would be especially nice if we learned that the juice was being stored in a frame-integrated bank of capacitors with long design life, so that traditional window installation contractors could "drop" them in, without a subcontract to electricians. We'll see just how "sharp" their designers really are in 2007.

Re: Organic Leather: The Company and The Product

J.L. — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:52:34 -0000

Chrome-free tanning is good regardless of where the tanning waste goes. However, if hair is removed using a srong lye solution (potassium or or sodium hydroxide), as is commonly the case, putting that caustic slurry of hairballs on a field would not be acceptable. Water discharge would result in high oxygen depletion plus the hairy mess. Unless the full scope of hide processing and waste treatment is known, no tannery can be declared benign.

Re: Sharp’s New Solar Energy System

J.L. — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 09:44:26 -0000

Good progression. Wonder how much government backing Sharp has for these rapid expansions...while we in the US slumber through the free market utopian dream.

Re: Is E85 (Ethanol) Just A Red Herring?

J.L. — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 11:32:58 -0000

Commercial grades of methanol are produced by converting methane to methanol in a modern chemical process. Just substitute an OH- group for one of the hydrogens on the CH4 molecule and its done. Note: historically, wood was distilled to produce methanol (commonly called "wood alcohol") and a bunch of other nasties. Those blue flames you see at the end of a log are from methane being distilled out of the wood!

It is also possible, but would be much less efficient, to convert methane to ethane, and then convert it to ethanol. Where there is a will there is a chemical process.

Re: Reader Question: Need Help with Kitchen Appliances

J.L. — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 16:28:27 -0000

You can buy a used chest freezer and glue construction-grade insulation board on all finished surfaces, including the top. It looks bad of course, but cuts the running time immensely (and the electric bills/C02 emissions at power plant). Put it in a storage room and who cares about looks?

Re: Eat Local Food. Um, Except When You Shouldn't.

J.L. — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 10:17:21 -0000

Bangladesh is tragically famous for arsenic contaminated well water, courtesy of some international aid program that punched wells for the farmers. As a result, many serious toxic exposures have been documented (google bangladesh and arsenic) from the drinking of well water with high arsenic levels. Recently, food crops irrigated with those same wells have been tested for arsenic....

Re: The Climate Debate Progression

J.L. — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:59:15 -0000

Author's explanation:

I did indeed hit the back button on DHMO.org in part because of the cluttered site design. My main motivation to back off, however, was that old canard of using a synonym for 'water' to poke fun at the Rachel Carson crowd.

As someone who worked for over a decade in the chemical industry I can assure you that the technique of encouraging chemophobics to make themselves look foolish by asking to have the dreaded DHMO "banned" would be of limited practical value in influencing risk perceptions of society at large.

But you got me so beat on the carbon neutral home thing that I am remined of the need to use my limited time on earth focused on trying to make it a better place! Time for a loooong shower (high exposure) with a water saving spray head.

Re: Farming The Sun: \$600,000 A Year

J.L. — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 13:39:56 -0000

How does the solar farmer keep weeds and shrubs from enveloping and shading his SPV crop? Herbicides? Sheep?

Re: Controversial Study Rates Hummers Over Hybrids... For Now

J.L. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:09:10 -0000

THere is actually an International Standards Organization (ISO) standard for the methodology of performing life cycle inventories, per this report. It involves professional peer review by other non-biased experts, the full citation of data sources --- this would be down as far as whether the electricity for making a machine tool came from coal versus nuclear power for example --- and much more. The fact that this is being done by a "market research firm" is a clue as to whether the persons who actually did the work followed that standard.

Re: Controversial Study Rates Hummers Over Hybrids... For Now

J.L. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:39:30 -0000

There's no way that a market research firm can afford to keep full time LCA experts on staff once a project like this is completed. More than likely the actual work was outsourced to a specialty practice LCA firm. Maybe someone who actually did the analysis work would be kind enough to leave a comment about how the LCA peer review was accomplished?

Re: Christmas Trees Add to Global Warming

J.L. — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:32:09 -0000

It may be better to grow the trees close to the market than to ship them from Maine in terms of carbon emissions via truck. On the otherhand, my early tour of duty as a tree trimmer on one of those plantations convinced me that they are the closest thing to a biological desert you can find in the northern termperate zone. Birds don't even nest in them.

Re: Quick Tip: Don't Use Antibacterial Soap...

J.L. — Sun, 30 Jul 2006 22:12:13 -0000

Yet another pair of reasons: some bacteriostatic compounds are "grandfathered" in by FDA , meaning they may not have been fully tested for human safety; and there is nascent theory that lack of exposure to bacteria in the environment, especially in childhood, results in an unchallenged and inadequately developed immune system that over reacts later in life, resulting in increased rates of asthma and allergy.

Re: Quick Tip: Don't Use Antibacterial Soap...

J.L. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:09:18 -0000

I wonder if anyone reading this post is old enough to remember good old hexachlorophene. Brought to us by some of the same companies who sell hand soaps with bacteriostatic additives, it was widely adverstised for many years as killing the bacteria that caused body odor. At some point it's presence mysteriously disappeared from the ad copy. Wonder why that could be? Hmmm?

Re: Important! Why Carbon Sequestration Won't Save Us

J.L. — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 10:08:40 -0000

They're not done yet with the 25% and the other 20% of parasitizing the gross fuel efficiency. S02 and mercury scrubbing can take between 12 and er 25% more of the gross power output, (with conventional off the shelf technology). Some of this can be shifted to the front end with the most modern designs but it is still an expense and a significant power loss to remove those from coal no matter what.

Re: Make Biking Cool, Hollywood

J.L. — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 06:19:51 -0000

The ancestor of all nerdy bicycle-rider-as-film-hero movies is Jaques Tati's "Mon Uncle". B&W, shot in Paris, very funny if enjoy subtitles of can understand French. Makes constant contrast of high tech versus traditional urban living.

Re: Four Out of Five Americans Want Solar Option for New Homes

J.L. — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 16:50:24 -0000

Go visit a Toll Bros or other developer model home and look at the "Extras" and "ammenities" that are featured in wall displays. Multiple carpet samples all essentially the same, etc. Then ask a delivery man how many of those homes he stops at have only furnishings in a few of the rooms. Its a matter of priorities. Scale down the "great room" , lower the foyer ceilings, eliminate the "walk in closet" in the guest room and move that money to a modest, scalable solar system. I'm convinced that if they offered it some would buy it.

Re: Ice Bear: Thermal Storage for Cheaper AC

J.L. — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 10:44:31 -0000

For awhile there was a rush to build peaking power or "merchant" gas fired plants. THen the price of gas skyrocketed and that pretty much stopped. WIth demand often exceeding supply during hot spells, coal plants are being forced to operate at peak output.

Re: Is DDT Making a Comeback?

J.L. — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 07:56:56 -0000

There are other cheap insecticides already being used indoors and especially in combination with bet nets can be the most effective exposure control to protect small children. Agricultural uses of DDT were likely the most significant past cultprits for food chain accumulation . As long as DDT use stays indoors, part-empty containers are not missmanaged, and spills prevented. this should be allright.

Re: Planetary Engineering For Climate Crisis: What Are The Choices?

J.L. — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 19:03:03 -0000

I love Ho Humm's words. She/he is eloquent. We would do better face to face I expect.

Re: Inhabitat Has the Goods on Green Roofs

J.L. — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 08:30:28 -0000

The history of the "green Roof" in the US includes someone often forgotten: Frank Lloyd Wright. His passive solar enhanced, earth bermed, Usonian period homes, of which this is the best example http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/people/kuzmik/files/..., had part-green roofs. Circa late 1930's.

Re: New Grist Organic Beer

J.L. — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 19:39:26 -0000

As a Wisconsin native, I have only this to say. "Youse guys wanna come over to my place for a drink once, eh?" "Bring da brewskis will ya?"

Re: Recycling Used Engine Oil into Fuel Oil

J.L. — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:23:05 -0000

As a caution to garage inventors tempted to build their own verson of this low tech process and start a business, keep in mind that you must have a RCRA waste treatment permit to do this commercially. The RCRA regs were established to to stop "sham" recycling...clowns who would take the money after accumulating tons of wastes oil, and then split. It is a real problem: so no whining please about environmental regs getting in the way of "gree" innovators.

Re: A Hummer with your Happy Meal

J.L. — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:42:48 -0000

Take a close look at the people who dismount from Hums in the parking lot. They're not all "Ahnolds". Lots of them are petite women folk. Americans wear their rides like European aristotracy wore their wigs: for all to see. Social status indication and poltical display are the end games. As long as conspicuous consumption gets bonus points in the displayer's mind this will continue. At the first sign of a protracted gasoline shortage, driving of the hog will lose status and the Big Hum disappears.

Re: Clean Energy: Wall Street's New Love Affair

J.L. — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:51:11 -0000

So, investors 'follow "Pony-Tails" to green business opportunities'. I wonder if the content of WSJ editorial sheets for the last decade had anything to do with holding the chase back for so long?

Re: Beyond Petroleum? More Like Big Problem

J.L. — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 11:32:01 -0000

The pipeline leak needs to be looked at in practical terms as well as in a policy context. Installing the pipes was a huge challenge and completed decades ago, when Lord Brown may not have even been an executive. Regretably, the choice of materials, steel with interior corrosion proof coating, turned out to be bad. Severe corrosion set in before the end of it's anticipated design life. He can't be hedl accountable for that.

It is, however, legitimate to ask why an aggressive pipe inspection program was not in place to detect it earlier, and insitute a replacement program so as to avert long term shut-down. Cost savings would be the obvious answer. Just like a person who chooses not to take his car in for regular oil changes, it was "out of sight and out of mind".

Re: The Ronald McHummer Sign-o-Matic

J.L. — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:49:10 -0000

Take deep breaths and hummm after me. Redemption comes not from language unless it be artful.

Re: The Future of Politics: Eco-Scandals?

J.L. — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:42:53 -0000

The following Lexus story is common greenwashing: this time with technology props-- just the sort of made for TV stunt you'd expect of politicians accustomed to having their way with media dupes (oops, did I say dupes; I meant reporters).

THen there's the use of celebrity props, hoping to be judged to be like the company you keep in front of the camera.

Career bumps will be inevitable among those who ;loudly opposed commonsense and scientifically sound policy choices and created a public record in doing so.

Re: Run Your AC on Snow

J.L. — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:12:57 -0000

Or how about a ginormous backyard ice cube tray that you fill up with water in winter, let freeze, and tip the contents into a superinsulated, below ground storge facility 1/10th the volume of the snow storage.

Re: Nanosolar: Printing Solar Film Like Paper

J.L. — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:06:10 -0000

A word on risk management Those metals are not without drawbacks from a sustainability standpoint: life cycle toxicity questions need to be tackled before exposures scale up. Secondly, design life likely hinges on the polymer. Whereas the typical design life is 25 - 30 years+ for todays' rigid solar panels, these new thin films might be an order of magnitude lower unless the base film is a flouropolymer, from which another layer of issues is introduced.

Re: ViaStone: Biodegradable Paper Made From Stone

J.L. — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 10:23:30 -0000

TH has an earlier post on "rock paper" which is made in China, possibly on a similar process. Here is the link: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/02/rock_pa...

As inferred by another commenter, the calcium carbonate might be a chemical precipitate, a byproduct of another industrial process so it would be finely divided enough.

The resin used to hold rock paper together was reported to be virgin polyethylene. Then there were various proprietary formulations of coatings to admit and hold printing inks and make it water resistant, etc. If this material is made similarly, mfg is on the same sort of equipment used to make plastic films.

My concern is that there are biodegradation parallels to the legendary "green trash bag" issue. The manufacturers will have to establish whether the polymer resins actually biodgrade or whether they just become particulates in groundwater.

Re: Crocs. Birkys for a New Millenium?

J.L. — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:06:32 -0000

Look really hot while jumping down from an SUV, wearing a matching sweat suit.

Re: Find Biodiesel with a Phone Call

J.L. — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:04:55 -0000

I think its terrific that biodiesel is concentrated in the grain belt. The "flyover zone" is greener than the coasts in this regard, obviously. No reason it can't stay that way. One size need not fit all.

Re: Electric Mini: 0-60 in 4 Seconds: It Has Motors In Its Wheels

J.L. — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 13:56:11 -0000

The point of a prototype is to demonstrate technology and operating feasibility, not to control cost. If all the non-traditional components are "off the shelf", bulk purchases would immediately lower cost of goods. The heart will be the custom computerized controllers. Probably took thousands of coder hours to make them work and thousands more remain to tweak to perfection. That's where the patents will lie as well.

Prototypes like this often never make it to market because the projected profit margins and gross profits are below corporate expectations. However, with inefficient vehicle sales plummeting, perhaps the inventors will be lucky enough to find a niche in a major maker.

Re: A Potential Solution to Mercury Emissions

J.L. — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 10:39:23 -0000

Activated carbon is generally made by running coal pellets that have been acid leached (to remove mercury) into an air starved kiln. Immense amounts of natural gas are used to distill off the volatiles and "activate" it. During that process the mercury leachate has to be treated to precipitate out heavy metals for ultimate disposal, and ineviteably some memaining and additional mercury is emitted from the activation kiln to the air (natural gas used for non-domestic purposes also has some mercury). If the feedstock coal has much chloride, there is a risk that the kilns can also be a source of dioxin unless carefully managed./ Sounds like a great technology but lets see a life cycle accounting of the mercury, energy, and C02 flows before we rave too much.

Re: California To Pass Emissions Caps: A "Bottom-Up Approach to Global Warming"

J.L. — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:41:36 -0000

Interestingly, the radio coverage I just heard on the story featured only the statements of opposition. No details of which industries supported it and why.

Typically, when California does something like this it takes one more election cycle for the Federal government to attempt a matching program.

Re: TKiT Dream Becoming Reality: a New Standard for Eco-Prefab

J.L. — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 17:01:08 -0000

While all of Houston's assertions are correct for ordinary glass (which includes Low-E coat for heat retention in cold months) all cards are in the air if the architect would specify solar gain control coated glass on sun-facing aspects of building envelope.

Forget the name of the Bauhaus architect who built of number of all glass homes for wealthy patrons in the US. Back in the 70's I think. What typically happens when the family fades from the home and sells off the surrounding buffer land is that surrounding development makes privacy impossible. They get turned into museums or whatever.

Re: Scrubbing Toxic Soil with Sound Waves

J.L. — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:36:56 -0000

Bench-scale in-situ remediation tech of this sort typically burps on the material handling. The choice is to dig up, store and deliver hundred truckloads of dirty soil to the off-site treatment process, going through residential areas enroute, and then haul the clean stuff back; or, build the processing equipment on the contaminated site periphery (often in a residential area) and do rotating "sand castles" of treated soil, with backfills of treated earth. The latter exposes neighbors to lots of noise, power consumption, vapors,etc.

Re: For Sale: Eco-Friendly Home with Free Prius

J.L. — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 13:18:07 -0000

Fascinating comment Scottia. Think about who lives in northern VA of a buying age: the governing class; high-level technocrats in bureaucracies; international delegates; land, lobbyists.

Re: The BMW Hydrogen 7: "Paving The Way Into the Future"

J.L. — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 16:16:20 -0000

Makes hydrogen "sexy" for status seeking wealthy, who may confer this value on others.

A niche market for this 12 banger would help develop the infrastructure needed for fuel cell cars in air quality limited places like LA.

Keep in mind that fuel cells may one day be used in hybrids to supplant battery weight, and to diversify the fuel mix. Hybridization, after all, does not infer only a pure dualty of propulsion energy. Multi-hybrids are definitely in reach.

Having said that, BMW has had these or cars like them in play since 2001, in Germany; and it's therfore probably just a brand image burnishing move. Everyone can smell a regulatory change coming after this fall and it's good business to act in accordance.

Re: Why Do the Dutch Like Bikes So Much?

J.L. — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:17:07 -0000

You have examine the root cause to find answers. For example, Danish parents are discouraged from dropping children off at school; and in Denmark driver licenses can only be obtained at 18. As a result, young people become acculturated to walking and biking everywhere as they grow up. Contrast this with the US where there are actually some school districts where NO busing service is provided and where there are no sidewalks or paths. Most, suburban and exurban US school districts it is the rule to find few or no sidewalks, paths, or safe lanes; so, it's car or bus only. When US kids fledge their suburban homes they leave a memory of eighty dollar bikes that weigh 40 pounds that were used to peddle around the cul de sacs a few times and then end up on the garage wall. No surprise then that Americans don't grow up accepting of bikes as mainstream transportation.

Re: Laurie Tumer: When The Evidence Is Glowing

J.L. — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 16:30:47 -0000

This technique has been around for at least a decade to teach people about chemical and biological laboratory safety. You let beginners have at a blank sample of whatever their job will have them handling, not mentioning that it has been spiked with the fluorescent dye. THen you turn on a video camera with the right filters and track the mess from inadequate handling procedures.

Re: Gore Presents Bold Strategy for Fighting Climate Change

J.L. — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:03:09 -0000

Was the tax statement ordered "Cut income taxes and tax carbon" Or 'tax and cut'. Makes a world of difference to the pundit class.

Re: Concerns Over Nuclear Power Continue to Mount

J.L. — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:56:40 -0000

It always comes down to cost. Will it be competitive with renewables without pubic funding and without taxpayers having to cover the liability insurance premiums and the waste disposal costs amortized over millenia.

Re: Solar Powered Cat On Trans-Atlantic Crossing

J.L. — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:23:54 -0000

Monte Gisborne, of the Tamarack Lake Electric Boat Company sends along this message in response to Larry's calculations.

---

Firstly, the capacity of the traction battery isn't as relevant as he suggests, but the peak capacity of the solar array is critical here. Remember, the battery is strictly for storage of the electrical energy provided by the solar array and only needs to be big enough to store enough energy to get one through the night and times of heavy cloud coverage. The capacity of the battery correlates with the size of your gas tank - it really only has to be big enough to get you to the next gas station and it really does nothing to get you there, the engine does all the work.

You'll note that the chosen trajectory takes Sun21 across near the equator where average daily solar availability is quite good, around 6+ hours per day. This yields a minimum about 60 kilowatthours of energy per 24 hour period (6 hrs. X 10 kW), which is substantial and represents the critical data required. This equals about 2.5 kilowatts or 3.5 hp on average, continuously, not the 1/2 hp reported below.

The next consideration being ignored below is the "cube-of-speed" law which plagues all naval vessels and even automobiles. Simply put, it takes about 8 times the power to go twice as fast for any given vessel traveling in water. Simply put, it takes very little power to get a boat going - but it takes walloping power to make it go twice as fast! I don't claim any accuracy for the data on Sun 21 listed below, but 3.5 hp would push an efficient hull design like the Sun 21 along quite nicely, just not quickly. Four to Five knots does sound a little quick, but not that far off. Imagine 3.5 horses pulling this vessel along a shoreline and you'll get the picture. The 2 kilowatthours of energy for electronics and lighting sounds very high, I would have assumed much less than that especially since they would be using their equipment sparingly (I would assume) and LED lights and other efficiency products would prevail throughout.

Also, a discussion on the reduction of Peukert's effect here would be in line. Perhaps the greatest benefit of the solar is that it greatly reduces this effect and generously help to increase the actual (versus rated) capacity of the batteries while the boat is moving. The reported 512 amphours may actually be a lot more if the actual draw is minimized by the solar modules.

Favourable currents and winds also need to be included in actual speed calculations.

Re: The TH Interview: Bradley Berman, Editor of HybridCars.com

J.L. — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:50:32 -0000

All car makers have far more manufacturing capacity than they need to meet ICE powered vehicle demand. Business strategy seems to hinge always at the level of stealing someone else's market share. Efficiency used to be a niche factor. Now it's at least a tie breaker for the average customer. Once the hybrid market becomes coveted by all makers we hit the tipping point on capacity changes.

Re: “Rotten to the Core”: Greenpeace Finds Laptops Still Ripe with Toxins

J.L. — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 22:20:47 -0000

If you ground up a walnut desk you would find many toxins withing the wood structure. Does that make it bad? Of course not.

The point is that risk = hazard times exposure. This evaluation is all about hazard, and the exposure evaluation is largely phoney. People do not grind up their computers. THe only situations I know of where exposure to laptop PC chemical constituent hazards exist in the real world are:

leaching from a landfill

worker contact during recycling

user exposure in the event of a battery overheating.

emissions from an incinerator

I can not imagine any of these exposure scenarios realistically represented by grinding. What is it exactly that GP is simulating here?

Re: Eestor Update

J.L. — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 08:46:03 -0000

Yet the basic idea of using an ultra- or "hyper" capacitor to add a fast charge capability to a plug in hybrid is quite alluring. These are lightweight, carbon based, available in pre-wired banks just like LMH batteries in existing hybrids, and segmented into C+ size cells that are intrinsically safer.

Re: Green Home Features Passive Cooling & Automation

J.L. — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:12:43 -0000

The ghost of Frank Lloyed Wright is back in play!

Re: Corrugated Cardboard Goes Wild

J.L. — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:04:17 -0000

Because cardboard, corrugated cardboard specifically, seems to have such a bright green future in design it may be worth delving into the details --- sort of like bamboo: better now than after an embarassment.

Corrogated cardboard was invented as substitute for wooden crating materials. Coatings and graphics may vary widely in characteristic. Some are corrugated boards are coated with petroleum waxes to make them water resistant; some are coated with more benign substances suitable for "food contact".

Re: Solar Glass at Hong Kong Science Park

J.L. — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 13:44:13 -0000

If my eyes do not decieve then the solar panels are mounted as internal light shelves (horizontal plane, near top of fenestrations). That means they have dual funtionality, moving light up to the ceiling where it will reflect back down to interior work stations, at low contrast. Efficiency therefore should add in the supplanted electrical consumption.

Re: Paris Motor Show: Toyota Says "No" to Diesel Hybrids

J.L. — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 22:26:13 -0000

Diesels are relatively noisy and may not fit with the customer expectations ...or the added insulation weight for sound damping makes the pricing point too high???

Re: The Weather Channels Launches One Degree

J.L. — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 12:31:16 -0000

An especially good sign that they did not put up a "weatherperson" talking head. Meteorologists have been long on denial about climate change for decades. Climate being 'the average of all weather' this gets into a new domain of communications for them.

Re: Titanium Fiber Paper; Tough Stuff

J.L. — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 08:15:48 -0000

Interesting yes. But we should keep in mind that Titanium mining is messy and that benefaction/processsing to TiO is very energy intensive.

Re: Water, Water Everywhere, But Not a Drop To Drink

J.L. — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:35:46 -0000

I still felt some optimism creeping in! By the way, I just returned from the veterinarian who suggested that my allergic dog would benefit from kangaroo-based brand of dogfood from Australia, apparently a feed of last resort in the US - land of industrial additive everything. Perhaps Austrailian Roo hunters will be able to trade their product for some tankers of Lake Superior water before the drought gets the wildlife too. (:->

Re: Do Clotheslines Really Lower Property Value?

J.L. — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:23:31 -0000

Living in the suburbs as I do, I can testify that only households with stay-at-home consistently do line-drying. You have to be there in case wind comes up, rain begins, etc. Discrete liners typically hand the undergarments on the middle lines. My suspicion is that no-line drying ordinances are enacted as an ex-officio exclusionary tool to keep out immigrant minorities and the poor, and to discourage multiple families from domicile sharing (the situations where someone is always around to tend the lines).

Re: Q&A. Is Silk Green?

J.L. — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:17:07 -0000

Interesting. A net search on "tin-phosphate-silcate" produced archival pre-WWII fabric research documents indicating that lead-tin-silicate complexes were once common for sizing silks. Lets hope its no longer in use.

Re: These Rock and Rollers Are Carbon Neutral

J.L. — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:27:44 -0000

See...being green makes them smile too. Compare to almost any other band of young guys being pushed by the big music companies.

Re: TreeHugger Picks: Pellet Stoves

J.L. — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 13:54:48 -0000

I find it amazing that, during the summer season, home and garden stores can stock hundreds of pallets of mulch, soil amendments, gravel, sand, bark chips, bedding, etc, and then in the cold months they can't inventory some wood pellets? Something tells me that there are hidden issues related to in-store competition with more profitable items, poor distribution networks, and so on. Note that there are three distinct grades of wood pellet. As you'd expect ,grade 3 produces high ash.

In the commercial/industrial world, deliveries of bulk items such as wood pellets are done with something called a "supersack". It's a very large polymer or jute mesh bag that holds a pallet-worth of material, and the entire bag is sometmies mounted within a wire or plastic cage box to expedite handling. Often supersak cage is kept on a low off-ground base that has a built in gate valve for dispensing the bulk material into a pail or guerny. There is absolutely no reason that such systems (which employ re-usable bags) could not be delivered into home garages or stored on deck areas.

Many homes built before the 1960's still have coal chute doors at the basement window level - usually facing a driveway or alley from which the "coal man" approached for home deliver. It would be straightforward to follow this half-century old business model, but this time using an air handler, with air return through a dust fileter, to transfer the pellets from a home delivery truck into a basement mounted supersack. This is all off the shelf stuff commonly found in industrial settings.

Where there is a will, there is a green way.

Re: Food Forest: A Garden WithTrees

J.L. — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:54:18 -0000

Far better to plant trees in the fall. As late as the end of November is fine. You can save as much as an order of magnitude on price if you go with bare root mail order trees and shrubs. If you have to re-locate the trees midway through spring you'll still be hundreds of dollars richer on each plant! I buy extras this way as survival insurance against the rabbits and give away any I don't need later in the year.

_______________________________________________

Authors Note:

Great Tip- thanks!

Re: Raising Energy Productivity

J.L. — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:42:04 -0000

Use of "raising energy productivity" is a superb semantics "framing" tactic. Business people shy away from investing in "efficiency," prefering to focus on "capacity utilization" and ROCI, so on. But when you say "energy productivity" real nice you can melt the heart of perhaps even a Wall Street Journal editorial board. I for one will follow Mr B's lead on this whenever I can.

Re: aMAIZEing: Bio-Based Paint Solvent & Stripper

J.L. — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:35:16 -0000

The MSDS for this product states:

NOTE: Material may be a skin sensitizer in susceptible individuals. The gloves listed below may provide protection against permeation. Gloves of other chemically resistant materials may not

provide adequate protection:

¦ Butyl Rubber

¦ Nitrile

The key is "derived from" biobased materials. Don't assume because these are from "natural" oils that you are automatically safer than with other stippers. These are potent esters which you much protect yourself from.

Re: A Dirty Deed in Kansas, USA

J.L. — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 12:09:38 -0000

This drama of conflict is being acted out in hundreds of communities throughout the US.

Re: Alexander Reh's Chandelier Made From Milk Jugs

J.L. — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 13:42:31 -0000

Cool innovation and quite nice looking. But I must say, the bottles will be attractive to insects which will surely fill the bases in short order. Better be able to remove and clean easily.

Re: Prominent Korean Buildings Upgraded With LEDs

J.L. — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 12:58:09 -0000

Eewww!

Re: Concrete: Can it be Green?

J.L. — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 09:06:39 -0000

Helps to divide the embodied energy value by expected design life in a particular application to arrive at a fair comparison: e.g. wood vs concrete.

Re: FSC-Certified Paper Comes to Staples Canada

J.L. — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 10:01:36 -0000

I doubt that per capita North American paper consumption has been steadily rising through the present. Email and the fall off of newsprint subscriptions account for the losses. Something else is going on here:how else do you account for the reduction in US paper making capacities and selloffs of operations?

Re: Climate Change Skeptics Offer YouTube Barrage

J.L. — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 07:58:51 -0000

Libertarian philosophy can not abide the very concept of climate change because is signals a failure of markets on a global scale: e.g. self-induced destruction of personal opportunity. This appears to be the very opposite of their most basic belief. The inference is that once they buy into climate change, it's all she wrote for Libertain thought. Wrong interpretation. The Libertarian alignment ought to be that it is their personal obligation to "get the designs right".

Re: How Green is a Green Computer?

J.L. — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:54:11 -0000

Look up the word "safety" in the dictionary and you'll likely find a definition that infers 'absence of danger'. Well, there is no such thing in life. Nor are there computers that last forever or use trivial amounts of energy and contain only benign "safe" components. RoHS does a great job of phasing out the worst elements of chemical toxicity. Utopian visions of design perfection offer their own hazards.

Re: How Green is a Green Computer?

J.L. — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 11:02:56 -0000

The tradeoffs raised by Thomas are well explained in a recent TH post by C. Lepisto on Green Chemistry.

The need for fireproofing of desk top model cases is fast slipping by. THe lower the energy consumption, the closer we get to an all bamboo encased CPU. Any of you old enough to remember how the first televisions were designed may recall the all wooden case, and the bare, glowing electronics all clustered in the middle of the enclosed space, with plenty of air betweent he wooden case walls and the tubes. Somehow we survived without brominated fire retardants, using air space to lower risk of fire. So it is true that re-design can accomplish much, if many factors are in synch and costs permitting.

Re: How Green is a Green Computer?

J.L. — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:17:22 -0000

No disagreement with your calcs; but I would hasten to point that metal is no longer needed to shield electromagnetic energy from people. Designers can choose from screen, metallic paints, and even tiny silvered glass beads impregnated in a thin coating on the inside of the device casing. The latter approach is common in cell phones!

Re: GM’s Plug-In Prototype to Show in 2007

J.L. — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 10:16:48 -0000

The definition of plug-in hybrid readily admits a non-ICE engine option for the ran-out-of-juice recharge phase of the vehicle's propulsion. The fuel cell could be the smallish direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), or the direct ethanol fuel cell (EMFC). THese need no on-board fuel reformation and NO hydrogen storage.

Re: Coming soon: A "Strategic Fuel Ecoplex"

J.L. — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 10:06:34 -0000

The parent Co. says:it "...looks forward to the completion of its demonstration project which will create many commercial opportunities. These include sales of Silverado’s Green Fuel to utility and industrial oil users, especially to the major oil importers in the Pacific Rim, as well as the export of the fuel production technology and engineering, sales of equipment and instrumentation made in North America to developing nations, particularly to Asia and Eastern Europe". All the countries not currently signatories to the Kyoto convention in other words. Nice.

Re: Portable Spin Dryer from The Laundry Alternative

J.L. — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:42:46 -0000

My grandmother had the equivalent device, with hand cranked twin-nip roller presses on top to squeeze out most free water, and then a spin "extractor" on vertical axis, below, that removed the final drops. Modern washing machines simply combine the two functions using a gear box and pump so I don't see a significant advantage in returning to this older idea. Perhaps just the smaller capacity saves electricity for small loads. But for large loads it would surely be an inconvenient step backwards in design.

Re: Portable Spin Dryer from The Laundry Alternative

J.L. — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:29:52 -0000

Better not let axis of evil nations get hold of this technology to process yellow cake (:->

Re: GE Nuclear Merges With Hitachi for the "Global Nuclear Renaissance"

J.L. — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 15:15:23 -0000

Until Nevada gets an approved waste repository, the only place this JV will get "greenfield" projects is Asia. With Hitachi's local chops, this makes double strategic sense (add in anaon's comment). I might add that China, politically speaking, would not care much about our musings, pro or con, should they decide to sign onto Kyoto II and further accelerate nuclear development

Re: The Dirty Truth About Hydropower

J.L. — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:54:51 -0000

Begging to differ here on this notion. By whose definition is hydropower non-renewable? Every drop of water that passes through a turbine is there because of the sun.

The cited study ignores a basic understanding of the earth's suface water phemonena. Reservoirs, and all lakes for that matter, in the northern temperate zone (US and Canada for instance) are too cold and oxygen rich for most of the year for anaerobic decomposition to make the methane budget go negative. This is why logs that sunk to the bottom of northern lakes during the clear-cutting days of the 1800's are still there! The opposite is generally true of tropical and subtropical water bodies. Let's be careful not to make generalizations that clearly do not apply by any rational measure to norther hydro projects.

Re: Home Energy and Heat Generators Coming to America

J.L. — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:41:14 -0000

Plug and Ballard fuel cell companies have stationary FC versions that are domestic CHP units. Fair number sold in Japan already. Also, there are two micro-turbine makes poised to do same.

Re: DOE Presents Scenarios for Widespread Hydrogen Vehicle Use

J.L. — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 15:28:43 -0000

It took nearly a century for commercially sold, internal combustion powered cars to reach a todays' high level of safety and reliability. Efficiency could have had a similar trajectory had not we become obscessed with a doubling and re-doubling of horsepower to weight ratios. If those who are today negative about the potential of hydrogen for transporation were put in a 1920's car and considered that ''this is what people were told was the future of transporation', I think the perspective would help.

Re: Coca-Cola Opens First Cafe in Toronto

J.L. — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 11:52:01 -0000

Starbucks-come-lately with a modest green upgrade.

Re: Big Ass Fans: Great idea, Dumb Name

J.L. — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 16:32:45 -0000

If it breaks can you fix it with a BFH?

Re: Powerwash Graffiti shows Chicago is Grey, not Green

J.L. — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:51:53 -0000

Only partially correct. Ever wonder where the "worn" part of tires end up? The black stuff is it.

Re: Powerwash Graffiti shows Chicago is Grey, not Green

J.L. — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 20:11:40 -0000

Maybe you are pulling my chain Sten. But perhaps not. Assuming not, here's the thing. THe outer 3/8th inch of every tire's grooved surface wears off against the pavement. Ever see the black screech marks from where someone "peeled out" or the skid marks where they slammed on the brakes? Its rubber powder, smeared accross the rough pavbement. Most of it wears off invisibly and is washed away by the rain or blown about by the wind. If you live in the city you can literally wipe tire powder off the outside of your window sill after a rain. Many tons of it fill urban rivers after a washoff, adding zinc and polyaromatic hydrocarbons to the river sediments.

Re: Dagoba Sold To Hershey's

J.L. — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:39:45 -0000

Only a few years ago Hersey was engaged in a very public debate over whether the Board should sell out to some international group of financiers, abandoning it's roots to the community where it started. Some sort of stop gap solution was eventually found at the urging of government officials. I just hope they don't have their all their profit hopes in the single basket of organic product margins, because if they do the day will come soon when sellout comes back on the table.

Re: Tips for Winter Biking

J.L. — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 09:43:55 -0000

Tip. Take a nice long sauna first and you'll have about 20 minutes to ride nekked before you feel it.

Re: LA Auto Show: Schwarzenegger Comes to the Show

J.L. — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:55:25 -0000

Depolymerizing polymers back to the original monomeric structure is often called "reverse methanolysis" or "RM" The several commercial efforts at doing this over the last decade have proved uneconomic and were closed down. RM won't work on plastics where a high fraction of mineral salts or fibers have been added (such as PVC) nor will it work on anything less than a single polymer feedstock: hence the risky economics. The other problem is that the very firms best capable of performing RM and consuming the resulting product tend to be the same firms which already make "virgin" monomers from petrochemicals.. You can imagine the internal competition that results over pricing, especially if the RM produced monomer was able to be made more cheaply for some reason. Hence, although it seems like a holy grail of sorts, because of the potential to empower a closed loop or "up cycling" of wasate plastics, in practice it has not panned out.

Re: Nau and Again. Part Two of our Interview

J.L. — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:55:26 -0000

I had an original Marmot down vest that lasted many years. Great quality. Hoping the new crop will be as good.

Re: 2007 Saturn Aura Green Line Hybrid: Fuel Economy

J.L. — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 12:50:24 -0000

Two comments: first is that my 2003 Toyota Corolla (non-hyrid) gets between 39 and 41 mpg on the highway, even with three people and their luggage; second, I am astounded that a lead acid battery is still spec'd into the design. This seems to be a symbol either of stuck in the box mindset by engineers or of a willingness to let the propulsion battery pack to drain down fully before starting a recharge. Why else leave a 30 pound dead weight in place?

Re: Green Insulations: More Choices

J.L. — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 10:00:34 -0000

I would want to know exactly what biocidal agent(s) are added to the sprayed cellulosic materials to prevent mold and such. If they were mineral and non-volatile such as sodium silicate that would be OK. But the devil is in the details when a preservative is involved. Show me an MSDS and we'll see how green it is.

Re: Bamboo: Choose it Carefully

J.L. — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 08:36:46 -0000

There will be no way to distinguish products based on adhesive off-gassing unless someone comes up with a voluntary measurement standard: e.g. # of sq ft exposed, to a certain temperature and humidity, with a certain finish coat, in a standard sized enclosure, with sample pump of certain kind, run for defined period, using a particular lab method, and so on. An industry group would have to lead the way in creating this standard.

Re: Niagara Applies For A Coal Hand-Out

J.L. — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 16:21:12 -0000

Look over the exhibits at the Fall's visitor center and you'll see that Niagara has long been "destroying itself", having moved many miles upstream over the millenia. Its functional beauty is that no dam is needed: power is made from the natural "head" of the falls, which remains roughly constant over time. A remarkable situation; and exploited, so far, without much ruining the view.

It's also important to realize that Niagara's power is, in majority, atrributable to the massive Great Lakes Watershed outside of NYS. (A minority of Niagara's power is from runoff stemming from within NY State.) The notion that this green power, "made" in NY, should only be used to advantage in NY is specious until you consider the gift this power offers in return to the world's climate. Supporting a portion of the NYS economy, it can obviate the need for coal, similar to how hydropower resources do for the Pacific NW states. Viewed in this light, optimizing it's use for producing green power is counter-destructive of nature on a grand scale (Greatl Lakes residents benefit by the climate change mitigation result). Bypassing this opportunity in a move toward coal instead is ___ (adjective of your choice).

Re: "Don't Give Us Green Design Icing, Give Us the Cake"

J.L. — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 12:57:13 -0000

The longer the design life, the greater the acceptability of resource intensive materials: i.e.energy embodiment high.

Conversely, the shorter the design life, the more important easy recylcability becomes.

Re: Japan to Raise Vehicle Fuel Efficiency Standards

J.L. — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 09:48:21 -0000

This is huge...transformational of global markets eventually. What works in Japan gets sold in the US.

On the otherhand, the window for the US based car makers to get out of denial is narrowing to a small gap.

Re: Floating on Air Could Lend Ships Speed and Fuel Efficiency

J.L. — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 14:42:23 -0000

If stack gas were filtered and injected in the nip between hull and water the resulting acitidy might also serve to retard barnacle and slime growth. Now that would be a trick!

Re: Carpet-Burns: from Waste Carpet to New Material

J.L. — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 08:19:36 -0000

If former owner had pets, the mfg phase has got to smell nasty.

Re: Planting Trees Affect on Climate Change

J.L. — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:32:20 -0000

Something is counter-intuitive about such inconclusive or contradictory sounding studies. Given the choice of clearing a northern temperate forest for paper making, thus liberating, ultimatelly, all carbon in the stems, branches, and leaves into the atmosphere, versus not clearing it, which one is clearly better for the climate? I suspect many of these scientists are not seeing the forest for the trees.

Re: Survey: Al Gore for President?

J.L. — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 09:18:39 -0000

I want to see Al as UN Ambasador. What besides the UN is in a position to negotiate global climate mitigation incentives, agreements, best practices, etc? Moreover, it would be commensurate with Al's present role, presenting the "truth" to the world.

Re: Planting Trees Helps Fight Global Warming, but Only in the Tropics

J.L. — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:07:25 -0000

Worth noting: in the northern temperate zone, oxidation of dead plant matter slows and eventually halts as the freezing point is approached; hence while uptake of C02 decreases in trees, so do both respiration and decay. Conversely, in the tropics, decay proceeds all year. A good model must account for these rate changes per each ecotone. Use of a uniform rate all year grossly distorts the picture.

Re: Bog House by Lynn Gaffney Architect

J.L. — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:13:35 -0000

Houses go up in suburbia when the infrastructure allows for it: highways, fire and police budgets, sewer and water, etc.

Infrastructure can be limited by budgetary allocations or by zoning, albeit drawing a line on the map which says that castles in the trees are not allowed here. This is what happens in Europe and around Portland OR, but almost no where else in North America does local government have the guts to try. That leaves budgetary control, especially the highway lobby as the target left standing.

Re: How Can You Keep’em Down On The Farm, Once They’ve Been To Green Chicago?

J.L. — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 11:00:03 -0000

Clarification. In the early 1980's, US cities with long-decrepit waterfronts realized that if they cleared the debris and pushed industries and themselves to meet industrial wastewater & municipal sewerage discharge standards, tourists, residences, and other desireable, clean developments would come back to the waterfront. It worked. Baltimore harbor is a great example. Then, in the mid- to late-eighties, many cities noticed that artists (all sorts) were a leading edge of gentrification/restoration movements in abandoned urban core areas. Hence, several cities began to promote things like Philadelphia's "Avenue of the Arts". Again, economic development generally follows (albeit controversially at times).

While "pundits" will always remain clueless about such changes until the evidence is large in their faces, several major municipalities have realized that "green" is the newest tool for sparking wide scale urban rejuvination and setting sustainability as a planning target.

The extension of my post hypothesis is that such approaches are like pieces of a puzzle whose assembly must be seen to be "in progress" before large numbers of so-called "creative class" will cast their life energies and money into making a more sustainable future where they were educated. If state and local governmental units are seen to be lacking, or backing down from previous committments to such things (including the 9 in the post list), the "creatives" will, as soon as they are able, flee to where their energies are demonstrably wanted. The "pushes" and "pulls" will be subjectively perceived by individuals as a net-sum, and reacted to without public declaration.

Re: Tilting at lampposts

J.L. — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:56:34 -0000

A pet peeve of mine as well. Architectural wash lighting, and the leaving on of all room lights in vacant office buildings as an advertisement for prospective tenants are next on my list.

I have yet to see a scientific study that correlates street crime with long term lighting levels. It just relieves us of our fear of the dark and makes us easier targets for the muggers.

Re: Antimony in your Bottled Water

J.L. — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 10:20:49 -0000

Antimony trioxide is used as a catalyst in manufacture of the bottles (its main use however is as a fire retardant additive to other plastics outside the bottling industry).

As I understand things, the professor cited did his study to validate the purchasing of bottled water on the open market as a sampling mechanism, so that investigators would not literally have to travel all over the world taking water samples to look for metals. Obviously his results indicate that approach would not be valid for certain species. Note that some metals may be sorbed from the water into the polymer and others leached from the polymer into the water over time.

It would be wise to compare the cited levels to what is found in your exisiting tap water before becoming too excited.

As to dangers posed at the levels detected, don't expect any new probes from FDA or USEPA and their respective shadow agencies in Canada. The EU has an open dossier for the characterization of antimony as a human health hazard, however.

Re: Audubon Society "Strongly Supports Wind Power"

J.L. — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:29:06 -0000

The NAS' President is named Flicker? Grinning here. At any rate this is a necessary and useful statement. I imagine the cap statement will become a soundbyte and a good many public hearings.

Re: Global Warming is Good for Russia

J.L. — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:08:25 -0000

Underlying problem resulting in "specialization" (per Craig's comment) are editors pressuring writers to take a positive angle on a story ('our readers don't want gloom and doom') that really has no positive angle. The other driver of this mindlessness is that so many journalists have 'communications' degrees and little experience with the world. All style and no substance.

Re: The Great Yellow Woods Challenge

J.L. — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 09:02:32 -0000

Search engines have made Yellow Pages virtually useless. Not only are they seldom put to use because of the better alternative of using Internet resources, what is found in them is far less comprehensive than it once was. My guess would be is that businesses that formerly considered a yellow page listing as essential advertising have shifter their money to web site development. I would just a soon see the entire sector disappear.

Re: Wind Power: Free, Plentiful and Fickle

J.L. — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10:31:17 -0000

The utilities plan to build the coal plants regardless. Dissing the wind power they simply compete for market dominance, hoping to discourage customers from signing on to green power and preventing a mass movement that will force them to to upgrade their process technology and pollution controls. The battle is on and they are tipping at windmills of their imagination!

Re: Australia's Prime Minister on Bottled Water

J.L. — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 15:41:36 -0000

Lead piping and appurtenances largely went out of style by the end of WWI, being replaced by the more widely available and convenient copper and steel plumbing. IHence, lead is found in US cities as a city core relict. For example, I had a home in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood (near Wrigley Field) that had an all-lead, 1.5 inch cold water line coming into the home from the street. (The city water main, which was steel I believe, paralleled a crumbling brick sewer pipe in the street. More on that later.) My house plumbing was all copper, however.

When I needed a new gate shutoff valve put at the copper-lead juncture I had to locate a retired plumber who had the equipment and skills needed to "wipe" a lead/copper joint.

Afterward, I had my water tested for lead several times and it was fine - well below the max contaminant level (MCL). This may have had to do with the fact that Chicago water was well buffered and hence not considered "agressive" in the matter of dissolving metals.

Ask your water supply company for test results typical of sampling at the point of distribution. Then, sample the water at point of consumption (your tap). If both are good, you're fine. And if you live in the suburbs or a district developed after 1960 the odds there will be no problem.

Re: Not a Good Week For Wind Power

J.L. — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 12:58:26 -0000

These debates are mirroring what happened all across Europe over the last 5 years. When surrounded by propagandists, pass the ammunition: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/minneso... and don't shoot until they start spinning at a public hearing.

Re: Conserve Water: Swap Cotton for Hemp?

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:57:26 -0000

Irrigation comes to cotton so it can be grown in places that cotton was otherwise not able to be raised in. Possibly to even get two crops a year off the land. THe question may be better posed as can hemp succeed in more marginal lands than can cotton? If so, we ought to be able to have a production system that has both, but uses net less irrigation water.

Re: Alaska's Prince William Sound or Brooklyn's Newtown Creek?

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:53:48 -0000

I'd wager that much of the subsurface oil is from continuously leaking pipes and appurtenances. Historically, it was probably cheaper to bury lines thant to use proper above ground pipe racks where inspections could reveal leaks, drips were caught, and maintenance access was possible. Corrosion happened in these old iron pipes in the same way that it did in the BP Alaska pipeline. But they couldn't put a "pig" in a 3 1/2 inch diameter pipe.

Re: Mexican Office Tower without Air Conditioning

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:48:22 -0000

Wow. That interior space is gorgeous. Does it reflect the spanish "courtyard" tradition.

Sadly, in the US there would be a flotilla of crappy retail carts parked in the interior space, selling water bottles and knick knacks and unhealthy snacks.

Re: The Smallest Part is the Biggest Problem: Cell Phone Chips

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 14:12:14 -0000

seminal work. More of this please!

Re: Green Electronics First in Europe, Now in China. Where is the USA?

J.L. — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 20:33:53 -0000

Mark. You forget Dieldin Aldrin DDT & PCB's which were outright banned by the early 80's. Also, by Montreal Protocol treaty, several CFC's were phased out and now can not be be imported without paying heavy duties. Several pesticides have been de-registered. Many substances can no longer be used in former applications (leaded gas for example).

Re: Palm Oil: A Rainforest in your Shopping

J.L. — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:13:48 -0000

I find this waaaay too complex to remember while shopping. Here are my three rules. Will someone please tell me if this is off base or missing something key?

If the grease gets hard at room temperature or below, I don't eat it. If it says transfat, I don't buy it. If it says palm kernel I don't buy it.

Re: Chevy Volt: An All-Electric Gasoline Hybrid?

J.L. — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:15:34 -0000

Underneath the buzz. GM partnered, reportedly, wth GE plastics to make a large portion of the body out of composite and other specialty polymers, greatly cutting weight. That allows the tradeoff of increased battery weight to keep the gross figure down. Then, in an odd follow on, GE just announced it may sell outright or spin off GE Plastics, which had been the nurturing ground for both Welch and Imelt early in their careers. Petro-plastic making in general is 'undeperforming' in the profits realm because of high oil (benzene feedstock) and natural gas (ethylene feedstock) costs. The upshot (my guess here) is that plastic making will be outsourced to petroleum and gas rich OPEC nations in the same manner that steel has been outsourced to coal rich recycling focused China. Somehow it all seems so unsustainable. To reverse that, total oil consumption has to go down.

Re: Whats Wrong with Mild Winters, Anyways?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 14:01:04 -0000

Climatic extremes kill people. Extreme cold and extreme heat are all part of the picture of climate changing . The mortalities have always been there: climate change intensifies and makes extremes more common is all.

Strongly suggest that we all have a look at the latest post on RealClimate for a rational statement of what indicates and what does not indicate climate change in the way of weather extremes. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2...>

Re: Survey: Do You Believe the Car Makers?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 09:38:12 -0000

The bigger the vehicle, and the fancier the decor, the higher the profit margin. American car makers and Japanese ones alike benefit from this reality. Big is not necessarily that much more difficult or expensive to make, just more profitable.

All car makers have excess capacity: they can make far more cars than they can sell. In this condition, ways to increase the value of their respective stocks are limited to such things as: steal niche customers (JEEP -> Hummer) with a sexy overpowered novelty design; close plants and/or layoff workers; outsource parts making; buy out a competitor; or sell bigger cars to customers with more money than sense. Sound familiar?

Re: Ford Airstream Plug-In Hydrogen Fuel Cell Concept

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 12:32:15 -0000

Concept cars are like the supermodels of the fashion world. No one expects to actually own those cars/clothes, but they may be attracted to the brand as the creativity chord is played.

Re: Financial Times Publishes The "Anti-Green" Position

J.L. — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:31:26 -0000

Update: Financial Times edition of 11 January 2006 has just published 5 letters to the editor regarding the Kay essay. All argued that "environmentalism" was more empirical than religious in approach.

Re: Will the High Price of Oil Make Americans Skinnier?

J.L. — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:02:37 -0000

Or, people will crave it and continue to buy it, but in it's most concentrated forms: cola drinks for example.

Also, the by-product of fermentation is a dried mast that can either be blended into animal food supplements or burned to support distillation. If the mast becomes over-supplied, animal feed prices will lower, etc.

Re: Exxon Turns Off Disinformation Tap

J.L. — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:45:19 -0000

We'll know if teh claims are true if the denier "program" production values start to slip even further (as hard to believe as that is). If the deniers don't quiet down, then we'll be to wonder if money is just being laundered in more complex, less tax deductable, ways.

What's needed is for Exxon to publicly distance themselves from all former proxies and to align directly and openly with more "honest broker" type organizations such as RFF. I hate to see any of the more broadly scoped DC "think tanks" such as Brookings get involved more than they are, though, because it's too easy to dismiss their recommendations as "liberal" or "conservative". On the otherhand, because the issue is now transitioning to macro-economic impact analysis, it's impossible to keep the Think Tanks out of it. Too bad some major university consortia can't step in to keep the issue away from partisans.

Re: Abbott First to Join PHH GreenFleet Program

J.L. — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:14:42 -0000

Here's an interesting dilemma regarding fleet vs personal car use reimbursement. Companies reimburse employees for use of personal vehicles based on a national average operating cost per mile estimate. Last I got a reimbursement it was almost 40 cents per mile. That average rate is based on operating expenses from every kind of vehicle, allowing person who drives a hybrid for work and gets reimbursed for his/her mileage to make out like a bandit. I suspect fleet managers have figured this out by now (and seeing the tax advantage as well) have decided that they need to take measures to cut their "losses." Reminds me of the controversy that results when corporations started saying that frequent flyer miles belong to the company and not the individual.

Re: Bush Administration Plans to Bring Back Nuclear Testing

J.L. — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 13:38:07 -0000

Like a re-make of Dr. Strangelove. There may be a synergy in terms of raw material and expertise for escalating weapon and new nuclear power capabilty in parallel. Very likely there have been strategic discussions of this at high levels of government.

Re: Th Better than Uranium

J.L. — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:57:52 -0000

Australia has the largest proven reserve of Thorium ore.

Metallic Th decays to radon gas, so a big source of occupational hazard exists unless kept as a salt.

Re: Ronald Bailey: "No one paid me to be wrong about global warming"

J.L. — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:15:28 -0000

Is he asking us to believe that administrators and program managers at Exxon supported Think Tanks would tolerate an associated writer offending a major donor that has many times gone on the record as categorically in opposition to a 'climate change is real' position? Are we to think that people who wrote under the various Think Tank banners, or in association with them, did not know that Exxon was a major funder. 'Last time checked'EXOM had given 200K.' Wow what a shock that must have been to discover. because no one else had published that sort of information.

If an EXOM-supported Think Tank writer like Mr Baily had come out strongly and said the Emporer Has No Clothes about Climte Change, would he get invited back for more of the same? I doubt it. This is all about ducking responsibitliy for adding to the prospective risk society faces from having waited to long to respond, in part because of confusion created by his obfuscations

The question facing Mr Bailey and dozens like him is this. What are you going to do going forward? Spend the next decade explaining yourself and offering minor skepticisms about proposed solutions? Or are you going to make a postive contribution to adapting to and mitigating against Climate catastrophe?

Re: Big News: EEStor Says Something

J.L. — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 08:44:54 -0000

Severe crashes or vehicle consuming fires would be interesting as "The bright yellow-green colors in fireworks and flares come from barium nitrate".

Following are some warning excerpts from the JT Baker MSDS for barium nitrate. From a preliminary review of the MSDS it looks like recycling or accident cleanup would be challenge. If capacitors ruptured (the big "if") , emergency response personnel (fire and medical) would need full face respirators and skin protection while extracting victims and during accident site cleaning up. Towing and storage yard issues as well.

---------

"DANGER! STRONG OXIDIZER. CONTACT WITH OTHER MATERIAL MAY CAUSE FIRE. MAY BE FATAL IF SWALLOWED. HARMFUL IF INHALED. CAUSES IRRITATION TO SKIN, EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT. AFFECTS MUSCLES (INCLUDING THE HEART), AND CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM".

"Inhalation:

Causes irritation to the respiratory tract. Symptoms may include coughing, shortness of breath. Systemic poisoning may occur with symptoms similar to those of ingestion.

Ingestion:

Toxic! May cause tightness of the muscles of the face and neck, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, muscular tremors, anxiety, weakness, labored breathing, cardiac irregularity, convulsions, and death from cardiac and respiratory failure. Estimated lethal dose lies between 1 to 15 grams. Death may occur within hours or up to a few days. May cause kidney damage.

Skin Contact:

Causes irritation to skin. Symptoms include redness, itching, and pain".

"Ventilate area of leak or spill. Keep unnecessary and unprotected people away from area of spill. Wear appropriate personal protective equipment as specified in Section 8".

Re: America's Only Fair Trade Town: Media, PA

J.L. — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:02:51 -0000

I live a half hour from Media and never knew about this. It gets no press at all...I think I'll visit and do some posting!

Re: Evangelicals and Environmentalists: Still Strange Bedfellows?

J.L. — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:04:56 -0000

Per Sourcewatch, the Interfaith Alliance has on it's Board of Advisors, two individuals with the American Enterprise Institute's "Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI)[which] is an extremely influential, pro-business right-wing think tank founded in 1943 by Lewis H. Brown. It promotes the advancement of free enterprise capitalism, and succeeds in placing its people in influential governmental positions. It is the center base for many neo-conservatives".

There are probably several more of the Stink Tanker skeptics infesting it, but it's too boring to go on doing the match ups after the first two "hits."

Sorry to bring the negativity in, but times of great political change call for a higer degree of scepticism of the other sort.

Re: Dust In The Wind

J.L. — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:33:20 -0000

'Tis something of a mystery that the amount of iron depostion from these and similar sources have reduced over the last several decades, lessening marine plankton productivity in the deep offshore zones. Check out our posts on "Planktos" for the details on plans to overcome the deficits in iron.

Re: How To Market Alternative Fuels 101

J.L. — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 12:05:37 -0000

Uhhh...oil is a commodity, brokered and delivered from all over the place, mixed into pipelines, blended in trucks and so on. To fully segregate it would take a chain of custody process and cost a lot more, unless of course it was biodiesel.

Re: An Interview with Bob Perkowitz

J.L. — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 15:43:01 -0000

Good insights and a really fun read. Missing, however, was any mention of the 'hook and bullet' crowd. Hunters and fishermen were a major force in drawing working class people into the earthday movement. Now they're "out" of the loop. If green politics stay the exclusive domain of the urban college educated demographic, "green" will drop to the bottom of the priorities list every national election. This can not be overstated. Fishing is still the number one participation sport in the USA, and popular with far more people than NASCAR.

Re: Zap! and Lotus Team Up to Create the Zap-X: 350 Miles and 155 Mph on a 10 Minute Charge

J.L. — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:44:06 -0000

The press release is saying that this is an agreement to do engineering feasibility studies on an award winning "platform." Key features are drive by wire (motor on each wheel), and advanced "battery management" which sounds like software stuff. There is no reason that super capacitors and batteries can't both be deployed as long as the software is up to managing it.

Re: EU and Car Makers At Odds Over CO2 Emissions

J.L. — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:01:24 -0000

FT reports this morning that VW has cancelled production of it's most efficient small car because of poor sales. Same for other makers. Quite a dilemma.

Re: Vegetarian Is the New Prius

J.L. — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 08:30:52 -0000

Pastoral grazing of animals for dairy, blood, and meat help herder's survive in regions where drought might occasionally strike, lowering the crop yields: e.g. Middle East, Great Plains, Horn of Africa, and so on. Agronomic systems reflect regional climate realities in other words. It is only in a global economy that one's choice of dietary preferences can be so wide ranging That choice may one day be more limited due specifically to climate patterns shifting.

Re: Wayback Machine: Bouncing Buoy Wave Generators- 1932 version

J.L. — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 10:05:14 -0000

Bouys like this have a tendency to "walk" unless massively anchored. A big environmental burden if numerous of them are needed to generate acceptable levels of juice. Icing up the cables and navigational inerference big issues too. That and the need to dissemble them for periodic maintenance explains why such designs are no longer being pursued

Re: Most Huggable: Spherical Solar, LA’s Public Transit, Twice Shy Fashions

J.L. — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 14:07:13 -0000

TH posted on Sphelar in August of 2006: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/sphelar... The WC post does a great job of expanding the context and showing where the product is headed.

Re: The "Zero-Carbon" Luxury Beach Resort

J.L. — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 14:41:10 -0000

Wow. 'No negative environmental impact'. These architects must have an office above the hidey-hole where the Knights Templar put the Holy Grail or something.

Re: "Night Wind" Project to Test Electricity Storage in Refrigerated Warehouses

J.L. — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:58:55 -0000

Identical concept here to the Ice Bear posts done earlier on TH. What few non-engineers recognize, and what makes this particularly appealing as a technology, is that the efficiency of base load power generating plants is non-linear with respect to operational level. When a generating plant is bumping the peak of its output capacity, the emission per kW increase.greatly. Therefore, by making ice at night for the freezer plants, you increase the percent of the time that the base load generating plant that powers the freezer is operating at its "sweet spot", the place where performance is optimal. That has cost and environmental benefits obviously. Hope this helps. JL

Re: Q&A: Switching to CFLs

J.L. — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:49:34 -0000

If you closely observe, without asking or commenting, the everyday use of 3-way bulbs you will soon notice that very few people use anything but the top-most, brightest, setting.

If on the otherhand you find that you prefer the middle setting, then a somewhat dimmer single output replacement should be fine. The three way switch in no way interferes with the CRL. You just use the 2nd or 32rd position of the switch.

Re: Design Your Own Kleenex Box Photo Frame

J.L. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:50:33 -0000

In response to Anon,: even "bad" companies can innovate and end up doing good things. We write about GE and Walmart, for example, in the same way we did about KC, and in spite of any alleged ongoing or previous mis-deeds. The purpose of this post was to elicit from our readers whether they thought this new product offering was good or bad from an environmental standpoint, or whether they were uncertain.

As an aside, a value judgement over the relative goodness or badness of KC as a tissue maker comes down to the fact that soft toilet and facial tissues are a very small percent recycled fiber -- the public prefers soft vigin fiber for wiping their butts and noses at home. Conversely, the stiff stuff you'll encounter in nearly every hotel and public washroom is around 80% recycled.

If you want things to get better in the boreal forest, regardless of which company makes the tissue, then help change the market. Buy the crispy toilet paper and cheap tissues as I do. You'll save money that way a well. And, convince your friends and relatives to do the same. Consumer preferences are a powerful force to enlist.

Re: No Child Left Inside: Economist on National Parks

J.L. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:04:39 -0000

gasoline prices

Re: Ask TreeHugger: Are Paraffin Heaters Dangerous?

J.L. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:33:28 -0000

I keep a big kero heater in the attic in case of power outage. They are excellent for a day or so as emergency back up or for working on a project in the garage. It is best to use K1 (low sulfer) kero to keep SOX formation down.

Last time we had a winter black out I put mine on the fireplace hearth and put the front screen up to keep kids and dog away.

The instructions say never to leave them unattended for more than a few minutes as an added precaution (a good idea). However, there's no point attending to them without a nearby fire extinguisher - there ought to be one just out side every room in which there is one in use.

Same goes for so-called "ventless" natural gas or propane heaters and artificial fireplaces.

I also keep a few kerosene lamps for backups. On balance I'd say a kero backup approach is far better than a 2 thousand dollar diesel generator hookup to keep the furnace running and a few lights on for a day or so. (People often suffer CO poisoning from these being kept in a garage.)

Re: The Footprint of Flowers: Carbon and Social

J.L. — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:25:20 -0000

I call "spin" on this. Show us a link to the peer reviewed "recent research" or be still.

Re: Can Leather Be a TreeHugger-Friendly Material?

J.L. — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:17:12 -0000

There's actually more ways to tan leather than outlined here. The vat method is "batch" based: an 18th century approach. Continuous processing also is possible, with or without chromic acid. Much more materially effiicient, with closed loop recycling possible.

Chome has multiple valence states. Chrome VI is very hazardous: the lower valence states are not. Per the above, a non-batch process, with no Chrome VI, should have minimal hazardous exposures.

The hair and alkaline discharges are serious environmental problems in developing nations where crude tanning methods result in the alkaline hair removal bath getting dumped into streams that someone else needs for agriculture and drinking. Take a look at the tags on leather coat and you will notice that country of origin for the leather is almost always some place where batch processing is the norm and wastewater treatment standards non-existent. Thus, the global economy is once again at the heart of the problem. If US environmental standards were met, the processing impacts would be far less.

Re: Windmill Sailboat: Sailing Against the Wind

J.L. — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:33:15 -0000

Anyone who has spent considerable time afloat with variable weather conditions will know that the trickiest part would be coming about or quartering islightly away from the oncoming wind. Should your hull present a large surface area, you'd be set back substantially. Cats make a good design defense against this problem, of course. But a big sided monohull would offer a stiff resistance.

Re: Japanese Whaling Under Fire

J.L. — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:06:03 -0000

I read elsewhere that most of what Norway harvests is frozen and going nowhere because no one on the world market wants to buy it anymore - even Japan. Both governments subsidize their respective industries out of some sort of romantic tradition and arrogance. The ruse of "Scientific harvest" is so blatantly a means of cover for commercial harvest, it well demonstrates the irrationality of their position

Re: Ask TreeHugger: What Do Radon Tests Mean?

J.L. — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 13:09:16 -0000

THere is an energy waste issue when active ventilation systems are needlessly mandated by local zoning code. Fans and heat exchangers made to run for years when the threshold level was barely exceeded in a single test. I am wondering what the climate forcing impact of thousands of similar situatons is???

I measured my home's levels every two months for a year and all results were below the 4 threshold. My immediate neighbor, whose home was built at same time out of same blueprint on same soil association, recently put on an addition and was forced by building code to add an active ventilation system for the entire home if he wanted the building permit. If it were me I'd disconnect it or just run it in the winter.

Re: Hot Rocks Energy Gets a $5 Million Nod from Govt

J.L. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 09:23:36 -0000

London, UK [The Sunday Telegraph, London] "Swiss prosecutors are investigating a green energy project which caused four earthquakes. The inquiry was launched after experts confirmed Geopower Basel's deep-heat mining project near Basel had caused tremors of 3.3 on the Richter scale...".

Re: Is the Swiffer Eco-Friendly?

J.L. — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:10:06 -0000

How many other mop "improvements" have come and gone from store shelves over the years? I would ask how many professional janitorial services use the Swiffer technology. And if not, why not? Probably because when you get serious about cleaning you have to get back to basics.

Re: Canadian Company Testing Enzymatic CO2 Capture

J.L. — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 10:21:10 -0000

Something vary basic is wrong with this picture. The use of a packed tower with counter current exchange is old hat in pollution control. Limestone, if an ultimate byproduct, is calciium carbonate. You have to get the calcium ion from somewhere to react C02 with it. The most likely source of calcium ion twould be slaked lime, which is made by baking calcium carbonate in a cement kiln, which is emits large amounts of C02, getting us right back where we started.

If inventors want to generate publicity they need to file for a patent and then disclose sufficiente details to establish basic credibility.

Re: Carbon Neutral Myth? Protesters Take On Offset Companies

J.L. — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:15:19 -0000

The protest has the look and the feel of Luddism. Oddly, though there are no looms to trash this time, it comes from the same continent Mr. Ludd lived upon back in the day.

Re: Environmental Defense and DuPont Partner to Address Nanotech Risks

J.L. — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 08:50:17 -0000

Great idea.

Conspicuous by their absence, is any mention of the US Federal Agencies: EPA or OSHA. Thinking ahead a bit, will Congress pull the nails out of the agency coffins in time to take advantage of what this partnership comes up with? Or, are we headed into an entirely different future space, where the stock market rewards those companies that properly manage risk and penalizes those who do not? The latter direction seems utterly improbable unless China stops serving as the dumping ground for high hazard , inefficient technology.

Re: Ask TreeHugger: Can I Stand In Front of the Microwave?

J.L. — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:13:37 -0000

Sleeping with your head next to a digital alarm clock or voltage transformer ("wall wart") is about the worst electromagnetic exposure you can get. 6 to 8 hours in direct exposure is seriously bad compared to a few minutes in front of a microwave oven.

PS: I have a milligaus meter. My microwave exceeds 10mG within 6 inches of the door seal, and falls off to ambient within three feet. Common sense is to stand back.

Re: Ask TreeHugger: Can I Stand In Front of the Microwave?

J.L. — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:26:49 -0000

All electromagnet radiation falls off in intensity with the inverse square of distance...so like Justin says, pretty dramatically over space. By my measurement, at my personal bedside, the intensity of my 2-person Radio Shack model alarm clock is such that if I can just reach it with outstretched hand, the mG level on my pillow is within ambient. So, no need to change your furniture nor to crawl out of bed. Just slide 'er over a bit.

If you can just barely reach that distance to the wall wart by your bed you'll be fine. The situation that is BAD is when the recepticle is right behind your head on the wall. Get a power strip and remove the exposure by lowering the wart to the floor.

Re: Students Compete for Snowmobile Design

J.L. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:25:34 -0000

Boats can run on LP gas, a necessity for house boats and rented party pontoon rigs to prevent passenger asphixiation at the low speeds these proceed at. Unlike, boats, snowmobiles have no extra space for LP tanks. As the previous commenter points out the choice is to drop in a 4-stroke and muffle it severely (which cuts power output) and add lots of weight for emission controls; or make it electric. Batteries are way too heavy if lead acid and too expensive for the typical working class customer if LiPolymer based. This is basically a no go technologically.

Re: Gong Li Bangs a Gong For Environmental Protection

J.L. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 10:15:07 -0000

Great post!

I keep trying to make a mental analogy to the US' first Earth Day and the political and legal changes that followed. But it always stops at the level of public outcry. Without a federacy that institutionalizes local and state enforcement poers, I just can't imagine how they will progress.

Re: Ask TreeHugger: Why Is My Water Brown?

J.L. — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 13:44:01 -0000

For people with their own wells, a sulfer smell from tap water iis often associated with iron reducing bacteria that live in the pipes and at the well head. These guys release H2S (the smell) and can create disgusting black flecks and plaque build up inside your plumbing. When I lived in a place with that problem I'd wait until a trip out of town was planned, turn off the well pump, drain the lines, and dump two gallons of laundry chlorine down an upstairs water line. On our return I'd fire up the well and run the water for a half hour. The smell and flecks stayed away for up to 6 months. Don't do this with children around unless you discuss first that the lines have to be flushed on return home.

Re: Senertec Dachs: A 90% Efficient Power Plant for Your Home

J.L. — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:48:40 -0000

Anon...there is such a thing as sorbtion air conditioning (ammonia chillers in grocery stores use that tech) which uses heat input. Several companies offer them for CHP units.

Re: Walmart Follows The Computing Plan

J.L. — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 11:28:44 -0000

The time has come to consider whether faster, bigger, hotter makes any difference in our lives. By constantly upgrading the OS, and fattening our screen pixel densities we are setting ourselves up for increased e-waste production. I'm for getting the computer that has the highest reliability rating from Consumer Reports, the one that gets the best customer service, the one that lasts the longest. Hmmm now what brand might that be?

Re: Smart Architect Builds Dumb Building

J.L. — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 08:39:29 -0000

And before developers got to "depreciate" the initial costs of HVAC equipment for 40 years, to lower their tax bills. There's another perverse incentive that should go away.

Re: Greener Green – The U.S. One Dollar Coin

J.L. — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:38:21 -0000

Paper dollars easy to stuff in my pocket and not look like there's a pickle on board. The public will reject the coin only option simply because of that convenience factor.

Re: Purdue's Can-Do Biofuels Promise to Meet All U.S. Transport Needs

J.L. — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:13:21 -0000

Same idea behind "clean coal" or "CTL" technology.

Re: What Can You Say About a Three Year Old Coffee Grinder that Died?

J.L. — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 09:01:44 -0000

My Kitchen Aid grinder that looks like it was made in 1958 works fine after 4 years. Has an old fashioned "toggle" switch and that's all. I got mine from a return bin. Many customers hate them because they manage to spill grinds around the cupboard top regardless of how well you use them and they end up getting returned. If you're not a clean freak its the way to go.

Re: How Does Pollution Affect Cyclists?

J.L. — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:25:54 -0000

It helps to understand that pollution dispersion is strongly controlled by two factors readily observable: surface roughness and atmospheric stability. At one roughness extreme is a flat paved landscape (promoting dispersion). The other is an urban core with buildings and cars and fences (slowing dispersion). At one stability extreme is a clear windless early morning with high temp. At the other is a gusty dry sunny mid-day. It is not a coincidence that the highest ground level ozone levels are found right after sunrise, when atmospheric stability is highest.

Re: Biodiesel from Algae and the Biofuels Discussion in Argentina

J.L. — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:53:38 -0000

Algae produce and store oils in "vacuoles" which, because these bio-oils are lighter than water, serve as flotation devices for agglomerations of algal cells, thus keeping algae near enough to the water surface to capture optimum light and enjoy the sun's heat, while screening out species at greater depth. Algae "bloom" in this fashion in the rough middle of a population peak. The productivity of an algae farm can be extended by manipulating heat, turbidity, turbulence, and so on. That will be the skill set that keeps yield up and profit good. Finding efficient ways to harvest the algae without draining the pond and being able to recycle non-oil biomass are the other tricks of the trade. Might be a good time invest in micro-filtration tech!

Re: Al Gore's Goal To Drum Up 500,000 For Immediate Action On Climate

J.L. — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:21:38 -0000

Story in the Daily Tennessean paper of this week relates that Al Gore's home lacks solar panels due to a year of delay stemming from local zoning code that actually forbade their presence. Now that the code has been revised, approvals are pending. However...and here is the irony...that same code also forbade the visible parking of SUV's in ones' driveway (now that's retro-Toni), a requirement that also was just changed. So...is a that a "win/lose" proposition?

Re: HealthyCar.org: The Consumer Guide to Toxic Chemicals in Cars

J.L. — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:30:35 -0000

Think of the volatile components of plastics and adhesives like perfume on clothes. The volatiles on interior surfaces leave rapidly when "baked" in the sun. Then , over night, the volatiles in the middle of plastic films, fabrics, and solid walls disperse to the surface and the process is repeated when the sun heats up the interior. Each time the "baking off" fo surface bolatiles occurs, the reservoir of volatiles below the surface becomes smaller and smaller until, like any other old car you've been in, the smell is "gone."

Rephrasing: the exposure is highest when the inside is hottest, but fades over time. About the time your car mats are looking worn, the exposure is next to nil.

Solution: buy a used car if you are really worried about it.

Compare the risk of climate change caused by car emissions to the risk of getting hurt in a car crash and to the risk of immune disruption from that "new car smell". No point in sweating the small stuff.

Re: What Lies Beneath a "Healthy Skin" product

J.L. — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:41:11 -0000

Objectively speaking, this particular organic acid is quite severely skin corrosive at higher concentrations than found in the skin care product. See this MSDS for reference:http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/g6820.htm. The hazard here is reduced by dilution; although I certainly would not want to get any in my eyes and would not want it around my bathroom sink if small children were in the house.

Sure 20 seconds immersion in old DHMO results in drowning (did someone think we all forgot that?). But only a few cc's of glycolic acid in the lungs are likely to do real damage. What is the point of comparing completely unequal hazards? That kind of reasoning is truly over reactive.

Exfoliants are purely cosmetic: no one needs to remove dermal materials by either chemical or abrasive means. The underlying issue then is whether by removing the dermal surface for beauty's sake done is exposing oneself unknowingly to the risk of infection or of incremental UV damage. Clearly in this example the UVA/B interruptors are added to compensate for loss of skin (which we evolved to have for a purpose). By removing dead skin one may also be impactaing natural skin floral that have poorly understood biotic roles. Two good reasons for me to conclude that I don't need to spend my money on exfoliants. I assume that Lloyds simple point was to find an alternative. In which case a stiff wash cloth and the occasional use of old fashioned "Lava" soap might be just fine.

Re: Happy 50th Birthday EU!

J.L. — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:18:20 -0000

True in general. But I hasten to point out that the EU never got around to banning PCB's and leaded gasoline until about 1999 - roughly 25 years after the deal was done in North American. Still, there is no more impassioned advocate than the recently converted!

Re: Tainted Pet Food: We Could Be Next.

J.L. — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:35:58 -0000

Our friends across the pond have much more experience with this than do we in North America. In the late 90's and early 200)'s there were several inicidents of oil and foodstuff contaminations with chlorinated synthetics, including dioxin. People were so upset with it, along with the following Mad Cow incidents, that there were major overhauls of food safety laws. Many trace the popularity of organic and locally grown food in Europe to those incidents. Think there's a market for boutique, organic dog foods ready to blossom? You betcha.

Re: Fortune's Green Giants Aren't All Green

J.L. — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:21:11 -0000

These are companies that have recently figured out that stock valuations may be affected by green-ness of the brand. To at least try means they're not laying down in front of the bus, as perhaps half the publicly traded firms have been. The gutsiest of them all are the ones that estimate their energy intensity per unit of profit and actually publish the data.

Re: Vinyl Windows: John was Right and I was Wrong. I Think.

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:55:41 -0000

Wooden windows can be made very efficient - for a price. Only the wealthy can afford them.

Vinyl windows can be made in color and texture variations on special order - but most people end up going low bid for replacement windows, as do all housing developers for new ones.

Re: Vinyl Windows: John was Right and I was Wrong. I Think.

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:56:28 -0000

On aesthetics of all vinyl fascia. Remember: vinyl can not be painted - ever. To accomplish a deep color in a new vinyl window the maker has to add more UV interrupt type stabilizers such as TItanium Dioxide (just like suntan lotion); and even then fading will occur slowly over time, especially on south facing walls. The additives needed for deep color retention might compromise other properties valued in a window application, such as thermal expansion coefficient. Hence, if you want long term color stability you are pretty much stuck with white or light beige in a vinyl window.

Sidebar: the only architectural polymeric coating guaranteed to be color true with decades of solar radiation is called polyvinylidene fluoride or "kynar". Except for high rise applications, it's too expensive and not strong enough for windows.

Re: Make/Shift Shelving

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 08:48:55 -0000

Depending on weight of books shelved , their position, and how strong the window frame support is, this device could definitely push the window out or break it, if used as shown.

Re: Home Lighting and Mercury

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:24:15 -0000

Careful on taking the word of one government scientist. The methylation of inorganic mercury in the free environment occurs in lake and marsh sediments, mediated by anaerobic processes and release at seasonal "turnover".

Re: Home Lighting and Mercury

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:45:31 -0000

Here's a go at non-science translation, in hypothetical chronology style:

Mercury from coal comes out the stack as vapor, condensing or coalescing into small particle-like "aerosols" and falling out down wind.

Acid precipitation, caused largely by SOX and NOX from coal combustion, mobilizes the inorganic mercury or "elutes" it, such that it is soluble enough to move with runoff and groundwater, eventually making its way into a pond, marsh, or lake.

Once in the lake, the inorganic mercury precipitates, either chemically or bound ionically with organic material, building up in bottom sediments.

Anaerobic organisms in the sediments, in combination with iron and sulfur compounds also present, convert the inorganic to organic mercury forms which can enter the food chain directly, starting with bottom organisms, or be brought up into the water column after ice out in the spring, when spring winds are able to "turn over" the lake before summer stratification onset.

This is essentially how mercury gets in freshwater fish.

The meta- problem here is having scientists of narrow technical specialty backgrounds and no experience in temperate zone ecology make broad conclusions without inter-agency peer review. Let me restate this. Its a damn shame that EPA's talent is out of the loop. Much of the knowledge base upon which this logic is based would once have been found under the category "limnology" in the now closed EPA library system.

Footnote to other scientists. I have purposefully oversimplified these processes greatly, and left out important sub-processes for the sake of easy explanation.

Re: Absent "Blue Skies," Beijing's Air Now Officially "Hazy"

J.L. — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:51:03 -0000

Its a technicality perhaps, but an important one for a nation only beginning its journey to eco efficiency, that Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) is an entirely inappropriate metric for gaging water pollution control progress. COD is measured by hyperoxidizing,with potassium permanganate and a strong mineral acid, a sample of water or sediment. In nature, no micro-organisms are capable of achieving such oxidation levels. What ends up happening is that even suspended metals and minerals become highly oxidized; and one is putting a micrometer on a fog bank of nonsense. Although, more time consuming, the proper metric would be one of the BOD variants.

Re: The Hundred Mile Suit

J.L. — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 16:43:07 -0000

Dork alert.

Re: Parking Costs Linked to Emissions

J.L. — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 19:07:51 -0000

SUV = symbol of power and social status.

Re: Hot Poop on Composting Toilets: Separett

J.L. — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 09:55:53 -0000

I have some trepidation about using these in a setting where tropical disease, parasites in particular, are a major health risk. Also would be concerned about dung beetles and other detritivores not common in Sweden, spreading the goodies around.

Re: Thin Clients are the New Black...

J.L. — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:22:58 -0000

Flashing on Data General "dumb terminals" circa 1981...and boy were they dumb. I brought a PC to work and set it next to my DG in 1985, whereupon the IT director demanded my firing, sure that it threatened his empire, and rightly so!

If these things catch on in corporate america they will:

Impede telecommuting;

Give increased power to OS cartels to set features and interfaces without user input;

Save extra money because the IT staff can be fully outsourced;

Make it difficult for an individual employee to "justify" a laptop acquisition, which puts them back in old "needs vs wants" loop, controlled by the IT budget dept.

In short, there is much more of import than meets the eye.

Re: The Three Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

J.L. — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:50:26 -0000

Plastics sold for food contact must have additives specifically approved for that purpose. The recycle number indicates nothing in that regard. Plastics will have such things as impact modifiers, UV absorbers, anti-oxidants, fillers, oxygen scavengers, softeners, and so on. Sometimes these add up to a significant weight percent. Those additives suitable for food contact may not be the least expensive of the choices, hence there is a chance that using a container not approved for food contact may result in migration of a hazardous substance into the food, especially as the plastic gets older or if the food is oily and/or acidic (tomato sauce for example). To reiterate, the number is not a reliable indicator of safety for food contact.

Re: Prisoners Smash Computers

J.L. — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 11:33:46 -0000

We might well assume that prison shops are exempt from compliance with Federal OSHA exposure standards for noise, dusts, phosphors, and so on . (I don't have time to research this - does anyone know for certain?) However, states are likely to have their own workplace exposure standards that would apply to any privately owned manufacturing facility, but may no apply to state owned facilities managed by a private recycler. Nonetheless, the methods for personal protection are well established: all one must do is look to the industries that assemble the finished goods to see what respiratory protection is needed for example. There is really no excuse for this, ever.

Re: Solving the Installation Puzzle: Puzzle Floor

J.L. — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:47:01 -0000

Walking on ALO coated floors in stockingfoot wears your sox out.

Re: Which BioFuel Produces the Least NOx?

J.L. — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 06:57:12 -0000

Poplar rules. It is a pioneer species that inhabits landscapes barely suitable for agriculture - steep slopes, rocky glacial tills, outcrop filled ridges, etc. Therefore it is one of the few biofuel alternatives that does not compete for land with food crops. Poplar (aka aspen) will be the supreme energy crop for the US northeast.

Re: Where Have All the Climate Deniers Gone?

J.L. — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:24:48 -0000

Climate is the average of all weather. Weather is driven by heat from the sun...not only directly, but by what is taken up and released later by land surface and seas. Complex. That's why we use computer models to overcome our faulty intuitions.

The sweet spot for our response to climate change is midway between panic and denial. I think this is called scientific rationalism, or something to that effect. It's what we learned after the Renaissance. Leonardo, Sir Francis Bacon, Ben Franklin: all those guys. There might be books by them.

Re: Dimmer Switches: A Bad Idea for CFLs or Incandescents

J.L. — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 10:45:59 -0000

Best dimmer is a candle.

Missed a chance to make a "dim bulb" joke too.

Re: TreeHugger Radio: Republicans and the Planet

J.L. — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 06:06:09 -0000

Was nice to see Newt Gingrich put a theoretical stake in the ground, claiming conservatives need a position at the green table. If for example Newt had simply said he was in favor of carbon trading, it would have been three steps in the right direction.

In this manner: until a prominent US conservative takes a stance on significant environmental and health issues of the day ...mercury emissions from coal, air emissions from ethanol plants, or pet food contamination for examples...that require a strong governmental intervention to have timely effect on the market, its all just so much foo foo dust to avoid having to confront the free market utopians.

Re: Yet Another Reason to Gripe About Ethanol: Water

J.L. — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:40:30 -0000

Investors in "green tech" are tradition bound into defining "Risk Management" as dealing with the price of insurance, inflation, currency fluctuations, and so on. About as close they ever get to environmental "risk" is coping with the possibility of a toxic tort lawsuit. When will the learn to think about the resource inputs and outputs and the local community? Its not hard. Its being a good neighbor. And its common sense.

In my opinion water use is going to be the rate limiting factor for the geographic spread of EtOH production. If water limits require processing at distance from the crops, the economics fall apart...at they know it. But the conundrum here is that farmers, their corn raw material suppliers, are also their neighbors and have pricing power over their customer.

Re: Is Deforestation the Solution to Climate Change?

J.L. — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 09:11:08 -0000

This is not an institution known for its ecologists and biologists on staff. What's his backbround, top making?

Re: Is Organic Coffee Doomed?

J.L. — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:52:20 -0000

Whether a coincidence or not, this would have the effect of letting large scale producers dominate supply chains, relying on contracts with major distributors to take over the markets pioneered by small retailers.

If that happens, we'll have to use "fair trade' as a "dog whistle" surrogate for organic.

Re: Earth Day: Oh, What is the Point of it all?

J.L. — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 16:42:59 -0000

re: Mike h. comment. It's probably reasonable to assume that most persons who would have wanted to be called environmentalists back in the 70's and early 80's (when nuclear power got its big start) were then and still are opposed to building more nuclear plants.

However, I doubt very much that all persons opposed then, and now, would want to be called "environmentalists". The historic prospect of cold war heating up led many to fear absolutely anything associated with the nuclear industry. Whether or not you feel that emotions should guide public policy, and investments, the fact is they do.

How people respond to perceived risk can be laid at the foot of mass communications, I would agree. But to blame specific hosts misses the near continuous issue of how news outlets race to direct our attention to tragedies and accidents of all kinds, as a way of boosting ratings. Its called the "gapers block" paradox.

Re: BioPetroClean: Bacteria That Lick Up Crude Oil

J.L. — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 14:37:03 -0000

A french company has had such a product for years. It is sold in the US under separate brand (s) and termed a "bio-remediation accelerator".

See this link:http://www.ahs.dep.state.pa.us/Clearinghouse/Content/TechnologyRecord.asp?Technology_ID=%7B62B96CDE-6447-4053-A9B8-409437D715BF%7D

Or this one: http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/ncp/s200.htm

Re: Still Seeking the Solar Powered Air Conditioner

J.L. — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:28:50 -0000

I have a 50-year old Canadian-made Servel refrigerator that uses the ammonia sorbtion cycle. These and competitive brands are still commonly used throughout the developing world or even in bush cabins of Canada where people are off grid. Efficiency is high and there are absolutely no moving parts, meaning they last forever. The only problem is that the direct fired ones (kerosene, natural gas, LPG, or wood) have to be properly vented and vermin have a tendency to nest in the exhaust pipe, presenting a fire hazard. Solarizing the heat source eliminates that problem so its a marriage made in heaven.

No flourocarbon refrigerants needed either!

Re: It's Showtime, Apple Shareholders

J.L. — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 11:18:20 -0000

The resolution mixes unrelated issues and seems unbalanced, with not a mention of climate footprints of operations or product end use. Might this be seen as a push for relevancy by the anti-chlorine obsessives? If so, they also just lost on the homeland security front and are sure to be slinking back for a new strategy.

A corporation has to focus on priorities or nothing gets done. I believe the top environmental item severy corporation needs to discuss are resource intensity and climate forcing, with toxic use reduction a nice to have but not an absolute requirement.

Lets suppose that a critical component in the iPOD can only be made cost effectively with tiny bit of bioaccumulative material. Without them the profile gets bigger, more massive, and consumes more resources, meaning a larger climate footprint. Lets also suppose that consumers are exposed to a great deal more of this same toxic material every day of their lives, n a host of consumer goods and in places of employment.

Is Apple the target to hit first? Why not carpet and drape makers. Why not car makers? I'd say these stockholders also owe Apple and the world at large a written explanation of why this would be their focus.

Re: Shipping Container Housing: Are the Floors Toxic?

J.L. — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:26:14 -0000

This is a completely un-necessary exposure. Aldrin, dieldrin, chlordane heptachlor and the like have been either completely banned or very highly restricted in their registered uses the US since about 1987. See this fact sheet for details.http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/dw_contamfs/chlordan.html

Possibly some of the containers in use were made before 1987? Or, perhaps the patents on these insecticides are expired (Velsicol was the original maker of several of them) and some offshore outfit that only cares about low cost is still making these. Regardless, there are most definitely better ways to keep out hitchhiking insects, to preserve wood, and reduce migration of treating agents into container-stored products.

A recycled HDPE floor pan would be an easy start for exposure reduction on existing models. For new containers, steel flooring with an abrasion or dent resistant resistant HDPE skid base might work. This is not rocket science: just basic design changes would be needed. The question is, where are they being manufactured? Is this like the melamine contamination of food protein supplements, where no one cares until a health crisis looms?

Re: Return of the Solar Powered Bikini

J.L. — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 13:25:05 -0000

Nautilly themed?

I doubt that the salt water will be able to short an under-water generated current flow, sufficient to creat a hazard.

Re: Hydrogen Cars: NY Times Buries Critical Articles

J.L. — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 15:19:42 -0000

We can also think in terms of a slowly evolving "transportation eco-system", where, over a half-century, public transit systems become more dense and dispersed and interlinked, allowing a reduction in the total private fleet (especially of big honking vehicles) which then enables rolling over of some of the existing hydrogen production capacity from gasoline production to direct H2 fuel uses.

Not mentioned is where the rest of the exisitng H2 production ends up. Much of it goes for petrochemical production, which in turn goes to the transportation supply chain.

Also conveniently ignored is the immense potential for using geothermal energy to produce hydrogen.

Re: Smarty Pants Energy Monitor: The Home Joule

J.L. — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:08:56 -0000

Good for managing the family Joules.

Re: Most Huggable: Cleaner Summer Cooling and Grilling, a Win for PETA, The New Coal Rush

J.L. — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:12:57 -0000

Stora Enso ()the bottle label maker) is a scandanavian based company which bought out several US paper making operations.

Re: An Even Greener Apple: Innovate!

J.L. — Thu, 03 May 2007 14:47:37 -0000

Considering how all the major makers got stung last year by lithium battery flame ups, major changes in technology have to be made in a circumspect manner. When a big company that buys in big volume makes a public announcement of a change in direction, it triggers a "me too" effect among the competitors. That's a good thing.

Re: Fashioning An Ethical Fashion Industry

J.L. — Fri, 04 May 2007 09:02:17 -0000

What interesting Kharma, that Britain, home of one Mr. Ludd, who led a social movement to trash industrial weaving operations on the charge that they were eroding local cottage industry-supplied markets, is now epicenter of a social movement to turn market attention to cottage industry suppliers.

The Luddites' revenge!

Re: 'The Legend Of Soccer Mom': One More Myth Of Inexhaustibility

J.L. — Tue, 08 May 2007 09:07:16 -0000

Although I'm enjoying this comment thread, it has gotten off a bit on the religious foot, leaving the other key aspects of pop culture mythology behind.

My two cents: Many years ago I was deeply affected by and still remember the thesis of "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" a rather old and academic tome. For context on the issues being discussed here, one does need to feed back to European roots of North American culture. The current fusion of American politics and religion seems to have surfaced those same old alignments.

Re: China's Coal Industry: The Waste Has Us Gasping

J.L. — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:44:52 -0000

A few years back I read that overland coal shipping was a serious limiting factor and so there was an emphasis on building utilities next to large mines. Assuming that has been done, the next logical "de-bottlenecking" project would be to up mining yields near such utilities. Thats' probably what this story is all about. That would obviate having to ship so much too.

Sidebar: some of China's coal reserves are very highly contaminated with, sulfur, chlorides, fluorides, arsenic, and lead, for example. Some is so badly it can not be used for the traditional cooking and home heating and would need a polishing process before being used to make electricity (one would hope). Supposedly the government has banned mining such reserves. But, who knows what really goes on...yeah melanine making for pet food came to mind.

(In the US, there are large projects underway to construct special coal fired utility boilers designed to directly burn the waste piles left from historically crude mining practices.)

Re: Ward Off Smog, Pollution With Nanotech Outfit

J.L. — Wed, 09 May 2007 08:43:54 -0000

When it is washed, the silver will dissolve and enter the wasteware stream, where aquatic toxicity is a serious hazard, should such products become common.

Re: Burning Methane Could Improve Hydro-Electric Power

J.L. — Thu, 10 May 2007 16:16:43 -0000

A major public fallacy has developed as a result of reporting on the reservoir/methane connection. Northern temperate zone lakes, as one normally encounters in Minnesota through Maine and into Canada, are thermally stratified through the middle to end of summer, with coldest water found on the bottom. Logs which sunk into these lakes the 1880's are sitting there "water logged", and only barely decayed upon the surface, such that they can be extracted and cut for timber. The marls on such lakes can be several meters deep, reflecting a very slow decay rate indeed. Significant methane production occurs only late July through early October, unlike in more southerly lakes and reservoirs which are much warmer. It is also important to keep in mind that the acid environments found in northern peat/cranberry bogs is such that decay is also very much inhibited, such that methane formation is suppressed.

Finally, we should be aware that siltation of reservoirs comes not only from what is left behind during construction but also from siltation caused by upstream logging and sloppy farming practices that cause soil erosion and silt transfer. Eventually, many of these reservoirs become so silt filled they must either be drained and dredged or abandoned. The preferred management technique then ought to be one of watershed stabilization first, and methane capture second.

Re: Breathe Easy: The Filter Scarf

J.L. — Fri, 11 May 2007 08:32:37 -0000

I am surprise how ignorant the designers are of basic physics. Anonymous hits on the most important points. However, I would add that the scarf will not effectively trap ozone or NOX or SOX.

For a more technical of what would work, they might consider reviewing the OSHA "fitness testing" guidelines for respiratory protective devices.

This one does not even pass the "red-faced" test, which is how the manufacturer should look once the facts are laid out.

Re: Breathe Easy: The Filter Scarf

J.L. — Fri, 11 May 2007 09:04:06 -0000

My first comment was too negative. To balance, I hereby release into the public domain a design modification that would make it pass the "RFT".

Make the scarf fabric from a sustainable material, such as organic wool, and include at each end a small pouch to hold a real face mask.

Purchase includes a supply of three disposable, performance tested, carbon impregnated, disposable face masks from 3M or other supplier, plus a coupon for additional face masks to be mail ordered at discount.

For persons who are already breathing impaired, such as with a lung disorder, include recommendation to consult with your doctor first before use.

Re: Chinese Water: A Picture is Worth... [Updated]

J.L. — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:53:33 -0000

Rivers in Mexico are running blue-green from textile dyes as well. We just posted on it in TH.

Re: Vacuum Bottle Houses from 1932

J.L. — Sun, 13 May 2007 19:24:43 -0000

This tech has been deployed for cabinet wall insulation of refrigeration units. It works, and allows the walls to be less thick, leaving more space for food.

Re: Bush Calls for Higher Fuel Efficiency

J.L. — Mon, 14 May 2007 20:12:45 -0000

Amry Lovins has presented a well worn chart showing the lack of correlation between mileage standards (CAFE) and fleet average vehicle efficiency. The driving factor after iinitial CAFE enactment was more a matter of Japanese quality and market preference rather than US congressional mandate .... in other words the government was behind the curve. It does not have to be that way; but with the excessive corporate advocacy interventions, which are as satisfied with delay and defer as they might be with societal progress, this is the typical result.

Corporatist influence has been overcome for the common good only during time of crisis (think Clean Water Act enactment after burning rivers shown on TeeVee) or when the meaning of a legislative proposal did not dawn on the lobbyists in time to subvert it (think Toxic Release Inventory), We are entering a similar phase of history with climate change impending. Hail the clueless-ness!

Re: Stephen Colbert: On Having to Watch An Inconvenient Truth

J.L. — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:31:21 -0000

So..Cavuto's having this student on for the interview must be part of the "new" Fox approach to climate change, as announced by Mr. Murdoch last week?

Re: Carbon Sink Weakened 15% Per Decade

J.L. — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:19:44 -0000

The causal analysis is speculative. Other attributions are possible, especially as relate to planktonic productivity.

Re: Foreign Species Cause European Allergies

J.L. — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:15:57 -0000

It's just our North American way of thanking the Europeans for introducing ragweed to our continent!

Seriously, much of the offending pollinators are primary colonizers: appearing on recently disturbed soils or preferring stressed environments, such as next to a driveway or street. In effect then much of this is due to mankind's creation of a pollinators habitat heaven. To blame this one on climate change alone is just so much foolishness.

Re: Is Your Child's Car Seat Chemically Safe?

J.L. — Mon, 21 May 2007 11:06:54 -0000

All made in China no doubt. The problem is, they will no longer be able to put some of the hazardous ingredients in food for export to the US. What do you want to do, take their jobs away? (Snark alert)

Re: Eco-tecture in the New York Times

J.L. — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:03:12 -0000

There are multiple answers to the question of why European buildings are more efficient. One of the most significant, however, is that energy is 40% on average more expensive.

For decades US economists have argued that our economic growth advantage over Europe's was some mysterious cultural force that relied on wasteful use of oil. Will be hard to ditch that old canard.

Re: Free Software From Microsoft To Track Carbon Emissions

J.L. — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:29:39 -0000

As with all things software, there is always a risk of form dominating substance and designers "re-inventing the wheel". First things first then: which means getting states and nations to agree on the metrics. So far the organization that has made the most progress is the Carbon Registry. Let us hope that the MS-Clinton sponsored coders are linked up with these folks or the whole project will be a setback for consensus on a highly political issue. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/climate...>

Re: New From Acronym Designs: Slack and Fundament

J.L. — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:15:05 -0000

Structural engineers will laugh at how naive the chase lounge designer is. Two sit on the middle and its done for.

Re: Eco-philanthropist Shot and Killed in Toronto

J.L. — Tue, 22 May 2007 10:05:12 -0000

Tinfoil hats anyone?

Re: Coburn Vows to Block Senate Resolution Honoring Rachel Carson

J.L. — Thu, 24 May 2007 11:50:20 -0000

To some people - maybe this is at an unconscious level - any aspect of mainstream culture that came about in the 1960s and early 70's is viewed as a worth sacred cow to be tipped. Whether its protecting ANWR, feminism, protesting, whatever: shoot first look for facts later.

Think tank "experts" have been very successful in promoting the falsehood that DDT was banned for use in preventing malaria where it is a serious endemic problem. And all because of environmentalists of course. DDT has always been available as a insecticidal option in developing nations where serious threat of malaria existed. However , at the urging of the World Health Organization and environmentalists, it is true, DDT was greatly reduced in use in developing nations from the 60's onward both because of avian reporductive toxicity and because the skeeters were found to have developed resistance from over-use, just as they did, more recently, to the substituted pyrethroid family of insecticides (which now too is having to be abandoned in those same nations for the same reason).

Note: a DDT ban was enforced for environmental reasons in the US and parts of the EU, which do not have a malaria problem of significance. And , it should be noted that the WHO encouraged reduced open spraying, substituting targeted spraying by alternate and more effective pesticides.

Climate change is the ball to keep our eye on, as it may spread tropical diseases like malaria in places where they presently do not exist, including in the US and northern EU. If that happens, we will be glad once again to have DDT and skeeters that have lost their resistance to it. And we'll have Rachel Carson to thank for it!

Re: Working from Home May Produce More CO2 than Going to Office

J.L. — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:49:18 -0000

One size fit all conclusions clearly don't work., The reason is that there is no such thing as an "average" commuter. The baseline assumption sounds like the hypothetical McMansion with all systems "go" across the entire home. In reality there may be pets, plants, elderly grandparents or housekeepers present that require the HVAC to be on - nothing to do with telecommuting.

Re: EST: Making Chemical Waste Disappear Into Thin Air?

J.L. — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:41:01 -0000

This is a very old technology that just keeps coming back for more ever few years. Same thing happens with the miraculous "PCB eating" bacteria or fungi - every two years they recycle the press releases and then it goes no where.

As with all remediation technology, energy intensity (electricity consumption in this case) and logistics make or break the business model. If one has to collect waste in small containers or accept one-off shipments, the material handling and shipping costs get really high, driving up prices. Success hinges on whether the technology should be "mobile" - brought to the waste - or central - with large volumes of waste shipped to it. With a small country like Israel, a central facility would soon have to seek access to foreign waste generators, leading to a host of new logistical and political complications. It ain't easy, reagardless of how "efficient" the process is.

Re: Condoleeza Rice: Thumbs Up to the Tesla Roadster

J.L. — Mon, 28 May 2007 21:31:52 -0000

I'd like her much better in a leopard skin pill box hat.

Re: Burning Disposable Diapers as Fuel

J.L. — Tue, 29 May 2007 09:20:12 -0000

Accomplishes the same thing as washing a cloth diaper, where the loose baby excrement is first flushed down the the terlet and the diaper is then washed in a washing machine, basically sending all human waste to the treatment plant for "aerobic bacterial treatment". Now dry the diaper and burn it for energy! That's real progress.

Re: Toyota Drives Ultimate Eco-car a Step Closer

J.L. — Tue, 29 May 2007 11:40:01 -0000

The C02 air conditioner imight represent a huge breakthrough. Earlier C02 charged compressors were big and heavy and took a lot of amps to start the cycle. Presumably there has been a breakthrough to lighweight the compressor and cut is load requirements...or the fuel cell can meet it.

Re: Gourmet Magazine on Chicken Farming

J.L. — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:38:11 -0000

The first few times I cut my chickens heads off for the slaughter I botched the job. Then again, the industry had decades to smooth out the work process; and what other manufacturing entity would be able to tolerate a 2% quality miss issue?

Re: Whale Conservation Beached (Again)

J.L. — Thu, 31 May 2007 08:46:59 -0000

I wish someone could explain Japan's apparent ruthlessness in this matter. I have heard it said that their cultural roots on a resource limited island helps explain it.

Re: Turning Grease to Fuel, and Despair to Hope

J.L. — Thu, 31 May 2007 10:13:01 -0000

And the grease does not get poured down the drain, no longer filthing up the sewerage system and taxing the treatment capacity.

Re: A List of the World´s Most Ethical Companies

J.L. — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:28:12 -0000

Fluff piece at best. There are many better ranking systems.

Re: In China, Hold the Cell Phone for Environmental Activism

J.L. — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:23:13 -0000

Minor embellishment to Rachel's well written piece:- benzene is merely associated loosely with cancer; it is a "known human carcinogen". Risk is beyond question. Fugitive emissions of benzene from a large complex located in one of the most densely populated countries does indeed pose a serious hazard to those living nearby.

Re: Fred Thompson, Soon-to-Be GOP Candidate, on Climate Change

J.L. — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 08:39:01 -0000

Reads to me like a rehearsed script, drafted for his "improvisation" testing by staffers wanting to measure the result of their craft on campaign donations Equivalent to 'not much to see here, move along, donations from fossil fuel firms accepted at the back table.'

Re: How Much Water Do You Need To Shower?

J.L. — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 18:00:53 -0000

Thermal solar heated shower OK. Coal fired electrical hot water heater not so smart. Let the water rates be ramped up by volume and let the oil and gas double in price. That will solve the problem.

Re: Who Knew: The Amish Love that Fancy Solar Technology

J.L. — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 17:56:52 -0000

They also love LED lights on their wagons and buggies. The key to understanding their philosophy on this is connectedness. They my not be directly connected to non-Amish. Hence, by some readings of the rules, lland line phones are forbidden, but wireless are OK.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

J.L. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:51:15 -0000

Must be tested under conditions of flood-flow to see if the spillway erodes on the downstream side and causes collapse from the loss of support over time.

Ideally this should be installed in storm sewers and concrete lined basins of urbanized areas first because in that capacity the device can also be made to serve as flood flow detention device, without any worries about downstream erosion or bank collapse.

A bar screen and debris collection system would be needed to prevent sticks and litter from plugging up the turbine and that resulting in overspill and erosion.

That again takes us back to the urban, not the natural setting.,

Re: Beware the Food Wrappers

J.L. — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 23:14:24 -0000

The alternative to expanded polystyrene packaging, trays, cups, and plates is fiberboard items treated with what, to make them water and grease proof?

Re: A Phone In The Hand Beats Two In The Head

J.L. — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:34:19 -0000

A family member dropped her's in the thunder mug, followed by an outcry of dismay at the realization. I retrieved it, with a minor fluorish of toilet heroism, removed the battery, rinsed it twice, showered myself, and let it dry out for a week in the sun.

When recharged and turned on, all was fine except for the number "6" which when tapped would display on screen as multiples

6666

Evil pot spirits had invaded and reprogrammed the chipset obviously. Covering with an old Apple Newton failed to exorcise anything.

Re: Wayback Machine: Miracles In Spray Cans: Life Was Soooo Easy, 1957

J.L. — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:18:42 -0000

Makes me so nostalgic, I just wanta take my kids to the shoe store like in the olden days and get their feet X-Rayed in the shoe fit test machine to let the parents see that the Buster Browns have plenty of grow-room. "Gosh Midge, isn't it neat?"

Re: Up the Citarum, Without a Paddle

J.L. — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:24:23 -0000

This happens when disposable items are introduced into cities that lack a solid waste collection system and properly laid and managed storm sewers. It is as if the objects of the 20th Century are overlain on a place in the 18th Century.

Re: Dirty Snow just as Bad as Greenhouse Gases?

J.L. — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:16:19 -0000

Seminal news.

I like it especially because it takes away a the poorly conceived idea of injecting soot into the stratosphere for "geo-engineering" to mitigate directly.

Note: there are other, more well conceived planetary interventions that are deserving of further thought and exploration...I am not arguing categorically with the above.

Re: Dubious Dubai

J.L. — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:37:38 -0000

Do they have tropical storms? If so, things could get exciting.

Re: Underground Ethanol Pipes for the US?

J.L. — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 16:59:49 -0000

Wanna bet the pipes will be made of petrochemicals?

Re: Reframing the Military: Earth Restoration Service Argues for Global Military Environmental Efforts

J.L. — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:06:50 -0000

Why is it that young people have forgotten the environmental lessons of only 35 years or so ago? My God, the USAE was the entitity that originally screwed up the Everglades in the first place: albeit at the behest of the Florida sugar industry and developers, and taking their budget orders from Washington.

Nice concept but quite bad with the Defense forces analogy. A far more appropriate analogy lies in the US Civilian Conservation Corps, of the post-Depression era. Now that was a success that we could draw upon!

Re: Oxygen Tweak Could Lower Cost of Organic Produce

J.L. — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:38:38 -0000

Packing houses traditionally keep product in long term storage with reduced O2 levels, holding until the market price is right, by displacing "air" with nitrogen gas. In other words, this dog learned to hunt a long time before "organic" became a term of commerce. I'm surprised the researchers think this is novel.???

Re: Hydrothermal Cooling: Improving on Air-Conditioning

J.L. — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:11:28 -0000

We can relax about the lake temperature impacts as long as we're taking the cool from large water bodies where the metalimnion is tens or even hundreds of meters deep.

An intelligent system design could be come up with which uses counter-current flow extraction technique to take "cold" from drinking water intake pipes and uses that "cold" to pre-cool the air intakes to HVAC air handlers in the summer. No double dipping then.

Chicago has long had the newby hydrocooler projects like this one beat. The City of Big Shoulders has been hydrocooling buildings in the loop for many years...some implementations go as far back as the early 50s' or possibly even earlier. Withdrawal is not even from Lake MI, as plenty of cold water enters the Chicago River from the Lake, entering through the locks, after which it flows Westerly along Wacker Drive and then moves south around the rim of the City's inner loop. This the same river the water taxis follow to and from the Amtrac and local train station.

Re: Plastic Heal Thyself: Materials Mimic Vascular Networks

J.L. — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:11:32 -0000

Not knowing in advance what catalyst(s) and reaction promoter(s) will be involved, two thoughts come to mind.

This could dispense with the need for impact modifiers (a class of plastic additive that prevents scratching and denting) such as mineral oxides in flexible applications.

Because the catalyst mobility is designed in, I would be concerned about suitability for contact with human skin.

Re: How Environmentally Friendly is Your Favorite Company?

J.L. — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:59:30 -0000

The weakness of most such scoring systems is that they are based on "trailing indicators": stuff reported in the public domain without direct interaction. There is usually no differentiation between what they did and what the are doing and what they plan to do. And only the very best give recognition to sufficiency of management systems, especially the third party auditing of these. As a result, ten different approaches give ten often radically different rankings of the same companies. At some point, companies begin to notice this, figure out that its not worth the bother being ranked by organizations with little or no corporate insights, notice also that the bad rankings are getting stockholder attention, and start to say "NO" to all comers. That's about where we are at this point.

Re: Survey: Taxing Veggie Oil

J.L. — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:32:04 -0000

Fuel distributors pay their collected road tax levies to state tax offices and no doubt have phone or even personal relationships with staffers in those various tax offices. Pretty easy to start a whisper advocacy campaign where petro fuel distributors are encouraged to gripe about a few people stealing tax revenues from the state treasury, leading to a "crack down" with no policy say by elected officials. Soy and rapeseed farmers, for example, would have the opposite point of view, without doubt, were the issue brought to the light of day. These kind of choices over what to give a tax exemption for get made all the time: to not tax goods sold over the internet or give a rebate for buying a hybrid car are common examples. Its a matter of whether society wants to enforce a petroleum addiction only or encourage alternative fuel production and distribution schemes.

Bottom line: give the issue a public airing via elected officials.

Re: Where to Build: At Railway Stations

J.L. — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:24:03 -0000

Lloyd beat me to this post so I got to add my 2 cents here. Where I live along the Philadelphia "Main Line" train route, homes within a roughly 4 block walking distance, even though old and smallish with one car garages, command a 10 to 40% price premium and get snapped up fast when they come on market.

There is often opposition to expansion of car parking at community train stations by people who have that narrow property value interest in mind and also don't want to suffer the added traffic car traffic and more crowded trains. In a societal sustainabilty sense, there is a certain wisdom to that selfish instinct to self protect.

The solution of expanded walking and biking networks, so that the 4-block circumference can be expanded greatly, covering many more homes, has not yet surfaced much as a public issue...but it surely will.

Re: Where to Build: At Railway Stations

J.L. — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 16:53:26 -0000

For Brandon: Also on the Main Line, there is a virtual land rush by developers to snap up old dilapidated commercial properties near train stations and turn them into high end condos and apartments. I imagine that there will be some serious sound proofing but the demand is real and has been written about extensively. Some mention of LEED certification has been made for these but that's not the main demographic driver.

Because of the high rents for residences and businesses in NYC, there is a significant movement of people and businesses from NYC to downtown Philly, where another condo boom is on in response to that trend. At the same time, wealthy suburbanites who now want to sell their homes in retirement and have lost an interest in driving into the City are the ones snapping up those Main Line condos, from which they can walk to the train and enjoy access to the City. The two trends together are putting a squeeze on young people who formerly could afford to live in and close to Philadelphia.

Re: Sunslates: Solar Powered Shingles

J.L. — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:47:21 -0000

Lloyd has flagged an absolutely critical dimension of sustainable building. In life cycle parlance it is called "design life matching.' Example: If the design life of the shingle matches or exceeds that of the SPV components, all is good; end of life recycling is optimal from economics standpoint. This stuff fits the bill. Conversely, if you put SPV panels over asphalt you'll be remounting the panels at least twice before they are at end of design life, plus the mounts are likely to cause leakage in the archaic system designed in an earlier era to be "low cost" and based on oil.

Re: Wine and Biodiesel Byproducts Combine to Make 'Green' Polymer

J.L. — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 17:51:58 -0000

Wine be the mother of invention. I thought Frank Zappa invented this first?

Re: Underwater Power-Generating Buoys Make Waves

J.L. — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:52:46 -0000

How to avoid becoming an obstacle to navigation when topping out just above the depth where eddy currents exceed the up and down motion of surface wave induced flows?

Re: A Day (or Three) in the Life of: a Solar Installer

J.L. — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 19:49:19 -0000

This is wonderful.

Re: Recycling Machine Miraculously Transforms Auto Parts into Fuel

J.L. — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 06:58:38 -0000

There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. A 100% recycle exhaust gas stream can not be sustained over time. Anyone who has had chemical engineering 101 level courses ought to know this.

We are not told if this is a batch or semi-continuous process, In either case, no one should be taking these claims at face value without seeing a peer reveiwed liife cycle energy balance over multiple batches or over an extended run of semi-continuous functioning. The energy balance must include an accounting for embodied energy in the feedstock as well as the output. Moreover, I'd not trust it unless I saw the state air emission permit limits in parallel.

My guess is this the next thing we'll hear about is a request for public funding.

Re: Scoring the Green Electronics Scorecarders

J.L. — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:53:47 -0000

Good perspective. Adding my two cents as a former corporate soldier: only through dialog can a rating system distinguish trailing from leading indicators. What's on the web or in a book is what companies did yesterday. What they're working on doing/measuring now goes to intent, something you'll not find published anywhere, generally. Moreover, with only a single exception (that TH has posted on) rates companies from diverse corporate sectors on their management systems and specifically on the auditing of those systems by third parties. without that piece you have no idea of the companies goals for tomorrow.

It goes without saying that if an NGO sets up what Mark nicely describes as an "Exclusionary" rating systems and then publicly attacks companies - relying on the shame factor to drive change - that such an NGO is not going to be having much dialog.

Re: Never Ending Lightbulb

J.L. — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 10:39:49 -0000

Electromagnetic waves? What will the milli-rad exposure be at one meter distance? Unless that is addressed up front this goes no where.

Re: Losing Soil

J.L. — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 15:25:29 -0000

There's two reasons that every landscape photo you see from the middle east looks barren and rocky: bad cropping practices and overgrazing by goats and sheep.

Re: Energy Bill? What Energy Bill?

J.L. — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:19:17 -0000

Simple solution to a simple problem: just cut the horsepower in half. High power is a want, not a need. Acceleration feeds ego and rarely has anything to do with safety. All the counter arguments, except for those who "must" two trailers, are bull.

Re: Making a Business Out of Recycling Mushroom Compost

J.L. — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:59:24 -0000

I live in Chester Co. PA and until two years ago was able to purchase spent mushroom soil for $12/yard delivered! Though my deliveries often contained several soda cans and even a few "spent" condoms on occasion (food for thought eh?), it was a wonderful way to amend my garden soil at very low cost.

Sadly, spent mushroom soil is no longer sold on the open market in Chester Co. for a very peculiar reason. Apparently it has been discovered that by mixing spent mushroom soil with the dyed chopped wood mulches sold for decorative application around the foundation plantings of MegaMansions, that artillery fungus becomes less of a problem. Artillery fungus has the nasty habit of tossing globs of superglue like brown gooo upon Mercedes Benz and BMW's within a 15 to 20 foot range: hence the popularity of mushroom soil for mulch amendment.

Re: Up, Up, And Away With My Beautiful Green Balloons

J.L. — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 09:34:02 -0000

Helium is a finite resource, extracted mainly from natural gas. Known reserves are only a few decades and some want to use it for nuclear power cooling loops.

Re: Why Do Cars Use So Much Fuel?

J.L. — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 14:34:04 -0000

The name of the game is horsepower to weight ratio. Not just weight. Not just HP. Every freshman engineering student learns its all down to the HP/weight ratio.

Haven't seen the plot for how these compare in today's models compared to decade of the 80's when mileage and safety standards of today were set, but I'm willing to wager that the HP/Wt ratios have almost doubled.

With the exception of tradesmen and trailer pullers, all that power is only about one thing: satisfying the human ego of men and women. People with zero personal power in their lives can get the 480HP engine and feel like they're really something. All those arguments about getting into traffic with power are a self deception .

Re: Cotton-Subsidy Reform Could Feed, Educate Millions

J.L. — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:27:32 -0000

If you look over USDOA cotton product ion stats the issue can be pretty much narrowed down to being caused by the Congressional delegations of two or at most three states. Texas is #1 or #2 position. Oklahoma up there too. Some from SoCal and maybe some from Arkansas.

Amazing that such a narrow interest group holds so much sway over global destiny.

Re: Cotton-Subsidy Reform Could Feed, Educate Millions

J.L. — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 15:37:22 -0000

I got back with some stats here:

Cotton is Texas' top cash crop, as of 2002 generating $1.6 billion annually for farmers. The crop has a statewide economic impact of $5.2 billion, including money generated by supporting industries associated with harvesting, transporting, processing and marketing cotton, according to a 2000 report by the Agriculture Program at Texas A&M University.

Texas leads the nation in cotton production and produces about 25 percent of the nation's cotton, In 2002, Texas' exported cotton was worth $426 million. California is the second-largest cotton producer, with 2002 cotton exports valued at $286 million.

So Texas combined with California exports together make around three quarters of a billion worth that gets sold on world market. Reportedly the high plains drought has taken this down a bit in the last two years, however. My point stands: it is largely a problem caused by two states. Lets get the Governator on it!

Re: TH Forums Highlights: Vegans in Hummers, The Hippie Question and More

J.L. — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:15:41 -0000

Sure, we've exhumed billions of tons of fossil carbon and converted it to a gas that lasts in the stratosphere for almost a century and there's a debate as to whether it has any effect.

The hippie label works until someone comes up with a more vilifying term than one conjured up almost 40 years ago. Anyone notice that the only cultural change sustained from the hippie movement is organic food? We are what we eat.

Re: Rapeseed Oil Can't Take the Heat or the Pressure

J.L. — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 09:58:25 -0000

Well. Hydraulic hoses and bushings and seals were designed for mineral oil compatibility and improved for that purpose over many many decades. Dropping mineral oil into a system not designed for compatibility with it and then commenting about incompatitibility is tossing a card in a cocked hat.

Scorching of people and plants is a function of heat, not the fluid. They key attributes for spilling comparisons would be biodegradability and eco=toxicity.

Re: Wow is Right: Clean Technology Removes More than Just Carbon Dioxide

J.L. — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 11:03:26 -0000

Exhaust gas cooling is typically done by water injection. When that is a requirment it's more likely to experience bag-house filter plugging and its also possible that you are producing a liquid waste stream with co-mingled dissolved metals and particulate solids. This is called "media shifting" and has serious risks of unanticipated impacts and costs.

Will the amount of mercury in fly ash solids be increased with this technology? If so, then does the utility land filing permit still allow landfill disposal? Perhaps not.

What chemicals are used and what is the energy input to make and ship them? without that knowledge efficiency can not be fairly evaluated.

Time will tell.

Re: Advocating Green Chemistry in the Lab

J.L. — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 21:18:07 -0000

Excellent. So much of chemistry is cookbook and thoughtless. What a relief to hear it challenged.

Re: Buying into the Green Movement

J.L. — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 12:10:16 -0000

The very least the quoted individuals could do would be to utilize their expertise in foreign policy making, treaty negotiation, and international law to show us the way forward.

Oh wait. We already have people in power who were elected to do that job!

We do what we can in the present reality; and, when the time comes for political activism, we make a move: climb out of the design trenches armed with constructive ideas, on guard against any awful unintended consequences of the "big solution".

Just as the scientific consensus on climate risk has taken a side stage seat, design and consumerism will soon take similar status, delegated minor support role in the far larger public debate.

What then of punditry?

Re: EPA: We Report, You Decide

J.L. — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:39:22 -0000

Can't. It's a national security risk of course.

Re: Green Transport Specialist Bans Employees from Bikes

J.L. — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 10:34:57 -0000

Yes. It's the insurance carrier. Probably contract negotiation time and they want a better deal. Imagine how the committed employees feel.

Re: Video: Leonardo Dicaprio's 11th Hour Trailer

J.L. — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:35:34 -0000

This looks really good.

Re: Driving in Circles: Hydrogen Cars Close to Production at Ford

J.L. — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:07:01 -0000

Flawed logic. It is technically incorrect to presume that compression for storage is a prerequisite. There are at least two low pressure alternatives that hold promise.

Also, line transmission losses range from 3 to 7 percent. "Who in their right mind" making these spin statements has a jail house lawyer approach to life cycle thinking.

Re: Naples Buried Under a Heap of Trash

J.L. — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:23:37 -0000

Natural gas prices are very high in the EU and with Russia threatening a shut off, incineration is increasingly un-affordable. Not too much open land in the countryside either (as the story indicates). Massive introduction of returnable, re-usable packaging and recycling of the remainder, plus composting the organics, take a social consensus and an organized government to produce results. How do you say Blade Runner in Italian?

Re: Digital Water

J.L. — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:06:15 -0000

Chicago has a really nice one in Millennium park in the Loop. Water comes direct from Lake MI I think and after the spill down, kids get to splash around in it. Everyone loves it.

Re: New Ways to Destroy the Earth: The Humdinga

J.L. — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:30:22 -0000

Nothing more than a very expensive ATV that can cross slightly deeper waters than the average and slower models of such by John Deere and the like.

The gun looks to be a 50mm military sniper rifle or lookalike to gratify your basic macho shootem' up fantasy. (Better have multiple foam filled float compartments or one shot in the bow by the enemy sinks it fast)

Only really rich guys are going to buy these for their private hunting estates.

Re: Survey: How do you BBQ?

J.L. — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:36:35 -0000

I collect branches from the neighbors after storms. Put them in my "dry set" brick barbeque (1950's style) and cook away. Barbecue night is campfire night. Fuel is free and it otherwise would go to landfill of some megamansions mulch heap.

Re: Sued for Being Sustainable

J.L. — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:30:48 -0000

Not to point to particular individuals in this example, but the top half of society has its share of neurotic, control-freakish, attention-starved jerks who don't have enough to occupy their minds. I

This is pretty similar to those rules that dissallow clotheslines in the back yard and require frequent mowing.

Re: The TH Interview: Mike Indursky of Burt's Bees on The Greater Good Campaign

J.L. — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:44:58 -0000

This is a very important development. We'll know that serious progress has been made when Washington DC lobbyists convince the USDA and FDA to promulgate a co-opting label and Federal sanctioned definition that vested interests can leverage from behind closed doors.

My bet would be within a year this happens.

Re: Friedman on "The Green Road Less Traveled"

J.L. — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:07:03 -0000

I love Friedman because he has the habit of talking with other insightful bold thinkers and presenting their ideas in a larger context, with a bit of interpretation thrown in. In the parlance of scenario thinking he is a "horizon scanner."

What drives me nuts about him is that he only presents one scenario at a time. No one can predict the future. Other equally plausible and economically attractive futures for urban transportation can also be put together. Most of you reading this are capable of coming up with one we might call "Peak Oil Comes Early."

The best decisions for urban transit planning are those which will work under at least three highly plausible scenarios (a.k.a "robust" decisions). If we limit out thinking to one Friedman at a time we are increasing our chances at failure and will come up with another "no one could imagine that this would happen" future (just like "9/11).

Re: What Makes Global Warming Skeptics Tick?

J.L. — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:53:05 -0000

Most of the highly vocal climate skeptics that I have met face to face fall into one or more of these "makes 'em tick" categories.

#1: has highly religious belief system that does not allow for the possibility of human culture altering the world on a scale that "only god can".

#2:has an advanced degree in one of the natural sciences or a branch of technology that is somehow (their assessment not mine) related to climate studies like fluid dynamics, chemistry, physics, etc. and approach the subject like a crossword puzzle, which can be solved without peer review or models.

#3 gets paid to do it or wants to get paid by some industry group or ideologically motivated Think Tank.

Re: Target Completely Misses the Mark

J.L. — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:55:11 -0000

This may potentially go beyond "gaffe." Not mentioned in the source document, nor in EPA's press release, is that this looks like a further example of Chinese manufacturers willfully designing and selling things for the US market that are either bad for the general environment or directly hazardous to customers and pets

US distributors and sellers need not just to gabble about sustainability and buy green power; they need to hold their suppliers accountable to rational, commonsense rules and regulations long ago established in the US and emulated elsewhere in the developed world. Clearly this issue is beyond just "FDA" getting more budget allocations for inspection. To maintain credibility, corporations have to crack the whip over suppliers, Wal-mart style.

Re: Two Billion Rats Invade China: From Eco-Disaster To Exotic Delicacy

J.L. — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 10:02:10 -0000

You can't have populations like these without substantial year round food resources for them. Habitat, water, and predations will vary as described of course, but this suggests a basic problem with grain storage or something else leaving huge reserves of rat food about.

Re: Click Your Way to Greg Lavardera's Modern Stock Plans

J.L. — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:39:17 -0000

Why the high axis, 1950's style horizontal, narrow window that you can't see out of from the inside?

I grew up with a bedroom with one of those and absolutely HATED not being able to look outdoors. I learned later that those hihg, small, h orizontal axis windows came into being right after WWII because there were still glass shortages and all windows were very expensive compared to lumber and wall board.

Why is that thought of as green?

Re: Modern Prefab by Kohn Shnier Architects and Royal Homes

J.L. — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 21:57:28 -0000

Lovely intersection with the forest. No inner santuary. Light and water in your face. Good.

Re: Monster Homes: Enough is Enough

J.L. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:01:22 -0000

Ask the postman. He'll tell you that half the monster homes have hardly any furniture. Two income couples bought them as status symbol investments to park their mobile status symbol s(the monster SUV's) in front of, both at low or no down payment, and nowcan't afford a pot to cook in, much less a dining room set. Within a decade these will be subdivided as multiplex units.

Re: One in Every Four New Yorkers Has Elevated Blood Mercury Levels

J.L. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:51:34 -0000

Article like this one, which appear several times a year, mix cause and effect, leaving readers without any understanding of how to prevent the problem from worsening.

Mercury contamination of fish is worsening because of coal burning. There is no other source as significant and as widespread. Aerosols and particulates that fall upon the land and into freshwaters end up in the marine food chain, made more mobile by the acid rain also caused by coal burning.

Re: GE Launches Carbon Offsetting Credit Card

J.L. — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:32:23 -0000

Huge difference between "coal mine" methane recovery and coal bed or "seam" methane recovery. The latter two actions are destroying the wild lands of the US western states and ruining ranches.

We need to know the particulars of what and where.

Re: A Green Living

J.L. — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:49:54 -0000

Kustler is dead right. Speaking as a former corporate env staffer, careers go no where and budgets end unless one of two but preferably both the following conditions are met.

Serious regulatory enforcement is consistently being applied at Federal, state, and local levels.

Corporate staffs are empowered to create (not just enhance) business value, working with businesses directly. For this to occur sustainably, environmental staff personnel must be involved in the design and materials selection process early in the "product ideation" stage: not as an afterthought.

Surveys such as these are pablum created to sell market research reports to university job centers. Much nonesense

Re: Seeking Oil, Russia Claims North Pole

J.L. — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:33:26 -0000

Bad sign. Territorial grabs like this, as lame as they might sound from a legal standpoint, indicate a deep seated drive toward imperialism. Can only lead to more conflict in a resource constrained world.

Re: Diesel and Your Heart

J.L. — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:38:00 -0000

Lets hope the investigators had the sense to also run their tests using the diesel emissions that will be characteristics of the newest engines that meet the upgraded EPA standards for engines sold in 2008.

Re: \"Paris Hilton Goes Green\" According to the PR Folks

J.L. — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:23:10 -0000

Paris' MoJo has expired. Green resurrection not possible. On to the next wayward heiress vixen in self destruct mode.

Re: Olympic Pigs Go Organic to Ensure Dope-Free Pork for Beijing Athletes

J.L. — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:21:54 -0000

Which organization certifies the organic nature of feed and of actual pig production, butchering, and processing? Without some third party audit to document conformance, this claim isn't worth the pig fat to slip it to hell.

Re: Southern California's Beaches, Fish are in Shoddy Condition

J.L. — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 15:48:38 -0000

DDE, a breakdown product of DDT, may be a cancer promoter in humans but to my knowledge there is no weight of evidence that DDT per se is a carcinogen.

On the otherhand, DDT does have strong endocrine disruption effects on birds. IN theory there may be some effect on humans as well.

Re: Lunar-Resonant Streetlights

J.L. — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 08:37:46 -0000

I love this.

Re: Dumb Question Dept : "Why is New Housing so Big and Lousy?"

J.L. — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:01:02 -0000

Good time to remind ourselves that no person or organization can predict the single most likely future. Though, it is reasonable to construct a handful of plausible scenarios, two of which are presented here, others are possible.

The key to envisioning how the future impacts us is to identify "predetermined elements" of the most plausible scenarios. Things like much more expensive fuel and asphalt are pre-determined. At least a decade of expensive loans is another. Weather extremes. Brownouts. Cheaper solar photovoltaic cells. And so on.

A huge change in Fed loan policy could take these bets off the table. As could an especially violent tropical storm season, for example.

Re: Trees Won't Solve Our Global Warming Woes

J.L. — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 15:16:09 -0000

Comparing trees which are naturally reseeded and in a forest that has gone through natural sucessional stages, to trees planted and managed like an agricultural plot, it makes no intuitive sense that only the actively managed tree farms can store carbon enough to warrant their existence. Obviously natural forests may take a longer time to fix the same amount of Kg of carbon per hectare in the tree biomass than a tree farm does. But BOTH situations are fixing carbon, one perhaps more slowly. However, the natural forsest is doing it with less artificial input and far more biodiversity. If the combined fixed carbon in a natural forest's soil, under-story shrubs., bushes, and trees all added ogether I would anticipate a parity even over a short time frame.

Hence, I call bovine excrement on this and all the other "trees are no good" negativism coming out of so called scientists.

Re: Newsweek Flubs Facts About Global Warming

J.L. — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 14:51:56 -0000

Via sourcewatch::Dr. Roy..Spencer is a prominent global warming skeptic. Since February 2004 he has been a columnist for TCS Daily writing over forty columns, almost entirely on the the topic of global warming.

While generally considered a climate skeptic, John R. Christy was a co-drafter of the American Geophysical Union's December 2003 position statement on climate change, which concludes that:

"Human activities are increasingly altering Earth's climate, and that natural influences alone cannot explain the rapid increase in surface temperatures observed during the second half of the 20th century."

If you check RealClimate you will get a sense the political importance of this particular topic to the critiques of Al Gore's film made by a host of deniers, many based on an alleged "misinterpretation" of data by Spencer. I would suggest not being too hard on Newsweek. There is more here than meets they eye.

Re: Creative Recycling of Andy Warhol

J.L. — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:37:53 -0000

The blackened cornices on the building look to me like coal soot stains. Andy would like the contrast.

Re: Magic Carpets Suck Out Air Pollutants

J.L. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 09:44:47 -0000

So does this mean we are to trust the USEPA and the supplier of the added material that there is no risk of exposure relative to the added material, Puralex?

This would be the same US agency that recetly had its climate change status report stepped on by hack monkeys and who's senior enforcement personal took a hike.

I for one would like to see an MSDS for the additive before I would conclude that it is safe to have in my home or workplace.

Re: Update on Lake Inferior

J.L. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 10:01:54 -0000

There is a drought ongoing in the L. Superior watershed, so the cause may be a combination of factors. But this makes sense and is interesting in light of the lawsuit recently filed to stop entrance of seagoing freighters to the Great Lakes, done in the interest of preventing further disruption by invasive species. How much more shipping related damage need they suffer?

Re: Victory Against Major Mercury Polluter May Prove Short-Lived

J.L. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 13:11:48 -0000

Could send it to China for re-export as a part of low cost consumer goods?

Re: Number of the Day: 40

J.L. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:21:26 -0000

Pimmental's work has been posted on before. He seems something of a "devils advocate" choosing controversial topics

Being a literature review, I'd have to see it repeated by a third party before I'd concur that he's even in the right order of magnitude.

Re: New Wind Engines Beat the Heat

J.L. — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:10:37 -0000

You can feel the effect of ionic wind at home or work. Lick the palm of your hand and hold it a half inch away from a conventional CRT PC monitor or a CRT television set. The cooling effect of induced evaporation is nearly instantaneously sensed.

This happens because the the monitor is relatively electropositive, and atracts the somewhat polar water molecules.

Re: Water Pitcher Filters Don't Remove Lead Particles

J.L. — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:50:06 -0000

This should surprise no one, as the primary ingredient of gravity filtration is activated carbon. Carbon does a great job of removing dissolved organics. Some gravity carbon filters are laced with bacteriocides that help remove pathogens. But even they don't remove viruses.

Pressure filters with composite elements can remove particulates pretty well. A subject for another day.

Roughly half of all potable water supplies in North America are from surface water sources and half from groundwater. It would be fascinating to see some data on particulate versus solved lead fractions at the well head and at the consumer tap, based on water source. I'd definitely want to know this before I chose what type of water filter was needed for me.

Re: Thames Water Tastes Best

J.L. — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:13:03 -0000

The hyperbolic growth in bottle water sales is of course driven by convenience. A second factor is the mythical belief...I would go so far as to call it Urban Legend...that tap water is bad for you because it has chlorine or whatever else the water companies have put in to keep it sterile.

How did this social myth of chlorination risk come about? Greenpeace and its two decade long, glboal campaign against all things chlorine comes to mind. Not that there aren't legitimate risk issues to manage around potable water chlorination. But there were unintended consequences to continuously harping about them to the exclusion of all other perspectives.

Re: TVA Shuts Reactors: River Water is Too Hot

J.L. — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 20:07:37 -0000

In many cases the thermal doischarge limit is a permit condition imposed at a particular level needed to support fish and aquatic life populations. These temp limits were typically set back in the mid 1970's , in an "Earth Day I" atmosphere, based on a great deal of expensive studies of native organisms in the receiving water.

A right wing enough or desperate enough Federal government, egged on by brownout-frustrated consumers, could easily be tempted to over-ride those permit conditions at the next relicensing hearing. Dangerous times are ahead.

Re: Will Ferrell gets first BMW Hydrogen 7

J.L. — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:35:43 -0000

Hundreds of people die every year from natural gas and petroleum explosions and very large numbers are injured and/or die every year from gasoline fires. Moreover, untold billions have beens spent remediating gasoline contaminated groundwater, pipeline spills. To count this against the theoretical possibility of a mythological risk of hydrogen fires is just absurd.

Re: Hey, Kids! Here's The New, Cool Drink: Bottled Water

J.L. — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:20:04 -0000

When bottles were all glass, bottles were made in glass factories that were separate from bottlers of course. Bottlers typically only had market ranges of a few hundred miles, the better to bring returned empty bottles back, wash and refill them. Each month the bottler had only to replace a portion of all bottles sent out by buying new ones from the glass blower.

Enter the age if mega-marketing and whole-country brand wars. Plastic bottles are not delivered from off-site as empties any more. They are blown, labeled, and filled on the fly in one operation. The more they are light-weighted in the age of increased natural gas prices, the better the bottler's operating margins. So, while it does make it more resource efficient, the motive is profit.

The reason recycled plastic is not used for bottling is that the polymer must be certified for food contact, and that can not be done on blended reclaim streams of plastic without added expense.

Re: Africa wages war on scourge of plastic bags

J.L. — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 10:26:13 -0000

The malaria vector linkage is fascinating and possibly a huge issue. Considering that the Stink Tank experts continue to attack environmentalists for "banning" DDT, and ignore the facts about DDT useage, this is a substantive point we need to keep shoving in their faces. Controlling a man made cause is cheaper and has multiple benefits. Anyone have a citable source for this information?

Re: Bush Admin Expands Mountaintop Coal Mining

J.L. — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:47:37 -0000

Sanctioned in the name of pre-election donations - to both parties.

Re: Chickens Diet for Delaware

J.L. — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:55:44 -0000

Mass is still conserved. That means the phosphorus is in the chicken bodies instead of in their manure. If it's in the chicken flesh it still ends up in the sewer and waterways via human excrement. If it's in the chicken bones, it goes to landfill and hence into leachate. If in the feathers god only knows where that goes....chicken feed supplements maybe?

Re: Thomas Friedman Discovers Efficiency

J.L. — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 12:38:26 -0000

Rodgers is at least being innovative and pushing his colleagues to the bigger envelope. Regardless of the specific merits of this idea (which by the way I think the NYT mis-prepresented some), we should welcome a maverick in the coal fired utility business.

After "Friedman Unit" man 's badly blowing the Iraq war hopes that he trumpeted in 2002-3 era, it's no wonder he's shining the spotlight on himself only by drawing attention to other people's bold ideas.

Meta-point: one should not have to be in the executive class to have meritorious ideas. Why do we only hear about rich guys and execs in the Times?

Re: Earthquake and Fire Proof Floating Houses Coming to Los Angeles

J.L. — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 15:46:57 -0000

I just love when people who are completely ignorant of the physical and chemical properties of the world reassure us they won't be using any of that darn old "explosive hydrogen".

Hydrogen is "explosive" only when it approaches a specific molecular ratio with oxygen. In that the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, getting that 2/1 ratio inside a hydrogen filled balloon would be quite an amazing piece of work.

When the great Zeppelins were manufactured its designers had no access to todays' low voltage hydrogen safety sensors, which can instantaneously sense and report the potential for an explosive mixture forming, and would allow for gradual intervention by diluting with an inert gas such as nitrogen or helium.

In the Zeppelin explosion case, lightning ignited the lacquer coated and highly flammable shell, causing a deflation that led to the crash and fire.

A direct lightning hit would also cause a helium filled balloon to crash.

The earth has a very finite reserve of commercially exploitable helium, most of which is derived from natural gas and much of which the nuclear power industry may also planning to use for reaction moderation in the new generation of power plants. Frivolous uses like the one described here do not seem sustainable in that context.

Re: Survey: Should We Publish This Crap?

J.L. — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 12:08:13 -0000

There is a cottage industry of hacks paid to rabble rouse about anyone they disagree with. A handful of people can make a lot of echos that influence naive reporters. Whisper campaigns based on repeating mistruths (intentionally) have been around for centuries of course but the net raises the intensity quite dramatically.

Yes, we have written about Mr Gore's offsetting projects. But rational debate will not stop the hacks from spawning more rumors and unsubstantiated accusations.

Re: Americans Care More About Gay Marriage Than Global Warming

J.L. — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 15:45:24 -0000

Agree with the commenters: poor design and small sample.

Were the respondants registered voters even?

Keeping in mind that a quarter of the US populace is functionally illiterate (can't read effectively), that means a quarter of this sample gets their info only from TV, which is hardly a place where climate change has received "emphasis" as an issue.

Re: Eco-Tip: Narrow Your Word Document Margins

J.L. — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 18:02:34 -0000

I'd guess that the margin default size can be traced back to the technology limits imposed by typewriters or possibly binding for offset press prints. It's useful to have margin space to make notes for editing of others work, but if you edit your own using the markup feature of Word its absolutely of no use.

Re: Towards A More Pedestrian-Friendly Mexico City

J.L. — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 21:19:04 -0000

Possible solution: cross wire the break system with the horn on all vehicles. Traffic will slow dramatically.

Re: Update on Toronto Garden Destruction

J.L. — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 17:22:06 -0000

As a general matter, some public jobs are best performed by people who avoid putative solutions whenever possible. (Police departments have to screen out candidates with such propensities, for example.). The ability to negotiate and settle differences discretely, achieving compromise by the "offending" party as well as by the municipality is a skill that has to be cultivated and encouraged by top level administrators. In others words, it is likely the City's top level leadership that needs to change, not just the manager of a particular department.

Re: Are Switchgrass' Days Numbered?

J.L. — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:44:57 -0000

Bit of an irony here. Native tall grass prairie in the US was sustained by wildfire, set either by Native Americans as a hunting technique or by lightning.

Re: Tough Love: Disintegrating Polystyrene

J.L. — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:20:30 -0000

Always be cautious of the magic chemical bullet. What exactly are the breakdown products of the microscopic foam particles, once bacteria go to work on them? Is it really a good idea to take a manageable foam chunks and break them down into micro sized particles capable of being entrained into surface and groundwater flows?

These and several other questions must be thoughtfully addressed prior to commercialization. Risk management takes a great deal more life cycle investigation than is indicated by these authors.

Re: Just What We Needed Dept.: A $499 LED Flashlight

J.L. — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 13:18:23 -0000

The smaller the object, the greater the likelihood it will be lost or misplaced, and thus unavailable when you need it. Hence, the makers might as well decorate it with diamonds and rubies and make it a personal adornment...expressing what it really is, a symbol of personal wealth.

Re: Recipe of the Week - A Two Dollar Squash

J.L. — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:46:06 -0000

Here's an idea for your $5 squash.

Get a huge hubbard or other squash on sale.

Go outside and peel it with a Bowie knife or a hand axe that has a curved cutting face.

Cut in half and remove seeds.

Go back inside and wash the halves, then cut into handy sized chunks for cooking. Stuff the chunks into plastic bags and freeze what you don't need tonight. The freezing will lyse the cells and make it tender and easy to cook for stews and soups. Not suitable any more for grilling.

Re: Not Tonight, Dear, I'm Down with Climate Change

J.L. — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:50:55 -0000

This kind of work falls right into the lap of the climate change deniers, providing an easy avenue of attack on legitimate reporting.

Sex changes in many species are an evolved response to perturbations within the normal range of what would be expected in a given environment. Some organisms normally change sex with age. Bundling anecdotal and speculative findings like these under the headling "Climate Change," especially the PCB/DDT related one, is pretty specious.

No better than greenwashing in my opinion.

===

But we're not talking about changing sex with age, but specifically with changing temperatures.

Re: Not Tonight, Dear, I'm Down with Climate Change

J.L. — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 18:59:08 -0000

Firmly...No. The presence of endocrine disrupting, penis shrinking, persistent bioaccumulative chemicals in polar bears has nothing whatsoever to do with temperature changes in the environment.

Normal temperature shifts in the aquatic environment can cause sex shifts withing existing, not future, populations.

===

You're right on the first account, John, but I'm unsure what you're quibbling about after that.

The changes are happening because of current warming temperatures, and if sex ratios are horribly imbalanced in one generation, the population size of the next will most assuredly be affected. And in that generation, if warming temperatures affect sex while in gestation, there could again be another imbalance.

Re: Clean Coal: If It Can't Make It There, It Can't Make It Anywhere

J.L. — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 09:24:10 -0000

As soon as a few more climate monsters come out of the closet, the coal industry is going to start begging for public funds to give another run at this.

The current mistake is to start the design process with the "100% solution" as goal. The project sponsors in utiltiies do this in the same manner that the auto industry pumps out prototype green cars that are never built, so as to delay the day of reconning thrugh PR.

If they could sequester half the carbon emissions and go beyond current NOX and SOX guidlines,m that would be real progress.

Re: Big Houses Are Not Green: America's McMansion Problem

J.L. — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:21:16 -0000

Go for a bike ride around the biggest turn-of-the-century homes in any city or collar suburb and you'll find zillions of what were once mansions subdivided into town houses or condos.

Ask not for whom the Toll Bros ring, it rings for thee. Entry foiers in most of their monstrosities are big enough to subdivide for a 2 person home. And they've already got three car garages in most so they're good to go for at least three families per!

Re: World's First Sustainable Tuna Fishery Certified

J.L. — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 18:04:20 -0000

I will stand corrected if I am off in this assertion but it is my recollection that the large tuna species migrate over vast distances, crossing back and forth the major oceans. Therefore, any discussion of "locally sustainable" is pretty specious if I am right in this. Anyone know?

===

The certification is specifically for fishing methods and an avoidance of overfishing and bycatch.

Re: Electronic Smog: Yet Another Reason to Spend More Time Outdoors

J.L. — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:33:41 -0000

In defense of Jeremy for posting this (not in defense of the study methodology) I'd like to mention that as a person with lifelong allergies to pollens, mold, and house dusts, I long ago came to realize that dust control was the key to my health and that electronic devices figured heavily in my ability to do that.

Back in the early 1980's, with my old Compaq "transportable" (that weighed about 50 pounds), I noticed how rapidly dust built up on the 9x9 screen and around my keyboard. I also noted that after a hour of use that I would begin to sneeze and have irritated eyes- particularly pronounced when pollen was dense and coming in from open windows. After considerable research (this is pre-world wide web) I was able to piece together the mechanisms for my enhanced allergic response.

When operated, CPU's and fan-cooled PCBs (more on this later) are relatively electro-positive compared to surrounding objects and air, hence they attract dust and plate it out on the cases and screens and onto adjacent furniture. Run your fingers on a TV screen and the proof is on your fingers. No need for scientific investigation on this aspect.

Here's the deal. Not only does the device concentrate sensitizing dusts from normal air flows into the zone where the operator sites and breaths, but after hours of contacting the keyboard, etc, the operator also become relatively more electro-positive than other objects in the room. As the human respires air being drawn across the mouth and eyes, into the nose, plates dust out rapidly on the mucosa, where allergic response is provoked. You may test this phenomena directly with cool smoke from a smoldering bit of tissue. It is also instructive to wet the palm of your hand slightly and put is about a centimeter from a TV screen that has been operating for a while. The cooling effect is from the so-called "ionic wind" which means that the charged surface of the TV is more rapidly attracting polar water vapor away from your skin, which is relatively electro-negative compared to the TV screen.

My solution was to purchase two negative ion generators, locating one on each side of the PC. Problem solved and I never again had to wipe the dust off the glass.

As promised above. The reason that CPU fans are involved in attracting dust is that air is a conductor and the CPU's internal shielding is also. Electromagnetic fields are set up inside the CPU by fans and hard drives. Move a conductor across a magnetic field and you generate a static charge, This causes dust exiting the device to be relatively electro-positive and to plate out aggressively on the nearest conductive and electronegative surface -like your eyes.

If you have ever been in an office building with forced air heating ducts and noticed the black streaks on the ceiling emanating from the heating vent, this is the explanation. Dry heated air is flowing rapidly through metal ductwork, and turning a corner just prior to discharge into the room, where the dust being carried along finds the nearest electronegative surface to plate out on. It is no coincidence that ductwork needs to be cleaned out of accumulated dust after years of use.

This concludes my post -length way of saying that I find this study to be highly plausible in its conclusions, although perhaps not so much in what is hypothesized as causative to the human response to the phenomena.

Re: UnTreeHugger: New Pur Water Filters

J.L. — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:03:54 -0000

First off, are we absolutely certain that the PUR and its compeititors contain a batteries? You are not addressing how the unit knows that the filter is plugged and needs replacement. It is possible to use a piezo electric crystal to generate current from the pressure drop between water exiting the filter and discharging from unit. If that is both the detection and the current generating approach, there is no battery. Does that make a difference to you? Why?

In general, all would agree that feature creep is a problem with many appliances: done to distinguish one brand from another instead of to add value. But we need to make sure that batteries are the actual issue here.

===

Yes, you can read the box.

Re: Man-Made Chemicals Cause 2:1 Ratio of Girls to Boys Born in Arctic

J.L. — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:14:03 -0000

This is one of those seminal reports that could shake the chemical and beauty industries, reshape global markets, cause products in numerous categories to be redesigned, and get the regulatory pendulum swinging wide left again.

Re: Man-Made Chemicals Cause 2:1 Ratio of Girls to Boys Born in Arctic

J.L. — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:55:53 -0000

Because the reporting is based on yet to be published findings, the mechanism is somewhat left open to speculation. Developmental changes can occur in several ways. It could even be that male children simply do not develop(they naturally abort at higher than normal rates). Time will tell.

Re: Municipalities Try to Tax Car-Sharing

J.L. — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:27:42 -0000

Someone wants to be re-elected on the evidence of having balanced the budget - real world impact no matter.

Re: The Rebirth of the Seaside Pier

J.L. — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:52:42 -0000

Concept is excellent. The corollary trend is the rebirth of the urban marina which is suitable for more than just the rich folk who can own huge powercraft. The designers need to work that it!

Re: Ethanol: It's a Pasta Disasta

J.L. — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 08:11:33 -0000

Mostly a reduced supply issue. Drivers are:

Commodity grain farmers switching from wheat to corn or beets, or canola growing, attracted by the high prices created by increased biofuel demand: e.g. no one is making ethanol out of wheat - not enough sugars in it.

Drought on Australian and some US wheat farms.

Re: Quote of the Day: Amy Jaffe on Alternative Energy

J.L. — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 14:42:37 -0000

Except the moon shot was purely a US government controlled initiative and the only competitor was the the USSR. Technological nationalism was at the launching pads of both countries.

Today, with respect to renewable energy, every country and several hundred of industries, both national and foreign ,compete now for the patenting and commercialization of clean energy technology, and a great many of the innovations are being led by private sector investments.

For these reasons I see the "moon shot" as a poor analogy.

Re: Cyanobacteria that Crap Ethanol

J.L. — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 14:11:49 -0000

Cultured varieties of yeast generally can hit 7 - 14% alcohol in the solution before they stop growing. At that point in alcohol production, most of the effort and energy is to purify the alcohol, either by membrane separation and/or distillation. Starting from say a few percent will end up being much more energy intensive. Wondering what these cyanos can get to before they self poison.

Re: Quote of the Day: Carl Sagan on the World Population Crisis

J.L. — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 15:36:55 -0000

I was always suspicious of the old "demographic transition" mumbo jumbo when I took demographics back in the 1970's. Never seemed like they had causation right. Sure the correlation is there but that proves nothing of causation.

Take Saudi Arabia for a contradiction, where there is an inverse relationship between education and income. My gut instinct was and remains that the better correlation is between family size and education.

Re: NYC Transit To Become More Eco-Friendly

J.L. — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:47:43 -0000

Anyone who has taken a ride on the street cars of New Orleans (designed and made in the 1920's) and which have no air conditioning at all, can see that something as problematic and weight adding as green roof top on buses is not needed. Simply provide opening windows on sides, front and back is step one. Step two is to install a "whole bus fan" on the roof that pulls air in through the open windows when it is hot and muggy. Ceiling fans not acceptable because vandals would quickly ruin them: otherwise that would be charming as well as functional.

Re: CEPA Shutters the Nation's Leading Computer Recycler

J.L. — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:39:29 -0000

The citation was issued here by Cal Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and not by the Federal EPA. Citations can be appealed, often with good result.

Explanation and background:

To be regulated under Cal haz awste rules, the waste accumulator (recycler) has to have in excess of a certain amount of toxic material in labeled storage. Exemptions can be based on definition of which materials are indeed hazardous under state rules and how long they have been in inventory. A higher rate of throughput (faster recycling) often can get a recycler back in operation. As can a negotiated agreement on how to segregate haz and non-haz waste for management on site.

It is important to realize why the recycling rules were established in the first place. Really important. The recycling industry in the US was once rife with horrible tales of "speculative accumulation." Basically this is when a recycler accumulated tons of dangerous material at no cost ,or far below market cost, as a convenience for his suppliers. Then when the recycling technology at the site failed to work as promised, or markets disappeared, or the neighbors complained about the contamination and smell (as often happened), investors filed suit and the manager blew town, often starting a fire on his way out to destroy evidence and collect insurance. The community was then left holding the bag. This has happened literally hundreds of times across the US. Taxpayers are still paying for cleanup in California and nearly every other state.

In fact, it is precisely the type of rules used by Cal DEP that China and India need to have in place. Were these implemented in Asia, the electronics waste pipeline would back up enough that design changes would be forced!

Re: Quote of the Day: Bruce Nussbaum on Google

J.L. — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:20:24 -0000

Who was it said "all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely?" Holds for both governments and corporations.

Re: Some More Good News: Recovery Suprisingly Fast for Mercury-Plagued Fish

J.L. — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:47:47 -0000

Unless the peer review of this work included se4asoned geo-hydrologists and limnologists, I suggest not extrapolating the findings very far at all. An over arching speculation based on a one-off study like this one give the industry funded Think Tanks and nutty talk show hosts the ammunition they love to have to claim that environmentalists have "once again" been proven wrong: e.g. the erisk of coal burning impacts can be easily overcome. This feeds right into the "fund "Clean Coal" now" talking point. Here is the substance of my concern:

Some lakes get almost all their inflow from surface water runoff, some mostly from groundwater, some by river inflow, which reflects both ground and surfce runoff, and others by a combination of surface runoff, groundwater, and river inflow.

Some watersheds have surficial soils that are highly contaminated from decades of coal-caused mercury deposition; and that mercury ican be mobilized toward the lake by erosion and by acid rain. Acid rain soluablizes mercury, enabling it to move through groundwater. Not all watersheds are equally impacted by acid rain. And not all lakes recieve water in a similar way, nor is "replacement time" similar among lake volumes. Hence, an extrapolation fo these findings to the class of "all lakes," as inferred, is absurd.

Moreover, some lakes have very high mercury levels in sediments and those sedimentary mercury contents may either be manily sequestered or partly recycled to the water column anda food chain, depending on physical and biological characteristics of the specific lake in question.

Finally, anaerobic processes in lake sediments convert inorganic to organic mercury forms. Do not the authors realize this? The meaning of this work should not be extrapolated beyond the single setting studied

Re: UnTreeHugger: Nellie's Dryer Balls

J.L. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:15:06 -0000

Clothing stiffness is caused by hard water (lots of dissolved minerals) that stay behind on your clothing after they are dried. Repeated washings and dryings take mineral build up to the point where texture or "hand" is affected. Adding softeners does NOT reduce this in any way. It merely puts a lubricant on the fabric that gives a slick feel.

One way to avoid mineral build up is to use washing machine with a horizontal drum that has a "high extraction" setting. The more you extract of rinse water, the less minerals are left to condense on the fabric. Note that this will not help with bath towels which get extra wetness.

A water softener hooked into the washing supply line also may help by converting carbonate to soluble chloride - but I admit that I am less sure about this one.

Re: UnTreeHugger: Nellie's Dryer Balls

J.L. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 09:04:41 -0000

Wannabe raises a good point. A variety of silicate minerals are added to solid detergents as "filler". Traditionally this was done to help the consumer measure more accurately and to "extend" the product volume per load to require massive boxes on the grocery shelves, at eye level, so the box because the advertisement. It was a marketing ploy in other words.

The best way to cut down on silicate mineral addition and the commensurate hardness on your clothing is to use the ultra-concentrate liquid detergents. Those are the ones with the tiny measuring caps. Using these also results in less packaging - a win win.

What I would like help understanding is why so many women prefer their cloths to come out of the dryer smelling with those awful dryer sheet perfumes. And to be politically un-correct: real men don't use dryer sheets!

Re: UnTreeHugger: Nellie's Dryer Balls

J.L. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 13:11:49 -0000

Static electricity in clothing which is thick, especially cottons, can be controlled by setting the drier a a slightly "less than dry" setting. Saves energy too. Get the setting right and you'll not be able to feel moisture either.

Another way to control static in a load of easy dry fabrics like nylons, undies or thin polyesters is to toss in a damp cotton towel with them. Cotton loses moisture much more slowly that petro fabrics and will keep just enough moisture amidst an otherwise dry load to completely eliminate any static - even in winter. I promise it will work every time.

Re: Wasting Away in Traffic

J.L. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:20:21 -0000

Wonderful irony here. The slower they go, the more frustrating the ride is, the more horsepower is added to new models. At some point people might come to realize they are wasting their money and gas and the future of the earth. But we're not there yet. Does it take absolute gridlock for this to sink in? Apparently.

Re: For Peat's Sake, a Renewable Replacement

J.L. — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 21:14:22 -0000

They should call it Poo-peat. The fiber content will be mainly from toilet paper and the brown color.... You know the rest.

Re: Riding the Green Wave

J.L. — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 10:41:19 -0000

Good news if you live in New England, Mid-Atlantic States, or SE Canada: there are plenty of operating granite quarries that specialize in counter and sink top products.

My wife has been asking about granite counters and I explained the "footprint" and sustainability issues. Then I went on line with superpages (http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?... and discovered that by searching on my state name and the word granite I found many which specialize in that market niche. Many of these quarries provide a direct link to the distributors they source for...providing a handy way to ask for "granite from quarry X".

Re: It's a Series of (Ocean) Tubes

J.L. — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:42:45 -0000

Concept sound but implementation strategy has too many variables, as pointed out by the critics cited. Planktos pusues the identical strategy but limits itself to manipulating only a single variable: iron as a trace nutrient. Instead of using wave pumps and all they other expensive materials, they use a rented ship.

Re: Suck on this, CO2

J.L. — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:37:39 -0000

It must be part of the job description of being a research chemical engineer to ignore the fact that lime is made in lime kilns by heating with huge amounts of natural gas. And ignore that NaOH is made most often as a byproduct of chlorine manufacture - another very energy intensive process.

Once a carbon cap is mandated, energy used to make NaOH and lime will become far more expensive, and the 200/t will double or so.

What this is a perpetual motion cash transfer machine.

Re: Producing Hydrogen Fuel One Eggshell at a Time

J.L. — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 09:13:37 -0000

Schemes like this make no sense. We can't even get people to curbside collect their used bottles and cans beyond 30%. The material collection and handling issues around eggshells are much worse, obviously. So much so that this strikes me as a publicity stunt. Go dig out some limestone for goodness sake.

Re: Chemically, Deodorants Stink

J.L. — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:08:45 -0000

Classic case of "don't sweat the little stuff." (pun intended)

Think on this with me.

Skipping anti-perspirant results in yellowed clothing in the arm pit region, which, especially if you prefer light tones and a clean look, means additional washings with warm water and whitening agents. Sometimes peroxides (non-chlorine bleach) will do the job. Sometimes you got to pull out the big guns and hit them with chlorine.

The functionality of deodorant is 99% aluminum chlor-hydrate. The other ingredients are all about modifying texture and smearing properties to gain market appeal. If organic emoluants and scents are added they are prone to biodegradation: hence, triclosan is used o add shelf life.

Bottom line is get your functional ingredient and skip the rest.

Re: Demolishing Lomborg's Cool It

J.L. — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:03:01 -0000

The question that does matter is 'why do editors and broadcast media producers continue to give him the attention that makes him money?'

Re: Cutting Out 'Mystery Machines' Could Save Power

J.L. — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:01:36 -0000

I've seen examples of where, long after some online service was canceled, former subscribers (if they wished to) could logon. Mystery servers again?

Perhaps a good cultural analogy for IT deparments would be 'imperial empire.' Even if a colony secedes, commerce goes on.

Re: WhatGreenCar?'s Top 10 Gas Guzzlers

J.L. — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:20:22 -0000

Except nobody can ever park a Lambo because the vandals would be all over it. So about all the owners can do is a few rounds about the the neighborhood and then back into the security monitored garage. Very few miles really driven in these things.

Re: Survey: Et Tu, Toyota?

J.L. — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:01:05 -0000

Big expensive SUV's and trucks have the highest profit margin or any vehicles type except sports cars. The cost of goods is low and we're willing to pay a premium for them so this is what happens.

Even police departments are now buying MegaTrucks for undercover work.

Re: Thermal Insulating Nano-Paint Generates Electricity

J.L. — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:08:52 -0000

Many crystalline materials and some plastics exhibit "pyro-electric" properties. One suitable put on as a coating with built in conductors, all that is needed is a simple heat flux to induce a current flow, albeit of very low voltage. Order of magnitude would be tenths to hundredths of a volt per output unit. The challenge is to step up the voltage to useful levels and deploy the energy for useful work without a heavy investment for current management. In other words, what would you do with the electricity?

Note: other common materials exhibit the piezo electric effect and some exhibit both pyro- and piezo-electric effects simultaneously.

Re: How Toxic is Your City?

J.L. — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:08:14 -0000

My bovine extrement detector just went into the red zone. I have been an environmental professional for over 30 years and literally have never heard of this organization. There are far more reliable sources of information.

Re: Tin Whiskers Out With The Claws, Bricking Satellites and Pacemakers

J.L. — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 13:13:46 -0000

There are indeed whisker-less soldering alternatives. But of course not all old Chinese production lines with automatic soldering bots are set up to use those alternative solders. So, some re-tooling will be needed.

The RoHS edict on phase out gives competitive advantage in European markets to those manufacturers most willing to "green up" their production. You may recall that China does not ascribe to RoHS. There might even be a little political push back against RoHS by those so-affected.

Underscoring my major point: reliable, tested lead solder alternatives are available at cost. As wilth all phase outs, there will be winners and losers. I can think of no better way to green up our electronics than to have RoHS force a little "home sourcing" .

Re: Samsung Says: Water-Powered Hydrogen Micro Fuel Cell on the Way, We Promise

J.L. — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:23:09 -0000

Reminder: there is no free lunch. The water is simply a hydrogen donor. I'd have to guess they are using a powdered water-reactive metal or group of metals (alkali aor alkaline/earth) which takes the -OH from the water, liberating hydrogen. The manufacture of such metals involves mining and is typically quite energy and water intensive.

If they are indeed water reactive metals (think metallic sodium as an example) then I quite frankly see little hazard reduction benefit over methanol.

Probably the real reason for this is patent access to DMFC tecnology is limited.

Re: Microwaves vs. Ovens: What’s the Greenest Way to Heat Your Food?

J.L. — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 08:25:28 -0000

The baking pan choice recommendation is way off base .Only someone who slept through high school physics would recommend a heavy glass pan with low conductivity over a thin black metal pan one with high conductivity. Look at the baking time recommendations on a brownie mix for goodness sakes! Y

Glass does make sense if one is planning a casserole type dish that you want to stay warm on the table. However, from a pure cooking efficiency. the thermal inertia of glass is just going to cause energy overshoot.

They also missed a key recommendation. The entire "pre-heating of the oven" thing is superstitious nonsense. Right up there with laundry detergent that produces suds (suds is a relict cultural expectation from the days of washing clothes with shaved soap bars, where the presence of suds indicated adequate soap)

I've been turning on the oven when I put the food in for my whole life and have been warned time and again by the women in my life that I will "ruin the recipe" And time and again it always turns out fine.

Also, not only is the physical diameter of the pan important, but so is the thickness. Frying eggs with a thick pan is a huge waste of energy - most of the burner output is left in the pan when the eggs are done. Get the same work done with half the energy by using a thin cheap pan - the kind sold in grocery aisles. This is one case where efficiency trumps beauty every time.

Re: Water Running Out in Atlanta

J.L. — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:48:09 -0000

Here are two equally plausible scenarios for the next year. I named them to make for easy conversation. More scenarios are possible; but lets start with three. Which one(s) do you think most resemble the future direction the Southeast is headed?

Vote For Rain

Because of the return of some rain, a full scale crisis is averted even though the long term trend of drought remains. Vote for Rain is a stalemate between rural and urban life: in late summer of 2008, city folks are getting by; but agriculture, forest product, and water dependent energy sectors are on the verge of collapse. Economic interdependencies of urban and rural life are spoken of in passing.

By the 2008 election season, government is seen as the solution. There are ballot measures to force closure of water intensive industries. Other measures mandate changes to individual behaviors: lawn watering, car washing, water blasting decks, driveway washing, types of toilets permitted by zoning, and so on.

Gubernatorial candidates make a host of promises: pipelines from the Great Lakes; water desalination plants; public ownership of previously privatized water systems; bringing in experts from the US West, formation of inter-state water resources management planning councils, and more. There is even talk of economic development zones based on development of water saving technology.

Candidates for Federal office promise "calling in the National Guard" to haul water and the Army Corps of Engineers to "do something."

Yet, by election day in November 2008, little has changed, as these are all long term solutions. Per capita water consumption, on a steady down slide for months has plateaued by end of summer. Real lifestyle changes are barely discussed in the news. There is a sense that things will get better next year.

Vote for Rain does have a good news component. It gets people talking and thinking about climate change. The linkage between per capita energy consumption and per capita water consumption and climate is made. Vote for rain marks a tipping point in public consciousness, then.

Springtime In Dixie

Real rain comes back in the winter and spring of 2008 - at least enough to pull back from the edge of a regional crisis - and life returns to "normal." More big houses get built, with huge lawns. Power plant expansion plans go back in play. The cries of environmentalists for more water conservation measures fade into the din of traffic shuttling to and from the distant suburbs.

Enough said.

Re: Why Hay Is Fabulous (And Halting Erosion In Iceland)

J.L. — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:37:12 -0000

Sheep. Wouldn't you know. Those buggers almost destroyed New Zealand at one time.

Overgrazing by sheep and goats are one of the worst environmental plagues visited on earth.

Re: Congress to Consider Global Warming Wildlife Survival Bill

J.L. — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:06:01 -0000

Can someone explain to me why authorities would go the the US Geological Survey when we already have a US Fish & Wildlife Service?

Re: Chicago To Tax Bottled Water

J.L. — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 11:55:40 -0000

Anon, elemental chorine, which is what Chicago ads to their tap water at the distribuion plant on Lakeshore Drive, is not a carcinogen. Chloromethane, and other chlororganics that can be formed in highly organic laden public water supplies can be hazardous as you indicate. These are very easy to filter out if you so choose. Chicago water is monitored for chloro-organics and I wouldn't worry much about the risk.

Not many realize that at the turn of the last century more than 10% of Chicago's population died and many more suffered from a water born disease that spread via drinking water. Chlorination is one of the means used to prevent another such outbreak. Choose your poison.

Re: Quote of the Day: David Orr on "Biophobia"

J.L. — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 15:15:16 -0000

When I was a kid I kept my fishing worms in my shirt pocket with a little bit of damp dirt. Mom had to keep an eye out for the remains at laundry time.

If a modern child did that there might be revulsion and reprimands from any adults present and cries of "Ewwww Gross" from friends.

Re: Toyota to Use Carbon Fiber and Aluminium in its 1/X Concept Hybrid Car

J.L. — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:25:32 -0000

Like I'd seriously expect a banker in Switzerland to know his stuff about advanced manufacturing processes he's probably never even seen in action.

And of course other car makers are going to shoot arrows.

Go Toyota!

Re: Bottle Buildings

J.L. — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:39:27 -0000

Hence the song...99 bottles of beer on the wall?

LA: Darn, that would have made a better title.

Re: Greenwash Watch: AmericasPower

J.L. — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:43:39 -0000

People fully understand that regulatory requirements for eir emissions are a bare minimum performance standard that is weakly enforced, if at all, and over which local people have little or no influence.

For 4 decades they have watch industry scream "onerous consequences...you'll banckrupt us with these ruls; and poor people will freeze and go hungry" for every single regulatory proposal put forward in the interest of public health and ecosystem protection. Somehow, miraculously, we have survived this "onerous burden" and utilities are massively profitable. Otherwise they could not afford these lame ads.

Re: China Spending $14 Billion On Lake Clean-Up

J.L. — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:34:36 -0000

The irony hurts. Between 1974 and the mid-1980's USEPA spent vast sums of money studying the causes and developing cures for eutrophication. Subsequently much additional money went into lake restoration programs and watershed management prototypes. Much of the prototype work was overseen by the now defunct Soil Conservation Service (closed as a money saving measure).

Many if not all of the reports from that era were never digitized and likely do not exist on the web. I have corroborated that somwhat as I have I personal collection of several of the seminal ones and they are not discoverable.

A large portion of the eutrophication work on US lakes was done in the USEPA Region V or Great Lakes states. Last year EPA decided to close the physical libraries where that research was preserved in hardcopy and destroyed all most most of the files because they were "old" or "worthless." OHHHHH the stupidity.

Re: Don't You Dare Touch Our Water

J.L. — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:26:06 -0000

In the Southwest and well as the Southeast US, property values are directly controlled by water availability. A dried up county is an economically worthless one. Mega-Homes in the the suburbs become worthless, stranded investments at the same time that a public health crisis encompasses the region.

Hence, the first battle is to preserve property values with a Federal promise of pipeline solutions. There's no way, as a practical matter, such a solution can be delivered in time to avert a catastrophic ,sustained drought. A mass migration to the GL states will almost certainly be in the offing in this scenario. My personal guess is that poor people with no property to leave behind will come first - the opposite of conventional wisdom.

In addition to the political and regulatory and social constraints so well captured by Unlud's comments, there is one more deal breaker that almost no politicians seem aware of.

Example: The hydraulic balance of Lake Michigan is actually quite stable, with very little surplus of water passing into it on an average year A swing to the negative would rapidly deplete it. Here's why: the theoretical replacement time of Lake Michigan's entire volume is approximately 100 years: that's how long it takes inflowing water, on average, to replace the exisiting volume. A high rate of additional withdrawal for export is absolutely certain to cause a rapid lowering of the GL's. That would have severe impacts on public water intakes all around the shoreline. It would not be permitted plain and simple.

The only real question is: how well prepared are the GL states to handle a major influx of climate displaced people from the drought destroyed regions of the US and also from Norther Mexico.

Re: Top of the Food Chain

J.L. — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:30:14 -0000

The answer lies in life cycle thinking.

By subsidizing, grains, the cost of meat production is kept low, encouraging consumption. Etc.

For a wonderfully insightful explanation, I sugget Micheal Pollan's op ed piece in todays' NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/04pol...>

With one exception, Pollan seems to have it right. (His mistake - He is dead wrong to assert that open range grazing is always better for the environment. Free roaming animals often over graze, causing severe erosion, filthing up streams, and contributing to downstream flooding. Grazing. like any management practice, must be managed properly. It can not be given a carte blanch "green" badge of honor by an authority who has no personalexperience in farming and soil management.

Re: Lake Huron Water Levels Keep On Dropping

J.L. — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 10:19:59 -0000

Professional hydrologists have long known that the major factors controlling GL levels are regional drought and long term average changes to annual evaporation. In the Great Lakes, evaporation is strongly affected by winter temperature and cloud cover. Due to climate cycles, the Lakes no longer freeze over. Hence more evaporation occus than in very cold years.

Also, the usual November through April gray gloom that drives midwesterners to drink (note: highest per capita alcohol consumption rates of all US states is WI - for a reason) has dissipated, leading to more evaporation. And then there is snow pack. Just as in the Pacific NW, if snow pack is low come spring soils dry up earlier, leading to reduced inflow in late spring.

This is a very dynamic and complex system: one off analysis by the "media" only reinforces nutty anti-USAE conspiracy theories. It really does take an expert modeling view to comprehend the causes and prospective solutions.

Re: Wine Carbon Study Says East Coasters Should Drink French

J.L. — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:22:52 -0000

I love my 6 buck Australian skunk extract. How is it that things coming from the furthest away ca be the cheapest?

Re: KSD Solar Windows: New Spin on Low E Glazing

J.L. — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 11:09:55 -0000

This is a brilliant solution for generally south facing windows.

However, for generally north facing or building shaded windows the added expense would be completely unnecessary.

For south facing windows there are combined solar gain and heat loss controlling windows that approach the 60% effectiveness mark, respectively. If one has only a relatively small square footage in that southerly exposure and especially if the room is isolated from the rest of the floor area- like a bedroom or recreation room seldom used during daylight hours for example - then one of these multi-coated, non-rotating windows would be the ideal solution.

I see the rotater being the perfect solution for a home office or kitchen.

Re: Target to "Systematically Reduce" PVC Use

J.L. — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:19:42 -0000

Vinyl chloride monomer unpolymerized is indeed carcinogenic. Poly-Vinyl Chloride (PVC), the plastic sold in consumer products, is not a carcinogen. By fully polymerizing the monomer, the exposure risk is removed.

Re: Skinny Swedish Packages A Staple In China

J.L. — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:50:56 -0000

The high carbonate levels may mean that incineration will not work without extraordinary heat inputs - creating a higher footprint in doiong so. Remember that outside of North America and Europe landfills are uncommon. This means litter!

Will the higher density from the carbonate mean that the plastic sins in water? Hmmm.

Re: A Novel Strategy to Counter Ocean Acidification

J.L. — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 10:30:39 -0000

Why is it engineers have such difficulty with life cycle thinking. Brine electrolysis is one of the most energy intensive and dangerous industrial operations in use. The coal fired electricity needed to run these operations would make the entire idea self defeating - a perpetual motion machine in reverse.

Re: Greenwash Watch: Pennsylvania DOA

J.L. — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 11:34:29 -0000

The power of lobbying is almost unstoppable, regardless of which political party rules.

Time to roll out the "dog whistle" labeling. "We don't add anything bad to this product." Let the jerks try to make that illegal.

Re: Greenwash Watch: Pennsylvania DOA

J.L. — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 12:20:13 -0000

The power of lobbying is almost unstoppable, regardless of which political party rules.

Time to roll out the "dog whistle" labeling. "We don't add anything bad to this product." Let the jerks try to make that illegal.

Re: Camelbak Introduces Genderbender Free Bottles

J.L. — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:03:31 -0000

Wow. I just read the linked coverage of Eastman's new Tritan co-polyester and have the sense that it (the new non BPA based plastic) could be transformational technology, with market impacts far beyond water bottles (although that is a great market to debut in given the demographics of those most concerned about BPA).

The Eastman people must be really excited about the prospects, and their competitors in the BPA-based polymer supply chain displeased.

Re: Scientists Decide to Consider Considering Geo-engineering

J.L. — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 11:01:19 -0000

Most of these people talking about massive scale engineering projects will be scientists with no experience in materials handling, ballistic missiles, etc. It'll take military engineering types to come up with realistic cost estimates. When we know there is serious intent to proceed is when the military industrial complex smells money and gets its hooks into Congress.

The exception to the above generalization is in iron seeding of the high seas, which is more reliant on marine biology and more analogous to aquaculture than military engineering.

I think the proper metaphor for earth manipulation is the emergency room (ER) protocol of "stabilizing the patient". Earth needs stabilization while we get going on conservation and renewable energy. If you can accept that metaphor, the only valid question becomes "which technique is most cost effective and has the fewest side effects on the patient."

Iron seeding, in my opinion, holds the highest promise to stabilize the patient but I am absolutely terrified of the prospects of a major aerospace corporation or oil exploration services company getting funded by Congress to try some of these more "out there" techniques.

Re: USDA Loophole Means Your Meat Could Be Harboring E. Coli

J.L. — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:33:16 -0000

Hey John; the real lesson is not to put political hacks that used to lobby for industry interest in charge of the agencies that regulate them,

Sinclair Lewis wrote about this problem many years back, after which FDA and USDA were created and budgeted by Congress to manage the problem. The regulations worked reasonably well to control the hazards over quite a few decades. Until recently, at least, when lobbyists took over our government. That is the problem. It is not intrinsic to the agencies or rules.

Don't buy into the mythologies of the "Small Government Is Always Better" crowd that work day in and day out to convince us that agencies always get it wrong.

If the government is doing bad work we need to make them straighten it out.

Re: Restaurant Built Out of Toilet parts

J.L. — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:18:09 -0000

Back in the 1970's a place like this opened up in Milwaukee WI. If my memory serves me correctly it had a mainly colored decor an agglomeration of toilets of varying design age.

Only stayed in business a short while. I never ate there out of concern about encountering toilet humor on the menu.

Does anyone out there remember what it was called?

Re: NYTimes on Lululemon's "Seaweed" Clothing: Lousy Chemistry, Lousy Journalism

J.L. — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:44:56 -0000

The Green movement is gaining traction. Companies with energy intensive, climate destroying, water polluting processes are losing market value. Time to fire up the Mighty Wurlitzer and attack the green movement at it's design roots.

As simple as that.

Re: China Launches \$3 Billion Fund For Clean Projects

J.L. — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:19:57 -0000

Here's the good news. CFC-23 or "R23" is a byproduct or waste really of the manufacture of R-22, the refrigerant most commonly found in the least expensive chiller based appliances sold in the US. Window air conditioners are good example. Most of these are made in China of course.

Instead of burning unbelievably huge amounts of natural gas to incinerate R23, which is basically what these "clean"projects have done, the entire issue would be obviated if sellers such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Sears simply said 'no more R22.' More money would then be freed up for more practical CDM approaches. Better still, the R22 making factories would shut down and no longer need to burn the natural gas needed to destroy that especially nasty greenhouse gas.

IT all comes down to design doesn't it?

Re: NYC Rocks ACDC Right Into 2007

J.L. — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:35:03 -0000

This is a bad precedent. Distributed power generation using solar photo voltaic cells can be up to 10% more efficient if the demand side requires no conversion. Depending on wind turbine design, the same may be true.

Re: Circle Hooks Save Turtles in Latin America

J.L. — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:13:28 -0000

I'll wager there's more than one old one.

If you have a sand bar nearby, look for breeding signs in spring.

Re: Climate Change to be a Determining Factor in Australia's Election

J.L. — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:39:35 -0000

There are important parallels between forms of constitutional government and natural resources in the US, Canada and Australia, which helps explain parallels in political behavior.

Australia is one of the worlds largest producers and exporters of coal - China being their biggest export customer.

The US is also a huge coal producer and also is exporting much - but to Europe principally.

The coal industry gives political campaign donations to the party(s) that most support their (industry) positions.

Similar parallels can be drawn for Uranium between Canada, Australia, and to a limited extent the US.

Similar struggles occur at election time for all three nations. The trouble is, whichever party assumes power eventually is vulnerable to being corrupted by the same money.

WIth nuclear energy working to claim green credits, it is especially hard to use climate as a wedge to keep that money at bay.

Re: Japanese Whaling Fleet Setting its Sights on Humpback Whale

J.L. — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:02:21 -0000

Defending whaling in Japan seems to be analogous to defending the need to buy unlimited handguns each month in the USA. Paranoia and a romantic attachment to the national history are the drivers for both.

Re: Brown Rivers Actually a Good Thing?

J.L. — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:17:16 -0000

This work represents a very narrow view of the issue of apparent color of fresh waters. Operant factors include incident sky light, leaf fall directly into the water, fall decay of aquatic vegetation, and plankton blooms. Also, litoral zone turbidity is a function of wind and hence wave energy that directly stirs up and suspends the sediments. If a water level is receding, as in the Great Lakes, then sediments that earlier were out of reach of wave driven eddy currents are now more likely to be re-suspended with the winds of November. In short, there is much more to be said on this topic that these authors either are unfamiliar with or have purposefully overlooked to simply their points. They could start with a basic Limnology text.

Re: New York Times Trashes Wind Power. Twice.

J.L. — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 11:17:47 -0000

Entrenched interests are being actively threatened by foreign firms who have little history of donating to the political establishment. Time to turn up the mighty echo chamber volume.

Unfortunately, this does remind me of the Times in the run up to the Iraq war.

This also is a case of 'exception inferred to be the rule.' Lazy reporters, in this case, failed to point out which EU nations are making progress with renewable energy and how siting issues are being managed.

Re: Seven Endangered Species Rulings to be Revised

J.L. — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:32:32 -0000

Looks like someone stepped in the Pombo.

Re: Negative Cost Opportunities Could Help U.S. Slash 28% of Emissions

J.L. — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:04:34 -0000

The recommendations are pretty much a carte blanch rip-off of what Amory Lovins has been saying for over a decade to pretty much anyone who'd listen. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I guess.

Re: Greenwash Watch: Exxon's New Improved Lithium Ion Battery

J.L. — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 09:39:39 -0000

Notice the critical material is made by a subsidiary of the chemical division, Exxon Chemical, in Asia of course.

They are probably upset that GM is not contracted for batteries with a firm they supply and area hoping to get some business with an Asian battery maker.

That, and just trying to look relevant now that the days of denial are past.

Re: Church Converted into Bookshop

J.L. — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:38:38 -0000

Excuse me sir. Do you have anything by the author known as FSM?

Re: Inflatable Solar: Coolearth Concentrated Photovoltaics

J.L. — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:21:50 -0000

Most inflatables are vinyl. Boy, talk about a conflicted trade-off. This could cause exploding heads over at Greenpeace central.

Re: Expert Warns of Growing Wave of Mexican Environmental Refugees

J.L. — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:11:54 -0000

Walk through one of those hardscrabble Mexican corn fields next to a severely eroded, dried up stream course and it's easy to see why people want to leave, for survival sake.

And the Pope keeps telling them no birth control allowed.

Re: Want a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car? Get One Free!

J.L. — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:16:47 -0000

Gasoline is a hydrogen carrier just like a pressurized tank of H2 is a hydrogen carrier. Ever look at an exhaust pipe on a cold day? That's water vapor you're seeing.

Octane mean 8 carbons with18 hydrogens = roughly 16% hydrogen by weight. Problem is, an ICE engine has to produce a ton of C02 just to get at that nice hydrogen energy.

A large part of that hydrogen in gasoline was added in the refinery to crack benzene rings down into less toxic, more combustible straight chain molecules. Know where that H2 came from? Natural gas reformation. Just skip the gasoline and put 11 million tons per year of H2 right into the fuel cell vehicles and bamm. You're on the road.

Re: Want a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car? Get One Free!

J.L. — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 09:27:26 -0000

Answer to Lloyd.

Natural gas powered vehicles need similar or more onboard fuel storage space and container mass as hydrogen vehicles would need to achieve the same range. However, natural gas powered vehicles are less efficient per mile driven and have far higher emissions. And, natural gas does emit mercury and formaldehyde (things not present from gasoline powered vehicles).

Re: Has the IPCC Outlived its Usefulness?

J.L. — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:23:29 -0000

Per Romm: hydrogen useless for transportation - we need plug in hybrids instead; IPCC should go away so NAS can take over. See the trend here? Negative statement followed by more narrowly scoped substitution.

The problem with his second thesis is that he is a technologist over his head in foreign policy making venue.

WIthout the UN taking a lead on scientific need for climate mitigation and adaptatoin, it (the UN) then forfeits its prospective role in leading the way for an improved multi-lateral agreement. That leaves the US back in its presumed role of unilateral leader of the carbon unconstrained world of three countries: a coalition of the unwilling.

Re: Al Gore Gets Gold On Tennessee Digs

J.L. — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 11:00:04 -0000

For the record, Mr Gore's place is more than just a "home." Unless the other media reports have been mistaken the site includes a stable, facilities to house Federal security personnel assigned to all presidents, past and present, and the offices of his personal consulting business, including space for several employees.

Re: Wind Turbines as Terrorist Threat: Yeah, Right

J.L. — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:02:09 -0000

A look at the membership roster evidences that ,as has long been known, there are two kinds of PhDs, those with:

Doctorate in Philosophy

and those with...

Bovine excrement Piled higher and Deeper

Re: EPA Rejects California's Auto Emissions Waiver

J.L. — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 08:18:26 -0000

The conservatives' dilemma:

Are states rights to be respected, or is it more important to have low but "uniform" national standards that favor oil companies and makers of highly profitable but inefficient vehicles.

Stephen Johnson just gave us the answer to this perennial debate. Detroit wins.

Re: The Year's 10 Craziest Ways to Hack the Earth

J.L. — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:09:35 -0000

Patient arrives at Emergency Room,; staff stabilizes patient until expert diagnosis, followed by long term treatment, is possible. Iron seeding and all the rest are to stabilize the patient only. They are not the permanent treatment.

This is not rocket science (pun intended).

Re: Alice Rawsthorn on the Best Designed Products of the Year

J.L. — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 10:21:47 -0000

Why does everyone pick on Apple? I'd bet that only a tiny fraction of all products being sold today are consciously designed "with the environment in mind" (however that is defined)

Does "design" subsume the function of material selection and pollution prevent? If so, then nearly all the stuff we buy that is made in China is at similar risk of design that is 'mindless of environment', especially if you consider the total lack of pollution controls on industries in China.

The issue is not design at Apple or firms like them. The issue is US government policy that favors outsourcing to nations that have no standards for environmental performance or fair labor practices. Once China gets such and they are enforced, the supply chain will just move to the next no standards country - unless trade and tax policies are modified.

Re: Energy Tower: Sucking Greenhouse Gases Into the Vortex

J.L. — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 11:00:59 -0000

This would be a good way to use up all that extra water they have lying around throughout the Middle East.

Re: Young Asians Come Clean About Not Feeling Green

J.L. — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:13:22 -0000

If you have no trees around you no perspective on "relative depravation" is possible. These kids have no wilderness or broad green landscapes to frame their understandings as children in North American do, for example. So what's to miss or strive for?

Re: Berlin Drivers Don't Balk At Emission Badges

J.L. — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:46:35 -0000

The US states alreadyeach have such a system and it's called an emissions inspection sticker. Germany is just catching up in a more targeted way.

I like this better because it would allow poor people whom have hard to tune cars to keep them for rural use without putting undue burden on them.

May I also point out that EU nations were decades behind the US in the banning of DDT, PCBs, leaded gasoline, etc etc. etc. Much of what the US accomplished in the 1970s - roughly 1990 is still far ahead of much of the developed and all of the developing world. Two steps backward after the coming election will represent three steps forward!!!!

Re: Discovery of Suspected Carcinogen in LA's Water Could Affect National Monitoring Policies

J.L. — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:44:28 -0000

Natural bomine compounds tend to be isolated to a few repositories. At the end of the investigation hopefully someone will address the exact origins of the bromine ion.

Thinking - Methyl Bromide.

Re: 7 Yr. Old With Heart of Gold to Be Youngest Ever to Summit Mt. Kilimanjaro

J.L. — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:37:44 -0000

Having "hiked" the vertical bog to Mt Kenya, through cloud forest, and up the scree - a similar passage - I'd say that the female elephant ,which regarded my fog-shrouded presence between her and her young one a threat, would beg to differ. Also, human iinfant lungs would have trouble over 15K feet. A chance I would not take.

Re: Competitive Enterprise Institute Digs Deeper Hole, Says CAFE Will Cost Lives

J.L. — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 20:50:12 -0000

CEI is rolling out the tripe chanted back when the last significant boost to CAFE occurred...after which, damage to humans went down because safety improvements happened to be implemented in parallel with environmental improvements, mostly with the Japanese leading the way.

The idea is to do both things at once, not just efficiency improvements.

Re: Italian Government Promises to Resolve "Tragedy of the Trash"

J.L. — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:13:55 -0000

Let's see. How many governments has Italy constituted since the end of WII? Something over 80 comes to mind .

Similarities between Katrina and Naples trash crisis? The commonality is denial.

Re: Food Scientists Seeking Acceptance In Europe

J.L. — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 07:26:15 -0000

Food Science is not science; it's a technology development discipline focused strongly on optimizing shelf life and market appeal, hence increasing profit for manufacturers, but not farmers,

The decay conservation part has a legitimate place in discussion of sustainability. The market appeal part (adding too much sugar, salt, flavor enhancers, synthetic fats, etc) does not.

If the local food movement grows significantly, look for "food scientist" types to press state and local governments to levy sales taxes on farmer's markets and demand health department inspections of producers. Some of this is already beginning.

Re: Bush Administration Seeks to Approve 700% Logging Increase in Oregon's Old-Growth Forests

J.L. — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:35:00 -0000

It could get better next year, but long term that may not hold.

The goats were given the run of the cabbage patch for 7 years, and will try to eat as much as they can before a new Administration comes to power and chases tthem out of Federal resource management agencies, whereupon the goats who are the most will gain employment in the Think Tanks until the next opportunity to slink back into the resource agencies.

If there are serious shortages of natural resources in the next 5 years - thinking about iron ore, defense critical rare metals, natural gas, and so on - the next round of chowing-down could be even more intense. If that happens, corporate barbarians unleashed by Congressional allies will arrive at the gates of US national parks; and ,unless our resource consumption rates are much reduced, and reclaimed critical materials in electronics stop going to China, they will gain access.

Re: What Would Be the Side Effects of Iron Fertilization?

J.L. — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:55:53 -0000

I suggest we keep the following facts in mind for perspective.

USEPA's ocean dumping program regularly allows deep ocean dumping of wastewater treatment plant sludges produced by coastal cities such as New York and Los Angeles. These sludges contain many tons of various metals, including iron that comes, originally, from rusting pipes and corrosion of buildings or is added to chelate and precipitate suspended solids in the treatment process. Many other coastal nations don't even bother to treat the wastewater - they just sewer it to estuaries or slurry it all offshore via submarine pipline

Aquatic toxicity standards for iron are orders of magnitude higher than the concentrations being contemplated for iron seeding of plankton populations.

If marine scientists were so concerned about this iron issue, then where were they when the various ocean dumping programs were created and then again when they are reviewed?

While it is absolutely necessary to assess the risk benefits of marine iron seeding, it is not necessary to do so under the presumption of it being a sustainable practice. The proper analogy is a patient being stabilized in an emergency room prior to physician evaluation and prognosis for treatment and return to health.

Lay persons, reporters, and politicians are completely unable to grasp the marine ecosystem concerns, as cited, in a meaningful and timely way. Look how badly they have done with basic climate science!

Only field trials of the nature that has already proposed by Planktos and other organizations can begin to resolve these questions and enlighten the policy options for the long term. I can not see how further dithering about potential risks benefits the planet. But I can see how it might benefit research grant applicants anxious to count the angels dancing on the head of a pin.

If we fail to develop and test a means to stabilize the patient there may be no ecosystems to protect. My two cents.

Re: What Would Be the Side Effects of Iron Fertilization?

J.L. — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:45:45 -0000

Iron seeding has already been done on a modest scale several times in the ocean to no apparent ill effect. This is just a scale up to gather data about the effectiveness of the hoped for sequestration. It is proof of concept and not at a scale that risks damage.

Not many people are aware that nutrient additions and reductions have been done many many times on inland lakes during carefully planned restoration projects. As RapsodyInGlue suggests, we should not assume scientists are like Dr Evil (even though that certainly is a convenient Hollywood and SciFi stereotype).

I wonder how many of the people who react with hostility and mistrust to iron seeding proposals have seriously reviewed the literature on the subject. Damned few I'd bet.

Re: EEStor + Skunk Works = Big News

J.L. — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 13:04:24 -0000

Tinfoil hat time: US based oil and car companies, eager to protect markets for SUV's and MegaMonster Trucks, convince Pentagon project mgrs to specify ultra capacitors so the supply chain gets locked away from pubic view.

Re: Conceptualize this: GM Unveils Yet Another Concept Car

J.L. — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:42:09 -0000

Begging to differ here on usefulness of the rooftop SPV panel which is body-integrated.

There are at least two research prototypes underway which attempt to make paint a low cost solar power generating alternative. Think long range...stretch our minds out to "where the puck is going" not back to where its' been. This applies to everyone, GM included.

This car might well be parked outdoors for 4 to 8 hours per day, during which time the power from the roof panels would perform a very useful batter recharge and cabin ventilation function. Do not underestimate the importance of the battery recharge functionality.

As cars become increasingly electronics based (drive by wire) they become more like computers on wheels instead of wheels with a few bolt on computer functions. Add the ever increased power demands of plug in consumer electronics and you might otherwise end up with a hundred pounds of batteries to lug around, which drags down the mileage of course. From the designers' standpoint, having this constant source of recharge power during the work day offers an opportunity to downsize and lightweight the battery bank.

Re: Triple Hybrid with Ultracapacitors Hits the Road

J.L. — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:27:42 -0000

A tri-brid then.

Re: Introducing Clorox's Green Works Cleaners

J.L. — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:53:15 -0000

One of the paradoxes of increasing the "natural-ness" of a cleaning product formulation is that, as inherent ingredient toxicity goes down, the need for preservatives (aka biocides)goes up. This is because bacteria normally present in the environment can easily biodgrade liquid organic materials if their inherent toxicity is low, and can even colonize a cleaning or lubricating product to the point of presenting a bio-hazard to users! This is a common problem with all greases and oils, even petroleum based ones.

So, don't go getting all cozy with Kathalon preservative (or any similar biocide approved for domestic applications by FDA) and assume because the product is "green" that you can work/clean house without skin and eye protection!

Check out this MSDS [http://www.fuelcare.co.uk/kathonfp15msds.pdf ] from the maker of Kathalon biocide products, Rohm & Haas, and you'll see clear statement of the potential fhazards:

Risk phrases are:

"Irritating to skin.

Risk of serious damage to eyes.

May cause sensitization by skin contact.

Harmful to aquatic organisms, may cause longterm adverse effects in the aquatic environment."

The risk phrases are associated with the isothiazol component ,which is the active ingredient common to the product line.

There is no free lunch. And there are always risk trade offs. If you tend to be sensitive to harsh chemicals, wear gloves when you use even green products.

Re: House Cafeteria Goes Green, Lobbyists Complain

J.L. — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 11:44:21 -0000

A word about lobbyists. Their jobs are weird.

The only way the people who pay lobbyist salaries know that actual work is being done is to see things like this in the paper. Hence, the lobbyist's willingness to lash out at every imagined threat, as a junk yard dog which fiercely snarls and barks at every passersby, whether it be a 8 year old child on bike matters not; he'll be yanking on the chain and growling as if his food dish being full depends on his every bark.

Re: More Talk About A Dim Bulb, Part I

J.L. — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:03:35 -0000

If you want dim, maybe light a candle?

I've been using CFL's since way back, when the early designs had heavy magnetic coils and the bulb itself was a simple "U" cluster that could be replaced when burned out. These cost upwards of $18.00/each and had serious flicker and time delay issues. Plus they emitted electromagnetic radiation like a leaky microwave door.

Over the years there have been many brands that have come and gone, either bought out or merged or out of business. Osram, a European pioneer was bought out by some conglomerate and their quality too changed for the worst.

In parallel with some of the quality issues cited, the major label CFL makers started outsourcing their manufacturing to China (is this sounding familiar?) and what was once a premium product eventually became a Wal-Mart featured commodity.

So yes there are indeed quality variations just as there have always been in commercial fluoresent tubes. If you ask for the standard product specs for retail sold florescent tubes the deviation permitted from the listed color temp (Kelvin) is +/- 20%. If you want color true, sunlight quality fluoresent tubes as are used in expensive clothing and jewelry stores you can buy them for a great deal more money, 2 or 3X times the retail low spec price in fact.

If the market demands color true CFL's I am absolutely certain they can be provided - at a price.

Re: Extreme Eating: Time Gets Silly with Anti-Local Food

J.L. — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:32:52 -0000

To be a locavore and enjoy eating you must learn to cook less rigidly...to not let some TV Chef's recipie book dictate the exact ingredient list. You must learn to cook creatively.

Re: Huffington Post Gets Astroturfed

J.L. — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 11:25:44 -0000

Lloyd's post raises, but does not offer an answer for, the question of who potentially may be paying for the cited efforts. TB's response (above) does not directly address this.

If he cares to provide a link here, our readers may be interested in learning more about TB's educational or work background relative to biology, chemistry, toxicology, and human health.

Re: More than 50 Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plants are Now on the Back Burner

J.L. — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:24:39 -0000

Excellent news.

Big coal still runs the show in Washington DC though. It will take decades before some form of balance is restored.

Re: Secondary Packaging – The Silent Killer of the Environment

J.L. — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:37:15 -0000

Freight consolidators and second tier distributors are big on shrink wrapping, which helps them ensure that a truck load is full as possible. Thats'a positive tradeoff.

There's also an occupation safety dimension: when you shrink wrap a pallet the contents can be stacked three pallets high without fall offs. Another positive.

SO yes, recycling the poly is the answer.

Re: Wal-Mart: The Next Steps Toward Sustainability

J.L. — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:15:20 -0000

Anybody know what the deadline date might be for China to stop using R22 as a refrigerant? Might it be 2010 or therabouts? The AC efficency goal might be what golfers call a "gimme" if window AC design changes are in the offing for other reasons.

Re: Environmental Groups Lobby for Sin Tax on TV’s and Video Games to Fight Childhood Obesity with Outdoor Education

J.L. — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:43:43 -0000

Good tactic, but poor strategy. Tantamount to pointing own gun at foot, pulling trigger, and ruining the organization's reputation, not only locally but nationally. This hands redmeat to Rush and kind.

The green movement needs to again learn (as they did in the 1970's and '80's) to think strategically about consequences of their advocacy moves.

Re: Anti-Wind Farm Group Heavily Criticized for Distorting the Truth

J.L. — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:38:05 -0000

So...this is an "astrosky" group?

Re: Anti-Wind Farm Group Heavily Criticized for Distorting the Truth

J.L. — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:45:51 -0000

So...this is an "astrosky" group?

Re: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Austrian Bears

J.L. — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:03:43 -0000

Brought to you by the friendly folks who put lead paint on kids toys and poison in pet food.

There's a huge folk medicine related demand in China for bear gall bladders and such. (Purely based on superstition - there's no real medicinal value.)

At any rate, since wealthy Chinese are getting more numerous at the expense of Americans, poaching of bears can be expected to worsen until the bears are extinct.

Think I'm making this up? "Bear gall bladders, valued by some for medicinal purposes, fetch $100 to $400 here [by Asians living in North America] and between $6,000 to $25,000 in Asia, according to WDFW enforcement officers." http://wdfw.wa.gov/do/newreal/release.php?id=ja...>

Even these values are an underestimate now that illegal and inhumane "bear gall bladder farms" have been shut down in China. http://wildlife-conservation.suite101.com/artic...>

Re: Dubai Jumps the Shark

J.L. — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:53:45 -0000

Wait until the water runs short. Empty nesters all.

Re: First, They Came for the Geiger Counters

J.L. — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 10:54:31 -0000

This means that certified industrial hygienists and anyone else wanting to question the government's or industry wisdom will be in a database that can be FISA matched. That's probably the end game.

Re: Hot Water + Polycarbonate Bottles = More Gender-Benders

J.L. — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:48:16 -0000

Polymers expand and contract with temperature variations just like any other rigid material. The difference with polymers over metal is that pore spaces open up when heat is applied, which enable leaching of course.

Re: There Goes the Forest: Bush Administration Opens 3 Million Acres to Logging

J.L. — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:29:05 -0000

The tradeoff is campaign contributions. Wood for dough.

Same for oil and gas rights and permission to blow off mountain tops.

Same tradeoff for preventing CA for regulating C02 emissions.

Re: Greenwash Watch: "Green" Bottled Water

J.L. — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:25:30 -0000

Actually, there is an exception. In countries where civil authorities have not been able to maintain a proper public water supply, tap water poses a very definite health risk and needs to be avoided.

As I recall, Italy has both a solid waste management crisis (mob influenced true, but my point remains) and a potable water supply safety issue. One problem of course contributes to the other - leaching landfills affect drinking water. This may well account for why Italy among developed nations has the highest per capita bottle water consumption. THey need it. Sadly.

Re: Green Eyes On: Sour Milk

J.L. — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 11:29:00 -0000

Obviously, it is not a coincidence that several states in sequence are considering near identical bills. This represents a lobbying effort on someone's part.

And we all know who "someone" is.

Re: Go Play Outside; Nobody Else is

J.L. — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:20:07 -0000

If you read about the history of our national parks you'll learn that hunting and fishing groups played a fundamental role in the designation of many of them: particularly noteworthy are Yellowstone and Glacier.

If being sad is what you want, then look no farther than the snowmobile traffic that has been increased purposefully in Yellowstone. This stresses the animals far more than hunting, which obviously is outlawed in National parks

Re: Fat Smokers = Lower Health Costs

J.L. — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:32:05 -0000

Because the main purpose of society is to save money.

Re: More Americans Care About Climate, But Not Enough

J.L. — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 16:07:03 -0000

Ha!

This is so obviously a "push poll" designed to buffer the right from public anger , prevent a Democratic landslide in fall elections, and keep wealth wingnuts donating to the Mason causes.

First off, no philanthropic organization or person in their right mind would give a bunch of money to a polling organization dedicated to such a narrow issue. (Job protection for Think Tank experts.)

These guys can't get any more traction on the science of course (Thanks Al).

And, there's no public argument yet about cost benefit (because no serious investments have yet been proposed using public money, compared to say War in Iraq.)

So, all that's left for these spinners is to sow doubt and create uncertainty about public opinion.

Straw Dogs.

Re: Quote of the Day: Chris Jordan on Greener Gadgets

J.L. — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:06:54 -0000

OK. So, Micheal Jordan can be viewed as a metaphor for sports culture changing youth fashion. Although, maybe it had more to do with MJ's demure and polite nature, work ethic, and athletic ability than his damn shorts.

If you want macho role models for environmentalism, go back to Teddy Roosevelt . He charged up San Juan Hill horseback with pistolas and took a bullet during a speech and kept going. He is responsible for our National Park system getting started.

If you want a design focused environmentalist role model go back to John Muir. JM too was a bit macho - often hiked barefoot. He designed and built his own 'alarm clock bed' that dumped him out on his feet every morning as well as a study machine turntable that is a nice analogy to internet access to multiple docs (both are in the Wisconsin State Historical Society bldg on UW Madison Campus).

If all we're trying to do here is get passed the Washington DC NGO lawyer environmentalist role model, go for it. But I still don't get the point he is making.

Re: Genetically Modified Rice to Fight Global Warming in China

J.L. — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:30:00 -0000

There biggest piece of this puzzle is completely missing from this discussion Nitrification, the conversion of NO3 or NO2 to NH4 is a bacterial driven process. If excess organic matter is dispensed into the rice paddy, making the water or soil anoxic, the process goes into reverse (de-nitrification). Failure to recognize this derails any credence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrification

Re: Wrapper Rage Making Consumers Crazy

J.L. — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:54:11 -0000

The main reason that the big plastic platters are used is to get customer attention to point of purchase displays, embellishing the packages with colorful splashes and words. Period.

Prevention of shoplifting is the secondary reason (keeping small valuable items behind a glass case being the costlier alternative, and which defeats the eye-candy value).

No focus group which ignore this basic reality is going to get anywhere.

Possibly a future where we shop with our cell phones and the phone can literally locate the desired product in a display case amongst the clutter would overcome, as would a more massive shift to catalog buying.

Re: How Can We "Uninvent" Suburbia?

J.L. — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:46:01 -0000

Mega-Mansions will one day become subdivided into duplex, triplex, even quad units, just as have the old Victorians in city centers.

Zoning codes will be redone to permit this, and to extend public transit and allow mixed village developments around large scale mega-home plots.

Sooner than you think!

Re: Mitsubishi Keeps Testing, Improving i MiEV Electric Car

J.L. — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:45:32 -0000

Convergence point. Has anyone else noticed that nearly every prototype except Tesla ends up looking like the SmartCar?

Re: Victorian Architects Knew How to Design Off-Grid

J.L. — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:40:42 -0000

Here's a puzzler fer ya.

Except for Washington DC, most towns and cities on the US' East Coast ,having been laid out with a mixture of random cow-path style French or Dutch laid street patterns ,have unpredictable orientations. A challenge for architects and developers wanting to capitalize on the sun.

Towns in and cities in the US' Midwest, however, having the benefit of good German planning and surveying skills, are almost universally laid out an a Town/Section/Range based pattern with streets on a N-S, EW pattern with diagonal boulevards transecting. A very different challenge.

The question is, which is superior for green design and efficient traffic management?

FYI for a cool example in contrast, use Google maps to look at the street patterns of Green Bay WI, which was laid out downtown with a French style pattern and then expanded based on the NS grid style.

Re: London Drivers to Pay $49 USD/Day Carbon Charge

J.L. — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:19:30 -0000

What is it makes Livingston able to pull this off so well? Immense political machine that delivers the services people really want, so they forgive him his green eccentricities. A loyal populace which shares his values? An hierarchal system of government? What?

If a US mayor tried this they would storm city hall and talk TV wingnuts would have a field day.

Re: London Drivers to Pay $49 USD/Day Carbon Charge

J.L. — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:47:40 -0000

If a US mayor tried this they would storm city hall and talk TV wingnuts would have a field day.

Re: Bloomberg Deems Threat of Global Warming as Serious as Terrorism

J.L. — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:41:53 -0000

Better be careful. He's going to run Cheyney's pacemaker adrift.

Re: A Step Closer to a Zero Emission Car?

J.L. — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:14:44 -0000

Looks like nothing more than a natural-gas fed,membrane based fuel reformer that partitions C02. I can't wait to have a car with its own chemical plant on board

Re: Portland Opens First Vegan Strip Club

J.L. — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 11:14:31 -0000

Still looks like a meat market.

Re: New Study Shows the Obvious: Americans Have Lots of Cars

J.L. — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:54:04 -0000

First off, I agree the stats are heavily tipped by the son living at home so he can afford his Mega-Truck with spinning wheel caps etc. Bizarre priorities but it happens all over.

No matter where you go people have "yard cars" Typically unreliable and ugly but often in need of basic but unaffordable (for now) repairs. Poor people (including me when I had little) often keep a couple so one is driven while another being fixed. Expect to see a lot more of this as SUV's become abandoned by wealthier folk.

Then of course there are tarp covered sports cars for middle aged fantastics as well as true RV's.

I have a hunch if you corrected for these the stats would be very different.

Re: Yet Another Of Ann Coulter's Dislikes: Electric Cars

J.L. — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:55:19 -0000

I asked the bookstore manager yesterday which right wing populist author sells the most and the reply was Coulter.

People read/listen to her message because they are afraid of change.

Re: FEMA Formaldehyde Fiasco Festers

J.L. — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:35:15 -0000

Notice that EPA was not approached.

Apparently the American Council of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIC) was not approached by FEMA. Nor was EPA.

These would have been the logical places to go for fast responses from people who have long familiarity with formaldehyde issues from past studies of occupational exposure standards and also from promulgation of air emission standards, respectively. But these agencies seemingly were not involved. Wonder why?

What are the odds the the manufactures of these trailers do not want their names out in public? What about other people who buy similar trailers from these same manufacturers for non-emergency purposes. Is the problem really much larger than it seems, or did the FEMA purchased product get really worse materials in them?

Inquiring minds want to know?

Re: FEMA Formaldehyde Fiasco Festers

J.L. — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:00:22 -0000

New term for this phenomena. Say you heard it here first.

FEMAldehyde Trailers

Re: UCLA: New Super-Porous Materials Can Trap CO2

J.L. — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:47:51 -0000

This is actually a fairly promising strategy. There are hundreds of zeolites, some naturally mined and used in organic agriclture, some as filtration agents for fish tanks, adn so on.

For a general background check wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite

Re: Surprise, Surprise: Google Also a Big Fan of Cheap Electricity

J.L. — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 13:31:50 -0000

Credit where due. This is hydroelectric power mainly.

Re: Three Ways to Piss Off the French

J.L. — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 08:32:16 -0000

This is about much more than just mileage. It is about grams of CO2, particulates,SOX, and NOX emitted per mile driven. In this regard European diesels, which are among the very best at mileage the world has known, are definitely inferior. It is no coincidence that Europe has waited so long to issue a low sulfer diesel fuel standard: their makers focused only on mileage.

And in this regard the Prius kicks French butt.

Re: Green Energy Needs Lots of Water

J.L. — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:56:50 -0000

This strikes me as grant-baiting ,fear mongering research of the sort one would expect out of Competitive Enterprise Institute. Especially the part about "if they come after your water".

One can make such assertions about virtually any energy production or material extraction industry.

Re: America's 50 Greenest Cities: Popular Science Ranks 'Em

J.L. — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:58:29 -0000

It always amazes me when organizations come up with ranking systemsbased on their own pet data sets, turn the crank, and publish the results without first asking if the the result passes the "red faced test."

This one clearly does not.

16. Albuquerque, N.M. (19.1) Really. Have they even thought about the impacts of unconstrained growth on water supplies?

I guess not.

Re: What Not To Build: The New American Home

J.L. — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:43:45 -0000

With people of lower (average) income and greater sensibility now almost completely out of the market, this segment is the last gasp for developers- reminiscent of the 1890's mansion boom.

My guess is there's a full size bank vault in the basement suitable for laying by a serious stash of gold bullion, Persian rugs, old master paintings, and case upon case of Chateu Mouton Rothschild.

Wonder if the top story windows open enough for a jump when the market crashes?

Re: 10 Steps to Dispose of a Broken Light Bulb

J.L. — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:10:56 -0000

Three cheers for Anonymous. This is much ado about a trivial risk.

Lets get a focus of our real mercury exposure: coal and natural gas burning. By using CFL's you reduce everyone's exposure to mercury by a significant factor.

Where do these people with the boxes and tape think that mercury in fish comes from? It is largely from atmospheric deposition containing trace amounts of mercury which originates from coal burning.

As for natural gas.,yes, it has mercury for that used in commercial burners, but emitted in orders of magnitude less concentration than from coal burning. (Domestic natural gas is generally scrubbed to remove mercury before distribution.)

The is a classic example of a politician either lacking a competent science advisory staff or ignoring them. I consider it particularly egregious that the original reporter did not offer some balance about where signifcant mercury exposures originate from.

Re: Michael Pollan On The Big Beef Recall

J.L. — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:43:50 -0000

Other nations, like Australia and Japan for example, Federally inspect every cow at slaughter for Mad Cow, etc. Only in a system of governance where corporate interests can outweigh the public good, does this happen.

How else do we explain the US DOA weighing in against more frequent mad cow testing?

Re: Rocking the Cardboard Cradle

J.L. — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 09:32:36 -0000

this looks to be a very practical idea: easy to bring to Grandma's house or ship to another family member after the relatively brief cradling period of a child'slife.

Re: But Is it Art? Chomskian Abstract

J.L. — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:16:47 -0000

I love this post and love how the Chomsky man thinks.

Would like to point out, however, that it is infeasible to draw lead of any sort into a wire. It just can not be done as a function of low tensile strength. Said bullet must have been steel or copper.

Re: Cuba: Can 'Red' Ethanol Be Green?

J.L. — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:05:30 -0000

In terms of US foreign policy, this is upsetting. Amazing that nothing has been said of it on the broadcast news coverage of Castro's departure.

Perhaps the high level concern ought to be whether Caribbean islands in general will end up as ethanol plantations feeding the US driving machine.

Re: 19.20.21: Studying the Rise of Supercities

J.L. — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:39:29 -0000

Mega-Ciites such as these can not long exist without strong and reliable public health measures, such as provision of trash pickup and wastewater collection and treatment to at least secondary standards. Already, the poor barios fringing many of these lack these provisions. There is significant risk of pandemic.

Re: A Vending Machine? For Crows?

J.L. — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 17:04:20 -0000

Yes, there is an evolutionary sensibility to this behavior.

Crows have been observed to follow wolf packs, ranging out ahead to find unhealthy or snow bound moose, and then calling the wolves to follow them toward prospective prey, awaiting their leftovers once the wolves have eaten their fill of meat.

What I think is fascinating about this is that the behavior translates so easily to vegetable foods - with humans as providers instead of wolves.

Subtext: when I was a kid, small town zoos often had black bears which you could buy "soda pop" for. Put a quarter in a machine, open up the "Orange Crush" and slide the bottle down a chute. The bear would grab it up with both paws and guzzle it down in seconds, spilled soda stuck to his chest with flies swarming to the sweetness. The bears so liked it in the hot summer that they would bellow plaintively to beg for more, to which children would respond by begging their parents for money. And no caffeine or corn syrup in those days! In retrospect a disgusting spectacle but illustrates the interspecies dependencies nonetheless.

Re: NYC Now Just One Giant Birth Control Pill

J.L. — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:41:37 -0000

A plausible, alternate explanation to demographic transition, which had to do with western nation family size going down once the kids were not needed as workers on the farm and once public health measures upped the probability of a child surviving to reproductive age.

Re: Texan Know-how

J.L. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 08:59:47 -0000

Cool. But don't leave it out on the porch. Brass is so expensive lately it'll be swiped in short order.

Re: Dealing with Eco-Anxiety: Feeling Less Guilt, Being More Green

J.L. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:23:00 -0000

Doing good things should make you feel good. If not, stop doing it. Duh.

Re: Austroflamm Wood Stoves with Heat Memory

J.L. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:20:59 -0000

This design has legs. JL

Re: Believe it or Not: Bush Says U.S. is "In the Lead" on Climate Change

J.L. — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:39:33 -0000

Say it enough, and people will believe it. Its not from lack of intelligence that this is done. It is an effective tactic; and it will continue to be effective as long as the US print media continue to act as if reporting means nothing more than reprinting the Administration's talking points. This holds true regardless of which political party holds the most power.

You'd almost think that the promises of tax breaks for wealthy media owners was having some effect on how news is covered...but it just couldn't be something that simple, could it?

Re: Who's Looking Out for Your Lungs? Industry and Legislators Pressing EPA to Drop Tighter Ozone Standards

J.L. — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:20:27 -0000

Anyone have access to the list of industries which spoke on behalf of not making the standard more protective of public health? Would love to compare the reality to their "green" products and policies.

Re: A Picture is Worth... Ocean Deserts Expanding

J.L. — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:32:33 -0000

It is not only due to thermal stratification. Aeolian deposition of iron and other trace nutrients has been reduced over the last several decades, in those zones. For that there are also climatic explanations.

But wait: aren't these zones precisely the places that the now defunct Planktos had plans for iron seeding? Why yes...of course. Until the "greens" who have no clue about the earth's bio-geochemical cycles attacked them, accusing them of upsetting ecosystems, etc.

Re: A Picture is Worth... Ocean Deserts Expanding

J.L. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:24:53 -0000

Rob. I would agree with that. The iron seeding notion can be understood metaphorically. When a patient enters the emergency room in serious distress, the doctors must first stabilize him/her before treatment. Iron seeding was to stabilize patient-earth. THe long term cure is as you said. Those who portrayed it as a way of avoiding the necessary lifestyle changes were either ignorant or disingenuous or simply anti-capitalist, not believing that business can be set up to do good things.

Re: Electric Vehicles: Good For Climate, Bad For Water?

J.L. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:10:17 -0000

The author of the original article seems pretty ignorant of basic water resource management principles anda over generalizes to an absurd level. I don't have the time to fully deconstruct but here are a few key points, one of which other commenters have already hit on.

Power plants uktilize several kinds of cooling apparatus. The so-called "Dry" or air cooled systems are more expensive, but they do exist in high desert sites. TreeHugger has posted on them twoice. Then there is the "pass through" water cooled version that is referred to above. This is a "non-consumptive" use. Only a very small percentage increases in evaporation rate results. For small "merchant power" or "peaking power" plants there are indeed fully consumptive evaporative cooling towers. To lump all these together in one generalization is absurd. Secondly, as I say this is non-consumptive and just flat wrong.

Agriculture is the single largest consumptive user of water. Evapotranspiration from crop land rates vary greatly but 30 to 70% is a reasonable range to start with. Return flows from irrigation are often saline and highly polluted with nitrates and pesiticdes.

The original article does not pass muster and should never have been published. I seriously doubt it was peer reviewed.

Re: Pollution Casts Shadow Over Chinese Solar

J.L. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:54:43 -0000

US chemical companies did not go bankrupt with passage of Clean Air Act and RCRA over 30 years about - before the flight of manufacturers to Asia.

They can comply, it's just that cost of goods will go up a few percent.

Re: Drugs Are In Our Water! Should I Switch to Bottled?

J.L. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:04:19 -0000

JL sez: don't forget to read the extensive comments and updatesI included in the post Lloyd references. If you think the bridges are crumbling in the US, you should see the sewers and wastewater treatment plants. A good many are bypassing raw sewerage every time it rains and for several days afterward. No one really has studied the absolute effectiveness of existing WWTP's in breaking down prescription drugs at low concentrations; but who cares? Unless we stop bypassing untreated sewerage into the rivers that downstream cities withdraw water from to drink we are no better than China is in this regard.

If you want to blame someone for this blame the Congress critters and the Administration officials that have cut the USEPA budget and the Municipal Wastewater Construction Grants Program year after year.

Re: Beijing's Cat Death Camps

J.L. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:53:49 -0000

Now they are going to have a serious rat and mouse problem - just in time for the Olympics

Amazing how few people are able to think ahead about the unintended consequences of a proposed action.

Cities in nations with highly developed economies have over the last centuries designed public health management systems to balance the tradeoffs. China is only just beginning to catch on to the need to do this with high material consumptions rates. This has all the appearances of a Potempkin Village approach to municipal public health management.

Re: Dirty Secrets about Clean Fuels

J.L. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:04:40 -0000

Chemical reactor vessels often experience a build up of what are called "tars" or "Still bottoms" which are euphemisms for disgusting stinking toxic crap at the bottom that some poor bugger has to rinse out with a hose. Small companies which have no experience with environmental permitting are likely to periodically flush the bottoms down the storm sewers and I'll bet this is exactly what has been happening.

There is really no excuse for this whatsoever. USEPA should have been working with State permitting agencies to be on the lookout for such problems as soon as financial incentives were granted by Congress. But of course, because the present Administration knows that less gomment is always better, that did not happen.

Re: Here's What Happens to a Tesla Electric Car Battery at the End of its Life

J.L. — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:57:59 -0000

It is very common in the early commercialization phases of a brilliant sexy new product like the TESLA car to downplay the toxicity risks of certain components.

Allow me to point out the lithium salts are frequently associated with human reproductive hazards, so much so that females of reproductive age (might become pregnant on the job) are excluded from contact with them in the workplace. There is a reason that lithium salts are not given to pregnant females with mental disorders.

Toxicological issues like this are often in dispute, depending on who is making the analysis. The point being we need to know exactly which lithium salts we are speaking of - not the generic term. Additionally, we need to know, if there is a repro hazard of those salts, which low paid immigrant class of laborers will be cleaning up the mess and repairing and operating recycling equipment, washing down floors, etc.

Romantic feelings about cars to no cancel reality.

Re: I Care more About MPG Than MPH

J.L. — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:24:28 -0000

I am surprised it took so long for this to surface as a grass roots issue.

Try sometime to order a new car with a fully manual transmission. They barely exist.

Try to get one with a four-banger and less than rubber peeling, balls to the back seat acceleration. Not on the lot.

We are continually told "we only sell what customers want." What they really mean is they offer what makes them the most profit. Those with more common sense are left in a minority, underserved demographic.

Re: Guayaki Announces First Carbon-Subtracting Beverages

J.L. — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:07:58 -0000

Also possible to buy the loose leaves and make your own infusion. Traditionally, one puts a hollow silver spoon with holes in the end into the wet leaves - sometimes with powdered sugar added - and uses the handle as a straw. Much lower footrpint that way.

Re: Kieran Timberlake + Living Homes= LBS

J.L. — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:53:34 -0000

I want that one on the front page for my place in the woods. Obviously, it would be a welcome mat for porcupines-a-chewing...which I could accomodate with a .22.

Air-drop outhouse on main floor?

The only drawback I can see is that people might end up storing junk under the pillar space. Would really need a nearby shed to overcome that.

Re: Survey: Would You Read TreeHugger on your Phone?

J.L. — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:17:00 -0000

In the USA, to date, cell service providers have tuniversally treated internet access as a get-rich-quick scheme. Why would I want to pay a conglomerate a buck or two for every screen downloaded when my checking account is already unbalanced from they hundreds they charge every month.

Re: Is Home Ownership a Good Thing?

J.L. — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:37:13 -0000

Apartment developers always buy the least capital cost structural and HVAC/appliances,and pass the energy inefficiencies that result onto the renters. The result is grossly ungreen living spaces.

Without adequate new incentives for developers and landlords to upgrade to energy star and beyond,, for example, a shift to appartment living will worsen our carbon footprint.

We need to upgrade zoning codes to achieve this.

Re: Bill Richardson On Great Lakes Water

J.L. — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 10:53:46 -0000

Lunatic fringe is probably a mischaracterization. The struggle that underlies is very similar to the one in Atlanta Georgia,where we saw the Georgia legislature pass a measure to expropriate land overlapping a river in adjacent Tennessee.

They are trying to keep the suburban and exurban growth engines going while running out of water.

Because Lake Michigan's direct drainage area is quite small, suburbs of Milwaukee, Chicago, and so on are actually out side of the Michigan basin and the groundwater they have is of poor quality.

The respective electoral districts are served by persons who care more about their campaign coffers than the lake that serves the water of most persons in their region.

Foolish and greedy are better.

Re: Bill Richardson On Great Lakes Water

J.L. — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:34:12 -0000

Dear "g".

The hydraulic residence time of Lake Michigan is in excess of 100 years. That means if the lake were drained fully today, it would take more than a century (without drought) to refill to normal level.

The implication for sharing is that withdrawal rates are already barely sustainable. Add this thought to the shared boundary with Canada and you should be able to grasp why it is foolhardy to think of spending billions to pump water to where they have not learned to live sustainably.

As in the dustbowl days, should a true emergency arise, people will move to Chicago much faster than Chicago water can be piped to them.

Re: A Picture is Worth... Access to Drinkable Water Around the World (And Much More)

J.L. — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:34:57 -0000

Mexico shown as having 95% access to "drinkable" water. Swallow-able might be a fair claim but waterborne illness is a major social issue in Mexico. I think they better have another look at reliability of data sources.

Re: Biochar Offers Answer for Healthy Soil and Carbon Sequestration

J.L. — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 08:18:40 -0000

You can still find charred stump fragments from forests fires that swept the virgin growth clearcuts of the 1880's. Bacteria don't break down carbonized wood very fast. The result of "biochar" is simply to sequester carbon for a longer period.

But there is a major drawback that all the commenters are overlooking.

It would be fine if biochar producers used the wood to gain heat energy and put it to good use, plus, collected the methanol distillate, reacted the carbon monoxide and "wood tar" (which is a strong carcinogen) to produce benign products and THEN spread the char. Running the process like a chemical reactor would produce low air emissions and keep human exposure to toxic effluents to a minimum.

But we all know that amateur product efforts will not do these things and the result is likely to be a very dangerous thing for air quality and human health.

Clearly, the mass scale production of biochar needs to be EPA and state regulated with a permit process. If this is not done, we will end up with a mess that is analogous to animal feedlot offgassing.

Re: Merchandise Mart: World's Biggest Green Building

J.L. — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:05:34 -0000

Many of the older Chicago Loop buildings contiguous to the Chicago River, as this one is, are able to withdraw cold Lake Michigan water to pre-cool their HVAC exchange loops. Early in the summer, this can enable up to 50% energy savings, as the river-intruding lake water is especially cold at that time.

One more example of hold old buildings and buildings sites hold a green advantage.

Re: Come back, Dennis Kucinich! These Guys All Love Coal

J.L. — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:11:44 -0000

You would think that there was a primary election in Pennsylvania or something the way these two are kissing the coal god.

Ohhh. Really, there is a Democratic primary scheduled in PA, third largest coal producing state? You don't say!

Re: Mozilla Firefox Goes 'Organic'

J.L. — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:05:09 -0000

Our rapidly growing multi-platform environment has organically evolved to host pop culture semaniticular extollations in order to elevate geekdom toward the non-Cobolic state.

Re: New York Times on Green Collar Jobs

J.L. — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:31:19 -0000

Can't wait for some astroturf group to declare coal mining as a "Green Job" category.

FYI: small businesses commonly are far worse at complying with basic environmental and safety regulations then mega-coorporations. Remember this the next time a biodiesel factory gets caught dumping out reactors into a sewer or when you learn about a "green" personal products formulator whining about air pollution or worker safety standards.

The grass is NOT always greener on the other side.

Re: Adapting To Global Warming: A Half-Baked Idea

J.L. — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 08:37:52 -0000

It is not useful, and may be considered purposefully misleading, to decouple the projected benefits of climate mitigation investments from the parallel future benefits of becoming less dependent on foreign suppliers and rapidly increasing price increases in oil which result from political instability and "peak oil."

I am wondering if Pielke's hurricane focus accommodates the design specification changes for flood wall and pump and levee projects that will be a function of changing storm frequency and intensity, driven in part by climate change.

Re: New Mercedes-Benz A-Class Unveiled: 50 MPG, But Not For-Sale in U.S.

J.L. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:37:41 -0000

I second Montys'point.

Currently European refineries export "byproduct" gasoline to the US.

Until the dollar value eroded this was a very sensible marketing and distributing strategy for international oil companies with downstream operations, and allowed refiners to avoid investing in new capital projects in the US, where actual environmental permit limits exist and where neighbors of refineries have a habit of resisting expansions.

Now, however, with the dollar valuation falling so drastically, I have to wonder if the margins will be eroded such that real capacities are needed stateside - in which case it may be sensible to design them to be optimized more for diesel output, European style.

As an aside, I should mention that some US refineries are set up to deal well with sulfur removal, whereas many European ones are not.

Re: Increased Knowledge About Global Warming = Apathy?

J.L. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:56:25 -0000

This is really not so hard to grasp - as a corollary to the Grand Parent paradox.

American families are often spread apart. Each grand parent wants his or her grandchild to have the best school ever, yet struggling to get by on fixed or low income, complains bitterly about the tax burden posed by the local school district. (where their grand child does NOT live).

Each and every grandparent has the same attitude with the result all school districts having to cut programs, etc.

Smug in their Prius dreams, survey respondents imagine far away New York City and Miami flooding ,and fantasize their own survival through superior skill and luck of geography.

Re: No Recession for Wind Power Industry

J.L. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:28:57 -0000

There is embedded in this optimism an underlayer of environmental good that few are speaking of.

Put hundred wind turbines up just past the exurban fringe and you have effectively created a sprawl barrier, and a protecting agricultural lands from further housing incursion.

The value of the agricultural land is already going up because of commodity grain prices. Add the extra value of a few thousand bucks per year per turbine as compensation for the farmer and he no longer has a need to bail out of agriculture. He's a got a baseline income stream that buffers him against a drop in food prices.

Re: Survey: Do We Need Population Control?

J.L. — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:16:37 -0000

Maybe the biggest elephant in the room is immigration to avoid the consequences of too high a birth rate.

Is there evidence that recent migrants to a developed nation have fewer children than they might have in their native country?

Does the pressure relief valve of leaving an environmentally ravged country become a net positive for the population of earth? Or a net negative?

Re: How (Not) to Prevent the Next Hurricane Katrina

J.L. — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:28:03 -0000

All this destruction so that landscaping services can spread mulch around water sucking non-native plants around Mega-mansions and commercial office parks.

LEED should give points for no-mulch landscaping.

Re: The Return of Diesel in North-America Could Mean Higher Fuel Prices

J.L. — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:13:19 -0000

The popularity of diesel cars after the 1980 oil crisis was led not my mileage gains or to save moneybut by simply the fact that one could get diesel fuel when gasoline was not even available or to avoid having to wait in line for hours to fill up. A secondary driver of the sales was to be able to go all week on a fill up.

Yet another situational cause is that the high mileage cars offered at the time by virtually all US makers, to put it mildly, sucked. They had those awful half-done fuel injectors, the reliability was very poor, and the early bolt on cat converters had a reputation for stopping the car in mid drive.

As a result of the above, the car buying public went for diesel cars.

Again, it was not for mileage alone.

The other key factor is sulfur content. Modern diesel fuels now have to meet high sulfur content standards. Back then such fuel did not exist and hence the exhaust generally was foul.

Re: Sheep Replace Lawnmowers In Italy

J.L. — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:24:09 -0000

Which is worse? Lawn fertilizer or sheep smidt in der stormwater.

Re: Outsourcing the Climate Skeptics

J.L. — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:46:59 -0000

It is fascinating that the Stink Tankers think no one will catch on to their manipulations overseas, having got a free ride by US media for a decade. Rupert's Legacy.

Re: Is Living Off the Grid Right For You?

J.L. — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:41:57 -0000

Reminds me of the Beverly Hillbillies in reverse: Beverly Greenbillies?

What's most challenging about the off grid life is landing somewhere where you can fit in a community and adapt to the cultural components that no one talks in mainstream media coverage: hunting and fishing and wood chopping and snow shoveling and well digging and large scale gardening. Think Amish without the flashy design acoutrements of the modern green movement. What happens if a relationship goes sour? Do you sell out an move to the city? Rural health care sucks if you hadn't noticed.

It ain't all "Silver Ships on the water,;very free and easy". Its about survival and community.

Re: Offsetting Your Movie Watching: Making DVDs Out of Smokestack-Captured Carbon Dioxide

J.L. — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:14:03 -0000

And is this with a non-BisPhenol-A feedstock or am I missing something about the tradeoffs?

Re: Survey: Should Hybrids Be Made Noisier?

J.L. — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:14:41 -0000

As the author of the post which has kicked off this commenting spree and poll, I offer the following synopsis of what I have learned.

The lower the velocity of an EV approaching a person at risk, the greater the likelihood of a collision.

Conversely, the lower the velocity of a vehicle colliding with a pedestrian or biker, the lower the likelihood of severe health impact.

There are no data sources, nor are there risk studies underway, on collisions of hybrid or EV cars with pedestrians or bikers.

"Almost" counts in a game of horseshoes and love, but not injury or death.

No one is considering the fact that ,as people age, they become increasingly myopic (narrowing" of peripheral vision). This is not only about legally blind people, it is about an aging demographic.

As more people elect to walk and more cars become EVs (good for the environment in all respects), the incidence of hazardous encounters with EVs and Plug Ins may increase, especially in urban areas.

Off the shelf technology exists to combine motion and body heat detection to trigger the emission of SUV-like sounds- or whatever bodily function downloadable noise the heart desires. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps turnabout is appropriate: equipping people at risk with hybrid and EV sensors that warn of approaching danger, No need to warn the whole world of the danger, only the persons at risk!!!

Re: Is a 17-foot long Smart Car Still Smart?

J.L. — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:38:54 -0000

Paint it reddish brown and you've got the makings of a Generation III Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienermobile

Re: Greenwash Watch: Drink 2 Wear T-shirts From Coke Bottles

J.L. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:30:35 -0000

If you have ever traveled in developing nations you may have noticed that people use bottles, cans, and carboys to hold many things for which they were not intended, including pesticides. Even people in developing nations do this sometimes. Look on grandpa's garage shelf, or in the backyard shed.

Poisonings can result from container re-use; and chemicals not intended for such containers seep into the polymer pores and remain there.

Additionally, the reclamation of empty containers proceeds through an intermediate, independent step of "Chipping." Chips may be washed with hot soapy water, but that is no guaranteed that the chipping equipment has not been used for non-soda bottles and that the reclaim plastic chips have been sampled and tested periodically to ensure suitability for skin contact.

More needs to be known before such practices are proclaimed to be both "Green" and "Safe"

Re: Can the Potato Feed the World?

J.L. — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 12:03:11 -0000

Potatoes require sandy loam soil and irrigation to do best They do not produce in heavy clays. Commercially grown taters use a lot of fungicides to fight blight, which is coming back with a vengeance.

Climates that are wetter than normal and soils cooler than normal are associated with blight outbreaks.

Re: Nalgene Dumps Bisphenol A Like Hot Potato

J.L. — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:41:49 -0000

The bottles are not producing a limitless supplly of leachable BPA. After a time what was not polymerized is gone. Don't sweat the little stuff.

Re: Top 20 Worst Carbon Emitting Counties in the U.S. (Or Blame it All on Houston and L.A.)

J.L. — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:43:16 -0000

Facts vs blaming...different activities. Texas also is number one in wind energy production. California number two.

Re: Architectural Lessons from the 60s Counterculture

J.L. — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:38:00 -0000

Where's my tee-pee?

Re: Throw Energy Out the Window With Thermique Heated Glass

J.L. — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:35:19 -0000

"High-E" glass. What a novel idea.

Re: Bidets: Eliminate Toilet Paper, Increase Your Hygiene

J.L. — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:19:32 -0000

Redneck Bidet - garden hose through the bathroom window.

Re: Today Cars No More Efficient than 1963 Models

J.L. — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:18:48 -0000

Biggest factor of all and not mentioned in the post is horsepower. Modern automotive engines are more than 100% more powerful than most of their predecessors from the early 1960's. (the latest GM sports car boasts 600 HP)

We could cut our power/torque/fuel consumption in half in the single act of lessening the power. At first, it would be a shock as the Weight/HP ratio dropped and caused a major reduction in acceleration; but we'd survive and so would the planet as we transitioned to lighter cars and learned to simply slow down.

Re: High Lead Levels Found in Australian Rainwater Tanks

J.L. — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:13:48 -0000

All zinc plated steel is going to leach some lead, as will solder joints as mentioned.

However, ,particulate fallout from coal fired plant emissions is the most likely source. Australia is big on coal right? Do their generating stations have emission limits for lead? Are they even required to report it?

Re: Natural Products Association Launches The Natural Standard

J.L. — Fri, 02 May 2008 14:35:39 -0000

Sounds like a holy grail. Many natural substances are highly toxic: poison ivy anyone?

By obsessing over the term "natural" and refusing to address the principles of toxicity, this debate is sure to end in a stalemate.

Re: Microsoft Surface - The Last Big A** Table You Will Ever Buy?

J.L. — Sun, 04 May 2008 10:18:23 -0000

Anyone remember Winky Dink? Parents sent away for special vinyl sheet to stick on the TV screen and kids would "draw" or "paint" along with the host.

Good for about two tries until the kid forgot the clear screen cover.

Re: Lotus Sanitizing System Ozonator for Your Home

J.L. — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:46:23 -0000

Ground level ozone at ambient concentration is formed INDIRECTLY in photochemical smog, which is caused by release of volatile organic compounds and from car exhaust.

DIRECT creation of ozone can be from any corona discharge. Any electric appliance with an electric motor creates a small amount of "sparking" and that ionizes oxygen to create ozone. This includes washing machines, dish washers, hair dryers, fans, etc.

Persons with asthma or other lung disease probably would not want to buy an ozonator.

Re: Al Gore: Uncommitted Superdelegate Committed to Stopping Climate Change

J.L. — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:15:24 -0000

Al has been so demonized by pundits and media owners that he wisely stays away from endorsing a candidate. To do so would be the 'kiss of death' for a large segment of the body politic which has been taught for 8 years that Al represents an evil force.

Lay low until fall, Al. The whites of their reptilian eyes are showing.

Re: Quote of the Day: Michele Bachmann on Why We Don't Need To Save the Planet

J.L. — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:24:01 -0000

It's not the planet we need to save from climate changes... It's us.

Re: Time To Grow, Cut and Use More Wood

J.L. — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:57:23 -0000

Fine with me (obviously) if they put beetle-killed trees to good use. I'd love one of those cabins: to own or to visit.

Re: British Journalists Take On Skeptics, Liars and Incandescent Bulbs

J.L. — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:09:29 -0000

Re: Did Darwin Invent Environmentalism? What Evolution and Green Revolution Share

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:21:46 -0000

Human cultural evolution is happening at a far faster pace than human biological change. Culture directs environmental impact.

Changing gears: how many of our readers have actually read Darwin's "Origin" cover to cover?

How many contemporary scientists have read it?

How many contemoprary biologists have?

Politicians passing laws on teaching creationism?.

I know I did read it; but I bet less than 1% of the people throwing themsleves into the modern debate over Darwins ideas have even read the first page.

Its as if there was no impact at all.

Re: Hunting & Fishing Regulations Have Serious Unintended Consequences on Animal Size

J.L. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:31:53 -0000

Pretty obvious outcome to anyone who has studied evolution or say wildlife biology.

Human sport hunters predate most heavily against the fittest animals in a population.

Conversely, wolves and such predate mostly the old, sick, and very young, generally promoting fitness and balance of both prey and predator.

Commercial fishing and hunting are far less discriminatory, but are even more potent a force. Take examples as the crash of ocean fisheries and the rapid extirpation of wild American bison.

Re: Wind vs. Nuclear Energy: Wind Power Deemed Far More Dangerous

J.L. — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:39:11 -0000

The original article did NOT offer a side by side comparison of occupational injury and mortality rates, relative to construction, operation, salvage, and disposition of the two energy systems,

Re: Stephen Fowler: Environmentalist Behaving Badly

J.L. — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:38:32 -0000

Rush Limbaugh now has enough anti-green grist for several shows. Jeez.

Re: Spend your Weatherization Money Wisely

J.L. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:15:39 -0000

Re: What Should We Do About the Car Industry?

J.L. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:44:11 -0000

Re: Cleaning Up the Capitol: Reid and Pelosi Want to Power DC with 100% Natural Gas

J.L. — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:53:48 -0000

Natural gas, CH4, is ,by weight, 1/3 hydrogen. Hydrogen plus oxygen = water. The carbon produces Co2 no doubt,

Acid rain causing SOX however is a serious problem with coal combustion and a trivial one with gas combustion.

Gas combustion produces a trivial amount of particulate matter.

Gas combustion emits an order of magnitude less mercury than coal does.

Gas prices are falling. Coal prices will be going up as soon as a cap and trade mechanism is put in place (as it will and must be).

So there you go. No math needs be done.

Its the obvious choice to make.

Re: Trend Watch: New Skins on Old Icons

J.L. — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:14:02 -0000

Re: Which Milk Container Has the Lowest Carbon Emissions?

J.L. — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:23:28 -0000

It was the same with breweries and soda bottlers by the way: WI had over 80 breweries when I was a kid. Probably only 4 or so now.

The scale of the needed re-transition to community bottling is huge.

We must learn to think beyond the abstraction of LCA transit distances in making these comparisons.

Re: The Transsexual Fish Mystery

J.L. — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:38:35 -0000

Rocky Horror Pisces Show

Re: Do CFLs Increase Greenhouse Gases? No.

J.L. — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:38:49 -0000

Always a risk to give the 'dim bulbs' of academia ready access to computers and calculators.

There remains this thing called "peer review." Doesn't seem right that a traditional academic function like that be acceded to blogging tree hugger types. (knife twisting around and around)

Let's hope the that the tenure committees of the absent minded university professors cited have an opportunity to read the work of this 'SOB blogger!'

Re: Organic vs Local? Who Cares. Neither is Sustainable.

J.L. — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:07:16 -0000

Forgot to figure globalism into the equation. Cancel Guatemalan grapes from the grocery list and forget about sustaining other cultures which have overshot their populations.

No need to worry about more rainforest clearing either if you drop global tradeoffs.

Re: Would You Purchase a “Made in China” Electric Vehicle on Blue Light Special?

J.L. — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:01:34 -0000

A plausible argument can be made that three things excluded drastically more efficient autos from the US market place. (Smoking gun: the far more efficient models sold elsehwere.)

Factor two would be safety regulations which because of design choices made by marketing directors instead of engineers, have gone the route of mass=safety.

Factor three would be emphasis by stock and financial experts on "Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

The electric car holds the promise of cancelling factors one and three and transforming factor two into a new paradigm of safety vs design.

Re: Proposed Law Could Hit Farmers' Market Vendors with \$1,000,000 Fines

J.L. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:30:05 -0000

Folks. If you are concerned about this proposed law, make yourself heard!

Point out that the last thing needed in an economic recovery is a heavy handed discouragement of small businesses. Ask for an exemption or a voluntary inspection regime for example.

Re: Seattle's Streetcar: Modern, Efficient, Mass Transit (Video)

J.L. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:27:44 -0000

Re: Broadband in America - Fat Pipes for Old Glory a Questionable Green Plan

J.L. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:23:45 -0000

There are a few good reasons to do this.

There are many similar applications that would help justify it, such as surveying, enviornmental auditing, and water resources management.

Re: ETech 2009: New Materials for Sustainable Products

J.L. — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:03:22 -0000

Irony - if all dairy farmers used it, there would be no competitive advantage, which is the same if no one used it.

Re: Cars Are Taking Over the World, Inch By Inch

J.L. — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:28:55 -0000

I thought those were bike racks at first glance!

Re: Is the IPCC Assessment on Global Climate Change Wrong?

J.L. — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:41:22 -0000

Great analysis, yes.

I think you are being quite conservative though. You had to assume a steady state, instantaneous conditions for your analysis.

The analysis overlooks ocean acidification which by all indications is a much earlier hit than catastrophic climate change.

Re: The Days of Oil are Far From Over, Says Saudi Arabia

J.L. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:19:51 -0000

I remember once reading that in SA, there was an inverse correlation between personal wealth and level of education. They can't keep all the people stupid all the time!

Re: Alice Waters Doesn't Have a Microwave - Should You Ditch Yours?

J.L. — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:15:47 -0000

MIcrowave use is the single greatest enabler of processed food. Consequently it is the single greatest enabler of packaging waste - especially single serve packaging.

Baloney.

Re: Shell Gets Out of Wind & Solar Power, Backs Biofuels and CCS Instead

J.L. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:24:52 -0000

It's outside their core competency. They can't figure out how to get a comparable rate of return.

This is a classic outcome when transformational technologies begin to scale up. Very seldom does a business being displaced figure out how to innovate in the new space.

Re: Will Scion Sell the Toyota iQ Urban Micro-Car in the US?

J.L. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:16:57 -0000

I have a Scion Xa in same color. In fact. this micro much resembles a photo-shop shrunk version of an Xa Scion.

I'd have been happy with literally half the horsepower.

Another example of design decadence for the US market.

Re: The Obama Cap and Trade Debate Rages On

J.L. — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:24:01 -0000

"Black Coal" Democrats

Re: Are Greener Big Companies Beating the Recession?

J.L. — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:42:44 -0000

Apple's high reputation for quality also has something to do with it. People want quality long lasting products period.

Re: Out, Monsanto! No GMOs in National Wildlife Refuge, Says Federal Judge

J.L. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:39:10 -0000

First question ought to be: "Why are any crops being grown commercially on wildlife refuges?"

Not a problem if the purpose is to provide food for waterfowl so as to decoy them away from private farms where they do damage. Somehow this smells like a different animal.

Re: US Turtles Being Unsustainably Harvested for Asian Cuisine

J.L. — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:36:20 -0000

They ate all of their own to extinction. Now they want ours. NOT

Re: Cyclists and Pedestrians Were Jerks In 1908 Too

J.L. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 09:54:33 -0000

Given the constant camera interaction of the darting fools, one wonders if perhaps there was advance notice of the filming and whether so many were looking for their ten seconds of fame?

Re: Amateur Climate Change Deniers Still Rampant in Congressional Hearings

J.L. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:41:06 -0000

Smells like Eue'de Inhoff

Re: Yet Another Salmonella Scare: 1 Million Pounds of Pistachios Recalled

J.L. — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:12:06 -0000

The causation chain has to be followed back further. Pistacios are not grown at ground level.

So the operant question is:- "How did salmonella organisms get on raw pistacios?"

Bird turds on a few nuts could have contributed.

But rodents in the orchard or in the distribution warehousing seem a more likely vector.

Floodwaters or leaky roof-tops, espcially if pigeons present on the roof, could be a source.

Contaminated rinse tanks in a packing house could also be a vector.

Re: Rash of Infiltrated Computer Systems Prods Question: How Safe is Smart Grid?

J.L. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:11:17 -0000

They are going to follow a Microsoft protocol for computer sercurity? Talk about the goats sent to protect the cabbage patch. Baaaaaaa. Now I'm really worried.

Re: Monsanto "Seedless" Corn Sold To South African Farmers

J.L. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:21:08 -0000

db.

Diversity brings stability. That is the point

Re: Artist's Forest Disappears

J.L. — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:18:33 -0000

In "plain American" language: the owner clear cut the woodlot for the cash and is forced by law to replant with trees that will be even more economically useful.

Re: Conservation Groups Fight to Get Northern Rocky Mountain Wolves Back on the Endangered Species List

J.L. — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 09:14:37 -0000

Are not damages paid when wolves kill free-roaming stock? (And have they thought we would not notice that those cattle roam to great extent on public land?)

Maybe it's just that cattlemen/women are scaredy cats - afraid of wolves.

Re: Greenpeace Anti-Nuke \"Anti-radiation Pill\" Campaign Backfires

J.L. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:27:17 -0000

Fear mongering always vulnerable to blow back. At some point such tactics from the left resemble those from the other political end of the spectrum, denying any and all risks of nuclear power.

Re: Converting Sewage Treatment Plants Into Playgrounds

J.L. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:01:29 -0000

Re: TreeHugger Becomes Ford Fiesta Agent

J.L. — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 10:59:05 -0000

Re: Okay, We Know You Love Polar Bears, But Please NEVER DO WHAT THIS WOMAN DID

J.L. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:30:12 -0000

Darwin Award nominee for sure.

Re: How Overfishing Almost Got Capt. Phillips Killed by Pirates

J.L. — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:27:16 -0000

Re: Crop Failure Drives 1,500 Indian Farmers to Suicide

J.L. — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 15:45:54 -0000

Wonder if the inventor of the Green Revolution (N.Borlog) has any extra money for them?

Re: Survey: Do We Run Too Many Surveys?

J.L. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:16:14 -0000

With the demise of newspapers of record, I imagine this subject will be revisited many times.

Re: Jargon Watch: Is \"Sustainable\" Over?

J.L. — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:01:42 -0000

Looks like another lackluster blockbuster tea party to me.

Re: “Cool Globes” traveling exhibit arrives on Earth Day

J.L. — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:51:07 -0000

Good luck with that.

Re: Americans Still Getting Water in Wooden Pipes

J.L. — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:50:30 -0000

Wooden pipes last much longer for sewers because they are not under pressure and completely anaerobic (so rotting is curtailed)

Re: Rush Limbaugh Celebrates Earth Day – By Saluting Coal and Overconsumption

J.L. — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:15:35 -0000

Updating the 60's phrase "That's a rush, man!"

Re: Can The Environmental Divide Be Healed? Whatever Happened to Civil Discourse?

J.L. — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:42:35 -0000

So, not only do we need leadership in the Executive Branch, we need the Peoples House to get the message from the people - so that extremist propaganda takes a back seat to risk management.

Let your representatives know what you want from them. It is the only path forward.

Re: Aquatic Energy to Open Demo-Scale Algae Biofuel Facility in Louisiana

J.L. — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:52:17 -0000

Re: European Union to Ban Goods that aren't Energy Efficient

J.L. — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:36:49 -0000

Hate to sound cocky, but… well… called it :)

I should have made a bet with someone, but i can take no credit – the writing was on the wall…

This is the beginning of a crucially important – but inevitably rife – shift to eco-protectionism…

…its going to tick off foreign manufacturers (especially in the developing world), and rightly so. But it’s going to happen regardless, so let’s hope they can leapfrog.

…the next rational step will be banning ‘unsustainable’ goods and even unsustainable produce… the question is who will define sustainable, why, and how…

…this is why i think a global life-cycle assessment initiative tied to something like the (floundering) WTO would be a rather good idea.

Here’s to hoping!

Re: Who Purchases the Most Green Power in the US? Top 50 Buyers Revealed

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:55:28 -0000

Re: Plastic Bags to Contain 40 Percent Recycled Content by 2015?

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:48:15 -0000

Thus, the argument being posited looks more like advocacy politics than science.

Re: Using Face Masks Properly To Help Avoid Most Kinds Of Yucky Airborne Things

J.L. — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:37:58 -0000

Facial hair must be removed for masks to effectively screen inhaled air.

Persons with very wrinkled skin may not benefit as much as they think either.

Re: Geoengineering to the Rescue! Climate Change Deniers' Latest Foot-Dragging Tactic

J.L. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:46:37 -0000

As has so often been the case on these pages, this debate is more about ethics and less about science.

The listed Tink Tanks are doing exactly what you'd expect of them, given their historic motives and ideological bent.

There is no objective reason why prevention and treatment of symptoms can not be done in parallel.

Alex Steffan's thinking as displayed in that quote is linear and does not (apparently) leave any room for critical path management.

Geoengineering techniques may allow for Patient Earth to be stabilized in the same manner that a human patient is in the ER.

Re: Do Bicycle Helmet Laws Do More Harm Than Good?

J.L. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:24:39 -0000

Re: Carbon Labeling Toilet Paper: Who Does it Help?

J.L. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:01:47 -0000

I think Mr.Hickman misses the point entirely. Such calculations are useful in the same manner as comparing Brand X to Brand Y in terms of average cost/sheet: to help with comparison shopping.

The cheapest brand ought also to be the one with the lowest fooprint, assumming that externalities were pulled into the equation by a carbon tax, for example.

This is pretty straight up stuff. Surprised it was overlooked by the Guardian's editor.

Re: Clean Water Appears Out of Thin Air with EcoloBlue

J.L. — Fri, 01 May 2009 20:39:12 -0000

A dehumidifier with a water filtration unit built in. This is about as energy intensive a way to get water as I can imagine.

I have a bridge that customers of this device may wish to purchase.

Re: George Will Disses the Prius, Obama and the Facts

J.L. — Mon, 04 May 2009 10:02:26 -0000

Really, you have to wonder who is passing the talking points on to George Will,and why he isn't at least a little more skeptical when writing about them?

As well, if it sells papers who cares?

Re: Inhofe Joins Gore: Another Sign of the Apocalypse?

J.L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 13:27:17 -0000

Re: No Longer Endangered, Gray Wolves to be Hunted by the Hundreds

J.L. — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:19:45 -0000

Brett...I have bad news; only persons owning a pickup will be issued a permit. Wolves in sheeps clothing. :)

Re: Russian Nuclear Power Station Takes an Axe to Santa's Workshop

J.L. — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:41:57 -0000

Twenty years from now: "Who could have imagined that something like that would go wrong?"

Re: Hilarious Old Timey Country Ringtone Sings Praises of Coal

J.L. — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:58:17 -0000

By jove it's Fox News on Fox Fire!

Re: Bay Area Towns Reconsider Support for High-Speed Rail

J.L. — Sun, 10 May 2009 15:11:17 -0000

THOM. France is roughly the size of Texas and produces far far less energy with nuclear power than does the US currently. What is to emulate?

Re: Did Obama Forget to Trash His Green Stimulus Bill?

J.L. — Mon, 11 May 2009 20:13:50 -0000

Wet trash does not burn on its own. Huge amounts of natural gas must be consumed to keep the fire going, and the carbon footprint is immense.

Landfills emit methane it is true, but no methane need be added to operate them!

From a pure effiiency standpoint, it is better to burn nat gas and make electricity directly.

Re: Algae Biofuel Pioneer GreenFuel Technology Closes Down

J.L. — Thu, 14 May 2009 11:03:29 -0000

This was sadly predicable.

Monoculture leads to instability. Make the lawn perfect and birds and insects die. Same thing here.

Much easier to microfilter algae blooms from eutrophic natural waters and use the resulting biomass as an input to derive fuel or energy from a patented process.

Re: Bush's Enviro Team Returns to DC to Once Again Fight Climate Progress

J.L. — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:48:29 -0000

mark...Done to win the votes of alienated, uneducated, resentful, superstitious people: and it worked for two decades.

Re: Greener by Design 2009: Joel Makower and The New Normal (Video)

J.L. — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:52:13 -0000

Think about it.

'Sustainability VP laid off.' The irony "right-sizing" someone with that title would not be lost, even on the HR department.

To get the puck past the goalie, first the title will have to changed to something like 'green business innovator.' Toast on both sides for a year or so and then gone with the wind he/she will be.

Re: Energy Secretary Chu Says Emission Reduction Targets Politically Hindered... So, Let's Allow More Coal Plants!

J.L. — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:22:34 -0000

Re: What's The Most Dangerous Room in the House?

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:49:42 -0000

Re: Calling All Americans: We Need to Recycle More Glass

J.L. — Wed, 27 May 2009 21:32:46 -0000

Re: \"Hope you're f%#&@% proud of yourselves.\"

J.L. — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:40:01 -0000

No prouder than farmers who intentionally misuse pesticides to poison lions and cheetahs in East Africe (a known problem),

No prouder than the working poor who cut trees and poach in nature reserves.

No prouder than the gun runnrers who sell AK-47s and ammo to rebels hiding in nature reserves, who then use the weapons to poach meat and sell ivory and organs to Asian traders.

No prouder that loggers who illegally clear cut in African reserves to seel the wood to Asians.

No prouder than the Chinese "traditional" medicine dispensers who keep the poaching market going.

And so on.

Re: Mechanical Animals to Terminate Poaching

J.L. — Sun, 31 May 2009 16:32:20 -0000

Several things drive poaching:. The local forces are deterred with these robo-game creatures

Re: Jargon Watch: Committed Warming

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:38:25 -0000

Energy Collective has mixed up their science and their metaphors.

Committed warming is real; but reefs and other marine organisms are more immediately subject to ocean acidification, a parallel but entirely different issue than warming per se.

A more precise and metaphorically powerful term for both is to refer to it as "The Carbon Bomb" It's already been detonated and the schrapnel is penetrating marine ecosystems with deadly effect.

Re: Jeffrey Sachs Tells TreeHugger: Forget Carbon Caps: We Need Clean Coal and Nuclear (Video)

J.L. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:19:12 -0000

Important point JS overlooks.

Uranium extraction and manufacture of nuclear power plants are extremely energy intensive - some experts argue that on a net basis nuclear is not carbon neutral.

So, get a cap & trade framework in place, make lasting incentives for renewable power, and if that is insufficient, then ask for billions more for nuclear subsidies (again).

Re: The Best Protection Against Global Warming is Better Hurricane Insurance, says CEI

J.L. — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 08:16:39 -0000

Did they really say 'caused by lack of proper enforcement of zoning codes?'

WHOA. I thought CEI was for free enterprise, meaning less government interference with property rights through socialistically inspired local zoning codes.

Just goes to show that Treehugger values are corrupting even the staunchest of true patriots.

Re: Retooling the Auto Industry for a Smaller (Yet Profitable) Future

J.L. — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:53:20 -0000

Excellent post.

Re: Is Energy Saving Weatherization Being Wasted in Florida?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 09:59:39 -0000

This is not just about politics: it is the natural outgrowth of the engineering mindset.

Re: Gas Prices Have Risen 41 Days in a Row: Is It Good for the Environment?

J.L. — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:34:40 -0000

Conspiracy theory, gasoline version:

Democrats are in power, jack it up so we can get a turnaround next election.

Re: What?!? Green Coalition Calls For Forests to Be Left Out of Carbon Offset Programs

J.L. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:29:06 -0000

Other, more broadly constructive responses by developed nations and industries certainly are as plausible, or even more plausible, than the one pre-supposed by these organizations.

I'm tired of NGO's acting like they are entitled to shape the strategies for multinational agreements between sovereign governments.

Let democratically elected leaders and their agenct appointees have the bargaining chips they need and let enforcement agencies define and exact the necessary penance to change behavior.

Re: EPA to Regulate Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining More Stringently

J.L. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:13:35 -0000

It probably took a few months to smoke out the Bush/Cheney "embeds" and get them out of the way.

Now we're having some good fun!

Re: Greenpeace Frowning at HP, Lenovo and Dell in Latest Electronics Guide

J.L. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:59:39 -0000

This is silliness.

Re: HP Tops Its Own Woeful Packaging Record

J.L. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:45:26 -0000

Why is this even a mystery?

What solutions would you propose.

Re: Sen. Inhofe to Congress: Oil and Gas Don't Pollute (VIDEO)

J.L. — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:41:12 -0000

Easily explained. He has taken note of how much media attention Sarah P gets with her run-0on sentences and insensible ideas: he stands in imitation of the master.

Re: \"Wind Turbine Syndrome\" Allegedly Causes Heart Disease and Panic Attacks

J.L. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:52:40 -0000

Re: Republicans Begin Campaign to Dismantle Super Popular 'Cash for Clunkers'

J.L. — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:25:02 -0000

As a political strategy, the opposition may be about preventing the opposition party from having a success that can be cited during the next election.

Re: 98% of Scientists' Clean Energy Research Proposals Rejected by Obama Admin

J.L. — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:40:44 -0000

Lets not assume its all about money and politics.

Re: Should I Dump My Old Sigg That Was Made With BPA?

J.L. — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:20:13 -0000

Almost counts in a game of horsehoes, but not in toxicity.

Re: How Long Will Tomorrow's Automotive Lithium Batteries Last?

J.L. — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 08:44:17 -0000

LT, the last two batteries I bought online did not work properly (one after the other). The OEM replacement I finally got was US$140, plus shipping.

My service provider offered a new phone if I extended contract for $20.

Similar things have happened to me previously. Exact serial number matching with batteries is also an issue. My point stands.

Re: Ex-Enron Speechwriter Starts New Anti-Climate Action Group

J.L. — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 19:22:45 -0000

These very 'un-merry' Pranksters await their acid test. Wish I could be spider on the bus window for few minutes just to sample the ambiance.

Re: World's Largest Companies Need to Double Pace of CO2 Reductions to Avoid Catastrophic Climate Change

J.L. — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:15:29 -0000

Probably half the companies listed on the stock exchange have not been in existence for 50 years and in another 50 years most of those mentioned in this work will not exist.

Re: Improving Efficiency at Washington's Hydropower Projects Could Boost Output 3x More Than Building New Dams

J.L. — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:34:58 -0000

All the hydro facilities built before 1950 could get efficiency boosts like this: and guess what? All are controlled by the government. JL

Re: Researchers Reach Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Hang Heads, Come Back Home

J.L. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:16:05 -0000

Sorry to be the one to cast the first negative stone but now way is this every going to be cleaned up by some mechanical means. The energy and material inputs needed to float enough water through moving bar screens and micro-filtration devices, in equipment spread across the hundreds of thousands of square miles ocean, and at risk of storm damage...well its' just not going to happen. Never mind that there is absolutely no economic incentive for any private sector involvement at the required scale.,

Re: Friday's Big Green Question: is Climate Change Hijacking the Environmental Agenda?

J.L. — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:09:41 -0000

Yes, and it's unstoppable.

Re: Dept. of Energy Debunks Anti-Green Jobs Study Once and For All

J.L. — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:44:57 -0000

Reminds me of the infamous Niger "yellowcake" letter. Proving you can just make stuff up and enough people will believe it that it influences public policy. Sad.

Re: Packaging Fail: Apple Ships Code in a Freaking BOX!

J.L. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:41:02 -0000

In many cases over-packaged shipments are not done by employees of the OEM manufacturer. Likely to be done by a freight forwarder or contract warehouse working with one that serves many corporate clients.

That box may be the smallest one they had on hand, tailored for the bulk of the goods handled.

If OEM electronics makers all had to have their own warehouses and employees for these relatively infrequent or batch tasks like updating or replacing small items then not only would costs go up but the enviornmental footprint of operations also would.

.Easy to criticize harder to solve.

Re: China Says Keeping World Temp from Rising 2C is Unrealistic

J.L. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:12:13 -0000

Boycott time.

Re: Oops! Montreal Protocol Solutions May Be Causing Global Warming

J.L. — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:35:10 -0000

It always cracks me up when the manufacturers of fluorchemicals and compressor equipment cite the fire dangers of using pentane or butane as refrigerants. The biggest of compressors would only use a few pounds of flammable refrigerant, a kitchen refrigerator only a few ounces - because the hydrocarbons have a much higher heat transfer capacities than R22 or 134a do for example.

Yet right across the kitchen from the frig sits a gas stove with infinite leaking/fire creating capacity. And across the basement from the chiller sits a gas furnace and gas fired water heater - both of which have near infinite leak/fire potentiality.

They're telling us we can cook and heat with the far more volatile and explosive methane..while using the less volatile and less flammable hydrocarabons is toooooo risky for chillers. What bogus thinking. Do they really think we are that dumb? THIS IS ALL ABOUT MARKET SHARE PROTECTION.

Re: http://www.crimene.ws/2007/11/joran-van-der-sloot.html

J.L. — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 21:17:38 -0000

I like it. Short, sweet, to the point. And unforgivably stupid.

For everyone else, look to Rich's post as a lesson in English composition. Instead of writing diatribes about the various methods of execution that you would like to try on Sloot, try writing random requests combined with thinly veiled threats; you don't lose any substance anyway, and it ends up taking far less time out of your jam-packed schedule of masturbation, uh...masturbation, and more masturbation. (masturbation, in this case, means anything you do to stroke your ego and raise your justifiably faltering self-esteem.

Re: http://www.crimene.ws/2007/11/joran-van-der-sloot.html

J.L. — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:49:35 -0000

ooh. Look at what we have here. A fundamentalist Christian and a cretin who doesn't know how to read.
1. I can say Jesus fucking Christ as many times as I want. It's not that I dislike Christianity or religion, but that it seems to be the entire basis of your criticism, which is irrelevant to the topic. I like Christians like you, but next time, try to find some valid point with which to debunk or otherwise invalidate my argument.
2. The only reason you appear to be patronizing me as an idiot is because I don't adhere to your view. Either that, or you can't read. What I said has nothing to do with whether Joran is guilty or not, and has nothing to do with "know[ing] nothing". The Arubans believe Joran is guilty? BIG FUCKING DEAL. All the black people are voting for Obama. Is there a good reason for it?
And with all this speculation you're doing, I wouldn't be surprised if you believed in Loose Change, or UFOs.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Susan Maddern. Or should I say, God. Because only God would know for sure if Joran is guilty when all the evidence secured by the police is still inconclusive.
Hmm, a good reason why this kid is innocent? Why don't you give me one good reason why you're innocent?
I guess there's no reason to have that damned legal system when there's noble citizens like you running lynch mobs.

The biggest problem with you motherfuckers is your hypocrisy (lack of logic and constant moral grandstanding come in second). Talk all you want about how sorry you feel for Natalee Holloway, but when it comes to Joran, he's just an "animal", and deserves to be slaughtered and burnt in hell. Or worse, sentenced to life in prison. Congratulations, you all tie for first place in hypocrisy.

In cases such as these, I'd normally suggest that you commit collective suicide. However, this time, I'll suggest something more drastic: ditch the supercilious attitude. Don't think of criminals in a dichotomous way, just because it pleases your ego to do so.
If you still haven't been convinced, let's look at it in a logical manner. Holloway's family are undoubtedly devastated by her murder, which all of you sympathize with. I'm betting that Sloot's family would feel much the same way if he gets executed in any of the creative way you people suggest. So as a result, from this one incident, you create twice the amount of misery as you would without executing the poor guy.

In fact, your true reasons behind clamoring for Joran's execution seem to be based entirely on hate. Maybe none of you personally know the kid, but you hate him nonetheless for being a raucous, irresponsible poseur (as shown by his myspace).
Now, there's nothing wrong with hate. But there is something wrong with people who confuse hate with justice.

You people are no different than those who condemned Fatty Arbuckle in the 20's.

Your dearly beloved,
JL

P.S. I AM a kid, and that just makes it all the more pathetic. It's sad when actual adults engage in this sort of bandwagon, groupthink behavior.

Re: http://www.crimene.ws/2007/11/joran-van-der-sloot.html

J.L. — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 16:26:59 -0000

Friended is a term used on myspace. It's the process of adding someone to your buddy list. Duhr.

I was in quite the rage when I typed that last comment, but my spelling is still superior (SUPERIOR. Go ahead and flame me now.) percentage-wise compared to the other posts here. My post was also lengthier than most, thus exponentially increasing the chances of spelling errors.
By the way, Barbie, it's gall, not gaul.
Gaul is France.

And here's a newsflash for all you firm believers in the twisted judicial system: people are kept up for days straight when under interrogation. Plenty of false confessions have been extracted under such duress.
Really, you people are just being assholes when you demand that a sentence of death or life without parole be handed down to this kid. Your pedantic and cretinous behaviors are more deserving of death than the foolish actions of this poor kid. You're not being righteous and upstanding when you recommend that a kid barely in his 20s be put on death row. You're being a SELF-righteous douchebag (yes, douchebag, the way we spell it in the vernacular. And while I'm on the topic, spellcheck is spelled spellcheck in microsoft word. Or, to be specific, SpellCheck.). People who commit murder in their 50s don't get a fucking death sentence even though they'll probably be dead within 30 years anyways. Yet you're asking for the death of a kid half that age.
Jesus fucking Christ, and you call me cruel.

But what really bugs me is your collective tendency to play fucking amateur psychologist. He's not a compulsive liar. He's protecting his goddamn life. Anyone would lie like a rug to keep from being jailed for life.

You're not part of the investigation. You don't know the facts. You only know what the police have decided to release. Most of all, you're not fucking God/YHWH/Allah/Xenu (lolz). So therefore (and I hate to get moralistic too), you don't have any goddamn rights to pronounce that kid guilty (I assume you meant guilty when you said quility.)

The whole legal system is perverted, and mostly because of spiteful assholes like you (all). The system is meant to protect the public, not to carry out its vendettas.

Holloway is dead. Sloot is not. His death won't bring her back. And even if it could, there's no guarantee that it would be a beneficial trade-off.

I pray to all the deities that ever existed that Sloot doesn't go on trial with a jury, because if he does, it'll doubtless be filled with douchebags like you.
Anonymous is not your personal army. And neither is the law.

Re: http://www.crimene.ws/2007/11/joran-van-der-sloot.html

J.L. — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:34:59 -0000

This is utterly ridiculous. Psychics? A wannabe Sigmund Jr.? Why don't you all just SHUT THE FUCK UP?
Your high-handed criticisms and 'insights' are not only unfounded, but downright cretinous. Especially Bay.
OOO so he likes to friend joke profiles like Jeffrey Dahmer (I friended Kim Jong Il...somewhat disappointed when I found out it was some college kid) And who gives a crap that he reads about serial killers? Everyone watches shows like CSI and Law and Order. Not much of a difference when you're reading it online. but ZOMG because he's been implicated in this retarded case, this innocent curiousity is turned into signs of being psychotic and possibly batshit insane!!!! And whats more, he likes to pretend to be a cool tough and a playboy! Anyone who acts like a douchebag must be a murderer. Duh.
But seriously Bay, GFY. Mary's comment is at least tolerable and somewhat humorous. Yours just annoys the shit out of me. Get some brains, or at the very least, use spellcheck. Your punctuation and capitalization is atrocious. I don't have the inclination or time to go through the rest of your pseudo-intellectual rot, such as Sloot's obvious case of schizophrenia and his smug remarks (ironic, since 'smug' is exactly the word i would use to describe your little diatribe. lol pwned u hypocrite), but I'll leave you with this: HAHA ROFLMAO RETAAAAARRRRRDDDD. The only thing split here is your anus, a result of fucking too many black men.

But who gives a shit anyways? It's a dead American blonde, and not even a hot one at that.

Re: [guide] SMS Ton

J.L. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:13:59 -0000

Also ich frag mich gerade, warum eigentlich keiner die Variante mit GarageBand nutzt? Praktischer geht ja kaum? Schön auf die richtige Länge schneiden, sauber ausblenden, die tieferen Bässe herausfiltern, weil das Handy die eh nicht sauber übertragen kann und dann einfach in GarageBand auf den iPhone Knopf drücken...

Ich find das überzeugend - zumindest wenn man nen Mac hat :-)

Re: ‘Hostile’ Dallas crowd harasses Nuggets families, friends

J.L. — Tue, 12 May 2009 19:38:10 -0000

The fans at the arena are classless. I remember the 2007 playoffs when Jason Richardson was called racist names after hitting a corner 3 unprovoked.

Re: Let's Roll

J.L. — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:55:47 -0000

Yesterday, while driving up for his cousin's funeral, my husband stopped at the Flight 93 Memorial. He arrived after the pontificating, after the services, after the moments of silence and the tolling of bells at the hour and minute of the crash. He said there were only about a hundred people still there, one of them the sister of one of the victims, who looked so much like her late sister that it was eerie. As he told me about his visit on the phone (my auto accident 8 weeks before prohibited me from making the trip with him), his voice was hushed. He described the temporary memorial constructed there, as well as the planned permanent structure. He said the scar on the ground from the crash was no longer evident, and it almost seemed like sacrilege that such a horror had occurred on this little flat spot in the midst of peaceful rolling hills. It was horrifyingly wrong that this patch of beauty was the site of such unspeakable horror and incredible honor.

As we talked, he was walking back to his car. I said that NYC would forever have the horror of so many deaths, for there were so many at one time. But in that small field outside Shanksville, there was the final triumph of American heroes on that day. Not that I felt that the loss of so many EMS, FD, PD and other rescue personnel was any less of a sacrifice, but AD, you're right. It's the nature of the job. Danger is inherent. I applaud those who went up the tower stairs when every human emotion would've screamed for self-preservation. I suspect, for them, such work is a calling, and so those instincts are ignored. And those men and women knew the dangers when they signed on. Does the fact that it was their duty make it any less heroic to me? I suppose not, but it was still what they were supposed to do. I ache for their families, who are undoubtedly still grieving, just like anyone else touched by 9/11.

The real heroes to me, though, are those 40 passengers on Flight 93. Yes, their lives were in essence "taken" from them at the moment the hijackers overtook the plane. But rather than meekly accept that, rather than allow four men to dictate the lives and ends of ten times as many people, and KNOWING what they were about to do would likely be their last act on earth (as shown by Todd Beamer's final phone call to his wife), they acted.

They used what they had at their disposal to fight off men with guns, men bent on destruction. How many of us, even outnumbering gunmen like the passengers did, would have fought back, knowing that the sole aim was to keep that jet from Washington? How many lives did they save?

There's the difference for me. They could have meekly accepted their fates. Instead, they chose a course of action, in angry defense of their country and their countrymen, that they knew would bring about almost certain death. Yes, they would have died either way. But there's a difference between sitting there and letting someone pull the trigger of the gun at your temple and fighting back to save your life or the lives of countless others, and taking the bullet anyway.

The terrorists on Flight 93 made the mistake of screwing with Americans who weren't about to take it lying down. Those men and women are my heroes. Todd Beamer knew he was likely going to make his wife a widow, and still said, "Let's roll." They refused to just sit there. They fought back.

As my husband got to his car, he saw a father with his little girl in the parking lot, overlooking the field and the tent and the memorial. The girl was 7 or 8. Her father gestured to the sky, and then the flat expanse of ground where the jet was brought down. Not old enough to know the story or to remember the day, that girl.

Here, I imagine her father said, here is where heroes died.