Author Archives: Gaberilla Eve

Ukraine belatedly seeks renewable energy as weapon against Russia

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on April 21, 2014

Ukraine belatedly seeks renewable energy as weapon against Russia

By

Shutterstock

It took a military invasion to get Ukrainian leaders to look seriously at renewable energy.

Ukraine is buying up as much natural gas as it can from Russia before its military tormentors cut off the spigot. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that his Eastern European neighbor had a month to pay its back bills or be forced to start paying in advance for its gas. Bloomberg analyzed energy data and reported Monday that Ukrainians nearly trebled their daily gas imports following Putin’s statement.

But the crisis hasn’t just triggered a fossil fuel buying spree. It has prompted Ukrainian officials to reimagine their embattled nation’s very energy future. From a separate Bloomberg article:

Ukraine is seeking U.S. investment in its biomass, wind and solar power industries. The idea is to use renewable energy to curb its reliance on fuel imports from Russia, which annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region last month and has troops massed on the border.

“Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine indeed brought energy security concerns to the fore,” Olexander Motsyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., said at a renewable-energy conference at his country’s embassy in Washington yesterday. “I strongly believe the time has come for U.S. investors to discover Ukraine, especially its energy.” …

[T]he Energy Industry Research Center said Ukraine’s heating supply accounts for about 40 percent of all gas imported from Russia, which could be replaced with renewable energy within three to five years.

Unfortunately, the Ukrainians are a little late getting started on a green energy blitz. By 2030, hopefully long after military tensions have eased, the country could be getting just 15 percent of its energy supply from renewables, the Energy Industry Research Center estimates — up from a miserable 2 percent today.


Source
Ukraine Boosts Russian Gas Imports as Prepayment Threat Looms, Bloomberg
Ukraine Seeks Renewable-Energy Boost to Counter Russia, Bloomberg

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Ukraine belatedly seeks renewable energy as weapon against Russia

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WATCH: How Pundits’ Ukraine Talking Points Gloss Over the Real Issues Fiore Cartoon

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on March 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a website featuring his work.

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WATCH: How Pundits’ Ukraine Talking Points Gloss Over the Real Issues Fiore Cartoon

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Big polluters tell Supreme Court they’re worried for Chinese restaurateurs

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on February 25, 2014

Big polluters tell Supreme Court they’re worried for Chinese restaurateurs

By

Thomas Hawk

The country’s worst climate polluters don’t want to have their carbon dioxide emissions reined in by the federal government. They’ve already tried and failed to convince the Supreme Court that the Clean Air Act doesn’t apply to CO2. So in court on Monday, they claimed to be worried that the EPA could, theoretically, crack down on CO2 produced by everything from Dunkin’ Donuts stores and Chinese restaurants to high school football games. And that would be crazy, so the EPA’s authority to regulate CO2 should be curbed.

The attorney representing conservative states, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and major polluters argued before the Supreme Court that the Obama administration erred when it set up a regulatory framework under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources of carbon dioxide, deciding to regulate emissions from major polluters like power plants and factories but not from tens of millions of small operations. The conservative coalition contends that a correct interpretation of the law should see smalltime polluters subjected to the same rules as big polluters — which everyone agrees would be absurd. So the polluters’ attorney told the Supreme Court that Congress should be called on to set new CO2-pollution rules — that it shouldn’t be up to the EPA to decide who is and who isn’t subject to such rules.

The Clean Air Act dictates that facilities need permits from the EPA if their air pollution exceeds 100 tons a year, or 250 tons in some cases. But, as The Christian Science Monitor explains, “The problem with these thresholds when applied to a greenhouse gas (like carbon dioxide) is that greenhouse gases are emitted at much higher volumes than traditional air pollutants. One hundred tons per year of sulfur dioxide is the rough equivalent of 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide, experts say.” So the EPA set a higher threshold. For CO2 pollution to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, the EPA decided that a polluter must pump out more than 75,000 or 100,000 tons a year.

The New York Times reports on some of the absurdity from Monday’s hearing:

Jonathan F. Mitchell, the solicitor general of Texas, which challenged the regulations along with other states, said a faithful interpretation of the statute would require that its permit requirements be imposed “on the corner deli or the Chinese restaurant or a high school building.” …

Justice Breyer and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wondered if the law might reach high school football games.

Why are polluters so focused on these trivialities? As Grist’s Ben Adler explained, these hardcore global warmers had attempted to convince the court to hear a variety of more far-reaching challenges to the government’s regulation of carbon dioxide, but the vast majority of those challenges were rejected. Pretending to care about a hypothetical EPA crackdown on climate-changing Chinese restaurants and local sporting events is the best shot these guys have left.

The Times reports that at Monday’s hearing “the justices seemed divided along ideological lines over whether [the EPA’s approach] was a sensible accommodation or an impermissible exercise of executive authority.” A ruling in this case, called Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, is expected in June.


Source
For the Supreme Court, a Case Poses a Puzzle on the E.P.A.’s Authority, The New York Times
Supreme Court takes up challenge to Obama and the EPA, The Christian Science Monitor
Carbon Copy: Understanding What Is, and Is Not, At Stake in the Latest Supreme Court Climate Case, NRDC’s Switchboard

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Big polluters tell Supreme Court they’re worried for Chinese restaurateurs

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Yarr! Russia says Greenpeace protesters are pirates

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on September 25, 2013

Yarr! Russia says Greenpeace protesters are pirates

By

Denis Sinyakov / Greenpeace

Russian Coast Guard officers responded to Greenpeace with water cannons, guns and a mass arrest.

Greenpeace activists last week scaled the Prirazlomnaya platform, the first of many offshore Arctic oil platform planned in Russian waters. The protesters, perched high above the frigid waters, were forced down with water cannons. Armed officers boarded Greenpeace’s icebreaker, and arrested all 30 activists.

The demonstration was designed to bring international attention to Russia’s burgeoning plans to allow Big Oil to drill in its offshore waters (onshore drilling is already widespread). ExxonMobil and Statoil are among the companies planning to take part in the precarious deepwater plunder.

Obviously, the 30 activists are not pirates. Pirates are seafaring robbers. Yet that’s what some Russian law enforcement authorities are claiming, and that’s how the Greenpeace arrestees may be charged.

“Yarr, maties, we’ve come to loot your oil drill! Wait, whar’s the treasure?”

The environmentalists could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison and fined $15,000 apiece if found guilty of trumped-up piracy charges. From Reuters:

Environmental activists who protested at an offshore oil platform in the Russian Arctic last week will be prosecuted, possibly for piracy which is punishable by up to 15 years’ jail, Russian investigators said on Tuesday.

They said the “attack,” in which Greenpeace activists tried scaling the Gazprom-owned Prirazlomnaya platform, Russia’s first offshore Arctic oil platform, had violated Russian sovereignty.

“When a foreign ship full of electronic equipment intended for unknown purposes and a group of people, declaring themselves to be environmental activists, try to storm a drilling platform there are legitimate doubts about their intentions,” the investigators said in a statement.

Even President Vladimir Putin spoke out against the ludicrous notion that these people are pirates. ”It is absolutely evident that they are, of course, not pirates, but formally they were trying to seize this platform,” Putin said at an Arctic forum, according to a separate Reuters report. “It is evident that those people violated international law.”

And while we’re discussing harebrained Russian claims, one official said Greenpeace had endangered the area’s wildlife and its ecology, which “is being protected zealously” by Russia. Right.

Greenpeace, meanwhile, decried the authorities’ treatment of the protesters. From the BBC:

The environmental organisation said its protest against “dangerous Arctic oil drilling” was peaceful and in line with its “strong principles.”

“Our activists did nothing to warrant the reaction we’ve seen from the Russian authorities,” it said.

The multinational makeup of the protesters is helping deliver a storm of worldwide press coverage. The protesters are from 18 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and Russia. Consular officials have interviewed some of those who were arrested.

Putin’s Russia is not the best place to be jailed for protest. While the Greenpeace drama unfolded, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of the Pussy Riot members who was sentenced to two years in Russian jail for singing a song that asked the Virgin Mary to throw Putin out of power, has been moved to solitary confinement as punishment for a hunger strike. Tolokonnikova was protesting “slave labor” and the treatment of “women like cattle” in jail.

We’ll see whether pseudo-piracy provokes similarly disproportionate treatment.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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Yarr! Russia says Greenpeace protesters are pirates

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WATCH: No Keystone Pipeline? There are Plenty of Keystone Clones Fiore Cartoon

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on August 16, 2013

Mother Jones

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Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a website featuring his work.

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WATCH: No Keystone Pipeline? There are Plenty of Keystone Clones Fiore Cartoon

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Friday Cat Blogging – 2 August 2013

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on August 2, 2013

Mother Jones

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Remember that great picture of Domino sitting on the front porch silhouetted against our garden a couple of months ago? Well, this is actually one of her favorite spots—mainly because we recently bought a new doormat that’s kind of stiff and bristly, and she loves going out there to roll around and scratch her chin on it. Whenever she does, I grab my camera and take a few pictures, hoping someday to get a shot where she’s actually looking at me instead of away from me. This is surprisingly hard, because when she’s looking in my direction, I normally only get one shot off before she sees the lens and bustles over to demand some human attention.

Anyway, I am nothing if not determined, in a lazy sort of way, and for weeks now I’ve been doing this late in the day when the sun backlights both garden and cat. Finally, a few days ago, I got a decent picture. Just this one. Enjoy.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 2 August 2013

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House Republicans Stand Up For the Ceiling Fan Lobby

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on July 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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House Republicans are incensed about new energy efficiency standards for ceiling fans. “We’ve already seen the federal government stretch their regulatory tentacles into our homes and determine what kind of light bulbs we have to use,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in a speech earlier this month. “Now they’re coming after our ceiling fans.”

“It is a sad state of affairs when even our ceiling fans aren’t safe from this administration,” she continued. “Enough is enough.”

The Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office (EERE) released a framework for updating rules on ceiling fans in March. The 101-page document is full of discussion points about how exactly to define “ceiling fan,” whether fans that are merely “decorative” should qualify for regulation, and how the DOE should go about testing the efficiency of fans. It’s hardly a Marxist takeover of your home air circulation system; it’s only the first step in a three-year process to write new rules that will include several drafts and public comment periods.

But Blackburn and colleague Todd Roika (R-Ind.) say they’re waging a “fight to save our ceiling fans” from the big, scary Obama administration. Their effort has been covered by a number of outlets, including NPR and The Hill, and it led to a House vote of approval for an appropriations measure that blocked funding for the DOE to enforce fan standards.

But what Blackburn doesn’t mention is that she voted for the 2005 Energy Bill that kicked off the rule-making process for ceiling fans. And that bill was signed into law by noted radical environmentalist George W. Bush.

“She was for standards before she was against them,” said Marianne DiMascio of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project. “This bill was bipartisan effort.”

Asked for comment about the 2005 vote, Blackburn’s office sent a statement indicating that she would support efficiency standards—as long as they didn’t inconvenience the industry too much. “I support increased efficiency in American households but only as technology and innovation becomes readily available that can be supported and is needed by a consumer driven market. The ceiling fan industry already faces regulations that were codified in 2005,” said Blackburn in a statement. “Additional regulations, like those that were discussed in the Department of Energy’s rulemaking framework document, most likely will have an adverse impact by pricing consumers out of the ceiling fan market which in return would decrease household energy efficiency as consumers turn to less efficient methods to cool and light their homes.”

It probably doesn’t help that the largest fan company in the US, Hunter Fan Company, is based in Blackburn’s home state of Tennessee and is against improving efficiency standards, as Roll Call reported. Roika’s state is home to another large fan maker, Fanimation Inc.

Originally posted here: 

House Republicans Stand Up For the Ceiling Fan Lobby

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Snowden Update: Father Trying to Broker Deal to Return to U.S.

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on June 29, 2013

Mother Jones

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The latest on Edward Snowden:

He is a hero on Russian television programs, “which were almost certainly produced under Kremlin orders and have a powerful effect on public opinion.”

Ecuador is in a tizzy. They don’t want to be seen as knuckling under to the United States, but they also don’t want to be seen as a pawn of Julian Assange, who has championed Snowden’s case:

Mr. Assange’s role has raised hackles among Ecuadorean officials. In one of the internal correspondences, Ecuador’s ambassador to the U.S., Nathalie Cely, appeared to tell presidential spokesman Fernando Alvarado that communications should be handled better. “I suggest talking to Assange to better control the communications,” read a note addressed from Ms. Cely. “From outside…Assange appears to be ‘running the show.’ “

Snowden’s father is trying to broker a deal to bring him back to the United States:

In a letter to the Justice Department, Lonnie Snowden said through his attorney that his son wanted “ironclad assurances” he would not be held in jail before trial or subjected to a gag order, and would be allowed to choose where he would be tried on federal espionage charges….”We believe you share our objective of securing Edward’s voluntary return to the United States to face trial,” Washington attorney Bruce Fein wrote to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. on behalf of Snowden’s father.

Stay tuned. I’m off to get my weekly dose of exercise.

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Snowden Update: Father Trying to Broker Deal to Return to U.S.

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How Nasty Toxins Invade Child Care Centers

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on June 7, 2013

Nicole W.

on

Left-Pawed Dogs May Be More Aggressive

5 minutes ago

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How Nasty Toxins Invade Child Care Centers

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Former NSC Spox Talks About the Talking Points

by Gaberilla Eve Posted on May 15, 2013

Mother Jones

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Greg Sargent asked Tommy Vietor, who recently stepped down as the spokesman for the National Security Council, to provide his take on the whole Benghazi talking points affair. He got a long email in return in which Vietor admits some errors in how things were handled, but defends the NSC’s role in reconciling the various interests of different agencies: “the fact that the government edited these points,” he says, “isn’t surprising or at all nefarious – it’s routine.” Plus this:

One of the most frustrating parts of this discussion is the degree to which people now dismiss the impact of the Innocence of Muslims video. Our embassies in Cairo, Yemen and Sudan were attacked and seriously damaged. A western restaurant was torched in Lebanon. Dozens of countries experienced protests where scores of people died. Our troops in Afghanistan had to reduce their operational tempo and exposure as a preventative measure. Today, people act like the administration invented the issue. A 30-second scan of headlines from that week shows otherwise.

….Some allege that edits were made in an effort to downplay the role of al Qaeda or to try and sell a political narrative of rapidly normalizing ties with Libya. That’s just not true….The charge that there was an administration effort to “sell” a normalization narrative in Libya is nonsensical. There just isn’t a political angle here. No voter went to the polls thinking, I don’t like Obama, but boy we have a much better relationship with Tripoli now than we did a few years ago so he’s getting my vote. It’s just silly.

These two points can hardly be made strongly enough. There’s no question that the “Innocence of Muslims” video played a big role in outbreaks of violence across the Middle East during the week of September 11—including the protests in Cairo—and the CIA talking points suggested from the very beginning that the violence in Benghazi was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.” So when Susan Rice suggested that the video had played a role in sparking the Benghazi attacks, she was repeating something that, at the time, was disputed by no one in the intelligence community. See Bob Somerby for more on this.

It’s also true that the entire alleged motivation for downplaying terrorism has never made any sense. Vietor is precisely correct when he says that although the Obama administration “talked about how al Qaeda core in Afghanistan and Pakistan had been decimated,” they were also very clear “that there was a growing threat from AQAP and other affiliates.” The idea that, somehow, downplaying the terror angle would help Obama’s election chances never made any sense from the start. It’s just partisan nitwittery.

Anyway, read the whole thing. Vietor’s take is interesting throughout.

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Former NSC Spox Talks About the Talking Points

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