Author Archives: Roger Frost

Climate change hurts women. Wall Street Journal sneers.

by Roger Frost Posted on May 1, 2013

Climate change hurts women. Wall Street Journal sneers.

By John Upton

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Donya Nedomam

Women in the developing world, many of whom work in agriculture, are vulnerable to climate change.

Apparently the idea of girls being sold off into early marriage and women being pushed into prostitution is fucking hilarious.

Or so thinks the right-wing media machine, confronted this week with warnings about the negative ways climate change could affect women around the world.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and 11 other House Democrats, both men and women, introduced a resolution that aims to raise awareness about the vulnerability of women and girls to global warming.

From the resolution [PDF], via The Hill:

Whereas climate change exacerbates issues of scarcity and lack of accessibility to primary natural resources, forest resources, and arable land for food production, thereby contributing to increased conflict and instability, as well as the workload and stresses on women farmers, who are estimated to produce 60 to 80 percent of the food in most developing countries; …

Whereas food insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health; …

The resolution lists many other threats and goes on to encourage the president to “integrate a gender approach in all policies and programs in the United States that are globally related to climate change” and to “ensure that those policies and programs support women globally to prepare for, build resilience for, and adapt to climate change.”

Heavy stuff, right? And it’s heavy stuff that’s not often talked about. The resolution got some people in politics and the media to consider these issues for the first time.

But conservative commentators decided against spending too much time thinking about it. They jumped right to snickering about the sex references. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the resolution in a mocking piece with the headline, “Baby, It’s Warm Outside,” and the subhed, “The climate is changing. Lock up your daughters.” The first paragraph:

Is “climate change” corrupting the morals of women around the world? That’s a question nobody is asking if ever there was one, yet a dozen left-wing congressmen, led by Rep. Barbara Lee of California, are answering in the affirmative.

The Daily Caller followed right up with “Democrats: Global warming means more hookers.”

Needless to say, Lee has been unimpressed by some of the coverage, particularly by the near singular focus on sex work. She told the Los Angeles Times that “it’s unfortunate that this resolution has been misrepresented as to its goals.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie 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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Climate change hurts women. Wall Street Journal sneers.

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Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples

by Roger Frost Posted on April 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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John Bunker Séan Alonzo Harris

Every fall at Maine’s Common Ground Country Fair, the Lollapalooza of sustainable agriculture, John Bunker sets out a display of eccentric apples. Last September, once again, they covered every possible size, shape, and color in the wide world of appleness. There was a gnarled little yellow thing called a Westfield Seek-No-Further; a purplish plum impostor called a Black Oxford; a massive, red-streaked Wolf River; and one of Thomas Jefferson’s go-to fruits, the Esopus Spitzenburg. Bunker is known in Maine as “The Apple Whisperer,” or simply “The Apple Guy,” and, after laboring for years in semi-obscurity, he has never been in more demand. Through the catalog of Fedco Trees, a mail-order company he founded in Maine 30 years ago, Bunker has sown the seeds of a grassroots apple revolution.

All weekend long, I watched people gravitate to what Bunker (“Bunk” to his friends, a category that seems to include half the population of Maine) calls “the vibrational pull” of a table laden with bright apples. “Baldwin!” said a tiny old man with white hair and intermittent teeth, pointing to a brick-red apple that was one of America’s most important until the frigid winter of 1933-34 knocked it into obscurity. “That’s the best!”

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Why Your Supermarket Only Sells 5 Kinds of Apples

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House Republicans Introduce Yet Another Cunning Plot to Destroy Obamacare

by Roger Frost Posted on April 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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Ed Kilgore points us today to the latest state-of-the-art healthcare thinking from conservatives. House Republicans have a plan to take money away from Obamacare implementation and shift it to a high-risk pool that’s currently underfunded. Some conservatives are apparently objecting to this because they think it “fixes” Obamacare and they want nothing to do with that. One of the bill’s supporters sets them straight:

Instead, it effectively cannibalizes ObamaCare to impede its implementation. The bill would transfer $4,000,000,000 (four billion dollars) from an ObamaCare implementation slush fund to a program called the Pre-Existing Condition Plan, or PCIP. The slush fund is a big pot of money the Administration is using to set up exchanges in states that refuse to set them up (a resistance we’ve strongly encouraged).

….PCIP is not, in itself, a good program. But if Congress had enacted only PCIP in 2010, instead of ObamaCare, America would be in a much, much better place today. Now, I agree with those conservatives who hold that preex pool programs should be state- rather than federally run. But the harm here is slight, because PCIP is scheduled to expire on December 31st of this year. It’s a temporary subsidy, remember.

There’s an almost charming honesty to this. Here’s the plan:

  1. Take money away from the program to set up federal exchanges.
  2. Use the money to temporarily fund an admittedly crappy program.
  3. Victory! By 2014, the crappy program will be gone and federal exchanges won’t exist. Obamacare will be in tatters.

I can’t respond too much better than Ed: “Pretty plain, eh? Give sick people without insurance temporary access to crappy private plans at exorbitant rates as part of a strategy aimed at pulling the rug out from under them entirely at the end of the year, all the while mewling about one’s concern for sick people.”

I hear a lot these days about “reformist” conservatives who are trying to move the Republican Party in a new, more serious direction. I’ve become pretty skeptical of this whole movement, which seems to be about an inch deep, but I’d be a lot less skeptical if they took on nonsense like this and actually fought it.

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House Republicans Introduce Yet Another Cunning Plot to Destroy Obamacare

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Solar Energy in Your Home

by Roger Frost Posted on April 12, 2013

Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. As far back as 5,000 years ago, people “worshiped” the sun. Ra, the sun-god, who was considered the first king of Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the sun-god Shamash was a major deity and was equated with justice. In Greece there were two sun deities, Apollo and Helios. We are now harnessing the sun’s power for our own use and it is considered one of the best sources of Green Energy.

Many newer homes are having energy panels installed on their roof tops for a percentage of the money earned by harvesting the solar energy. Solar cells are also called photovoltaic cells – or PV cells for short – and can be found on many small appliances, like calculators, and even on spacecraft. They were first developed in the 1950s for use on U.S. space satellites. They are made of silicon, a special type of melted sand.

Solar energy refers primarily to the use of solar radiation for practical ends. However, all renewable energies, other than geothermal and tidal, derive their energy from the sun. Environmentalists recommend this source of alternate energy the most has it is totally renewable and leaves no carbon footprint.

Canada is set to become one of the worlds biggest polluters with the ever increasing expansion of the Tar Sands. Many Canadians are embarrassed with Canada’s environmental record and would like to see a shift to Green Energy in the future. Still our hands are tied as “Harper” continues to pass legislation that circumvents environmental concerns in his rush to cozy up to big oil money. By the end of this century the cost of damage by extreme weather caused by global warming will pale when compared to the few dollars garnered from the oil sands.

Solar energy is lauded by environmentalists as an inexhaustible and renewable fuel source that is pollution and mostly noise free. The technology is utilized almost everywhere. For instance, solar cells generate energy for far-out places like satellites in Earth orbit and remote buildings deep in the Rocky Mountains as easily as they can power downtown buildings and futuristic cars.

The dry, sun-drenched desert areas of the southwestern United States hold enormous potential for large-scale deployment of solar energy facilities and systems. Solar energy can be used to generate electricity, monitor ecosystem conditions, pump water for livestock, and provide lighting and communications in remote desert areas. The DOE SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national initiative to make solar energy cost competitive with other forms of energy by the end of the decade. Reducing the installed cost of solar energy systems by about 75% will drive widespread, large-scale adoption of this renewable energy technology and restore U.S. leadership in the global clean energy race. Our governments have a hard time planning beyond their next election. The chances of them making any tough decisions politically is hard to imagine.

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Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

by Roger Frost Posted on April 8, 2013

Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Congratulations are in order for Italy, which last week acquired 43 wind and solar energy companies.

But this was not the result of a public scheme designed to reign in carbon emissions or put Italians in control of their energy future. It was the court-ordered consequence of an organized crime investigation — the biggest ever seizure of Mafia-linked assets.

From Agence France-Presse:

Italian police have seized assets worth $1.7bn from a Sicilian renewable energy developer in the biggest ever seizure of mafia-linked assets.

The police said on Wednesday that the assets, which include 43 wind and solar energy companies, 98 properties and 66 bank accounts, belonged to Vito Nicastri, a 57-year-old businessman nicknamed the “Lord of the Wind” for his prominent role in the business.

“This is a sector in which money can easily be laundered,” Arturo de Felice, head of Italy’s anti-Mafia agency, told SkyTG24 news channel.

“Operating in a grey area helped him build up his business over the years,” De Felice said.

It might be tempting to feel sympathetic toward a guy who pours ill-gotten funds into renewable energy. That temptation might evaporate, however, once you find out about some of the awful crimes he is accused of committing. Such as murdering his pregnant girlfriend. And it’s not just that the Mafia was investing crime proceeds in renewable energy — it was scamming the public out of subsidies intended to promote wind energy. From The Independent:

Nicastri … invested money made from extortion, drug sales and other illegal activities for the Sicilian Mafia’s most sought-after fugitive, Matteo Messina Denaro, who is believed to be the [Mafia syndicate] Cosa Nostra’s head boss.

In 2010, it emerged that Cosa Nostra was attempting to take millions of euros from both the Italian government and the European Union by snatching the generous grants on offer for investment in wind power and environmentally-friendly business.

General Antonio Girone, then head of the national anti-Mafia agency DIA, said Mr Nicastri had built up a huge alternative energy business at the behest of the organised crime syndicate.

In addition to halting the giant eco-scam, Italian prosecutors said the seizure of 66 bank accounts, as well as property and businesses, would be another body blow to Cosa Nostra’s leadership, which is already reeling from dozens of high-profile arrests in the past ten years.

So congratulations, Italians. Courtesy of the ongoing takedown of a reportedly very bad person, you have become the collective owners of some serious renewable energy generation capacity.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie 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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Italy seizes wind and solar trove from Mafia

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Insulation and Your Home

by Roger Frost Posted on April 4, 2013

Insulating your home properly will make your home more comfortable and energy efficient. The value of the insulation in your home is measured by its R value, which is its resistance to heat flow.

There are many types of insulation available and talking to an insulation expert may help you choose the right insulation for your home. Whether being installed in walls or in attics can have a huge difference in the type of insulation you should choose. Choose a supplier that carries all types to prevent being sold the product that he carries, rather than the one that is right for you.

If you have a brick home with blown in fiberglass insulation then it is more than likely your have mice living in your attic. Mice can climb straight up brick walls and enter through any tiny crack or hole to winter in your attic. If you have vinyl siding then you would be safe from climbing mice as its surface is too slippery for them.

Fiberglass insulation is made by jetting molten glass through tiny heated holes in a high-speed stream. The resulting fibers are drawn very thin and to great length. The fibers are then collected into a matte to produce fiberglass insulation.

The R values between blown in cellulose insulation and fiberglass insulation are the same but the thickness varies. On average, blown in cellulose insulation is 2-3 inches thinner than fiberglass insulation when both have the same R values. Both blown in cellulose insulation and fiberglass insulation perform well to insulate your home. However, regardless of which insulation you choose, the performance of the insulation varies greatly on the quality of workmanship. This is generally true more so for cellulose insulation than fiberglass insulation. in addition cellulose insulation could cause some corrosion on metal that it touches but can also insulate the entire cavity of the wall and flow around wall studs while fiberglass insulation may not cause corrosion but it can not flow around wall stubs as it has to be placed there. However, this is generally not done.

Blown in cellulose insulation is 2-3 times denser than fiberglass insulation. Studies comparing Blown in cellulose insulation Vs fiberglass insulation show that cellulose insulation was 38% tighter and required 26% less energy. A Princeton University study shows, a group of homes with blown in cellulose insulation in the walls had an average of 24.5% reduction of air infiltration compared to fiberglass insulation, with only the walls insulated. A similar study, the Leominster MA Housing Project for the Elderly found that, a building with blown in cellulose insulation compared to a building with R-13 fiberglass batt insulation in the walls and R-38 fiberglass batt insulation in the ceiling, had 40% lower leakage. However, when it comes to air infiltration, sheathing and drywall are better air barriers than any cavity insulation. Air infiltration barriers such as high-density polyethylene membranes are installed for this specific purpose.

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