Author Archives: AntonioRe

"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

by AntonioRe Posted on November 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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Various Artists
Songs for Slim
New West

This dandy two-CD set is subtitled Rockin Here Tonight: A Benefit Compilation for Slim Dunlap, which says it all. Former Replacements guitarist Bob “Slim” Dunlap suffered a severe stroke in early 2012, prompting friends and admirers to launch a fund dedicated to his care. Songs for Slim is one part of their efforts. Most of the cuts are covers of little-known, ’90s-era Dunlap compositions, which are raucous, funny and tender, and well deserving of belated discovery.

The first disc compiles the 18 tracks originally featured on limited-edition 45s that were auctioned earlier this year. Among the highlights: the reunited Replacements’ “Busted Up”; John Doe’s stomping “Just for the Hell of It”; the swaggering “Ain’t Exactly Good,” from underrated, long-running Australian band You Am I; and Drive-By Trucker Patterson Hood’s poignant “Hate This Town.” (There’s also Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and more.) The second disc offers previously unreleased performances, including a dreamy reading of “When I Fall Down” by Replacement Chris Mars, and for you old-timers, there’s “Love Lost,” by The West Saugerties Ale & Quail Club, with none other than Lovin’ Spoonful leader John Sebastian on harmonica.

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"Songs for Slim" Is an All-Star Benefit for the Replacements’ Ailing Guitarist. It’s Good, Too.

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This Supreme Court Case Could Usher In a “System of Legalized Corruption”

by AntonioRe Posted on October 8, 2013

Mother Jones

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Tuesday in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a case that’s been dubbed “the next Citizens United.” The plaintiff, GOP donor Shaun McCutcheon, and his conservative allies say the case is about getting rid of restrictions on political spending that stifle free speech. Campaign finance watchdogs, meanwhile, fear the case could eviscerate an important piece of what’s left of the federal laws governing money in politics. McCutcheon, says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, will decide “whether we return to the system of legalized corruption we have had in the past and that has led to some of the worst Washington corruption scandals in the nation’s history.”

Here’s what you need to know about the case.

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This Supreme Court Case Could Usher In a “System of Legalized Corruption”

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Abandoned Russian farmland soaks up 50 million tons of carbon every year

by AntonioRe Posted on October 4, 2013

Abandoned Russian farmland soaks up 50 million tons of carbon every year

By

carlfbagge

An abandoned grain processor that dates back to Soviet era.

When the USSR collapsed, the communal farming systems that helped feed the union’s citizens collapsed with it. Farmers abandoned 1 million acres of farmland and headed into the cities in search of work.

New research by European scientists has revealed the staggering climate benefits of that sweeping change in land use. According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, wild vegetation growing on former USSR farming lands has sucked up approximately 50 million tons of carbon every year since 1990.

New Scientist reports that’s equivalent to 10 percent of Russia’s yearly fossil fuel carbon emissions:

“Everything like this makes a difference,” says Jonathan Sanderman, a soil chemist at CSIRO Land and Water in Australia. “Ten per cent is quite a bit considering most nations are only committed to 5 per cent reduction targets. So by doing absolutely nothing — by having depressed their economy — they’ve achieved quite a bit.”

He says the abandoned farmland is probably the largest human-made carbon sink, but notes it came at the cost of enormous social and economic hardship.

Modelling the effect into the future, [study co-author Irina] Kurganova estimates that, since the land has remained uncultivated, another 261 million tonnes will be sequestered over the next 30 years. At this point, the landscape will reach equilibrium, with the same amount of carbon escaping into the atmosphere as is being taken up.

The finding is a stark reminder of how Earth does a bang-up job of soaking up carbon if we leave more of it undeveloped and un-farmed.


Source
Fall of USSR locked up world’s largest store of carbon, New Scientist
Carbon cost of collective farming collapse in Russia, Global Change Biology

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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Abandoned Russian farmland soaks up 50 million tons of carbon every year

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On Syria Debate, Congress Shifts From Frenzied to Frozen

by AntonioRe Posted on September 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday night, President Obama took his case for bombing Syria to the American public, but he also kept open the possibility that US attacks could be averted if Bashar al-Assad’s regime agrees to give up its chemical weapons. Obama asked lawmakers to delay a vote on whether to approve attacks on Syria, and just like that, the Syria debate in Congress went from frenzied to frozen. It’s crickets on Capitol Hill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) canceled the vote on Syria he was expected to schedule for this week. The Senate canceled an afternoon briefing on Syria. Lawmakers instead gathered on the US Capitol steps for a remembrance of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and trotted out onto House and Senate floors to opine on the budget, Obamacare, 9/11, and the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013. On Syria, they mostly waited. “Everyone’s just sitting around,” says a Senate Democratic aide.

That’s quite a change from the past week or so. To build support for bombing Syria, the White House threw practically every staffer and surrogate into the lobbying effort, briefing congressional Democrats and Republicans and trying mightily to convince skeptical lawmakers why they should vote yes on an authorization to use military force in Syria. The mighty American Israel Public Affairs Committee dispatched 300 members to the Hill to twist arms and convince lawmakers to support the attacks. By Monday, the president and members of the administration had met with some 85 senators and more than 165 House members, according to PBS NewsHour. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort—and it wasn’t working.

Obama’s Tuesday night speech to the American public was, among other things, a timeout call. By looks of Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Congress is more than happy to take a breather and put off, for now, what was sure to be a divisive vote for both parties.

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On Syria Debate, Congress Shifts From Frenzied to Frozen

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80+ Items You Can Compost

by AntonioRe Posted on August 4, 2013

Taken from – 

80+ Items You Can Compost

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U.S. trees burned in British coal plants count as renewable energy. WTF?

by AntonioRe Posted on May 29, 2013

U.S. trees burned in British coal plants count as renewable energy. WTF?

By John Upton

ShutterstockiPhone chargers in waiting.

Follow this if you can: Wood from U.S. trees is being shipped over to the U.K., where coal power plants burn it, producing more greenhouse gas emissions than when those same plants generate an equivalent amount of electricity by burning coal.

The weirdest part? This doubly destructive practice is being subsidized in the U.K. to help the country meet its renewable energy targets. WTF?

The BBC explains that when pine trees are grown in America, the best trunks are cut up for wood planks and sold as timber. Much of the rest of the wood is either used for wood pulp or gets chopped up to be used as fuel. Because the wood chips are considered a renewable energy source by the British government, great piles are being shipped over to England to be burned.

“It is the massive scale of this operation that so alarms environmentalists,” BBC environment reporter Roger Harrabin said in a segment aired Tuesday. “Environmentalists say it is madness to be growing trees in the U.S.A. to be keeping the lights on in Britain. But this industy is helping the U.K. meet its targets on renewable energy.”

From a recent article in Power Engineering International:

In November 2012, the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace called on the UK government to cancel plans to subsidise the burning of trees in coal power stations. The RSPB report ‘Dirtier Than Coal?’ says that generating power from typical conifer trees results in 49 per cent more emissions than burning coal, and calls on the government to withdraw public subsidy for generating from feedstock derived from tree trunks.

Biomass generation is booming on the back of climate change legislation and incentives. …

These differ from country to country. As the sector becomes better developed, sophisticated distinctions may have to be built in to encourage the use of biomass that is environmentally and economically sustainable with an acceptable carbon payback period.

In May 2010 the US Environmental Protection Agency decided to include greenhouse gas emissions from biomass energy in its greenhouse gas permit programme. This would treat CO2 emissions from biomass generation and fossil fuels equally. But successful lobbying by the forestry industry led the EPA to defer implementation for three years while it considers how biomass emissions should be determined.

Burning trees for electricity certainly gives new meaning to the term “green energy” – insomuch as it isn’t green at all. Well, I suppose the trees were once green? I guess they’ve got us there.

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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