Author Archives: tf942pe

What is Scott Pruitt so afraid of?

by tf942pe Posted on December 20, 2017

For a country that already imports 99 percent of its oil, France’s decision to end all new oil development and phase out existing projects by 2040 may not seem all that meaningful. The Guardian called it a “largely symbolic gesture.”

But actually, as geoscientist Erik Klemetti noted, France is committing to keeping a massive oil reservoir in the ground. The Paris Basin, a region in northern France, may contain nearly as much underground petroleum as the huge Bakken Formation in North Dakota. Extracting that oil and gas would require extensive fracking.

Klemetti calculates that France could extract 100 years worth of oil for the country by fully exploring the Paris Basin — which could contain, according to the top estimate, 5 billion barrels of oil. At current oil prices (around $58 per barrel), that’s worth about $290 billion.

Instead, France decided to say au revoir to oil and gas altogether.

Earlier this year, the country also announced it would ban internal combustion engines by 2040. With decisions like these, France is positioning itself on the right side of history. And it’s sending a message to a world that’s floundering on climate change: A more just and prosperous future is possible, and it doesn’t require the dirty fuels of the past.

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What is Scott Pruitt so afraid of?

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White House Vows to Respond to Petition Demanding Deportation of Justin Bieber

by tf942pe Posted on January 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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You’ve all heard that embattled Canadian pop star Justin Bieber was recently arrested for alleged drag racing and drunk driving. Now the Obama White House has promised to weigh in on the incident and resulting backlash.

In late 2011, the White House launched its We the People initiative, an online system in which anyone can create an account and petition the government. If a petition reaches a certain number of signatures (currently set at 100,000) within a month of its posting, the Obama administration’s own rules require White House staff to respond.

A new petition, created on January 23, has reached that threshold. It’s titled, “Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card,” and it reads:

We the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly represented in the world of pop culture. We would like to see the dangerous, reckless, destructive, and drug abusing, Justin Bieber deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nations youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our society.

(The petition is tagged under the issues of “criminal justice and law enforcement,” “human rights,” and “women’s issues.”)

The We the People page hosts a wide variety of petitions, including ones that focus on subjects such as AIDS prevention and mass shootings in America. But the White House also receives—and sometimes responds to—frivolous petitions, including one asking the Obama administration to build the Death Star and another calling for states to adopt Pokémon characters as state animals. (The latter was yanked from the government website.)

The usual White House rules indeed apply to the Bieber petition, Matt Lehrich, an assistant White House press secretary, confirms in an email to Mother Jones:

Every petition that crosses the threshold will be reviewed by the appropriate staff and receive a response. Response times vary based on total volume of petitions, subject matter, and a variety of other factors.

A previous White House petition called for the deportation of CNN host Piers Morgan because of his strong support for gun control in America. White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a response defending the First Amendment, and Morgan is still working in the United States.

We’ll see if the White House’s response has any impact on Bieber’s feelings about the Obama administration. As of the president’s reelection, things seemed pretty good:

But on a serious note, if you’d like to read about how Bieber’s case highlights the complexities of America’s deportation system, click here.

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White House Vows to Respond to Petition Demanding Deportation of Justin Bieber

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Nine Gifts the NSA Will Hate

by tf942pe Posted on December 24, 2013

Mother Jones

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In the wake of the Edward Snowden-enabled revelations about the reach of the surveillance state, your more privacy-sensitive loved ones may have spent the year discovering TOR, making the jump to mesh networks or encrypted email, or mumbling about converting their nest egg to Bitcoin.

But now that gift-giving season is well upon us, what’s left to get the security-obsessed person who already has it all? Tin foil hats have a timeless appeal, but here’s a short list of slightly more practical devices:

Camera-Detecting Armor

Surveillance Spaulder Demonstration

stml/Vimeo

London artist James Bridle has thought up a wearable device known as a “surveillance spaulder,” which—through infrared detection—would alert the wearer to surveillance cameras by triggering a small muscle reaction. While not “currently a functioning device,” he claims the device is more than possible given the correct components, power supply, and a little bit of tinkering.

Anti-Facial Recognition Hats

The Perfect Anti-Surveillance Hat?

CafePress

Concerned about having your face detected in photos or by security cameras? If Anonymous’ advice of wearing a mask or continuously tilting your head more than 15 degrees seems a little cumbersome, try the hactivists’ suggested DIY project of making an infrared LED-fitted hat to tuck under the Christmas tree.

Camera-Confusing Eyewear

Anti-Facial Recognition Glasses

Isao Echizen/National Institute of Informatics

Not the DIY type? Professor Isao Echizen at Japan’s National Institute of Informatics may have the answer: eyewear that transmits near-infrared rays to render the wearer’s face undetectable to cameras. Not only will this give someone on your list that cool cyberpunk look, but by keeping their image from being captured it will be harder to track their movements.


Face-Disgusing Makeover

CV Dazzle Make-Up

Adam Harvey/ahprojects.com

For the more fashion-conscious, consider a haircut and makeup using style advice derived from WWI and WWII camouflage techniques. The project, created by NY designer Adam Harvey and known as CV Dazzle, uses “cubist-inspired designs” to break up symmetry and tonal contours, creating an “anti-face” technique the designer claims will confuse the detection algorithms of most facial recognition software.

HMAS Yarris in Dazzle Camouflage, WWII

Wikimedia Commons

Drone-Proof Clothing

Adam Harvey’s Stealth Wear

Adam Harvey/ahprojects.com

The stylish options don’t stop at simple facial recognition. Harvey’s more recent Stealth Wear project puts together a series of heat-reflecting burqas, scarfs, and hoodies purported to limit potential drone surveillance. Simply put the clothing on, and you’re blacked out to most thermal imaging. According to the website’s rather garbled recounting of Islamic tradition, the clothing reflects “the rationale behind the traditional hijab and burqa,” acting as a veil to separate women from God—only in this case, “replacing God with drone.”

Reflective Drone Survival Guide

Drone Survival Guide

A field guide to various Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and tactics for hiding from drones printed on an aluminum paper reflective enough to “interfere with the drone’s sensors.” While the price is cheap ($15 or €10), the information is also downloadable for free.

M-65 Jackets

Military Camouflage

SPC Gerald James/Wikimedia Commons

Does your giftee need a new coat? Some military-inspired jackets—already made with a camouflage pattern known as Disruptive Pattern Material—also have infrared reflective coatings that make them harder to spot in certain lights.

Bug Detectors and Noise Generators

All-in-One RF Bug Detector

brickhousesecurity.com

For the slightly more gadget-oriented, noise generators, surveillance bug detectors, and virtually invisible bluetooth earpieces could all make great stocking stuffers—especially for those particularly concerned with being followed or having their conversations tracked. The downside? They all come with hefty price tags.

Abandoned Missile Silo

Minuteman III Silo
Department of Defense/Wikimedia Commons

Of course, if all else fails, you could buy a “luxury survival condo” in a converted Atlas missile silo for the strangely reasonable cost of $750,000 to $1.5 million. The company’s press release promises “extended off-grid living” and walls “designed to withstand a nuclear blast.” At this point, going inside a bunker and unplugging might be the only way to completely remove yourself from the NSA’s all-seeing eye.

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Nine Gifts the NSA Will Hate

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Watch Werner Herzog’s Devastating Documentary on Texting While Driving

by tf942pe Posted on August 13, 2013

Mother Jones

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Here’s something you should check out now, if you haven’t already. “From One Second to the Next” is a 35-minute public service announcement sponsored by AT&T’s “It Can Wait” campaign, and directed by German filmmaker Werner Herzog (as in the internationally acclaimed and highly influential director of such films as Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Grizzly Man). It’s a thoroughly effective and artfully crafted PSA that examines the easily preventable death toll caused by texting while driving.

Watch:

Screenings of the short documentary are being planned for over 40,000 high schools, as well as hundreds of government agencies and safety groups. “There’s a completely new culture out there,” Herzog told The Canadian Press. “I’m not a participant of texting and driving—or texting at all—but I see there’s something going on in civilization which is coming with great vehemence at us.”

By some estimates, texting-while-driving causes thousands of deaths annually in the US, and states such as Connecticut and New York have passed new laws increasing fines and restrictions. Not too long ago, AT&T stopped lobbying against legislation aimed at cracking down on these types of driver distractions, and has since launched an awareness campaign. For instance, earlier this year, AT&T brought a street-driving simulator (aesthetically similar to what you’d find in a Chuck E. Cheese’s) to Capitol Hill to show a bipartisan gathering of lawmakers the dangers of texting behind the wheel.

But PSAs can only go so far. State penalties for texting while driving range from a $20 fine up to a maximum $10,000 fine and a year in jail. Check out which states have the toughest or weakest laws here.

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Watch Werner Herzog’s Devastating Documentary on Texting While Driving

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Tesla Motors Earns $26 Million in the Second Quarter—Thanks to the Government

by tf942pe Posted on August 7, 2013

Mother Jones

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Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect Tesla’s Q2 results.

Tesla Motors surprised Wall Street this afternoon, announcing second-quarter profits of $26 million on $405 million in revenue. Since it reported its first modest profit in May, the electric-car company cofounded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk already had seen its share price more than double, and you can expect it to soar even higher when the markets open tomorrow. Many analysts, after all, were expecting Tesla to take a hit. But so far, the company’s profits have relied on government subsidies and initiatives.

Tesla’s own accomplishments are impressive. The company, founded in 2004, is selling its all-electric cars as fast as it can produce them, even though the baseline price for a Model S sedan is nearly $70,000. Car and Driver says the Model S is possibly the best car it has ever tested. Musk has built a successful company after years of scraping by low on funds while sinking money into researching and developing amazing cars.

In January 2010, as Tesla was developing the Model S, it received a $465 million dollar loan from the Department of Energy (DOE). That’s not to mention other, less direct subsidies, like the millions of dollars in subsidies in Japan that helped Panasonic develop the lithium-ion batteries that are at the heart of every Tesla car. Tesla’s modest first-quarter profit relied on $68 million from zero-emission-vehicle (ZEV) credits it sold to other, less environmentally friendly car companies under a California emissions mandate. There’s also the $7,500 federal tax break for people who buy electric vehicles, which makes its pricey cars more affordable.

As for today’s results. Tesla earned $51 million on ZEV credits, without which it would not have been able to report a profit.

Tesla is a model for how government support can help bring ambitious new technologies to market. But you won’t hear Elon Musk saying that. To the contrary, he has tweeted about how he thinks we’d be better off passing a carbon tax instead of the hefty loan that floated Tesla at a key moment. Musk claims the DOE loan was merely an “accelerant” for Tesla. The company was “bailed in, not bailed out,” Musk quipped during an interview with Popular Mechanics last year.

Could Tesla have made it this far without government support? And will the company—not to mention Musk’s other enterprises, SpaceX and SolarCity—stand alone in the future? Let’s take a look at Tesla’s climb to success.

1. Starting in 2004, Tesla drums up millions in private cash so it can build an electric car from scratch. Musk leads several private financing rounds, and dumps in a substantial chunk of his own cash.

2. By 2008, Tesla has spent years designing its first car, the Roadster, but still has nothing to sell to customers. The car is taking years longer to bring to market, and costing a lot more, than Tesla execs had predicted. Tesla slashes its workforce. Musk takes over as CEO and eventually pushes hard for the federal loan, which Tesla receives in January 2010.

3. The loan helps Tesla get the Model S to market. The car gets (mostly) rave reviews, setting the stage for a successful IPO in June 2010, when Tesla raises $226 million selling stock to the public.

4. The IPO and brisk sales of the Model S (made more affordable by that $7,500 federal tax credit) allow Tesla to pay off its loan years early. In May 2013, thanks to $68 million in revenues from selling California clean-air credits to rival car makers, Tesla posts its first profit, a modest $11 million.

5. Profitability sends Tesla’s stock price soaring. Today’s earnings report may boost it even further.

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Tesla Motors Earns $26 Million in the Second Quarter—Thanks to the Government

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Tea Partiers fight over solar power in Georgia, and the solar fans win

by tf942pe Posted on July 12, 2013

Tea Partiers fight over solar power in Georgia, and the solar fans win

By Claire Thompson

Shutterstock

Victory!

In Georgia on Thursday, the Tea Party scored a victory against the Tea Party by helping push through a plan requiring the state’s largest electric utility to increase its capacity for solar power.

Never a dull day in Southern politics, is there? A proposal by Public Service Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald to more than double the amount of solar energy produced by Georgia Power pitted the Tea Party Patriots against the local chapter of Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity (of the notorious “No Climate Tax Pledge”). Virginia Galloway, director of AFP for the state, warned the group’s 50,000 Georgia members that the proposal could increase electricity rates by up to 40 percent, and that this “mandate” — as she called it — would “reduce the reliability of every appliance and electronics gadget in your home.” But the Patriots see an increase in the availability of solar as an expansion of the free market and the ratepayers’ right to choose their energy sources.

Those on the left might have a hard time distinguishing between brands of Tea Party, but there are real differences. From the Athens Banner-Herald:

Disagreement between the two groups isn’t unusual. [Debbie Dooley, national coordinator of the Patriots,] says Galloway is using outdated figures since solar-panel prices have dropped by more than half in the last three years. She also accuses Galloway of being swayed by the fossil-fuel interests that contribute to AFP nationally.

And, to hear Dooley tell it, AFP’s opposition to solar may not reflect the will of the people (or at least the people comprising its target audience).

Dooley tells Climate Progress that despite AFP’s misinformation campaign, which “was based on misleading data and was not accurate,” most of the Tea Party activists she works with support the proposed solar plan because they see it as a “way to help protect the environment, give consumers choice and in the long-term help lower their rates.”

Help protect the environment? Tea Party, are you feeling OK?

The Patriots advocate an all-of-the-above energy strategy, saying in an email to supporters that they “just don’t believe it is responsible to be completely reliant on one or two energy sources to generate needed electricity.” Bubba, for his part, sees the writing on the wall when it comes to the traditional forms of energy on which Georgia Power has long relied. The Associated Press:

McDonald called for expanding the renewable energy source as a hedge against environmental rules that might force coal plants offline or future increases in the price of natural gas. …

“We don’t know what tomorrow is going to be with coal. We don’t know what tomorrow is going to be with natural gas,” McDonald said after the vote. “But we know the sun will be shining.”

The Atlanta Business Chronicle has the deets on the new plan:

Commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of a broader long-term electrical generation plan that requires Atlanta-based Georgia Power Co. to increase its solar power capacity by 525 megawatts by the end of 2016.

Of that amount, 425 megawatts would come from large “utility-scale” solar projects and 100 would come from projects small enough to be installed by individual residential or commercial property owners.

Georgia Power already is working to develop 260 megawatts of solar energy through two projects previously approved by the PSC.

But supporters of a motion by Commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald to up the ante argued that recent technological advancements have brought down the costs of solar power enough to justify additional investment.

“We’ve got to approach this in a businesslike fashion and try to stay ahead of the curve,” McDonald said after the vote.

Solar will still make up just a small fraction of the utility’s overall energy mix. Solar providers will engage in a competitive bidding process, with oversight from the Public Service Commission, to ensure that rates don’t go up.

No Republican wants to get on the Tea Party’s bad side. Maybe if solar boosters joined forces with grassroots Tea Party groups across the nation, we could give AFP a run for its money. (Well, probably not literally.)

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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The GOP Tries to Redefine Rape Exemptions—Again

by tf942pe Posted on June 18, 2013

Mother Jones

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The House debated and passed a bill on Tuesday that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks across the country. The bill, passed by a nearly party-line vote of 228 to 196, replicates laws passed in a dozen states in the past three years limiting the time period during which women can obtain a legal abortion.

HR 1797, sponsored by Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), is not expected to pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, and President Barack Obama has already threatened to veto it. But it does contain a provision that redefines rape exemptions, significantly limiting the number of women who would qualify. In order to obtain an abortion after 20 weeks under this law, a woman who was raped must be able to prove that she reported the rape to authorities—a requirement not present in other rape exceptions to federal abortion laws.

Republicans added this provision to the bill, which originally included no exceptions for rape or incest, after the House Judiciary committee approved it last week. But the alternative language Republicans inserted creates its own problems. It is more restrictive than the Hyde Amendment, the law barring federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. Hyde specifically exempts cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is at stake—with no requirement that women have documentation from police that they reported the crime.

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The GOP Tries to Redefine Rape Exemptions—Again

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Coal is rebounding, natural gas prices are up, and the world’s oil cartel is quite content

by tf942pe Posted on May 29, 2013

Coal is rebounding, natural gas prices are up, and the world’s oil cartel is quite content

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Back in style?

Times are good for the merchants of fossil fuels.

Coal is making a comeback in the U.S., natural gas prices are rising, and Saudis are living like kings off an oil market that is simply heavenly.

Just last year, demand for coal had dropped deeper than a canary lowered down a mine shaft. Prices had been pushed down by the natural gas fracking boom. But The Washington Post reports that demand and prices for coal have rebounded:

According to the latest data from the Energy Information Administration, coal has been reclaiming some — though not all — of its market share in 2013. …

[N]atural gas prices have been creeping up over the past year, thanks to a combination of a colder winter, higher demand for heating fuel, scaled-back drilling, and also new storage facilities that are preventing a glut of gas on the market. The ultra-low gas prices that were devastating the coal industry in 2011 and 2012 weren’t sustainable forever.

Coal company executives and natural gas frackers and retailers aren’t the only fossil-fuel profiteers who are partying right now. OPEC is also feeling pretty good these days. From Bloomberg:

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, is content with current conditions in the oil market, the kingdom’s petroleum minister said three days before OPEC members meet to assess the group’s output policy.

“This is the best environment for the market,” Ali al-Naimi told reporters today in Vienna when asked about the balance of supply and demand. “Demand is great,” al-Naimi said as he arrived at his hotel.

Tides everywhere are rising in celebration.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who

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blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

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