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This Ohio lawmaker thinks you’re an enviro-socialist rent-seeker

by Felixct7yh Posted on November 22, 2013

This Ohio lawmaker thinks you’re an enviro-socialist rent-seeker

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Ohio Senate

What did he just call you?

The Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council has been failing miserably in its nationwide push to roll back states’ renewable electricity standards. But that isn’t stopping Ohio state Sen. Bill Seitz (R) from persisting in trying to undermine the renewable energy rules in his state.

Seitz recently introduced legislation that would water down five-year-old state rules requiring utilities in Ohio to sell renewable power and invest in energy-efficiency measures. One of his bill’s provisions would revoke a rule requiring half of renewable energy sold by utilities to be generated within the state, but that proved extremely controversial, so he says he’s about to release an amended version of the bill that would delay instead of revoke that rule.

If you still don’t dig Seitz’s legislation, even after he’s gone to all the trouble of amending it, well, then he has some strong and odd words for you. From The Columbus Dispatch:

Opponents say the bill is a giveaway to electric utilities and large businesses at the expense of the state’s “green” economy.

Seitz described the bill’s opponents as “the usual suspects,” a group that he said includes “enviro-socialist rent-seekers” who depend on government mandates, while he said its supporters include a wide array of businesses and labor groups.

Hey, that’s some intelligent discourse! But guess what, Seitz, you’re behind the times, even by right-winger standards.

ALEC is reportedly shifting away from attacks on renewable electricity standards. Greentech Media reports that the group’s new target will be net-metering rules, which require utilities to purchase excess solar power produced by their customers. One such attack was recently repelled in Arizona, leaving net-metering rules there largely unscathed. But now it sounds like more such attacks are on their way.

Oh, and name calling. We can safely assume that more of that is on the way as well.


Source
‘Stealth Business Lobbyist’ Plans 2014 Offensive Against Solar Net Metering, Greentech Media
AEP backs proposal to revise Ohio ‘green’ energy rules, Columbus Dispatch

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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This Ohio lawmaker thinks you’re an enviro-socialist rent-seeker

Posted in ALPHA, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, ONA, PUR, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Ohio lawmaker thinks you’re an enviro-socialist rent-seeker

Developing Nations Stage Protest at Climate Talks

by Myrna Posted on November 20, 2013

Representatives from China and a collection of developing countries known as the Group of 77 walked out of the talks to protest what they consider inadequate financial support from wealthy countries. Visit site: Developing Nations Stage Protest at Climate Talks Related Articles Op-Ed Contributor: The Truth About Tornadoes National Briefing | Midwest: Great Lakes Recover Substantial Water Levels Chevron Assails Lawyer Who Led Multibillion-Dollar Suit Against It

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Developing Nations Stage Protest at Climate Talks

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Energy Dept. Is Told to Stop Collecting Fee for Nuclear Waste Disposal

by Myrna Posted on November 19, 2013

Because the program that the fee was set up to finance is no longer in operation, people should not have to keep paying for it, an appeals court ruled. Taken from:  Energy Dept. Is Told to Stop Collecting Fee for Nuclear Waste Disposal ; ;Related ArticlesColorado Governor Proposes Strict Limits on Greenhouse Gas Leaks From DrillingContest Aims for a Cleaner-Burning Wood StoveObservatory: Clues to the Origins of Big Cats ;

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Energy Dept. Is Told to Stop Collecting Fee for Nuclear Waste Disposal

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California and Illinois release draft fracking rules, and California’s are better

by km10madrid Posted on November 19, 2013

California and Illinois release draft fracking rules, and California’s are better

By

Bureau of Labor Statistics

If poring over draft fracking regulations is your cup of tea, then we’ve got a big steaming teapot for you.

California and Illinois both proposed rules governing hydraulic fracturing on Friday, after their governors signed bills requiring them earlier this year. A quick read of the tea leaves suggests that frackers are going to continue plundering Illinois with little thought given to environmental impacts. Frackers operating in California, however, will need to abide by some tough new regulations – but not tough enough to mollify environmentalists, who continue to call for a fracking moratorium in the Golden State.

Let’s look at Illinois first. “The new rules will include requirements that oil and gas companies test water before, during and after drilling, and hold them liable if contamination is found after drilling begins,” the Associated Press reports. But that’s not good enough, greens say.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources published a first draft of Illinois’ rules for high-volume oil and gas drilling on Friday, and environmental groups quickly criticized them as violating the spirit of regulations that industry, environmentalists and lawmakers crafted together.

The state’s hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” regulations were hailed as among the toughest in the nation when they were signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn earlier this year. The DNR, which will enforce them, must adopt rules to reflect the law, and will seek public feedback until Jan. 3.

But the proposed rules appear to undercut some key protections in the law, said Ann Alexander, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Midwest program, who participated in negotiations.

For example, the law requires that wastewater be kept in tanks, rather than open pits used in some other states, but allows emergency overflow into reserve pits. But the proposed rules do not specify how companies should calculate the size of the tanks they’ll need, and allows overflow to be removed seven days after fracking is completed, rather than seven days after it occurs — which Alexander called an “incentive for industry to try to make routine use of the dangerous open-air pits, under the guise of emergency use.”
Illinoisans can submit comments on the rules until Jan. 3.

Now let’s head to California. From the Los Angeles Times:

Hailed by state officials as the toughest in the nation, the draft regulations issued Friday would require those who conduct fracking to get state permits, test groundwater quality and notify neighbors before starting work. …

What’s needed now, [environmentalists] said, is a statewide ban on fracking and related techniques until scientists can provide firm assurances that the practice won’t cause harm.

“We want a timeout,” said Kathryn Phillips, state director of the Sierra Club. “At best, these regulations can be described as a mixed bag,” she said. “At worst, they provide another example of an agency’s continued deference to a regulated entity, even at the expense of public health and the environment.”

Nevertheless, even some opponents conceded that the proposed regulations were better than nothing.

“There are some good provisions from our very preliminary review,” said Bill Allayaud of the Environmental Working Group.

Californians have 60 days to comment on the proposed rules. The state will also be conducting a study of the environmental impacts of fracking, which could take up to 18 months to complete.


Source
Brown releases proposed rules for fracking, Los Angeles Times
First proposed Illinois oil, gas ‘fracking’ rules open for public comment, hearings scheduled, The Associated Press

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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California and Illinois release draft fracking rules, and California’s are better

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On ‘Global Terror’ and the Fukushima Fuel Move

by Myrna Posted on November 18, 2013

The Fukushima Daiichi cleanup enters a new phase as TEPCO begins moving fuel rods from a damaged reactor building. See the original post: On ‘Global Terror’ and the Fukushima Fuel Move ; ;Related ArticlesDot Earth Blog: On ‘Global Terror’ and the Fukushima Fuel MoveRoom for Agreement on Next Steps for Nuclear Power?Examining ‘Media’s Global Warming Fail’ ;

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On ‘Global Terror’ and the Fukushima Fuel Move

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The Demi-Glace Ceiling: Why Do We Ignore Lady Chefs?

by p555nf Posted on November 12, 2013

Mother Jones

When Time Magazine couldn’t think of a single female chef to name to its now-infamous “13 Gods of Food” list, I shared the instant outrage that overtook the internet, but I wasn’t surprised at all.

That’s because the vexed gender politics of culinary prestige—the increasingly glaring fact that women are largely shut of the food world’s top honors—hit me like a sizzling chunk of foie gras to the face in mid-September.

That’s when I got the invitation to a prestigious food conference in Westchester County, New York, sponsored by a group called the Basque Culinary Institute. I have to admit my heart skipped a beat. The star-studded guest list—drawn up by the BCI, International Advisory Council, an influential (and all-male) group of chefs known as the G9—included Spanish legend Ferran Adrià, the surrealist godfather of the postmodern cooking style called molecular gastronomy; Michel Bras, whose eponymous restaurant in southern France has held the food world’s highest ranking, three Michelin stars, since 1999; and René Redzepi, an Adrià acolyte hailed by The New Yorker as “arguably the most famous Dane since Hamlet” for his radically woodsy “New Nordic” fare.

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The Demi-Glace Ceiling: Why Do We Ignore Lady Chefs?

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Sardines have nearly disappeared off West Coast

by ElizaTSK Posted on November 9, 2013

Sardines have nearly disappeared off West Coast

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Shutterstock

When Canadian fishermen headed out for their annual sardine hunt in the Pacific Ocean earlier this fall, they got a rude surprise. Their nets came up empty.

Sardine numbers have been in severe decline along the entire West Coast this season, prompting U.S. fisheries authorities to slash catch limits. Fears abound that the fishery’s decline will reverberate through the coming years, if not decades. It’s happened before: Monterey, Calif.’s famed Cannery Row turned into a ghost town following a sardine collapse in 1950s.

Fishermen lucky enough to come across schools of sardines off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington during the first six months of next year will be allowed to haul in no more than 5,446 metric tons of the baitfish, down nearly 70 percent from the quota this year. The Associated Press reports:

Marci Yaremko of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife says the [Pacific Fishery Management Council] decided to take an even more precautionary approach than management guidelines call for because the current assessment was lacking some information, such as surveys showing too few sardines are being born to replace the ones that are caught or eaten by other fish.

“Nothing is suggesting the biomass is stable,” said Yaremko, who made the motion to cut the harvest. “Everything suggests a decline.”

Harvests are valued at $9 million to $15 million a year. Most of the fish are exported to Asia, where some are canned and others are used as tuna bait.

The sardine population off the west of Canada is in even worse shape. New Scientist reports that its decline could be due to overfishing and to the cooling of waters off the West Coast since the 1990s (yes, the Pacific Ocean is warming, and doing so at a dangerous and alarming rate, but ocean weather varies by geography, just as it does on land):

[T]he vanishing of the Canadian fish is part of a process that could mean they all disappear for decades, says Juan Zwolinski of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Pacific sardine populations fluctuate with water temperature. Colder water means fewer fish. Temperatures last fell in the 1940s, but heavy fishing continued, devastating the stock and ending fishing until sardines returned when waters warmed in the 1980s.

“We think this is set to happen again,” says Zwolinski, who tracked the population over the past century. He found that sardines have reproduced less since waters cooled in the 1990s. Almost all eggs now come from fish born a decade ago, which are nearly gone.

What’s more, acoustic results show that the fish have become smaller over the past decade, partly because of chillier water.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program still lists Pacific sardines as “best choice” for people seeking sustainable seafood. Might be time to reevaluate that ranking.


Source
Feds slash sardine harvest along West Coast, The Associated Press
Sardine disappearance was foreseen but ignored, New Scientist

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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Sardines have nearly disappeared off West Coast

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More nukes? Are you kidding? Enviros push back against Hansen’s call

by AdriannaCooney Posted on November 8, 2013

More nukes? Are you kidding? Enviros push back against Hansen’s call

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Shutterstock

We told you on Monday about an open letter penned by James Hansen and three other prominent climate scientists calling on the world to ramp up development and deployment of “safer” nuclear power. The scientists argue that renewable energy isn’t enough to spare the world from the wrath of global warming, and that the power of the atom needs to be better tapped to help get us off fossil fuels.

Publication of the letter coincided with the buildup to this evening’s screening by CNN of the controversial pro-nuclear documentary Pandora’s Promise.

The issue of nuclear power bitterly divides environmentalists, so plenty of people were not pleased to hear Hansen, a darling of climate-activism circles, leading a call for more nuke power. Many of the environmentalists and scientists who have written rebuttals in recent days have focused on safety concerns and the flailing economics of nuclear power. Here are excerpts from a few of those rebuttals.

From the Natural Resources Defense Council’s blog:

As longtime leaders of NRDC’s energy program, we agree with [the authors of the letter] that “energy systems decisions should be based on facts, and not on emotions and biases.”  But the authors of this letter (and other nuclear energy proponents) are on the wrong track when they look to nuclear power as a silver bullet solution for global warming. To the contrary, given its massive capital costs, technical complexity, and international security concerns, nuclear power is clearly not a practical alternative. Instead, energy efficiency will always be the quickest, cheapest solution to our energy and climate challenges, and clean renewable energy is growing today by leaps and bounds.

From Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune:

If Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have taught us anything, it’s that nuclear plants are too expensive, too slow to build, and too risky. That’s why countries like Germany – one of the largest economies in the world – are going all in on renewable energy sources and decommissioning dangerous nuclear plants.

From Greenpeace USA nuclear power analyst Jim Riccio:

While we respect Dr. Hansen and his advocacy to raise the alarm about catastrophic climate change, we thoroughly disagree that nuclear power has any role to play in addressing the threat posed by global warming. If we are to abate the worst impacts of climate change we need solutions that are fast, affordable, and safe. Nuclear is none of these.

From ClimateProgress blogger Joe Romm:

I think their letter is mis-addressed and also misses the key point about nuclear power — because it is so expensive, especially when done safely, the industry has no chance of revival absent a serious price on carbon.

While solar power and wind power continue to march down the experience curve to ever lower costs — solar panels have seen a staggering 99% drop in cost since 1977 — nuclear power has been heading in the opposite direction.

It’s worth noting that Hansen et al. didn’t just call for more nuclear deployment. They also called for more nuclear development; more advanced nuke technology could, in theory at least, help bring down the price tag of nuclear energy.

Here’s the trailer for Pandora’s Promise:

And here are David Roberts’ thoughts on Pandora’s Promise and the whole nuclear debate.


Source
Response to an Open Letter on the Future of Nuclear Power, NRDC Switchboard
Greens dispute climate scientists on nuclear power, The Hill

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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Unregulated bumblebee trade threatens bumblebees

by DemiLockett Posted on October 30, 2013

Unregulated bumblebee trade threatens bumblebees

By

Dan Mullen

Though they’re bigger, bumblebees tend to get overshadowed by European honeybees. We’ve all heard that honeybee colonies are collapsing, but did you know that the bumblebees that been have been pollinating America’s native plants for millennia are also disappearing?

The U.S. government, though, treats them with equal disdain. It is not taking decisive steps to protect honeybees, and no one’s yet been able to sting it into action to protect the bumbling variety either.

Still, activists keep trying. On Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation wrote to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, urging the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to regulate commercial trade in bumblebees.

Commercial operations box up bumblebees and ship them around the country, generally to pollinate crops grown in greenhouses. That trade is transmitting deadly diseases and parasites to wild populations, the enviros charge, and the release of aggressive Eastern species of bumblebees in Western states is hurting populations of the chilled-out Western varieties.

It’s not like this is a new issue. APHIS has known about problems associated with the bumblebee trade for at least two decades. And the environmentalists submitted a petition urging the agency to regulate the commercial bumblebee trade nearly four years ago. From the activists’ letter [PDF]:

The requested rulemaking is urgent and overdue. Numerous bumble bee pollinators have already declined dramatically and pathogens from commercial bumble bees are likely responsible for this; without agency intervention, we will likely continue to see a dramatic decline in bumble bee pollinators with perilous and potentially irreversible consequences. …

In the last two decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the demand for commercially reared bumble bees to pollinate greenhouse crops, particularly tomatoes. This rise has come with a concomitant decline in numerous species of North American bumble bees. The evidence to date supports the hypothesis that this decline was caused by the introduction of diseases spread by commercial bees. Since we submitted our petition in January 2010 several new studies have shown that commercial bumble bee hives harbor disease.

The unregulated bumblebee trade, combined with the wanton use of pesticides, is thought to have already killed off the Franklin’s bumblebee, which was last spotted in 2006. The environmentalists say federal guidelines could help save the western bumblebee, rusty patched bumblebee, yellow-banded bumblebee, and American bumblebee from succumbing to the same fate.

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: Business & Technology

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America to EPA: We missed you, babe

by Adriene56E Posted on October 18, 2013

America to EPA: We missed you, babe

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Shutterstock

During the 16-day federal government shutdown, clueless GOP staffers posted a top 10 list of “Reasons The Government Shutdown Isn’t All Bad” on a Senate website. The list mostly celebrated the fact that the EPA’s work was crippled by the budget spat.

“Fewer bureaucrats at the EPA makes it less likely that they’ll make up science on new regulations,” was among the witticisms listed on the blog post. The post then rattled off fantastical agency scandals that sounded cribbed from a fossil fuel industry dream journal.

But polling commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council over the Columbus Day weekend revealed that EPA bashing is unlikely to win much public sympathy for the Republicans. The vast majority of people polled were bummed out that fighting in Washington had prevented the EPA from doing its job.

In Virginia, where the environment is routinely trampled by mining companies and power plant owners, 68 percent of people polled [PDF] said they opposed the furloughing of EPA inspectors. Nationally, 71 percent [PDF] were in opposition. From an NRDC blog post:

The public broadly backs environmental protection — 60 percent of Americans think the EPA is doing just the right amount or not enough to protect the environment — but an even greater percentage of Americans opposed EPA being shut down. That phenomenon also carried through in Speaker Boehner’s own district, where 52 percent think EPA is doing just the right amount or not enough, while 58 percent oppose it being shut down. Even more oppose an EPA shutdown when reminded of specific EPA responsibilities.

That includes EPA’s responsibility to address climate change. 65 percent of Americans are opposed to a shutdown that “interferes with [EPA] developing carbon pollution limits.” This sentiment holds firmly across every state and district we examined. It’s even higher in Maine and North Carolina where 70 percent of respondents opposed this interference. Even in John Boehner’s district, 62 percent of constituents are opposed to the interference.

This poll should also be a warning to once-moderate House Republicans who have thrown in their lot with the Tea Party radicals. Take for example, Rep. Leonard Lance of New Jersey, who waffled on the shutdown. In his district, 63 percent of constituents oppose the shutdown and almost the same amount — 62 percent — opposed EPA being shuttered. Even a majority of Republicans in Lance’s district opposed EPA being shut down.

More highlights from the national poll:

NRDC


Source
Key findings from polls of Americans’ views about work of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NRDC
Poll Holds Warning for Tea Party Republicans: Don’t Try This Again, NRDC

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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America to EPA: We missed you, babe

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