Tag Archives: infrastructure

Should You Install Solar Panels on Your Roof?

by locuridemuncainconstanta Posted on August 18, 2015

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant […]

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Farm Together Now – Amy Franseschini & Daniel Tucker

With interest in home gardening at an all-time high and concerns about food production and safety making headlines, Farm Together Now explores the current state of grassroots farming in the U.S. Part oral history and part treatise on food politics, this fascinating project is an introduction to the many individuals who are producing sustainable food, […]

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From Baghdad to America – Jay Kopelman

Lieutenant Colonel Jay Kopelman won the hearts of readers everywhere with his moving story of adopting an abandoned puppy named Lava from a hellish corner of Iraq. He opened the door for other soldiers to bring dogs home, and in From Baghdad to America , Kopelman once again leads the pack with his observations on […]

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A Life in Stitches – Rachael Herron

In these 20 heartfelt essays, Rachael Herron celebrated romance novelist by day, 911 dispatcher by night, and founder of the hugely popular blog Yarnagogo.com shows how when life unravels there s always a way to knit it back together again, many times into something even better. Honest, funny, and full of warmth, Herron s tales, […]

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The Other End of the Leash – Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.,

The Other End of the Leash shares a revolutionary, new perspective on our relationship with dogs, focusing on our behavior in comparison with that of dogs. An applied animal behaviorist and dog trainer with more than twenty years experience, Dr. Patricia McConnell looks at humans as just another interesting species, and muses about why we […]

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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draws a […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America's most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog's Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis – Instaread

PLEASE NOTE: This is a  summary and analysis  of the book and NOT the original book.  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis   Inside this Instaread: Summary of entire book, Introduction to the important people in the book, Key Takeaways and Analysis of the Key Takeaways. […]

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Following Atticus – Tom Ryan

After a close friend died of cancer, middle-aged, overweight, acrophobic newspaperman Tom Ryan decided to pay tribute to her in a most unorthodox manner. Ryan and his friend, miniature schnauzer Atticus M. Finch, would attempt to climb all forty-eight of New Hampshire's four thousand- foot peaks twice in one winter while raising money for charity. […]

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Should You Install Solar Panels on Your Roof?

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Los Angeles Just Found an Awesome Way to Fight the Drought. It Involves Balls. Here Is a Video.

by EnriqueWray Posted on August 12, 2015

Mother Jones

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On Monday afternoon, the mayor of Los Angeles found a ballsy way to fight California’s unprecedented drought:

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LA just completed a project at the LA Reservoir to save 300 million gallons of water by deploying shade balls on its surface, saving our city over $250 million dollars while keeping our water clean & safe.

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Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday, August 10, 2015

There are now 96 million “shade balls” floating on the surface of the LA Reservoir. They’re made of plastic, the same kind of polyethylene that gallon-sized milk jugs are made of, so they don’t pose a threat to the drinking water, according to the LA Times. They’re designed to keep water from evaporating and are expected to conserve 300 million gallons per year. And at a cost of $35 million, they’re about $250 million cheaper than the alternative, a tarp-like covering.

So, saving California from the drought just takes leadership from someone with a pair of…sorry I’ll just stop now.

#shadeballs.

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Los Angeles Just Found an Awesome Way to Fight the Drought. It Involves Balls. Here Is a Video.

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Obama Will Use Veto to Defend Climate Change Plan If Necessary

by Myrna Posted on July 30, 2015

President will use all powers available to push through Clean Power Plan to cut carbon emissions from power stations, says White House. Drop of Light/Shutterstock Barack Obama will use all of his powers – including his veto – to defend his plan to fight climate change, the White House said, on the eve of new rules cutting carbon pollution from power plants. Obama is expected to unveil the new rules as early as Monday, according to those familiar with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plan. The final version will give states and electricity companies an extra two years – until 2022 – before they need to start cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Read the rest at the Guardian. See the article here –  Obama Will Use Veto to Defend Climate Change Plan If Necessary ; ; ;

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Obama Will Use Veto to Defend Climate Change Plan If Necessary

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Don’t Forget: Sepp Blatter’s Odds-On Replacement Is Also Pretty Terrible

by Nathanmlm Posted on June 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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Michel Platini, the legendary former French midfielder who now runs Europe’s soccer governing body, is already the oddsmaker’s favorite to become the next head of FIFA.

He also kind of sucks.

Blatter unexpectedly resigned on Tuesday, just days after winning a fifth term as FIFA president. His resignation was prompted by the arrest of FIFA officials last week as part of a Justice Department investigation into corruption and bribery at the organization. Though Blatter professed shock and said he had no intention of leaving FIFA, the widening scope of the investigations—along with huge global media coverage and schadenfreude—finally drove Blatter out of office.

“FIFA needs a profound overhaul,” he said at the announcement.

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Don’t Forget: Sepp Blatter’s Odds-On Replacement Is Also Pretty Terrible

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Well, Well, Well, Look Who Just Endorsed a Bold Fix For Climate Change

by AbigailKennemer Posted on June 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Oil companies are pretty much the last ally you’d think of when it comes to advancing big-picture solutions to climate change. These are the companies, after all, whose product is responsible for causing a significant amount of climate change in the first place—and pretty much every proposed fix for global warming necessarily involves burning less oil.

So it came as a bit of a surprise Monday when six of the leading European oil companies, including BP and Shell, unveiled a letter addressed to the United Nations climate chief calling for a price on carbon emissions (read the full letter below).

“We believe that a price on carbon should be a key element” of ongoing UN-led international climate negotiations, the letter said. This week representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Bonn, Germany, to prepare for a summit in Paris this winter where they hope to produce a powerful global accord on fighting climate change. The letter called on the world’s governments to create new national carbon markets where they don’t currently exist (like most of the United States, for example), and to eventually link those markets internationally.

As Bloomberg Business pointed out, the letter is “unprecedented,” in that it’s the first time a group of major oil companies have banded together to advocate for a serious climate change policy. It was welcomed by the UN’s top climate official, Christiana Figueres, who said that the “oil and gas industry must be a major part of the solution to climate change.”

Most environmental economists and policy wonks agree that making companies pay for their carbon pollution—whether through a tax or a cap-and-trade system—is a fundamental step for any meaningful reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The basic idea is that making carbon pollution expensive will drive big polluters to clean up. Policies like this are already gathering steam across the globe, from Canada to China. (California and a few Northeast states have regional carbon markets, but a national carbon price is still a non-starter in the US Congress.) Recently, Australia demonstrated just how effective carbon pricing can be, in a counterintuitive way: Carbon emissions dropped immediately after the country implemented a carbon tax, then jumped right back up when the tax was repealed.

If Monday’s letter is any clue, oil companies are reading the writing on the wall, and they know that one way or another, it’s time to start planning for a future when carbon pollution is more expensive and tightly regulated. Well, some oil companies: Conspicuously absent from the letter are any US oil companies, like Chevron or ExxonMobil; all the signatories are European. In fact, just last week Exxon chief Rex Tillerson implicitly blasted his European peers for cozying up to the UN on climate issues, saying his company wouldn’t “fake it” on climate change and that investing in renewable energy is tantamount to “losing money on purpose.”

The head of French oil giant Total addressed the cross-Atlantic schism in comments to Reuters, saying that the European companies were set on throwing their weight behind carbon pricing “without necessarily waiting for an American to come on board.”

Although carbon pricing “obviously adds a cost to our production and our products,” the letter says, the companies would prefer consistency and predictability over the patchwork of policies that exists now. In other words, it’s easier to justify and plan investments in lower-carbon projects, such as replacing coal with natural gas, when carbon prices are stable and “even-handed,” the letter said. At the same time, these companies have come under increasing pressure from shareholders to address how they’ll stay profitable in the future, as restrictions on carbon emissions are tightened.

To that end, a few of the signatories already have their own internal “shadow” carbon price, where investment options are calculated with a hypothetical carbon price added in, as a way of anticipating future policies.

Still, progressive-sounding statements notwithstanding, oil companies are oil companies, and the letter gives no indication that any of them have plans to replace fossil fuels as their primary product. Shell, for one, is just weeks away from a new foray into offshore drilling in the Arctic. And according to Bloomberg, the European companies are no better than their American counterparts in terms of their actual carbon footprint. So it remains to be seen how committed the companies will be to supporting sweeping changes to the global energy system, or if letters like this are just a clever way to stay relevant as the international climate talks forge ahead. Either way, the paradox of a corporation calling for a carbon price while still pursuing fossil fuel extraction is just more evidence that the free market won’t fix climate change voluntarily—governments have to create new policies, like an international carbon price, that energy companies can’t evade.

Here’s the letter:

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Paying for Carbon Letter (PDF)

Paying for Carbon Letter (Text)

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Well, Well, Well, Look Who Just Endorsed a Bold Fix For Climate Change

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Obama: Climate Deniers in Congress Are Undermining Our Troops

by AutumnSidwell69 Posted on May 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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Speaking to graduating cadets at the US Coast Guard Academy Wednesday, President Obama once again outlined his administration’s case for ambitious climate action. At the heart of today’s speech: the president’s contention that global warming constitutes an immediate threat to America’s national security and will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars if left unchecked.

Watch the highlights from the speech above.

Obama took direct aim at climate change deniers in Congress. “Denying it—or refusing to deal with it—endangers our national security and undermines the readiness of our forces,” he said. “Politicians who care about military readiness ought to care about this, too.”

“Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security,” Obama added. Refusing to act, he said, is “a dereliction of duty.”

Casting climate change as major threat at home and abroad, Obama detailed how warming could accelerate political instability and civil strife, prompt expensive and complex rescue missions in the wake of natural disasters, and hit US military assets along the coast. In the Arctic, he said, “we’re witnessing the birth of a new ocean.”

Obama also focused on the economic costs of rising seas: “A further increase in sea level of 1 foot…by the end of this century could cost our nation $200 billion,” he said.

“We need the coast guard more than ever,” Obama said. “Cadets, the threat of a changing climate cuts to the very core of your service.”

Today’s remarks are the latest in a string of climate-focused speeches by Obama in the run-up to global climate talks in Paris later this year. The commencement address contained very similar language to the president’s State of the Union speech in January. “The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we’ll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe,” he said then. “The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it.”

In the Florida Everglades last month, Obama also took a shot at Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) for bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor in a bizarre effort to dispute climate science. “If you have a coming storm, you don’t stick your head in the sand,” he said. “You prepare for the storm.”

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Obama: Climate Deniers in Congress Are Undermining Our Troops

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When You Binge-Watch "Mad Men," You Might Be Killing the Planet

by AndersoKellett Posted on May 15, 2015

Mother Jones

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You recycle. You ride your bike to work. You bring your own bags to the grocery. You might think you’re a good environmentalist. But those cat videos, TED talks, and Netflix original series you watch to unwind might be slowly killing the planet.

That’s the word from Greenpeace’s latest Clicking Clean report, which evaluates the clean energy initiatives of many different internet companies.

While we’re used to thinking about our environmental impact in terms of how much trash we throw out, how much we drive, and how much electricity we use in our homes, the report highlights the ways that our internet usage has environmental effects that we never see.

Data center emissions account for small percentage of global emissions, Greenpeace information technology analyst Gary Cook tells us. That’s not much compared to 14 percent that goes towards agriculture or the 13 percent that goes to transportation. But data center emissions are growing by at least 13 percent per year, Cook says. And within two years, information technology in general, including manufacturing servers and other gear, is expected to account for between 7 and 12 percent of all electrical use, according the report.

Greenpeace

Data centers are expected to account for about 21 percent of that usage, mostly because of the explosive demand for streaming video. Cook explains that even though streaming can offset some emissions, such as the manufacture and delivery of DVDs or BluRay disks, the convenience of streaming is leading us to consume more content. Instead of buying a few videos and watching them again and again, we’re now binge-watching entire seasons of shows in a sitting, which ends up creating a bigger carbon footprint overall.

This trend extends to other industries as well. For example, according to the report, publishers now consume more energy as a result of their data center usage than they did through their use of printing presses.

There is good news in the report. Amazon, which hosts Netflix’s streaming service, and which has long been the tech industry’s renewable energy straggler, has finally pledged to go green. Apple has continued to adopt more green energy since Greenpeace singled out the company in 2011. In its latest report, the organization gave Apple “A” ratings in all four categories that it tracks: energy transparency; renewable energy commitment; energy efficiency; and renewable energy deployment and advocacy.

In fact, most major consumer-facing internet companies are now working towards using nothing but renewables. Business-to-business companies, such as colocation providers that rent data center space, are lagging behind, though Equinix, one of the largest in the country, has pledged to switch to all-renewable power. But any company seeking to ramp up its use of renewables is likely to run into a common problem: They need more electricity to meet rising demand for their services than they can get in a renewable form from utilities.

According to the report, many energy utilities, which generally have monopolies in their areas, only offer coal-generated power, or only sell renewable energy at a premium, despite renewable energy becoming as cheap, if not cheaper, than coal power in some cases.

That’s a big problem in Virginia, which sees as much as 70 percent of global internet traffic pass through its borders every day, and North Carolina, another hotbed for data centers.

Companies can seek more renewable power by building new data centers in states where more renewable energy is available, such as Iowa and Oregon, but Cook says it’s unrealistic to expect companies to move all of their existing data centers out of Virginia and North Carolina. That means these companies will need to work with activists and policy makers to pressure utility companies into making changes, he says.

“The IT sector has been very disruptive figuring out how to change pieces of the economy,” he says. “If the industry works together it can resist the economic power of the energy sector.”

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When You Binge-Watch "Mad Men," You Might Be Killing the Planet

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The Amtrak Crash Hasn’t Stopped Republicans From Trying to Cut Its Funding

by Fausto6951 Posted on May 13, 2015

Mother Jones

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Last night, an Amtrak train traveling from Washington, DC, to New York City derailed in Philadelphia, causing hundreds of injuries and at least seven deaths. As investigators were piecing together what happened, the House of Representatives moved to reduce Amtrak’s federal funding. The Republican-led Appropriations Committee voted on Wednesday to slash grants to Amtrak by over $250 million—a 15 percent cut from last year. (Amtrak’s new budget would be about $1.1 billion.) The vote had been previously scheduled, but in the wake of Tuesday’s accident, Democrats and transportation experts criticized the move, asserting that increased rail funding was more important than ever.

For decades, Amtrak has been a political football, with politicians arguing over how much, if any, federal money should go toward funding it. Amtrak is a government-supported company, but it is under a federal mandate to turn a profit, while providing nationwide service—something it’s struggled to do for nearly all of its history. In the 1970s and 1980s, Amtrak hemorrhaged cash and cut back on routes. Since 1997, however, ridership has exploded—particularly on the DC-to-Boston Northeast Corridor.

According to a Brookings Institution study, Amtrak use grew 55 percent nationwide from 1997 to 2012. Along the Northeast Corridor that growth was huge: Boston had a 211 percent increase in ridership; New Haven, Connecticut, experienced a 192 percent boost. Nearly 11 million people got on or off an Amtrak train in New York City in 2012; over five million did so in Philadelphia. On routes shorter than 400 miles, Amtrak turned a $47 million profit in 2011.

Yet as more people use Amtrak, the rail service is struggling to maintain its existing infrastructure—much less make the improvements needed to match the quality of rail service in Europe or Japan. A 104-year-old bridge near Newark, New Jersey, is the linchpin of the Northeast Corridor, and it requires an estimated $940 million in improvements. Joseph Boardman, president and CEO of Amtrak, wrote in his budget request to Congress, “It is clear that Americans want a national system of intercity passenger rail…but to maintain and improve that system will require both an increase in the overall capital levels and a real federal commitment to deliver the needed financing.”

Explanations abound as to why Washington—particularly the GOP—has been loath to spend more on Amtrak. The Washington Post pointed out that improved rail service isn’t something many Republican legislators can sell to constituents at election time. People who live in GOP-held districts are six times less likely to use Amtrak than residents of Democratic districts. Also, as National Journal detailed last month, Republicans have long tried to privatize Amtrak.

But some Democrats and rail advocates contend that investing in Amtrak is like investing in highways: It’s a matter of public interest. On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest touted President Barack Obama’s support for Amtrak funding. “Unfortunately,” Earnest said, “we have seen a concerted effort by Republicans for partisan reasons to step in front of those kinds of infrastructure advancements.” Obama had asked for $2.5 billion in Amtrak funding in his 2015 budget.

It’s not yet publicly known what happened to Amtrak 188, but media reports on Wednesday afternoon noted that that the train was traveling at over 100 miles per hour before derailing—more than double the mandated speed for that stretch. Reuters reported that Amtrak has begun installing technology designed to stop high-speed derailments, but the Philadelphia tracks where Amtrak 188 crashed did not have the system yet.

Whatever the cause, the tragedy should spur more discussion of the need for better rail, says Joseph Kane, a transportation policy expert at the Brookings Institution. “It’s a shame that it takes a disaster to shift attention in this direction,” he notes. “We need to ask the hard questions…beyond the individual factors of this derailment: Are we investing adequately in our rail network, prioritizing areas of national significance?”

The last time major Amtrak funding was passed came in 2008—right after a deadly rail accident in California.

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The Amtrak Crash Hasn’t Stopped Republicans From Trying to Cut Its Funding

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Obama OKs Shell’s Plan to Drill for Oil in the Arctic

by JulianeBurchfie Posted on May 11, 2015

Mother Jones

Royal Dutch Shell cleared a major hurdle this afternoon when the Obama administration announced conditional approval for the company’s application to drill for oil in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s North Slope. The decision came after a few months of public comment on Shell’s exploration plan, which was roundly condemned by environmental groups and several North Slope communities.

Shell’s plan involves drilling for oil in a patch of ocean called the Burger Prospect. The drilling is slated to take place this summer when sea ice is at its lowest. In anticipation of this decision, two massive oil drilling ships owned by Shell are en route to a temporary dock in Seattle; from there, they are scheduled to press on to the Arctic.

If the ships make it to the planned site, it will be the first attempt Shell has made to drill in the Arctic (an area believed to hold massive subterranean reserves of oil and gas) since its disastrous effort in 2012. Back then, Shell faced a year-long series of mishaps as it tried to navigate the icy waters, culminating in a wreck of the Kulluk, one of its main drilling ships. For many environmentalists, that botched project was a sign that Shell is ill-equipped to handle Arctic waters.

Moreover, today’s decision underscored what many describe as an inconsistency in President Barack Obama’s climate change policy: Despite his aggressive rhetoric on the dangers of global warming, and a suite of policies to curb the nation’s carbon footprint, Obama has also pushed to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. Earlier this year, he announced a plan to limit drilling permits in some parts of the Arctic while simultaneously opening a vast new swath of the Atlantic ocean to drilling.

Allowing Shell to forge ahead with its Arctic ambitions flies in the face of the president’s own climate agenda, said Franz Matzner, associate director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It’s a total mystery why the Obama administration and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell are continuing down this path that is enormously risky, contradicts climate science, and is completely unnecessary to meet our energy goals,” Matzner said. “It’s a dangerous folly to think that this can be done.”

Before Shell can start drilling, it still needs to secure a few final federal and state permits, including one that requires Shell to demonstrate how it plans to protect ocean life during drilling and in the case of a spill. Those decisions are expected within the next month or so.

A spokesperson for Shell told the New York Times: “Before operations can begin this summer, it’s imperative that the remainder of our permits be practical, and delivered in a timely manner. In the meantime, we will continue to test and prepare our contractors, assets and contingency plans against the high bar stakeholders and regulators expect of an Arctic operator.”

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Obama OKs Shell’s Plan to Drill for Oil in the Arctic

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Big Oil Uses Toxic Chemicals to Clean Up Spills. Will the Feds Finally Make Them Stop?

by ColbySambell Posted on April 24, 2015

Mother Jones

Oil and dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico, a month after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill began James Edward Bates/TNS/ZUMA

Five years ago this week, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and setting off the worst oil spill in US history. The images are unforgettable: The Gulf of Mexico on fire. Pelicans emerging from the water entirely covered in thick, black oil. Planes flying overhead, spraying more than a million gallons of an oil-dispersing chemical called Corexit in an attempt to control the spill.

Fast forward five years, and dispersants like Corexit are at the center of a growing political battle, as scientists and policymakers raise questions about their potential to harm the environment, wildlife, and human health. Right now in Washington, DC, the Environmental Protection Agency is developing new rules governing dispersant use—rules many experts worry won’t go nearly far enough to protect the public and natural resources. On Tuesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), introduced legislation to temporarily ban dispersants until more tests are done to guarantee their safety.

Corexit is a go-to product for energy companies like BP when they’re dealing with massive spills. Dispersants don’t actually get rid of oil. But by breaking the oil up and submerging it in the water column, the chemicals make it easier for microbes to consume the oil. At least in theory. These days, some scientists are raising questions about how effective the 1.8 million gallons of Corexit dumped into the Gulf really was in achieving this. Dispersants have other benefits for oil companies, though. By moving oil out of sight, they quell public fears, facilitate PR, stabilize stock prices, and—potentially— help the polluters avoid stiff fines.

But all that Corexit may have done significant damage in the Gulf. One 2012 study found that in laboratory tests, mixtures of Corexit and oil were up to 52 times more toxic to microscopic animals known as rotifers than oil alone. Several leading scientists believe that the use of dispersants contributed to the environmental catastrophe that occurred throughout the Gulf, including the destruction of coral reefs. Studies have found that dispersants—as well as dispersant/oil mixtures—are more deadly to coral and coral larvae than oil by itself. A new report from the Government Accountability Project, a national whistleblower organization, describes the damage to Gulf coral as “arguably the most devastating and revealing of impacts documented in the five years since the BP spill.” This is particularly significant because coral reefs form a natural barrier against hurricanes and provide a habitat for thousands of marine species.

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Big Oil Uses Toxic Chemicals to Clean Up Spills. Will the Feds Finally Make Them Stop?

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