The Alaskan town of Newtok has voted to relocate nine miles upstream, uprooting several hundred Eskimos. The town is being displaced due to flooding brought on by climate change and is only the first of possibly dozens of Alaskan towns that could find themselves threatened in the coming years.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that an estimated 150 million people could find themselves displaced by the year 2050 and become ‘climate refugees’. To put that number into perspective, moving Newtok and its 340 residents has been estimated to cost $130 million US Dollars by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

I think it’s safe to say that a ‘wait and see’ approach to climate change could be a dangerous economic approach.

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I think everyone can agree that those are important topics, however, to get to Iowa the President used 9,000 gallons fuel. I have to seriously question whether the speech was worth such a large carbon footprint and whether it was necessary to put symbolism ahead of the environment?

It’s long been a tradition on Earth Day for presidents to jet off somewhere for a high profile speech, but I think it’s time for a change. Every year, on Earth Day, the president should deliver a webcast from the comforts of the Oval Office. Maybe then I could believe we had a leadership that genuinely understood the asperities of our environmental situation.

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Audrina Patridge from the television show, The Hills, appears in the latest PETA ad campaign in an effort to convince people to adopt their next animal. It’s a fact that when you buy from a pet store or a breeder, your purchase results in more animals being bred, all the while other animals die everyday waiting for a home in a shelter. It seems like a no brainer that adoption is the way to go. Sure you might not end up with that German Shepherd you had your eye on, but you’ll have a welcome addition to your home nonetheless.

Speaking of animal adoptions; President Obama had promised on the campaign trail that his family’s dog would be adopted. And it is, sort of; he adopted it from Ted Kennedy, who purchased it from a breeder. It’s a vast government conspiracy the likes of which we have never seen before. This blatant sidestepping of the issue didn’t stop the Humane Society from issuing a glowing commentary on the President’s saving of the puppy from near certain death in the nightmare that is Martha’s Vineyard.

Getting back to the topic at hand, a lot of people don’t like PETA. A common criticism I’ve heard is that the organization objectifies women in their ad campaigns. At least this time around those naysayers can rest assured that Audrina had been objectified long before PETA came calling.

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In recent years there has been growing support for solar power, this support has accelerated recently thanks in large part to the President’s stimulus package. Solar power is often hailed as a clean, environmentally friend energy source. While that is mainly true, it does have its own environmental impact.

Most power generation consumes large amounts of water, and while solar power uses less water than coal or nuclear, it still does use quite a bit of water. Making things more difficult is that solar power plants are almost always located in the desert, where of course, water is harder to come by. There are alternatives to water based cooling, but they are significantly more expensive.

More than 150 applications for solar power plants are currently awaiting approval in the western deserts of the United States. The water to run that many plants simply does not exist, and the National Park service warns that any water drawdowns in the region would adversely affect the endangered electric-blue pupfish.

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President Obama recently outlined his vision for the future of high-speed rail travel in the United States, saying that it could revolutionize American transportation in much the same way the Interstate system did in the 1950’s. Eight-billion Dollars has already been appropriated to the project via the stimulus package. Proposed routes include: St Louis and Chicago, Orlando and Miami, and Portland to Seattle.

Now while it seems like a nice idea, and supporters often point to Europe and Japan as proof it can be done. I’m going to rain on the parade and say that it cannot be done to those levels in the United States. And the reason is, cities in America are inherently different than cities in Europe. No one living in a urban center in Europe needs a car, they might have a car, but they don’t need one. In America the cities were built in a way that requires a vehicle. So you’re not going to see trains replace the automobile for quick jaunts, or even moderate length journeys.

Now could high-speed rail travel in the United States one day compete with domestic air routes? Possibly. But a lot of people’s distaste for air travel comes from invasive security procedures, and if Homeland Security gets their hands on train stations, train travel won’t be the most agreeable form of transport either.

Instead of talking about passenger rail, more needs to be done to take semi-trailer trucks off of the roads and transport their cargo via freight train. One freight train can move a ton of cargo over 400 miles on just one gallon of fuel. Good luck finding a truck to do that.

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I know a lot of you out there may have been worried about climate change, sometimes called global warming, and the large amount of greenhouse pollutants in the atmosphere. But worry no longer as the chief science adviser to the White House has a solution to the problem. As it turns out, all that needed to be done was to put more pollution in the atmosphere, but not greenhouse gases, opposite pollution.

It sounds like a joke but most unfortunately it is not. This idea has actually been suggested to the President and is being debated in scientific circles. It seems as if these people have not heard the phrase, ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’. And it appears to me that this would be a very short sighted solution to a real problem, and could lead to unknown ramifications.

I also have a problem with the current administration endorsing ‘cap and trade’ but then debating extreme solutions, here’s an extreme solution; enforce emission standards for real! Cap and trade is hogwash. I wrote a post about cap and trade a few weeks ago that I’ll link to here; Uncle Chan wants you to buy him a dam!

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2008 was the deadliest year on record for international aid workers with 122 killed while carrying out their work. More than 80% of the deaths reported have taken place in three countries; Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan. Being an aid worker is now officially more dangerous than being a guy in a blue hat.

I can’t say I’m too surprised by the news, as UN peacekeepers are infamous for not really doing anything. I’m sure everyone can recall the story of the brave Colonel Karremans in the Bosnian conflict.

So please remember to think about the aid workers the next time you’re pouring 40’s on the curb.

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