Earth Day was a few days ago and to commemorate the occasion President Obama went to Newton, Iowa to deliver a speech about the importance of environmental conservation and the development of alternative energies.
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.
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.
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!
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.
According to Prince Charles that is how long we have to save the world from irreversible damage due to climate change.
Fresh off the high of being named the world’s best dressed man by Esquire magazine, Prince Charles has now set off on a new more important quest to once again bring the environment to the forefront of political discussion. The Prince will be touring South America all week and delivering a keynote speech on the environment in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday.
I can’t say I know a lot about Prince Charles’ personal values, but he is a vegetarian and that alone gives him immeasurably more credibility than Al Gore on all things related to the environment. Also I think it’s great that someone from the British Royal Family is doing something other than making Pakistanis feel bad about themselves.
A lot of you have heard of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’. Excuse me, let me rephrase. None of you have heard of the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’. It’s the UN sponsored carbon credit trading system in which governments from first-world nations invest in green friendly projects that will reduce the carbon emissions from a third world country. And by doing so they’re giving themselves licence to pollute with a clear conscious, perfect right? Not quite. It seems something so noble as rich countries buying their way out of personal responsibility has been tainted by those third-world tricksters!
The People’s Republic has had a long standing fascination with hydro power. China has been building hydro-electric plants for a long time now, often forcibly displacing those who live in the region. But now they’re not doing it with their own money, they’re doing it with European money. That’s smart business for China, but it’s not actually reducing any carbon emissions because these were plants whose construction would have gone ahead with or without CDM money.
Now I agree in principle that rich nations should spend money to help less privileged nations meet carbon emission standards. But this is not the ideal system.
A recent report has revealed that shark attacks in 2008 dropped to their lowest levels in five years. While the cynic in you might attribute this occurrence to shark populations having collapsed due to human interference. The true cause has been identified as the economy.
“I can’t help but think that contributing to the reduction may have been the reticence of some people to take holidays and go to the beach for economic reasons,” said George Burgess, an ichthyologist and director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida’s Museum of Natural History.
All of this has lead to speculation that the current stimulus package is really just an elaborate government conspiracy intent on feeding freedom loving Americans to sharks.
In other news: Studies claim no correlation has been found between the recent lack of buffalo sightings and the wide-scale hunting of the American Bison. The phenomena has instead been attributed to President Harrison’s signing of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
The much maligned economic stimulus package that has been championed by President Obama might not actually stimulate the economy in the traditional sense, but it will absolutely stimulate the nation’s ‘green economy’. More than ten percent of the package’s 787 billion dollars are expected to go towards renewable domestic energy, a better grid to transmit electricity, energy research and programs to reduce the use of fossil fuels, such as weatherizing homes and federal buildings.
Ignoring for the moment that the United States’ economic foundation is no more sturdy than that of a house of cards, I am pleased to see even in the face of dire economic straits America’s current leadership has recognized the importance of protecting the environment.
Ashley Judd has recently taken Sarah Palin to task over the Governor’s wildlife policies concerning wolves. The Governor says the controversial policy of aerial wolf hunting is needed to control predator populations in the state, and has branded the opposition as nothing more than extremist groups. While Ashley Judd claims that the practice is senseless and unscientific.
I’m going to have to agree with Ashley Judd here (shocker, me siding with the environmentalist). The basic rationale behind the state’s wolf hunting policy is to increase the number of caribou and elk (etc.) so that those animals can be later shot from the ground. Therefore the great crime of the wolf is that it’s mildly standing in the way of human recreation (excuse me, cultural practices).
You can check out the following website for some extremist info on Sarah Palin’s wildlife policies: http://eyeonpalin.org/
And if you are interested in helping to protect the wolves right to exist, you can take a look at one of my favourite charities, Defenders Of Wildlife: http://www.defenders.org/
I miss Bush already. That dude was hilarious! State sanctioned torture equals good times. Have you ever seen someone waterboarded? Well I have (on Always Sunny) and it was quite funny.
