The environment thread

[FlaSoxxJim]

As, expected, the president vetoed the enormously important (if costly) Water Resources Development Act despite strong support from both houses of Congress (House passed it 381-40 and Senate passed 81-12). Lawmakers say they have the votes to override the veto, but they said that about S-CHIP too.

 

The Everglades restoration project is going to die if the veto stands, as are critical projects in coastal Louisiana and the Gulf coast, in the Great lakes, and in the Mississippi River.

 

How Mr. Bush can try to posture himself as being at environmental president while vetoing this crucial measure is completely beyond me.

[NorthSideSox72]

As, expected, the president vetoed the enormously important (if costly) Water Resources Development Act despite strong support from both houses of Congress (House passed it 381-40 and Senate passed 81-12). Lawmakers say they have the votes to override the veto, but they said that about S-CHIP too.

 

The Everglades restoration project is going to die if the veto stands, as are critical projects in coastal Louisiana and the Gulf coast, in the Great lakes, and in the Mississippi River.

 

How Mr. Bush can try to posture himself as being at environmental president while vetoing this crucial measure is completely beyond me.

Does he even bother trying to say he is an environmental President?

 

Anyway, unlike SCHIP, those votes are seriously, heavily against him. SCHIP didn't have a veto-proof majority - this one looks like it does. I think we're about to see the first veto override of this Presidency.

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

Does he even bother trying to say he is an environmental President?

 

Anyway, unlike SCHIP, those votes are seriously, heavily against him. SCHIP didn't have a veto-proof majority - this one looks like it does. I think we're about to see the first veto override of this Presidency.

 

Let's hope so.

 

And, yes, of late, a couple of Bush handlers have noted that as he begins to think more about his legacy he is trying to paint himself as having been pro-environment. His record of failure belies that assertion, certainly, but I guess he figures this might be the only thing he can spin into some sort of a positive from a legacy standpoint.

[NorthSideSox72]

Let's hope so.

 

And, yes, of late, a couple of Bush handlers have noted that as he begins to think more about his legacy he is trying to paint himself as having been pro-environment. His record of failure belies that assertion, certainly, but I guess he figures this might be the only thing he can spin into some sort of a positive from a legacy standpoint.

Well, he did protect that huge area in the Pacific. Other than that, he's been a downright awful President on the environment.

 

Wouldn't it be ironic if, at the end of his term, he did a bunch of environmental protection moves? Ironic because among his first things he did in office was to stay or remove all of Clinton's XO's along those same lines that he had done at the end of his Presidency.

 

[southsider2k5]

Here is the interesting line of it for me... I am glad that Bush has finally remembered his fiscal conservative side, I just wish he had remembered it oh about seven years ago or so.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...=la-home-center

 

Bush today noted that the House originally approved a $15-billion water bill and the Senate approved a $14-billion measure, but instead of customarily splitting the difference during negotiations, "emerged with a Washington compromise that costs over $23 billion."

 

So where did the other 50% of the final bill show up from?

[Texsox]

But at what economic cost? Look at the disaster that occurred in Seattle now that they have reached Kyoto level emissions of CO2. They may never fully recover.

 

The economic argument always comes up, and it has to be factored in. The new industries that could spring up would be a great boom to the economy, but that shouldn't be the only reason.

[kapkomet]

Here is the interesting line of it for me... I am glad that Bush has finally remembered his fiscal conservative side, I just wish he had remembered it oh about seven years ago or so.

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...=la-home-center

So where did the other 50% of the final bill show up from?

But it is damn stupid on this bill. Again, he does the right thing, for the wrong reasons. What a f***ing idiot.

 

[Rex Kickass]

See Congress is passing things. They just don't get past that next step.

[kapkomet]

See Congress is passing things. They just don't get past that next step.

Sure Rex.

 

[BigSqwert]

More Evangelicals concluding God is green.

[NorthSideSox72]

Just an open thought for consideration...

 

I really hope that with all the discussion of CCGW, which has so dominated the environmental discussion in recent years, that we don't come to think of that piece as the only thing worth worrying about with the environment. I am equally concerned about air quality, water supply, pollution generally and assorted other important factors. I think the push for green spaces and lowered pollution should still be very important.

 

That is all.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

The City of Chicago lays out its ambitious "Green Plan", which will be helped along with a large chunk of money from various corporations. Slick Willy will be in town soon to kick things off for his part of it, as Chicago becomes a test pilot city.

 

[BigSqwert]

The City of Chicago lays out its ambitious "Green Plan", which will be helped along with a large chunk of money from various corporations. Slick Willy will be in town soon to kick things off for his part of it, as Chicago becomes a test pilot city.

No money for that. It's all going to go to attract the olympics.

 

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stor...heworks/071025/

[kapkomet]

No money for that. It's all going to go to attract the olympics.

 

http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stor...heworks/071025/

That's a good point. But isn't that ok?

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Does it bother anyone else that big corporations are starting to promote how great they are because they are going (or have been) "green?" Case in point: NBC. All week long their logo has been all green and in just about every prime-time commercial segment there's an ad about all the great energy saving products and environmentally friendly practices they promote in their company. Yet, it's GE. Their products still pale in comparison to European products in terms of energy savigns costs. And really they just paint this completely unrealistic picture when they show famous characters planting trees in the middle of Manhattan. I guess I just laugh because at the end of the day it still comes down to money, not actually making the world better. They see a profit from promoting the fact that they are green - even though in reality they produce so much waste and continue to do more harm than good.

 

I'd much rather see this self-agrandizing when a company builds plants that are eco-friendly or decide that they're doing away with X plastic and instead are going to use biodegradable plastic. I think Hyundai or Toyota (some Japanese auto maker) opened up a plant a year or two ago that's totally eco-friendly. I remember watching the commercial and thinking - that's great they are promoting their new plant and not trying to sell people on the fact that their entire company and its practices are perfect.

[NorthSideSox72]

Does it bother anyone else that big corporations are starting to promote how great they are because they are going (or have been) "green?" Case in point: NBC. All week long their logo has been all green and in just about every prime-time commercial segment there's an ad about all the great energy saving products and environmentally friendly practices they promote in their company. Yet, it's GE. Their products still pale in comparison to European products in terms of energy savigns costs. And really they just paint this completely unrealistic picture when they show famous characters planting trees in the middle of Manhattan. I guess I just laugh because at the end of the day it still comes down to money, not actually making the world better. They see a profit from promoting the fact that they are green - even though in reality they produce so much waste and continue to do more harm than good.

 

I'd much rather see this self-agrandizing when a company builds plants that are eco-friendly or decide that they're doing away with X plastic and instead are going to use biodegradable plastic. I think Hyundai or Toyota (some Japanese auto maker) opened up a plant a year or two ago that's totally eco-friendly. I remember watching the commercial and thinking - that's great they are promoting their new plant and not trying to sell people on the fact that their entire company and its practices are perfect.

It was Subaru.

 

[southsider2k5]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/st...2205948,00.html

 

The western appetite for biofuels is causing starvation in the poor world

 

 

Developing nations are being pushed to grow crops for ethanol, rather than food - all thanks to political expediency

 

George Monbiot

Tuesday November 6, 2007

The Guardian

 

 

It doesn't get madder than this. Swaziland is in the grip of a famine and receiving emergency food aid. Forty per cent of its people are facing acute food shortages. So what has the government decided to export? Biofuel made from one of its staple crops, cassava. The government has allocated several thousand hectares of farmland to ethanol production in the district of Lavumisa, which happens to be the place worst hit by drought. It would surely be quicker and more humane to refine the Swazi people and put them in our tanks. Doubtless a team of development consultants is already doing the sums.

 

This is one of many examples of a trade that was described last month by Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur, as "a crime against humanity". Ziegler took up the call first made by this column for a five-year moratorium on all government targets and incentives for biofuel: the trade should be frozen until second-generation fuels - made from wood or straw or waste - become commercially available. Otherwise, the superior purchasing power of drivers in the rich world means that they will snatch food from people's mouths. Run your car on virgin biofuel, and other people will starve.

 

Even the International Monetary Fund, always ready to immolate the poor on the altar of business, now warns that using food to produce biofuels "might further strain already tight supplies of arable land and water all over the world, thereby pushing food prices up even further". This week, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation will announce the lowest global food reserves in 25 years, threatening what it calls "a very serious crisis". Even when the price of food was low, 850 million people went hungry because they could not afford to buy it. With every increment in the price of flour or grain, several million more are pushed below the breadline.

 

The cost of rice has risen by 20% over the past year, maize by 50%, wheat by 100%. Biofuels aren't entirely to blame - by taking land out of food production they exacerbate the effects of bad harvests and rising demand - but almost all the major agencies are now warning against expansion. And almost all the major governments are ignoring them.

 

They turn away because biofuels offer a means of avoiding hard political choices. They create the impression that governments can cut carbon emissions and - as Ruth Kelly, the British transport secretary, announced last week - keep expanding the transport networks. New figures show that British drivers puttered past the 500bn kilometre mark for the first time last year. But it doesn't matter: we just have to change the fuel we use. No one has to be confronted. The demands of the motoring lobby and the business groups clamouring for new infrastructure can be met. The people being pushed off their land remain unheard.

 

In principle, burning biofuels merely releases the carbon the crops accumulated when growing. Even when you take into account the energy costs of harvesting, refining and transporting the fuel, they produce less net carbon than petroleum products. The law the British government passed a fortnight ago - by 2010, 5% of our road transport fuel must come from crops - will, it claims, save between 700,000 and 800,000 tonnes of carbon a year. It derives this figure by framing the question carefully. If you count only the immediate carbon costs of planting and processing biofuels, they appear to reduce greenhouse gases. When you look at the total impacts, you find they cause more warming than petroleum.

 

A recent study by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen shows that the official estimates have ignored the contribution of nitrogen fertilisers. They generate a greenhouse gas - nitrous oxide - that is 296 times as powerful as CO2. These emissions alone ensure that ethanol from maize causes between 0.9 and 1.5 times as much warming as petrol, while rapeseed oil (the source of more than 80% of the world's biodiesel) generates 1-1.7 times the impact of diesel. This is before you account for the changes in land use.

 

A paper published in the journal Science three months ago suggests that protecting uncultivated land saves, over 30 years, between two and nine times the carbon emissions you might avoid by ploughing it and planting biofuels. Last year the research group LMC International estimated that if the British and European target of a 5% contribution from biofuels were to be adopted by the rest of the world, the global acreage of cultivated land would expand by 15%. That means the end of most tropical forests. It might also cause runaway climate change.

 

The British government says it will strive to ensure that "only the most sustainable biofuels" will be used in the UK. It has no means of enforcing this aim - it admits that if it tried to impose a binding standard it would break world trade rules. But even if "sustainability" could be enforced, what exactly does it mean? You could, for example, ban palm oil from new plantations. This is the most destructive kind of biofuel, driving deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia. But the ban would change nothing. As Carl Bek-Nielsen, vice chairman of Malaysia's United Plantations Berhad, remarked: "Even if it is another oil that goes into biodiesel, that other oil then needs to be replaced. Either way, there's going to be a vacuum and palm oil can fill that vacuum." The knock-on effects cause the destruction you are trying to avoid. The only sustainable biofuel is recycled waste oil, but the available volumes are tiny.

 

At this point, the biofuels industry starts shouting "jatropha". It is not yet a swear word, but it soon will be. Jatropha is a tough weed with oily seeds that grows in the tropics. This summer Bob Geldof, who never misses an opportunity to promote simplistic solutions to complex problems, arrived in Swaziland in the role of "special adviser" to a biofuels firm. Because it can grow on marginal land, jatropha, he claimed, is a "life-changing" plant that will offer jobs, cash crops and economic power to African smallholders.

 

Yes, it can grow on poor land and be cultivated by smallholders. But it can also grow on fertile land and be cultivated by largeholders. If there is one blindingly obvious fact about biofuel, it's that it is not a smallholder crop. It is an internationally traded commodity that travels well and can be stored indefinitely, with no premium for local or organic produce. Already the Indian government is planning 14m hectares of jatropha plantations. In August, the first riots took place among the peasant farmers being driven off the land to make way for them.

 

If the governments promoting biofuels do not reverse their policies, the humanitarian impact will be greater than that of the Iraq war. Millions will be displaced, hundreds of millions more could go hungry. This crime against humanity is a complex one, but that neither lessens nor excuses it. If people starve because of biofuels, Ruth Kelly and her peers will have killed them. Like all such crimes, it is perpetrated by cowards, attacking the weak to avoid confronting the strong.

 

www.monbiot.com

[NorthSideSox72]

This could be put in the Investing thread (re: oil), or the catch-all anything thread... but it seems best here. My wife and I finally bit the bullet yesterday, and ordered a hybrid vehicle. Due to the ridiculously high demand, it will take 3 to 6 months to get it. With gas prices soaring again, the amount of gas my wife uses to get to/from work, and out desire to try to reduce our energy usage and pollution levels, we thought it was time to seriously look at doing this. Since its been discussed in here many times, I thought I'd share the math with you...

 

Our current car is a 2004 Saturn VUE AWD V6, and it averages about 17 mpg (though it can be 15 or 16 at times, or 20 at best on all-open-road miles). It was rated to get 18 city and 24 highway, via the older rating system, which was not realistic. The wife drives a 44 mile round trip daily to work and back, plus we put some miles on it here and there, and we end up with about 1100 miles per month. The miles are almost entirely "city" for mpg purposes, because in rush hour, the highway is stop and go. So our gas costs look like this...

 

@$3.00/gallon: 1100 miles / 17 mpg = 64.7 gallons * $3.00 = $194.10/month

 

@$3.50/gallon: 1100 miles / 17 mpg = 64.7 gallons * $3.50 = $226.45/month

 

We wanted a car in the same small/compact SUV class (reasons are multiple, but they include camping trips, dirt roads to our property, AWD for snow/ice and safety issues). The only full hybrid in the class was the Ford Escape / Mercury Mariner, which gets 34 mpg for city use, which is on the newer more accurate guidelines (was 38 before I think). So now our gas costs would look like this:

 

@$3.00/gallon: 1100 miles / 34 mpg = 32.4 gallons * $3.00 = $97.20/month

 

@$3.50/gallon: 1100 miles / 34 mpg = 32.4 gallons * $3.50 = $113.40/month

 

We're around $3.25 right now, but it will probably hover around $3.50 for most of next year, so we'd be saving about $113 a month, or $1360 a year.

 

The differential cost of a hybrid over a non-hybrid in the Ford Escape (similarly equiped) is about $3400. That means that on gas savings alone, the payoff period is 2.5 years. That's shorter than we'd own a car typically, so, even just looking at the cost of gas over time, it looks like its worth it. But it gets better. The federal government gives $2200 one-time tax credit (not a deduction - a full credit) for this model hybrid, and Illinois gives $1000. That means that $3200 of the $3400 differential price is wiped out anyway, and the $200 you make up in gas savings in about 2 months. So, given the tax cycle, the payoff period for this car is now, at worst, a year. Everything after that is money in our pockets.

 

Our situation is not the same as everyone else's of course. If you buy a Prius or something that gets even more mileage, you save more. If your current car is already very efficient, you save less. But for us, the cost savings alone will be quite significant over the 3 or 4 years we are likely to own that car. Then there are the side benefits. Resale value of a hybrid will probably be quite good, given the high demand. And then there is the fact that if we are using half as much gas, we are probably putting half as much crap into the air and water.

 

Basically, this works out great for us. Payoff period in under a year, and we're doing a tiny little something better for the environment. Next time you are looking at cars, you should explore this path as well.

 

[FlaSoxxJim]

NorthSideSox72

[BigSqwert]

Awesome!

[kapkomet]

This could be put in the Investing thread (re: oil), or the catch-all anything thread... but it seems best here. My wife and I finally bit the bullet yesterday, and ordered a hybrid vehicle. Due to the ridiculously high demand, it will take 3 to 6 months to get it. With gas prices soaring again, the amount of gas my wife uses to get to/from work, and out desire to try to reduce our energy usage and pollution levels, we thought it was time to seriously look at doing this. Since its been discussed in here many times, I thought I'd share the math with you...

 

Our current car is a 2004 Saturn VUE AWD V6, and it averages about 17 mpg (though it can be 15 or 16 at times, or 20 at best on all-open-road miles). It was rated to get 18 city and 24 highway, via the older rating system, which was not realistic. The wife drives a 44 mile round trip daily to work and back, plus we put some miles on it here and there, and we end up with about 1100 miles per month. The miles are almost entirely "city" for mpg purposes, because in rush hour, the highway is stop and go. So our gas costs look like this...

 

@$3.00/gallon: 1100 miles / 17 mpg = 64.7 gallons * $3.00 = $194.10/month

 

@$3.50/gallon: 1100 miles / 17 mpg = 64.7 gallons * $3.50 = $226.45/month

 

We wanted a car in the same small/compact SUV class (reasons are multiple, but they include camping trips, dirt roads to our property, AWD for snow/ice and safety issues). The only full hybrid in the class was the Ford Escape / Mercury Mariner, which gets 34 mpg for city use, which is on the newer more accurate guidelines (was 38 before I think). So now our gas costs would look like this:

 

@$3.00/gallon: 1100 miles / 34 mpg = 32.4 gallons * $3.00 = $97.20/month

 

@$3.50/gallon: 1100 miles / 34 mpg = 32.4 gallons * $3.50 = $113.40/month

 

We're around $3.25 right now, but it will probably hover around $3.50 for most of next year, so we'd be saving about $113 a month, or $1360 a year.

 

The differential cost of a hybrid over a non-hybrid in the Ford Escape (similarly equiped) is about $3400. That means that on gas savings alone, the payoff period is 2.5 years. That's shorter than we'd own a car typically, so, even just looking at the cost of gas over time, it looks like its worth it. But it gets better. The federal government gives $2200 one-time tax credit (not a deduction - a full credit) for this model hybrid, and Illinois gives $1000. That means that $3200 of the $3400 differential price is wiped out anyway, and the $200 you make up in gas savings in about 2 months. So, given the tax cycle, the payoff period for this car is now, at worst, a year. Everything after that is money in our pockets.

 

Our situation is not the same as everyone else's of course. If you buy a Prius or something that gets even more mileage, you save more. If your current car is already very efficient, you save less. But for us, the cost savings alone will be quite significant over the 3 or 4 years we are likely to own that car. Then there are the side benefits. Resale value of a hybrid will probably be quite good, given the high demand. And then there is the fact that if we are using half as much gas, we are probably putting half as much crap into the air and water.

 

Basically, this works out great for us. Payoff period in under a year, and we're doing a tiny little something better for the environment. Next time you are looking at cars, you should explore this path as well.

That's really cool. I like the analysis you did.

 

I wish I could get another vehicle, but I'm so close to paying mine off, I don't want anymore payments. When we look at getting another vehicle I will consider this, but unfortunately the tax breaks will be gone.

 

[YASNY]

NSS ... you're analysis is the first one I've ever seen that shows it make sense to go the hybrid route finacially. Maybe, just maybe, things are changing for the better in this area.

[FlaSoxxJim]

NSS ... you're analysis is the first one I've ever seen that shows it make sense to go the hybrid route finacially. Maybe, just maybe, things are changing for the better in this area.

 

The $3.00-$3.50/gallon gas is the tipping point and that makes all the difference.

 

I wish the wait to buy hybrids wasn't as long as it is, because that will cost the industry a lot of motivated buyers.

[YASNY]

The $3.00-$3.50/gallon gas is the tipping point and that makes all the difference.

 

I wish the wait to buy hybrids wasn't as long as it is, because that will cost the industry a lot of motivated buyers.

 

And as demand increases, they'll raise the price of hybrids to where it no longer makes sense to go that route, keeping the oil companies well oiled, so to speak.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Yeah, I agree, the shortage of these vehicles is artificial and unnecessary - a way to spike demand and price them at a premium.