Environmental Talk

“Time to un-pimp your energy source….”

One of the positive outcomes from the whole global warming debate has been the focus on exploring new technologies to produce energy.

As anyone who’s read the Cliff Notes to The Old Man and the Sea knows, man has long been fascinated by the lure and power of the sea as well as the lure and power of Cliff Notes to help cut studying time.

One of the latest attempts to generate clean, renewable energy involves trying to harness the power of the ocean to generate electricity.

The MIT Technology Review (no, really, someone gave it to me as a gift…) notes that:

“Technology for harnessing the ocean’s energy already exists, but it has not been widely adopted, largely because it has trouble withstanding the pounding of the waves .. Earlier systems used more-conventional electromagnetic devices, such as dynamos with complex transmissions, hydraulic pistons, and turbines. The gears of a transmission, in particular, are vulnerable to wear and tear from the erratic surging of ocean waves.”

Translating from the original geek, this means there’s this really cool technology that, in theory, should solve a problem but doesn’t work in the real world. It’s kind of like universal health care.

The good news is, engineers have figured out a way to harness wave power without all that complicated hydraulic stuff. Basically, someone figured out they could just use a big rubber band.

I believe this was technology first discovered by The Spinners back in the 1970s.

Harnessing the power of funky dance for an energy-starved world…

Early surface prototypes have produced around five watts of power (about enough for a light bulb), but “an alternative design could involve submerged sheets of rubber that generate power as the force of currents or tides makes them flap back and forth.”

Giant rubber bands under the sea could one day provide enough energy for most of the country’s coastal cities and towns…

.. and enough natural and sustainable videos of fish getting snapped in the face to provide hours of blooper fun for America’s Funniest Animals.

global warming, climate change, The Spinners, rubber band man, Office Max, ocean energy, funky dance, Volkswagen, Peter Stormare

Leading the league in turnovers ….

Are you ready for some political football?

Condoleezza Rice was the opening speaker in a conference billed as a gathering of “the world’s 16 largest emitters of greenhouse gas.”

Coincidentally, the 16 countries are also responsible for creating the vast majority of the world’s wealth, technology and progress.

Funny how that works out ….

The Secretary of State said the U.S. is committed to tackling the issue of global warming as shown in the following video. For those of you scoring at home, Team Global Warming is in the dark jerseys and the U.S. is in the light-colored uniforms ….

Man, that global warming is unstoppable ….

Rice coughed up the football by pledging that the conference would work to “accelerate the broader process of the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).”

The main feature of the UNFCCC (other than being the world’s most cumbersome acronym) is a mandatory cap on emissions by the so-called “rich countries.”

The U.S. ceding control to the UNFCCCCCC is a lot like the New England Patriots trying to accelerate their push to the Super Bowl by letting the Atlanta Falcons play their games for them.

Having proven ineffectual in virtually every world crisis of the past 50 years, the U.N. continues to fulfill the only mission it has left: to attempt to transfer wealth from prosperous countries to less successful ones while dictators and U.N. officials skim off a few billion dollars in the process.

Upon further review … the U.S. should continue the policy of opting out of the global warming wealth re-distribution scheme.

global warming, climate change, New England Patriots, Atlanta Falcons, Condoleezza Rice, United Nations, UNCCC, oil-for-food, patronage, bad ideas

“We don’t need another hero ….”

Washington Post personal financial columnist Michelle Singletary just announced her winners for the 2007 Penny Pincher of the Year Awards.

You’ll be happy to know that the top three entrants all made the cut based on environmentally friendly actions they sent in.

The third place prize of $25 (hey, that’s a lot to a penny pincher) was awarded to Amy Haden of Scottsville, Virginia. Amy put “buckets next to the coffee makers in her building so she can collect coffee grounds and food waste.”

By taking this one small step Amy was able to take about 50 pounds of solid waste a week back to her home for composting, but was reportedly at a loss for why fellow employees no longer wanted to car pool with her to work.

After factoring in the cash prize she won for the contest, Amy figures she’ll break even based on the additional costs of disinfecting and Febreezing her car on a regular basis.

But this is America. No one’s interested in who took third place. Let’s get to the grand prize winner. May I have the envelope, please ….

The winner … of the 2007 Penny Pincher of the Year Award … and the recipient of a check for $100… made from recyclable paper is …

Tom Sponheim, come on down …

Here’s how Tom won this year’s top honors:

…Sponheim took it upon himself to visit restrooms in some of the older coffee shops in the area - those likely to be equipped with outdated five-gallon toilets, as opposed to new water-saving models. Then he’d flush them to see if they really needed all the water they were using. If not, he adjusted the level of water in the tank so that each flush was a little less drain on the system.

“I tried to go to places with a lot of traffic,” he said. “I created a spreadsheet with the estimated water savings for each restaurant estimating the number of times a day the toilet would be flushed and number of ounces saved on each flush. My calculations showed that my three or four hours of work would result in a savings of about 500,000 liters a year of water.”

There was talk that Starbucks would honor Tom with a coupon for a free venti caramel macchiato, but hopes were quickly dashed when it was found attendance figures at the local chain had dropped with most people citing their discomfort with “that creepy toilet dude who’s always messing around in the men’s room.”

Fame has it’s price, however. Doctors are still trying to figure out the nature of the rash that Tom has developed between his wrist and elbow.

Still, Tom maintains the satisfaction he got from jerry-rigging random toilets and keeping a spreadsheet on his efforts was worth the trade-off of being celibate for the next 50 years.

There is a silver (ceramic?) lining to this story.

As a reward for his selfless civic actions, Tom also earned an all-expenses-paid trip to Minneapolis to meet with Senator Larry Craig.

global warming, climate change, penny pincher, Michelle Singletary, Washington Post, Larry Craig, strange rashes, Starbucks, venti caramel macchiato

One is a wild creature with close-set eyes and no pants, the other is found mainly in the jungles of Africa….

The problem with animals is that they have short memories.

Just ask Siegfried and Roy.

Or ask the people living on the Cape Peninsula in South Africa where chacma baboons, an endangered species, are being blamed for a recent crime wave.

We humans bend over backward trying to protect an endangered species and this is the thanks we get? The baboons “have been raiding people’s homes for food and causing thousands of pounds in damage.”

As one resident explains, “”They get into the kitchens, they know where the fridge is, they open it and take everything, and then they defecate everywhere.”

I know the feeling. My grandfather lives with us and he does the same thing.

Many South Africans are demanding the baboons be moved to a nature preserve, or as we call it in this country, assisted living.

It turns out that breaking and entering isn’t the only criminal activity the apes are involved in. Add carjacking to the baboons’ rap sheet.

The article notes that some tourists “made the mistake of leaving their car unlocked and within seconds the big male [baboon] had opened the door and was rooting around inside.”

To the concern of many conservationists, residents have begun to shoot apes that invade their home and carjack their SUVs.

Jenni Trethowan is in charge of an organization called Baboon Matters which “aims to educate people about the animals and reduce conflict” says that “residents should enjoy their visitors rather than harming them.”

I don’t care what kind of organization you have backing you up, if you break into my refrigerator and take the last slice of leftover everything pizza without asking … we’re gonna rumble. You better believe you’re going to be an endangered species at that point.

And that includes you, Grandpa.

global warming, climate change, apes, baboons, Grandpa, South Africa, carjacking

Conceptually possible for you to date her….

My favorite part of any car show, right after the models in skimpy outfits, is the section devoted to “concept cars.”

Concept cars are the “vision of the future” that automakers trot out to convince you how really forward-looking they are and to let you know how hip they are to current social trends.

Next year’s concept car probably will be a car that delivers universal health care.

The thing to remember about concept cars is they are meant to give you a glimpse at what’s possible but they will never, ever become a reality in your lifetime.

Concept cars are like Carmen Electra. In theory, you have the opportunity to sleep with her; the reality is you’ll be hitting on the chunky office temp with the butterfly tramp stamp at the Christmas party again this year.

It’s nice to dream about owning a Lamborghini that sucks carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and emits shares of Microsoft but chances are, when you check out your balance at the ATM, you’re going to be stuck with that seven-year-old Ford Focus that starts smoking every time you try to accelerate onto the highway.

Over at the TheNewsroom.com they ask you to imagine what it will be like to be able to charge your car like a cellphone.

Ummmm … no, thanks.

I don’t want my car to be anything like my cellphone. Especially not if it means my car is going to randomly lose power in different parts of the city or if it means I can get a free battery but only if I sign a contract to use the same recharging station for the next three generations of my family.

If it’s all the same to you, I’ll pass on having my car get smaller every year and packed with more and more features I don’t care about and will never use.

Did you know the new version of the Chevy Volt can do quadratic equations? Oooh, no, please tell me more about why the hell I’d ever want that.

I’d also like to skip the part where the over-exuberant salesman with too much hair gel grabs my arm in the mall and drags me over to the kiosk to get me to switch my electric car provider.

In the video, the spokesman for the battery company GM is using explains how the car would be powered by a rechargeable lithium ion battery “just like the one on your computer or cell phone.”

I don’t want to be too much of a kill-joy here, but that feature where the battery on my computer bursts into flames might be a little more of an irritant if I’m cruising down the highway and suddenly become a stunt driver in the remake of Backdraft.

And if I can get brain cancer from using my cellphone for less than an hour a day, what happens when make the 4-hour drive from New York to Baltimore in a giant rolling cell phone? Do I just melt into a gelatinous blob somewhere on the New Jersey Turnpike?

I may be old-fashioned, but I just want my car to be a car.

I want to stop at the gas station before I go out on a date so I can pay over three bucks a gallon to pump my own gas and because nothing turns chicks on like the smell of 93 octane all over your hands.

I want to listen while a tattooed gear-head who dropped out of grade school tells me the compression ratio for the defibrillator on my carburetor isn’t lined up right and it’s worn down my medulla oblongata. And it’ll cost about $740 plus labor to fix it.

In one important way, though, the electric car will be just like my cellphone.

I won’t buy one until the Japanese version comes out.

The video is worth watching, if only to see the part where the CEO of General Motors explains the concept behind the car by saying, “Electronically driven cars are always electronically driven…”

global warming, climate change, concept cars, General Motors, Chevy Volt, spontaneous combustion, brain cancer, CEO-speak

Bigger threat than global warming? ….

Petroleum is the world’s largest traded commodity. The second largest is coffee.

So, the only real surprise here is how long it took someone to link drinking coffee with global warming. As long as we’re breaking our addiction to foreign oil, why not work on the coffee addiction, too?

According to the figures from the Your Eco Source blog, your morning cup of coffee is responsible for half-a-pound of CO2 emissions and the deforestation of 45 square feet of rain forest a day.

Somebody once said, “If you torture the data long enough, Nature will confess.” In the climate change debate, it seems like a daily occurrence that two scientists, working from the exact same physical data, somehow manage to come to diametrically opposed conclusions.

Statistics get tossed around like ten dollar chips in the World Series of Poker. For the most part, it seems it is the global warming advocates who rely on exaggeration and hyperbole to create a sense of impending doom.

For the sake of argument, let’s suspend disbelief for a second and take the 45-square-foot-per-cup figure as legit.

If you’re ordering a two-shot, double skim, half-caf, venti chai latte with lo-cal whipped cream and a dusting of nutmeg, your numbers will be slightly higher due to the energy required to run the cappuccino machine and the carbon dioxide emitted by the heavy sighs of people in line behind you.

Let’s consider that Dunkin’ Donuts sells 2.7 million cups of coffee a day. That means that, counting just those people who get their coffee from the same place I do, we knock off about 2800 acres a day from the rain forest. It seems like a good cold snap in the Northeast could pretty much take down a whole chunk of Brazil.

If we go with the total world-wide figure of two billion cups of coffee a day, we get 90 billion square feet of purported biosphere carnage a day or about two million acres.

It’s enough to make you switch to decaf just to calm your nerves.

Combine this with figures that put the deforestation rate at 55 square feet per hamburger consumed and it’s pretty clear we should have run out of rain forests somewhere back when Carter was president.

So, let’s recap ….

To save the planet we need to skip morning coffee, stop drinking bottled water, eliminate meat from our diets and only drink juice from fruit grown within 25 miles of where we purchase it. The occasional home-grown salad is okay but only if you have a water-conserving sprinkler and compost your own garbage.

My own opinion is that under that scenario we’d hasten our own extinction due to the absolutely foul mood we’d all be in on a daily basis. It would make going to the mall look like a scene from Resident Evil.

I guess it could work … but only after I’ve had my second cup of coffee.

global warming, climate change, Resident Evil, Dunkin’ Donuts, Al Gore, rain forests, rainforests, Brazilian wax

“I don’t want to cause no fuss…”

The Chinese are smart. From the land that invented fireworks, the egg roll and lead-based children’s toys, comes the latest inspired idea: a nationwide “no car day.”

The idea is to reduce gridlock, encourage environmental health and promote obedience to state decrees.

After all, you can’t just have people driving whenever and wherever they feel like. It’s the first step toward anarchy and a total breakdown of the social fabric.

The government doesn’t want to get all crazy about it, though, so they’re holding the no-car day on Saturday.

It’s unclear what the punishment for driving a car will be but it will be somewhere between being monitored on Google and getting run over by a tank.

global warming, climate change, no car day, China, Tiananmen Square, Mattel toy recall, Google censorship, free speech,

The evidence for the catastrophic effects of global warming is riiight here….

One of the really fascinating things about the global warming debate is the constant shell game that is played as people try to extrapolate long-range climate change from short-term weather patterns.

The problem is the weather keeps changing. It’s funny like that.

This leads to the popular evidence cited for global warming coming in and out of fashion faster than the latest specialty burger at McDonalds.

Al Gore took great pains to link global warming to shrinking ice shelves in Antarctica, dying polar bears in Canada and the retreat of glaciers on Kilimanjaro. In the wake of Katrina, much was made of how we were entering a new era of storm frequency and severity.

But that was soooo last year.

This year’s trendy, headline-grabbing, nature fact-of-the-day is the melting of Artic ice, opening up the potential for a navigable Northwest Passage.

You don’t hear too much these days about the ice in Antarctica. I’m just guessing here, but maybe that’s because sea ice area in that part of the globe just surpassed the previous record high-levels.

Polar bears are out of fashion now that research has shown their population has increased six-fold since the 1980s. An amazing species growth in the face of the rise in the very greenhouse gases that were supposed to be a threat to their existence.

Global warming as the cause of glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro has been thoroughly debunked, but there’s really no harm in remaining impressed with Gore’s knowledge of Hemingway.

And remember how we’ve been rocked the past couple of years by an increased number of severe hurricanes? Yeah, me neither.

Even disregarding forecasts by some of the preeminent hurricane scientists that global warming could actually decrease the number and severity of hurricanes, it’s hard to fill an evening news show with the whole picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words thing when all you have to show for your global warming cause-and-effect projections is a few downed tree limbs and three inches of water in someone’s basement.

If the current record of prediction holds up, it turns out the threat of a new Britney Spears single could cause more damage to your children’s future than climate change.

But that won’t really matter, if you’ll only keep your eye on the shell with the global warming pea under it.

It’s the one in the middle, right? ….

global warming, climate change, polar bears, hurricanes, ice area, Northwest Passage, Britney Spears

“Q” Me In …

It’s so cute. Or should I “Q”-te.

The world’s smallest car, the new Toyota Q car, was on display yesterday at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The car is nine feet nine inches long. The new design has shaved off three inches from the car’s already compact specs.

Or, to put it in New York terms, in that 450 square foot studio apartment you live in … you just lost half your kitchen.

The Q-Car is the latest in inspired green design that manages to make incremental improvements in your carbon footprint at the expense of other minor details like safety and comfort.

Toyota’s marketing materials boast the car can fit four people. For this reason, the car is likely to impress abortion rights activists since the only way four people could fit in this car is if two of the people in the car are pregnant … but only in the first trimester.

If you just want to have two people in the car, the Q is designed with passenger seats that fold down for extra storage space. The versatile design is Toyota’s attempt to market the car to an audience broader than just ex-Munchkins and contortionists from the Cirque du Soleil.

While pushing the limits of miniaturization to the point where the average airline seat looks like a summer home in comparison, the Toyota Q car manages to make up in convenience what it lacks in safety.

With today’s new lighter materials, if you happen to back up into another car in a parking garage, the total space inside the car will be reduced by half. For any accidents which take place at over 15 miles-per-hour, the entire car (including passengers) will reduce to roughly the size of a can of tuna. This makes for easy clean-up of accident sites and minimal delays for other drivers.

Toyota. Smart design with you in mind … if you happen to be Verne Troyer.

Actual size

global warming, climate change, carbon footprint, Toyota, Q car, MiniMe, Verne Troyer, abortion rights,

Walk this way…

The folks over at ClimateCare.org note that “sometimes the best source of renewable energy is the human body itself.” This appears to fit quite nicely with their slogan: “Helping You Help the Climate.”

As it turns out, you can help the climate by doing more work. And the folks at Climate Care will be kind enough to give you tips on exactly how you can work harder, longer and less efficiently to achieve that end.

What’s not clear is why you should be working harder for the climate, as opposed to harnessing the climate to work harder to improve human life? This whole way of thinking is just so Alice-in-Wonderland.

Do you “owe” a good day’s work to the climate? Does the climate somehow “employ” you? And, if so, why does the climate have such a lousy health care plan?

The concerned folks at Climate Care are even nice enough to describe how the process works:

How it works
Every source of human energy will be different, and the number of applications are hugely varied … our project in India [is] promoting treadle pumps for irrigation, to replace diesel power.

The treadle pump is a simple device which uses human power to pump water from wells, streams and lakes. One person - man, woman or even child - can operate the pump by manipulating his/her body weight on two treadles and by holding a bamboo or wooden frame for support. These pumps displace the diesel pumps that are more commonly used.

Using women and even children for manual labor has been tried a couple times throughout history with some interesting results….
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Earning their Cheops
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The whole arc of human progress has been characterized by the invention of labor-saving devices to increase the most precious and most perishable commodity you have - your time.

Sure, you could walk to work, cut your grass with a scythe and build your own house by hauling stones by hand from a quarry … but why the hell would you?

Your time can be much better spent composting your garbage, harvesting your own vegetables and spending 45-minutes feeding your returnable bottles into a sorting machine.

Oops, wait, we better have midgets or even a child behind the slot at the bottle-return kiosk … just to make sure we’re totally carbon efficient.

global warming, climate change, human power, Great Pyramid of Egypt, slave labor, returnable bottles and cans

As a long-time New Yorker and someone who was living in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, today holds a special place in my memory and my heart.

As I’ve detailed over at Get Incensed, the two most memorable pieces I recall are from an unlikely source - humor writer Dave Barry.

Mr. Barry was one of many people who helped New Yorkers and all Americans make it through that day and the arduous weeks that followed.

Thank you again to all of those who know who you are and who’ve been publicly thanked.

And thank you to all of those who toiled and consoled and inspired through a thousand individual anonymous acts to show the world the meaning of courage and the spirit of this great country.

“I so want to be on the Discovery Channel instead of Cartoon Network….”

With the appearance of yet another global warming news story treating projections as facts, I think it’s about time for a new bumper sticker:

.

The story, which appeared over the weekend, notes:

Melting Arctic sea ice due to global warming could cut the polar bear population by two-thirds over the next 50 years, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said in a series of studies released Friday.

The key words here are “could” and “U.S. Geological Survey.”

I could sleep with Carmen Electra. As a matter of fact, my own studies project that will happen at about the same time there’s a two-thirds decline in the polar bear population.

It’s also worth noting that the USGS referred to in the article is the same U.S. Geological Survey that produced a survey in 2002 noting that “polar bear populations may now be near historic highs.”

As recently as 2004:

A Canadian Press Newswire story earlier this year reported that, in three Arctic villages, polar bears “are so abundant there’s a public safety issue.” Local polar bears reportedly increased from about 2,100 in 1997 to as many as 2,600 in 2004. Inuits wanted to kill more bears, which are “fearsome predators.”

Despite what the employees at Build-A-Bear might tell you, polar bears are not cute, cuddly friends dressed in bib overalls that play a musical tune when you squeeze them.

As the world’s largest land-based predator capable of swimming up to 62 miles at a clip, the polar bear has been around for nearly 100,000 years kicking ass and taking seal and Eskimo names.

I can name about 300 things that are more endangered than the polar bear including disco and Britney Spears’ career.

Does he look like he needs your help?

Let’s be rational about this. What we really need to do is take all the money that was going to go toward illegal immigration and build a big fence to keep the polar bears away from New York City.

global warming, climate change, polar bears, Build-A-Bear, Care Bears, Britney Spears, disco,

“You have exactly ten seconds to change that look of disgusting pity into one of enormous respect!”

It used to be if someone asked you if you wanted to buy a piece of the Brooklyn Bridge, they were not so subtly suggesting you might be just a little bit gullible.

When I heard there was a website where you could adopt pieces of the sky (in handy one square mile increments), I assumed it was for some kind of publicity stunt for an eco-friendly remake of The Producers. Only this time, instead of over-selling shares in Springtime for Hitler, the green equivalent of Bialystock and Bloom would auction off 150% of the sky. And hilarity would ensue.

It turns out the people at Adopt the Sky are serious.

In fairness, they’re not asking you to donate money, they’re asking you to sign a petition and looking to harvest a bunch of e-mail addresses.

I’m sure the folks at Adopt the Sky and the parent organization Earth Justice are nice, decent people. After all, they’re lawyers.

And they have a website with New Age music where you can see the bubble which represents your signature on their petition float among a sky filled with puffy white clouds and other like-minded bubbles.

I’m a long-time New York City resident, so I know I suffer from an acute case of excessive cynicism and occasional irritability. I just get tired of all these shiny, happy volunteers who approach you with the simplistic notion that all the evils in the world can be stamped out at no cost to anyone if we all just click our heels together three times and wish hard enough. And sign a petition. Oh, and don’t forget there’s a space for your e-mail address self-induced spam request right here….

I’m even more suspicious when the shiny, happy volunteers are fronting for a group of sue-happy lawyers.

“Do you want clean air and healthy children?”

Yes, strangely enough, I do.

But, you know what? I’d also like a world free of attorneys but I’m adult enough to realize there may be costs involved, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll try to make a rational decision on facts as opposed to an emotional decision based on looking at a kid in an oxygen tent next to a picture of an industrial smokestack.

Or I’ll trade you for a signature on my petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide….

adopt a sky, The Producers, earth justice,

“No, I just had ice cream ….”

A recent environmental study found that “male seals are reaping the benefits of climate change by having more sex.”

Scientists also noted a 67% increase in headaches among female seals as well as a growing sense of exasperation in dealing with more frequent requests to “do that thing where you balance my balls on your nose.”

global warming, climate change, seals, circus

“Imagine there’s no hubris…”

I didn’t think it was possible to come off as more pretentious than some of the Hollywood types who preach about global warming while personally living a lifestyle characterized by a Sasquatch-sized carbon footprint.

But, wouldn’t you know it, Yoko Ono was able to do just that while talking about her stance on hybrid cars.

When asked if she would consider buying a hybrid car, Ono rejected the suggestion and petulantly wondered, “Can someone make Hybrid cars as comfortable as a Bentley, please?”

Let’s get to work on that right away.

As a matter of fact, let’s see if we can’t pull some resources from oh, say, cancer research or sustainable energy to help speed things up a bit.

If you already were mad at Yoko for breaking up The Beatles, this could cause you to hang yourself.

Perhaps, what’s most surprising about her statement is that Yoko is known for her social activism. A few years ago she re-enacted her famous Cut Piece stage presentation, where the members of the audience are invited to come on stage and take scissors to snip off an article of Yoko’s clothing until she is naked.

The purpose of the performance was to promote world peace. (That seems to have made a real dent…) Nobody ever mistook Yoko for a supermodel and, at age 70, she isn’t any better looking than she was in the Sixties.

We can only surmise that the sight of a naked, screechy-voiced septuagenarian is also an attempt to address the obesity epidemic by killing the appetite of anyone who goes to see the show.

Those damn hybrids … they’re just not anywhere near as comfortable as your standard Bentley.

While we’re at it, can we make that polyester suit I just bought at K-Mart look and feel a little more like a silk-blend Armani? Please.

global warming, climate change, Yoko Ono, Instant Karma, K-Mart, Armani, Bentley, Cut Piece, performance art