|
Windmill generators: See this page. Ethanol: See this page. Biodiesel: It Doesn't Take a Rocket Scientist…. [Here]'s what has been happening in the fuel tanks of trucks across Minnesota because of the biodiesel mandate that was put into effect last year. Over 60% of the diesel trucks in the state have had their fuel tanks and fuel filters gummed up by the soybean oil that the government forced into the fuel tanks. Biodiesel is now slightly cheaper than regular diesel. While soaring fuel costs are the bane of most businesses, Oregon makers of biodiesel are celebrating. Their product now is cheaper than the stuff that comes out of the ground. Orang-utans home destroyed for bio-diesel. The Orang-utans of Borneo are facing an unprecedented threat as their habitat is destroyed to satisfy increasing global demands for bio-fuel. As jungles are rapidly replaced by palm oil plantations, the great apes starve and are hunted, mutilated, burnt and snared by workers protecting their crops. At a rehabilitation centre run by the charity Borneo Orang-utan Survival, there are more than 600, mostly orphaned babies. Green Tech Defined: Remember the local news headline where the science teacher converted his '82 Volvo wagon to run on the grease from McDonald's? The press, fellow teachers, and students swooned at how green-conscious and forward-looking the teacher was. Not surprisingly, no student asked if there were enough burger joints to power a lot of cars and, if there were, whether or not the infrastructure (e.g., gas stations) to distribute French Fry Fuel exists. [This is an example of] technology that seems visionary but whose "Green" value is illusory because the real environmental or financial costs are concealed, or the widespread adoption of the technology is impossible, or because it is financially unavailable to most Americans. Biofuel: Bad for the Environment? Two new studies released Thursday [4/10/2008] call into question the global movement toward biofuel. According to these researchers, production of biofuel actually contributes to global warming, doing more harm than good. Biofuels may harm more than help. Biofuels, championed for reducing energy reliance, boosting farm revenues and helping fight climate change, may in fact hurt the environment and push up food prices, a study suggested on Tuesday [9/11/2007]. In a report on the impact of biofuels, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said biofuels may "offer a cure that is worse than the disease they seek to heal". A New 'Green' Body Count Begins. Biofuels have turned out to be a lose-lose-lose proposition. Once touted by the greens and the biofuel industry as being able to reduce the demand for oil and lower greenhouse gas emissions, biofuels have accomplished neither goal and have no prospect for accomplishing either in the foreseeable future. Chinese Demand Sends Christmas Tree Prices Soaring. Demand for Christmas trees is rising due to increasing exports and the growing number of single-person households. Meanwhile the supply of trees has decreased because several thousand hectares of tree plantations in Germany have been given over to more profitable uses, such as lucrative biofuel crops. Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a 'Clean' Fuel. After residents of the Riverbend Farms subdivision noticed that an oily, fetid substance had begun fouling the Black Warrior River, which runs through their backyards, Mark Storey, a retired petroleum plant worker, hopped into his boat to follow it upstream to its source. It turned out to be an old chemical factory that had been converted into Alabama's first biodiesel plant, a refinery that intended to turn soybean oil into earth-friendly fuel. D1 Oils says US subsidies have forced it to shut UK refineries. The enormous damage being done by "splash-and-dash" imports of American biodiesel was highlighted yesterday when one of the UK's leading operators, D1 Oils, said it was closing down all its refining operations in Britain after running up a £46m annual loss. Biofuels under fire at International Energy Forum. Biofuels, once seen as a key factor in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, are behind the current global food crisis, major oil producers and consumers charged at an energy forum here on Monday [4/21/2008]. Rush to biofuels leaves a world of emptier plates. In early 2007, two University of Minnesota economists forecast that biofuels would sharply increase food prices by 2020, leading to a steep rise in the number of empty bellies in the world. How wrong they were. Soaring rates of hunger didn't take a generation. It took a year. Gore Ducks, as a Backlash Builds Against Biofuel. In an interview last year, Mr. Gore expressed his support for corn-based ethanol, but endorsed moving to what he called a "third generation" of so-called cellulosic ethanol production, which is still in laboratory research. "It doesn't compete with food crops, so it doesn't put pressure on food prices," the former vice president told Popular Mechanics magazine. Feeling blue over trying to be green: Two papers, in the journal Science, rocked the biofuels world by claiming that plant-based fuels cause more greenhouse-gas emissions than dirty, evil old oil. The reason is that it takes land to grow fuel. That inevitably leads to the destruction of forests and grasslands, the studies say. Repeal the MN Biodiesel Mandate — Do It for the (Frostbitten) Children!!. All schools in the Bloomington School District will be closed today after state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather, the district said late Thursday. Rick Kaufman, the district's spokesman, said elements in the biodiesel fuel that turn into a gel-like substance at temperatures below 10 degrees clogged about a dozen district buses Thursday morning. Montana Biodiesel Producer Owes Farmers $1.2M For Last Year's Crop. A Montana biodiesel company, which has received more than $1.6 million in grants and loans from the state and a regional economic development corporation, owes farmers in Montana and North Dakota $1.2 million for crops grown last year. How Government Botches Biofuels. Biofuels were originally conceived as the fuel of choice for automobiles when the internal combustion engine was first developed. Biofuels later re-emerged as a possible alternative to petroleum for our liquid fuel needs. Proponents touted biofuels as carbon neutral, and possible to generate not only from crops like corn and sugar cane, but also from agricultural or industrial waste like wood chips and bagasse, leftover material from sugar-cane production in southern Gulf states like Louisiana. Medvedev slams biofuel producers at grain summit. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has urged countries to switch to non-food sources of biofuel to prevent the spread of hunger in a world where every sixth person is malnourished. "We are advocating production of biofuel from other, non-food sources," Mr Medvedev said in a speech inaugurating the launch of a global grain summit in his native Saint Petersburg. When scientific fraud kills millions. Scientific fraud often ends up killing people. ... The medical truth about the AIDS epidemic, that it was communicated by anal intercourse, especially among men, was suppressed for decades, causing thousands of more young men to die. And now it seems that the global warming fraud, just one aspect of broader EcoFraud, is killing people in the Third World. The proximate cause? A doubling of food prices. Why? Because of the diversion of food crops to biofuels. Hidden EU Analysis: Biofuels Can Produce More CO2 Emissions Than Fossil Fuels. Reuters reports that it used freedom of information laws to obtain a copy of text that was stripped from a December 2009 European Union study on biofuels. The hidden portion of the study found that biodiesel fuel made from North American soybeans has an indirect carbon footprint of 339.9 kilograms of CO2 per gigajoule — about four times larger than standard diesel from petroleum. More information filed under Ethanol is not such a great idea. Fluoride in the Public Water Supply: Fluoride: Friend or Foe? Fluoride is a known toxin, slightly less toxic than arsenic and more poisonous than lead. The industrial chemicals used to fluoridate over 90 percent of fluoridated water in the United States, (fluorosilicate acid and sodium silicofluoride), are by-products of the phosphate fertilizer industry and have never been tested for safety or effectiveness. The Fluoride Deception. In a society where asbestos, lead, silica, beryllium and many other carcinogens have found their way into the marketplace and then been recalled, one has to wonder why fluoride, so toxic it is used as a rat poison and pesticide, is embraced so thoroughly and so blindly. Citizens uniting against fluoride. A group of private citizens in San Diego County is planning to file a large-scale lawsuit in federal court against public water districts and challenge the constitutionality of using industrial-grade hydrofluosilicic acid to fluoridate drinking water. Fluoride: Miracle drug or toxic-waste killer? While few would argue that topical application of minute amounts of fluoride on teeth would reduce cavities, deliberately ingesting it — even in trace amounts — is risky. The fluoride added to public drinking water is actually fluorosilic acid. It is described by critics as an industrial waste product. Supporters prefer to call it an industry byproduct. Most of it has come from Florida's phosphate fertilizer industry. Fluoridation: Mind Control of the Masses. "At the end of the Second World War, the United States Government sent Charles Eliot Perkins, a research worker in chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and pathology, to take charge of the vast Farben chemical plants in Germany. "While there he was told by the German chemists of a scheme which had been worked out by them during the war and adopted by the German General Staff. "This was to control the population in any given area through mass medication of drinking water. In this scheme, sodium fluoride occupied a prominent place. "Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual's power to resist domination by slowly poisoning and narcotising a certain area of the brain and will thus make him submissive to the will of those who wish to govern him. "Both the Germans and the Russians added sodium fluoride to the drinking water of prisoners of war to make them stupid and docile." Why I Changed My Mind About Water Fluoridation: Large-scale surveys from United States, from Missouri and Arizona, have since revealed the same picture: no real benefit to teeth from fluoride in drinking water. For example, Professor Steelink in Tucson, AZ, … found: "When we plotted the incidence of tooth decay versus fluoride content in a child's neighborhood drinking water, a positive correlation was revealed. In other words, the more fluoride a child drank, the more cavities appeared in the teeth". From other lands — Australia, Britain, Canada, Sri Lanka, Greece, Malta, Spain, Hungary, and India — a similar situation has been revealed: either little or no relation between water fluoride and tooth decay, or a positive one (more fluoride, more decay). Solar power: Solar Energy Is Far from Ready to Replace Petroleum. The principal use of petroleum in the United States is for transportation, not electrical generation. In 2002, petroleum generated slightly more than 2 percent of total electricity generated at U.S. power plants. That same year, solar sources generated about 0.01 percent of the nation's electricity. The biggest competitor to solar electrical generation is not petroleum but coal, which generates about 54 percent of the nation's electricity. The source of this coal is the United States, which has immeasurable amounts of it and requires no military commitments outside its borders to protect it. Obama's Solar Energy Fantasy. This is more than a repeat of the 19th century's error of subsidizing railroad construction. ... Here, though, the situation is even worse than simple crony capitalism, given its unique 21st century twist. The wrinkle is that at least in the 1860s it was possible to deploy a technology that could conceivably fulfill its purpose. Trains could potentially deliver freight and passengers from point A to B in a cost-effective way. No such claim can be made for large-scale solar power technology, at present. Solar Power Generation: Boon or Boondoggle. Obviously even the hottest tropical sun won't boil water, so all solar thermal generators are based on concentrated solar thermal (CST) generation, which is exactly what the name implies: concentrating light to produce heat. ... The materials required for such a facility are awesome. Not just the mirrors, but the plumbing, wiring, hundreds of tons of structural materials, and thousands of tons of concrete foundations The late Petr Beckmann calculated that a solar plant would not be able over its lifetime to produce enough energy to build another solar plant of comparable size. Solar Sticker Shock Hits Wash. County. Kittitas County, Washington is experiencing sticker shock as the true cost of solar power is coming in at more than three times the promised price. In less than one month's time, the cost estimate for a proposed 75 megawatt solar power plant has soared by more than 200 percent. Florida Electricity Costs Skyrocket as Utility Invests Heavily in Solar. Florida Power & Light (FPL) customers are being hit with a 16 percent hike in electricity prices as the utility company invests more heavily in solar power. FPL's ongoing solar investment appears to violate a state law requiring utilities to provide power from the least expensive available source. San Francisco Solar Initiative Too Costly. $100 million solar power initiative approved by San Francisco voters in 2001 has yet to produce any solar power, San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission reports. Prior to the 2001 solar power ballot initiative, solar power advocates promised the costs of solar panel technology were poised to drop dramatically. [And they were wrong.] Solar Power: Too Good to Be True. For decades, there have been delirious proclamations that the world would soon run on solar energy. Those statements always have sounded too good to be true … and, sure enough, they always have been false. Solar panels a 'loser,' professor says. Installing solar panels on homes is an economic "loser" with the costs far outweighing the financial benefit, a respected University of California-Berkeley business professor said Wednesday [2/20/2008]. The technology, using photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, is not economically competitive with fossil fuels and costs more than other renewable fuels, said Severin Borenstein, who also directs the UC Energy Institute. "We are throwing away money by installing the current solar PV technology," he said. Neighbors Clash Over Trees, Solar Power. In an environmental dispute seemingly scripted for eco-friendly California, a man asked prosecutors to file charges against his neighbors because their towering redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. Update: Landowner Must Cut Redwoods to Accommodate Neighbor's Solar Panels. In a battle between next-door neighbor environmentalists, a Sunnyvale, California couple is being ordered to cut down their backyard redwood trees or face up to $1,000 per day in fines. The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office issued the order to Richard Treanor and Carolynn Bissett after their neighbor, Mark Vargas, complained the redwoods were partially shading a solar power panel Vargas had installed a few years after the redwoods were planted. The Editor says... This decision sets an important precedent: Solar panels trump redwood trees, even if the trees were there first. Trees Block Solar Panels, and a Feud Ends in Court. Call it an eco-parable: one Prius-driving couple takes pride in their eight redwoods, the first of them planted over a decade ago. Their electric-car-driving neighbors take pride in their rooftop solar panels, installed five years after the first trees were planted. Schwarzenegger Misfires With Solar Subsidy. Photovoltaic (PV) systems convert sunlight into electricity. This is great, but for a few problems: They are costly, they rarely produce the electricity claimed, and, even with subsidies, PV does not pay for itself. Solar Junk: In California, where solar energy usage has become most common, some 20 homeowners' associations have laws in place making it harder to install solar panels. Read more about the California Energy Crunch of 2000, and see if all those solar panels did any good. California ran into an energy crisis because the population is growing steadily but there are no new power plants. Environmentalists have made it all but impossible to build new power plants in California. "Million Solar Roofs" Bill Dies in California Assembly. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Million Solar Roofs" program (the state Senate bill known as SB1), which would give billions of tax dollars to the solar power industry and force home builders to offer solar power as a standard component of all new home construction, died in the state's assembly September 8. Spiraling cost estimates largely killed the bill. Renewable Portfolio Standard Threatens Consumers. The notion that an RPS will include a "portfolio" of renewable energy sources is misleading — wind energy is the only economically viable renewable energy source given current technologies. Although other renewable sources, such as biomass and solar, have long-term potential, they are currently no more than niche technologies. Voters Reject Solar-Powered Housing Development. Voters in Livermore, California on November 8 rejected an initiative that would have allowed construction of the nation's largest solar-powered community. MSNBGreen: The King Kong of the corporate world needs tax breaks, subsidies and favorable regulations in order to make green technology profitable. Indeed, GE has nearly cornered the market on the solar panels necessary to implement Kyoto-style reforms. Global warming hysteria is good for its bottom line. Solar Meets Polar as Winter Curbs Clean Energy. Old Man Winter, it turns out, is no friend of renewable energy. This time of year, wind turbine blades ice up, biodiesel congeals in tanks and solar panels produce less power because there is not as much sun. And perhaps most irritating to the people who own them, the panels become covered with snow, rendering them useless even in bright winter sunshine. Problems with 'green' energy you may not have heard about. After a big snowstorm, your electricity supply is reduced or terminated, if you are depending on solar. ... Keep in mind the unreliability and hazards of alternative power the next time Obama sings the praises of green energy and tells us how wonderful it will be when he shuts down coal powered facilities. E-waste looms behind solar-power boom. Solar is a renewable source of energy, and solar panels don't pollute when they are generating electricity. But the upstream process of making solar panels involves a number of toxic chemicals. Most solar cells are made out of silicon, the same material embedded in billions of electronic chips. As a result, the burgeoning solar photovoltaics (PV) industry faces an electronic-waste problem. The Solar and Renewable Utopia: Carter Redux, that's the only way to put it. After 30 years out of power, the purveyors of the Solar and Renewable Utopia are back. We're going to develop windmills, make solar panels affordable, and redesign buildings so they use only half as much energy — in theory, at least. The subtext, of course, is this — we won't have to deal with coal, nuclear, or any of those other nasty technologies that aren't "clean and renewable." So what's wrong with this picture? Well, the problem is that 30 years hasn't changed the physics of things like the intensity of sunlight or wind power. Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies. Analysis shows wind and solar power are ridiculously expensive, compared to natural gas, coal and nuclear power. No Substitute For Fossil Fuels. Earlier this year, Congress approved a scheme to pour $80 billion — on top of the tens of billions already spent — into renewables. A government report released last week indicates the money will be wasted. Renewable energy is the shiny gem that everyone wants but no one can have. Green power's hidden agenda: Wind, solar, and geothermal, by contrast, are the most expensive alternatives to coal. A kilowatt of power from such renewables typically costs about ten times as much as a kilowatt from coal — and more than six times as much as a kilowatt from nuclear or hydropower. Alternative energy promoters, including former vice president Al Gore, promise that these prices will decline if only the government subsidizes the necessary technological innovation. Those promises have not come true over the past three decades, and it's extremely unlikely that they ever will. Troy's celebrated solar house left in dark. It was supposed to be a shining example of the green movement — a completely independent solar-powered house with no gas or electrical hookups. Seven months ago, officials gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the $900,000 house owned by the city of Troy that was to be used as an educational tool and meeting spot. But it never opened to the public. And it remains closed. Pipes burst in solar house. Students from Lawrence Technological University, with help from DTE Energy, built the house as part of a national solar decathlon two years ago, said Eric Pope, the news bureau managing editor at LTU in Southfield. [Rush] Limbaugh said the solar home "looks like a trailer and cost 900 grand. The floors blew up because the pipes froze. No electricity. No gas. The future!" And he was just getting warmed up. Green Follies: Gov't Built Solar House Falls Apart. Oh, there are all sorts of reasons why this engineering marvel was an utter failure. There is finger pointing and head scratching all around. But the singular fact of the matter is that this project is a failure because it was not undertaken by business in a situation where success meant fulfilling a business plan to satisfy investors in order to obtain profit. No, it was a dalliance by professors financed by government without any expectations or requirements for success. Bono Discovers Sustainable Development Isn't Sustainable. The big problem with renewable energy is that it just doesn't renew itself. The sun does not shine enough and the wind doesn't blow enough to power the towns, cities, factories, hospitals and schools that make our lives so livable. No environmentalist would ever allow their child to be treated in a hospital fully powered by "renewables". They would not take the risk that the wind might stop whilst their baby was on the operating table. ... Renewable energy and sustainable development are for "other people". Austin Consumers Avoid Pricey Renewable Power. Austin Energy, a publicly owned power company and a city department of Austin, Texas, has found itself stuck with surplus renewable power as city residents have declined to sign up for higher rates under the city's voluntary GreenChoice program. Contracting with renewable power providers and offering the service to customers sounded like a good idea to city officials until the price tag came in at up to three times the cost of conventional power. City residents aren't buying. Environmentalist Economic Strangulation. Solar energy requires vast territories for solar cells -- as many as 46,000 square miles would have to be covered by solar panels. One logical place for a "solar energy farm" would be the wide-open, sunshine-rich, sparsely populated Mojave Desert. However, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) already has nixed that possibility in the name of wilderness protection. As a frustrated Gov. Schwarzenegger lamented, if you can't put solar panels in the Mojave Desert, then where can you put them? Is Solar Power Dead in the Water? Congress's rush to embrace solar power is having some unintended consequences. It will turn over a large chunk of federal land to private energy companies, and it may involve withdrawing billions of gallons of water from sensitive desert habitat. By 2015, Congress wants the Interior and Energy Departments to place, on federal land, renewable energy projects that can generate at least 10,000 megawatts of electricity. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 has set off a frantic land grab as solar and wind energy companies rush to obtain permits for projects in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. L.A. Voters Reject Solar Initiative. In a surprising blow to environmental activists and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union, Los Angeles voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have required the city to install 400 megawatts of solar panels by 2014. ... The opposition took offense at the secretive manner in which the initiative was drafted, and they also focused on the high cost of solar power. Global Warming Blues: Green electric power from windmills and solar energy is impracticable. Its expensive and due to the erratic nature of sunshine and wind, solar and wind power must be backed up by duplicate power plants or by energy storage systems that are as expensive as duplicate power plants. It sometimes seems that the advocates of solar power don't realize that the sun does not shine at night. Spain's Solar-Power Collapse Dims Subsidy Model. Spain's hopes of becoming a world leader in solar power have collapsed since the Spanish government slammed the brakes on generous subsidies. The sudden change has rippled across the global solar industry, in a warning of the problems that government-supported renewable-energy programs can encounter. Highest Cost Generating Plant Comes On Line in Florida to Obama Fanfare. Florida Power & Light (FPL) has built a 25 megawatt photovoltaic power plant in Southern Florida that will supply power to 3000 homes and businesses — a small fraction of the company's over 4 million customers. ... FPL spent $152 million building the plant, which amounts to $6,080 per kilowatt — a figure substantiated by the Energy Information Administration, who ranks photovoltaic solar the highest cost technology of a potential slate of 20 possible future generating technologies. Energy to spare. Under the inspiration of the Green Zeitgeist, I cannot go into a magazine shop without finding some science-lite cover story on new prospects for harnessing solar, thermal, wind, tidal, or whatever "renewable" forces. There is an immense credulous audience out there, willing to be entertained by such nonsense. No one with a grasp of high school physics should take any of these schemes seriously. In each case, we are looking at a crank idea from the hippie era, which has not since been significantly improved, because it can't be. Solar Power Realities: Solar power is uneconomic. Government mandates and subsidies hide the true cost of renewable energy but these additional costs must be carried by others. The Unbearable Lightness of Solar Power. [An article in the New York Times] features a dramatic photo of 500 acres of solar panels sitting next to an innocuous looking natural gas plant in Indiantown, Fla., owned by Florida Power & Light. The natural gas plant — which occupies no more than 15 acres — produces 3,800 megawatts of reliable electricity. The gigantic 500-acre solar complex next to it (that's about three-quarters of a square mile) will produce 75 MW of electricity AT ITS MAXIMUM, i.e., on a hot summer afternoon. So Long, Solar. Oh, the glory days of almost a month ago, when advocates promoted the promise of solar energy in the United States. ... Fast-forward to a report in today's [3/27/2010] Washington Post: "BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries." A big bet on big government: ' Al Gore, solar power, and corporate welfare. The New York Times reports on the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and its "big bet on solar technology." Read the post closely, and you'll see that the success of solar technology companies is utterly tied to corporate welfare. How High are Your State's Electricity Prices? Electricity prices are nearly 40 percent higher in states with renewable electricity mandates. Petroleum produces only 1 percent of our electricity. Using wind power or solar to produce electricity will do nothing to reduce our use of foreign oil. Thirteen of the 15 states with the least expensive residential electricity prices produce at least 50 percent of their electricity from either coal or hydroelectric power. Americans need more affordable energy now, not vague promises for the future. Affordable energy is under assault. Many politicians and ideological special-interest groups are working to place onerous restrictions on the energy we use and on how we use it. The energy resources that supply 85 percent of our energy needs — coal, oil, and natural gas — are the most affordable and therefore the targets of this assault. The regulations are intended to make energy from these sources harder to produce and more expensive to use. But these policies not only decrease the availability and increase the price of natural gas, coal, and oil, they also force the American people to use energy sources that would otherwise be too expensive and unreliable to exist commercially. Obama's Green Energy Myth. Both wind power and solar power are more expensive — incredibly so in the case of solar — than either fossil power or nuclear power. Worse, you can't count on either wind or solar as a reliable source of energy, since the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Accordingly, for each megawatt of wind and solar capacity we develop, another megawatt of back-up power, typically powered by fossil fuels, has to be in place. This redundancy adds to the already unacceptable cost of "green energy." Organic food: Nature's Toxic Tools: The Organic Myth of Pesticide-Free Farming. It is important to address the common misperception that organic farming is "pesticide-free." Organic farmers are allowed to use a number of toxic chemical pesticides, and many organic crops are routinely sprayed with pesticides. [PDF] Organic farming 'no better for the environment'. Organic food may be no better for the environment than conventional produce and in some cases is contributing more to global warming than intensive agriculture, according to a government report. The first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production found there was "insufficient evidence" to say organic produce has fewer ecological side-effects than other farming methods. Poison bug 'more likely to be found in organic chickens'. Organic chickens sold by leading supermarkets have been labelled a health threat by a damning investigation. Researchers claim they are more likely to carry the deadly food poisoning bug campylobacter than factory farmed chicken. As many as nine in ten of the organic chickens showed up positive for the bug. Reasons you should buy regular goods: Companies marketing organic products, and your local grocery chain, want you to think organic food is safer and healthier, because their profit margins are vastly higher on organic foods. The USDA Organic label does not mean that there is any difference between organic and regular food products. Organic farms simply employ different methods of food production. Activism Disguised As Science. A new study published in an alternative agriculture journal has gained widespread attention by claiming that organic farming not only could adequately feed the world, it might even yield more food and require less farmland. It is a truly sensational claim. In science, the more sensational the claim, the more robust the evidence needed to support it. This time, the evidence doesn't stack up. The Problem With Organic Food: Organic food has garnered an extraordinary amount of attention from the media and, along with "local" food, is a darling of foodies and environmentalists, who talk up its civic virtues and benefits to the environment. There's just one problem with this: agriculture has moved away from small-scale, local, and organic farming because these types of farms are land- and labor-intensive and don't do a very good job of feeding lots of people. In addition, they are not definitively better for the environment, and their growth would lead to higher food prices than most Americans are willing to pay. Organic Failure. Henry Waxman is at it again. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade-climate change bill, which has been called the largest tax bill in history because it would levy a national tax on energy use, narrowly passed the House in late June and is still pending in the Senate, but the California Democrat has already moved on to his next bad idea: trying to save the nation's populace by making farmlands sterile, so that only organic foods can be grown. Worse than global warming. Go on, eat organic food if you like, spend more than you would on ordinary food and dream that it somehow makes you healthier than you would be and the world more ecologically sound, but find time to pray that not too many others emulate you. It would be an incredible catastrophe if everyone went organic. ... Growing organic food is supposedly kinder to land than growing food by ordinary means, but it consumes enormously more land per unit produced. One reported estimate is that no forests would be left if you tried to supply total human food needs this way, and that, even then, many would starve. Organic food is just a tax on the gullible. A few years ago my wife decided we should have an entirely organic vegetable garden. To this end she refused all man-made fertilisers and ordered a truckload of pigeon droppings. What could be more natural? Neither was there anything unnatural in the germs I inhaled through the spores of our organic manure, thereby contracting psittacosis. This developed into "atypical" pneumonia, which was of course resistant to all standard antibiotics. Had a hospital doctor not guessed the cause and put me on a drip with the appropriate drugs — ooh, chemicals! — I could have become a fatal casualty of the organic movement. Obviously my wife might have ordered cow manure rather than pigeon poo; then I could have been felled by E coli instead. Wheat, Yes, Wheat! Dr. David Bragg, Ph.D., an extension entomologist, recently enumerated the insect pests that can be depended upon to attack wheat. They include the Russian Wheat Aphid, the Ladybird Beetle, the English Grain Aphid and Rosy Grass Aphid. Then there's the Haanchen Barley Mealybug and Wireworm Beetle Larvae, as well as the False Wireworm, the Cereal Leaf Beetle, Cutworms and Armyworms. By no means should we leave out the Wheat Stem Maggot, the Wheat Stem Saw Fly, and the Wheat Joint Worm. I want you to think about this army of insect predators the next time some environmental group is demanding that all pesticides be banned and that all grains and vegetables be grown "organically." Benefits of organic food a 'myth'. In a result that will provoke dismay and anger in the organics industry, the study's authors found that food grown without pesticides or herbicides should not be promoted as healthier because there was no evidence to show that it contained more nutrients than normal food. Recycling: Too much green? Millions spent on recycling. Governments across the Washington region spend millions of dollars on recycling each year, but national recycling experts say a lot of that taxpayer cash is going to waste. Maryland, Virginia and the District [of Columbia] require residents and businesses to recycle, and localities pay millions of dollars to enforce those laws and hit recycling targets. Compost Conserved, Lifetime Wasted. A more intrusive regime for the simple act of discarding something could hardly be devised. There will be — count 'em — three color-coded bins into which garbage must be classified, as it is assessed for compostability and recyclability. ... This government-in-your-garbage ordinance is in response to a self-inflicted wound. It is deemed necessary in order to comply with the city's self-imposed goal of 75% recycling by 2010, as a waypoint to zero waste by 2020. It would be much cheaper to just dig a hole. Mandatory Recycling Wastes Resources and Harms the Environment. "In mid-December 2003, the Seattle City Council decided to make curbside recycling mandatory. The measure, which goes into effect in January 2005, is a misguided step that will burden taxpayers, antagonize residents, and waste resources. As an economist who has been studying recycling for nearly 15 years, I long ago learned that the desire for curbside recycling is based mostly on misconceptions." Gang Green: Many studies have shown that the environmental benefits from household recycling are minimal or at least highly exaggerated (because it uses a lot of energy and those recycling trucks emit a lot of greenhouse gases). America is not in danger of ever running out of landfill to store our garbage. For example, a study by Daniel Benjamin, an economist at Clemson, finds that we could store all of America's garbage for the next century within the property of Ted Turner's ranch in Montana, with 50,000 acres undisturbed for the horse and bison. Eco-activists' Gross Distortions are Behind California's Crusade to Recycle TVs and PCs. Californians buying a TV, home computer, or laptop must now pay $6 to $10 to finance a costly program to collect and recycle all used machines throughout the state. Celebrate Earth Day by Ending Mandatory Recycling! Mandatory recycling wastes resources — it does not save resources. The belief that it does is one of our great superstitions. Anyone who has ever bothered to learn the facts knows this. Recycling — righteous or rubbish? The economics suggest a middle road. Careful cost-benefit analysis shows that recycling often isn't cost-effective: Many programs try too hard, in a sense, by recycling products that cost more to reprocess than is warranted by the associated environmental and economic benefits — essentially going too far in the cause of environmental protection. But economists also suggest that some level of recycling is entirely sensible from an economic standpoint. Recycling is 'Like Throwing Money Away'. Curbside recycling is one of the most wasteful endeavors practiced by local governments, concluded an investigation by an Orlando, Florida television news station. According to WFTV Channel 9, recycling programs typically fail to pay for themselves and can cost taxpayers tremendous amounts of money — while providing very negligible benefits. Eight Great Myths About Waste Disposal: Since the 1980s, many have claimed that the United States faces a landfill crisis. In fact, the United States today has more landfill capacity than ever before. In 2001, the nation's landfills could accommodate 18 years' worth of rubbish, an amount 25 percent greater than a decade before. Recycling: It's a bad idea in New York. New York is but the latest of a growing number of cities that have found the cost of recycling garbage is far, far greater than the costs of simply dumping it. Despite flowery promises and earnest intentions, mandatory municipal recycling programs across the United States have proven an expensive economic and environmental flop. Little sustains this odd brand of civic religion beyond the quasi-religious devotion of the Green faithful. It's OK to Throw it Away: Tell Your Kids. Rule number one, don't be intimidated by your kids. They have a misplaced sense of moral superiority on environmental issues. Polls show that most information adults get about the environment comes from their kids, who in turn get their views from school and children's television. One poll concluded that 63 percent of school children have lobbied their parents to recycle. Don't roll over. The kids, their teachers, and Captain Planet are wrong. A Consumer's Guide To Environmental Myths and Realities. MYTH #1: We are running out of landfill space. All of the garbage America produces in the next 1,000 years would fit in a landfill that occupies less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the continental United States. … MYTH #6: Recycling is always good. Recycling itself can cause environmental harm, e.g., more fuel consumption and more air pollution. As a result, the environmental costs of recycling may exceed any possible environmental benefits. … MYTH #8: Recycling paper saves trees. Since most of the trees used to make paper are grown explicitly for that purpose, if we use less paper, fewer trees will be planted and grown by commercial harvesters. Recycling paper doesn't save trees, it reduces incentives to plant them. Time to recycle recycling? What … Al Gore and many other environmentalists may not appreciate is that recycling paper is actually a carbon positive process. … Contrary to received wisdom, paper is one of the least recyclable materials in circulation. Rethinking Recycling: Doesn't it go without saying that businesses should recycle paper? No, answers Ken Braun, cofounder and chairman of Pepper's, a retail chain of natural-ingredient personal-care products, and an avid conservationist who has much to say — and do — about recycling. Braun's concerns once dictated buying only recycled paper for his company's office supplies. He's changed his mind. Not because recycled paper is more expensive than virgin (though it is) or less well finished (that, too), but because in talking to suppliers he determined that the chemicals employed in recovering old paper did more harm to the environment than chopping down new trees did. Markets are Better than Mandates at Determining Recycling Levels. As conditions become less favorable to the use of recycled materials, the cost of doing so rises, resulting in net social losses. For instance, under worst-case conditions, requiring 30 percent recycled content in all glass packaging can cost, on average, $119/ton more than using virgin material. Mandating 30 percent recycled content in all paper packaging can increase costs by an average of $80/ton. There is a clear reason why recycling participation is so low: Recycling makes no economic sense. If the value of recycled goods was as much as or more than the cost of collecting the goods, recyclers would pay people for them. The fact that recyclers don't pay for used goods tells us a government-financed program is an economic loser. Recycling: Your Time Can Be Better Spent! Many people believe recycling either pays for itself or is worth the cost. Both positions are wrong. Every community recycling program in America today costs more than the revenue it generates. The value of recycled materials on the open market has declined dramatically in recent years, and in many cases there is no market at all. Time for a New Look at Recycling. Recycling, originally sold as virtually a cure-all for solid waste problems and as an environmental feel-good to boot, has been greatly oversold. The Utter Waste of Recycling. Ask yourself about the utility of recycling. Glass is made from sand. The Earth is not running out of sand. Newspapers, when buried, stay intact for decades and, when burned, become mere ashes. Recycling plastic requires as much or more energy than to produce it. Its uses, however, are extraordinary, contributing to a healthier lifestyle for everyone. So, why recycle? Recycling is a Waste. Much of the impetus for mandatory recycling programs came from a 1980s Environmental Protection Agency study showing that the number of landfills was decreasing. While this was true, the landfills themselves were getting bigger, and the total capacity was increasing! Indeed, the U.S. currently has 18 years worth of landfill even if no new landfills are built. And at current rates of disposal, a single landfill just 100 yards deep and 35 miles square could contain all the garbage generated in the U.S. for the next 1,000 years. Recycling goes from boom to bust as economy stalls. Just months after riding an incredible high, the recycling market has tanked almost in lockstep with the global economic meltdown. As consumer demand for autos, appliances and new homes dropped, so did the steel and pulp mills' demand for scrap, paper and other recyclables. Our Widespread Faith In Recycling Is Misplaced. A decade ago a wandering garbage barge set off a political crisis: Where will we put our trash? The media inflamed people's fears of mounting piles of garbage. A variety of interest groups - particularly "public relations consultants, environmental organizations, waste-handling corporations," according to journalist John Tierney - lobbied to line their pockets. Politicians seeking to win votes enacted a spate of laws and regulations to encourage and often mandate recycling. [To make the average German feel superior at a time when, objectively, his life was getting worse] recycling measures were introduced, ostensibly to push Germany along the road to economic self-sufficiency. This device, adopted in World War I, as well as World War II, certainly had no particular economic impact. Its real purpose was psychological: to create a sense of community of shared participation in the war effort. Even today, elderly Germans, some of whom stuff their cupboards with old string as they were told to do in the Third Reich, still remember warmly the recycling, fuel-saving, and housekeeping aspects of the Nazi era. It was one of the hidden links that subtly connected the regime with its citizens. Why The Trash You Sort Isn't Recycled: My neighbors are unhappy to learn that the trash they've carefully sorted for years into brown bottles, green bottles, cans, and paper is being dumped back into one pile at the local landfill. Except for aluminum cans, no one wants the sorted trash items. Is this bad for the environment? Probably not. Mountains of recycled rubbish spring up across UK. Experts estimate that up to 15 percent of all recycling is now being stored in warehouses and ports, waiting for a buyer. Some of the waste could be stuck there for a year. ... Prices have now fallen so far that the cost of making new plastic is cheaper than reusing the recycled material. UK's growing waste paper mountain as market collapses. Taxpayers are facing a multi-million-pound bill to store 100,000 tons of waste paper and cardboard as the British recycling industry plunges into crisis. Rubbish carefully sorted by householders is piling up in vast warehouses as the market for waste paper collapses, and experts have warned that the mountain of garbage could double in the next three months. Recycling Is Garbage. Recycling could be America's most wasteful activity. … The obvious temptation is to blame journalists, who did a remarkable job of creating the garbage crisis, often at considerable expense to their own employers. Newspaper and magazine publishers, whose products are a major component of municipal landfills, nobly led the crusade against trash, and they're paying for it now through regulations that force them to buy recycled paper - a costly handicap in their struggle against electronic rivals. Recycling program costs Austin $900K. The City of Austin said its new single stream recycling program is not a big "waste" despite a near $900,000 shortfall. The environmental group, Ecology Action of Texas, said the program caused the city to lose that amount after going into effect last fall. However… What to Do with Three Billion Abandoned Tires? Cement kiln recyclers put them to good use. Few things are more unsightly than a pile of discarded tires. Unfortunately, America has quite a few such piles. There are about 3 billion abandoned tires in the U.S., with another 200 million being added each year. New recycling bins with tracking chips coming to Alexandria. Alexandria residents soon will have to pay for larger home recycling bins featuring built-in monitoring devices. The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents' annual waste collection fee. That cash — roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents — will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city's recycling program. Do they have to put RFID chips in everything? Hydrogen: Hydrogen produces only water when it burns. So naturally people would like to see automobiles use hydrogen as fuel. But unfortunately there just isn't enough energy available from a gallon of liquid hydrogen to justify the cost. And liquid hydrogen would require a highly specialized gas tank. Then there is the problem of hydrogen production. Hydrogen doesn't gush out of the ground in West Texas. You can make hydrogen at home with a 9-volt battery and a glass of water ... but not enough to start your car. Hydrogen Fuel Cells May Have Environmental Drawback: Researchers have issued a report saying that if hydrogen replaced fossil fuels, large amounts of hydrogen would drift into the stratosphere as a result of leakage and indirectly cause increased depletion of the ozone. Whatever happened to the hydrogen economy? Even in Iceland, whose grand ambitions for a renewable hydrogen economy once earned it the title Bahrain of the north, visible progress has been modest. After years of research, the country now boasts one hydrogen filling station, a handful of hydrogen cars, and one whale-watching boat with a fuel cell for auxiliary power. ... In California, where governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promised a "hydrogen highway" with 200 hydrogen filling stations by 2010, there are just five open to the public. The Realities of a Hydrogen Economy. Among other things, (1) It costs about $5 to produce enough hydrogen equivalent to the energy potential of one gallon of gasoline. (2) Hydrogen's low density would require 21 tanker trucks to haul the amount of energy delivered by a single gasoline truck today, and a hydrogen tanker traveling 500 kilometers would use an amount of hydrogen equaling 40 percent of its cargo. (3) At room temperature, hydrogen takes up 3,000 times more space as an energy-equivalent of amount gasoline, therefore, compressed or liquefied gas must be used in vehicle tanks; but tanks on today's hydrogen vehicles take up to eight times as much space as a normal gas tank to store an equivalent amount of fuel. The Great Hydrogen Myth: Hydrogen is held out as a clean-burning, virtually inexhaustible source of energy, but as a Washington Times editorial pointed out in November [2002], others "suggest it is a gaseous dream rising on the rhetoric of environmental windbags." If enough billions are spent, it seems reasonable to expect hydrogen to become an energy source, but like most environmental pipe dreams, this one has a silent agenda of eliminating petroleum as an energy source, nor can we reasonably expect a dramatic breakthrough. Hydrogen Cars Won't Make a Difference for 40 Years. President Bush, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the big automakers agree on this much: They love hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology and its promise of a zero-emission, petroleum-free future. Unfortunately, experts say it will be 40 years or more before hydrogen has any meaningful impact on gasoline consumption or global warming, and we can't afford to wait that long. In the meantime, fuel cells are diverting resources from more immediate solutions. Hydrogen cars and hot air: Would you buy a car that costs 10 times as much as a hybrid gasoline-electric one, like the Toyota Prius? What if I told you it had half the range of the hybrid? What if I told you most cities didn't have a single hydrogen fuelling station? Not interested yet? This should be the deal closer: what if I told you it wouldn't have lower greenhouse-gas emissions than the hybrid? … Nobody should get terribly excited when a car company rolls out its wildly impractical next-generation hydrogen car. LA gas station gets hydrogen fuel pump. The Shell station near Interstate 405, which was charging $4.59 per gallon of regular gas Thursday [6/26/2008], features one pump with a bright blue "Hydrogen" label above a video monitor that dispenses the fuel by the kilogram. Hydrogen is made and stored in a tank above the dispenser. For now, the fuel is available to roughly 100 hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road in California, all of them being used in demonstration programs by motor companies, said Roy Kim, a spokesman with the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Because all the cars are in those programs, drivers won't be charged for filling up at the station. The Editor says... Notice that hydrogen is dispensed by the kilogram, but there is no mention of the price per kilogram, if someone were to try to make a purchase. Notice also that hydrogen is considered safe in cars but not in blimps. US govt hydrogen highway runs out of road. The original hydrogen plan was announced by then President Bush in 2003 and, to date, the US government has spent around $500m (£328m/€367m) on the project. There's not much to show for it other than some Honda FCX Claritys and Chevrolet Equinoxes running around California, and 70-odd hydrogen filling stations nationwide. Not so much a case of hydrogen tech being put on the back burner but rather being wrapped in cling film and shoved to the rear of the freezer. DOE to slash fuel cell vehicle research. The Department of Energy's proposed budget boosts research on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources but makes cuts in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because the technology is many years from being practical. The DOE published details of its $26.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget request on Thursday [5/7/2009], and Energy Secretary Steven Chu held a news briefing to cover the highlights. Hybrid / Electric Cars: See this page. Compact fluorescent light bulbs:  This entire subsection has moved to a page of its own. Banning Plastic Bags: Leftists are constantly making the erroneous claim that "we live in a democracy", yet they never put decisions like this on a ballot and let the voters decide. Notice, if you will, that small individual freedoms — the ability to choose simple things like "paper or plastic" — disappear first in the areas of our country where liberals predominate. Md., Va. lawmakers to propose 5-cent fee on disposable bags. Maryland and Virginia lawmakers say they will push for 5-cent fees on disposable paper and plastic bags at stores, after the District this month became the first major city in the nation to impose such a fee. 'If I had a nickel for every bag,' sez Mayor Bloomberg. Mayor Bloomberg wants to nickel and dime you at the grocery store -- taxing you an extra 5 cents for every plastic bag you take home. The controversial charge could raise at least $16 million for the cash-strapped city while keeping tons of plastic out of landfills, city officials said Thursday [11/6/2008] -- but some outraged shoppers aren't buying it. Nanny State, USA. This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each year, and the city counsel [sic] wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six months. A series of blunders turned the plastic bag into a global villain. Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. Whole Foods to sack plastic bags by Earth Day. Natural and organic grocer Whole Foods Market announced today it will stop using disposable plastic grocery bags at supermarket checkouts and encourage reusable bags instead. Environmental Activist Failures Highlight Earth Day. [Scroll down] Earlier this year ... scientists reported that plastic bags are having virtually no impact on marine life or other animals. Although a single study several years ago found that 100,000 marine animal deaths occur each year from all forms of environmental plastic (most notably six-pack holders), scientists reported this year that the number of deaths attributable to plastic grocery bags is almost zero. San Francisco is the First City to Ban Plastic Shopping Bags. Supermarkets and chain pharmacies will have to use recyclable or compostable sacks. The city's Board of Supervisors approved groundbreaking legislation Tuesday [3/27/2007] to outlaw plastic checkout bags at large supermarkets in about six months and large chain pharmacies in about a year. Plastic bags may be banned in Boston. The Boston City Council wants to ban the use of plastic shopping bags at supermarkets, pharmacies, and convenience stores in the city, saying the ubiquitous bags are a hazard to the environment and a maddening blight of the landscape. Santa Barbara Takes a Step Toward Banning Plastic Bags. City leaders on Tuesday [5/15/2007] took a step toward banning Styrofoam containers used for prepared food and plastic bags used at grocery stores in their efforts to become more environmentally friendly. The Plastic Bag Ban is Full of Holes. Plastic bags cost about a penny each, paper costs about a nickel and compostable bags can run as high as 10 cents each. … Paper bags generate 70 percent more air pollutants and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This is because four times as much energy is required to produce paper bags and 85 times as much energy is needed to recycle them. San Francisco may charge for grocery bags. San Francisco may become the first city in the nation to charge shoppers for grocery bags. The city's Commission on the Environment is expected to ask the mayor and board of supervisors Tuesday [2/2/2005] to consider a 17–cent per bag charge on paper and plastic grocery bags. While the goal is reducing plastic bag pollution, paper was added so as not to discriminate. They went even further... Starting Tuesday, plastic bags illegal at big S.F. grocery stores. Starting Tuesday [11/20/2007], large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect. Ignore the greenwash... plastic is fantastic. What will happen if Edinburgh taxes plastic carrier bags? The answer came from the Scottish Parliament's Environment Committee after two years of hearings and expert evidence. If you don't have time to read thousands of words on their website, the conclusion comes in just six words — "the environment will be worse off". Surprised? Surely plastic bags are a danger to the environment. Wrong. Over two years, this claim was demolished by experts and science at an estimated cost of £2 million of Scottish taxpayers' money. I love plastic bags. Is the lack of intellectual rigour in the whole debate about plastic bag use annoying you? Of course, it is politically correct not to like them; to front at the shops with a handbag full of crisp green or red or yellow or purple bags to carry your purchases. And it's politically incorrect to argue what I'm about to do here: that perhaps plastic bags might not be the environmental bogie we claim. Plastic bags choke Garrett. Here we go again — another green crusade in which facts are invented to scare you into doing something dumb. This time our evangelical Environment Minister says he'll this year take away your plastic shopping bags — the ones that are so useful that we use more than 4 billion of them each year to cart home our shopping. What must we use instead to carry home the fortnightly shopping: suitcases? Rolls of green bin liners? And how annoying not to have those plastic bags to reuse for everything from wrapping leftovers and wet clothes to picking up manure. Ban on bags can't carry weight. Plastic bags are under siege, pilloried globally as a menace to the environment and a symbol of man's conspicuous consumption, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Without plastic bags we would all buy less, goes the thinking. But, of course, we won't. Paper or plastic? Either bag would cost you 20 cents extra. To reduce trash, Mayor Greg Nickels wants Seattle shoppers to pay a fee on all disposable bags — paper and plastic — at grocery, convenience and drug stores. Customers would be charged a 20-cent "green fee" per bag used at the checkout line. If approved by the City Council, the fee would take effect Jan. 1. "The answer to the question 'Paper or plastic?' should be 'Neither,'" Nickels said at a news conference Wednesday morning [4/3/2008]. Bags are a tiny fraction of sea trash. I figured if anyone would jump for joy at Seattle's crusade against plastic bags, it would be the flotsam guy. … So when I asked him what he thought of Seattle's plan to crack down on disposable grocery bags, I was surprised when he sort of shrugged. "It's OK, but plastic bags are not the real problem," he said. "It's one little battle out of a million. Go look at what the ocean carries in on a given day. You'll see what I mean." Biodegradable bags may not be as green as they seem. As though the paper-or-plastic question weren't vexing enough, now some retailers are finding that the "biodegradable" plastic bags they'd hoped would please green shoppers might not be so Earth-friendly after all. Lunds and Byerly's recently replaced its plastic bags with a biodegradable bag made of low-density polyethylene that purportedly breaks down when exposed to sunlight, oxygen, soil, moisture and microbes. But biodegradable bags are still petroleum-based…. Loblaws bags a nickel starting tomorrow. It's like there's a scarlet letter burned across Jennifer Sutcliffe's forehead as she hastily piles eight bags of groceries into the cart — "P." For plastic. For polluter. "I have cats. I use them for the litter," she clarifies apologetically. Not good enough. Gazing down the line of nine open cashiers, Sutcliffe is the only one who didn't BYOB. The 40-year-old retreats from the Loblaws store, which as of tomorrow will begin a plastic fee of 5 cents per bag. A source said proceeds will go to the World Wildlife Fund. The Editor says... Dear Jennifer: Find yourself another place to buy groceries, and let the earth-worshiping hippies shop at Loblaws. Plastic Bag Fears Based on Misquoted Study. Shoppers the world over can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that leading scientists are stepping forward and defending the widespread use of plastic bags at supermarkets and other retail outlets. … The plastic bag scare, it turns out, is based on a 1987 Canadian study that investigated the harm to marine mammals and seabirds from discarded fish nets. For reasons not fully understood, Australian researchers, in a follow-up study conducted 15 years later, mistakenly attributed the death of 100,000 marine animals to plastic bags instead of the "plastic litter" cited in the Canadian research. Whole Foods Gets it Wrong. Whole Foods has banned plastic bags. The only free bags that it provides to customers at the checkout are paper bags. The company has eliminated consumer choice, pandering to political correctness. Whole Foods is leading people to believe that it is making a positive contribution to the environment by providing paper bags rather than a plastic bags. It is not. It is hurting the environment. Bags get sacked. So there's this guy at the Evanston Farmers Market, earthy type, grows organic arugula and bok choy and all manner of eco-friendly hippie chow. His stand is a favorite stop for greenish types and locavores and, well, people who get up early on Saturdays to buy stuff like fresh arugula and bok choy. But as wildly popular as Henry Brockman and his operation might be, there was one thing that drove the environmentally friendly farmer nuts. It was the plastic bags. LA bans plastic bags. The city of Los Angeles will ban plastic bags from retail stores from July 1, 2010, following similar regulations already enforced in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the second-largest US city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said. Save the Plastic Bag. We are a California-based coalition of businesses and citizens. We are concerned about the one-sided myths and false information circulating on anti-plastic bag websites and in the media about plastic bags. It's time to answer back with the facts. (When we refer to plastic bags, we mean plastic carryout bags that you get at the supermarket or grocery store checkout.) Plastic bag FAQ. Are plastic bags recyclable? Yes, absolutely. In California, large supermarkets are required by law to provide plastic bag recycling receptables for consumers to dispose of bags. Virtually all of the bags placed in these recycling bins are actually recycled into new products. Free grocery bags targeted for extinction in California. The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life. From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans. In India, plastic bag use is a capital offence. The global battle against plastic has taken a draconian turn with officials in Delhi announcing that the penalty for carrying a polythene shopping bag would be five years in prison. Officials in India's capital have decided that the only way to stem the rising tide of rubbish is to outlaw the plastic shopping bag. Panel votes to ban plastic retail bags. A Senate committee Wednesday night voted 4-3 for a bill that would ban plastic bags in large retail stores within three years. Critics complained that the bill would drive consumers to paper bags, which cause their own set of environmental problems. But supporters said the idea was to get customers to use some sort of reusable bag. Plastic bags must go, Basnight says. State Senate leader Marc Basnight has one word for shoppers: plastics. And he wants them banned. Basnight, the Manteo Democrat and restaurateur who is one of the state's most powerful leaders, is pushing a bill that would ban plastic shopping bags in Outer Banks counties. It's a pilot program that, if successful, could be imposed statewide. Colorado Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags. Paper bags are also much bulkier and heavier than plastic bags, which means transporting paper bags requires the burning of more fossil fuels than the transport of plastic bags. Back to plastic? Reusable grocery bags may cause food poisoning. Get out your bleach and launder those reusable fabric grocery bags after each use. You're not clogging up landfill with plastic throw-aways, but your environmental conscientiousness could make you sick. The Editor says... Landfills do not get "clogged up" — they get deeper and wider. Landfill capacity is not threatened by plastic grocery bags. Obama: Not The First Head Of State To Design Cars. That's environmental paranoia in a nutshell for you. It isn't really about the environment, it's about control. You, too, are going to be forced to look as stupid as the guy pulling ten canvas bags out of his faux leather man-purse. If you dare show up at any grocery store in Toronto, Canada, without your own ratty, reused bags, you'll be charged five cents for each one — a tax on your audacity, collected by the City. U.N. environment chief urges global ban on plastic bags. Single-use plastic bags, a staple of American life, have got to go, the United Nations' top environmental official said Monday. ... [A total] ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. ... In the United States, only San Francisco has completely banned plastic bags. The Editor says... Hmmm... Do the governments of San Francisco and China have a lot in common? Colorado Senate Bags Plastic Shopping Bag Ban. The Colorado Senate has rejected a bill that would have made Colorado the first state to ban plastic shopping bags. Proponents of the bill had argued plastic bags are not biodegradable and can harm wildlife. Opponents noted plastic bags are recyclable and studies show plastic bags have minimal negative impact on wildlife. In addition, opponents had noted a ban on plastic bags would increase use of paper bags, which take up more landfill space than plastic bags. Obamacare Or Logan's Run. I'd like to know where the environmental hypocrites are hiding, knowing that the health plan bill, H.R. 3200, is 1,000 pages long and has been distributed to all the members of the House and Senate. Shouldn't they be ranting about the poor trees that have been destroyed for this bill the same way they successfully demonized the supermarket brown bags? Those bags were replaced by plastic bags that shredded before shoppers reached the parking lots. Now these flimsy bags are being replaced by cloth bags made in China that will carry your precious, organic tasteless produce and the planet will be saved, thanks to you. Seattle Voters Reject 20-Cent Grocery Bag Fee. Seattle voters have rejected a 20-cent fee for every paper or plastic bag they get from supermarkets, drug stores and convenience stores. The city's incumbent mayor didn't fare much better than the fee, trailing two challengers in a bid for a third term. With about half the ballots counted in the all-mail vote, the bag fee was failing 58 percent to 42 percent in Tuesday's [8/18/2009] primary. Soiled, reusable shopping bags pose health risk: Study. The Environment and Plastics Industry Council stated Wednesday [5/20/2009] that a study it funded shows reusable bags "pose a public health risk" due to high counts of yeast, moulds and bacterias in dirty reusable bags. ... But B.C. provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said reusable bags do not pose a serious public health risk if consumers treat bags as they would cutting boards or food preparation surfaces, and wash them regularly and dry them well. The Editor says... This study was released in May, 2009, but it still pops up occasionally on days when the news business is slow Critics like to point out that the study was undertaken and funded by a plastics manufacturing group, and after all, what else would such a group conclude, but that plastic bags are better than reusable ones. Nevertheless, disposable bags are disposed of — along with any bacteria they may carry — while reusable bags accumulate bacteria until they are washed with hot soapy water. Of course the environmentalists are also opposed to hot soapy water, because it takes energy to heat the water and the soap may contain toxic chemicals. Low revenue from the bag tax in D.C. is good news. The District of Columbia is not collecting as much money as it thought it would from its tax on disposable bags. And that's good news. The reduced revenue is evidence that the newly enacted law is working exactly as hoped. People are using fewer plastic and paper bags, and that means less litter clogging area streets and waterways. Bias alert! It's the Washington Post, so what would you expect, but has anyone ever seen a street "clogged" with plastic bags? California moves to ban plastic bags. It could soon cost California shoppers at the checkout aisle if they forget to bring their own bags to the store under what would be the nation's first statewide plastic bag ban. Reusable shopping bags 'are a threat to public health'. Reusable shopping bags could be a threat to public health because they harbour potentially deadly food poisoning bugs, according to new research. Tests on shoppers' bags revealed half contained traces of E.coli, a lethal toxin which killed 26 people in Scotland in 1996 in one of the worlds worst food poisoning outbreaks. Scientists also found many were contaminated with salmonella. Plastic Bags: Untapped Tax Gold Mine? Only one US city — Washington, D.C. — has successful instituted a plastic bag tax, but at least 13 other states are considering one. In its first month, the 5-cent bag tax brought the city about $150,000. Revenues have increased each subsequent month, reaching $226,000 in May, and totaling $942,000 from January through May. The funds have all gone towards efforts to clean up the Anacostia River, which runs through Washington. See You Next Tyranny Day! [Scroll down] A new study from the University of Arizona reveals that reusable shopping bags, the enlightened replacement for plastic ones, are breeding grounds for E. Coli and other dangerous bacteria. Roughly 50 percent of the bags inspected were found to contain dangerous, potentially lethal, bacteria. ... There's always going to be a downside to even the best policies, because the experts don't know as much as they think they do. Sometimes, they don't even know they're not experts at all. Car pooling and mass transit: See this page. "Green" jobs: One Job Forward, Two Jobs Back. The Great Obamanomic Job Creation Machine rumbled into action again over the Fourth of July weekend, promising to spend as much as $2 billion to support creation of 1,585 "permanent" jobs by two solar energy companies. That comes to a potential cost of over $1.25 million per job. Enviro jobs are fake-o jobs. Whatever "green jobs" are, it's very clear America doesn't want them. President Obama has been pushing a proposal that would spend more than $1 million for each permanent green job created in a solar-power boondoggle. Billions were placed at the disposal of avowed communist Van Jones to create these sparkling emeralds of environmentally sensitive employment even though no one in the administration can explain what they are. Obama awards huge loan guarantees to solar companies promising scant jobs gains. During his weekly address to the nation over the Fourth of July weekend, President Obama announced that the Department of Energy was awarding $2 billion in loan guarantees to two energy companies — Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing. The plan, Obama said, is for the companies to use the money to construct solar plants and panels to power thousands of homes — and create 5,000 jobs in the process. Only about 1,600 of those jobs are slated to be permanent, though, meaning that the total cost to the taxpayer for each permanent job would exceed $1 million. But over the past week, observers have questioned whether even that high figure accurately represents the total cost of the president's plan. The Green Wind Of Destruction. To say we're skeptical of the administration's claim that green jobs will bolster economic recovery is putting it mildly. It's much easier to believe that needless environmental rules will cause widespread job losses. Green Job Efforts Kill 2.2 for Every One Created. The Spanish government's renewable energy initiatives have destroyed 2.2 jobs for every new "green" job created, concludes a new study by economics professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid. Calzada says American jobs will suffer the same fate if the United States similarly attempts to promote renewable energy at the expense of conventional energy sources. 'Anti-Lobbyist' Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus 'Green Jobs'. A FOIA [request] reveals the Department of Energy turned to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to help cover up two economic studies pointing to the failure of European wind energy programs. DOE E-Mails To Wind Energy Lobbyists Cast Cloud Over Green Jobs Proposals. The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal. The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created. Unpleasant surprises buried in cap and trade. If cap and trade is an energy and global warming bill, why is a three-year package of unemployment benefits, job training and relocation expenses buried deep within its fine print? And why is a federally subsidized "job bank" needed if laid-off workers would quickly be rehired for higher paying "green" jobs? The fact that generous unemployment benefits are buried in the bill means that "green jobs are bunk," the conservative Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman told The Examiner. The Myth of 5 Million Green Jobs. [Scroll down] The central finding of the study is that — treating the data optimistically — for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, "Spain's experience reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created." Despite expensive and extensive green-job policies, a surprisingly low number of jobs were created. And about two-thirds of those "green" jobs were just to set up the energy source, in construction, fabrication, installation, marketing and administration. Only 10 percent of the green jobs created were permanent jobs actually operating and maintaining the renewable sources of energy. 'Green Jobs' Picture Mostly Shades of Gray. "Green jobs" have been touted as the silver bullet for the nation's growing unemployment problem, jolting the economy out of recession, ridding dependence on foreign oil, and making the environment cleaner. It's an enticing solution to cure much of what ails our country today. Unfortunately, such initiatives are often too good to be true, which requires a look into the underlying reality of the green jobs plan. Tilting at Green Windmills. The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs? Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it. 'Green jobs' studies contain fundamental flaws, think tank experts say. As Congress debates this week the Obama-Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade anti-global warming bill, its advocates frequently claim that moving to alternative energy sources will create legions of new "green jobs." Those claims are often backed by reference to one or more of a trio of supposedly scientific studies ... Problem is, accoding to Beacon Hill, all three are based on fundamentally flawed reasoning. Chortling At Chu. Subsidizing alternative energy fits the classic definition of insanity. Despite huge subsidies, it has proved to be neither cost-effective nor a reliable, significant contributor to our national power grid. Yet we keep subsidizing it, expecting a different result. Green-collar promises and realities. Energy-efficiency efforts have been ongoing for decades. Calling the relevant positions "green-collar" is good PR, but often merely redefines previously existing jobs and doesn't expand the actual employment base. The convenient fantasies of President Obama: If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. ... Big business is ready to create green jobs — if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking. Green Jobs and a Green Economy Will Fail Like Van Jones. Van Jones perpetuated the view that environment and climate change are ideal vehicles for advancing total government control. In 1993 former Senator Timothy Wirth, now Director of the UN Foundation, said, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." Italics in original. Obama Uses Feds to Protect His 'Green Jobs' Fantasy. On numerous occasions, to tout his own agenda President Obama told America to "take a look at what's happening in countries like Spain" to witness his model for a "green jobs" economy. Well, a team of Spaniards produced an academic study, officially of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, which revealed that Spain's scheme has proven a disaster. Green jobs offer limited hope to Iowa. When the Pella Corp. closed its local factory last year, Story City looked to the booming wind industry to replace some of the nearly 250 lost jobs. In came NextEra Energy Resources, which agreed to invest $20 million in a facility at Story City to repair generators for the company's wind turbines in Iowa and other states. The number of jobs NextEra will create — 25 — represents only one-tenth of what was lost when Pella left. What Green Jobs? President Obama devoted nearly $60 billion of his stimulus package to building a new green-based economy rich in renewable energy and strategies to cut carbon. But despite the price tag, not one green job yet exists. It comes down to a problem of etymology. No one can yet agree on what a green job actually is. Obama's Green Jobs Program: $135,294 Per Job. [Scroll down] Obama says the grants will create 17,000 cleantech jobs. Well, get out your calculator. $2.3 billion for 17,000 jobs equals $135,294 per job. (And that's not including the eventual interest on this deficit spending). Those green jobs had better pay well over six figures to justify that expense. Not to worry, the administration has a plan to solve this, too. It wants Congress to approve another $5 billion for "tens of thousands" more green jobs. The Lies about Green Jobs. So-called Green jobs depend on two of the most impractical and unreliable sources of electricity generation. Solar and wind farms require backup by coal-fired and nuclear power sources for the blatantly obvious reason that the sun does not shine full-time, nor do the winds blow full-time. These, plus biofuel producers, are parked on the doorstep of Congress to secure the subsidies they need just to be in business; subsidies that are derived from our taxes. Unions Try to Monopolize Green Jobs. [Scroll down] One of the more startling revelations at the forum came in testimony from Stephen Worth, President & CEO of Worth and Company, a merit shop mechanical contractor out of Pipersville, Pennsylvania, currently employing more than 400 people. Amid testimony of union harassment and exclusion from contracting bids was a startling revelation of union methods to monopolize "green jobs" through illegitimate and discriminatory regulatory definition. Wind turbines fail in Minnesota's cold weather. President Obama is telling Americans to count on the creation of "green jobs" to help ease the rising unemployment in the country. These green energy failures only further the concern that pinning the country's economic salvation on the hopes of an industry still facing performance issues hardly makes any sense. New Wind Farms in the U.S. Do Not Bring Jobs. Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But [a recent] study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines. Think Color Of Money, Not Trees When It Comes To 'Green' Jobs. President Obama has spent billions on so-called green job programs as part of the economic recovery and plans to spend billions more. He has repeatedly argued this will create good-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced. But, according to the green groups themselves, these jobs can be highly expensive, often costing well more than $100,000 per job in subsidies and/or tax credits. Just last month, the White House said it was spending $135,294 per job to create 17,000 green jobs. The "Green Jobs" Scam Unmasked: According to a series of new reports, billions of dollars in "stimulus" money that was supposed to go toward creating "Green Jobs" here in America instead went to foreign-owned companies — who "created or saved" the vast majority of their jobs overseas. ... Worse still, the lunacy isn't stopping. We are continuing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into this failed framework, which uses American sweat to create permanent positions (and profit) for foreign companies. A green-jobs tale, blowing in the wind. For a brief period last spring, a university study out of Spain whipped up excitement among Republicans on Capitol Hill — and brought heartburn to environmentalists and renewable-energy lobbyists in the process — because it purported to show that government support for "green jobs," a signature push by the Obama administration, ultimately hurts employment more than it helps. Green-Jobs Fantasy: A recent report from German think tank RWI sets out what happened in Germany. Titled "Economic Impacts from the Promotion of Renewable Energies: The German Experience," it illustrates how the German green-jobs initiative failed to meet any of its objectives. Taking jobs first, the report concluded that although at first glance the green-jobs program had been a great success, producing 278,000 extra jobs by 2009, once one takes into account offsetting factors, such as jobs lost from increased energy prices, the net number was negligible or even negative. ... The RWI found that the subsidy per job amounted to $240,000. Downgraded Spain decides to shelve worthless enviro-energy projects. They tried to crucify Gabriel Calzada for pointing out that their wind and solar programs were a big waste of money. But even the Spain's socialist government recognizes economic reality when default comes knocking. You can't keep spending $750,000 per "green" job created when you're going broke. Spanish paper: Obama driving off 'green energy' cliff. Chris Horner has been all over the story of Spain's unimpressive experience with green energy. Spanish newspapers have finally called out the U.S. President for choosing a failed model for a "Green Economy." Leaked Spanish Report: Obama's Model 'Green Economy' a Disaster. As predicted was inevitable, today the Spanish newspaper La Gaceta runs with a full-page article fessing up to the truth about Spain's "green jobs" boondoggle, which happens to be the one naively cited by President Obama no less than eight times as his model for the United States. It is now out there as a bust, a costly disaster that has come undone in Spain to the point that even the Socialists admit it, with the media now in full pursuit. The Green Jobs Myth. A Spanish economics professor said attempts by his country to create a green economy would fail. Now a Spanish government report confirms his findings, blunting claims that the professor's report was biased. 'Green New Deal' is a raw deal for the U.S.. In Europe, green ideas have been in fashion for two generations and have driven policy to a much greater extent than in the United States. Despite this, we have not witnessed a sizable green wave of new jobs, as evidenced by our unemployment rates, which are routinely several percentage points higher than in America. The green movement has succeeded in generating increased government spending and subsidies at taxpayer expense. Much of this spending has been directed toward inefficient renewable-energy projects, such as solar and wind power. Billions for 'green jobs,' whatever they are. Buried deep inside a federal newsletter on March 16 was something called a "notice of solicitation of comments" from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Department of Labor. "BLS is responsible for developing and implementing the collection of new data on green jobs," said the note in the Federal Register, which is widely read by government bureaucrats and almost never seen by the general public. But the notice said there is "no widely accepted standard definition of 'green jobs.'" To help find that definition, the Labor Department asked that readers send in suggestions. "Green" buildings: Children 'falling asleep in stuffy eco-classrooms'. Children are falling asleep in class because new eco-friendly schools have appalling ventilation, experts warned today. Builders have created air-tight classrooms which are intended to reduce heat loss but also stop carbon dioxide escaping. Higher CO2 levels in newly-built schools are leaving children drowsy and less able to concentrate, researchers from University College London and Reading University found. Climate Change department keep air-conditioning rather than open windows. Plans to switch off the air-conditioning and instead open windows at the Department for Energy and Climate Change have been scrapped after staff complained about the noise. ... The trial was abandoned after three days because staff at the department complained about noise from construction works, "the wrong kind of breeze" and the potential security risk. Green Math Is Bad Math. [Scroll down] The entire renovation costs $133 million. The plants are only one component, but the G.S.A. admits that the renovation is being undertaken for the purpose of making the building "green." Done as a project of the Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, the renovation is Oregon's largest federal stimulus project. Chicago officials say pebbles broke windows. Chicago officials say white pebbles spread on rooftops to reflect sunlight are to blame for some broken high-rise windows in last week's violent storms. Nancy Pelosi's taxpayer-funded, exorbitantly expensive, eco-friendly office space. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., recently moved into a new district office, located in the San Francisco Federal Building. All sorts of reasons were cited for the move — she'd been in the old office for twenty years; the new office's location is more accessible for her constituents; she needed more space; the new office is in a "green" building. These explanations seem reasonable, until you find out how much she's paying for them. ... Speaker Pelosi is paying $18,736 a month for her lovely new workspace. How I (Almost) Saved the Earth. When I started researching the field of green building, as part of the planning for our own home, I learned that, in many cases, you can't get there from here. Allow me to share some of the things we learned. It's California-centric, but I think you can generalize from my experience. As a rule, the greener the home, the uglier it will be. Earth day: Progressives Against Progress. [Scroll down] If one were to pick a point at which liberalism's extraordinary reversal began, it might be the celebration of the first Earth Day, in April 1970. Some 20 million Americans at 2,000 college campuses and 10,000 elementary and secondary schools took part in what was the largest nationwide demonstration ever held in the United States. The event brought together disparate conservationist, antinuclear, and back-to-the-land groups into what became the church of environmentalism, complete with warnings of hellfire and damnation. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, the founder of Earth Day, invoked "responsible scientists" to warn that "accelerating rates of air pollution could become so serious by the 1980s that many people may be forced on the worst days to wear breathing helmets to survive outdoors. The Annual Green Orgy: Earth Day. On Earth Day we will have been engulfed by the avalanche of "Green" propaganda that preceded it, fills the day, and then continues relentlessly thereafter. When I say "propaganda", I am being polite. Much of the foundation of the environmental movement is pure lies, mind boggling distortions of questionable "science", and a thin veneer for the entire purpose of environmentalism, the imposing of a one-world agenda for the enrichment of a few who dream of a monopolistic control of the world's resources and its human work force. Environmentalism: Freedom's Foe. At the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, some young people, intimidated by the pace and complexity of modern life, were looking either to rebel or to retreat -- to tear down "the System," or to withdraw to nature for a "Colorado Rocky Mountain high." ... [T]hey preached the inherent goodness of untouched nature and undisciplined emotion; the corrupting influence of reason, culture, and civilization; economic egalitarianism and small-scale participatory democracy; the mystical infallibility of the collective will and the sacrifice of the individual to the group. And they were united in their hatred of a common enemy: modern American, capitalistic society. Earth Day Is a Holiday For Liars. I have followed the apocalyptic claims and the legislated mandates of the environmental movement since the 1970s and their single unifying factor has been the lies told to achieve various elements the Green agenda. … By blocking access to energy such as the ban on oil extraction in ANWR or off the coasts of the United States, by lobbying against the building of coal-fired and nuclear electricity generation plants, by arguing for inefficient, highly subsidized solar and wind alternatives, Greens are creating a national energy crisis. The Earth Day before yesterday: "Earth Day" [was founded] by former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. It's also V.I. Lenin's birthday — which is no coincidence. Nelson modeled his anti-capitalist protests after anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of that era. Today, the so-called "environmental movement" he helped spawn has devolved from a gaggle of unwashed adolescent peaceniks into a slick cadre of leftists, lobbyists and lawyers. The Naked Communism of Earth Day. It is no accident that April 22, Earth Day, is also the birth date of Vladimir Lenin, an acolyte of Karl Marx, the lunatic who invented communism as an alternative to capitalism. Earth Day is naked communism. To begin, it substitutes a worship of the Earth, Gaia, for the worship of God, creator of the universe and the instructor of moral behavior for mankind. The Earth does not demand a moral code of personal behavior. Indeed, the lesson it teaches is "the survival of the fittest" and an indifference to suffering. Earth Day: A Pro-Nature Movement or An Anti-Industrial Religion? It's been 40 years since the first Earth Day protestors donned their bell bottoms and took over the streets to protest airplane exhaust, traffic, pollution, and litter. These rallies on April 22, 1970 kicked off the modern environmental movement. But, when did this quest to lend a hand to mother nature turn into a crusade against modern industry? Dump Doomsday Dogma. Earth Day turns 40 today, April 22, a good time for scientists, politicians, journalists and the public to dump climate-change orthodoxy. Too many facts are interfering with the familiar story line. The earth is getting warmer and the cause is modern industry. Unless we curtail industry, and much other human activity, disaster is at hand in the form of catastrophic storms, sea-level rise, and global chaos. This all comes billed as a matter of settled science, and alarmists have been comparing skeptics to Holocaust deniers. But as the recent "Climategate" scandal revealed, the alarmists have problems of their own. Earth hour: Hour of no power increases emissions. When asked to extinguish electricity, people turn to candlelight. Candles seem natural, but are almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light globes, and more than 300 times less efficient than fluorescent lights. If you use one candle for each extinguished globe, you're essentially not cutting CO2 at all, and with two candles you'll emit more CO2. Moreover, candles produce indoor air pollution 10 to 100 times the level of pollution caused by all cars, industry and electricity production. Global warming worriers feel heat of hypocrisy. It's Earth Hour tomorrow [3/28/2009], warming worriers — your chance to prove how much you don't care. For a start, you'll prove how much you don't care about being a hypocrite. Let's sit in the dark and freeze to death. On Sunday, lefties will celebrate Earth Hour by shutting off the lights from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. A whole bunch of cities and corporations will also turn down the lights to show their political correctness. Besides, it is Sunday night and none of these businesses and government offices are open anyway. We had plenty of Earth Hours in Western Europe from 500 AD to 1000 AD. We called it the Dark Ages, a time when the Western World regressed and abandoned all the cultural and scientific achievements of the Roman Empire. No Drop in Electricity Usage in NY and CA at Earth Hour. The Greenies did not convince the average liberal New Yorkers and Californians to turn off their lights at the appointed Earth Hour of 8:30 PM local time. By looking at real time data in New York and California, there was no drop in electric usage. Does lighting candles for Earth Hour defeat the purpose? During Earth Hour, what will most participants use for illumination? Candles. ... All these burning wicks raise the question: Are the emissions from these candles worse for the climate than simply leaving the lights on? After all, candles emit carbon dioxide too. The Stupidity, Futility, and Fantasy of "Earth Hour": Let us forget, for a moment, that "Earth Hour" is a pointless exercise serving only to make environmentalists feel better about themselves by marginally reducing electrical demand for 0.01% of the year. Let us disregard, for a moment, that the basic reason for having an "Earth Hour" in the first place is fatuous, because global warming alarmism has as much to do with actual science as alchemy does. ... Indeed, a sober analysis suggests that "Earth Hour" doesn't do anything to save a planet that doesn't need saving and that it may in fact rather increase air pollution instead of reducing it. Earth Hour: Verging on the Occult. If previous Earth Hours are any indication, this Saturday's annual ritual will possess a curious blend of contradictory properties. Switching off the lights for an hour will have little effect on climate change, practical or symbolic, yet it will likely follow the established trend of growing participation each year. All good contradictions deserve an explanation, but the most likely ones in this case don't bode well for our Western liberal Enlightenment tradition. Inconvenient questions: With the fourth global Earth Hour put to bed last night, today let's ask some inconvenient questions of the global warmists. First, does the real-world failure of virtually all of your ideas ever give you a moment's pause? From the fiasco in Copenhagen, to the collapse of the UN's Kyoto accord, with its absurd, unrealistic, centrally-mandated, carbon dioxide-reduction diktats, mindful of the old Soviet Union? Does it never occur to you you've barked up the wrong tree rings? What about the humiliation of Climategate? Reality of ooga-booga Earth Hour. Switch off your lights ... and you've saved the planet. Have a dance, and you've made poverty history. Walk over a bridge, and you've ended Aboriginal suffering. Or, you can do all three at once — dance on a dark bridge — and usher in Paradise itself. The "smart" power grid: What's so smart about 'smart meters?' Maybe it's just me, but there is something unsettling about having a smart meter tracking my power consumption. Will there come a day when excessive power usage will be treated as a crime? Who will determine what is excessive? ... Finding ways for more and more people to use less energy doesn't seem very smart to me. Why not expand our energy production to meet our growing needs[?] Nashville Residents' Energy Bills Could Rise Soon. Older meters are getting replaced one by one with newer digital meters. NES said the digital ones are more efficient, but some customers who already have the new meter say it isn't as efficient for their bottom line. Smart-grid hackers could cause blackouts. Deployments of smart grids should be slowed until security vulnerabilities are addressed, according to some cybersecurity experts, citing tests showing that a hacker can cause a major blackout after breaking into a smart-grid system. "Smart Grids" & Monitoring Your Power Use. [Scroll down] The "Smart Grid" is, for the most part, not about getting power to consumers, but about monitoring and controlling that power once it reaches its destination. ... Whereas present electric meters simply measure the total power consumption of a home or business, "smart" meters will collect far more specific information on power usage. As Bob Sullivan at the Red Tape Chronicles observed regarding the "Smart Grid," the tale your new electric meter will be able to tell about your life and habits may be of interest to criminals and other people with an inclination to snoop on you. What will talking power meters say about you? Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat? What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close? Welcome to the complex world of the Smart Grid, which may very well pit environmental concerns against thorny privacy issues. Obama energy official has ties to firms that stand to benefit. A top Obama administration official who's helping lead a campaign for energy conservation has a major financial interest in two companies that are poised to benefit from the government's spending. Cathy Zoi, the assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy, owns between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of stock in Landis+Gyr, a Swiss-based manufacturer of special electric meters that are used to create an efficient "smart" grid of electricity use. Related material: Time-Of-Day Electricity Pricing: Most consumers don't know it, but the overnight price for electricity at wholesale can be practically zero. Utilities and other power producers are sometimes actually forced to pay industrial consumers to use electricity in the early-morning hours -- because it's too expensive to shut down power plants at night. With time-of-day pricing, consumers would be encouraged to alter their habits -- running the dishwasher at night, for example -- and pounce on such bargains, while evening out demand. Dallas may be among the first cities to get "smart" electric meters. Broadband over power lines plan is dead in Dallas. An ambitious plan for using power lines to deliver fast Internet service to 2 million Dallas-area homes collapsed Thursday [5/8/2008], when Oncor agreed to buy the system. Current Communications said it will sell its so-called smart grid of networking equipment to the utility for $90 million. … Here in Dallas, residents should still be among the first in the nation to see how much smart grids can improve power networks. Power to the People. Using taxpayer-subsidized solar power panels as a backdrop, President Obama recently announced another $3.4B in taxpayer subsidies to help upgrade the nation's electrical power grid. The spending includes "smart meters" that theoretically could be used by bribable government officials to throttle back power to the homes of unsupportive constituents. Not that they actually would engage in such despicable extortion, of course... Okay, maybe in Chicago. And Detroit. Meters prove not so smart. They promised smart would be cheap, but so far it's proving more expensive. Most Toronto Hydro customers who've been on smart meters and time-of-use (TOU) pricing the longest have actually seen an increase of up to $3 per month. The cost of the meter itself also adds an extra $3-$4 a month to local utility bills. National Smart Grid To Transition To More Green Energy Use. The National Broadband Plan, recently published by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), would lay the groundwork for the federal government to establish a nationwide "smart" electrical grid that would change how Americans use and pay for electricity, affecting such things as homes and transportation with battery-powered cars. PG&E details technical problems with SmartMeters. After months of denying any technical problems with its SmartMeter program, PG&E publicly detailed a range of glitches Monday [4/26/2010] affecting tens of thousands of the digital meters. But the San Francisco-based utility said it had found just eight meters that inaccurately reported a customer's energy use, despite thousands of complaints from customers who say the new meters have overcharged them. Myths Associated with the 'Smart' Electrical Grid. There is no national "grid." And a "smart" grid will not "vastly improve" electric power generation or efficiency. The Smart Grid Trojan Horse. [Scroll down] In truth, the [Smart Grid] initiative is but a collection of programs captured in the form of federal standards that separately and jointly advance the Green agenda without raising many eyebrows. The first effort involves replacing conventional electric meters with Smart Meters. Smart Meters are key, because they can be programmed to total your energy consumption by time-of-day (among other sophisticated capabilities). This feature facilitates the application of Time-of-Use (TOU) billing tariffs, euphemistically called "dynamic pricing" in marketing circles. SmartGridCity pilot project in Boulder won't be repeated or expanded. SmartGridCity — the $45 million Boulder-based smart-grid experiment — will not be repeated or expanded, David Eves, chief executive of Xcel Energy's Public Service Co. of Colorado, said Monday [8/23/2010]. In the past two years, the projected cost of SmartGridCity, a pilot program designed to better manage electricity distribution and give consumers detailed information about their usage, nearly tripled to $44.8 million. Miscellaneous: No benefit in drinking eight glasses of water a day, scientists say. The idea that drinking eight glasses of water a day is good for your health has been dismissed as a myth. Scientists say there is no evidence drinking large amounts of water is beneficial for the average healthy person, and do not even know how this widely held belief came about. Treehuggers Against Trees: When the pioneers first entered the great forests of America, they found that the Native Americans had managed the forests for centuries. Their woodlands contained very few big trees — maybe fifty such trees per acre. Apparently the Indians had set regular, low intensity fires which burned away accumulations of undergrowth, deadwood, dying trees and particularly small trees growing between the big trees. The larger trees were unharmed, because of their thick fire-resistant bark. These fires kept the forest healthy by providing a barrier to disease. Save The Earth — Hug A Logger. As environmental alarmists entertain themselves by turning off lights, their efforts sometimes lead to unintended consequences. A new study, for example, shows they may be warming the earth by saving trees. How Green Is a Fake Christmas Tree? Although some fakes are crafted from recyclable material, about 85 percent of artificial trees are made in China from the petroleum-based plastics polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as PVC or vinyl. The natural-tree industry says PVC could contain lead and is potentially harmful to workers manufacturing it. And any plastic tree will someday end up in a landfill, where it could take millions of years to disintegrate. From a consumer perspective, PVC trees are only dangerous if they catch fire, producing the toxic, highly acidic gas hydrogen chloride. Carbon Nanotubes: The New Asbestos? Nanotechnology experts are calling for prompt government action to ensure that carbon nanotubes are properly regulated, after researchers discovered that some carbon nanotubes can cause precancerous growths in the same way that asbestos does. Environmentalists always say, "If only we could learn from the dolphins..." Baby Dolphin Murders Blamed on US Military. These aquatic mammals where literally beaten to death with multiple internal injuries, lacerations, contusions and the like. Back in 1997 the whole C.S.I. treatment was given these animals and guess who these scientists first blamed? You guessed it, the United States Military. It turns out, however, that scientists have now realized that it is the "smartest" fishie on earth that is responsible. Yes, they were surprised to discover that dolphins are outright murderers. Vitamin pills 'increase risk of early death'. Popular vitamin supplements taken by millions of people in the hope of improving their health may do no good and could increase the risk of a premature death, researchers report today. They warn healthy people who take antioxidant supplements, including vitamins A and E, to try to keep diseases such as cancer at bay that they are interfering with their natural body defences and may be increasing their risk of an early death by up to 16 percent. Drano Used in Processing Soybeans. We've been duped into believing soy is a health-giving product because the Asiatic people use soy and are sooooo healthy. What we weren't told is that the Asiatics ferment the beans in order to eliminate the health hazards. … [Scroll down] The next step is that the refined oil is mixed with sodium hydroxide — NaOH — which most of us know as Drano, at a temperature of 167°F. That's right — the exact same corrosive lye you pour down your drain when it's clogged. Sugar-free gum poses a health hazard. Chewing too much "sugar-free" gum can lead to severe weight loss and bowel problems, doctors are warning. Many "sugar-free" products such as chewing gum and sweets contain a sweetener called sorbitol. It is a sugar alcohol with around a third fewer calories than sucrose, or table sugar. However, the substance can have laxative effects if taken in large enough amounts — a fact that many people are unaware of because potential side-effects are usually listed in small print on the packaging, say the researchers. Energy Saving Day flopped, say organisers. Energy Saving Day was a flop, its organiser admitted last night after the National Grid confirmed that across Britain energy use went up by just over one percent. … The E Day website encouraged participants to turn off as many appliances as possible and to leave them unused for as long as possible. But by mid afternoon it was clear from the meters on the Day's website that consumption was about 600 megawatt hours across the country, higher than what the National Grid estimated was used on a normal February day. Garden Biohazard: Man Killed By Compost. A man has died after inhaling lethal spores which grew on rotting compost in his garden. The 47-year-old fell ill less than 24 hours after being engulfed by "clouds of dust" while working with rotting tree and plant mulch. At first medics thought the previously healthy welder had pneumonia when he was admitted with severe breathing problems. But when antibiotics failed to help, tests showed evidence of Aspergillosis, a reaction to Aspergillus spores. Did thick brush, environmental concerns worsen Martin Fire? State officials attempted to clear brush two years ago on the piece of land where a fire now raging in Santa Cruz County began, but much of the work was delayed and ultimately not finished because of opposition from two local environmental groups. … The reserve, an ancient seabed famed for its rare plants and trees, has not had a significant fire since 1948. As a result, dead trees and brush were piled high. Kicking the Tires of T. Boone's Natural-Gas Car. Automakers have been trying to get the public to buy natural gas vehicles since the 1970s. Yet, despite millions in tax subsidies, today there is only one — count them: one — -compressed-natural-gas (CNG) product in America's showrooms. It's the Honda Civic GX and it ain't exactly flying off the shelves. Vegetarians warned that 'superfood' tofu may harm your memory. Eating high levels of some soy products, including tofu and other so-called 'superfoods,' may increase memory loss, scientists say. Experts funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust found a 20 percent lower level of brain functioning compared with those eating very little of the product. Vegan diet increases the risk of birth defects, scientists warn. Women who are strict vegetarians or vegans may be a greater risk of having a child with birth defects because they are likely to be deficient in vitamin B12, researchers warned. Research carried out in Ireland has found that women with low levels of B12, found in meat, eggs and milk, when they conceive are at greater risk of having a child with neural tube defects. Superfood rice bran contains arsenic. Rice bran — a so-called "superfood" — might contain dangerous amounts of a natural poison. A new study suggests that rice bran, the shavings left over after brown rice is polished to produce white rice grains, contains "inappropriate" levels of arsenic. Why not raw milk? For those of you who don't know what raw milk is, let me enlighten you. Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. That's right! Straight from the udder to you! … Do [the proponents of raw milk] not realize that without pasteurization the safety of consuming that milk is seriously questionable? That cow lives on a farm, not in a sterile facility! Where has that udder been; what has it touched; what kinds of bacteria has that milk been exposed to that are not removed because it's not been pasteurized? States pay a price for bottle deposit laws. Michigan would have at least $10 million a year more for environmental cleanup if not for people redeeming containers that were bought in other states. Chicago's 'green' promise fades. Mayor Richard Daley promised long ago that his administration would start fighting global warming by buying 20 percent of its electricity from wind farms and other sources of green energy. But more than two years after the deadline he set, the city continues to get nearly all of its power from coal, natural gas and nuclear plants, according to records obtained by the Tribune. Spokane residents smuggle in real suds over useless "green" brands. The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. ... It's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green. Commentary from Greenie Watch: The phosphate in regular dishwashing detergents also happens to be a basic fertilizer. Most people who know farms will have heard of superphosphate. Plants love phosphates. Just like they love CO2. Horrors! say the Greenies. It helps nasty plants to grow too. Helping farmers to trap fertilizer runoff from their farms would make more sense if there is any real problem with it. Nuclear only safe option. Majestic dams set in pristine, forested water catchments become tourist attractions in their own right and their names are bywords in feats of engineering: Hoover, Aswan, Boulder, Three Gorges, Hume. But they are the deadliest form of power generation known to man. Hydroelectricity kills thousands each year and claims many more lives than other forms of energy generation — natural gas, LPG, oil and even coal, the mining of which can be perilous. Dams regularly fail, sometimes catastrophically. Just three days ago a dam burst in Jakarta killing 77, with 100 people missing. The Fine Print: What's Really in a Lot of 'Healthy' Foods. The yogurt aisle is dizzy these days with products that promise to reduce your cholesterol, control your blood pressure, protect your digestive health or boost your immune system. In many cases, it's a single ingredient that provides the benefit, and you can find much more of it in other sources. Hydroelectric, Tidal, and Geo-thermal energy sources. [Scroll down] Some of the Greens already hate hydroelectric and for certain they would hate geothermal if they knew the type of facilities that it would entail. But even with the more radical characters aside hydroelectric and geothermal are very site specific. One cannot generate new mountains laden with running water nor can a geothermal anomaly with prolific hot water or steam reservoirs can be made to order. There is absolutely nothing wrong with either hydroelectric or geothermal but they happen where they happen and cannot be manufactured anywhere else. Regarding tidal energy, this has been just talk for at least forty years, an academic exercise with little relation to implementation reality. The Problems with Al Gore: [Scroll down slowly] Gore then made the stunning assertion that geothermal resources in the US alone are so enormous that they could meet our entire energy needs for 35,000 years. Is it not remarkable that we ignore such a vast, unexploited source of energy? Is it not astonishing that generations of scientists and engineers have failed to recognize the potential for withdrawing virtually limitless amounts of free energy from the Earth? If the promise of geothermal energy sounds too good to be true, the reason is that it's not true. The United States gets less than one percent of its energy from geothermal sources. Back to the Environmental Issues Page Jump to Environmentalists Oppose Every Practical Source of Energy Back to the Home page 
|
