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Windmill generators: Personally, I'd love to have a big windmill generator in my back yard, since there is plenty of wind in this part of the country. It would help take the edge off my electric bill even if the windmill only supplied power to my hot water heater. But the wind doesn't blow constantly or even predictably, so I would be unable to depend on it. And even if the wind blew all day and all night, I'd have a hard time generating power as cheaply as I could buy it from the local electric utility. I am astonished to hear lately that many liberal environmentalists are opposed to windmills because they are unsightly. But if they can be used to reduce your electric bill, wouldn't they look really good? Isn't this the "renewable energy" the environmentalists are so excited about? Pitched as source of clean energy, ranchers say mills are an eyesore. Though embraced by state political leaders as a clean, renewable electricity source and welcomed by many rural landowners as newfound income, wind farms are gathering fresh opposition from Texas ranchers who say they are an ugly, noisy blight on the wide-open landscape. Opponents say the turbines, which extend up 400 feet to the tips of their blades, not only threaten birds and wildlife but devalue property in areas such as the distant outskirts of Dallas-Fort Worth, where ranchland is increasingly being used for recreation and second homes. Who knew a "free" source of energy could be so expensive? For wind turbines to produce power, the wind must blow. Because the wind does not blow constantly, wind turbines produce a fraction of their potential generating capacities. Furthermore, winds blows the least during the summer months when power is needed the most. ERCOT relies on just 8.7% of wind power's capacity when determining available power during peak summer hours. Also, due to wind's intermittency, wind farms must rely on conventional power sources to back up their supply. Blown Away. How can I possibly claim that every kilowatt hour generated by wind power doesn't eliminate that much pollution from a coal-fired plant? Because it's true. Most of our country is tied together in electrical grid so that power can be routed from one area to another as demands change from place to place. Electricity is not stored on the grid. If a portion of the power comes from wind generation, there must always be a backup in the event this drops significantly — like perhaps to zero. These backup plants must be kept running as it requires hours if not days to bring them up to a level where they can provide power. Wind Power Risks: It is now becoming more common to hear of wind power caused outages. The outages are either a loss of service because the wind has stopped blowing or, surprisingly, because there is too much wind. These problems were not so apparent when the percentage of wind power was low compared to the overall capacity, and in particular to rapid response generators such as hydro. It seems that wind power has become too successful and the engineering required to integrate it into different grids has lagged behind. Leader of Ohio Environmental Group Testifies Against Wind Power Proposal. Tom Stacy, managing director of the environmentalist group Save Western Ohio, presented compelling testimony to the Ohio House of Representatives Public Utilities Committee that a proposed renewable power mandate would substantially harm the environment and local communities. The mandate, Stacy noted, would cause the construction of a growing number of wind turbines, a poor source of energy that harms wildlife and takes up excessive amounts of land. Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency. A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday [2/26/2008], coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday [2/27/2008]. Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state. Committee Acts to Doom New England Wind Farm. A Senate-House conference committee has approved a measure that would effectively kill a proposal for the first large offshore wind farm in the United States, in Nantucket Sound south of Cape Cod, Mass. Democrats Lead the Fight Against West Virginia Wind Farms. U.S. Reps. Alan Mollohan and Nick Rahall, both West Virginia Democrats, are leading a high-profile fight against industrial wind farms on the state's mountaintop ridges. Wind Turbines Kill Raptors, Lead to Rat Infestations. Predictions by bat experts that expanded industrial wind farms in West Virginia will increase numbers of disease-carrying mosquitoes and crop-destroying grasshoppers, locusts, and moths are not the only expected ecological consequences of expanded wind farms. Giant wind turbines take an even greater toll on birds, including many endangered species and birds of prey instrumental in controlling rodent populations. Windfarms provide no useful electricity. Wind turbines provide power when the wind is strong enough and not too strong. It is very difficult to predict the precise moment when a windfarm will start to provide electricity to the grid. And the wind can change over a large area. Hence, the presence of many windfarms in a locality causes power surges. Greenie alarmists miss the target. Electricity from wind farms costs double or more that from coal-fired power plants and is unreliable, adding further to power costs. The Victorian Government has admitted that the Green Power scheme to encourage consumers to use more expensive green power has been a less than resounding success. California Wind Power Worries Environmentalists. Defenders of Wildlife contends any new wind farms should be required to comply with a long list of siting considerations in addition to the guidelines designed to prevent them from being built in roadless forest areas or avian flyways. … "Ground-disturbing activities, such as road construction and the clearing of forests for new power lines, also result from wind farm construction," [spokesperson Kim] Delfino said. Wind Farms Costly for Kansans. Wind farms proposed for the state of Kansas would take money out of citizens' pockets, harm the Kansas economy, and provide few if any environmental benefits, a new study finds. The study, conducted by former New England Electric System Vice President Glenn Schleede and released on March 1, 2005, documents that Kansas consumers will pay higher taxes and higher electric bills if the state chooses to adopt wind power recommendations made by the Kansas Energy Council (KEC). The KEC, in its Kansas Energy Report 2005, recommends Kansas bestow special privileges on the wind power industry, such as tax exemptions, direct cash subsidies, and a mandate that all Kansas citizens purchase a certain percentage of their power from large wind farms. Enviro Group Sues Wind Farm to Stop Bird Deaths. Giant wind turbines at Altamont Pass, California, are illegally killing more than 1,000 birds of prey each year, according to a lawsuit filed January 12 by the Center for Biological Diversity. The suit demands an injunction halting operation of the turbines until and unless protective measures are taken and highlights increasing concerns regarding a power source long hailed as environmentally friendly by environmental activist groups. Wind turbines send wildlife diving for cover. Noisy wind farms in California are making squirrels edgy and prone to scurrying for cover. This change in behaviour could have knock-on effects on animals that depend upon the squirrel, such as the golden eagle, which feeds on the rodent, and the red-legged frog and California tiger salamander, which live in its burrows. German Government Study Questions Value of Wind Power. Opposition spokesmen such as Klaus Lippold MP [say], "The problem with wind farms is that you have to build them in places where you don't need electricity. The electricity then has to be moved somewhere else. There is growing resistance in Germany to wind farms, not least because of the disastrous effect on our landscape." Louisiana Wind Farm Economically Unviable. A proposed wind farm off the coast of Louisiana is economically unviable, wind farm supporters admit, and will fail unless the state forces its citizens to purchase the power at up to three times the cost of conventional power. Wind power supporters are seeking just such a requirement in a proposed renewable portfolio standard. (See page 10 of the January 2005 Environment & Climate News) Comparing the costs of various methods of power generation. Electricity generated from new fossil fuel plants powered by natural gas or coal costs 4 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Wind power costs 6 cents per kilowatt hour — including federal subsidies amounting to 1.8 cents per kwh. Solar power costs 14 cents kwh for thermal processes and 19 cents kwh for photovoltaic generation. Wind Power: Red Not Green. Renewable energy promoters claim that wind power is cheap, safe and "green." These claims are untrue. Wind power is expensive, doesn't deliver the environmental benefits it promises and imposes substantial environmental costs. Accordingly, it does not merit continued government promotion or funding. Renewable Electricity 'Creating' Jobs, Destroying Wealth. All over the world, for several centuries, workers have become more productive and their services have risen in value. Renewable energy mandates, currently in force in 20 states, reverse this progress and require a cut in worker productivity and energy efficiency. Twenty states have set standards that require utilities to obtain some of their power from "renewable" resources such as wind turbines and solar panels. Negawatts: The renewable resource best beloved of ecophiles is wind power. Despite decades of subsidies (amounting to more than $1,200 per installed kilowatt), wind power remains stubbornly uneconomic. One problem is that the wind usually refuses to blow hardest at times of peak demand for electricity, generating only about 7.5 megawatts per 50 MW of nameplate capacity at peak. "Wind farms" are thus sometimes called "tax farms." British Studies Show Prohibitive Cost of "Renewable" Energy. A pair of British studies released in March and April 2004 show relying on wind power or other non-nuclear "renewables" to reduce air pollution or carbon dioxide emissions forces consumers to pay at least twice as much as they currently pay for electricity generated from fossil fuels or emissions-free nuclear power. There's too little power in wind. The 83 existing and proposed windmills in Wisconsin generate very little electricity and cannot make a significant contribution in supplying Wisconsin's electricity or improving its reliability. The total output from the 35 windmills on four existing wind farms represented just 0.082 percent of the state's 1999 electricity production. Map: United States Average Annual Wind Power. Wind Power Prices Rising, Defying Predictions of Renewable Power Apologists. The price of wind turbines is rapidly rising, defying global warming alarmists who justify renewable power subsidies and mandates by claiming prices for the economically uncompetitive renewable power will fall as more industrial wind farms are built. Awww... Windmills might spoil the view of Cape Cod. Save Teddy Kennedy's view. Congress is about to decide whether a developer whom the Senate last year handed the exclusive right to build a 24-square-mile array of 417-foot-high windmills in the middle of the Nantucket Sound — off Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket — should be allowed to proceed. The area's most famous resident, Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D-Mass.), has teamed up with Alaska's Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, to stop it. Ted Kennedy: Build the 'Wind Farm' Elsewhere. Sen. Ted Kennedy has strongly opposed an environmentally friendly "wind farm" off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. Now he supports building another wind farm — in somebody else's "backyard." Foes of Cape Wind project see contributions drop sharply in 2006. Opponents of a planned wind farm off Cape Cod see a sharp drop in contributions. In 2006, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound raised about $2 million, according to federal tax filings submitted this month. That's less than half what the group raised in each of the prior two years. Turbine plan brings whirlwind of questions. For years, environmental groups have viewed electricity-producing wind farms with a touch of reverence: energy from the natural rhythms of the air, without the need for fossil fuels or polluting greenhouse gases. But questions about the risk, cost and environmental impact of offshore wind threaten to slow what some call a headlong state rush to approve a $1.6 billion, 150-turbine wind farm off Rehoboth Beach, along with one of two on-land, backup natural gas-powered generating plants. Texas Tops in Wind Energy Production. Long known as a top oil- and natural gas-producing state, Texas has gained new energy acclaim by becoming the nation's top producer of wind energy. Texas capacity stands at 2,370 megawatts, enough to power 600,000 average-sized homes a year, according to a midyear report released Tuesday [7/25/2006] by the American Wind Energy Association. Illinois senators hold up FAA nominee over wind farms. Illinois' senators are blocking President Bush's nominee for a Federal Aviation Administration post as they seek his administration's answer to whether wind farms interfere with military operations. … Before they release their hold, they want the FAA to issue a conclusive determination as to whether the operation of wind farms under construction in the Midwest in such places as Bloomington, Ill., will interfere with radar systems. The Editor says... Are military radar systems so crude that they can be spoofed by windmills? Of course not. The Senators' concerns are purely political. Cape Wind Has Powerful Critics, Supporters. The Cape Wind project has powerful opposition, including Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and the Bay State's senior Democrat senator, Edward M. Kennedy. An environmental group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, also has worked against the plan. ... Supporters of the project argue the wind farm would generate 170 much-needed megawatts of electricity to a high-cost region. ... The project would generate about 2.5 percent of the electricity used by Massachusetts, or 1 percent of that used by all of New England. Wind farms generate bird worries. The rapid expansion of wind energy farms in the Columbia River Gorge's shrub steppes could put hawks, eagles and other raptors on a collision course with fields of giant turbines and their 150-foot blades. By year's end, more than 1,500 turbines will be churning out electricity in the gorge, a windy corridor at the forefront of a nationwide effort to produce cleaner energy. Questions Plague Efforts to Grow Wind Power Use. Interest in wind power production seems to be on the rise, with recent numbers from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) predicting a continuing boost in wind power production thanks to increasing government subsidies and mandates. … But a verdict on the long-term viability of wind as an energy source has yet to be reached, and no hope is in sight for the scores of birds and bats meeting grisly fates among the turning turbine blades. Wash Governor Forces Wind Farm Over Local Protest. Residents of Kittitas County, Washington are expressing their outrage at Gov. Christine Gregoire's (D) September 18 decision to overrule county officials and allow 65 new, towering wind turbines to be built on hillsides surrounding the town of Ellensburg. Kittitas County commissioners had rejected the proposed wind farm, noting local opposition to the 410-foot wind turbines that are expected to destroy scenic views, kill birds and bats, and create loud, reverberating noise in addition to generating a relatively small amount of electric power. Wind Power Costs Continue to Rise. The U.S. Department of Energy reports the average cost of a turbine per megawatt of power generated rose 17 percent in 2006 and will likely rise by more than 14 percent this year. Because utilities have no control over these costs, ratepayers or taxpayers end up paying the final bill. In addition, wind farms have already been constructed in the most productive wind sites, leaving less-productive and less-reliable sites available for current and future wind farm construction. Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought. One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at wind power is variability. That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop spinning and you get no power. Wind farms 'a threat to national security'. Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britain's energy needs from offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere with its radar. The MoD has lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in the line of sight of its stations on the east coast because they make it impossible to spot aircraft, The Times has learnt. The Editor says... The British must be using really primitive radar equipment, if it can't tell the difference between a windmill and an airplane. Dissenting opinion: Energy's Prevailing Winds: Last year, [T. Boone] Pickens correctly predicted that we would be seeing a $100 barrel of oil, and he recently announced plans to build a $10 billion, 150,000-acre wind farm in the Texas panhandle, which would be the biggest in the world. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Recycling: 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." 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Hybrid / Electric Cars: Electric cars would be wonderful if they were affordable and cost effective in the long run. But in order for hybrid cars to be competitive, the price of gasoline would have to be about twice what it is currently. Electric cars are the environmentalists' dream come true — except in many cases they are recharged overnight by electricity from a nuclear power plant! Lights out for electric carmaker. Management at long-struggling Think Nordic, which once made the popular Think City electric cars, conceded Thursday [2/23/2006] that it was effectively bankrupt. Hybrid car sales stall as cost of going green is turn-off. Petrol-electric cars have been hailed as saviours of the environment and every "green" celebrity is driving one, but hybrids are failing to impress consumers and sales are falling. Hybrid Cars' Fantasy Mileage Ratings Drive Into the Sunset. Hybrid car economics will face a new road test this month with the arrival of fresh models sporting revised mileage ratings from the Environmental Protection Agency. This year, new test standards have forced manufacturers to lower advertised efficiency claims on most models compared to previous years, and car lots are bracing for a tougher environment for hybrid sales. The Hybrid Hoax: They're not as fuel-efficient as you think. Most cars and trucks don't achieve the gas mileage they advertise, according to Consumer Reports. But hybrids do a far worse job than conventional vehicles in meeting their EPA fuel economy ratings, especially in city driving. Hybrids, which typically claim to get 32 to 60 miles per gallon, ended up delivering an average of 19 miles per gallon less than their EPA ratings under real-world driving conditions (which reflect more stop-and-go traffic and Americans' penchant for heavy accelerating) according to a Consumer Reports investigation in October 2005. Why Hybrid Cars Aren't Selling Well: The sale of hybrid automobiles constitutes an anemic 1.8% of all vehicle sales, down from a peak of 2.1% in October 2006. I would suggest that Americans aren't all that "green" despite the endless print and broadcast media harangues that our wonderful lifestyles are to blame for everything from hurricanes to frizzy hair. Those who have tried to be green have found that there are considerable additional costs involved and this has proven particularly true of hybrid cars…. For now, gas will be champ. Every time I hear of a promising new electric vehicle (EV) or a "breakthrough" battery, my eyes roll back in my head. The cars are either hugely expensive or tiny, slow and impractical. Their claimed ranges are either double-digit small at neighborhood speeds or ridiculously optimistic at highway speeds. The batteries are typically single-cell wonders in a lab, many years and dollars away from vehicle size. Hybrid vehicles' overall energy costs exceed those of comparable non-hybrids. Even sales of the Toyota Prius — the darling of the greens — have dropped significantly. The only segment besides taxis where hybrids are still holding steady — taxpayers will be happy to note — is the car fleets maintained by the government. What's particularly interesting is that individual consumers are defying all expectations and turning their backs on hybrids at a time when gas prices are soaring. Hybrid hysteria. Remember methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), the green gasoline additive that was supposed to save the planet but was an environmental, public-health and economic disaster? Remember ethanol, the green gasoline additive that replaced MTBE and was supposed to save the planet but has been an environmental, public-health and economic disaster? Well, now Gang Green is pushing the hybrid vehicle. Hybrid Hypocrisy. The megawatt popularity of hybrids is dimming and Americans are rediscovering their favorite automotive guilty pleasure, gas-guzzling SUVs. And here's something even more shocking: a surprising number of Americans have it both ways. They own a hybrid and an SUV. According to an analysis for NEWSWEEK by researcher GfK Automotive, 24.2 percent of hybrid owners also have an SUV in their garage. The Editor says... That's not necessarily hypocrisy. One compensates for the other. And if you can afford both, who has the authority to tell you what kind of car to drive? Have You Hugged a Hummer Today? In the real world — outside of the Environmental Protection Agency's tax-payer funded testing sites — hybrids don't deliver anywhere close to the gas mileage that the agency attributes to them. The Hybrid Hoax: They're not as fuel-efficient as you think. When Treasury Secretary John Snow announced guidelines for a new tax cut for the rich here last week, liberals did not denounce him. That's because the proposed tax breaks were for gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, the favorite ride of environmentalists this side of bicycles. But the dirty secret about hybrids is that, even as the government continues to fuel their growth with tax subsidies, they don't deliver the gas savings they promise. Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage. The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer. Smug eco-preachers a turnoff. Out of a record one million new cars sold in Australia during the 2006-07 financial year, just 2081 — or 0.5 percent — were eco-friendly hybrids. More than half of these were bought by governments. During the entire year, just 791 hybrids went to private buyers. Will plug-in hybrids crash the grid? Duke Energy says no. Duke Energy and smart grid company GridPoint said on Thursday [3/27/2008] that they have found a way for people to charge plug-in hybrid cars in a way that won't bring the power grid to its knees. The companies said that they have completed a test using GridPoint's SmartGrid Platform device to charge up cars after 10 p.m. … In the worst-case scenario, the United States would need to build 160 new power plants to accommodate plug-in hybrids. The Editor says... Notice that the people at the power company think you're smart enough to buy a hybrid car, but not smart enough to charge the batteries at the right time. A better solution would be to make the price of electricity drop at midnight. "Smart" metering would have to be used, of course, but savvy consumers would then find a way to do their laundry and wash the dishes when rates are low. It certainly sounds like the hybrid cars are real power hogs when they're charging, if the power grid can't support very many of them. But consider the implications: If you save $100 a month on gas, but you spend an extra $200 a month on electricity, you obviously haven't gained anything. 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. Blind people: Hybrid cars pose hazard. Gas-electric hybrid vehicles, the status symbol for the environmentally conscientious, are coming under attack from a constituency that doesn't drive: the blind. Because hybrids make virtually no noise at slower speeds when they run solely on electric power, blind people say they pose a hazard to those who rely on their ears to determine whether it's safe to cross the street or walk through a parking lot. Congress to Introduce Bill to Protect Blind People From Hybrid Cars. A bill intended to protect blind people and other pedestrians from the dangers posed by quiet cars will be introduced Wednesday [4/9/2008] in Congress. The measure would require the Transportation Department to establish safety standards for hybrids and other vehicles that make little discernible noise, including an audible means for alerting people that cars are nearby. Not as green as they claim to be. Just how green should you feel driving the new Chevy Tahoe hybrid sport utility vehicle? The eight-passenger vehicle is plastered with "hybrid" labels. An automobile magazine panel that included the executive director of The Sierra Club named it the "Green Car of the Year." But the Tahoe gets only about 20 miles per gallon … [And it weighs three tons]. Eco-friendly claims for 'hybrid' cars dismissed as gimmickry. Cars promoted as eco-friendly were criticised yesterday [5/18/2008] for pumping out up to 56 percent more carbon dioxide than the manufacturers claim. Three models, including the Honda Civic hybrid, performed so badly in tests that their environmental claims were dismissed as a gimmick. A further five vehicles, including Volkswagen's Polo BlueMotion, hailed as Britain's greenest car when it was claimed that it emitted less than 100 grams of CO2 per km (g/km), failed to match the claims made by their makers. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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…. 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. 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. Car pooling and mass transit: See this page. 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. 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? Back to the Environmental Issues Page Back to the Home page |
