EPA sued over E15 ethanol waiver

A number of trade associations have filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency for its decision to allow the amount of corn-based ethanol injected into gasoline to be raised from 10 per cent to 15 per cent. The groups say the EPA’s decision will adversely affect food prices for the consumers who can least afford it — the poor. The EPA allowance for more corn-based ethanol is expected to raise food prices and damage gas powered engines (cars manufactured after 2007 are capable of using the mix.)

The lawsuit was filed (according to Prairie Pundit) by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Petroleum Institute and other lobby groups (such as Coca-cola and Tyson Foods).

“Not only will this decision adversely affect millions of consumers who don’t drive brand new cars, but also countless Americans who are struggling to feed their families in a recovering economy,” Scott Faber, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said in a written statement. “Recent spikes in corn prices due to supply concerns will only be exacerbated by this decision.” (Source: UPI)

Despite the EPA’s claim of being based on firm science, the lawsuit seems pretty solid. Robert Bryce, managing editor for the Energy Tribune wrote in October about the EPA’s considering the increase of ethanol.

[D]espite more than three decades of subsidies costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, the ethanol industry cannot point to any decline in oil imports during the period when it experienced its most rapid growth.[4] And yet:

• Tax subsidies provided to corn ethanol producers have been larger than those given to producers of any other form of renewable energy.[5]
• Corn ethanol subsidies are now costing U.S. taxpayers about $7 billion per year, the Congressional Budget Office reported in July.[6] The CBO found that producing enough corn ethanol to match the energy contained in a single gallon of conventional gasoline costs taxpayers $1.78.[7]

EPA subpoenas Halliburton over its fracking methods

According to a Los Angeles Times’ story, the Environmental Protection Agency has subpoenaed “Halliburton Co., the nation’s largest oil field services company, to provide complete information on hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method the company pioneered to extract natural gas by injecting fluids into tight rock formations deep underground.” Eight other companies had voluntarily complied with the EPA. “The EPA is under a congressional mandate to study potential adverse effects on drinking water and public health posed by hydraulic fracturing [fracking], which has been used extensively in the west and is part of plans to develop shale gas fields in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Louisiana and other states.”

EarthFirst! protesters arrested at wind turbine construction site

While environmentalists recognize dangerous global warming as the existential threat to the earth, that apparently doesn’t mean they think renewable energy production should be used, and not when such projects end up in undeveloped land.

Maine’s Portland Press Herald reports “Five people were arrested [November 8] after they refused to stop blocking construction vehicles at the Rollins wind energy project here…Most of those arrested were affiliated with the Maine branch of the national activist group, Earth First!”

EarthFirst!’s blog said, “Activists with Maine Earth First! stood in protest alongside Friends of Lincoln Lakes this morning in opposition to the ‘Rollins Wind Project’, an industrial wind project that will clearcut over 1,000 acres of ridge-line above the 13 Lincoln Lakes, erect 40 giant wind turbine generators and construct 20 new miles of power line. The two groups are calling for an immediate halt to the projects that are already underway in the towns of Lincoln, Lee, Burlington and Winn.”

In addition to the environmental cost of such “clean energy” the turbines are more expensive than other methods, Ronald Bailey of Reason.com notes, “[A]ccording to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), if one includes all the capital, operating, and fuel costs, electricity from wind still costs about 50 percent more than conventional coal and 100 percent more than natural gas.” Consider that this is for 40 turbines, according to Bailey, “the U.S could cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 16 percent if it replaced all of its coal plants with… 200,000 2.5-megawatt wind turbines by 2020” (but ignoring intermittency and energy storage issues).

Orange Maize to Curb Vitamin A Deficiency

“Vitamin A deficiency blinds up to 500,000 children annually and increases the risk of disease and death, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many people in this region are too poor to afford expensive vitamin A-rich foods such as orange fruits, dark leafy vegetables, or meat,” HarvestPlus reports. “However, they eat large amounts of white maize—up to a pound—daily. In this context, orange maize could provide a substantial portion of their vitamin A needs.” In Zambia, the Zambia Agricultural Research Institute (ZARI), is working with HarvestPlus to biofortify maize.

AllAfrica.com’s article notes, “Most Zambian children regularly tuck in to ‘nshima’, a stiff maize porridge, but if they can be persuaded to eat an orange-coloured variety made of biofortified maize, their health prospects could be greatly enhanced. More than half of Zambia’s under-five children are affected by vitamin A deficiency, which can increase the risk of illness, retard growth and cause blindness.”

Chief of oil spill inquiry sees no proof BP skimped on safety to save money

“To date, we have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety,” general counsel Fred H. Bartlit Jr. told the panel during a lengthy presentation on the causes of the April 20 rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. It killed 11 workers and triggered the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. (Source: LA Times)

Apparently it was not greed over safety but a ‘culture of complacency.’ The LA Times reports, “The panel’s investigators uncovered “a suite of bad decisions,” many still inexplicable, involving tests that were poorly run, alarming results that were ignored, proper equipment that was sidelined and safety barriers that were removed prematurely at the high-pressure well.”

Climate scientists plan campaign against global warming skeptics (UPDATED)

The Los Angeles Times reports, “The American Geophysical Union, the country’s largest association of climate scientists, plans to announce that 700 climate scientists have agreed to speak out as experts on questions about global warming and the role of man-made air pollution.” This comes partly due to the Republican’s winning the House of Representatives and gaining the ability to investigate and hold hearings. “Prominent Republican congressmen such as Darrell Issa of Vista, Joe L. Barton of Texas and F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin have pledged to investigate the Environmental Protection Agency‘s regulation of greenhouse gas emissions” along with the ClimateGate emails…”People who ask for and accept taxpayer dollars shouldn’t get bent out of shape when asked to account for the money,” said James M. Taylor, a senior fellow and a specialist in global warming at the conservative Heartland Institute in Chicago. “The budget is spiraling out of control while government is handing out billions of dollars in grants to climate scientists, many of whom are unabashed activists.”

Dr. Roy Spenser, climatologist, former NASA scientist, and noted climate skeptic says, WTF!? “After 20 years, billions of dollars in scientific research and advertising campaigns, cooperation from the public schools, TV specials and concerts by a gaggle of entertainers, end-of-the-world movies, our ‘best’ politicians, heads of state, presidents, the United Nations, and complicity by most of the news media, it has been decided that the American public is not getting the message on global warming!? Are they serious!?…Those few of us who are publishing climate researchers and who are willing to take the risk of speaking out on the biased science on this issue are now late in our careers, and we have seen the climate research field be transformed from one where ‘climate change’ used to necessarily imply natural climate change, to one where nature does not have the power to cause its own change — only mankind does.” Please note, “Dr. Spencer’s research has been entirely supported by U.S. government agencies: NASA, NOAA, and DOE. He has never been asked by any oil company to perform any kind of service. Not even Exxon-Mobil.”

UPDATE: “In contrast to what has been reported in the LA Times and elsewhere, there is no campaign by AGU against climate skeptics or congressional conservatives,” says Christine McEntee, Executive Director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union. “AGU will continue to provide accurate scientific information on Earth and space topics to inform the general public and to support sound public policy development.”

CAL Fire is now accepting seasonal firefighter applications

If you have dreamed of fighting forest fires, doing worthy public service, and living in a barracks setting, now is your chance. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) is now accepting applications for their seasonal firefighter (Fire Fighter I) position through January 31, 2001.

“Fate of the world” video game unveiled

If saving forests, homes and people seems too prosaic, how about saving the whole world?

The holidays have arrived and you still don’t know what to get that dystopian gamer in the family, do you? You know the one, the moody, militant, and neo-Malthusian who says that SimCity is for pussies. He’s sure that we humans suck down the earth’s resources faster than Gary Busey snorted cocaine, and we have overpopulated, overused, and under-appreciated all that the earth has done for us.

Well look no further, that gift will have to be “Fate of the World.” According to the game’s designers, your couch-potato gamer will be able to “Decide how the world will respond to rising temperatures, heaving populations, dwindling resources, crumbling ecosystems and brave opportunities.” You heard correct: Global warming and overpopulation. Not since Y2K’s hollow earth-destroying threat (you remember, the world’s computers were going to reset to year zero on January 1, 2000 and we would be plunged into chaos as planes fell from the sky and…don’t remember huh?) has an impendo-catastrophe gripped us the way global warming has. And, toss in three billion more people on the planet, ” who are demanding ever more food, power, and living space,” and well it just gives one chills, does it not?

“We imagined covering the full human drama that climate change will cause – there will population issues, land issues, possibly resource wars, mass migration; a whole range of disasters and impacts, in fact.” –  Gobion Rowlands, Chairman and co-founder of Red Redemption.

The UK Guardian’s Jack Arnott’s review of the game: “The action takes the form of a turn-based data-management simulator – think Football Manager, but with biofuels. You’re given a budget with which to implement various schemes across different geopolitical areas, each of which have different long- and short-term costs…wars and natural disasters are often triggered inadvertently by your decisions, and you’re informed each time a major species becomes extinct – really brings home the enormity of the impact of climate change.”

On second thought, get him a DVD of Soylent Green.

One Million Trees Planned to be Planted in Africa’s Mt Elgon Region

(Pictured) Women walking down from Mt. Elgon national park with firewood. Cutting down of trees has led to massive deforestation of Mt. Elgon range in eastern Uganda. Photo: © Charles Akena/IRIN

A three-year project to increase forest cover and help local communities in eastern Uganda reverse the effects of climate change deforestation has begun. The US$1 million Territorial Approach to Climate Change (TACC) project, launched in the eastern town of Mbale on 28 October, is also supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UK government. It will be implemented in the districts of Bududa, Manafwa and Mbale.

“Mt Elgon’s ecosystem plays a crucial role in determining the weather in eastern, central and northern Uganda and western Kenya,” said Bernard Mujasi, the Mbale local council chairman. “We hope that by protecting and restoring the forest cover of the mountain and protecting the environment, we will help mitigate the challenge of climate change.”

While the project blames global climate change, the pattern mirrors what is happening on Mt Kilimanjaro due to deforestation caused by subsistence farmers gathering firewood from the park. Joseph Wesuya, an official of the African Development Initiative said high population density in the Mt Elgon region had put a lot of pressure on the area’s eco-system. “Our environment is depleting at a fast rate; people are cutting down trees up the mountain, encroaching into wetlands,” he said. “The snow caps high on Mt Elgon are melting and you hardly see frost.” Deforestation is the permanent removal of forest cover and changing the area to another eco-type.

Uganda’s Tourism and Trade Minister Kahinda Otafiire has directed all resident district commissioners in the districts bordering Mt. Elgon National Park and security officials to immediately stop the destruction of the park and uprooting boundary pillars.

Solar farm sparks heated debate in California’s Panoche Valley

The Los Angeles Times reports “A kind of family feud has erupted in San Benito County’s rich slice of Central California farmland over plans to build a massive solar power facility in a valley shared by 20 ranchers and organic farmers and some of the rarest creatures in the United States.” Both sides say they are fighting to preserve the environment. The disagreement is over whether that is environment of the valley or the environment of the earth. “The arid, wind-whipped Panoche Valley is a checkerboard of vineyards, pistachio orchards and range lands scented with sage and pungent vinegar-bush. Long-eared owls and ferruginous hawks roost in the cottonwood trees edging a perennial stream. Cattle and horses share the flatlands with foxes, badgers, tarantulas, gopher snakes and the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, a large, multicolored reptile with bright stripes on its back and a penchant for dashing hundreds of yards at the sound of human voices.” Protecting the environment takes many forms and its answer is not as Manichean as some would have us to believe.

The Great Desert Tortoise Roundup

As the Panoche valley farmers and ranchers know, renewable green energy has negative environmental consequences too.

The Los Angeles Times reports that wildlife officials are disrupting the desert tortoises’ court season to capture them in order to make way for California’s largest solar-powered electrical generation station– BrightSource Energy’s 3,280-acre, 370-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generation System. “Under a plan approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, as many tortoises as possible will be
captured, weighed, measured, photographed, blood tested, fitted with radio transmitters and housed in quarantine pens with artificial burrows.

“The tortoises will remain in the pens until they can be transported and released in natural settings elsewhere in the region determined to be free of disease and predators — a process expected to take several months.”

Wednesday’s Merapi eruption largest yet

The Jakarta Post reports, “[Mount Merapi’s] Wednesday eruption prompted authorities to expand the danger zone to a 15-kilometer [9.3 mile] radius from the mountain’s crater, from the previous 10 kilometers, and to close at least three shelters.” According to Wikipedia, “It is the most active volcano in Indonesia and has erupted regularly since 1548. It is located approximately 28 km north of Yogyakarta city, and thousands of people live on the flanks of the volcano, with villages as high as 1700 m [5,577 ft] above sea level.”

The Times has pictures from the eruption area here.

Gulf Seafood Safe

The FDA, which operates a mandatory safety program for all fish and fishery products, says that “Fish and shellfish harvested from areas reopened or unaffected by the closures are considered safe to eat. BP, during its fight to close the spewing well and minimize the effects of the oil, used nearly two million gallons of Corexit dispersant which, has brought gulf seafood safety into question. According to the New York Times story, “Of 1,735 tissue samples analyzed, only 13 showed trace amounts of dispersant residue, in concentrations well below safety thresholds established by federal agencies.” The Times quotes Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, “The overwhelming majority of the seafood tested shows no detectable residue, and not one of the samples shows a residue level that would be harmful for humans. There is no question gulf seafood coming to market is safe from oil or dispersant residue.”

Climate change now a video game

If you think SimCity is for pussies, then Fate of the World might be right for you. Not since the Club of Rome’s World3 has a computer generated so many (incorrect) cataclysmic Malthusian predictions.

According to John Rudolf writing in the New York Times Green blog, “Over the course of 200 years, players must surmount a variety of challenges, from saving the Amazon rain forest to creating a post-oil economy in the United States — a scenario dubbed Oil Crash America. As the years progress, resources dwindle, temperatures climb and ecosystems around the world crumble, raising the stakes.”

“You are in charge. It’s your world to save or destroy.” says Gobion Rowlands, founder and chairman of Red Redemption the British-based design company that created the game.

The Fate of the World website‘s thumbnail asks, “You must manage a balancing act of protecting the Earth.s resources and climate versus the needs of an ever-growing world population, who are demanding ever more food, power, and living space. Will you help the whole planet or will you be an agent of destruction?”

According to the UK Telegraph, “Users are presented with a budget, environmental data, and a series of energy policies which range from emissions caps and investment in biofuels to continue investing in fossil fuels. Other more extreme policies are also available such as creating a disease to reduce the world’s population or geoengineering, such as cloud seeding from planes.”

“There’s even an anarchic Dr Apocalypse mode,” writes Jack Arnott in the guardian.co.uk, “in which your goal is to raise temperatures around the world as much as you can without losing the political support of different regions.” Arnott calls Fate of the World “Football Manager, but with biofuels.”

Biodegradable Styrofoam Made of Milk, Clay

The Economist magazine notes that what was old is new again, “In 1889 a French chemist called Jean-Jacques Trillat discovered that if casein [the principal protein found in milk] is treated with formaldehyde the result is a hard, shiny substance” that was pretty but too brittle to be functional.  Researchers mix casein with clay and added “glyceraldehyde (which substitutes for the poisonous formaldehyde used in the original plastic).” The result is a material that “matches the stiffness, strength and compressibility of expanded polystyrene,” but is 98 per cent bio based.

Discovery News reports, “In tests conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, close to a third of the new material broke down after about 45 days in industrial compost conditions. That’s a huge environmental leap beyond Styrofoam and other types of Expanded Polystyrene Foam, a category of materials that is often used as disposable packaging for electronics and other products.”

US navy completes successful test on boat powered by algae

According the UK’s Guardian, the U.S. Navy has conducted tests of a “50/50 mix of algae-based fuel and diesel” on a 49-foot gunboat in Norfolk, Virginia. The tests “are part of a broader drive within the navy to run 50% of its fleet on a mix of renewable fuels and nuclear power by 2020. The navy currently meets about 16% of its energy and fuel needs from nuclear power, with the rest from conventional sources.”

“It ran just fine,” said Rear Admiral Philip Cullom, who directs the navy’s sustainability division.

New monkey species discovered in Myanmar

Another week, another new species. This one in Burma. It has been dubbed the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri).

Serengeti Road Plan Lined With Prospect and Fears

AllAfrica.com reports, the Tanzanian government’s “plans to construct a road through the Serengeti National Park (Senapa) are still on course despite emerging opposition from environmental lobbyists and conservationists.” The road construction is slated to begin in 2012. The Wildlife Conservation Society says, “if built, the road would bisect the northern area of Serengeti National Park. For the park’s wildebeest population, the roadway would limit access to the Mara River, a critical water source during the dry season. ‘A commercial road would not only result in wildlife collisions and human injuries, but would serve to fragment the landscape and undermine the ecosystem in a variety of ways,” said Prof. Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s director of conservation, “To diminish this natural wonder would be a terrible loss for Tanzania and all future generations.’”

In their report, the New York Times says, “Scientists and conservation groups paint a grim picture of what could happen next: rare animals like rhinos getting knocked down as roadkill; fences going up; invasive seeds sticking to car tires and being spread throughout the park; the migration getting blocked and the entire ecosystem becoming irreversibly damaged.

“’The Serengeti ecosystem is one of the wonders of the planet,’” said Anne Pusey, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University. “It must be preserved.’”

It’s campaign season and the Tanzanian president wants re-election. “Few things symbolize progress better than a road,” the Times report says, “this road in particular, which will connect marginalized areas of northern Tanzania, has been one of Mr. Kikwete’s campaign promises.”

“The decision’s been made,” said Salvator Rweyemamu, the president’s spokesman. “If this government comes back into power — and we will — the road will be built.”

He said Tanzania had done more to protect wildlife than most countries, and he added, with clear frustration at outsiders, that “you guys always talk about animals, but we need to think about people.”

Scientists Create ‘Malaria-Proof’ Mosquitoes

Scientists at the University of Arizona say that they have “achieved a breakthrough in the fight against malaria: a mosquito that can no longer give the disease to humans… University of Arizona entomologists have succeeded in genetically altering mosquitoes in a way that renders them completely immune to the parasite, a single-celled organism called Plasmodium. Someday researchers hope to replace wild mosquitoes with lab-bred
populations unable to act as vectors, i.e. transmit the malaria-causing parasite.”

AllAfrica.com notes, “It is widely believed that if the mutant mosquitoes are successfully introduced into the wild, they could mate with other mosquitoes and towards creating a world of malaria-free mosquitoes and ultimately preventing millions of people from becoming infected.”

Image via Wikipedia

Narwhals reveal ocean temperatures

Researchers from the University of Washington and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources have tagged narwhals with temperature sensors which satellites read. The narwhals record information as they swim through Baffin Bay’s ice laden waters. In a story in the Montreal Gazette, lead researcher Kristin Laidre is quoted as saying, “Their natural behaviour makes them ideal for obtaining ocean temperatures during repetitive deep vertical dives.” Some of the dives were more than 1,700 meters (more than a mile).

Male narwhals have a distinctive tusk which is actually an incisor tooth that grows out.