Shaking the World

I was watching late night TV on Thursday when the EAS warnings started coming in. It was not a test. A tsunami was coming and it even had an arrival time.

I live quite a few miles in from the California coast, but my nephew and his pregnant wife rent a little Santa Cruz bungalow. In retrospect, I should have sent them a text message or something, but they're okay now. As a precaution, they were evacuated in the early morning hours.

Which of course is nothing compared to the awful hell the Japanese are going through. First, a 9.0 megathrust quake hit, violently shaking quake-prepared skyscrapers, altering the earth's spin, and generating a tsunami that swept away Japanese cities.

And like a long distance kiss across the ocean, the tsunami visited California. No matter what your spiritual beliefs, nobody can deny that we are all connected. What the earth does, and what we do to it, and how it responds to our behavior connects us all, at least in a purely terrestrial sense.

But in a whole different sense, I've found it extremely difficult to watch their suffering because I know it could have been us -- me, my family, friends, everybody I know. It's a long-standing joke that when parts of the Golden State fall into the ocean, those of us further inland will have beach front property. Not so funny now -- now that half the town of Minamisanriku is missing.

And yet Japan was more prepared than probably any other country in the world. They made a $1 billion investment in a high-tech earthquake warning system that gave people a few seconds warning. Every second counts if it means time to get under a table or stop heavy machinery. I want this system in California, but our Congress critters are so bloody idiotic and short-sighted that they want to cut funding for the tsunami warning systems that worked so well!

But even the Japanese government, who seem to take every conceivable step to protect their citizens, couldn't make disaster-proof nuclear power plants. As I'm writing this, I'm reading about the second reactor explosion at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant. This whole thing must feel like the end of the world to them.

There's not much we can do right now, but donate.

The Petty Party

This is the stuff that boils my blood. The Republicans in Congress, led by John Boehner, have really put their pettiness on parade:

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The story I had not previously heard about was the nixing of the Green Initiative program in the Congress cafeteria, replacing biodegradable tableware with plastic and styrofoam. That's not just thumbing your nose at Democrats, that's thumbing your nose at the environment and the future.

The many aspects of the greening program reduced energy and water consumption in Capitol buildings by 23 percent and 32 percent, respectively. But uh-oh! The composting portion of the program cost $475,000. Well... that ought to fix the budget.

But here's the part of the story that feels like a kick in the head, the new environmentally-unfriendly products in the Congress cafeteria are being provided by Koch Industries.

The only thing Boehner does well is take care of his billionaire friends.

Good Morning 2011

I wanted to post this picture last night, but I was actually out and about for new year's eve despite this awful head cold. Anyway, yesterday's Bad Cats calendar page sums up my dreadful feelings pretty well.

You may have noticed fewer blog posts in 2010. To me there is no mystery why: in April, I became unable to read the news -- the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico was utterly depressing. For three straight months, oil gushed from the Deepwater Horizon rig -- 205.8 million gallons of crude oil total. Then they added chemical dispersants into the water to hide the oil. The poisoning of the gulf is just one aspect of this disaster. The other big story is that, no matter how often the oil companies tell us to trust them, they don't have absolute power over nature, there are no fail-safe systems, and people in charge will often make crucial decisions that ultimately kill people in order to save money.

Don't tell me BP couldn't have predicted the catastrophe. The UK firm suffered a similar blowout on an Azerbaijan gas platform 18 months earlier. BP's little secret was revealed by WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks was another big story in 2010. The whistleblower site may not be perfect, and its editor in chief, Julian Assange, has been likened to a terrorist, but don't let that overshadow the disturbing truths they have revealed. I'm coming to the realization that we need WikiLeaks now more than ever and they are now very much a part of the fourth estate... even as the media and the government would like to convince you that any real journalism is warfare.

Although I take some solace that WikiLeaks is doing the difficult and dangerous work to publish the truth, I'm very much dismayed that the 2010 U.S. electorate was grossly misinformed. Hello teabaggers! Most Economists who have estimated the effect of the health insurance reform law believe it will NOT increase the federal budget deficit over the next ten years. And notice how none of your conservative candidates gave a rat's ass about the "Ground Zero mosque" after the election was over? Now please take your misspelled signs and go home and enjoy your tax cuts.

I know I'm making 2010 seem like a real downer, but I suppose it had some bright spots too -- like health insurance reform, student loan reform, the end of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," and the economy -- it seems to be getting better.

Good morning 2011. Don't disappoint me!

You Can't Have Your Life Back

I've been reading this odd little detective novel from 1908 -- The Man Who Was Thursday. I came across this passage, and well, the more things change, the more they stay screwed up:

"Mere mobs!" repeated his new friend with a snort of scorn. "So you talk about mobs and the working classes as if they were the question. You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchists, as you can see from the barons' wars."

Now I think of the whiny-ass rant from BP CEO Tony Hayward and I imagine that he's planning an escape to New Guinea or wherever, but probably not in a yacht -- he wouldn't want anything to remind him of oceans:

"There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Hayward wants his life back? How much does he make? Five million a year or something? Wow, he certainly benefited from anarchy in the form of chummy EPA officials letting BP get away with crimes.

And as always, it's the working class who will suffer the most. Louisiana fishermen are feeling desperate as they see their livelihoods destroyed. They're the ones who can't have their lives back.

Save us Aquaman!

SNL missed the obvious solution -- tampons:



Okay, so now that we've all had a good laugh, I have to say that this entire oil spill disaster has been, to me, one of the most soul crushing man-made disasters ever. Millions of gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon blowout. The amount of oil could be "the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker every four days."

And it threatens the entire ocean food chain. We've all seen the illustrations where the little fish is eaten by the big fish, which is eaten by an even bigger fish, etc? Well...

Scientists say bacteria, plankton and other tiny, bottom-feeding creatures will consume oil and will then be eaten by small fish, crabs and shrimp. They, in turn, will be eaten by bigger fish, such as red snapper, and marine mammals such as dolphins.

The petroleum substances that concentrate in the sea creatures could kill them or render them unsafe for eating, scientists say.

"If the oil settles on the bottom, it will kill the smaller organisms like the copepods and small worms," Montagna said. "When we lose the forage, then you have an impact on the larger fish."

Making matters worse for the deep sea is the leaking well's location: It is near the continental shelf of the Gulf where a string of coral reefs flourishes. Coral is a living creature that excretes a hard calcium carbonate exoskeleton, and oil globs can kill it.

The reefs are colorful underwater metropolises of biodiversity, attracting sea sponges, crabs, fish, algae and octopus.

And that's just the effect of the oil. The 400,000 gallons of dispersants (chemical mixtures designed to bond to the oil molecules and separate them from water molecules) are also toxic and do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the gulf, but they do make the oil less visible. If that sounds to you more like a political "solution" than a scientific one, you're probably right. But some people are more gullible...

Brit Hume at Fox News recently asked, "where is the oil?" The guy has the critical thinking skills of a toddler. Put a little toy out of sight and it's "all gone!" Except it's not a toy, it's oil. And it's not all gone, it's deep in the ocean.

But it's going to take more than dispersants to clean up BP's political mess. Eight US senators are calling for criminal and civil charges against the multinational oil company. I'm not sure how we can even put a price on a disaster we'll be feeling for years, but I'm certain that $75 million won't be enough.

Environmental Studies 101

I took one environmental studies class in college. It was to fulfill a general education requirement, and the year was... somewhere post Exxon Valdez oil spill and pre Gulf War I.

They say education is what remains after you've forgotten what you've learned. Well, these are the major lessons, predictions, and dire warnings my professor left me with:

• We would enter a major war in the Middle East over oil.
• Our future energy needs would have to be met with a diversity of renewable sources -- nuclear power not being one of them because it's dangerous and not renewable.
  
• And because we need energy to get energy, we need to develop these diverse technologies and infrastructure before we run out of oil, coal, and natural gas.
• Earth day is about more than cleaning junk off of beaches.
• Accidents always happen. If a group of scientists say that drilling for oil here or there will cause an ecological disaster, they're probably right.
• Global warming will result in increased droughts, flooding, soil erosion, and landslides.
• Something about the unsustainability of exponential growth.
  

At times the lessons seemed apocalyptic, but the apocalypse, at least, seemed far off.

But here we are in 2010. Endless war in the Middle East? We've got it. Twenty straight days of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico? Yep, and they don't know how to stop it. Devastating floods in a major U.S. city? It hardly even makes the news.

Okay, I honestly don't want to compare these events to signs of the apocalypse, but they are signs of something.

They are signs that as a nation we are confused and we don't know who to listen to. Hyperventilating know-nothings like Rush Limbaugh get way too much press. (Hey Rush, environmentalists did not blow up that oil rig, because that would be bad for the environment!) And actual climate scientists get way too little press, and when they do, it's because some oily politician is making a McCarthy-like political assault on their research.

These politicians think that if they create distractions, they won't have to actually do anything. But those who think we should wait until all scientists are in absolute agreement over global warming are willing to risk the entire planet.

I'm reminded of the French water lily story: "French children are told a story in which they imagine having a pond with water lily leaves floating on the surface. The lily population doubles in size every day and if left unchecked will smother the pond in 30 days, killing all the other living things in the water. Day after day the plant seems small and so it is decided to leave it to grow until it half-covers the pond, before cutting it back. They are then asked, on what day that will occur. This is revealed to be the 29th day, and then there will be just one day to save the pond."

Are we going to wait until that one last day?

Bye Bye Birdie

Whenever the topic of renewable energy is brought up -- and it will be brought up a lot in the coming years -- the anti-environmentalist types will eagerly chime in that wind power is dangerous too! Wind turbines kill birds! Yes, that's a disturbing fact, but why is it always shouted by the same people who wouldn't give a damn about polar bears, owls, or wolves? And why do they think this negates the dangers of oil spills or other environmental disasters?

Tonight Keith Olbermann debunked the bird death arguments. Apparently cats are the biggest danger to birds! Who would have guessed?

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It's also important to note that wind farms, when done properly, are sited to avoid "migration corridors."

Separation of Oil and State

I'm sure Stephen Colbert wasn't the only one exercising his denial defense mechanisms after learning about the Earth Day oil spill:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
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But now none of us can ignore this ecological catastrophe. It's time for us to grow up, see through the oil-industry propaganda, ignore the usual bunch of "drill baby, drill" shouters, and anticipate these inevitable disasters.

As Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show last night, a corporation's permission to drill should be tied to their ability to clean up their messes:

But even as drilling technology has advanced so we can do it in places that we couldn't do it before, it doesn't seem like we bothered to make sure we knew how to clean up in these places if we needed to. Am I being naive to think that the regulatory process, the approval process, should link those two things, that you shouldn't be approved to drill deeper than you know how to clean up?

Sierra Club's Michael Brune responded that, much like separation of church and state, we need to separate oil and state, and that the industry can't regulate itself, and there are "big problems that need to be resolved." Well, tell me something I don't know.

If we were really serious about the environment and energy independence, we'd be moving forward on more renewable energy projects like offshore wind farms rather than pursuing more offshore drilling. But I guess "blow baby, blow" doesn't make much of a bumper sticker.

Northern Overexposure

How's that fair and balancey thing workin' out for you, Sarah?

Not too well apparently. Sarah Palin's Fox News show, with the gag-inducing title "Real American Stories," debuted on April Fool's day appropriately enough. The ratings though were the real punchline:

Sarah Palin’s much-hyped LL Cool J-less Fox News special last night didn’t bring in the huge ratings some (ok, we) predicted. Greta Van Susteren’s On The Record which normally airs at 10pmET beat the program the previous three nights in the A25-54 demographic and two out of three nights in total viewers. The show also lost viewers from the first quarter hour to the final quarter hour by double digits.

"Real American Stories" delivered a little over 2 million total viewers. Maybe America isn't that into her any more? Recently David Frum put audience numbers in perspective. Though he was referring to Rush Limbaugh, I think this applies to Sarah Palin too:



(YouTube video)

A daily audience of 3, 4, maybe 5 million people maybe qualifies you to be the Green Party candidate for President. Ha!

Which brings me to the topic of Palin's other show -- the one on TLC. The people at Defenders of Wildlife think giving Palin a nature show is thoroughly insulting. They are urging Discovery Communications to drop "Sarah Palin's Alaska." I'm hoping that when those ratings come in, they won't need much more urging.

The Learnin' Channel

TLC has officially jumped the shark. Well, they were headed for the jump for a while. Kind of like KFC, their three letter acronym has no meaning now. They haven't had truly educational programming for years, and their current tagline is "life unscripted." In other words, reality TV.

And in case you haven't heard, the latest addition to their lineup is "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Good god. They should have called it Northern Overexposure or The Beverly Snowbillies.

But whatever they call it, you know this puts Sarah Palin appropriately in the same category as Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and that couple with too many kids: pompous, careerist, self promoting, attention whores...

Somebody must have advised Sarah that this would be a lucrative career move. Because I'm confident Mrs. Mooseburger doesn't care about "the story of Alaska," or conservationism. Remember "drill, baby, drill" and her many other anti-environmental stances?

"Sarah Palin's Alaska" will no doubt be another political platform for her violent, stupid, self-righteous babble. Another platform where she can freely use cross-hairs and hunting rhetoric to incite her sicko teabagger followers to do god-knows-what. Hey Sarah, just in case you didn't know, hicks aren't good with subtle imagery:

"The crossfire is intense, so penetrate through enemy territory by bombing through the press, and use your strong weapons — your Big Guns — to drive to the hole. Shoot with accuracy; aim high and remember it takes blood, sweat and tears to win." — Sarah Palin.

If you can even call that subtle.

I won't be watching "Sarah Palin's Alaska" unless there is an episode where her entire clan is eaten by a pack of wolves.

Let's Talk About the Weather

"Hey, so much for global warming -- look at all this snow! and so much for global globalness, look how flat it is out there!" — Stephen Colbert on Twitter.

TV's funny people are doing a pretty good job of mocking the moronic global warming deniers who point to snow falling in D.C. and say global warming is a crazy liberal myth:

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Unusually Large Snowstorm
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However, between jokes and interviews with random celebrities, could somebody in the media please put some scientists on? Because what really needs to be made clear is that the early warning signs of global warming include downpours, heavy snowfalls, and flooding:

An increase in global temperatures will lead to an intensification of the hydrological cycle. This is because an increase in surface air temperature causes an increase in evaporation and generally higher levels of water vapor in the atmosphere. In addition, a warmer atmosphere is capable of holding more water vapor. The excess water vapor will in turn lead to more frequent heavy precipitation when atmospheric instability is sufficient to trigger precipitation events. Intense precipitation can result in flooding, soil erosion, landslides, and damage to structures and crops.

Parallel to the likely increase in heavy precipitation events in winter, increased temperatures will also amplify the drying out of soils and vegetation due to increased evaporation in the summer. This is likely to result in more severe and widespread droughts where and when atmospheric conditions do not favor precipitation (see Droughts and Wildfires).

These predictions are consistent with current U.S. weather phenomena. Notice I said "weather" and not "climate"? Weather is not climate. A single weather event does not tell us much about global climate. Just as the above Daily Show video lampooned the debate, both sides tend to make this same mistake.

But it's no wonder the conversation is muddled. We have energy industry lobbyists writing EPA amendments, astroturf groups funded by ExxonMobil, and some pretty janky logic from global warming deniers.

The deniers must know they won't win the argument on scientific merits, so they prefer a faith-based argument. The dumbest one goes something like "it is the height of hubris and arrogance to say that man's pitiful technology could affect the world."

Luckily, the reality-based community remembers a whole slew of man-made eco-disasters: rainforest destruction, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Chernobyl, the Bhopal pesticide factory leak, the Love Canal toxic landfill, the Pacific garbage patch, herbicidal warfare in Vietnam, the shrinking Aral Sea, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What thinking person could seriously claim we don't impact our environment?

But Republicans and Fox News pundits don't need science and logic. Like rabid Punxsutawney Phils, they stick their heads out, see it's snowing, scream some shit about Al Gore, and then stick their little heads right back up their asses. We can laugh now, but our future generations will suffer.

Gotta Teach 'Em All

Half of youngsters aged nine to 11 are unable to identify a daddy-long-legs, oak tree, or bluebell, in a poll by BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Well, the obvious solution is to go play outside... or more flash cards and video games I guess.

The Phylomon Project, impressed with the many children who can identify and classify hundreds of Pokemon, aims to create a non-commercial-open-access-open-source "Pokemon card type resource," but with real creatures.

I remember being a kid, and any time any adult tried to make learning fun, it usually sucked. The better approach is to make fun educational. While playing Pokemon, for example, you do a little math, come up with a strategy, diversify your team, and test your Pokemon in a battle system that's a lot like cockfighting...

I'm not really sure they can sneak cockfighting into a conservationist's game. They can't deny that battling and leveling-up are huge aspects of the Pokemon franchise. A good story has to have some kind of adversity. A good game needs to have some kind of reward for your efforts.

In A Theory of Fun for Game Design, author Raph Koster says that "most gamers are so bottom-line that if an activity doesn't give a quantifiable reward, they'll consider it irrelevant."

Phylomon.org is setting their goal on trading cards, though, and not a video game. But without the battles, stories, and cute anime, isn't this just a box of flash cards? Nice try, but most kids won't fall for it.

Also, I must remember to pre-order that new Pokemon game... for my nephew, of course.

The Midnight Hour

First, a little bit of trivia: The “secret unlock code” on US nuclear missiles during the height of the nuclear crises of the Cold War remained constant at OOOOOOOO.

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS), that uses the analogy of the human species being at a time that is "minutes to midnight", wherein midnight represents "catastrophic destruction" by nuclear, environmental, or technological means.

The BAS has turned back the clock one minute, bringing us six minutes to midnight. The BAS announced the adjustment today at a news conference in New York:

"By shifting the hand back from midnight by only one additional minute, we emphasize how much needs to be accomplished, while at the same time recognizing signs of collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Union, India, China, Brazil, and others on nuclear security and on climate stabilization."

Of course, this doesn't make up for the two minutes closer it moved in 2007, or the two minutes closer it moved in 2002, or the five minutes closer it moved in 1998. In fact, six minutes to midnight really doesn't sound all that reassuring. Tck Tck Tck.

(YouTube video)

Midnight Madness

This really does sound like a late night Christmas bargain bonanza. I'm talking about the midnight regulations -- actually more like deregulations -- that President Bush is zealously handing out at an accelerated pace as his reign comes to an end. Each new rule is a special gift tied in a bow for one of his friends:

To the coal companies: a new rule that makes it easier for companies that mine for coal buried under mountaintops to dump rock and sludge near rivers and streams.

To a British mining company: a permit allowing them to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim.

To the oil companies: (considering that Bush already gave them the war in Iraq, this one is more like a stocking stuffer) new regulations to develop oil shale deposits straddling almost two million acres of public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

To the industrial farms: new regulations to circumvent the Clean Water Act, leaving it up the the farms themselves to decide if animal waste discharges are harmful or not.

To big chemical companies: a decision to exempt perchlorate, a known toxin found in jet rocket fuel and our water supply, from federal regulation. Hey, if it ends up in our drinking water, just think of it as recycling... right?

To business: a new rule that makes it harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

To fundamentalist pharmacists: a new rule that says health care providers can refuse to assist, due to religious or moral reasons, in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity financed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Many believe this regulation might prevent some women from obtaining birth control.

And to the rest of us, he leaves debt, two wars/occupations, a shitty economy, an imperiled planet, and a government that spies on its citizens. They always say "it's the thought that counts," but be thankful for gift receipts...

I thought I read that it was easy to undo these midnight regulations, but the process is not simple. From a Rolling Stone article on Bush's Final FU, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) may be the best hope for overturning these rules, but it's not easy:

But even this option, it turns out, is fraught with obstacles. First, the CRA requires a separate vote on each individual regulation. Second, the act prohibits reviving any part of a rule that has been squelched. Since Bush's rules sometimes contain useful reforms — the move to limit the Family and Medical Leave Act also extends benefits for military families — spiking the rules under the CRA would leave Obama unable to restore or augment those benefits in the future. Whatever Obama does will require him to expend considerable political capital, at a time when America faces two wars and an economic crisis of historic proportions.

So what should the world give Bush for Christmas? An Iraqi journalist already gave him a gift with sole (if video doesn't show, click here):



Too bad he missed, but hey, it's the thought that counts.

Pipe Dreams

Electric cars can free us from our addiction to oil. That has been the dream for 100 years. Shai Agassi thinks we can achieve this dream. He has a new approach. It's not a new technology, but a new business model.

He imagines an "automotive ecosystem" functioning much like the mobile phone industry. We would get our electric cars through an operator at a steep discount (or even free), and then subscribe to service plans -- unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go, etc. The profit would come from selling the electricity much like the mobile phone companies sell minutes.

One of the biggest inconveniences of electric cars is recharging the battery when you don't have time to recharge. Agassi has the solution for that problem too. Drivers would go to battery exchange stations where one battery would be pulled out and a fully charged one would be put in, and then off you go!

Agassi has launched Project Better Place with the goal of building an electric car network, and I think his ideas make a lot of sense. But I do wonder how or even if this system can emerge in a big oil-addicted country like the U.S.

Consumers will have to switch to electric cars, automakers will have to build them, the network must be completed, and somewhere there has to exist the political will. I have no hope of that ever coming from Washington, but I will be one proud Californian if the clean-tech revolution starts here.

Bush, The Oil Man

Yesterday The New York Times reported that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is freezing solar energy projects, citing the need to study the environmental impact. It sounds to me like somebody is trying to kill the solar power industry:

While proponents of solar energy agree on the need for a sweeping environmental study, many believe that the freeze is unwarranted. Some, like Ms. Gordon, whose company has two pending proposals for solar plants on public land, say small solar energy businesses could suffer if they are forced to turn to more expensive private land for development.

The industry is already concerned over the fate of federal solar investment tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress renews them. The moratorium, combined with an end to tax credits, would deal a double blow to an industry that, solar advocates say, has experienced significant growth without major environmental problems.

This is the same Bureau of Land Management that under President Bush has allowed a huge expansion of oil drilling. But now suddenly they are concerned about the environment? This news deserves a big WTF!

But I really shouldn't be so shocked. We all know that Bush, and his entire cabinet actually, are owned by the oil industry, and therefore the notion that they could care about the environment is thoroughly absurd.

At least I haven't become totally desensitized to hypocrisy.

Bad Policy is Good Politics

A gaffe is when you tell people what you really think:



As if we didn't already know the war in Iraq is about oil, John McCain tells us we won't ever need a war like this again if we lose our dependence on foreign oil. Of course, he's contradicting his numerous previous remarks that we are in Iraq to fight terrorists.

For a long time now, politicians have been promising energy independence. Back during the 2004 election, Factcheck.org investigated the myths of energy independence. They asked Jerry Taylor, the Director of Natural Resource Studies at the Cato Institute about what's needed to achieve such independence:

Energy independence as a goal is meaningless because it is just not a reality at this point. The only way to start to achieve it would be to dramatically increase the cost of oil and significantly reduce Americans' consumption. This would require taxes beyond the imagination and no politician is going to propose this.

And so President Bush goes on championing the "ANWR Answer" (i.e. drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge). But (again quoting Factcheck.org) "according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, in 2003 the US has about 31 billion barrels of proven reserves -- or 2.7 percent of the world's oil supply. If we relied on domestic reserves, we'd have enough oil to last 4.5 years at the current rate of consumption, assuming no more is found. Furthermore, this total includes sections of the Gulf of Mexico currently off limits for drilling."

Furthermore, reducing dependence is not as simple as increasing domestic supply. Factcheck.org asked Carolyn Fischer, a fellow with the independent environmental group Resources for the Future about oil and the global market:

On both sides, this debate is a red herring because it's framing the debate around the concept that we just need enough oil to cover our own consumption. We are in a global market and if there is a shock to prices anywhere in the world, gas prices would still skyrocket here at home -- even if we were not importing any energy.

And so now, here we are in another election year with two of our presidential hopefuls demonstrating how little they understand about good energy policy. Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both proposing a gas tax holiday. This idea is ridiculous and counter to everything experts are saying. If we are going to use taxes to control our energy usage, then we need to raise taxes on what we want to discourage -- gasoline consumption -- and we want to lower taxes on the things we want to encourage -- renewable energy sources.

And let's not forget some of the other side-affects of eliminating the gas tax. We eliminate the tax which increases demand which sends more hard-earned money to the Middle East, which is terrible for our national security. Don't forget that 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia. Their terrorist training was paid for by oil money!

Luckily, there is one candidate who recognizes bad policy. From the Washington Post, "in Indianapolis, Barack Obama portrayed Clinton's proposal for a gas-tax holiday this summer as an example of Washington at its worst, calling it the latest in a long line of 'phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems.' "

I'm hopeful that the 2008 election will prove that good policy is good politics.

Food Fight

From The Wall Street Journal today:

World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned in a recent speech that 33 countries are at risk of social upheaval because of rising food prices. Those could include Indonesia, Yemen, Ghana, Uzbekistan and the Philippines. In countries where buying food requires half to three-quarters of a poor person's income, "there is no margin for survival," he said.

Global food prices have increased 83% in the last three years. Recently, riots over soaring food prices have broken out in Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Haiti, Senegal and Ethiopia. Last week's food riots in Haiti quickly segued into a political mine field.

The diversion of food to biofuels is one source of the rising prices. I touched on this in my previous blog post Black Gold, but it's worth repeating how these renewable fuels will result in higher food prices around the world:

When the production of corn intended for human or animal consumption decreases, prices go up. Why does this local shift in policy affect food prices around the world? The diversion of American corn into energy has a ripple effect for two reasons: First, the United States is the world's largest corn exporter, accounting for about 40 percent of global trade, so when corn-as-food production decreases here, costs go up everywhere. Second, when the price of corn increases, farmers in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere who use the crop to feed livestock look for cheaper alternatives, like wheat or sorghum. These alternatives, in turn, become more expensive.

Another source of rising food prices is global warming. From The Toronto Star: "Climate change is also making its toxic contribution. Major droughts have hit wheat-producing nations such as Australia and Ukraine, leading to a 30-year low in the world's wheat inventories."

A third reason for higher food prices is that fast-developing nations in Asia are demanding more and better food.

The U.S. is not immune to rising food costs. In the last year, milk prices are up by 26%, eggs by 24%, and bread by 13%. And yes, there is hunger in America. Our government estimates that 28 million people will be using food stamps this year. This is the highest level since the program began in the 1960's. Meanwhile, our federal farm program pays $1.3 billion to people who don't farm.

I predict we'll be hearing less and less about the so-called obesity epidemic.

Black Gold

Black gold in a white plight
Wont you fill up the tank, let's go for a ride
--Soul Asylum

What would you think if you woke up early one suburban morning to the rumble of an oil rig outside your window? This is happening all around Los Angeles, and many homeowners are shocked and angry about the revitalization of urban oil wells:

With oil prices at $110 a barrel, producers nationwide are suddenly taking a second look at decades-old wells that were considered tapped out and unprofitable when oil sold for one-fifth the price or less. Independent producers and major conglomerates alike are reinvesting millions in these mature wells, using expensive new technology and drilling techniques to eke every last drop out of fields long past their prime - and often in the middle of suburbia.

Expansion of the North American oil refining capacity might be one answer to our ailing economy. Besides siphoning out these old wells, there is also an estimated 174 billion barrels of crude oil in Canadian tar sands.

But extracting heavy oil from tar sands and transporting it by pipeline for refining is a difficult and costly process. Producers are developing new drilling techniques to reduce the large volumes of natural gas and water needed to separate the oil from sand. And the oil companies, which have pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions in their operations, are making the needed investments to meet environmental regulations.

And let's not forget about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). According to American cartographer Ian Thomas, we may already be drilling there.

These are epic battles. Naively, I'd like to believe that these battles are fought between people who are concerned about the environment and global warming and people who are concerned about our fuel costs and energy independence. I want to believe that both sides have noble goals. However, defending profits of a subsidized industry does not fit my definition of noble.

The oil companies can keep drilling, and get every last drop of oil, but with the world petroleum consumption over 80 million barrels a day, we will eventually run dry. We need to work on a sustainable plan now.

I hear a lot of talk lately about biofuels. By 2010, 30% of US corn crop will be used for biofuel, but this renewable fuel will result in higher food prices around the world:

When the production of corn intended for human or animal consumption decreases, prices go up. Why does this local shift in policy affect food prices around the world? The diversion of American corn into energy has a ripple effect for two reasons: First, the United States is the world's largest corn exporter, accounting for about 40 percent of global trade, so when corn-as-food production decreases here, costs go up everywhere. Second, when the price of corn increases, farmers in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere who use the crop to feed livestock look for cheaper alternatives, like wheat or sorghum. These alternatives, in turn, become more expensive.

Americans need to remember that it's not all about us. The rest of the world likes to eat too.

Saying this oil crisis is complicated is an understatement. It is urgent, it is real, it is moral, it is global, it is challenging, but it is not black and white.