Obama blames Gulf oil disaster on breakdown at BP | Reuters

Below is one of today's headlines from Reuters, and a link to the article. Unfortunately, the President is 100 percent wrong. What happened at BP was not any type of "breakdown", but an example the way capitalism works without genuine government regulation and oversight. This is not an example of "bad people" but of a a flawed system.

Businesses in a pure "ideal" capitalist economy are beholden to their owners only and to required to produce profit for their owners. Period. Businesses are not beholden to the public, to their customers (except to the extent that they need customers to make a profit for their owners), and most especially businesses are not beholden to "the environment" or to the human species. The only thing that can change this is "interference" by government, in the form of laws and regulations, regular inspections and oversight, and fines, penalties, and in extreme cases shutting down operations when laws and regulations are not followed.

If our government does not provide this type of "interference" there is no reason on earth for a manager or executive in any business to spend money for safety measures, tests and retest, safety equipment, etc. The logic of a capitalist business is to cut costs wherever costs can be cut, to produce the greatest profit possible.


Obama blames Gulf oil disaster on breakdown at BP | Reuters


Photo: Bands of oil are seen near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana May 21, 2010. Photo Credit: REUTERS/Lee Celano

Friends of Coal

There is a sociologically and politically interesting phenomenon sweeping the coal fields of Kentucky (similar things are happening is West Virginia) called the Friends of Coal.

Friends of Coal is the brainchild of a coal industry organization Kentucky Coal [note the nearly identical websites]. The Kentucky Coal Association central membership is coal companies and associate members comprised of businesses related to coal mining such as engineering firms, equipment firms, (even law firms) and individuals employed in the coal mining and related industries.

Friends of coal began as an exercise in what political pundits call "AstroTurfing" -- industry sponsored and supported activity posing as grassroots organizing -- but it has become a genuinely popular organization garnering membership, support and funding from thousands of Kentuckians from all walks of life. This may be a political first, a popular movement in support of a particular industry, not by its workers, but by a wide cross section of individuals and families living within the communities where an industry operates.

Not only does one see the bumper stickers, window stickers, yard signs, pins and t-shirts declaring "Friends of Coal" in eastern Kentucky. But most intriguingly, the Friends of Coal organization proposed a special issue Kentucky license plate (see photo at top taken at a stop light in Letcher County), which has been wildly successful and can be seen on cars (and especially trucks) everywhere in eastern Kentucky.

This may be the first time in the United States that an industry actively engaged in whole series of major political battles (over the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions, mountain top removal, and fly ash storage) has been able to get the general public to voluntarily help fund their public relations battle through a official state sponsored tax (license plate fees). Usually industries have to use their own monies (albeit coming from customers) for legitimation advertising and activities.

The average person in eastern Kentucky who sports a "Friends of Coal" sticker or license plate views supporting "the coal industry" as identical to supporting "coal miners." A view which flies in the face of the very long record of industry abuses of the health and safety of miners, and successful efforts to undermine unionization of coal mining.


Supporters of Friends of Coal fear that new environmental regulations will bring a sudden and abrupt end to all coal employment in the mountains. They lack awareness that the coal industry has done quite well on its own to cut coal mining employment despite many decades of special treatment and tax advantages from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Employment in coal in Kentucky has dropped by two-thirds from a high of about 48,000 in 1981 to 17,893 in 2006. [graphic from MACED based on data from CoalEducation.org].

How many roads must the US economy walk down?

Various news outlets are reporting on a couple of major stories in wind power today. Australia's AGL Energy has signed a deal with Suzlon Energy (an Indian firm) to buy about a quarter of a billion dollars with of wind turbines, while Germany's Wetfeet Offshore Windenergy GmBH is buying over nine hundred million dollars worth of new turbines from the French Areva SA. This raises some questions that I'll but to the reader:
Why aren't these high-value engineering and manufacturing contracts being awarded to US firms? Does domestic energy policy impact the US's ability to respond successfully to contracts of this nature? What's required of entreprenneurs, big business, utilities, and governments to make the US more competitive in the global energy industry? How many times are we going to retread this path (energy crises, missed opportunities to exploit a new energy market, or both)?

Image source: Department of Environment, Government of Maharashtra, India

A hurried, half-considered question to the reader

There's been a great deal written about Ponzi schemes over the last few weeks, as the case against Mr. Madoff (and potentially others) unfolds. In very brief (for those unfamiliar with Mr. Ponzi's legacy), this scheme is fraud in which a financial advisor collects money from investors, does little or nothing with it (and probably spends a lot of it), and pretends to be making a killing. The financial advisor touts his fake success to attract new investors who add new money to the scheme, thereby creating the illusion that it's actually making money. Investors believe that they'd be stupid to take their money out of a "fund" that's making so much money, so they simply keep reinvesting.
The party eventually runs out when the criminal advisor dashes-off with the money, or it becomes painfully evident that the "fund" is insolvent.
So that brings me to my hastily concocted questions to the reader:
Is a growth-only economy just a giant Ponzi scheme? Is a mindset that falsely pits economic well-being against environmental and human health a Ponzi scheme? Is reliance on increasing consumption of finite resources to run the economy a Ponzi scheme? Would a sustainable economy right the books?

The best thing since sliced bread, or Car trouble revisited

Zipcar has proved its mettle sooner than I’d anticipated. Late Sunday I learned that the following evening I’d need to attend a city council meeting and to potentially speak about an environmental award. My wife had a longstanding commitment at the school where she teaches, also on Monday.
The complications:
1. Both meetings started at the same time, which also happens to be when our son goes to bed.
2. Our son is teething, which makes him exceedingly disinclined to go to sleep.
3. We just got rid of one of our cars. The plan was that we’d sign up for ZipCar, but I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
4. We didn’t know this at the time, but our son was also exceedingly disinclined to go to sleep because he was coming down with the stomach flu.
There was no way I could get the ZipCard in time, but I figured that since I had a few free minutes at lunch, I’d at least go to the web site and set up an account, so it would be available for the next mini-crisis. I spent about five minutes filling out forms on the website.
Bang. Twenty minutes later, I had my ZipCard in hand. In less time than it takes to have a fast food meal, I had the power to grab a car all over (and around) DC, and several other cities should the notion take me. As it turns out, you can pick up your card from a ZipCar office moments after filling out the online forms. (You can also get the card mailed to you, but where’s the fun in that?) The entire face-to-face piece of the transaction took about two and a half minutes.
So, I got on the web, reserved my car, picked it up from the Metro station after work, did the meeting, and was back home with Junior before you can say, “Bob’s your uncle”. I got where I needed to be in a hurry, did so in a fuel-efficient vehicle, and I’m not making car payments. ZipCar’s a winner.

solving the fiscal crisis in Kentucky

Kentucky, like 44 other states, is facing a fiscal crisis. Revenue coming from taxes and fees is not enough to cover budgeted expenditures. By law Kentucky cannot do what most people do when faced with this situation which is borrow money. While this is probably a good thing, it means that Kentucky’s legislators have only two choices: cut spending or increase revenue.

Not every penny spent by Kentucky's state government is essential. Governments are run by people, and people sometimes spend money on things we don’t absolutely need. When’s the last time you bought a candy bar or a soda? We all buy things we want that aren't really necessary -- sometimes things that are even bad for us. But state governments -- Kentucky's included -- like us, spends most of its money on essentials, and budget cuts would hurt the essentials.

One of those essentials is education which accounts for nearly forty percent of total Kentucky state spending. Kentucky lags behind much of the U.S. in many areas of education already. In 2004, while less than 15 percent of people over 25 in the country as a whole had not graduated from high school (or gotten a GED), more than 18 percent in Kentucky has failed to attain that important milestone. The gap in college attendance is even greater. In the U.S. as a whole about 28 percent received bachelors degrees or higher, while in Kentucky only 21 percent had done so. Education is clearly not an area that can tolerate cuts if Kentucky wants to compete with other states and other countries for businesses and jobs.

Another essential area is transportation that commands nine percent of the annual budget in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This has to cover all aspects of transportation from road, bridge and airport construction to maintenance and repair and snow removal. Most people would certainly consider the criminal justice system -- law enforcement, courts, prisons and probation to be essential expenditures, another five percent of the total budget.

Most people are aware of the role of state governments in education, transportation and criminal justice, but they often unaware of other essential state expenditures. Another kind of essential is the state funds given to communities for water and sewer, equipment and training for fire and rescue, flood control and stream improvement, water safety testing, and infectious disease control. If residents of Kentucky were to go to their local fiscal court, town or city council, and ask, I'm sure they'd learn that their local governments depend heavily on funds from Frankfort to provide services and infrastructure necessary for safety, security and health in local communities.

Most people often do not think about the fact that state funded licensing boards to insure the quality of service people we depend upon daily – doctors, nurses, dentists, counselors, barbers, hairdressers, pharmacists, engineers and many others. The news stories about salmonella in peanut butter illustrate what can go wrong when a state (in this case Georgia) does not spend enough on adequate safety testing and enforcement of food safety standards.

The real solution to the crisis is to raise revenues, by raising taxes. In the short run this probably means raising taxes on tobacco products. Kentucky under taxes cigarettes compared to most of the states surrounding it. The increased cost would not only raise revenue, but would encourage more people to quit. But it is a tax that hits low income people harder than others. In the long run the overall structure of taxes in Kentucky needs to be modernized. More tax money has to come from those with the ability to pay more, both in taxes on luxury and business services, reinstating the inheritance tax, and more progressive income tax that raises, slightly, the percentage paid by those with the highest incomes, such as proposed in both Kentucky HB 223 and HB 257.

Currently, Kentucky income tax is essentially a flat tax of 6 percent on all incomes over $8,000. HB223 proposes that individuals (NOT families) with incomes over $75,000 pay an extra 1% (7% instead of 6%) only on the proportion of income that exceeds $75,000 up to $90,000, and individuals with incomes in excess of $90,000 pay an extra 2% (8% instead of 6%) only on the portion of income that exceeds $90,000. In Kentucky all earners pay tax individually even if married -- married couples file separately but on the same tax form. This bill would NOT affect families with incomes of more than $75,000 as long as each individual person's income was less than $75,000. Indeed, families with two earners each making $74,000 (a family income of $150,000) would not be affected by this bill. An individual with an income of $100,000 would pay an extra 1% on the $15,000 between $75,000 and $90,000 (that's an extra $150 dollars), and an extra 2% on the $10,000 between $90,000 and $100,000 (that's an extra $200 for a total of $350 dollars more than they would be paying under the current tax system).

This does not seem like an unreasonable cost given all the benefits and services that we all gain from state government. When people think about who benefits from state spending they almost exclusively focus on the poor. But affluent people benefit as much or more from government spending. Affluent people travel more making more use of highways and especially airports, they make more use of libraries and parks, more likely to go boating on Kentucky lakes. Even if the affluent do not make direct use of public schools, colleges and universities (although a high percentage do), if they are business owners or managers their success in business depends upon subordinates and workers educated in public schools.

The irony is that even the benefits that people identify as "going" to poor people, actually go to middle class and affluent people. Take Medicaid. Poor people do benefit from having a medical card. They receive medical services and medicines that can save their life and keep them healthy. But the poor do not get any money from Medicaid -- the money goes to hospitals, doctors, home health companies, and pharmaceutical companies -- in other words to middle class, affluent and even to rich people (stockholders and executives in medical and pharmaceutical corporations). The majority of money spent on social services doesn't go to poor people, it goes to middle class social workers, therapists, psychologists and other people with graduate educations. It pays the fees, their salaries and their health insurance and pension payments of these middle class workers.

The more affluent you are the more your lifestyle and your economic position depends upon publicly funded resources. So what not pay a (very) small premium for those benefits?

On the providence of car-trouble

It’s been a long time coming. My wife and I bought a used Pontiac Aztek years ago. We needed something to get me to and from the office, and it had to be a suitable weekend ride for our rambunctious basenji hounds. The vehicle fit our need and our young married-couple budget. From the beginning, the vehicle’s fuel economy didn’t set well with me. But, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and we weren’t the first owners, so I felt good about reusing an existing vehicle.
Alas, dear Aztek is about to join the departed. After this problem with the air conditioning a couple of years ago, that problem with the alternator last year, and a recent bout of overheating on a weekend trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains that ultimately resulted in a blown main gasket, it just doesn’t make sense to get it fixed.
With one of our two cars on its way out, I started considering my options: Hybrids, small conventional cars, and fuel-efficient diesel cars. I was wearing the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” blinders.
What I realized later the same day that I started researching new cars is that my family doesn’t actually need two cars. Our home is within walking distance of shops, restaurants, several parks and playgrounds, a library, and a movie theater. Moreover, we walk past (or through) a Metro station on the way to these places, where we can catch Metrorail, Amtrak, and MARC trains and Metro and Ride-on buses. And, we can pick-up a Zipcar there.
On the latter option, I find myself playing the proverbial kind in the candy store. For those unfamiliar with this grand idea, Zipcar is an updated take on renting cars. It’s also an Internet-age version of the WWII institution of car-sharing clubs, which began to help communities to conserve fuel. With a conventional rental car one goes to a rental office, fills out a bunch of forms, and gets the car for a daily rate. With Zipcar, the driver signs up for an account (once) online, and from the web can reserve a car at an hourly or daily rate. Zipcars are available all over the place- places like Metro stations, shopping centers, town centers, &c.
The benefits to the economy of my household and to the environment are several. First, I’m not adopting a car payment for a vehicle that will mostly sit in my driveway. Nor am I paying to maintain or insure said sedentary vehicle. Instead, I’m paying a comparatively miniscule amount to effectively own a tiny share of a car (a fleet of cars, really) with a large group of people. This allows me to have a second car on the rare occasion that I need one, but I'm not saddled with its expenses when I don’t.
The environment wins, too. Again, I will share a car with other people. The significant amount of energy and raw materials that go into producing the vehicle are spread out across a group. Most of the Zipcars are also small, fuel-efficient cars, with a goodly number of hybrids among them. And since the performance of the vehicles factors into their profitability, the company has a vested interest in keeping them well-tuned.
So, my wife and I are interpreting the end of our car as a blessing. Rather than complaining about environmental problems and going on with business as usual, we’re taking this opportunity to go from two cars to one. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Image sources:
National Archives and Records Administration. ARC Identifier: 516143
Zipcar

American Suburbs

Newsweek just published an interesting article on U.S. suburbs and I think it is a source of many discussions.

One such discussion revolves around the idea of regionalism, which is promoted on page 2.

Essentially, academics have been calling for regionalism for some time (i.e. looking at an area not as a city but as a region, such as planning around not just Philadelphia, but its suburban areas too). The reasons for regionalism are many - government consolidation, decrease taxes, business attraction, poverty reduction, and the like.

In particular, the article points to suburbs declining in economic status, while cities still find it difficult to attract innovative industries. Can planning on a regional scale solve this? Maybe, but local governments rarely find it possible to work cooperatively, especially in home rule states like PA and NY.

Maybe the economic crisis will spur different areas to move in this direction. For example, New Jersey politicians have started to talk about government consolidation as a means to reduce state debt and provide better services.

Do you think "regionalized" policy making would be better than a more micro scale approach?

The article points out correctly that people tend to move to the suburbs to "get away" from the city, be it from crime, noise, etc. Unfortunately, the act of forming active communities seems to take place less in the suburbs - often times to the point where neighbors don't know each other - something I have come across personally and in the academic literature. Such characteristics of suburbs seem to be a defining conundrum for policy makers even slightly interested in regionalism.

As the U.S. economy reorganizes itself and policy makers begin to want to reform education, the prison system, and economic development (among others), can regionalism make matters easier? Will cultural dynamics ultimately impede such efforts? Can cities and suburbs be viewed as one?

Bee the solution -- grow a meadow

Like most Americans who pay attention to the news, especially environmental news, I had heard of "Colony Collapse Disorder" that has been killing off about one in three North American honey bee colonies each of the last several winters. However, I was not aware, until watching this TED presentation by Dennis vanEngelsdorp, the Acting State Apiarist for Pennsylvania's Department of Agriculture, was that native polinators like bumble bees, and bats, are also disappearing -- bats are disappearing at an alarming rate. The majority of fruits, vegetables and nuts we eat depend upon pollination by honey bees, so this, like all environmental problems, is a human problem and an economic problem, not just a "bee" problem. Watch, enjoy, and learn!



The most interesting and valuable suggestion that Dennis vanEngelsdorp makes in this video, is to replace your lawn (or at least part of it) with a meadow. Here's a way that ordinary citizens can be part of the solution to an environmental problem. A few years ago, I heard a speech by a horticulturalist who advocated (for a variety of environmental reasons) leaving a six to ten foot radius circle around major trees in your yard. We immediately instituted that practice in our 2/3 acre lot. There's lots of benefits of this, in addition to creating more habitat for polinators -- less time wasted on mowing the lawn, less gasoline is wasted, less noise and pollution is created, less greenhouse gases created, and many more butterflies, birds, and other wonderful creatures will find their way to your yard.

Coal River Wind -- a better way

Coal River Mountain, West Virginia is slated by Massey Coal to become the next casualty of mountain top removal strip mining. This form of mining blasts the tops of mountains with dynamite, then hauls away tons of rock and soil, dumping this overburden in nearby valleys covering up streams and habitats. The photo on the right is Marsh Fork where some of the overburden of the projected Coal River Mountain mine will end up.

On the top left is Coal River Mountain as it looks to day, before any mining commences. The photographer is standing at the edge of an existing mountain top removal strip mine of what was once Kayford Mountain, looking southwest to Coal Mountain.
The bottom left an aerial view of what is left of Kayford Mountain, WV: an 11,000+ acre Mountaintop Removal coal mining site that sits just to the Northeast of Coal River Mountain.

A.T. Massey has already received permits that would allow them to engage in mountain top removal and valley fill operation on more than 3,000 acres of Coal River Mountain, and have two additional areas mapped, that would add and additional 3,000+ acres.

Local residents concerned about the impacts on the quality of life in their communities formed the Coal River Mountain Watch, and joined with regional and national environmental groups to suggest an alternative to mountain top removal -- a wind farm that would capitalize on the strong persistent winds on these West Virginia mountain ridges.

The coalition of groups funded a four month study of the economic potential of both the planned mountain top removal and the proposed wind farm. In sum, the study found that because the power generated by wind could continue indefinitely ("forever" as the fact sheet states), while the mine would be played out in 14 to 17 years, the proposed wind farm would generate both more energy and more dollars. Moreover,

"when externalities such as public health and environmental quality are factored in, a mountaintop removal mine ends up generating an economic LOSS of $600 million over its expected 17 year life. A wind farm on the other hand would remain profitable over the life of the wind farm. This means that when the true costs of mining are considered, the wind farm option wins hands-down." Rory McIlmoil, Coal River Wind.

The Coal River Mountain Watch and its partners are asking for support from you and others like you around the country, to generate more public awareness of the problems of mountain top removal and the possibility of economically viable, clean, renewable energy alternatives. Another goal is to create support for the national Clean Water Protection Act that would drastically restrict where the overburden from mining could be dumped, which would limit the scope of strip-mining and mountain top removal substantially. You can learn more about your own personal connection to mountain top removal and what can be done about it at I Love the Mountains.

We Can Do It!

I’ve written before about the importance of conservation, though in many cases, I’ve assumed that its impacts go without saying. I recently ran across a simple analysis that may help me to articulate why I see energy (and other resource conservation) as the crux of an energy solution, rather than icing on the cake.
Consider the example of an incandescent light bulb in a lamp in your home, powered by electricity from a coal-fired power plant. This is a typical, though somewhat simplified scenario:
Coal is a source of chemical energy. Converted to thermal energy (heat) in a furnace, we lose about 15 percent of its energy to inefficiency, limitations of insulation, moving fluids and fuel, &c. We convert this thermal energy to mechanical energy by means of a turbine that loses more than half of the remaining energy overcoming friction and other impediments. The generator loses another 5 percent, while transmission, distribution, and grid congestion claim almost 10 percent more. The bulb itself converts electricity to light with about 5 percent efficiency (95 percent of the energy is wasted). The end result is that the light from the bulb represents a more than 98 percent loss of energy from the original coal. Put another way, every unit of light energy saved conserves 60 times as much chemical energy in the form of coal. That doesn’t include the energy spent mining, processing, and transporting the coal to the power plant, nor disposing of the 1000 tons of waste that a medium-size coal-fired plant produces in a day.
It turns out that Mom was right. We really should turn out the lights when we leave the room. Evidently, it actually conserves about 60 times more energy than it seems to. How’s that for an easy way to be the solution?

Image source: Victoria & Albert Museum

a modest proposal

General Motors announced last week that they will run out of cash (liquidity) by the middle of 2009 unless the economy and sales recover or the government steps in and gives them money.

Here is an industry that has been in trouble repeatedly for the past 30 years. The American automotive industry has required numerous bailouts, loan guarantees, and other financial assistance to stay afloat since 1970. In return they have reduced their American workforces (even in good times) with automation, outsourcing, and shifts in the location of production; and they have produced huge hulking gas guzzling monstrosities that American consumers were already turning their backs on before we moved into genuine recession.

General Motors themselves have been in serious financial trouble since at least 2005, when the company announced massive layoffs of 30,000 North American employees reducing their workforce to 143,000 salaried and hourly workers by the middle of 2005.

The argument against letting the automotive industry fail (as they most certainly deserve to) has always been that it would be a death blow to the American communities where they operate and to the families of the thousands of workers employed by the automotive industry.

The size of the bailout that GM is seeking has not yet been mentioned, however, one can guess from the fact that GM burned "through $6.9 billion in the September quarter" (CNN today) that any bail out request is likely to be in the range of ten billion or more.

As stated above, in 2005 GM had 143,000 salaried and hourly workers in North America (this includes Canada and Mexico as well as the United States). In April 2008 GM laid off 3,500 workers from their 80,000 North American hourly workforce, bringing their hourly workforce down to 76,500 workers. Then in June 2008 GM pared their hourly workforce even more through buyouts of some 19,000 hourly union workers, bringing the hourly workforce down to 57,500. GM salaried workforce has also been cut back to 32,000 in 2008. So an estimate of the GM North American work force (including Canada and Mexico) is 89,500. Let's say for the sake of argument that at least 80,000 of those workers are in the U.S. Let us also say for the sake of argument that GM would only ask for $10 billion for a bailout.

Well I have a suggestion -- that will probably not be seriously considered by anyone in a position of decision-making authority. What if instead of giving that money to General Motors, we let General Motors go bankrupt and out of business and we give the money directly to each and every individual who worked for General Motors in the United States.

Ten billion dollars divides up among 80,000 workers to $125,000 a piece. Suppose we say that the federal government will replace every single General Motors employees income for two years up to $60,000 a year -- folks that make more than $60,000 will just have to suffice with that. All employees would receive two full years of income, even if they found work again before the two years was up. Moreover, let us also require the recipients to pay income taxes, but not social security taxes (which are only assessed on "earned" income any way). They would not be eligible for unemployment insurance, but the federal government would also pick up the tab for paying General Motors portion of their workers health insurance, while the former workers would pay the same premiums they did under GM. Release from social security payments would give GM employees slightly more money in their pockets for two full years, during which they could go back to school, enter apprenticeships or any other form of education or training they wished to pursue. They could relocate, and take the two years of money with them. They could start their own small businesses.

This will probably be labeled as naive, but it seems to me that this would do much more to put our economy on sound ground than to give more to a company that hasn't seemed to figure out how to do it right for decades.

So, what is it?

I heard a college kid explain to her father that "...sustainability is just another term for environmentalism", as I rode home on the Metro yesterday evening. The word "sustainability" has been bandied about here and there, especially since the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development dispersed the idea in 2002. But, it seems that lots of people still don't get it.
So, what is sustainability? Is it purely an environmental idea, as our student suggests? Have sustainable ways of life ever existed? Do any exist now? If we were to shift our current way of life to a sustainable one, who would win and who would lose?

Image source: Wikipedia

On walking and chewing gum

For a number of reasons, environmental issues have enjoyed a central place in policy debates and decisions, elections, business, and the public consciousness for the last few years. With troubling economic changes afoot, particularly in the financial and housing sectors, will the environment again retire to obscurity? Should leaders and communities shift their focus away from environmental issues?

just an observation

One year ago, on October 9, 2008, the New York Stock Exchange -- Dow Jones Industrial Average reached its all time high closing price of 14,164.53.

Today, the New York Stock Exchange closed at 9,447.11, a decline of 4,717.42 points in one year, or a loss of 33.3 percent – one third of its value over the past year!

Longhorns and snakeheads and bees- Oh my

Over the weekend, I found a moment to peruse the Sant Ocean Hall online exhibit on the National Museum of Natural History website. I'm thinking ahead to some opportunities to get the little one to an exhibit that will catch his attention. I happened upon a page about the rapa whelk, a fairly recent exotic pest (some might say a menace) in the Chesapeake Bay region. It's been in various conservation groups' publications for a while.
What in the heck is a rapa whelk? It's a type of marine snail that has some nifty adaptations that allow it to spread itself around very quickly. Unfortunately, it's not from around here. It hails from Asia, almost certainly arrived in the bilge water of ships, preys on clams and oysters, and is a threat to the local marine snails. This presents yet another problem for the region's shellfish industry, not to mention the already badly degraded Chesapeake Bay ecology.
The rapa whelk is what's known as an invasive exotic species. This isn't a new idea. You've probably heard of many others, perhaps without realizing it: The fire ant, the Asian long-horned beetle, the gypsie moth, the zebra mussel, the European house sparrow, &c. This short list is merely the tip of the iceberg.
There are others that don't get peoples' hackles up, though: The honey bee, chickory, and the cattle egret, for instance. These pollinate many of our crops, make a proper cup of coffee for folks in New Orleans, and get rid of some of the fire ants that wouldn't have been here in the first place if we hadn't been so careless. (And, while we're at it, basically everything we eat comes from somewhere other than here.) These species are our friends, right?
I put some questions to the reader: Is it worth the effort to try to stop exotic species from invading new areas or to drive them out before they take hold? Is it appropriate to get rid of exotics that have been in an area for a long time? Does the usefulness or harm of the new species weigh on this? Should we hesitate to introduce an exotic crop? Should we simply accept that people will change the biosphere and make do with those changes?

Image source: Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Sant Ocean Hall

Creeping Socialism

It would appear that the Bush administration is moving the country closer to socialism. One of the nations largest insurance companies has now been eighty percent nationalized. Since one of the insurance products of AIG is health insurance, it would appear that the Bush Administration is preparing us for socialized medical insurance.

Drill pickle

More a matter of politics than government, the Congress is voting on a measure to relax the off-shore drilling ban in place since 1982. Under the measure before lawmakers (as of this morning), drilling would become legal at a distance of 50 miles from shore with the consent of adjacent states, or at 100 miles without such permission. The bill has already passed the House. I'm curious to see how the reader feels.
Is relaxing the drilling ban a good idea? Would lifting it altogether be better? Is the rate at which oil will be extracted too low to bother? Does the value of the oil outweigh the potential damage to fisheries and tourism? Do most people understand the issue? Should people in a landlocked state like Arizona be making this decision for people in a coastal state like Delaware?

Image source: Minerals Management Service

Number 2: The persimmon

The air turned suddenly cool yesterday and the dogday harvest flies are beginning to pack up. Several days ago, I wrote about having seen school buses out and about. This of course means that we’re now standing with our toes over the edge of fall. As it turns out, it’s also a great time to get out and have fun while serving your community.
Many of us think of conservation efforts (and outdoor activities in general) as something people do in the spring and summer. After all, environmental groups, Boy Scouts, the Izaak Walton League, trail clubs and their ilk tend to mobilize people for Earth Day and in preparation of the high use seasons.
For anyone who lives in the Potomac River watershed fall is also an important time to work for clean drinking water, clean air, and healthy fisheries. Growing Native is a program run by the Potomac Conservancy that offers opportunities to collect native tree seeds for clean water. After adequate time to grow at a state nursery or volunteer grow-out station, seedlings are then planted in area parks, stream-sides, and other sensitive areas in need of more tree cover. Trees help to keep the water entering streams and rivers clean, while reducing air pollution. This in turn makes for more productive fisheries downstream.
Native trees provide a number of advantages. First, their specific water, soil, and light needs are fine-tuned to the area. This means that when planted in appropriate places, native trees often need less maintenance than hybrids or exotics. Second, native trees invite native animals and plants, which need trees for food, habitat, or cover. Encouraging native trees from a variety of sources rather than artificial hybrids or exotics also contributes to a robust genetic database of wild plants that prevents genetic bottle-necking.
If you live in the DC area or anywhere else in the Potomac River watershed, I encourage you to check out the Potomac Conservancy calendar to find a local seed collection event.

Image source: Virginia Tech Department of Forestry, after Chapman, Cleese, Gilliam, Idle, Jones, and Palin

Urban buckaroo*

Earlier this summer, I wrote a little on the subject of actions we can take and changes we can make in our local communities and in our own lives to move toward sustainable communities. There’s ample talk on the blog-lines and in the media about energy policy, horizon technologies, innovative markets, and many other visionary solutions. I feel terribly clever when I write about these things, but I don’t know how to make any of them actually happen. Unfortunately, the collective-we would rather watch the house burn down than stop playing with matches. I can however talk about some simple choices just about anyone can make (starting today) to reduce their personal impact on the environment. I fear that the solution isn’t in the hands of business leaders, inventors, and politicians who will solve problems on our behalf. We have to be the solution.
I start with the evergreen issue of paper products. We use paper towels and napkins in droves- something like 3,000 tons per day in the US. And while my local Greenpeacers get the facts wrong, they’re on the right track about one thing: We’re cutting down wild forests for napkins, paper towels, and other disposable paper products. Aside from the more ethereal values, these forests provide clean water, clean air, habitat for game, and carbon sinks. Forests provide valuable services to people. Cutting them for napkins doesn’t seem like a good deal. Moreover, when we pitch our used paper towels, they take up lots of space in landfills, decomposing to produce methane. That’s it for the harangue.
Fortunately, there are some simple solutions to this. It’s easy to use fewer paper towels and napkins. Around the house, the alternatives couldn’t be easier. Invest in some kitchen towels and some sturdy but inexpensive cloth napkins. This isn’t exactly a visionary solution.
The real aha is this: When you’re at the office, on campus, running errands, or just out for fast food, bring a bandana. It’s a paper towel, it’s a napkin. Never again will you wash your hands and then groan because the paper towel dispenser is empty. If you happen to be in a gang, it’s good for that too. (You can showoff your “political gang” with red, blue, or green.)
You can buy bandanas anywhere in any style, often for well-under $2.00 each. It’s still possible to find some made in the USA (sorry to BIA readers in the Chinese textile industry), and if you’re cleverer than I am, you can probably find them made from organic cotton. After the first wash, you can generally toss them in with other laundry, so they don’t add to your water or energy bills.
I’ve brought one to the office every day for the last three years (and have had some of them much longer than that), and I have yet to wear one out or ruin any. This is a cheap, easy way to do something green. Be the solution.

*Author’s note: E.R. Dunhill is aware that one can also be a suburban, rural, campus, wilderness, or any number of other buckaroos, vaqueros, gauchos, gaúchos, or sabaneros (or -as, as appropriate). The author would also like to emphasize that it is not necessary to dress like a cowboy to carry a bandana.

Image sources:
British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Range
Texas A&M University