Prophesies

[cowboyangel]

Iso. if you google depleted uranium, which you haven't seemed to do, you'll come up with more material. You, I believe, leveled the first insult.

"As a reference the piece makes for interesting reading and draws attention albeit in a very biased way to a lot of questions that probably *do* need to be studied. As a statement of fact it's lame. Its bullshit and not worthy of wiping one's ass with. CA I hope your rational for posting is the former and not the latter."

this is what I refer to as "garbage words", that add nothing to the debate. So, who's being sophmoric here?
In addition to looking at the lengthy list of DU sites, I would recommend applying the precautionary principle to this matter and also the work of cancer researcher Dr. Samuel Epstein, who I believe has done some study on the health effects of low dose radiation on humans.

[cowboyangel]

and for you geekster, I think the only people that support your view on "inherently safe" nuclear energy, is a minority of nuclear plant corporate backers and their associates in the white house and republican party. Both government and the citizens of Nevada don't want their state turned into a nuclear waste dump. Nuclear weapons testing ill effects, and ill effects from real and potential nuke power plants are related as they both deal with the consequences of the actual and potential harmful effects of radioactive material. On Cape Cod Mass. there is a plan to install off shore wind turbines that will supply about a 4th (maybe a 3rd) of the Cape's electrical needs. These are engineered to be more bird safe than older designs. At Altamont Pass, the old turbines will be replaced by the newer models that kill fewer birds. Show me the polls, or the citizen backing for what you propose. It simply isn't there and thank God it isn't.

[Isotopia]

I would recommend applying the precautionary principle to this matter and also the work of cancer researcher Dr. Samuel Epstein, who I believe has done some study on the health effects of low dose radiation on humans.

Precautionary principles abound in the literature. It comes part and parcel with the science. Yes there are studies that seem to contradict - especially in the realm of assessment and quantifying low dose exposure - just wish you hadn't dredged up Epstein's name. Anyone but Epstein. Another alarmist who has repeatedly had his epidemiological studies trashed at the alter of peer review. I'll grant that at least he had the balls to publish but when the dust cleared he all but tucked tail and went the same lecture circuit route that Rokke seems to be profiting from. Namely the alarmist ranting and manipulated presentation of data that from my understanding has not survived the test of scrutiny by the HP (health physics) community at large. Is there a Crank-of-the-Month web site I don't know about here?

[geekster]

I never said anything was inherently safe. I said it was safer. I said it was less prone to operator error and mechanical failure. An emergency cooling system that can not be accidently shut off or fail due to mechanical reasons is a good thing. Maybe you should also invesigate "pebble bed" reactors which China is expected to begin deploying in the next 5 years or so. They are meltdown proof. There simply isnt enough concentration of fuel for it to get hot enough. The drawback is that the fuel is impossible or exceedingly difficult to reprocess since each half-milimeter fuel pellet is encased in silicon carbide. Still uses a graphite moderator, though.

It appears that you simply have your mind closed to all things nuclear. It's a shame too that there are so many people that hear the word nuclear and don't listen any further. I fear thinking like this will eventually be the real cause of dramitic climate change.

So far you have provided no real alternatives. Could you please? Rather than rhetoric, ive us an example of a greenhouse-free power source that could begin construction today, be done within five years and produce, say, 3 Gigawatts of power at a cost competitive with other power sources.

As for the nuclear waste disposal problem, we could greatly reduce that today with a mark of a pen. If we decided to reprocess spent fuel like Japan, Europe, China, and Russia does, there would not be as much to dispose of. Most of the issues facing nuclear power are not technical problems, they are political. As the polar caps melt and fish populations decline, I expect opposition to nuclear power to decrease and opposition to hydroelectric power to increase. Time will tell.

[cowboyangel]

I would recommend applying the precautionary principle to this matter and also the work of cancer researcher Dr. Samuel Epstein, who I believe has done some study on the health effects of low dose radiation on humans.

Precautionary principles abound in the literature. It comes part and parcel with the science. Yes there are studies that seem to contradict - especially in the realm of assessment and quantifying low dose exposure - just wish you hadn't dredged up Epstein's name. Anyone but Epstein. Another alarmist who has repeatedly had his epidemiological studies trashed at the alter of peer review. I'll grant that at least he had the balls to publish but when the dust cleared he all but tucked tail and went the same lecture circuit route that Rokke seems to be profiting from. Namely the alarmist ranting and manipulated presentation of data that from my understanding has not survived the test of scrutiny by the HP (health physics) community at large. Is there a Crank-of-the-Month web site I don't know about here?

Upon what documents, or sources do you base your opinion on Epstein? I've actually met the guy and interviewd him a few years ago. He seemed genuinley honest, dedicated and unencumbered by personal agenda, financial gain or personal fame.. When it comes to deciding where to line up on petrochemical companies, tobacco companies and their friends, I don't have to think too long about that one. You also seem to like to throw an insult or two in with some of your posts (e.g. "Crank-of-the-Month web site" ) ...this sets red warning flags in my mind, that some special bias, mind set, or emotional grudge match is underway. Where are you coming from and who butters your bread? Would you throw in pharmaceutical companies that produce medicines that kill people into the crank of the month website? The US government has a poor track record when it comes to lying to people about weapons testing, war, military operations etc, etc. so I'm also disposed to trusting the information from a long time career officer like Rokke, who is up against a multi-billion dollar establishment, much like Epstein., and who is probably risking alot in his choice of enemies. You never heard of Rokke before yet you are rather quick to cast him in the crank column too.

[cowboyangel]

I never said anything was inherently safe. I said it was safer. I said it was less prone to operator error and mechanical failure. An emergency cooling system that can not be accidently shut off or fail due to mechanical reasons is a good thing. Maybe you should also invesigate "pebble bed" reactors which China is expected to begin deploying in the next 5 years or so. They are meltdown proof. There simply isnt enough concentration of fuel for it to get hot enough. The drawback is that the fuel is impossible or exceedingly difficult to reprocess since each half-milimeter fuel pellet is encased in silicon carbide. Still uses a graphite moderator, though.

It appears that you simply have your mind closed to all things nuclear. It's a shame too that there are so many people that hear the word nuclear and don't listen any further. I fear thinking like this will eventually be the real cause of dramitic climate change.

So far you have provided no real alternatives. Could you please? Rather than rhetoric, ive us an example of a greenhouse-free power source that could begin construction today, be done within five years and produce, say, 3 Gigawatts of power at a cost competitive with other power sources.

As for the nuclear waste disposal problem, we could greatly reduce that today with a mark of a pen. If we decided to reprocess spent fuel like Japan, Europe, China, and Russia does, there would not be as much to dispose of. Most of the issues facing nuclear power are not technical problems, they are political. As the polar caps melt and fish populations decline, I expect opposition to nuclear power to decrease and opposition to hydroelectric power to increase. Time will tell.

the Rocky Mountain Institute of the Lovins' and the Union of Concerned Scientists can better address your questions than I can. I believed that I've left links to them, but they're easy to find. I did mention the wind power project off Cape Cod. I'm not sure of the total power yield, (it's significant) but you can find that on Greenpeace's web site, they support this project. There's a Berkeley firm designing and building solar power plants in Germany. The SF Chronicle recently did a story on that. There was a guy from the brain camp at last years burn who was a solar scientist who was talking about greatly improved effficiencies in solar module design. I'm sorry I missed the guy, but I could find out who he is if you're really interested.

[cowboyangel]

ancer, Chemicals and History
by Jon Wiener

Twenty of the biggest chemical companies in the United States have
launched a campaign to discredit two historians who have studied the
industry's efforts to conceal links between their products and
cancer. In an unprecedented move, attorneys for Dow, Monsanto,
Goodrich, Goodyear, Union Carbide and others have subpoenaed and
deposed five academics who recommended that the University of
California Press publish the book Deceit and Denial: The Deadly
Politics of Industrial Pollution, by Gerald Markowitz and David
Rosner. The companies have also recruited their own historian to
argue that Markowitz and Rosner have engaged in unethical conduct.
Markowitz is a professor of history at the CUNY Grad Center; Rosner
is a professor of history and public health at Columbia University
and director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public
Health at Columbia's School of Public Health.

The reasons for the companies' actions are not hard to find: They
face potentially massive liability claims on the order of the tobacco
litigation if cancer is linked to vinyl chloride-based consumer
products such as hairspray. The stakes are high also for publishers
of controversial books, and for historians who write them, because
when authors are charged with ethical violations and manuscript
readers are subpoenaed, that has a chilling effect. The stakes are
highest for the public, because this dispute centers on access to
information about cancer-causing chemicals in consumer products.

For Rosner and Markowitz the story began in 1993, when they traveled
to Lake Charles, Louisiana, to look at what they were told was "a
warehouse of material" about vinyl chloride and cancer. The address
they were given turned out to be a "decrepit hovel in the desolate
center of town," as Markowitz describes it. They found it "full of
chemical industry documents, lining every wall and filling every
corner." The material, Rosner told me, was "incredible. Not just
company documents but records of meetings of the trade association
for the chemical companies. No one had ever seen anything like it."

The material had been obtained through the discovery process by a
local attorney, Billy Baggett Jr., who was working alone with a
single client: A woman whose husband, a former worker in a chemical
plant, had died of a rare cancer, angiosarcoma of the liver, caused
by exposure to vinyl chloride monomer. She was suing the chemical
company where he had worked. Baggett "had become obsessed with the
case and dropped all the other cases he was supposed to be working on
in his father's firm," Rosner told me. "He had not been able to bring
the case to trial. So his father went to a bigger law firm asking for
help. They asked us to go down to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and find
out--is there anything there in the documents? Or is this guy just an
obsessive?"

Baggett had sued thirty companies and the Chemical Manufacturers
Association (now called the American Chemistry Council) for
conspiracy, arguing that they had concealed evidence of disease and
death related to vinyl chloride. He had received hundreds of
thousands of documents in response to his discovery motions.
Apparently the chemical companies had flooded him with material in
the belief that he would be overwhelmed by the sheer quantity, and
that as a result nothing would happen.

The question about the chemical companies and the health risks of
vinyl chloride is the classic one: What did they know, and when did
they know it? Rosner and Markowitz used the Baggett materials to show
that in 1973 the industry learned that vinyl chloride monomer caused
cancer in animals--even at low levels of exposure. Since vinyl
chloride was the basis for hairspray, Saran Wrap, car upholstery,
shower curtains, floor coverings and hundreds of other consumer
products, the implications for public health were massive. Yet the
companies failed to disclose that information about cancer to the
public and to the federal regulatory agencies.

The bigger issue for the companies stems from the role of vinyl
chloride monomer as a propellant in aerosols in the 1950s and '60s.
In 1974 the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental
Protection Agency asked for the recall of hairsprays (along with
insecticides and other aerosols) that were still on the shelves with
vinyl chloride monomer as the propellant--one hundred products in
all. No one has studied whether people who worked in beauty parlors,
or women who used hairspray, have had higher rates of cancer. But the
industry started worrying in the early 1970s that the liability
problem could be bigger than that for workers in chemical plants. The
problem was "essentially unlimited liability to the entire US
population," as one chemical company supervisor wrote in a 1973 memo.
Hairspray was a particular concern.

The documents served as the basis for two chapters of Rosner and
Markowitz's book, published in 2002 to stellar reviews in the news
media as well as medical and scientific journals: the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch declared that the book "ought to give thousands of
corporate executives insomnia" (the key documents have been posted on
the Internet at
http://www.chemicalindustryarchives.org ... inyl/1.asp).

The documents are of a kind that outsiders have rarely been allowed
to see: private corporate records, including internal reports of
meetings where corporate officials made decisions about making and
marketing products that caused health problems for workers and the
public. For example, the key chapter on vinyl chloride in the book is
titled "Evidence of an Illegal Conspiracy by Industry." That phrase
is not the authors'; it comes from a key 1973 document in the files
of the chemical company trade group, the Manufacturing Chemists
Association, worrying that a legal memo on concealing the vinyl
chloride-cancer link "could be construed as evidence of an illegal
conspiracy by industry if the information were not made public or at
least made available to the government."

At issue now in US district court in Jackson, Mississippi, is the
claim by another former chemical worker that Airco and other
companies are liable for his liver cancer because he was exposed to
vinyl chloride monomer on the job. Markowitz is a key expert witness
for the plaintiffs, because of the research he and Rosner published
in Deceit and Denial. But the judge is being told that Rosner and
Markowitz's research is "not valid," that the publisher's review
process was "subverted" and that Rosner and Markowitz have
"frequently and flagrantly violated" the American Historical
Association's code of ethics.

Those charges come from another historian enlisted by the chemical
companies: Philip Scranton of Rutgers University, who wrote a
forty-one-page critique of Deceit and Denial and of the ethics of the
historians who wrote it. Scranton teaches business history at
Rutgers-Camden, where he is University Board of Governors Professor
of the History of Industry and Technology. He also works at the
Hagley Museum, a museum of early-American business history at the
"ancestral home" of the Du Pont family, as it's described on the
official website. Scranton directs the museum's research arm, the
Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society. He also
testified recently for the asbestos companies in their liability
litigation.

Although Scranton is serving in this case as an expert witness for
the chemical companies, he's not an expert on cancer-causing
chemicals; he's best known for his prizewinning book on the textile
industry in Philadelphia. In this case, he doesn't claim to be an
expert on the postwar chemical industry; instead, he offers himself
as an expert on Markowitz's ethics. Markowitz, in contrast, is a
genuine expert on the central issue in the case: the question of what
the chemical companies knew, and when they knew it.

Scranton in his forty-one-page statement for the chemical companies
charges that Markowitz violated "basic principles of academic
integrity, historical accuracy, and professional responsibility" and
engaged in "sustained and repeated violations" of the official
"Standards" of the American Historical Association. Scranton's
argument: Markowitz knew the names of the people reviewing his
manuscript for the publisher and had suggested names of possible
manuscript reviewers to the publisher. "Such practices," Scranton
writes, "subverted confidential, objective refereeing of scholarly
manuscripts."

But it's a common practice of university presses to ask authors to
suggest reviewers, often because authors know better than editors
who the most knowledgeable experts are, especially on an obscure
topic like vinyl chloride. There's nothing unethical about this
practice and nothing in the AHA standards about it. It is true, as
Scranton suggests, that university presses typically offer
manuscript reviewers the option of keeping their report confidential
from the authors, and that in this case the publisher revealed the
identities of the reviewers to the authors. But that was part of a
review process that was much more demanding than the typical case.
Instead of the usual two or three manuscript reviewers, Rosner and
Markowitz's manuscript had eight outside reviewers, including the
former head of the National Cancer Institute and the former chair of
the Centers for Disease Control's Lead Advisory Panel. And instead
of simply forwarding the written evaluations to the authors, as is
the usual practice, Milbank Memorial Fund, the public health
nonprofit that co-published the book with the University of
California Press, sponsored a two-day conference that brought
together the reviewers, the authors and their editors to go over the
manuscript chapter by chapter. To describe this rigorous scholarly
process as "unethical" because it revealed the identities of the
reviewers to the authors is absurd.

Scranton also objects to what he calls "overgeneralization" in Deceit
and Denial. For example, the authors use the term "industry." But,
Scranton argues, there were only individual companies. Rosner and
Markowitz in their response show that the companies formed a trade
organization that claimed to speak for "the industry." And Scranton
accuses Markowitz of ethical violations for incomplete and selective
quotation and one-sided advocacy. However, Scranton violates
precisely what he says are the ethical principles he is defending;
Scranton's essay is much more incomplete and selective, and is
completely one-sided in its defense of the chemical industry.

Could Scranton be right that Markowitz violated the AHA Statement on
Standards in his research? I asked the vice president for research of
the AHA, Roy Rosenzweig, Distinguished Professor of History at George
Mason University. "I've read the AHA Statement on Standards," he
says. "I see nothing in Markowitz and Rosner's book that's a
violation of the AHA Standards. In my opinion, the book represents
the highest standards of the history profession. Scranton should be
embarrassed to make the claim that there's an ethical violation
here--as opposed to the claim that he disagrees with their
interpretation."

The rest of Scranton's argument has a lot in common with the
arguments made by the tobacco and lead companies and their attorneys
in those historic liability lawsuits, arguments that have been
identified by Stanford historian Robert Proctor, writing in The
Lancet, one of the leading medical journals in the world. The generic
arguments go something like this: Although historians have found
evidence that industries were aware of the danger posed by their
products, that evidence was not definitive; because they had "no
proof," they had no obligation to act to protect the health of
workers or the public; standards of corporate morality and openness
have become stronger only recently, so it's "unfair" to apply today's
standards to past conduct; and of course there's always the argument
that the historians who claim to have found evidence of corporate
misconduct are "biased."

When I asked Scranton by e-mail if he would be willing to talk about
his deposition, he replied, "These are matters for a court to address
and are not yet issues for public debate." Of course, nothing is more
public than a court case--but he told the Newark Star-Ledger he
"regretted" that Rosner and Markowitz were making the issue public.
Columbia historian Elizabeth Blackmar, one of the manuscript
reviewers who were subpoenaed by the chemical companies, said, "I
respect Scranton's work as a historian, so I was sorry he had turned
himself into a hired gun this way."

If it's unprecedented for companies to go after historians in the way
Rosner and Markowitz have been attacked, it's also apparently
unprecedented to subpoena and depose the peer reviewers who
recommended that a university press publish a book. The Blackmar
subpoena--"my first," she says--read: "You are commanded to appear"
in US district court, and to "produce and permit inspection and
copying" of all the material used in preparing the evaluation of the
book manuscript, including "any original written, typewritten,
handwritten, printed or recorded material...now or at any time in
your possession, custody or control," including all e-mail.

Academics aren't used to being "commanded" to do anything, and are
unlikely to have attorneys of their own to accompany them to
depositions. In this case, since the book was co-published by the
Milbank Fund, the fund provided the subpoenaed historians with
attorneys from Milbank, Tweed, the blue-chip Wall Street global legal
powerhouse. At the depositions, each historian faced attorneys for
fifteen different chemical companies. One of the key questions was
whether those who recommended the book for publication had checked
the footnotes. That would have been a big job: Deceit and Denial has
more than 1,200 footnotes, many citing more than one source. The
prevailing practice at university presses is that manuscript
reviewers are not expected to check footnotes; Lynne Withey, director
of the University of California Press, asked, "How could you expect
people to do that?" In fact, the documents in Rosner and Markowitz's
footnotes were checked thoroughly before publication by attorneys for
both PBS and HBO: PBS ran a Bill Moyers documentary in 2001 on cancer
caused by chemicals in consumer products, based on Rosner and
Markowitz's research; and HBO ran an award-winning documentary in
2002, Blue Vinyl, based on some of the same research.

What's the point of deposing manuscript reviewers for university
presses? Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor of History at
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, former vice
president for research of the AHA, award-winning biographer of
Eleanor Roosevelt and one of the historians who were deposed, called
it "harassment to silence independent research" and an effort to
create "a chilling effect on folks who tell the truth."

What's it like to be deposed in this situation? Markowitz's
deposition lasted five and a half days. He said, "You face fifteen or
sixteen lawyers, none of whom like you, and all of whom are trying to
trick you." Cook's deposition took only an hour, but it was "an hour
of battering and legal tricks, and the goal was to trip you up and
get you confused," she said. "They kept asking me how long I had
known Gerry Markowitz. I said, 'Are you asking if I had an affair?'
They said, 'No, why are you asking that?' I said, 'Where I come from,
that's the implication of your question.' They said, 'Where do you
come from?'" This seems pretty far from the question of vinyl
chloride and cancer.

Scholars like Cook and Blackmar who review manuscripts for university
presses don't do it for the money--UC Press typically provides $300
in free books or $150 in cash--but rather out of a sense of
obligation and duty; they certainly don't expect to have to defend
their recommendation under oath in the face of hostile questioning
from a dozen corporate lawyers. Should UC Press have done more to
protect its manuscript reviewers and its review process? Should it
have resisted the subpoena for the reviewers' names and information?
UC Press director Withey says that if this had been the typical
manuscript where the reviewers had been promised confidentiality, "I
would not have revealed names of reviewers. That would have gotten us
into a sticky situation, I'm sure." William Forbath, Lloyd Bentsen
Professor of Law at the University of Texas, says any effort to
resist a subpoena for reviewers' names and information would have
been "in vain." If the information in question is relevant to the
case, he says, "there is no general privacy privilege outside of the
attorney-client privilege, the spousal privilege, the doctor-patient
privilege and the priest-penitent privilege--that exhausts it. The
publisher promises its manuscript readers confidentiality, but that
doesn't count for squat in the context of a legal proceeding."

Rosner and Markowitz are part of a larger trend in which historians
are appearing in court more often as expert witnesses. One reason is
the growing number of cases in which companies are being accused of
wrongdoing based on evidence that workers and consumers are suffering
illness and disability because they were exposed to asbestos, lead,
silica or other chemicals. In every case, the exposure began decades
ago, and thus in every case, the central legal question is a
historical one: When did the companies first learn of the health
dangers posed by their products? At what point in the past can they
be held responsible?

A second reason is a consequence of the failure of governmental
regulatory agencies to act. Now, in an era of Republican domination,
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the
Environmental Protection Agency, originally created to protect the
health of workers and the public, tend to be industry-dominated. As a
result, the courts have become, in the words of Rosner and Markowitz,
"one of the last venues where workers and communities might find some
form of justice."

In the past, each side in corporate liability cases has presented
experts who debated the evidence in the corporate documents. This
case marks a new departure, because the strategy of the chemical
companies is to charge the plaintiff's expert with unethical conduct.
Will this ploy succeed? The logic of the argument is dubious: So what
if some of the manuscript reviewers for Deceit and Denial knew the
authors? What ought to decide the case are the facts about what the
chemical companies knew about cancer and when they knew it. On the
other hand, juries don't know much about publishing history books.
It's possible that a jury could be convinced that something was wrong
with a book whose manuscript reviewers didn't check footnotes, and
with a publisher that did not maintain strict confidentiality in the
manuscript review process.

Most of these corporate liability cases are settled before going to a
jury, but the willingness of the companies to settle is based on
their estimate of the persuasiveness of the witnesses against them
and their guesses about the jury. This case, originally scheduled to
go to trial in February, has been rescheduled for September.

This article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050207&s=wiener

Visit The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/

[Ranger Genius]

huh huh. He said "Wiener."

[cowboyangel]

Michael Savage's other name too...read the article and weep ranger dude

[geekster]

the Rocky Mountain Institute of the Lovins' and the Union of Concerned Scientists can better address your questions than I can. I believed that I've left links to them, but they're easy to find. I did mention the wind power project off Cape Cod. I'm not sure of the total power yield, (it's significant) but you can find that on Greenpeace's web site, they support this project. There's a Berkeley firm designing and building solar power plants in Germany. The SF Chronicle recently did a story on that. There was a guy from the brain camp at last years burn who was a solar scientist who was talking about greatly improved effficiencies in solar module design. I'm sorry I missed the guy, but I could find out who he is if you're really interested.

I didn't think so.

Solar is a bit too environmentally unfriendly for me anyway. The are terribly polluting to make and dispose of, require lots of batteries with all kinds of nasties associated there, require constant maintenance, etc. To build a solar project generating 3Gigawatts would require destruction of a lot of habitat just for placing the PV panels. The only "good" thing I can see with solar from your standpoint is that they aren't nuclear. You don't seem to count environmental destruction and pollution into your thinking. Oh, and the solar panel plant is probably operated by nuclear power for at least a major portion of it's electricity usage They should eat their own dog food and operate the plant on solar energy but I suspect it would be too expensive and unreliable.

[geekster]

I will give you this, though, solar is PERFECT for remote off-grid applications where no other power source is available. Powering remote telephone equipment where power lines are not available or remote sensing stations such as weather stations, bouys, and even a single home where no other power source is available. A diesel generator backup would still be required but could run biodiesel. For running large industry and heavy transport (long-haul electric rail freight) solar just isn't there yet and probably wont be for several decades, if ever. Most places in the country just don't get enough sunshine. It was not unusual when I lived back east to have an entire cloudy week or not have more than two or three hours per day of uninterrupted sunshine for several weeks. It is hard for someone living out here where the sun shines non-stop from May till October to realize.

Wind power is about 1/3 the cost per killowatt hour than solar and use usable in a greater area of the country but even then, in the mid-atlantic you can have a hot calm period without much of a breeze for a couple of weeks at a time in the summer. There just isn't a renewable that is reliable enough for heavy industry short of hydroelectric and just about every potential source of that in the US has been exploited.

[joel the ornery]

February 16, 2005
Tilting at Windmills
By Bill McKibben

Johnsburg, N.Y.

FINALLY, American environmentalists have a chance to get it right about wind power.

News broke this week of plans for the first big wind energy installation in the Adirondack Park. Ten towering turbines would sprout on the site of an old garnet mine in this tiny town. They'd be visible from the ski slopes at nearby Gore Mountain, and they'd be visible too from the deep wild of the Siamese Ponds Wilderness, one of the loneliest and most beautiful parts of New York's "forever wild" Adirondack Forest Preserve, the model for a century of American conservation. In fact, it would be hard to imagine a place better suited to illustrate the controversy that wind power is causing in this country.

I know the area well; I've lived most of my adult life in this part of the world, and I've skied and backpacked through the old mine and the woods around it, searched for (and found) lost hunters, encountered its bears and coyotes and fisher, sat on its anonymous peaks and knolls and watched the hawks circle beneath. In fact, this very wilderness - these yellow birches, the bear that left that berry-filled pile of scat, those particular loons laughing on that particular lake - led me to fall in love with the world outdoors.

Which is precisely why I hope those wind turbines rise on the skyline, and as soon as possible.

The planet faces many environmental challenges, but none of them come close to global warming. In the past month new studies have shown that the trigger point for severe climate change may be closer than previously thought, and the possible consequences even more severe. Just to slow the pace of this rapid warming will require every possible response, from more efficient cars to fewer sprawling suburbs to more trains to - well, the list is pretty well endless.

But wind power is one key component. Around the world it's the fastest growing source of electric generation, mostly because the technology, unlike solar power, has evolved to the point where it's cost-competitive with fossil fuels. The Danes already generate nearly a quarter of their power from the breeze; the Germans and the Spaniards and the British are rapidly heading in the same direction.

In America, however, the growth of wind power has been slower. Partly that's because the Bush administration's stance on climate change has meant scant government support for renewable energy. But partly, too, it's because environmentalists, particularly in the crowded East, haven't come to terms with this technology. In fights in Cape Cod, the mountains of Vermont, and the ridgelines of Maryland, they've divided into bitter factions over almost every turbine proposal. On one side, national environmental groups like Greenpeace have backed many installations, arguing that the dangers of global warming far outweigh any local effects. On the other side, neighbors of proposed wind farms have joined with local chapters of big conservation groups to fight the Statue-of-Liberty-size windmills on environmental grounds, chiefly arguing that they'll destroy the scenic beauty of their areas.

That may be provincial, but it's not entirely inaccurate. These newer, more efficient turbines are enormous; part of me doesn't want to gaze out from the summit of Peaked Mountain or the marsh at Thirteenth Lake and see an industrial project in the distance. In the best of all possible worlds, we'd do without them.

But it's not the best of all possible worlds. Right now, the choice is between burning fossil fuels and making the transition, as quickly as possible, to renewable power. There are more than 100 coal-fired power plants on the drawing board in this country right now; if they are built we will spew ever more carbon into the atmosphere. And that will endanger not only the residents of low-lying tropical nations that will be swamped by rising oceans, but also the residents of the Siamese Pond Wilderness. The birch and beech and maple that turn this place glorious in the fall won't survive a rapid warming; the computer modeling for this part of the country, conducted at the University of New Hampshire, shows that if we continue with business as usual there won't even be winter as we've known it here by century's end, just one long chilly mud season.

That is not to say that every Adirondack ridgeline should be turned into a wind farm. Most are unsuitable - they're on constitutionally protected state forest preserve, they have no roads or power lines nearby, it would be criminal to wreck them in the name of clean energy. But this site is precisely the sort of place environmentalists should applaud, and insist on: it's privately owned, and there's already a road and a high-voltage line. Because of the mine, much of the land was even zoned industrial, a rarity in the park.

So here environmentalists should step back and say, especially in this cradle of American wilderness, that the price is worth paying. To see that blade turning in the blue Adirondack sky - to see the breeze made visible - should be a sign of real hope for the future.


Bill McKibben, a visiting scholar at Middlebury College, is the author of the forthcoming "Wandering Home: A Long Walk Through America's Most Hopeful Region, Vermont's Champlain Valley and New York's Adirondacks."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[cowboyangel]

thank you Joel

[geekster]

China consumes most, report says

China has overtaken the United States in the consumption of basic agricultural and industrial goods, a new survey says.
It is now the world's biggest consumer of grain, meat, coal and steel. Only in oil does the US consume more.

China is well ahead of the US in the consumption of goods such as television sets, refrigerators and mobile phones.

The Washington-based Earth Policy Institute says that China is now an emerging economic superpower.

However, per capita consumption in China, the world's most populous country, remains far below that of the US.

According to the report:


64m tons of meat were consumed in China in 2004 compared to 38m tons in the US

258m tons of steel were used in China in 2003 compared to 104m in the US

China's factories and homes burned 40% more coal than in the US

The number of PCs in China is doubling every 28 months.
'Writing history'

The latest official figures for the Chinese economy, the sixth-largest in the world, show that it is growing even faster than expected.

It expanded by 9.5% in 2004, its highest rate for eight years, the figures show.

"China's eclipse of the United States as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," Lester Brown, the institute's president said.

"China is no longer just a developing country," he said. "It is an emerging economic superpower, one that is writing economic history".

The report said China's massive appetite for goods ranging from grain to platinum had placed it "at the centre of the world raw materials economy."

"Its voracious appetite for materials was driving up not only commodity prices but ocean shipping rates as well," it said.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/a ... 272577.stm

[cowboyangel]

US is still the top emitter of greenhouse gasses.

[joel the ornery]

US is still the top emitter of greenhouse gasses.

i think the point is "not for long"

[geekster]

US is still the top emitter of greenhouse gasses.

i think the point is "not for long"

Actually, we may no longer be. The lastest data available are for 2003. It is quite likely that China has now surpassed us in CO2 production, mostly from coal.

[cowboyangel]

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/CO2/2004.htm

ya...let's see who wins the race

[cowboyangel]

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Maya/

[geekster]

France's nuclear response to Kyoto
By Caroline Wyatt
BBC News correspondent in Paris


As the Kyoto Protocol comes into force, some scientists are suggesting that nuclear power could make an unexpected comeback as a "cleaner" alternative to conventional energy sources.


They point to France, which derives some 78% of its energy from its 58 nuclear reactors, which operate with little or no public opposition.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, is a big fan of nuclear energy.

He recently told a nuclear safety conference in Moscow that nuclear energy in France was not only the most economic choice, but also the most environmentally friendly.

While nuclear power does have its environmental opponents in France, they are far outweighed by friends of the nuclear energy lobby, which numbers some surprising allies.

Solution?

They include French environmentalist Bruno Comby, who has written several books including one titled Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy.


If well managed, nuclear energy is very clean and does not contribute to the greenhouse effect
Bruno Comby
Environmentalist

He also founded Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy (EFN), an international association aimed at promoting nuclear energy.

EFN believes that environmental opposition to nuclear energy is based on a misunderstanding.

"If well-managed," Bruno Comby says, "nuclear energy is very clean, does not create polluting gases in the atmosphere, produces very little waste and does not contribute to the greenhouse effect."

His beliefs are echoed by the independent scientist James Lovelock, an environmentalist and so-called green.

As a lifelong supporter of nuclear energy, he recently argued that civilisation was in imminent danger from global warming and must use nuclear power - "the one safe, available energy source" - to avoid catastrophe.

French energy providers point out that alternative sources of energy remain uneconomical compared with nuclear energy.

A recent British report by the Royal Academy of Engineering showed that the nuclear option was the second cheapest means of generating electricity, at $0.043 (2.3p) per kilowatt hour, after gas at $0.04 (2.2p), while wind power cost more than $0.09 (5p) per kWh.

Growth in emissions

However, despite its championing of nuclear energy, France is among the European countries unlikely to hit its Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse emissions.

Each EU country pledged to reduce its 1990 greenhouse gas emissions by 8% by 2010.


By the end of 2003, France was off-target by almost 10%, with only Sweden and the UK expected to meet their commitments.

For France, the target represents 552 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year.

Despite using mainly nuclear power, France is still looking for ways to reduce its other emissions.

While carbon dioxide emissions have been brought down 15.5% from 1990 to 2001, and French industry has reduced emissions by 25% and energy generation companies by 22%, emissions through transport and house heating increased over the same period.

Carbon dioxide emissions from transport have also risen more than 26% since 1990, and emissions from house heating more than 12%.

These last two sectors produced 47% of greenhouse gases emitted in France in 2001.

So while nuclear energy may be part of the solution for France, on its own it is not enough to live up to its Kyoto promises.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/e ... 276461.stm

[joel the ornery]

Corks

The existence of more than forty species of birds, and other wildlife is in peril. Their survival depends on whether or not the wine cork survives. And yes, by that, I mean the stoppers used in wine bottles.

Corks has been used since the early 1600s when the Benedictine monk Dom Perignon first used it to seal his bottles of sparkling wine. Today plastic threatens to replace natural cork.

Natural wine corks are made from the bark of a type of oak tree found in the western Mediterranean, mostly in Portugal, Spain, and Algeria.

All of the cork harvested in the Mediterranean is sold to Portugal, where a handful of producers make half of the world's annual supply of wine corks - thirteen billion to be exact.

To make a cork the manufacturers strip the bark from the trees, season it for six months or so, then boil it to kill mold and insects. The corks dry for three weeks in a warehouse, then are sliced into strips from which corks are punched out and polished. But then the trouble starts.

Traditionally they bleach corks in chlorine to kill bacteria and to improved the cork's appearance. What can happen, though, is a special mold can grow from the leftover chlorine.

It is this mold that has given plastic an inroad. The mold, called trichloranisole or TCA for short, can ruin a bottle of wine. It makes it taste like like a cellar, or damp cardboard. It doesn't take much: A single tablespoon would destroy all the annual wine production of the US. Plastic corks, of course, don't form this mold.

This battle of natural cork versus plastic has serious consequences. Eighty-five percent of the world's wine corks come from Portugal. This accounts for three percent of their GDP. A huge number of natural corks are still used, only one bottle in twenty has a plastic stopper, but the trend is toward plastic.

The battle isn't only for the well being of Portugal's economy. The increasing use of plastic stoppers puts wildlife at risk. For centuries the cork woodlands in Spain and Portugal have provided shelter for many species of birds. The cork forests provide sturdy, tranquil nesting sites, while the grasslands are ideal hunting grounds. Some birds have adapted to nesting almost solely in cork trees.

Cork farmers carefully nurture and sustain their trees because it takes twenty-five years for the bark to be good enough to harvest, after that they can harvest only every nine year. But if natural wine corks are no longer economically viable, the cork trees are not likely to be replanted as they naturally die out. Leaving large sections of natural forest land prey to other economic uses that don't need trees.

So, to save an endangered bird, go to your local wine shop and buy a bottle with a real cork.

Copyright 2005 William S. Hammack Enterprises

[joel the ornery]

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/CO2/2004.htm

ya...let's see who wins the race

While the Kyoto Protocol provides a crucial starting point for reducing carbon emissions, efforts over the long term will be futile without a commitment from the United States as well as from developing nations like China and India.

[cowboyangel]

well sure..I never disputed that. China is one to watch. I was in Shanghai in 97...most polluted city I've ever seen....worse than Mexico even...if you can believe that....

[joel the ornery]

Take a Walk on the Wild Side
By JIM DOHERTY

Spring Green, Wis.

WHEN the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was created a little more than four decades ago, the aim was to preserve, intact, what one of the original planners called a "completely undisturbed" cross-section of northeastern Alaska's spectacular mountains, rivers and tundra. Ever since, oil companies have been eager to tap the rich formations they believe lie under its ecologically fragile coastal plain. This spring, the struggle between conservationists and developers over the nearly 20-million-acre refuge promises to heat up as Congress considers an energy bill that would open it for exploration and drilling.

But aren't the creatures whose welfare the refuge is supposed to protect - all those grizzly bears, caribou, musk oxen and wolves - entitled to participate in the process, too? Don't they have a right to be heard? I started thinking about this one summer day a few years ago after a bush pilot deposited my wife and me with our backpacks on a bumpy meadow not far from the refuge's border with the Yukon Territory. We were making camp late one afternoon beside a fast-running stream where two valleys came together. Although it was mid-August, the barren peaks of the Brooks Range were already dusted with snow and the willows bunched up here and there along the stream had turned bright yellow.

I was boiling water for tea when I had the feeling I was being watched. Sure enough, we had company. A grizzly and her two burly youngsters were shambling toward us through the brush.

By then we had encountered a number of grizzlies. Each time they had fled. These were not so inclined. As they approached on all fours, the fur on their humps glowed with the fiery hues of the sunset behind them. When they stopped, we held our breath. They seemed perplexed, perhaps angry. Had they been planning to spend the night there? It would have appealed to them for the same reasons it did to us: good water, nice view.

Then they plodded off, settling down on a hillside a hundred yards away. Through binoculars, I watched the mother recline against a boulder. The cubs curled up beside her. All three peered intently in our direction.

Decisions, decisions. Should we risk cooking a meal? We decided against it. What to do with the food pack? I hid it under a pile of rocks nearby. It contained only enough provisions for breakfast; we had cached our main pack elsewhere.

It was the longest night of our lives. After the wind picked up, it was impossible for us to hear what was going on outside the tent. I lay awake pestered by second thoughts. We should have brought a guide. We should have brought a cellphone. We should have brought a gun.

Then I recalled a conversation I'd had the previous week in Fairbanks with Ave Thayer, a tall, taciturn outdoorsman who had been the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's first manager. Mr. Thayer frequently took solitary treks in the Alaskan wilds, unarmed and unafraid. When I asked why he didn't pack a pistol or rifle to guard against bears, he said that he was better off without one. People who carry firearms, he explained, are apt to feel overconfident and behave in an incautious manner that bears may perceive as threatening.

Mulling Mr. Thayer's point over in my tent, I concluded that, if he was right, grizzlies must have a kind of sixth sense that enables them to divine human intentions, and react accordingly. In which case, I reasoned, my wife and I were safe because, as any bear could tell, we meant no harm and were scared half to death. Thus reassured, I fell asleep.

In the morning, our neighbors were gone. So, it turned out, was our food pack - a small matter. The important thing was, we were still there. The creatures had given us the once-over and left us alone. Unwilling to push our luck, we broke camp, moved on to other adventures and then returned home to regale family and friends with our story about sleeping with bears. But it's more than a story. It's a blueprint for giving the refuge's wildlife a vote on oil production there.

Call it the grizzly test. Require all would-be developers to take it. If you want to drill for oil in the refuge, first you have to spend a couple of weeks roughing it there. No guns, no phones, no guides. Just you and the bears. Let them look into your heart. If they're reassured by what they see, you pass; if they feel threatened, well, according to Ave Thayer, there are worse ways to go.

Those who survive the grizzly test earn the right to submit their drilling proposals to Congress. But who knows? Perhaps a solitary stint in the refuge is enough to make even the most avaricious developers think twice. Once they've discovered for themselves how magnificent the refuge is; once they've watched caribou lope across the tundra, listened to wolves howl, beheld the mesmerizing effects of light and shadow on limestone mountains riddled with caves and turreted with hoodoos - once, in short, they understand why so many folks consider the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sacred ground, they might undergo a change of heart and decide to leave it the way it is. Which is to say, undisturbed.


Jim Doherty is a former editor at Smithsonian magazine.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Apollonaris Zeus]

An excitable boy he was!

But it shows meds do have a place on the playa!

[cowboyangel]

I prophesie that a large steel structure will be melted by thermite on a desert somewhere in a universe far far away, and big enormous ranger will fall to his knees in repentance and revelation!

[joel the ornery]

I prophesie that a large steel structure will be melted by thermite on a desert somewhere in a universe far far away, and big enormous ranger will fall to his knees in repentance and revelation!

are you going to be there under it when it falls?

[cowboyangel]

I prophesie that a large steel structure will be melted by thermite on a desert somewhere in a universe far far away, and big enormous ranger will fall to his knees in repentance and revelation!

are you going to be there under it when it falls?

howja guess kiln brain?