Edglings

Coco Chanel Interview, 1959 - Chris

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:11:24 -0500

Coco Chanel Interview, 1959 - Chris:

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Climate Scientists Slam Heartland for “Spreading Misinformation” and “Personally Attacking Climate Scientists to Further Its Goals” - Joe Romm

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:34:53 -0500

Climate Scientists Slam Heartland for “Spreading Misinformation” and “Personally Attacking Climate Scientists to Further Its Goals” - Joe Romm:

Scientists Who Had Emails Stolen Ask Heartland Institute to End Assault on Climate Science

Heartland Institute documents revealed plans to dupe children and ruin their future, as Climate Progress reported earlier this week.

Now, seven leading climatologists victimized by the Climategate email theft in 2009 have published this letter in the Guardian:

An Open Letter to the Heartland Institute

As scientists who have had their emails stolen, posted online and grossly misrepresented, we can appreciate the difficulties the Heartland Institute is currently experiencing following the online posting of the organization’s internal documents earlier this week. However, we are greatly disappointed by their content, which indicates the organization is continuing its campaign to discredit mainstream climate science and to undermine the teaching of well-established climate science in the classroom.

We know what it feels like to have private information stolen and posted online via illegal hacking. It happened to climate researchers in 2009 and again in 2011. Personal emails were culled through and taken out of context before they were posted online. In 2009, the Heartland Institute was among the groups that spread false allegations about what these stolen emails said. Despite multiple independent investigations, which demonstrated that allegations against scientists were false, the Heartland Institute continued to attack scientists based on the stolen emails. When more stolen emails were posted online in 2011, the Heartland Institute again pointed to their release and spread false claims about scientists.

So although we can agree that stealing documents and posting them online is not an acceptable practice, we would be remiss if we did not point out that the Heartland Institute has had no qualms about utilizing and distorting emails stolen from scientists.

We hope the Heartland Institute will heed its own advice to “think about what has happened” and recognize how its attacks on science and scientists have helped poison the debate over climate change policy. The Heartland Institute has chosen to undermine public understanding of basic scientific facts and personally attack climate researchers rather than engage in a civil debate about climate change policy options.

These are the facts: Climate change is occurring. Human activity is the primary cause of recent climate change. Climate change is already disrupting many human and natural systems. The more heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that go into the atmosphere, the more severe those disruptions will become. Major scientific assessments from the Royal Society, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, United States Global Change Research Program and other authoritative sources agree on these points.

Here’s the rest of the letter and the signatories:

What businesses, policymakers, advocacy groups and citizens choose to do in response to those facts should be informed by the science. But those decisions are also necessarily informed by economic, ethical, ideological, and other considerations. While the Heartland Institute is entitled to its views on policy, we object to its practice of spreading misinformation about climate research and personally attacking climate scientists to further its goals.

We hope the Heartland Institute will begin to play a more constructive role in the policy debate. Refraining from misleading attacks on climate science and climate researchers would be a welcome first step toward having an honest, fact-based debate about the policy responses to climate change.

Ray Bradley, PhD, Director of the Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts

David Karoly, PhD, ARC Federation Fellow and Professor, University of Melbourne, Australia

Michael Mann, PhD, Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University

Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona

Ben Santer, PhD, Research Scientist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Gavin Schmidt, PhD, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Kevin Trenberth, ScD, Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis Section, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Hear! Hear!

House Passes Section of Transportation Bill Consisting Only of Earmarks to Big Oil - Public Lands Team

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:05:24 -0500

House Passes Section of Transportation Bill Consisting Only of Earmarks to Big Oil - Public Lands Team:

In its latest transportation bill, the House of Representatives gave a big valentine gift to Big Oil

by Jessica Goad, cross-posted from ThinkProgress Green

This week, the House of Representatives passed part of the behemoth transportation bill it is considering over the next month on a 237-187 vote. This section consisted solely of earmarks to Big Oil including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opening Florida coasts to offshore drilling, a plan to develop oil shale (which isn’t even commercially viable), and building the Keystone XL pipeline. A Congressional Budget Office analysis shows that the drilling proposals together generate only approximately $2 billion, far less than the $50 billion funding gap needed for transportation projects over the coming years.

Even if the drilling could pay for the costs, linking oil and gas development to long-term highway funding is just bad public policy, as Ryan Alexander of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense has explained:

Paying for a couple of years of transportation funding with expected revenues from an increase in oil and gas drilling that will likely take many years to get rolling is not a responsible budget approach… It’s like buying the Ferrari tomorrow because you are sure a raise is coming sometime in the future.”

Originally the transportation bill (H.R. 7, American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act of 2012) was one large bill that included transportation funding, drilling, and changes to federal pensions. However, Republicans realized that they would not have the votes for the bill, and so split it into three bills to be voted on separately that will then be spliced back together and sent to the Senate. This was an unusual procedural move designed to shield Republicans from having to take tough votes that won’t be popular with their constituents but also force the bill through.

What is most galling is that none of these bills alone or combined would be able to pay for the costs of transportation generated by this bill. Traditionally, improvements to roads, bridges, and public transportation are funded by the federal gasoline tax, but GOP leaders in the House are taking the unprecedented step to tie funding to an unnecessary and ineffective increase in fossil fuel production. Since it doesn’t even begin to fund our highways, the bill can be considered nothing more than a series of earmarks for Big Oil.

The proposal to fund oil shale from Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is a particularly nasty earmark. The Congressional Budget Office found the bill would generate no revenue over 10 years and in the short term would cost money to implement the leasing program. The Checks and Balance Project detailed this “boondoogle” in an online ad.

Last night’s vote saw some crossing of party lines, particularly 11 Florida Republicans angered by proposals to drill off of the state’s coasts who voted no on the bill’s passage.

Jessica Goad is Manager of Research and Outreach for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

volume rendered slope - daniel

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:03:55 -0500

volume rendered slope - daniel:

film by Jacob Sutton [2012]

Open Thread Plus Toles Cartoon - Joe Romm

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:49:46 -0500

Open Thread Plus Toles Cartoon - Joe Romm:

A cyber-penny for your cyber-thoughts.

Hello little fella http://bit.ly/zCDRFz

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 08:29:34 -0500

Hello little fella http://bit.ly/zCDRFz

NG: Local Chambers of Commerce: Not Born for Ourselves Alone - Chris Mead

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:26:05 -0500

NG: Local Chambers of Commerce: Not Born for Ourselves Alone - Chris Mead:

Most people are more interested in organized crime than in organized business. Chambers of commerce do not often attract headlines except for the occasional, inevitable dustup with a public authority. For that reason, this April’s 100 year anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce may pass without much public attention. This would be a shame, as groups of companies have left their fingerprints all over the American civic landscape, and were busy even at the birth of Tom Donohue’s organization in 1912.

President William Howard Taft, who called the U.S. Chamber into existence, was a frequent visitor to local chambers of commerce. He once joked that even towns without any commerce had a chamber or a board of trade. Indeed, during the Progressive Era these groups were proliferating wildly, and filled with excitement .

Behind much of the excitement stood a man named Ryerson Ritchie. Starting in 1893, he turned the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce into the most dynamic civic organization in the country. One of its hundreds of activities was to vet the charities that approached its members, a policy that eventually led to its introduction of federated giving in 1913, which in turn led to Community Chests and the United Way.

Ritchie, whose personality was as difficult as his ideas were brilliant, moved rapidly from chamber to chamber, becoming something of a Johnny Appleseed of the chamber movement. Soon dozens of business organizations were proclaiming, Ritchie-like, that they weren’t old-fashioned boosters and “factory grabbers” any more. Instead they were civic transformers, improving education, city government, city planning, you name it. The Boston Chamber of Commerce even had a committee seeking a cure for the common cold.

Chambers seized the innovations of commission government (initiated in Galveston in 1901 after the disastrous hurricane) and city manager administration (first set up in Staunton, Va. in 1908), spreading them into dozens, then hundreds, of communities. These were seen as businesslike ways to improve the efficiency of local government .

City planning was the rage, too. The Washington Board of Trade was a prime mover in setting up a commission that, among other things, got the ugly railroad tracks removed from the Mall and helped set up the capital’s park system. The Cleveland Chamber enlisted the eminent planner Daniel Burnham to help create the city’s Public Square. And in Chicago, the Commercial Club and the Merchants Association united to fund and publish Burnham’s magnificent Plan of Chicago in 1909, considered by many to be the greatest achievement in this field for that era.

Business organizations in this period were remarkably optimistic about their communities and their abilities. The president of the San Francisco Chamber wrote after the earthquake and fire of 1906, “it could have been worse.” In nearby Santa Rosa, a group of merchants formed a chamber after the quake and used the opportunity to widen streets for the new-fangled horseless carriages. (The same chamber, including its founder, Frank Doyle Jr., would lead the push for the Golden Gate Bridge in the 1920s.)

In the capital of commerce, the New York Merchants’ Association sprang up like a weed after Manhattan, Brooklyn, and nearby areas became an expanded New York City in 1898. The NYMA, which soon would have thousands of members, fought against everything from West Side “rowdies” to the common house fly. It asked its members in bold print, “Are you doing your share?”

In 1906, a much older chamber, the New York Chamber of Commerce, explored fundamental changes to the nation’s financial system. But because a New York-led banking reform movement would be a political nonstarter, the Chicago Association of Commerce (an aggressive new chamber, founded in 1904) was asked to set up the key lobbying organization. The effort was then folded into the new U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1912, and led to success: the following year, President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act.

Small cities were active and innovative, too. The chamber in Binghamton, N.Y., created a new bureau in 1911 to coordinate business, academic, and federal assistance for farmers. Its “farm bureau” concept spread to the chambers in Watertown, Cortland, and elsewhere. This movement soon became independent, although still calling itself the Farm Bureau, and by the 1920s involved more farmers than did any other organization in the nation.

Other chambers did much to change their communities. With Galveston devastated by the 1900 hurricane, the Houston Chamber of Commerce redoubled its ancient efforts to beat a better path to the sea. In order to get the needed money for its Houston Ship Channel, the chamber led one of the first major efforts to raise local matching funds to go with federal appropriations. Meanwhile, one state away, the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce engineered a coup of its own: getting the state to move the capital from Guthrie to Oklahoma City in 1910.

Chambers were prime movers behind the “good roads” movement of this period. Indeed, a U.S. Chamber expert, G. Grosvenor Dawe, noted in 1912 that an explosion in the number of chambers over the past 15 years had coincided with the growth of the good roads movement. Why? It was simple, he reported. Towns had to have access to the nation’s road network or they would be bypassed by the new automobiles. Business people were among the first to see the need for connection, and they organized into chambers so as to push, sometimes desperately, for the asphalt.

Even in the do-gooder Progressive Era, the old chamber urge to promote and market the community never completely disappeared. No one could top the Los Angeles Chamber’s Frank Wiggins, who would later be called by Life magazine “the greatest city booster who ever lived.” It was his chamber that sent out the brochure – bragging about the community’s 350 days of sunshine per year – that caught the attention of Colonel William Selig in Chicago. Selig in 1907 dispatched a team to Wiggins’s city that would bring a new industry to California: motion pictures. Three years later, the Los Angeles Chamber grabbed another sun-loving field of enterprise, putting on the first major air show in the United States and thereby “virtually hijacked the newly developing aviation industry in its entirety to Southern California,” according to historian Kevin Starr.

Wiggins was a genius, but the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce knew something about promotion, too. For example, it seized on Mark Twain’s description of the territory as “the loveliest fleet of islands anchored in any ocean.” Moreover, it set up a display on Atlantic City’s teeming boardwalk and showed off a drink that Chamber Trustee James Dole had just figured out how to bottle: pineapple juice. The drink was an instant sensation. Dole produced 2,000 test bottles in 1909 and 2 million the following year, creating an effective liquid advertisement for Twain’s paradise.

In this time of optimism, new horizons, and big dreams, one thing went terribly wrong. On its maiden voyage, the New York-bound passenger ship Titanic struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, sinking the next day. One of those on the ship was Isidor Straus, a Macy’s executive and a member and former vice president of the New York Chamber. Although offered a spot on a lifeboat, he decided to stay aboard the ship and let younger men or others live. His wife Ida refused to leave him, and they went down together.

The Straus’s deaths were perfectly in line with the motto of the New York Chamber: “Not born for ourselves alone.” Hundreds of poems were written about them (and indeed the couple was depicted in James Cameron’s movie, The Titanic). Three other members of the chamber also died in the North Atlantic, including an Astor and a Guggenheim.

One week after the Titanic sank, on April 22, 1912, 700 business people, led by Chicago banker Harry Wheeler, formed the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. All of a sudden, the New York Chamber became the second most important business organization in the land. It would still have great moments, such as in helping create the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, but most of its greatest deeds were behind it. It would no longer be the place where, as admirer President Theodore Roosevelt had written in 1902, “no [other] body of men can render a greater service.”

Other local chambers, too, were giving something up. But unlike the separate states that came together to make up the United States, the local chambers did not lose any freedom of action. They did relinquish a bit of their call on the attention of the nation. From now on, for many Americans, “the chamber” meant the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

For most chambers, this was a small price to pay for having an organization with the muscle to stand up to organized labor and even, occasionally, to Uncle Sam. And over the succeeding century, the local business groups would cooperate frequently with their national organization. The project didn’t work out too badly: the coming 100 years would bring American industry and commerce to unprecedented, almost undreamed-of levels of wealth and power.

And what of all that ambitious, local civic spirit that animated so many people and groups and chambers of commerce in 1912? Has it disappeared in pervasive national or international organizations and institutions and corporations? Have we given up so much money and responsibility to governments that we are incapable of doing really ambitious things together, on a voluntary basis?

Perhaps, for the next century, the big questions will not be about institutions, but about us. The New York Chamber first confronted such issues at its founding in 1768. Are we, indeed, not born for ourselves alone? And if so, what will we do for the places where we live?

- - - -

Chris Mead is senior vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (Alexandria, Va.), an association of 1,150 chambers of commerce. He is working on a history of chambers, The Magicians of Main Street.

Photo of the Albany, GA Chamber of Commerce building by Flickr user The Suss-man (Mike).

JWT: Weekly Roundup: Adulthood delayed, perspectives on Pinterest and BYOD - Marian Berelowitz - New York

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:37:44 -0500

JWT: Weekly Roundup: Adulthood delayed, perspectives on Pinterest and BYOD - Marian Berelowitz - New York:

-Major luxury brands enjoyed a “blockbuster” 2011 and expect an even better 2012, according to The Wall Street Journal, as “emerging markets power seemingly relentless demand.” The Journal also reports that Chinese consumers are losing interest in fakes, a shift that’s driving expansion plans in China among foreign companies.

-“Down and out” is becoming the new normal for British youth facing long-term unemployment, reports The New York Times.

-The Atlantic looks at the ways in which the recession has caused young people to postpone adulthood.

-A Financial Times special report on the Future of the Company argues that the corporate world’s biggest challenge today is to “unlock the productive power of people.”

-The BBC’s Future of Work series includes Q&As with the president of Microsoft International and a Gartner Fellow.

-Interracial marriage has reached a new high in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal, noting that it has “evolved from being illegal to being a taboo to being merely unusual.”

-The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at modern courtship rituals among Millennials.

-The Economist interviews Eric Klinenberg about his book, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone.

-The New York Times looks at how the “age of big data” will see a revolution in data-driven discovery and decision-making across industries.

-The Wall Street Journal outlines how board game manufacturers are integrating tablets and smartphones into play.

-The world’s 50 most innovative companies, according to Fast Company.

-Tech giants like Google and Amazon are looking to “own every waking moment,” selling devices as well as content and even accompanying ads, reports The New York Times.

-Some retailers are giving F-commerce an “F,” reports Bloomberg.

-The BBC looks at the rise of BYOD (bring your own device)—one of our 100 Things to Watch in 2012—in the workplace.

-Adweek looks at how location-based technology will redefine behavioral targeting.

-Ad Age reports on a global Accenture study that found consumers are more satisfied with customer service yet are switching brands at a high rate.

-The New York Times’ David Pogue investigates the Pinterest phenomenon, and The Wall Street Journal reports that while the site has seen huge recent growth, Pinterest has no business model as yet. Grant McCracken sees it as a source for free market research.

-The New York Times discusses how Facebook and other Web successes will struggle to balance user interests with the demands of their business models.

-With coconut water a hot category, as we note in our new food report, The Wall Street Journal looks at the battle among the brands selling it.

-The Association of National Advertisers’ “TV and Everything Video” Forum spotlighted what’s changing for marketers in the realm of video content.

-Sports Illustrated cover girl Kate Upton prompts a look at how the Web has changed fame from author David Weinberger, on CNN.com.

-New data confirms the advent of the post-PC era, showing that Web traffic from iPads and iPhones has surpassed that from Macs, reports ReadWriteWeb.

Senate Climate Hawks Deliver Speech Calling for U.S. Action on the “Planetary Crisis of Global Warming” - Stephen Lacey

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:04:22 -0500

Senate Climate Hawks Deliver Speech Calling for U.S. Action on the “Planetary Crisis of Global Warming” - Stephen Lacey:

There was a beacon in the smog surrounding the U.S. Capitol building this week.

While the House and Senate pushed for arctic drilling, attempted to revive the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and tried to delay rules on mercury emissions standards — all while failing to extend a key tax credit for wind — four climate hawk Senators attempted to put these actions into a powerful climate context.

Standing on the Senate floor for an hour on Wednesday, Senators Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Al Franken (D-MN), Tom Udall (D-NM) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a wide-ranging colloquy calling on the President and Congress to address the “enormous crisis” of global warming.

Here’s a great clip featuring Senators Sanders, Franken and Whitehouse:

Senator Whitehouse has delivered three great speeches on the Senate floor about global warming since October. During his last delivery in December, he was joined by Senator Franken. This time around, they brought in two more climate hawks, Senators Udall and Sanders.

Here’s a piece of the Senator Sanders’ speech:

According to virtually the entire scientific community in the United States of America and around the world, according to virtually every agency of the United States government, global warming is real and it is significantly caused by human activity. And people are mistaken if they believe that the impact of global warming will just be in decades to come. We are seeing very negative impacts today, and what the scientific community tells us, if we do not begin to reverse greenhouse gas emissions, those problems in America and around the world will only get worse.

Now, if there is a silver lining in all of that is that, Mr. President, right now, we know how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We know how to move to energy efficiency, mass transportation, automobiles. We get 50, 60, 100 miles per gallon. We know how to weatherize our homes so that we can cut significantly the use of fuel. And what we also know is that in the middle of this recession, if we move in that direction, energy efficiency and sustainable energy, we can create over a period of years millions of good-paying jobs.

So let me conclude by saying this. We now have the opportunity to be in a win-win-win situation. We can save consumers money. We can significantly reduce greenhouse gases and protect our planet, and we can create substantial numbers of jobs that we desperately need in the midst of this terrible recession.

When is Obama going to talk like this?

Radiohead “OK Computer” Floppy Disk, 1997 - Chris

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:12:38 -0500

Radiohead “OK Computer” Floppy Disk, 1997 - Chris:

JWT: Data point: Consumers seek third-space experiences around food - Will Palley - New York

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:08:17 -0500

JWT: Data point: Consumers seek third-space experiences around food - Will Palley - New York:

With more people buying online, retail spaces will increasingly serve as a “third space” that’s only partly about shopping (one of our Trends for 2011). In the food sector, as online services such as FreshDirect and Seamless.com expand, consumers are seeking real-world spaces where they can not only eat or buy food but meet people and enjoy unique experiences, as we found in a survey conducted for our February trend report on food.

Our study, which polled 1,270 adults in the U.K. and the U.S., found that Millennials are most eager for third-space experiences at food outlets. More than 7 in 10 said they would be interested in special events at grocery stores or restaurants, and more than half liked the idea of communal tables and meeting other diners at restaurants. Gen Xers are somewhat less interested, while Boomers lag Millennials by more than 20 points on each question.

Some retailers are pitching themselves as more than just a place to pick up supplies, like Whole Foods, which recently debuted a series of comedy videos on YouTube that showcase the store as a spot for socializing and matchmaking. See our trend report, “What’s Cooking?” for more on how the idea of the third space is manifesting in the food sector.

Project Syndicate: FRANKEL: Obama’s Recovery? - Jeffrey Frankel

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:07:17 -0500

Project Syndicate: FRANKEL: Obama’s Recovery? - Jeffrey Frankel: FRANKEL: Obama’s Recovery?

CAMBRIDGE – With November’s election in the United States fast approaching, the Republican candidates seeking to challenge President Barack Obama claim that his policies have done nothing to support recovery from the recession that he inherited in January 2009. If anything, they claim, his fiscal stimulus, the bank bailouts, and US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s aggressive monetary policy made matters worse.

Obama’s Democratic defenders counter that his policies staved off a second Great Depression, and that the US economy has been steadily working its way out of a deep hole ever since. Middle-ground observers, meanwhile, typically conclude that one cannot settle the debate, because one cannot know what would have happened otherwise.

Project Syndicate: WP: Self and the City - Daniel A. Bell, Avner de-Shalit

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:21:59 -0500

Project Syndicate: WP: Self and the City - Daniel A. Bell, Avner de-Shalit:

WP: Self and the City
Today, when more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, many critics worry that people are losing their sense of self and community. In fact, cities may be the key to empowering identity in the twenty-first century.

It’s the One-Year Anniversary of House Solyndra Investigation, But the Traditional Gift of Paper Seems Superfluous - Climate Guest Blogger

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:19:46 -0500

It’s the One-Year Anniversary of House Solyndra Investigation, But the Traditional Gift of Paper Seems Superfluous - Climate Guest Blogger:

After 185,000 pages of documents, ten hearings, and two subpoenas, we still haven’t found any evidence improper behavior

by Richard W. Caperton

Today, the fruitless investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee turns one year old. Sadly, fruit is the traditional gift on the fourth anniversary. So what do you give on a first-anniversary to someone who already demanded all the paper they could ever need for the rest of their lives?

On February 17, 2011, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu requesting all DOE communication about the decision to issue a loan guarantee to Solyndra. Thus began the most over-hyped, over-covered, and over-examined stories in recent memory — including Tim Tebow.

Since Upton and Stearns sent their letter, the House has received 185,000 pages of documents, held ten hearings, heard from 26 witnesses, and issued two subpoenas. Despite this, they have yet to find any evidence of improper behavior.

The key figure in the House investigation has been Stearns. Not since Ponce de Leon went searching for the Fountain of Youth has a Floridian led a less successful hunt for an illusive prize. To be fair to de Leon, at least he knew what he was looking for and had he found it, his youth would have been restored. Stearns didn’t even know what a loan guarantee was as recently as October, and this investigation is definitely getting old.

It’s not as if the House Republicans are the only people pursuing this story. The mainstream press has devoted countless column inches and hours of coverage to the Solyndra non-story, while virtually ignoring real scandals that are a full order of magnitude bigger in dollar terms.

While House Republicans have wasted day after day in hearings, independent analyses continue to find that the DOE loan guarantee program is actually exceeding expectations. Most recently, Herb Allison — John McCain’s former national finance chair — led a team of accountants and auditors who found that the Program will cost a full $2 billion less than DOE initially expected. This follows analyses by Bloomberg Government, who found “The focus on Solyndra is not proportional to its impact,” and the Congressional Research Service, who found that the great majority of guarantees were extremely low risk.

Instead of wasting more staff time and taxpayer dollars on a fishing expedition for political scandal, it’s time for the House to do things that can actually move clean energy forward and put Americans back to work, like extending the Production Tax Credit, passing a clean energy standard, and creating a Clean Energy Deployment Administration. That would be a gift all Americans would welcome.

Richard W. Caperton is director of clean energy finance at the Center for American Progress.

Project Syndicate: ECON WEEKLY: Who Should Lead the World Bank? - Arvind Subramanian, Devesh Kapur

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:52:07 -0500

Project Syndicate: ECON WEEKLY: Who Should Lead the World Bank? - Arvind Subramanian, Devesh Kapur:

ECON WEEKLY: Who Should Lead the World Bank?
With Robert Zoellick departing in June as President of the World Bank, the Bank requires a new selection process that will enable it to choose the most qualified person, regardless of nationality. More importantly, it needs to identify the qualifications needed to run the Bank at a time when its role must be adapted to far-reaching global changes.

Does Fox News Believe Himalayas are Located at Earth’s Poles? - Climate Guest Blogger

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:19:18 -0500

Does Fox News Believe Himalayas are Located at Earth’s Poles? - Climate Guest Blogger:

Scientist calls coverage of his research by Murdoch media outlet “misleading” and “inaccurate”

by Shuana Theel, reposted from Media Matters

Once again, a scientist has had to correct a Fox News distortion after the network’s flagship nightly news program misrepresented a study to claim “the Earth’s polar ice is melting less than previously thought.” Dr. John Wahr, who helped lead the research, said via email that Fox’s coverage is “misleading” and “inaccurate.”

The research from the University of Colorado Boulder — the ”first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise” – found that the land ice shrunk by nearly 150 billion tons every year between 2003-2010 (mostly from Greenland and Antarctica), adding 12 millimeters to sea level rise.

While the study found that glaciers in the Himalayan region were melting less than ground-based estimates had indicated, Professor Wahr said “our estimate of polar ice loss is roughly the same as previous estimates,” contrary to Fox News’ report. Wahr observed that Fox seemed to believe that the Himalayas are located at the Earth’s poles. They are not.

Speaking to The Guardian last week, Wahr said: “Our results and those of everyone else show we are losing a huge amount of water into the oceans every year … People should be just as worried about the melting of the world’s ice as they were before.” But somehow Fox came up with this:

BRET BAIER (host): Worried about polar ice melting? You may not be after a quick break.

Shuana Theel is a researcher with Media Matters for America. This piece was originally published at Media Matters.

Cape Wind Signs Contract to Sell More Electicity, Potentially Saving Ratepayers $217 Million in Four Years - Climate Guest Blogger

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:19:11 -0500

Cape Wind Signs Contract to Sell More Electicity, Potentially Saving Ratepayers $217 Million in Four Years - Climate Guest Blogger:

Big win for nation’s first offshore wind farm; big loss for a Koch Brother

Will Cape Wind move forward? The developer now has contracts for 75% of electricity.

by Michael Conathan and Kiley Kroh

In a huge step toward making the nation’s first offshore wind farm a reality, Massachusetts officials announced Wednesday that energy companies Northeast Utilities and NStar have agreed to buy more than a quarter of the power produced by the Cape Wind offshore wind farm. The Cape Wind power purchase agreement is “one portion of a broader agreement that Attorney General Martha Coakley said would save an estimated $217 million over four years for customers of NStar and Western Massachusetts Electric Co., which is currently owned by Northeast Utilities.”

With 50 percent of its power previously under contract to National Grid, the terms of the merger agreement between the two companies means Cape Wind will have a buyer for more than three-quarters of its electricity, paving a clearer path for the company to generate the investments that will allow construction to begin. The project received the green light to begin construction from the Department of the Interior last year.

The project has been more than a decade in the making, due in no small part to opposition led by Bill Koch, the founder of fossil fuel giant Oxbow Carbon, a company that spent over a million dollars lobbying against Cape Wind in the past.

Koch is described on Oxbow’s website as “an international businessman, chemical engineer, art collector, and world-class sailor.” Much of Koch’s yachting occurs on sojourns from his waterfront mansion in a gated island country club community overlooking the Nantucket Sound location where Cape Wind’s turbines are slated for construction.

And yes, he’s the brother of David and Charles Koch – the leading funders of disinformation and political action against greenhouse reductions and clean energy, including a bogus study about the economics of offshore wind energy in New Jersey.

Cape Wind’s backers, on the other hand, include the 76% of Massachusetts residents who, in a November 2010 poll said they were willing to pay higher electricity rates for renewable energy, and the 57% of Cape Cod residents who, in 2009, said they supported the project.

According to Cape Wind CEO, Jim Gordon:

“NSTAR and the Patrick Administration are helping ensure that Cape Wind will supply up to 500,000 homes with locally harvested renewable energy and create hundreds of new jobs. While Massachusetts may be at the end of the energy pipeline for oil, coal and natural gas, we do have an abundant and inexhaustible supply of offshore wind and we will harness it for a better energy future.”

In light of the late 2010 announcement from Bluewater Wind/NRG that it was backing out of a power purchase agreement for a wind farm off the coast of Delaware, this announcement is big news not only for Cape Wind, but for the offshore wind energy industry in general. Under President Obama, the Interior Department has done its part by aggressively implementing its “Smart from the Start” permitting program.

Now it’s time for Congress to follow suit by extending financing incentives that will spur this industry forward and pave the way to a new clean energy economy rather than keeping the playing field tilted in favor of fossil fuel tycoons.

Michael Conathan is Director of Ocean Policy and Kiley Kroh is the Associate Director of Ocean Communications at American Progress.

February 17 News: House Passes “Worst Transportation Bill Ever” to Force Keystone XL, Open Oil Shale - Stephen Lacey

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 08:20:06 -0500

February 17 News: House Passes “Worst Transportation Bill Ever” to Force Keystone XL, Open Oil Shale - Stephen Lacey:

Other stories below: Recent extreme weather impacted 80% of Americans; Global warming threatens tropical birds

Image: League of Conservation Voters

Bill forces decision on pipeline, expands drilling to pay for transportation projects

The Republican-controlled House endorsed a plan Thursday to vastly expand oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coasts to help pay for a $260 billion transportation bill.

The legislation has no chance of passing the Senate and faces a White House veto. But for Republicans, the 237-187 vote showed they’re willing to go further to boost U.S. energy production than President Barack Obama. Obama lately has embraced increased oil and gas production on the campaign trail, and has touted how the U.S. in recent years has produced record amounts of oil and natural gas.

“The bill we are considering … is an action plan that clearly contrasts President Obama’s anti-energy policies with the pro-energy, pro-American jobs policies of Republicans,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Charles Koch, employees reveal e-mailed threats from past year

Charles Koch, his brother and employees have in recent months been getting death threats, hundreds of obscenity-laced hate messages, and harassment from some far left-wing groups, Koch said on Thursday.

“We are under attack from various directions, both with threats of violence against us personally, and with threats of attacks on our businesses,” Charles Koch said Thursday, in a phone interview from his office in Wichita.

Koch, the billionaire head of Koch Industries, rarely gives interviews, especially about the various political causes that he and his brother David support. The privately held company rarely releases information about its activities.

Recent extreme weather affected 80% of Americans

Violent and deadly weather events have affected more than 240 million Americans — about 80% of the nation’s population — over the past six years, says a report out today from an environmental advocacy group.

Last year was particularly awful for weather in the USA, with at least 14 weather and climate disasters across the nation that each inflicted more than $1 billion in damage. They included a series of devastating tornado outbreaks in the central and southern USA, the ongoing drought in the southern Plains, massive river flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and batterings from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee.

Environment America’s report looks broadly at county-level weather-related disaster declarations from FEMA for 2006 through 2011 to find out how many Americans live in counties hit by recent weather disasters. The report focused on weather and climate events, and did not include geological events such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

Bay Area Climate Change Plans Lack Regional Cooperation

New York City has a plan to keep the subways from flooding. Queensland, Australia, has a plan to keep agricultural lands from drying up. Chicago has a plan to cope with higher temperatures.

In the Bay Area, where climate change is expected to cause flooding, shoreline erosion, heat waves, water shortages and a spread of exotic infectious diseases, it seems as if people are drowning in plans — but with little regional coordination.

One of the biggest fears for Laura Tam, a policy director at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association who spends her workdays thinking disastrous thoughts about climate change, is that the lack of planning coordination could leave residents increasingly vulnerable.

Climate Action: Stopping Global Warming Through the Back Door

Real talk: when it comes to dealing with climate change—and reducing carbon emissions, the top man-made cause of warming—the international community is doing a crap job. The U.N. process is bogged down, with ambitions that seem to shrink each year even as the summits themselves grow longer and longer. Europe’s emissions trading scheme (ETS)—the biggest carbon market in the world—is apparently a total mess. And the U.S. is…well, the U.S. really has no comprehensive climate program to speak of, and given the Republican party’s denialist take on climate change, the country is one potentially one Presidential election away from going in reverse on global warming. It’s not that zero progress is being made—renewable energy keeps growing, new air pollution rules are cutting into coal and energy efficiency is impacting oil demand. But this isn’t where we thought we’d be almost five years ago at the Bali summit.

Global warming threatens tropical birds

Global warming is likely to drive hundreds of bird species to extinction in coming decades, as more intense and frequent extreme weather events destroy habitat and make foraging impossible.

“Birds are perfect canaries in the coal mine – it’s hard to avoid that metaphor – for showing the effects of global change on the world’s ecosystems and the people who depend on those ecosystems,” said Çağan Şekercioğlu , an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah.

Şekercioğlu recently reviewed 200 scientific studies on climate change impacts to birds, concluding that 600 to 900 species are likely to go extinct by 2100. For context, there area about 10,000 bird species worldwide. The research suggests that each degree of warming could lead to the extinction of an additional 100 to 500 species.

Countries Seek Retaliation to Europe’s Carbon Tax on Airlines

China, the United States and two dozen other countries are looking at coordinated retaliation — including measures to squeeze European airlines and other industries — if Europe tries to enforce a new law requiring airlines to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions.

The system, the European Union’s boldest initiative on climate protection to date, has provoked a worldwide outcry and raised the unwelcome prospect of a full-scale trade war. European officials have stood firm while challenging opponents to suggest an equally effective alternative.The European system requires an airline landing or taking off in Europe to acquire permits corresponding to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted during the entire flight — regardless of where it originated or ended or the nationality of the airline. The system went into effect this year, although the first payments will not be due until 2013.

Snow decline in Lahaul sparks global warming fears

Contrary to the heavy snowfall in Himachal Pradesh, the snow desert of the state — Lahaul-Spiti — has received negligible snow this year, triggering global warming fears in the Himalayan regions. Minimum 15 feet of snowfall is normal in the district every year but it did not snow beyond 5 feet this time.

According to residents, they had been noticing a drop in density of snowfall since late 70s. “Our ancestors had started celebrating Fagli festival in February wherein all family and relatives met and made sure they could cope with the harsh winters. But now things have changed,” said a resident of Pattan valley, Balbir Kirpu. It is surprising that other areas of Himachal, south of the Rohtang Pass, have received thick snowfall, some after 50-60 years.

Tashi Angrup of the valley said, “The transportation was never affected and all internal routes in Lahaul are clear of snow. This is very strange.”

map without map - daniel

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:48:23 -0500

map without map - daniel:

^^ Communist World, 2011 by Theo Deutinger & Catarina Dantas [Mark#30]. <Communism is still alive. Although capitalism won a victory when the Berlin Wall went down, communism is triumphing as nation states continue to bail out banks in the wake of the recent economic crisis. Global capitalism is hugely unorganized and has no interest in a comprehensive plan for the future of the world – and, if it did, it would not know how to go about achieving such a goal. Global communism, on the other hand, has a clear idea about the organization of the world but does not know how to maintain competition, preserve individual freedom and generate public enthusiasm. Each of these ideologies falls short of its potential. This seems to leave only two possibilities: the two must merge or must face extinction. Either way, the consequence will be an era without ideology.>

vs.

^ McWorld, 2006 by OMA/AMO, Theo Deutinger & Bea Ramo. Brand New Food [2006] re-edited AMO-map. <Out of all Fast food chains in the World, McDonalds is not only its synonym but also by far the largest, most successful and most criticised. McDonalds was founded 15th may 1940 in San Bernardino, California by Ray Kroc. Today McDonald’s operates over 31,000 restaurants in more than 119 countries on six continents, employing more than 1.5 million people. Every day McDonald’s serves more than 47 million customers around the world. Though its principle is to serve its clients all over the world with the same menu, some exceptions are made for dishes that are based on local specialties for which there is a great demand, and which can be integrated into the company’s product line. In predominantly Muslim countries like Malaysia, pork is not served due to Muslim dietary laws and is replaced by beef. In India, the fact that Hinduism forbids the eating of beef, and Islam forbids pork, prompted McDonald’s initially to use lamb instead; it later switched to chicken.>

^ Avoid the Center, 2008 by Theo Deutinger & Theresia Kohlmayr [Mark#15]. <The investigation into the relationship between the size of a country and its prosperity shows that extreme dimensions are an advantage. By reorganizing the countries of the world according to their physical size, an interesting phenomenon emerges that shows prosperity at the edges and meagerness in the middle of the scale. The segment of the super-sized countries is dominated by Canada, USA and Australia with the vastly developing BRIC-Countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) joining in while the zone of XXS-States is dominated by countries like Luxembourg as world’s richest country and tax-havens like the Cayman Islands. Seen in this light the European Union established itself as a perfect androgynous state that, at its will, is able to bridge this gap and appear wherever it is most suitable. Its member states can either appear as toothless dwarfs or, if the members are working together, the European Union can appear as important player amidst of world’s largest and powerful countries.>

Goodbye, New Cross - Lizzie

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 07:43:43 -0500

Goodbye, New Cross - Lizzie:

Image with thanks from http://bit.ly/w1Eskb

After 3 years living in New Cross, it’s time to move on. I’m sure my parents will breathe a sigh of relief after two muggings in a year - look, one was in Brockley alright? - but as rough round the edges as New Cross was, there will be a lot of things I’ll miss having in close proximity. Smokey Jerky, virtually next door was my go-to stalwart for excellent jerk chicken.

Brockley Market is really taking its stride. I visited on their opening week and only once more last weekend, which I’m kicking myself for because now I’ll actually have to get a bus to get my mitts on another one of Mike & Ollie’s fried mackerel wraps. Wrapped in flatbread, the mackerel is fresh and smoky. Nestled with garlic and cauliflower puree, the wrap is finished with a bundle of red cabbage, a plucking of mint leaves and ribbons of carrot. Crunch is added with a handful of seeds and it is gloriously messy, sat as I was in the winter sunshine taking huge bites and avoiding globs from dolloping onto my shoes.

Though in Deptford, I spent many a Saturday lunchtime walking over to Panda Panda for one of their banh mis, still the best I’ve tried in London. Crunchy pickled vegetables and a few slivers of chilli formed a base for this sandwich, stuffed to the gills with pork. Of the bubble teas pineapple was my favourite, and my friends went nuts for the milkshake options, to be made with whichever chocolate bar you choose. Chaconia’s is also in Deptford and often is a time I’ve craved their Trini curry-stuffed rotis.

Recently, a new shop called The Allotment opened up on the New Cross Road negating the need to spend vast quantities on insipid fruit and vegetables at the Sainsburys near by. Well set out within, the fruit & veg was well priced and fresh.

Lastly, it is with sadness that I read that The Montague Arms is under threat. This ramshackle old building that once had ‘COACH PARTIES WELCOME’ emblazoned across its side is an absolute gem. Inside, the place is decorated with fairy lights and relics like stuffed deer heads and old diving suits. I was a regular on a Thursday night when beers were £2.20, and the Sunday roasts were homely and plentiful. The old couple who ran it were always smiling and pleasant, I admired them for their energy so I was saddened to read of their passing. Fingers crossed for the best outcome.

If you’re still not convinced of New Cross’ awesomeness you need to check out New Cross is Better Than New York.

Goodbye New Cross! I’m only going a few miles down the road to East Dulwich but I’ll miss it nonetheless.