9 Apr - Coal and Environmental Posturing

Image by Marine Corps News via Flickr

Robot plant powered by polluted water - Gadget
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20002062-1.html?tag=mncol

50 Excellent Science Blogs Anyone Can Appreciate
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/04/06/50-excellent-science-blogs/

Getting Behind the Fraud in Afghanistan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/conn-hallinan/behind-the-afghan-fraud_b_530876.html
All frauds have a purpose, mostly to relieve the unwary of their wealth,

Mountaintop Removal Bill Stalled by Adjournment Vote
http://wpln.org/?p=16246
 An attempt to restrict coal miners from blowing the top off of Tennessee mountains was shut down today in a subcommittee of the state House of Representatives.

The bill would have regulated “mountain top removal,” the controversial practice of blasting on mountaintops to expose the coal underneath.

Mountain Top Mining Guideline Stricter, EPA
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/32619

Mountaintop Mining

  High Resolution Mountaintop Removal Pictures
http://www.ohvec.org/galleries/mountaintop_removal/007

U.S. Coal Mining Outlook 2010: Fewer Jobs, Fewer Mountains
http://ecopolitology.org/2010/04/08/u-s-coal-mining-outlook-2010-fewer-jobs-fewer-mountains/comment-page-1
One of the principal arguments coming from the coal industry is that moving away from coal as a fuel source would crush the economies of states like West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. And while that may have been the case 75, 50 or even 25 years ago, it is no longer the case today.

Mountaintop Removal Mining: Why There’s No Such Thing as ‘Clean Coal’
http://ecopolitology.org/2010/02/18/mountaintop-removal-mining-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-clean-coal
We’re changing the landscape, literally, just to keep pulling coal out of the ground. The devastation isn’t even the end of what’s so awful about mountaintop removal mining. It disrupts the surrounding ecosystems, pollutes waterways, and displaces wildlife. Scientists across the U.S. have called for a ban on the practice.
The Sierra Club put together a really informative video, giving a first-hand look at mountaintop removal mining and its effects:
To see even more on the negative side effects of mountaintop removal mining, check out these videos that Zachary posted over on CleanTechnica.

A forest epidemic turns into energy opportunity
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20001950-54.html?tag=mncol;title
Fuel start-up Cobalt Technologies has figured out a way to use trees poisoned and killed by pine beetles to make biobutanol, the company announced Wednesday.
Cobalt develops biofuels that can be mixed with gas, diesel, or jet fuel, as well as used to make plastics. Up until now, the company has used forestry byproducts that originated from healthy trees to make its n-butanol. The result is a gasoline blend made up of 12 percent biobutanol, which the company has claimed can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 85 percent when compared to conventional gasoline. It's been touting the fuel as an alternative to ethanol, and in January launched a California plant with the support of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
( I have mixed feelings on this. Flex-fuel is an underutilized capacity that is practically a dodge for EPA efficiency ratings for fleets. That's 15% ethanol. Regular cars can use 10% ! And in conditions where condensate builds up in fuel, even 5% solves drivability problems and enhances fuel economy. It's just....the Governator has a record of supporting dysfunctional crap. )

The Fallacy Of Clean Coal
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/articles/clean-coal-myth/807
( That sequestration unproven technology takes a stable compound that is plant food and locks it up underground : 2 parts oxygen to 1 carbon. While it was part of Engineer-Poet's epic Sustainability, energy independence and agricultural policy, that was only as an idea : and one that subtracts oxygen from the air.)

Under Pressure from Green Activists, Britain May Block World Bank Funding for South African Coal Power Plant
 ( Interestingly, IRIN had a story 'All Fired Up Over Coal' which is not resolving on Search at this time. Related searches pointed to rampant cancer stats associated with old coal burning generating plants and air pollution.


And I was thinking about whether I should feature ecopolitology - politics of energy and the environment when I noticed


Leading Climate Change Scientist Cleared of Another Distracting, Baseless Attack

By Zachary Shahan on April 4, 2010

IPCC Chair Dr. Rajendra Pachauri cleared of claims that he had provided consultation to major international companies for private gain, which brings a more serious concern to our attention — maybe its time to stop giving the microphone to climate science disinformers.


 Um. Excuse me for noting bias from the get-go in discussion where all points of view must be at least accessible. You don't get debunking - or scientific review -  by denying the necessity. Pointing out that as corporate mindwashing strategy doesn't make it a virtue worth emulating : but rather paints oneself with the same brush. )

Indians Try to Keep Cases Away From High Court
The National Law Journal
Marcia Coyle
Tribal Supreme Court Project 

"We view this Court as not favorable on our issues," explained Richard Guest, senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund.

Last term, recalled Guest, the justices granted review in three Indian law cases. "We had prevailed in the lower courts in all three and then lost all three in the Supreme Court," he said. "We did a little bit better than some folks -- environmentalists lost five cases which they had won in the lower courts -- but we are all batting zero."

The Tribal Supreme Court Project is part of the Tribal Sovereignty Protection Initiative and was formed in 2001 in response to a series of negative decisions affecting tribal sovereignty in the mid-1990s, according to Guest.

"We had a winning percentage from 2001 to 2005 but now we're back to a situation where we are zero for five," he said.

There is a concern that certain justices have an agenda in Indian law cases, he added, noting that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. has been quoted as asking what is so special about Indian tribes and their relationship to the United States.

China Is Eager to Bring High-Speed Rail Expertise to the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/global/08rail.html?ref=us
The Chinese government has signed cooperation agreements with the State of California and General Electric to help build such lines. The agreements, both of which are preliminary, show China’s desire to become a big exporter and licensor of bullet trains traveling 215 miles an hour, an environmentally friendly technology in which China has raced past the United States in the last few years.


As Greek Bond Rates Soar, Bankruptcy Looms
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/business/global/09drachma.html?src=me&ref=business
There are unmistakable signs that individuals and corporations are withdrawing funds from Greek banks, although the sums involved do not yet constitute a bank run.

Still, weakened Greek banks, increasingly shut out of the capital markets, have become largely dependent on the European Central Bank and have turned to the Greek government to release more money from a previously established rescue fund.

The Greek government is coming close to giving up on private investors as well. While Athens said it would go ahead with its short-term borrowing auctions this week, the planned fund-raising trip this month by Greece’s finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, to tap Wall Street investors is unlikely to happen as long as Greek borrowing costs remain high, said a person who was briefed on his plans.

United Is in Merger Talks With US Airways
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/business/08air.html?src=me&ref=business
 It is the third time in a decade that they have tried to make a deal. Analysts have said that despite the steep cuts in capacity by all the airlines in the last couple of years, there are still too many airlines chasing too few travelers. A combination of United and US Airways could help both return to profit faster than they could going it alone.

But mergers in the airline industry have been difficult to pull off, in part because complex labor contracts can offset the promised cost savings.

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• The Media Consortium: Weekly Mulch: Massey Energy coal costs the environment (huffingtonpost.com)
• Massey Draws Scorn Even on Wall Street (abcnews.go.com)
• Ending Mountaintop Removal: Obama's Biggest Accomplishment (themoderatevoice.com)
• Coal River activist: 'We are all being used' (cnn.com)** 1 day ago
• Throughout Appalachia, 2,000 miles of headwater streams have been destroyed and over 500 mountains have been decapitated by mountaintop removal.
• Massey applied for a permit to blow the top off the mountain behind my house. The company plans to level 6,600 acres of Coal River Mountain and turn it into a moonscape where no living, breathing thing can survive. I believe a higher and better use for this mountain is the Coal River Wind Project.
  
  On Monday, April 5, an enormous explosion went off at the Upper Big Branch mine at Performance Coal Co., a subsidiary of Massey Energy. Thirty-one men in our community didn't come home that day.
  
  We don't yet know the names of all of the deceased and I dread the day when the list is read and we, at last, know our connection to those who didn't make it.
• Citing 'irreversible damage,' EPA nears veto of mountaintop removal permit. (thinkprogress.org)
• Reverend Billy: What Should I Do If There's A Mountain In My Lobby? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Arch Coal sues EPA over veto of W.Va. mine permit 6 days ago (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The EPA and mountaintop removal: science is back (trueslant.com)
• Rahall: EPA drops objection to W.Va. surface mine (sfgate.com)1 week ago
• Rahall: EPA drops objection to W.Va. surface mine (sfgate.com)3 months ago
• EPA: New mining policy would protect water quality (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Time-Lapse Shows Mountaintop Mining Depleting Forests Over 25-Year Period (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Scientists Say Mountaintop Removal Mining Should Be Banned - No Remediation Ever Enough (treehugger.com)
• Jeff Biggers: Obama Ends 150-Year War of Strip-Mining in 24 States! Mountaintop Removal Loses Its Groove (huffingtonpost.com)
• Rob Perks: Mountaintop Removal Redux: Bobby vs. Blankenship II (huffingtonpost.com)
• Mountaintop mining should stop, scientists say (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Rob Perks: Mountaintop Mining Motivational Posters? (huffingtonpost.com)
• JPMorgan Chase Cashes in on Destroying Appalachian Mountains (treehugger.com)
• Makes One Wonder (jcwinnie.biz)
• E.P.A. Rules to Limit Water Pollution From Mining (nytimes.com)
• Afghanistan Alternative #2: Development Aid (timesunion.com)
• Karzai loses his mind and the plot (tech.bl0x.info)As reported by whom ? I'll keep the staged misrepresentations of Ahmadinejad in mind
• Obama says Karzai must remain 'critical partner' (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

5 Apr - Morning Surfing

Obama’s mountaintop-removal crackdown could mean more than offshore drilling

Offshore drilling, auto-efficiency standards,water-heater regs, green jobs for strippers… there’s a ton going on this week.

But today’s big news is a lot brighter than yesterday’s offshore drilling hubbub: the Obama administration announced sweeping new regulations for mountaintop removal, the coal-mining method that tends to (a) remove mountaintops, (b) fill mountain valleys with rubble, and (c) pollute waterways downstream.

The new EPA regs focus on clean water, which limits the ability of mining companies to dump waste freely, which puts the whole mountaintop-removal method in jeopardy. So it’s kind of a big deal. Both mining advocates and mountain-and-water defenders agree on this.

"It could mean the end of an era," Luke Popovich of the National Mining Association told theWashington Post. He said that to limit valley fills "is tantamount to saying the intent is to strictly limit coal mining in Appalachia."

"Mountaintop mining, by its nature, destroys water," Joe Lovett of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment told the Post. "I hope it means the beginning of the end."

continued

Desertification 'spreading like cancer' in Middle East, Egypt conference told

Read more:http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=113413#ixzz0kF6afPYf
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

Its effect can be seen in Syria, where drought has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, ruining farmers and swelling cities, Erian said.

He said that Darfur in western Sudan is still reeling from a devastating conflict exacerbated by a shortage of water and fertile land.

The UN Development Program’s 2009 Arab Human Development Report said desertification threatened about 2.87 million square kilometers of land – or a fifth of the Middle East and north Africa.

Erian said a large portion of rangeland and agricultural land was under threat, with little effort taken so far to reverse the process. Burgeoning populations, which put further strain on the environment, and climate change are accelerating the trend, he added.

“The trend in the Arab world leans toward aridity. We are in a struggle against a natural trend, but it is the acceleration that scares us,” he said.

Desertification in the Arab Region: analysis of current status and trends

UNESCO Chair for desert studies and desertification control

Desertification: a general review Journal of Arid Environments

Current Status in, and Future Trends of, Ultraprecision... CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology  Current Status in, and Future Trends of, Ultraprecision Machining and Ultrafine Materials Processing CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology, Volume 32, Issue 2, 1983, Pages 573-582 Norio Taniguchi Abstract The historical progress of machining accuracy is plotted and its probable further development is shown by extrapolation, both in the micro-technology and nano-technology regions. Single point “mirror machining” of soft metals and the ultraprecision polishing of hard and brittle materials are discussed. The concept of “atomic-bit” chip removal first by elastic emission machining, etc. is introduced. Photolithography for LSI wafer processing and electron beam processing/lithography for IC photo masks are then described. Ion beam sputtering, a promising atomic-bit machining process for the near future, is also described. Finally, analysis is made of the problems to be addressed and solved in achieving true accuracies of 0.1 μm - 0.05 μm for electronic, optical and mechanical workpieces; measuring resolution and random errors in the required ultra-precision processing machines will have to be no worse than 0.01 μm (10 nm).  Purchase PDF (815 K)

P23. A comparison of the current status of pharmacoecon... Clinical Therapeutics

Interactions between climate and desertification Agricultural and Forest Meteorology

Desertification Encyclopedia of Biodiversity

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argues that achieving women’s equality is central to global security in an op-ed for The Times of London:

Hat Tip : Foreign Policy Blogs

US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan

US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.

Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.

The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night. It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies.....

The family had more than 25 guests on the night of the attack, as well as three musicians, to celebrate the naming of a newborn child.

“In what culture in the world do you invite ... people for a party and meanwhile kill three women?” asked the senior official. “The dead bodies were just eight metres from where they were preparing the food. The Americans, they told us the women were dead for 14 hours.”

( 'Achieving women's equality' ? )

A view into the U.S. diet

We eat something like 30 percent more grain than we should--presumably mainly in the form of bread--and 20 percent too much meat. Meanwhile, we're eating just 80 percent of the vegetables we should be, 60 percent of the dairy, and 40 percent of the fruit.

Another way to put it is like this: from a dietary perspective, we're overproducing (and consuming) wheat and meat, and underproducing (and consuming) fruits and vegetables.

Children, the childless, and diverse human ecosystems

We seem to have lost the sense of ourselves as embedded in communities, which is a fairly radical turn when you think about it. In the evolutionary history of homo sapiens, it's only the blink of an eye that we've been living in discrete nuclear family units, in rows of houses and apartments alongside roads dedicated to automobiles, driving to 40-hour-a-week jobs, watching TV at night, buying consumer electronics on weekends, and eating food-like substances like Go-Gurt ("specially made to freeze and thaw by lunchtime"). Living this atomistic life, each a consumer in our own castle, is a radical departure from over a million years' worth of living communally, in tribes.

Results from the growing field of happiness research strongly indicate that beyond a certain basic level of material comfort, more wealth doesn't reliably bring more happiness. The most reliable way to maximize happiness is through social connectedness -- through having a tribe. That means close bonds with loved ones (or even pets), people to confide in, and broader social networks in which we play a meaningful role and are acknowledged for it. (Technically, given how strong early imprinting is and how much the brain's plasticity declines with age, the way to maximize happiness is to be raised within supportive social networks.) Connections with others are how we develop a sense of empathy and decency, which turn out to be crucial to happiness. It stands to reason that if we want more healthy, happy people, we should create more supportive social networks.