GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:
- A contributor to The Economist asks “Why Don’t Americans Believe in Global Warming?”
- The Republicans are at war with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a new proposal by a Republican would reduce the EPA budget by $1.9 billion.
- A new US Forest Plan has been proposed and environmentalists are not happy. Here is the text of the proposal proposed US Forest Service Plan (pdf).
- During Obama’s State of the Union he had a minor focus on environmental issues, ‘cause they are just not that damn important. He dropped support for “cap and trade” and is now supporting more politically favorable solutions. Technology Review covers how Obama’s new plan will affect your electricity costs and the American economy.
- I highlighted a story recently about the Koch brothers. Here is a story introducing you to their effort to undermine the environmental movement through throwing millions in the opposite direction. If you buy from companies owned by the Koch brothers you are undermining your own environmental efforts. The Koch brothers own Georgia Pacific, Invista, Koch Pipeline Company (oil transportation), Flint Hill Resources (oil refining), Koch Fertilizer and Matador Cattle Company. Basically, if you blindly shop for toilet paper, beef, and fuel you are contributing financially to the most successful climate change denial media campaign in the 21st century.
- Wind farms are becoming popular in the US. Opponents complain about bird deaths and I think their complaints are either disingenuous or ignorant. Our avian friends are dealt much worse damage by the industries that wind is replacing. Just think of how many birds died in the Gulf of Mexico BP-Transocean-Haliburton oil spill. Now are you ok with 2 birds dying each year due to each wind turbine? I am.
- A severe drought in China gets a response from the government, including atmospheric engineering.
- The technological innovation of the Western world has dominated the globe in the past 300 years and has created the environmental damage that we see today. As China steps up to drive technological innovation in the 21st century it will be their inventions and inertia that will shape the future state of our environment.
- While we focus on making our products more environmentally friendly we need to also focus on how we use our products. The BBC reports on “People Power.”
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Hi Anders,
Great job this week as usual. I have a issue of discussion regarding the wind energy/bird strike story you posted.
I don’t believe equating the issue of the BP oil spill tragedy with the very real concern of wind farms and the impact on bird populations is particularly valid.
Of course development of wind energy is vastly preferable than continuing a fossil fuel based energy economy.
But using fossil fuels as an excuse to dismiss this issue with wind farms isn’t helpful to the ultimate goal, in my opinion.
My brother-in-law makes his living conducting bird death counts for wind farms throughout northern and central California – and from my anecdotal evidence in discussing the issue with him, this is a very real problem that should be addressed so that as wind energy continues to roll out, there will be methods and best practices in place to best deal with it.
Saying, in effect, that “it’s only two birds per year per turbine – who cares?” does nothing to address the issue. And I’d say the problem is far worse for some wind farms, given from what I hear from my B-I-L.
There will be some very real challenges ahead as we roll out various forms of renewable energy. They need to be faced square-on and dealt with, not dismissed and trivialized.