GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week:
- The Koch brothers are the reason why the Solyndra story has been over-hyped and misreported. There are other stories you should be hearing more about (but probably won’t because Koch Industries doesn’t want you to) – stop wiping your counter tops with Georgia Pacific paper towels!
- The typical story from conservatives is that environmental regulation is hurting our economy and is causing more harm than benefits. While this may sound reasonable to a conservative, once again the studies claim otherwise. Is it fair to say that in politics rhetoric is more powerful than fact?
- Brazil thought it was blessed when huge reserves of oil were found off the coast. Well, they started to develop and extract oil and now they have a large offshore oil spill on their hands. This time Chevron is the culprit. Once again, conservative rhetoric has proven to be more powerful than fact. Oil spills are inevitable and the damage done is unacceptable.
- In the debate over nuclear energy radiation, damage to humans is often dismissed like the risk of offshore oil spills. It may not happen often but when it does the effect is huge. Some rice in Japan is declared unfit for human consumption, and what about the radiation in the atmosphere?
- Check out this article about our oceans, if not only for the impressive picture of a huge cargo ship hitting a reef and throwing shipping containers into the water in New Zealand.
- Green businesses are moving out of California. California may be a successful incubator for new companies, but a bad home. Is the current exodus evidence of a race-to-the bottom or is the economy and the government of California broken?
- One of the issues with renewable energy is the reliance on batteries and the growing lithium industry. Lithium is not environmentally friendly so relying on it does not create a sustainable economy. But a California company has a way of grabbing lithium from certain processes used by geothermal plants.
- Climate Change denial is increasingly difficult to support, now the media is turning to likely effects instead of debating if there will be effects.
- The Keystone XL pipeline controversy has been put on hold by Obama’s decision to reconsider the route. This could appease the protest from landowners but not environmentalists. If we stop the pipeline we stop the flow of oil, that’s real progress. Businesses with a financial interest in the project are pushing ahead, encouraged by the increasing price of oil.
- There have been a lot of defeats in the past few years for the efforts to protect important fish in the ocean like tuna, but at least one victory can be logged.