Olbermann debunks attack on Al Gore's energy use

Once again, conservative think tanks are out to pawn their slightly twisted, laundered, half-truths to the open public. This time the esteemed Tennessee Center for Public Policy got a hold of Al Gore's energy bills. This "non-partisan" group claims Gore is a hypocrite. Too bad they are a part of the American Enterprise Institute which continues to claim the skepticism around global warming (whether global warming is actually happening as well as the challenging the claim that humans play a role), take huge payouts from Big Oil and "cheerleads the war in Iraq."

Gotta love Olbermann's reply. Kudos to Tennesse Center for Public Policy for finding the real facts in this story...idiots.

Obama on 60 Minutes

I was immensely impressed by both Barack and his wife Michelle in their interview with Steve Kroft. By far two of the strongest most eloquent people I've heard run for president in a long time.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nyUsDOeFo24

Obama's campaign released a new social networking site alongside their campaign website called "My Obama.com." Its a good start and is definitely the closest to any Web 2.o standard than any other candidate but I think Howard Dean set an unrealistic bar when it came to internet ingenuity for a political campaign. Barack's tech team is certainly nipping at Dean's legacy though.

How much water does it take to make water?

Bottled water is one of the largest beverage industries in the world. Global consumption in 2004 grew to a staggering 41.1 billion gallons, up 6.5% since the previous year. In the U.S. the average American was consuming 25 gallons of bottled water annually. The U.S. market for bottled water has exploded growing by 15% in 2002 and 7.5% in 2004. How much water is that? About 7.357 billion gallons of bottled water.

Why do we drink so much of it? Most people believe that tap water isn't fit to drink because it comes out of a dirty faucet while bottled water has been "cleaned" and is therefore much more fitting to drink. But, hundreds of studies prove this assumption dead wrong. NRDC conducted its own tests and found no reason to believe that tap water is any cleaner than bottled water or vice versa. 22% of the bottled waters they tested contained chemical levels that were above strict state health limits. These chemicals and contaminates are able to avoid detection in standards testing because....well, because there is no standards testing. Bottled water has no international standards or committee that tests various types of water brands.

"Bottled water may be no safer or healthier than tap water, while selling for up to 1,000 times the price," the report said. The reason, according to the environmental group, is an absence of standards regulating bottled water.

Here's some more for your gourd: recently, it was discovered that some brands of water actually consume 7 times as much water to create the bottle than the amount of water the bottle holds itself. Seems a bit inefficient to me. Here's why thats possible.

He starts with the production of the bottle in China, taking the bottle blanks to Fiji, and confirming that it takes more water to make the bottle than it actually holds. He then transports the bottle to the States by ship. Not even including the distribution in the States, the numbers are absolutely staggering.

The world's obsession with bottled water has even started to produce a connoisseur elite that pride themselves on understanding the best that bottled water has to offer similar to those of us who take wine (maybe a bit too) seriously. Maybe, instead of having a wine steward at your next elegant dining experience, you'll have a water steward.

I'm off for a glass of fresh water straight from the exotic side of my bathroom sink.

Open Season on Gray Wolves

We really should question the way in which this country manages it's endangered species. I guess, once you have reached x number of individuals, there's no reason to protect them.

Montana, Wyoming and Idaho will be declaring open season on the soon-not-to-be endangered Gray Wolf. Great Lakes states Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are considering a similar option specifically for trophy hunting. I don't quite understand why we pick and choose endangered species like some sort of laundry list of animals that could very well disappear. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground in this idea of how to live with animals. Its like as soon as a species is on its last breath, we remove our hands from their throat and allow it to keep breathing again until some other incident or lobbyist (this time the ranchers and farmers lobbies) chooses to start choking the speicies out again.

Where is the middle ground? How can this be an effective, efficient policy? The U.S. Fish and Wildlife, IMHO, is a joke...what they really do is manage land and animals for our use.

Private Solar Funding

Billionaires and other uber-rich can have a huge impact on where our country, and world, is headed. Ted Turner is partnering with New Jersey solar company, Dome-Tech Solar, to bring solar energy to the California markets. Since Gov. Schwarzenegger committed the state to creating over 3,000 megawatts of new solar energy, this market could be substantial.

The question is, how come the gov't can't give substantial sums of money to promote the R&D of solar and wind energy? Well, if we're giving anywhere between $8.6 and $11.3 billion every year in subsidies to big oil, imagine what half of those figures could do for solar power.

How much solar power are we wasting? Alot...

Bush, quietly lifts Alaska drilling ban

Lots of little manuevers going on during this whole Iraq war ordeal. Bush single-handedly laid a below the belt blow to our environment and also helped to continue our dependence on oil as an energy resource.

Nope, he didn't open up ANWR (but you know its on his hit-list) but he did open up the similarly-sized Bristol Bay in Alaska. The fish-rich waters off the coast of our northernmost state was approved by Congress last month as one of its last acts. However, how quickly we forgot that those very waters of Bristol Bay were set aside and protected by the Congress in 1990 and re-opened in 2000 thanks to Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) "who argued that the area's oil and natural gas could be developed while still protecting the fisheries."

What are the effects of off-shore oil and gas drilling on fisheries, oceanlife and the water? For the purely academic version go here. For a more layman's explanation, go here. Regardless, should we be worried?

Forest Consciousness

I sat in wonderment for over 2 hours on this website today. Granted its Saturday, so I had some time to waste, but it also speaks to the powerful images and music Forests Forever was able to pull together for an amazing experience into the consciousness of forests. You can visit over 10 different forest systems throughout the world. I highly recommend Waipoua, the Ural's Boreal Forest and the Amazon as your first visits.

Not only is the experience pleasing to the senses but it pleases the brain as well. At the end of each slide show, which is controlled by you the viewer, you can read about why each of these forests are so important to our global ecosystem and learn about their history.

Always a good reminder coming from such an urban setting of how necessary nature is in our lives.

Put the pie down and step back from the dessert table!

Apparently our law enforcement staffs have run out of dangerous people to arrest and apprehend and have turned their focus on to the frightening pie terrorist groups. AMERICAblog caught this story this morning....

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) -- A Canadian lawyer has been awarded more than C$10,000 ($8,550) in damages by a British Columbia court after he was falsely arrested and strip-searched over rumors he planned to throw a pie at the prime minister.

A judge ruled on Wednesday that police had no objective basis to believe that Cameron Ward planned a pie attack when he was arrested in a crowd that was watching then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien during a visit to Vancouver in August 2002.

"He was too far away and was not in possession of a pie," British Columbia Supreme Court Judge David Tysoe wrote in his ruling, which said that Ward's constitutional rights had been violated.

Nicely done, fellas. I hear cherry is the pie of the month so keep your eyes peeled.

Top 10 Eco-Neighborhoods

Just when you think you're community is the greenest of the green, some magazine has to come and ruin it for you by putting out "America's Best Eco-Neighborhoods" a list of towns and cities that have been chosen as having a particularly vibrant eco-neighborhod -- none of which include your humble, but eco-riffic, abode. I was distraught not to see my home city up on the list, but I guess there is always room for improvement.

Topping the list are Austin, TX and Asheville, NC, both of which have a bit of southern charm mixed in with a tint of green. An oddity about this list is that the cities are displayed in alphabetical order, which makes me wonder if the 1 through 10 listing is completely arbitrary and really what we are looking at are 10 cities that have some eco-strengths in certain pockets but aren't necessarily all that dedicated to sustainable development per se.

I noticed that Andersonville, IL, a suburb of Chicago, is also at a key decision point in their city's development. While many of these cities are presently on the green track or were founded by communities dedicated to improving the environment, the future contains some key questions and answers around where they will go and how they'll get there.

However some cities are also committing to more intensive strageties to deal with water pollution, air pollution, global warming and environmental degradation. The city of Denver has quite a plan to limit its greenhouse gas emissions and a mayor that appears ready to tackle the issue head-on. While Denver has other environmental issues it needs to worry about (like water availability in drought season), dealing with global warming on a local scale is key to solving the issue in a larger context.

If you're city didn't make the top ten, feel free to get involved in your community and see if it appears next year. Needless to say its a good start and highlighting who's doing what helps the rest of us.

ExxonMobil Fumbles Integrity

In a not-so-shocking release today, the Union of Concerned Scientists stated that big-oil company ExxonMobil spent over $16 million in a coordinated effort to mislead the American public on the science behind global warming and climate change. UCS isn't the first group to make that claim. Back in September, Britain's Royal Society demanded that the oil company halt financial support of groups that purposely misrepresent the science of climate change. ExxonMobil didn't feel that this deserved a response until this:

"the company said in response to the Royal Society that it funded groups which research "significant policy issues and promote informed discussion on issues of direct relevance to the company." It said the groups do not speak for the company.

Notice how ExxonMobil immediately takes the conversation to a selfish perspective; doesn't global warming, a "significant policy issue," effect everyone who lives on the planet earth, and not just "the company?" I'm glad that they believe they're funding a "discussion" around the issue but what they forget is that there is no discussion to be had. The majority of the world's leading individual climatologists and scientists, organizations and government agencies support and defend the fact that human induced levels of CO2 in the atmosphere are causing climage change. What ExxonMobil wishes to do is to bring the issue out of certainty and into uncertainty cloaked in the idea that a community "discussion" (backed by corporate contributions) will give us a better or more honest answer.

Someday, these corporations will have the gaul to take responsibility for their impacts on our world and instead of shying away from leadership, embrace it, and tackle the problem.

Making Terrorists out of Mole Hills

The U.S. House will soon vote on a bill that would define acts of peaceful protest as terrorism. Already passed by the Senate, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, S. 1926 and H.R. 4239 (AETA) categorizes activists as terrorists if they engage in First Amendment-protected activities like demonstrations, leafleting, undercover investigations and boycotts targeted at any business or institution that uses or sells animals or animal products. Have we lost our right to protest?

If AETA was in place during the 1950s and ‘60s, civil rights activists who engaged in lunch counter sit-ins at restaurants that serve animal products might have faced 10-year prison terms. It also would include any kind of whistleblower looking to flag illegal or questionable practices of the company.

According to the ACLU:

“Lawful and peaceful protests that, for example, urge a consumer boycott of a company that does not use humane procedures, could be the target of this provision because they ‘disrupt’ the company’s business. This overbroad provision might also apply to a whistleblower whose intentions are to stop harmful or illegal activities by the animal enterprise. The bill will effectively chill and deter Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights to advocate for reforms in the treatment of animals.”

The House is expected to vote on this bill soon after returning from recess possibly this week. The electorate’s call for sweeping change in Congress last week gives us new cause to encourage Members to vote down this bill that is a direct hit to our First Amendment rights. Please contact your Representative and the House Judiciary Committee today and ask them to oppose the AETA.

While this bill speaks primarily to animal rights activists and their abilities to challenge animal rights abuses in the corporate sector, it also is a new tactic in how corporate America chooses to deal with active opposition to their policies, or lack there of. AETA can be applied to a breadth of situations and activities that could very well limit the ability of any activist in America to challenge or call to question a corporation's actions around animal rights, human rights and the environment.

Perle and Adelman: We Shouldn't Have Invaded Iraq

Richard Perle, long known as the Prince of Darkness among politcal and anti-war circles, admitted to Vanity Fair yesterday that if he had to decide all over again he would not support a military invasion of Iraq and would instead urge the President and the Joint Chiefs to pursue "other means."

Perle is also one of the architects of the current neo-con policy and a major player in advising the Pentagon, White House and Defense Department. Perle is thus one of the most prominent neo-con policy advisors to publicly admit that the invasion of 2003 was, in hindsight, a bad idea. Here's an interesting quote from the interview:

"I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' … I don't say that because I no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct.

What seems strange here is that Perle, a major sculptor of foreign policy under this administration and a key consultant leading up to and during the war in Iraq, moves away from the claim that Saddam ever had WMDs and instead acknowledges that Saddam "had the capability to produce" WMDs. That in itself is a dramatic shift from the pre-war affirmation every administration official exhorted that Saddam had WMDs and was selling them to terrorists (see Colin Powell's U.N. sales job).

The rest of the article also quotes other administration and policy officials.

"I always believed as a speechwriter that if you could persuade the president to commit himself to certain words, he would feel himself committed to the ideas that underlay those words. And the big shock to me has been that although the president said the words, he just did not absorb the ideas. And that is the root of, maybe, everything."

Yikes. Now the speechwriters are instigating major foreign policy decisions? Is ANYONE captaining this ship?

The best part? They're all throwing Bush under the bus. The loyalty among neo-conservatives is about as thin as the facade of power.

How Much is Pollution Worth?

As someone who has now spent two years in the environmental movement in one of the most liberal cities in America, I've been amazed at how much further "ahead" people are out here in terms of conceptualizing a different world that on the eco-front is far and away greener than anything you may read in the standard ink around the country.

Then I'm reminded of how "out there" we may seem to be when I read something like this.

Carbon offsetting is becoming the new fad in circles from the Sierra Club to bands like Pearl Jam and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Many corporations are scrambling to buy up carbon offsets so they can proclaim their "greenness" to consumers and thus feel better about their products and bottom line.

In essence, this is another way that people (and corporations) can duck responsibility. Buying up carbon credits is a good thing because it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere but really its a temporary pass for emitters to pay a small price for their pollution. If a corporation wants to buy up some carbon credits in order to keep belching out 500 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere over the next five years, you can bet it will cost less to plant a bunch of trees in some third world country or put up 10 windmills in Montana than it would to pay the price through cutting their emissions to respectable levels. After all, that means cutting production. It presents a great marketing opportunity for the companies and firms, selling themselves as "green leaders" to their consumers and clients, when really they're just buying the right to pollute. Not only is it a corporate feel-good action but a consumer one as well. By the way, when those trees in Tanzania are cut down, all that carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

During medieval Europe the Catholic church offered up a similar opportunity to offset one's sins with purchased indulgences effectively saying society could purchase forgiveness if they could fork over enough money. Carbon offsets feel all to parallel in this. What happens when everyone wants to just offset their CO2 and let someone else do the dirty work? The point is not everyone can simply fork over money to pollute because in the end, the biggest polluters in our world are also the wealthiest and as long as they can pay, our air and water will only continue to get worse. It feels like a group of people agreeing that they have to empty the latrines in order to have a place to go to the bathroom but no one is signing up to do the dirty work. Right now we have a few "janitors" in the mix -- carbon offsetting programs and organizations, but all too many polluters willing to pay whatever they can not change their processes and strategies. Here's the list of carbon offsetting programs.

I don't think carbon offsetting is a solution. It might be a bridge (to where I have no idea) that helps usher in understanding of climate change and CO2. It shirks responsibility, presents the idea of a free lunch, and further pushes global warming and climate change off into the horizon away from our daily routines and business habits, that, God forbid we might have to change. My one fear is, do we really want to make a market out of our climate? What happens if that market takes a dive? Thats a Black Tuesday I don't want to be around for.

The erosion of the commons in this society is all to prevalent. Privatizing water and air is already happening. Taking ownership of the very basic elements of this earth shouldn't be surprising but it should germinate indignation. Real solutions to cleaning up the earth will revolve around changing paradigms and cultural habits, not looking for a free lunch or short cut.

Push-Polling in Ohio

One complaint about our political leaders worldwide is that they can't be trusted. Joe Citizen feels like he can't really trust everything a politician is saying, promising, showing or asking for, especially if they're asking you for your vote. I imagine thats largely true. Politics, oftentimes, becomes the selling of an idea. Instead of a new product that takes the stain out of your teeth, politicians are selling ideas that may or may not impact the way in which you choose to live your live, and that can be incredibly powerful if sold with the right packaging, or what those in the business call "message."

But when Joe Citizen gets in on the action, do we all become "politicians?" Common Sense Tennessee is the newest group attacking Harold Ford Jr. in his bid for U.S. Senate. In case you haven't heard, the RNC launched an incredibly racist and cheap-shot ad that was later pulled by Mehlman (GOP Chairman) after media hype and public outcry. Now, Common Sense Tennessee has been caught running a "push-poll" to TN voters, claiming Ford is soft on terrorism and will raise "your taxes." Though claiming to be an impartial survey it works to influence the view of its respondents through subtlety and guise. Its get better. The ad was put on by Common Sense Ohio which is currently run by Proctor and Gamble exec Nathan Estruth.

While being a longtime supporter of Blackwell (Ohio Sect. of State) and donor to the GOP, Estruth recently made the mistake of telling a reporter that he was actually a "moderate" who was very turned off by the democratic candidates on the ticket.

The fact that "truth" is in the guy's last name just brings the irony to a whole new level.

Our Greatest Self-Inflicted Wound

It's been a while since I've posted to the Ark, but the actions of my government over the past 24 hours has brought me back to the keyboard.

There are lots of things I take for granted as an American. One of them is my right to a trial and habeas corpus, or, my right to challenge the charges laid against me and my custody. It is perhaps one of the single most important, yet often forgotten, personal individual freedoms we have as members of this society. Tuesday, President Bush seriously challenged the writ of habeas corpus, a common law that dates back to Henry II in the 12th Century. Dare I ask, have we gone this far backwards?

With the threat of terrorism and national security as his backdrop, President Bush signed into law the Military Comissions Act yesterday morning. The Monitor has a great breakdown of the key parts of the bill:

• Establishes special rules for military-commission trials for Al Qaeda suspects accused of committing war crimes. The rules permit the exclusion of a defendant from his trial if classified evidence is being presented, and the admission of hearsay and coerced statements as evidence.

• Authorizes a three-officer military panel to determine a detainee's status as an enemy combatant eligible for indefinite detention in US custody. This is in lieu of the ability to file a habeas corpus petition challenging the legality of the detention in federal court.

• Creates a retroactive legal defense for US personnel who engaged in harsh interrogation tactics from September 2001 to December 2005. Also narrows the range of activities that might constitute a violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions outlawing torture and cruel treatment.

• Expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to provide that anyone who offers "material support" to someone engaged in hostilities against the US can be held indefinitely in military detention, regardless of whether he or she actually engaged in hostilities. Also provides that only noncitizens held as unlawful enemy combatants may be tried by a military commission.

The first point goes directly to the heart of the torture debate: can coerced statements be used as factual evidence in a court of law? Most intelligence experts say no. Not to mention that while these statements are being presented in the court the defendants will most likely not be allowed to attend as any statements gathered during "aggressive interrogation measures" (or "torture lite") are usually considered classified information. Not only will the defendants not be able to defend their own statements in person but the decisions around those statements will be decided by, not a group of his/her peers but by a selected trio of military officials.

The second point takes habeas corpus and skins it down to a mere possibility as opposed to a guaranteed right. Instead of a promised opportunity to defend themself in a court of law, the defendant's future is handed over to a military panel (read "tribunal") that decides whether or not this POW will remain a detainee indefinitely (read "for life") or have a shot at a fair trial. In essence, the detainee is considered guilty before having a chance to be proven innocent by a jury of his peers.

The third point actually reaches back into history and tries to protect those military personnel who may have broken the Geneva Convention in their interrogation of detainees. Then it goes a step further by re-defining what is considered toture or inhumane treatment under interrogation procedures. In other words, the United States has taken the Geneva Conventions and re-written them to our own needs, which in the end defeats the purpose of an international agreement, right? But with our country's regard for international agreements I guess thats no surprise.

The fourth point simply enlarges the scope of who can be considered an "unlawful combatant." It's even less clear with the term "material scope" as to who it includes as possible targets thus linking virutally any 'person of interest' to a possible detainee.

The common theme running through this bill seems to be a loss of individual freedoms within the judicial system on a situational basis resulting in a collection of back-room decisions and non-public rulings through an escalation of military legal proceedings that try non-military individuals as military combatants.

Keith Olbermann had a rather adept analysis of the bill and what impacts it has on the American public. Also, Stanifesto has a great beat on how this all relates to the American sense of nationalism and pride we all feel...maybe less so after a law like this is passed.

Top 10 Stories You Should Know About

A great piece on marketplace about the news stories that should have gotten more attention but didn't. Why the hell did CNN cover the Jean-Benet Ramsey case for a week while a Detroit judge handed down a decision that called the President's NSA surveillance program "unconstitutional" and must be "stopped immediatley?"

Petrolius

Petrolius
Video sent by Phitness

We decided to stop waiting around for a commerical attacking the issue of oil addiction in this country and made one ourselves. Petrolius, the purple pill that allows us to keep driving around in old technology that burns gas, has kept us from the next great advancement in transportation tech.

Obviously, this is heavy on the tongue in cheek but its also a commentary on where our country is headed and how "in the clouds" we've been when it comes to quitting our addiction to oil.

Enjoy!

Around the Horn

A Japanese oil tanker collided with a cargo ship and spilled 1.4 million gallons of crude into the Indian Ocean -- the Phillippines call it the region's worst spill.

California could become the first state to create a large network of "no-fishing" zones in an effort to help species of fish, crab and shellfish recover from over-fishing (if you like Dungeness crab wait til you see them after a couple years of R&R).

But, its more than overfishing that is killing our seafood specimens: a dead-zone along the Pacific coast is so oxygen depleted that massive crab and fish die-offs are taking a toll on the fishing industry on the west coast.

A U.S. district judge slaps every Katrina victim in the face...

Voting for Freedom From Oil

RAN is having a vote to choose a new ad campaign around their Freedom From Oil work. You can cast your vote at Jumpstart Ford's website for the best photograph that depicts how we can break our addiction to oil and then checkout the results. The winning photo will be featured in RAN's ad campaign this fall.

Vacation

I've made the jump and am on vacation for the next week. This will, hopefully, provide a chance for me to re-dedicate myself to writing. So...with that in mind here are few great quotations on vacations.

I do not really like vacations. I much prefer an occasional day off
when I do not feel like working. When I am confronted with a whole week in
which I have nothing to do but enjoy myself I do not know where to begin.
To me, enjoyment comes fleetingly and unheralded; I cannot determinedly enjoy
myself for a whole week at a time.
~Robertson Davies

Oh Robbie boy, you've got give it a better go than that!

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we
want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two
weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless
procession of our busy days. ~Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Guilty as charged. But how often do your vacations not go directly according to plan (which results in no real loss except more time to kick back) versus how often your work plans fall apart (which results in much loss and stress for everyone involved)? Its more fun to plan things you want to do that are different from your everyday habit. Imagine how fun work would be if we took more vacations? I think the Europeans have it down...