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Energy policy doesnt need to take environmental concerns into account because God will decide when the world will end. He cites these biblical excerpts as the infallible, perfect word of God. Yet let me also note that in his excerpts, God also declares that all inclinations of man's heart is evil from birth. Hmmm.... what, then, must this say about his motives? Obviously, I'm kidding, but I just wanted to share and highlight some of the absurdity I see. Yes, we can write this off as absurd and clearly not logical, so why prod so much at things that are clearly not worth our time? It's an important reality check to remember that this is happening in the world outside of LC's progressive bubble though, and despite how obviously absurd this seems, somehow it's still here, has power, and it is being taken seriously... by someone at least.

"There is a theological debate that this is a carbon starved planet." Like many, I'm tempted to simply poke fun at this guy and laugh at his obscenely ridiculous propositions (I'd wager to say that not too many priests or pastors would agree with the quote from Rep. Shimkus above), and to dismiss him as uneducated and spewing the same sort of tired "job-losing" rhetoric that seems to be the platform of conservatives in America these days. Yet -- he was elected. Maybe this is a flaw of our electoral process. Or maybe it truly does underscore how conflicted our country is ideologically. Somehow though, I don't buy the reliance on the Bible silliness that these guys spew out. It's really just another sentimental framework to hide their utmost faith in the actual religion of the 20th century -- the citadels of free-markets. An important reality check for sure.

Lengthy thoughts from me again, apologies: https://sites.google.com/site/economicresponse/a-thought-experiment

Recently, a politician who may take a role in our energy committe made comments against the clean air act because it shut down coal mines in the United States that couldn't meet its standards. Demand for coal on a global scale still exists, however, and now China has pollution akin to that in our industrial era. When the U.S. makes laws that help make economic actions "fair", "green", "safe", or otherwise it makes the market function better according to our values. But when other nations don't have those same regulations, business moves out, and we ship things like our waste and pollution to the third world. This video highlights a means of solving that problem. While the speaker addresses common concerns, I'm not convinced. I think he's pretty optimistic all around. How does one convince nations operating for their own good to impose limitations on themselves that might slow their growth? Easy for us to sacrifice some growth for environmental health, but a higher standard of material living matters more in impoverished areas - the conception is that taking care of environmental issues, or social issues, is a luxury derived from wealth. I really don't see a solution yet - I like what the speaker is doing, but I'm skeptical about its reliability. The store price of a good remains, I think, most people's measure of a succesful buy. Is a culture shift required to change that? More information? I'd certainly start with the latter, for the sake of doing something...

So, we can (and should) address domestic poster-child coal issues such as mountaintop removal, but let's not get complacent about the larger coal market: this article talks about the role China will play as a huge source of consumption.  What to do?

I'm not going to lie, I didn't see this coming. I'm sure many analysts did -- the U.S. makes tighter coal related regulations, but there is still tons of coal under the ground to be mined. Consequently, it should only make sense to the king of market economy countries that we would export the resource we can't use to a country that can. For all members of groups that have been working against coal domestically, this represents one of the biggest losses they can imagine. After making strides on regulation, one person quoted in this article said that it was one step forward (at home), but ten back (for the world). I've at least operated under the idea that if we can make coal unpalatable enough, we would stop burning it. We're working towards that, as is Europe. But the fact remains that there are "jobs" to be had mining, money to be made exporting, and so the story goes. And even if the U.S. were to regulate coal exports (which is something the free trade maniacs of the new Congress will never, ever let happen), China would turn to Australia, or Canada, or Brazil. This dilemma is crying out for a comprehensive strategy of global cooperation on climate change. But, as is most likely the case, Cancun will slide by, no new agreements will come out of it, and this new coal challenge will become just another part of the mired story of the inability of the world to stop burning all that it is burning. One of those rare and terrifying articles that asks serious questions about how we are to subvert a framework that encourages coal burning and other major externalities.

This is a really great site and the video graphs life expectancy and average incomes. Its a nice hopeful trend in many respects but you can look at it in any number of ways. Healthy people and higher incomes are good things in general but obviously require more resources to create. A lot of good information on the website in general, have fun with it!

"Houston-based Noble Energy today confirmed that its Leviathan gas find under the water off the shore of Israel is easily the largest exploration discovery in its history, with an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas" I'm not quite sure what to make of this discovery. This article certainly gives it a declensionist spin, and I'm not quite sure that I can come up with any alternate positive side. On another note, the term "natural resource" really bugs me.

Shellenberger and Nordhaus update their classic tirade, now over six years following its original release.

After getting some fairly audible gasps in class after questioning Silent Spring today, I wanted to justify myself a little bit lest I be burned at the stake as some sort of heretic. The paper above is a brief and neat explanation of American academia's role in legitimizing ecology as a science, and touches on how Carson (and other's) pushed it back towards being a values-oriented natural history built heavily out of ideas that one could perhaps fit under the framework of "romanticism." Just to back myself up further, here (http://onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/exempindex/carsonindex/kroll.aspx) is another article highlighting Carson's work as "subversive silence", i.e. very value/advocacy driven. Also highlights her focus on critiquing a certain type of laboratory science for being controlling - notably, one of romanticism's main tenants is a criticism of the rationalization of nature. Neither of this takes away from the fact that Carson was a) a decent scientist and b) wrote a book that did a lot of good. I'm not trying to dive into the "we could've stopped malaria" arguments she gets a lot, because I think that is a straw man argument. Nor do I think that it is bad to combine knowledge and values - quite the opposite. I simply think that a work that forced scientific depictions of its subject to change in response to public frameworks of thinking should be regarded as a great political work, not a great scientific one. I think it may be time to move beyond Silent Spring, certainly as a work of science, and perhaps even as a work of politics, and place it on the pedestal of history that it rightly deserves.

Good green behaviors get us nowhere?  This economist has some provocative arguments, albeit getting a bit mainstream toward the end.

This LA Times article talks about a newly released study from the economics department at San Francisco State. The study discusses the effect of sea-level rise on tourism in California. While sea-level has been rising globally for the last few decades, the west coast has largely been spared, however, as the study shows, this grace period may not last much longer.

A couple of weeks ago, Obama asked that the Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards be withdrawn until they are up for scientific review in 2013. This article by the Economist provides a view that weighs the jobs more heavily than the environmental impacts. I know that this article is more politics-minded, but I still wish they provided a projected environmental impact or pollution data. The author instead focuses on what this move means for Obama as we near the 2012 run for presidency.

Michael Pawlyn, arguably the foremost contemporary expert on biomimicry, gives a TED talk on how the principles of this field can be applied to energy, food and agricultural systems to close the loop and build a sustainable future. Biomimicry, for those that don't know, is the a field of engineering and development that bases designs off structures and systems found in nature. This talk covers a lot of what we learned about systems and loops from 160 and I am sure a lot of information from our other classes. I am personally very compelled by biomimicry and I have always thought that it is the obvious way to innovate sustainable technologies. Enjoy.

Do we all think of the Earth as a victim to human negligence and greed? Is it unsalvageable and defenseless? Klare believes the Earth is a "powerful actor in its own right and as an avenger, rather than simply victim." Perhaps we should change our perception of Earth to a more robust depiction.

Grasshopper, anyone? This article expands upon a notion I have heard about several times before, but haven't considered its possibilities on large-scale. Many countries, such as Japan and Mexico, are already comfortable with bug consumption. It has proven to be extremely nutritious in amino acids and protein. It is also very efficient space-wise, as discovered in Japan. No matter the practicality of bugs in curbing global warming, the consumers must be willing to eat them. In American culture, bugs are perceived as dirty and disease-ridden. What would it take to reshape citizens' attitude around bugs to allow this expansion?

This misleading title does not represent the argument of the author, who explores the possibility that 2011's record snowfalls and the water conditions caused by the oil spill have caused significant die off of baby dolphins in the Gulf.

This article discusses the government's recently launched research on how anaerobic digestion, "a renewable energy technology that generates heat and electricity from waste organic matter," could possibly replace manufactured nitrogen fertilizer. They hope this will save money for the farmers and increase yield.

This article highlights the efforts to make Asian Carp, the next big threat to the Great Lakes (and the multi-million dollar fishing and tourism industries there) the next big food hit (or at least big enough to get people to fish them out). After all, as one expert says, "there's a worldwide need for cheap protein, and I think it's one of those things that fit the bill." But I have to say, I'm a little concerned. One, I know this is not a new strategy - people tried to turn garlic mustard into the next major salad ingredient, without much luck. But I think it could end up creating even greater threats in the long run. For example, if the idea is to get rid of the fish, it isn't a sustainable model for a business to follow. Why build a plant for a fish we're trying to get rid of? When the plants are built, the question changes: why get rid of the fish? In Darwin's Nightmare we saw how an invasive fish became a boon and blessing to the local economy. The Midwest is different, but some of the same forces are at play. Second, in my eyes the most legitimate argument against invasive, non-native species is that they don't provide ecosystem function. The ecosystem concept is rooted in relationships that help carry out nutrient/energy flow, etc... and these species don't really relate to others. By giving them a functional role as a food source, we give them a little more function to a species we really care about - us. Again, the plan to actually get rid of them may backfire as their benefits appear to outweigh their costs. The question does remain, is that a bad thing?

Levi Strauss and other companies are realizing that water shortages due to climate change have the capability of being a major threat to their success and existence. Jeans consume water in the irrigation of cotton, the process of making the jeans, and certainly the number of times a pair of jeans is washed in water. With such a strong dependency on water, Levi Strauss is working to conserve water and support organizations and companies trying to do the same.