Endlessly Disposable

If at present we are seeking to render the totality of the [E]arth's resources endlessly available, endlessly usable, endlessly disposable, it is because endless consumption is the proximate goal of a production without end. Or, better, consumption is what justifies the frenzy of production, which, in turn justifies consumption, the entire cycle serving more to keep us busy than to satisfy our real needs.

~From Gardens, An Essay on the Human Condition by Robert Pogue Harrison/

Picture found here

Home, Place, And Love

Full Moon in Cancer today, so that made it a perfect time for a house blessing for one of the women in my circle who's gone through a complete home renovation on Capitol Hill over the past year and a half. For many witches, home, a sense of place, a sanctuary, is important. And, I'm reading Derrick Jensen's interview with the philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore, who has quite a bit to say about the importance of "Place" in our lives:

Jensen: So what is the basis of our obligation to rives and marshes, if its not maximizing their instrumental value?

Moore: Obligations grow out of relationships, the philosopher Nel Noddings pointed out. She's right: we know what it means to care, and we value that. Just as we are connected to our families, and care about them, we are connected to the land, both emotionally and biologically. This is the starting premise: We are all members of a natural community of interdependent parts that includes rivers and wrens and children and stones. The relationships define us, sustain us, create us, full us with joy. And when we find ourselves alone and apart, our unhappiness becomes a longing close to grief.

If this is so, then to lead a moral life we have to acknowledge the depths and complexity of our ties to the natural communities [of which we are members], and acknowledge our own experience of caring -- acknowledge the value we place on caring -- and make a commitment to acts that flow out of love. Aldo Leopold says, "Sing our love for the land and our obligation to it, " and I am struck by how quickly obligation follows on the heels of love.

What is called for are not just acts of enlightened self-interest, but acts that flow from our connections and acknowledge the worth of what we care for so deeply. A right act isn't the one that makes us happiest. A right act is one that strengthens and reknits the web of relationships, and so it tends, as Aldo Leopold said, "to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty" of the community.

~From How Shall I Live My Life: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization by Derrick Jensen

What is your home trying to tell you? Your yard? Your neighborhood? Your wateshed? What is your obligation to listen?

~Picture found here.

Do You Think This Culture Will Undergo A Voluntary Transformation To A Sustainable Way Of Living?

There is only one community, and it lives and dies as a unit. Any harm done to the natural world diminishes the human world, because the human world depends on the natural world not only for its physical supplies but for its psychic development and fulfillment. This is most important, because people talk about the need to destroy the natural world in order to advance the human world. Well, anything that diminishes the wonder and fulfillment we receive from the natural world spoils the human enterprise. We may get a pile of possessions, but it won't mean much if we can't go to the mountains or the seacoast, or enjoy the songs of birds or the sights and scents of flowers. What does it do to our children when they cannot enjoy such things?

The other dimension to this is that we have to somehow get beyond Western Civilization, which must be profoundly altered because it is so destructive in its present state. This alteration is so absolute and so deep in its implications that a person has to wonder about the continuity. In other words, Western Civilization itself is causing our difficulties, which makes this type of change hard to really comprehend. Transformations of this magnitude are generally associated with some type of religious change.

Thomas Berry, interviewed by Derrick Jensen in How Shall I Live My Life?

Cradle To Cradle

[I]f what we make with our hands is to be sacred and honor the earth that gives us life, then the things we make must not only rise from the ground but return to it, soil to soil, water to water, so that everything that is received from the earth can be freely given back without causing harm to any living system.

~William McDonough, Centennial Sermon: Design, Ecology, Ethics and the Making of Things, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Feb. 7, 1993~

The witches say: We all come from the Goddess./And to her we shall return,/Like a drop of rain, flowing to the ocean./Corn and grain, corn and grain,/All that falls shall rise again./Hoof and horn, hoof and horn,/All that dies shall be reborn. McDonough's trying to ensure that what we create -- buildings, shoes, carpet, textiles, toys -- follows the same principle. His ideas remind me, in a way, of what the Arts & Crafts movement was trying to be about, although they didn't have the ecological awareness that exists today.

Wouldn't It Be Nice To Have A President Who Believed In Science?

From today's EEI newsletter:

Scientists Report Instances of Political Interference

More than half of the 1,586 EPA scientists who responded to a questionnaire from the Union of Concerned Scientists reported witnessing political interference in scientific decisions over the past five years, the Washington Post reported today. Francesca Grifo, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' scientific integrity program, said: "Things are not as they should be at the EPA. Scientific findings are being suppressed and distorted; 889 scientists personally experienced at least one type of political interference. ... Scientists are being pressured by outside interests."

More than 100 respondents said the Office of Management and Budget was the source of the interference, with hundreds of others blaming industry groups and other agencies, the Post reported. Wrote the Los Angeles Times: "Such allegations are not new: During much of the Bush administration, there have been reports of the White House watering down documents on climate change, industry language inserted into EPA power-plant regulations and scientific advisory panels' conclusions about toxic chemicals going unheeded."

J. William Hirzy, an EPA senior scientist and union official, said scientists also saw political interference during the Clinton administration but "what we're seeing now is ... the favoring of energy interests, coal-fired power plants. That's something different in this administration." Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson advising him to prepare to face questioning about the survey findings at a hearing next month. Waxman wrote: "These survey results suggest a pattern of ignoring and manipulating science in EPA's decision making."

As far as I can tell, the survey only includes scientists now at work at EPA, and not the many who have left, disgusted, over the past seven years. If there were a way to include those scientists, the results may have been even more alarming.

The World Is Made Of Stories, Not Of Atoms. /Rukeyser

"When we change the shape of the Land, we alter the contents and contexts of our collective, familial, and personal memories. Yet, stories can preserve both mythic and familiar elements of geography even when the physical features are forgotten, buried, or obliterated. And more than this: the stories can bring these elements back. If the Land can be preserved long enough for its stories to be told, and retold, perhaps we all—as custodians of both place and memory—stand a chance at real preservation."
— Ari Berk

Any Economic System That Fails To Benefit The Natural Communities Upon Which It Is Based Is Unsustainable, Immoral, And Really Stupid

Carolyn Baker has an amazing article posted at The American Muslim that deals with the coming global-climate-change-induced collapse of society. Whereas James Lovelock focuses on cushioning the crash, trying to arrange conditions so as to preserve as much of civilization as possible, Baker, in what seems to me to be a much more Pagan approach (and one that somehow smacks of Ursula LeGuin) to the situation, focuses on embracing the collapse, changing in ways demanded by the situation, and transforming ourselves in order to reap good from it. What she says is so important that I hope you'll indulge me if I quote her at length.

I occasionally receive hate email but more frequently receive ones like this: “I’ve just unsubscribed to your email list. Your website is filled with negative stories and articles, and I need to keep a positive attitude and do what I can to make my world better.” . . . I think that righteous is the word I would use to describe this reader’s perspective. [T]he problem with a righteous attitude is that it often leads to detachment from reality-not unlike Barbara Bush’s comment that she doesn’t want to trouble her “beautiful mind” with statistics about troop or civilian casualties in Iraq. It’s all so American/Judeo-Christian-and, of course, Dale Carnegie: keeping a positive attitude so that we never feel badly about what’s actually happening.

. . .

The addiction to a “positive attitude” in the face of the end of the world as we have known it is beyond irrational-even beyond insane. . . . Usually, having a “positive” attitude about collapse implies wanting it not to happen, believing that it may not happen, and doing everything in one’s power to convince oneself that it won’t happen.

. . .

Derrick Jensen in Endgame, Volume I, states that “The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of any economic system.” (127) He continues:

Any economic system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and really stupid.(128)

Explaining human disconnection from the rest of earth’s inhabitants, Jensen describes the various layers of resistance among humans to their innate animal essence. One of the deeper layers is our “fear and loathing of the body”, our instinctual wildness and therefore, our vulnerability to death which causes us to distance ourselves from the reality that we indeed are animals. In fact, this is one of civilization’s fundamental tasks. Have not all modern societies disowned and genocided the indigenous? And for what purpose? Not only for the purpose of stealing their land, eradicating their culture, and eliminating so-called barriers to “progress”, but because native peoples (you know, “savages") as a result of their intimate connection with nature, are such glaring reminders of humankind’s animal-ness. They are embarrassingly “un-civilized.” Thus, modernity must “civilize” the savage in order to excise the animal, inculcating in her a human-centric world view. For more on this last topic, see Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets.

The consequence has been not only the incessant destruction of earth and its plethora of life forms, but the murder of the human soul itself. Benjamin Franklin said it best after returning from living with the Iroquois: “No European who has tasted Savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.”

Any person who wants to “maintain a positive attitude” in this culture-the culture of civilization that is killing the planet-killing people and things that we all love-that person is not only irrational and deeply afflicted with denial, but he is exactly like a member of an abusive family system in which physical and sexual assault are occurring in the home on a daily basis, but that family member insists on “thinking good thoughts” and resents anyone and everyone who says what is so about the abusive system.

So let’s admit two things: 1) Humans are fundamentally animals. Yes, we are more than animals, but civilization with its contempt for the feral has inculcated us to own the “more than” and disown everything else. 2) The culture of civilization is inherently abusive, and it is abusive precisely because it has disowned the animal within the human. Indeed animals kill other animals for survival, but they do not conquer, rape, pillage, plunder, enslave, pollute, slash, burn, and poison their habitat-unlike those “more-than-animal” beings who seem incapable of not doing all of the above. Conversely, the “more-than-human” creatures respect their surroundings because they instinctively sense that their survival depends on doing so.

. . .

[A] British study at the University of St. Andrews confirmed that elephants keep track of up to 30 absent relatives by sniffing out their scent and building up a mental map of where they are, research suggests. Herd members use their good memory and keen sense of smell to stay in touch as they travel in large groups, according to a study of wild elephants in Kenya. Dr. Richard Byrne of St Andrews noted that elephants have two advantages over humans - their excellent sense of smell and, if their popular reputation is anything to go by, a good memory.

One may argue that an elephant could [not] design a computer, but I ask: What is more consequential, the ability to design a computer or the ability to protect, sustain, and nurture the planet on which one resides? Of what value is the computer if none of us is here to use it?

Civilization, which has never ceased soiling its nest since its inception, has also never understood its proper place on the earth: that of a guest, a neighbor, a fellow-member of the community of life. As a result, everything civilization has devised and which is “unsustainable, immoral, and stupid”, as Jensen names it, is now in the process of collapsing. I ask for an honest answer here: How can anyone tell me with a straight face (or a righteous attitude) that that reality is “negative”? Would the seagull on a Southern California beach with her feet entangled and bleeding in plastic netting left behind by “more-than-animal” life forms tell me that the collapse of what created her plight is “negative”? Would thousands of dead spruce trees in Colorado ravaged by beetles as a direct result of climate change tell me that collapse is a bad idea? Would the plankton and bleached coral at the bottom of the sea which are fading and dying with breathtaking rapidity as a result of global warming, tell me to keep a positive attitude and do everything in my power to stop the collapse of civilization? I think not.

Fundamentally, what all forms of positive thinking about collapse come down to is our own fear of death. Thanks to civilization’s Judeo-Christian tradition and its other handmaiden, corporate capitalism, humans have become estranged from the reality that death is a part of life. Human hubris gone berserk as a result of a tumescent ego, uncontained by natural intimacy with the more-than-human world, believes humanity to be omnipotent and entitled to invincibility. Therefore, from the human-centric perspective “collapse should be stopped” or “maybe it won’t happen” or “somehow humans will come to their senses”. Meanwhile, the drowning polar bears inwardly wail for the death of humanity as the skeletons of formerly chlorophyll-resplendent Colorado spruce shiver and sob in the icy December wind. Our moral, spiritual, and human obligation is to flush our positive attitude down the nearest toilet and start feeling their pain! Until we do, we remain human-centric and incapable of seizing the multitudinous opportunities that collapse offers for rebirth and transformation of this planet and its human and more-than-human inhabitants.

News flash: We are all going to die! Or as Derrick Jensen writes in Endgame:

The truth is that I’m going to die someday, whether or not I stock up on pills. That’s life. And if I die in the population reduction that takes place as a corrective to our having overshot carrying capacity, well, that’s life, too. Finally, if my death comes as part of something that serves the larger community, that helps stabilize and enrich the landbase of which I’m part, so much the better. (123)

Now, I hasten to add that I am not suggesting we select our most intense emotion about collapse, move in, redecorate, and take up residence there. Feel one’s feelings? Yes, and at the same time revel in those aspects of one’s life where one feels nourished, loved, supported, comforted, and in those people and activities that give one joy and meaning.

Had civilization not spent the last five thousand years attempting to murder the indigenous self inherent in all humans, we would not have to be told, as native peoples and the more-than- human world does not, that most of the time, life on this planet is challenging, painful, scary, sad, and sometimes enraging. What our indigenous ancestors had and still have to sustain them through the dark times was ritual and community. Our work is to embrace and refine both instead of intractably clinging to a “positive attitude” in the face of out-of-control, incalculable abuse and devastation.

. . .

Th[e coming collapse] now has a life of its own and is most likely, out of our control. Attempting to abort it or blame other humans is a waste of time and energy.

The question for humans is not: What do we do about collapse? but rather, What do we do with it? It holds inestimable opportunities for rebirth and intimacy with other humans and the more-than-human world, but only if we open to it. Opening to it means opening to our own mortality, which as Derrick Jensen insists, may be part of something that serves the larger community. Perhaps one opportunity collapse is putting in our faces is that of moving beyond our human-centric perspective-our hubris and addiction to invincibility, begging us to humble ourselves and crawl behind the eyes of the more-than-humans as Joanna Macy poignantly writes:

We hear you, fellow-creatures. We know we are wrecking the world and we are afraid. What we have unleashed has such momentum now; we don’t know how to turn it around. Don’t leave us alone; we need your help. You need us too for your own survival. Are there powers there you can share with us?

Indeed there are powers they can share with us, but not until we can let go of our current definition of “positive” and, feeling their pain, finally comprehend that the collapse of civilization may be the best thing that could happen to all of us.

The Judeo-Xian repudiation of our bodies included patriarchy's hatred for women's bodies, the notion that women, feelings, bodies, earth, matter, life on Earth, reality was degraded, while men, thought, souls, heaven, spirit, life after death, and theology was elevated. It was the rejection of precisely this patriarchal dualism that led to the re-energization of modern Paganism, especially the Dianic branch of Wicca.

It is a particularly witchy question to ask, not: What do we do about collapse? but rather, What do we do with it? At the heart of all magic is the ability to ask the important question, to name the actual issue, to face and reclaim the gift that lies in the Shadow. And the question: "What do we do with collapse?" does, as Baker suggests, hold inestimable opportunities for rebirth and intimacy with other humans and the more-than-human world, but only if we open to it. But Baker is also correct that, as in all magic, Opening to it means opening to our own mortality, Magic, it's said, is the ability to change consciousness at will. Occasionally, as my dear friend R. noted this morning, the universe helpfully provides our will with a "clue-by-four."

How can you dance with the coming collapse? What gold is waiting for you and for humanity in that coming Shadow? What would you do if you knew that you were going to die and you weren't afraid of being afraid?

You'd Better Listen To This

Ladies and Gentlemen, My President, Al Gore

Heckuva job, Sandra Day.

Political Will Is A Renewable Resource

Today, in Norway, Al Gore accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on environmental issues. Here are some exceprts from his speech:

Seven years ago tomorrow, I read my own political obituary in a judgment that seemed to me harsh and mistaken -- if not premature. But that unwelcome verdict also brought a precious if painful gift: an opportunity to search for fresh new ways to serve my purpose.

Unexpectedly, that quest has brought me here. Even though I fear my words cannot match this moment, I pray what I am feeling in my heart will be communicated clearly enough that those who hear me will say, "We must act."

------

We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency -- a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst -- though not all -- of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively, and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent."

------

In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misinterpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities in North and South America, Asia, and Australia are nearly out of water due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places they have long called home. Unprecedented wildfires have forced a half-million people from their homes in one country and caused a national emergency that almost brought down the government in another.

------

Indeed, without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."

------

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice." Either, he notes, "would suffice."

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the 11th hour that released a mighty surge of courage, hope, and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

------

Now comes the threat of climate crisis -- a threat that is real, rising, imminent, and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called "Satyagraha" -- or "truth force."

In every land, the truth -- once known -- has the power to set us free.

------

When we unite for a moral purpose that is manifestly good and true, the spiritual energy unleashed can transform us. The generation that defeated fascism throughout the world in the 1940s found, in rising to meet their awesome challenge, that they had gained the moral authority and long-term vision to launch the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and a new level of global cooperation and foresight that unified Europe and facilitated the emergence of democracy and prosperity in Germany, Japan, Italy, and much of the world. One of their visionary leaders said, "It is time we steered by the stars and not by the lights of every passing ship."

------

Fifteen years ago, I made that case at the "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro. Ten years ago, I presented it in Kyoto. This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions

- - - - -

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

------

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon -- with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance -- especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where Earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they've taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters -- most of all, my own country -- that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other's behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

------

The great Norwegian playwright, Henrik Ibsen, wrote, "One of these days, the younger generation will come knocking at my door."

The future is knocking at our door right now. Make no mistake, the next generation will ask us one of two questions. Either they will ask: "What were you thinking; why didn't you act?"

Or they will ask instead: "How did you find the moral courage to rise and successfully resolve a crisis that so many said was impossible to solve?"

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource. So let us renew it, and say together: "We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act."



Found here.

Switch to LED Xmas Lights And Save 400,000 Tons Of CO2

From today's EEI newsletter:

DOE Says Conventional Christmas Lights Add to GHG Emissions

DOE has estimated that using conventional Christmas lights produces significant amounts of CO2, the Columbus Dispatch reported. "The fact of the matter is, you're generating a fair amount of pollution to run your incandescent lights," said an energy specialist with the EnergyIdeas Clearinghouse at the Washington State University Extension Energy Program. The Electric Power Research Institute estimated that consumers could eliminate 400,000 tons of CO2 and reduce energy bills $250 million by switching to LED Christmas lights.
Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch , Dec. 1.

Long Dry Spell

The EEI newsletter has an interesting article concerning the impact of the East Coast drought on energy production:

Georgia Power's Hydro Generation Slumps Due to Drought

Georgia Power officials said hydro generation was down 51 percent this year because of Georgia's severe drought, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported. To make up for the shortfall, the company was forced to buy $33.3 million worth of coal and oil to fuel power plants.

Lake Lanier, whose waters power several hydro facilities in the western part of the state, is down 16 feet below normal and is expected to drop another six feet by mid-December. David Stooksbury, a University of Georgia professor called this the "worst drought since the mid-1920s" and expressed his concern for the year ahead. Stooksbury said: "But my real concern is for next summer. The consequences for Georgia's economy could be dire if we don't receive adequate recharge."
Atlanta Business Chronicle , Nov. 19.

The drought is causing power companies to produce more power from coal and oil -- both of which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Hydro has its own problems -- a lot of them -- but it doesn't emit carbon the way that coal and oil do. We're also starting to see competition over water -- people who need it to drink or to water their crops are less than amused to see it being used to make electricity. (There are some ways around that, but they require, ironically, energy.)

I sure do hope we get rain next Spring and Summer.

Ruh Roh!

From today's EEI newsletter:

International Energy Agency Forecasts Big Jump in GHG Emissions

The International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2007 report shows that GHG emissions are expected to surge by 2030, potentially causing a rise in global temperatures of at least 5.4 degrees and bringing along with that flooding and disease, Bloomberg reported. To keep temperature increases below that mark would need "exceptionally vigorous policy action," the report said, adding: "A later peak and less-sharp reductions in emissions would lead to higher concentrations and bigger increases in temperature."

To limit the surge in GHG emissions, the report found that the cost of building new electricity generating capacity would be "very high," with cumulative investments through 2030 at least $1.8 trillion higher than a scenario in which emissions were allowed to rise significantly. The report said: "Early retirement of fossil-fuel generating capacity will comprise almost $1 trillion of the additional investment."

The IEA said China's emissions were likely to more than double to 11.4 billion tons by 2030, largely as a result of increased coal-based power generation. Wrote Bloomberg: "Carbon dioxide output from fuel combustion could peak around 2025, with China probably overtaking the U.S. this year as the world's biggest emitter." China and India together could account for 56 percent of emissions growth, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg , Nov. 7.

It Costs Money Not To Address Climate Change

From today's EEI newsletter:

University of Maryland Study Assesses Economic Effect of Climate Change

The University of Maryland's Center for Integrative Environmental Research has released a study showing the economic impacts of climate change, the Washington Post reported. Wrote the newspaper: "Global warming will strain public budgets and raise the costs of cooling American homes, the authors write, and it will provide only temporary benefits to the mid-Atlantic's agricultural sector. For example, a predicted rise in sea level would require Hawaii to spend nearly $2 billion on upgrading its drinking water and wastewater facilities over the next 20 years."
Washington Post , Oct. 17.

The costs of doing nothing, the costs of business as usual, are staggering.

That Soft Landing

Congratlations To The Man America Elected President In 2000

Early this morning, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He certainly deserves it, as every environmental disaster prevented likely prevents another war, another group of refugees, another tragedy for countless species.

And I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of how pissed off that stinking non-entity in the WH is this morning. Hide, Barney! Hide!

No one would have blamed Al Gore if, after having the election stolen from him by SCOTUS, he'd gone off to his farm to drink himself into an angry oblivion. He didn't do that. As a grandmother, I'm v. grateful for what he's done with the last 7 years.

Two Hundred Species A Day

My New Name For A Blog

What Ross Gelbspan Said.

Some Good News On Emissions

From today's EEI newsletter:

Early Data Suggest Growth in Carbon Emissions May Be Falling

Emissions of CO2 slowed last year according to preliminary data from the U.S. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. Gregg Marland, a senior scientist at the Center, warned: "It is hard to put too much emphasis on the last number in a time series; it is always the most subject to revision," reported Reuters. The Center's data show a rise in carbon emissions of only 2.6 percent in 2006, compared to 3.3 percent in 2005, 5.4 percent in 2004, and 4.7 percent in 2003.

The preliminary estimates for 2005 and 2006 come from information provided by BP, while the earlier estimates are based on U.N. energy data. According to Marland, the most recent data include emissions from burning fossil fuels, making cement, and flaring natural gas. The Center provides DOE with most of its climate-change data and information analysis. In prior years, preliminary estimates of this kind have had to be revised upward.
Reuters , Sept. 4.

No One Could Have Anticipated . . . .

Today's WaPo reports on something that I think we all saw coming.

[M]ansionization comes with a twist: Some of the new homes, neighbors and town leaders say, are being used as boardinghouses for several families or unrelated people. Some are college students from the University of Maryland. Others appear to be immigrants.

"Our concern with these McMansions is they are not single-family homes," LaVerne Williams of Lewisdale told a group of county planners and elected officials in Riverdale. "You are turning our communities into rooming communities."

Williams, 81, is leading a campaign to protect her neighborhood and beyond. She walked into the recent meeting with a cane in one hand and a fistful of pictures of oversize houses in the other.

"I'm a law-abiding citizen," she said. "You have to do something about this."

In my Northern Virginia neighborhood, there are a number of these ecological and aesthetic monstrosities -- crowding out light for the surrounding modest bungalows and leaving no room for trees or grass -- sitting empty. It's a matter of time before they, too, turn into rooming houses. Great job, zoning boards!