Comments Biodiversivist has made

A) nobody scoops cat shit

B) the mountains of dog poop in back yards is the problem

Laws that limit dog and cat ownership to a single animal and maybe smaller lap animals, along with much bigger licensing fees to help clean up the sound would help, but none of that is going to happen. Dogs and cats have evolved into genetically engineered opiod releasers. People use them for their daily fixes.

1) Lugar owns a farm that grows corn and soybeans.

2) His Indiana constituency is about as ignorant as any in America (I was born, raised, and escaped from there).

3) He is a politician.

To date, humanity has made no progress on global warming. Natural gas would be a good interim step. Replace coal with natural gas now and then methodically replace natural gas with renewables.

Although it's true that natural gas is little better than diesel in heavy transport like garbage trucks and buses when it comes to green house gases on a life cycle basis, when you account for local air pollution and soot spewed (which is a major contributor to global warming) by diesel and biodiesel, natural gas comes out way ahead. And if you replace the coal generated electircity used to process and compress natural gas with natural gas electricity, you get an even better life cycle outcome.

Soot does not stay in the atmosphere for long so replacing diesel and biodiesel with natural gas for transport wold be another fast way to attack global warming.

Also, there is the issue of capturing methane from waste, at feedlots and municipal waste treantment facilities, which is a renewable form of natural gas.

And finally, you can use natural gas to appease the energy independence patriots and xenophobes. combined, Canadian, Mexican, and domestic reserves are quite large.

Thanks for the clue that has finally led to the actual report. Here is the link to the report (which is not the same as a study because it does not show how values are derived):

http://www.europabio.org/Biofuels reports/MerrilLynchJune2008.pdf

I've updated Biofuel Myth # 8 accordingly but you aren't going to like it:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/desiremore/biofuelmyths1.htm#bookmark8

And while I'm back here I may as well address this bizzare claim you made earlier:

"...You make it sound like the corn just disappears; it does not.  1/3 of the bushel is starch, which is used for the ethanol.  1/3 of the bushel is protein, which becomes livestock feed.  The other 1/3 is CO2 which is bottled and sold or returned (not released from the ground as is the case with petroleum) to the atmosphere from whence much of it came (obviously some came from the ground from the fossil fuel input).  So corn ethanol does not displace corn..."

70% of a bushel of corn used to make ethanol is lost to the human food chain, which includes poultry, beef, and dairy. 30% goes on to become cattle feed. Whatever CO2 is captured in an ethanol refinery goes straight into the atmosphere again as soon as someone opens the bottle of pop carbonated by that CO2.

Admittedly, "Off the cuff" does not have a precise definition. The only data I have ever been able to find on it is a short reference to him and that value in a WSJ article, and of course the dozens of corn ethanol promotional organizations pointing to that one comment.

I do have an acquaintance who did ask Blanch where he got that number. And he did say that it came from the simple three variable supply/demand elasticity equations as my above  link details. The number is purely hypothetical, unproven, unprovable.

Without a link to a study I will have to assume your comment is hearsay like most of your comments.

I don't know about you two, but I've had a ball here. It's like a pick-up two-against-one basketball game, or better yet, an El Nacho tag team wrestling match with me in my blue tights, you in your red ones, and Sac in his white ones.

I also imagine this is what it would be like to have a debate with the protagonist in the movie Mementos, with your selective memory capacity.

Carbon Sink.. spoken like a True PETA style nut case enviro...Did you discuss with your kids the enviromental damage you are doing flying them to exotic locatioins around th eworld to pet animals.

Ah, not sure what the ...link between PETA and carbon sinks is, but, ah, maybe we'll just let that one lay there till it quits steaming.

"...As fra as "illegal" to make corn ethanol after 15 billion gallons ..the reason is so that we start producing advanced ethanol, next gen eration ethanol/bio fuels.."

Bzzzzzzt. Wrong. Want to try again or should I just give the right answer to spare us both another round? If corn ethanol's impact is  "miniscule' as you keep insisting, there is no reason to cap its use and no reason to develop cellulosic. We can put all of our corn in our gas tanks.

That's ridiculous of course, and by association, so is your argument that corn ethanol's impact is "miniscule." The cap is set because corn ethanol's impact is not miniscule. The only hope of increasing the ethanol blend is to develop a fuel that does not usurp cropland--thus the advanced fuel mandates.

When I said "illegal" it was in reference to your comment "in fact we have a Law that wont allow it." I'm thouroghly familiar with the madate schedule. Now that you have it up let's take a look at some problems with it.

What are the odds that we will meet those advanced fuel mandates? We are about to blow past the first one. And what were our politicians planning to do the day the blending percentage exceeded the ten percent  limit on car warranties and older car fuel systems? Not a problem. I'm confident lobbyists will succedd in shoving a 15% blend down consumers throats any day now.

At a smaller scale, Washington State is already missing its biofuel mandate goals. It would be funny if the ramifications were not so serious with so much money wasted.

"...So to be asking how we are  going to feed an additional 3 billion peple is out in left field and has no relavence to corn ethanol..we wont even be making corn ethnaol by the time th eworld has an additional 3 billion people..."

Well, that's odd, your schedule there says we will be making 15 billion gallons from it right through 2022. The world pop will be just shy of 8 billion by then. And gosh, what if the  politicians are wrong about cellulosic being the fuel of the future? I realize that our politicians have never made stupid mistakes in the past, but it could happen one day.

...Russ you make absolutely no sense what so ever ...Farmers have never made  alot of money..that's the lifestyle..."

Prices, your comments have degeneraed into nonsensical repetitions of previously refuted exhortations, each preceded with childlike, taunts like :Russ you make absolutely no sense what so ever" and "That's just to funny"  and "Just proves you are completely ignorant to how farmers make a living."

Is it possible that I really am debating a teenage girl after all? OMG, LOL.

That's also a strawman argument. I never said  farmers make a lot of money. It's a lifestyle choice, they choose it over a desk or construction  job.

"...with about 40 percent of farm-related income from direct government payments..."

Thanks for validating what I said earlier.

"...What part of the fact that the "grain"   is one of the least expensive variables in the cost of food?..."

Do you even know what a strawman argument is? I never said that grain wasn't the least expensive variable.

"...and Oh btw  Food is cheaper today that it ever was ... I'll repeat it since you decided  to ignore it the first time..."

I refuted that at least twice earlier in the thread. Go back and read those refutations.

"...So adding 10 billion gallons last year to our fuel supply doesn't help?..."

How many times has it been pointed out that consumers didn't get anywhere near 10 billion gallons worth of mileage in 2008? It was closer to 6.  At this point, every time you make that claim a reader somewhere is rolling his or her eyes. Repeat a falsehood often enough and people will come to believe it, unless every time you repeat it someone is there to refute it.

Corn ethanol is wonderful ....if you are a corn farmer. In the aggregate, is serves a tiny minority at the expense of the the majority and increases environmental degradation. The actual 5.6 billion worth of mileage added to our fuel supply last year was paid for by consumers. At the pump it neither helped nor hurt them. It screwed them in the grocery store and at tax time and tripped up effors to slow GHG releases, biodiversity loss, and carbon sinks lost to agriculture.

"...How about 100 billion gallons, as can be a likely outcome with U.S. biofuels in several decades?  Or to put it another way, what if we don't have those 10 billion gallons now, or 100 billion gallons then?..."

You are attempting to bait and switch. The debate is over corn ethanol, not potential future energy sources like algae biodiesel, fusion nuclear, and celluloic ethanol. Soy biodiesel lobbyists already removed the blending subsidy for a competing fuel last year, forcing it out of business. Corn ethanol lobbyists have maintained the tariff keeping cane ethanol out of the competition. These are just the start of a lobbying battle by these fuels to crush any fuel that tries to steal their profit. Corn ethanol does not lead to competing ideas, it is a roadblock to them.

"...A Merrill-Lynch economist last year found we decreased the fuel costs for everyone by 15% due to our ethanol production.  I assume you will soon post a link about how you think that's incorrect.  He said it, not me.  Take it up with him.  There's a lot that goes into fuel prices, whether it's speculators, psychology, or actual supply and demand.  He felt it was 15%.  Post your blog/opinion link now so we can ignore it...."

OK, here you go. His name is Blanch, now working for Bank of America. That 15% comes not from a study, but from a single off the cuff remark in one article. When asked where he got that number he said it is based on a simple three variable equation. I bust this myth in detail here. I suspected that you never bother to follow or read links, but anyone following this debate might and your boast might give them the incentive to do so.

"...It is going to take a combination of decreasing use per capita, hybrids, plug-in's, biofuels, CNG, and other alternatives.  Again, your crusade against corn ethanol is missplaced considering you're a big hybrid supporter (with its own imperfections)...."

It's true that I'm a big proponent of energy efficiency, but our repeated attempts to stereotype me as some kind of hybrid car enthusiast/buff is off base. It will take a combination of those things but the biofuels we end up useing have to be better than the fossil fuels they replace. That isn't true with corn ethanol.

"...You know if it was just a matter of tiding them over until they can get back to producing for themselves it would be fine.

But it is the same welfare over and over and over.. we never demand they start setting up the infrastructer to provide for themselves... and we give them all the incentive with cheap and free grain to NOT provide for themselves...."

Farm subsidies are welfare for American farmers, not poor Africans. You wanted it. You lobbied for it. You got it. It just happened to help the poor of the world to afford food, while simultaneously preventing them from having any hope of competing on the world market. That isn't welfare, that's just a side effect of the welfare lavished on the American farmer

It's too late to go back now. Raising the price of food for billions of poor at this point is just making a terrible situation worse.

"...You just dont seem to get it do you?  Zimbabe  was a huge corn producer until they kicked the white faremrs off the land .."

Well, you know, maybe they were tired of being poorly paid farm hands for the rich white guy on the horse.

Your latest post has degenerated into simply cutting and pasting what you have already said. You've begun to repeat your repetitions.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

Copying and pasting entire pages from books into comment fields is very much frowned upon. It's lazy, it consumes space, it forces readers to wade through gobs of unrelated text. Most comment fields won't allow it for those reasons. You have to write your own stuff to participate. Grist's comment field has always been exceptionally generous and you just abused it. Did you think you had a novel idea there to save time and typing?

I read that book like most others concerned about environmental issues, and we are all aware of the damage massive subsidization and government meddling in free markets can do. Sound familiar? Your answer, more government meddling and even more subsidization.

In your zeal to demonstrate how our self-serving ag policy (which would have been hotly debated at the time had the internet been ubiquitous) can harm the poor you just shot a hole in your argument. That was bad policy and it crushed small corn farmers. At least they had affordabole corn. Now that those small farmers have been displaced to the cities you want to jack the price of corn 100%, pouring salt on an open wound, sort of a one-two American farm lobby knock out punch. Pollan is also no fan of your corn.

It is also more complicated than that. Central and South America were growing corn for many centuries before Columbus arrived. It has been an integral part of their culture from ancient times. The poverty in parts of Asia and Africa make the poverty in Mexico look tame. They need our corn to survive. They can't produce it cheaper, subsidy or no subsidy. The world has become interdependent on food supplies. To suddenly yerk from that supply 30 thousand square miles of corn crops and plunk it into our gas tanks after preventing the development of competing farm industries with government subsidies is every bit as self-serving and short-sighted as was the policy that wreaked havoc on Mexico.

"...Like I said earlier makes little difference anyways .. we can only produce 15 billion gallons of ethnaol form corn anyways out of a 36 billion gallon mandate. We are already at 11 billion gallons...."

Pretty comical really. The corn ethanol publicists are, in addition to everything else they have forced upon fellow citizens, lobbying hard for another 5% in our cars because they are already hitting the 10% blending wall. Once again, the poor will get shafted as the old cars they drive with their cracked and degraded rubber seals, will be especially vulnerable to damage and repair bills.

"...Cellulosic ethanol is alreay begun ..."

"Begun?" There is no econonically viable cellulosic ethanol being sold. The State biodiesel mandates where I live are not being met by anyone. In fact, we have managed to convince our city politicans to drop biofuels. As often happens in this country, change has to come from the bottom.

Seattel Drops Biodiesel

"...None of this would not have happened if it wasnt for corn ethanol paving the way..."

Other than a lot of research, nothing has happened. Cellulosic ethanol is a binary state. It is affordable or it isn't. It may very well always be just five more years from viability. We can debate its merits if it ever arrives. What I can't wait to see are the excuses the corn industry will dream up to lobby for advantage over any competing fuel that threatens its existence, like tariffs on cane ethanol and on and on.

"...corn prices have fallen from $7.50 to $3.60..."

That peak in price was caused by speculators hoping to cash in on high food prices caused by low grain stocks, which was and still is exacerbated by biofuels. Read

The End of Plenty

I have already explained at least twice about quoting short term corn prices and how prices can be brought down by expanding corn supply via cropland expansion and all of its associated environmental ramifications.

You also need to stop ignoring references to the 3 billion more people coming.

Here's a film you certainly won't be interested in watching. It mentions biofuels on several occasions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

Oh, I see where you got the impression that I own a grocrery store. When I mentioned"my grocery store" I was referring to the one I frequent. Small breakdown in communication.

E85PRICES,

Increased food prices are only one of the negatives of corn ethanol. If it were the only issue corn ethanol wouldn't look nearly as bad.

You haved used the price paid to an American farmer, not the retail price. Retail prices vary a lot. For example, the price I pay for yellow corn meal in my grocery store is $48 per bushel. 6.5 x 48 = $312.

Certainly the poorest in the world don't see that kind of mark up but they also don't have my income:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

880 million people earn less than $365 a year. 1.4 billion earn less than $500 a year. Millions of these people spend most of their income on food. My next door neighbors just adopted a two-year old girl from an orphanage in Ethiopia.

The doctor told her father that they had never seen such a low crit count. She is the size of a 12 month old, has little stick legs, walks like a robot, has sunken cheeks and patches of hair missing. Her dad brings her over every evening to eat cherries off my tree.

You have a myopic world view centered around the 0.004 percent of the world population (American farmers). Fair enough but you don't deserve my charity.

1. According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.

2. Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

"...Do you know that many tribal communities are displaced and also killed by the oil giants to get at the petroleum under their towns?..."

No. How many? Send us a link. Meanwhile, take a look at these land grabs for expansion of agriculture, which food based biofuels are exacerbating:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/03/land-grabbing-food-environment

"...Name calling will get your ideas nowhere in these discussions...."

You are referring to my labeling you a roving disinformation machine? You still insist that lithium mines are displacing Candian forests?

"...Worldly socialism has no place in a democratic, capitalistic free nation like the United States of America, this land our fathers and fore-fathers fought to protect our liberties..."

Your corn ethanol relies solely on the largese of the state to remain solvent, supported by the sweat of fellow citizens hard-earned tax dollars. That is by definition, socialism.

Wasn't it also our forefathes who exterminated the buffalo to turn the plains into vast swaths of sterile monocrops, after having committed genocide on the native people before stealing their land?

"...Why have to ship corn all the way around the world?..."

It's called free trade. It is the best policy known to reduce the incentive for humans to go to war with each other. Farmers don't "have to ship corn" they "want to ship corn" to paying customers. Should we stop buying computers and cars from other parts of the world?

"...We still export record amounts of corn...."

Where did you get the idea that the price of corn won't go up until we stop exporting it?

"...The price being a little higher..."

A little higher? The price of corn has increased 100% since 2001. Didn't you bother to look at this USDA graph:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img30.gif

"...gives the encouragement to farmers IN THEIR OWN COUNTRIES to grow their own food.For DECADES America's farmers have been blamed for keeping corn prices too low, keeping those other nations' farmers in poverty and their own families starving..."

For decades, America's farmers have been successfully lobbying to get subsidies for their crops. All of a  sudden, they think it's time for the poor people of the world to get out their hoes and donkeys and start growing their own food in the parched lands of Africa. The UN has just declared that the number of hungry in the world just hit a billion for the first time in history.

Jeffery Sachs, an expert on African  poverty has pointed out that the poor eat what they can afford. If they can't grow it cheaper than they can buy it, they buy it. Raise the price of that food and millions of urban poor will simply be forced to eat less. My wife and oldest daughter just returned from a medical mission to a rural village in El Salvador where they grow their own corn and beans. It is an unimaginably difficult life. Average income is $5 per day. There are hundreds of millions who survive on less than $2 a day.

Corn ethanol has nothing to do with a free market. Remove its subsidies and it would disapear tomorrow except as an anti-knock additive.

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"...The CBO has found that corn ethanol caused at most a 0.5% food price increase..."

Translation: Corn ethanol cost Americans about $9 billion in higher food costs in 2008.

"...Corrected for inflation, corn today is much lower in price than it was in the 1970's..."

That statement is calculated to mislead. In the seventies, almost a quarter of the world population was starving. Take a look at this chart:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img30.gif

Note that corn ethanol, after reaching a peak of about $5 a bushel has dropped to around $4 a bushel. Note that the price of corn, corrected for inflation averaged about $2.00 a bushel 2001 through 2005, when the Renewable Fuels legislation passed congress mandating ethanol use. It only takes a few weeks of high prices to starve a child. The number of chronically hungry has hit a billion for the first time in history.

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Sacamentoe85,

You are a roving disinformation machine.

"...switching petroleum dependence for lithium dependence is also concerning..."

Everything has an impact. Some ideas simply have much more impact than others. Let's compare a 15 gallon fuel tank filled with 90 pounds of corn ethanol to a plug-in hybrid using lithium batteries.

80% of the energy in that tank of ethanol will be wasted, dissipated to the air as waste heat as it powers an internal combustion engine. At least two third s of any gallon of corn ethanol is made from fossil fuels. It will be converted into a few hundred pounds of CO2 and spewed into the atmosphere. You will then fill it up again and start all over.

The pound or two of lithium will be used by the plug-in hybrid for its entire life and then get recycled to use again.

Most of the world's reserves of lithium reside in the high altitude Bolivian salt flats. There are some pockets of biodiversity in that area that should be carefully preserved but overall, the salt flats are a vast biologically sterile area and mining it can be done with little impact to biodiversity.

"...Speaking of saving forests and biodiversity, it is equally troubling that clearing forests in Canada to mine that lithium to ship to Japan to then ship back to the U.S. is something else...."

You have confused lithium-based battery chemistry with nickel-based. Present hybrids use NiMH batteries. A quick check on finds eleven nickel mines in Canada. One hasn't opened and three are closed. The others are underground mines not affecting forests and the one open pit mine is located where there are no forests.

Define armchair expert for us, armchair expert ...and "enemy of the good" while  you are at it.

"...Ethanol is already 9% of the US gasoline market..."

Only in volume, in reality, because it reduces gas mileage roughly 30% it has replaced closer to 6%.

"...move to second generation fuels from a myriad of other feedstocks..."

Why don't you get back to us when that happens. If government mandates can magically tailor make any new technology, why don't they mandate a cure for cancer while they're at it?

"...there is a mainstream market developed into which to send those advanced fuels once they are ready..."

You did a good job parroting that talking point but there is no market for this fuel as market is normally defined. Citizens are forced to subsidize it, and then have it forced down their throats by fiat as a blend in the gas they buy. Gone are the days when consumer actually had a choice to buy a ten percent blend called Gasohol. The lobbyists found a way to make you buy it.

To become a real armchair expert, you have a few things to learn. Grab a beer, start reading:

http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/05/biofuel-myths.html

Real change always comes from the bottom up. Thank you Dr. Hansen. Never mind the chirping crickets. They will come out when it's safe to do so.

Russ Walker's post has this quote:

“agreed to ask the EPA to roll back its new requirements that farmers offset rural land developed in other countries.”

I take it they are talking about this study that has eliminated corn ethanol and soy biodiesel as low carbon fuels in California because they cause deforestation in other parts of the world.

This same study was just used by Seattle and Berkeley to drop use of biodiesel.

All seems rather comical to subsidize and mandate the use of fuels that are worse for global warming than fossil fuels. Take a look at the comment field of this op-ed. At what point will politicians in blue states start responding to this biofuel backlash? Why don't we stop federal subsidies and mandates and let the red states fund their own mandates and subsidies instead of robbing the blue states? The answer of course is that they can't afford to do that. This is a wealth transfer scheme. Give me your primary votes and we will funnel blue state cash to you.

No arguments from me except some vehicles, like garbage trucks with fixed routes that return to the maintenance yard every day to refuel, are good candidates for natural gas. I would expect buses to also be good candidates. Sure beats diesel or biodiesel.

Here we go with the insular behavior that is so couterproductive:

"...vegetarians and vegans have a much lighter step than meat-eaters no matter how you cut it...."

 Eggs, and dairy are just as environmetnally intensive as meat. Like meat, they are animal products. It comes down to how much animal product you consume.  And your footprint is not "much lighter" than your neighbors. It is only a fraction of a percent different:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img6.gif

This controversy lit off in Oregon a month ago:

http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/04/six-things-you-probably-didnt-know.html

What were our elected officials thinking back in 2005 when they passed these laws? What was the game plan for when we hit the blending wall? Lawyers are getting out their drool buckets. People will be suing for damages real and imagined. It should come as no surprise that corn ethanol's advance may finally be blunted not because of environmental and humanitarian concerns, but by lawsuits for ruining recreational vehicle and lawnmower engines.

We already have to subsidize, pay for, and then burn corn in our cars, there should be no problem taking it to the next level making it illegal to sue for damages caused by it. Probably should make blogging and comment fields illegal while we are at it ; )

Jon,

I agree. Inexpensive, around town electric cars should have a niche. The ones on the roads today all use lead acid batteries. They weigh more than the car in many cases. The car gets slower and slower as they discharge. You can only discharge them half way or they will be damaged. They are slow to charge and worst of all, you will have to replace them all in just a few years. They are not viable. It is all about the battery. That is about to change. A battery factory is being built in Indiana as I write to support the hybrid and electric car industry. There are several competing battery designs out there finishing field testing. Some are still lead-based but have life cycles similar to lithium based (you won't ever have to replace them).

It seems to me that a car company could offer options. You could get a hybrid, plug-in hybrid, or an all electric around town version, all using the same battery pack. The cheapest by far would be the all-electric, all things being equal.

You have a point Turanga in that scientists can get pretty obnoxious particularly when another researcher gets credit for something that was sitting right under their noses. In this case the common sense observation that sticking 35,000 square miles of the most efficiently produced food on the planet into our gas tanks would have a ripple effect on the global food chain. History is filled with hilarious accounts of scientists going after one another with much gusto.

The question isn't whether or not land is being displaced. The question is how to best measure or model it. I would put stock in the Purdue model, (not because it is my alma mater but) because Purdue not only has one of the largest and oldest agricultural departments in the country, it is also a conservative school, sitting in the middle of corn fields in a very conservative state. If it finds corn ethanol worse than gas, it must be hard to show it otherwise!

Sexy voice in the wilderness?

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/newsblog/2009/02/fill-er-up-with-rainforest.html

"..It's not known how much of new farmland is being used for biofuels, but Gibbs estimates it could be anywhere from a third to two-thirds. Unless biofuels are planted in pastures or degraded lands, she said, "we're going to be burning rainforest in our gas tanks..."

http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/08-0645.1

"...A study published in ESA (Ecological Society of America) shows that land set aside to grow fallow would have…"..a greater net GHG savings than having the same plots under corn ethanol production for at least four decades..."

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1004-biodiesel.html

"...Future intensification of biodiesel feedstock production in [the tropics], without proper mitigation guidelines, will likely further threaten the high concentrations of globally endemic species in these biodiversity hotspots.."

and I could go on and on.

I also spotted what appear to be several strawman arguments in your comment ; )

This reminds me of the time our government insisted on fighting the Vietnam war against the wishes of its citizenry. Huge, sometimes violent protests were held but the war continued, with millions maimed and killed and hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, all to stop the Chinese communists (now our major trading partner) from overrunning the world. A complete and total waste. Started and perpetuated by Democrats, ended by a corrupt Republican who was eventually impeached. A recent prime example of just how destructive and stupid even a democracy can be.

Look at the comments on this Green Inc blurb:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/white-house-steps-up-support-for-biofuels/

Reality is sinking in for those of us who support Obama. Because he is by far the least of two evils, we can't vote against him. He can do anything he wants. Soon, car makers will be forced to make cars flex fuel. You will be forced to pay for that extra complexity, and you will be forced to burn ever higher blends of corn in your car. Short of civil disobedience, as called for by Gore and Hansen, there isn't a  thing we can do about it.

I hope Chu sleeps well at night having exchanged his scientist PJs for his politician ones. Nothing would garner more respect from me than to see him resign in protest of the administration's abandonment of science for political gain. I'm not holding my breath.

The RFA is a paid propaganda machine. Nothing they say is true:

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/08/ethanolalternative-fuel-faq.html#q2

If it is a remake of King of the Hill with a different sterotype, then it will be like King of the Hill, which is a good show. I don't hate people from small towns in Texas. I don't think people in small towns in Texas feel hated. I am very curious though. Nobody ever fits any sterotype exactly so we might have enough wriggle room to laugh. Ned Flanders was one of the most beloved characters on the Simpsons, next to Lenny of course.

Orng,

Take a look at this chart I adapted:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img29.gif

How would you predict the five variables that make the curves will change to keep them from crossing?

Something has to give. Improved crop yields are barely keeping up with population growth. Population growth is pretty much set. If cellulosic or algae never make it to commercial viability then the mix of crops won't change, unless we drop soy and corn fuels and start importing palm and cane. Doing that would short circuit most of the excuses for subsidizing biofuels. Assuming governments stick with their mandates, the thing most likely to give is land under cultivation. And as my post above showed, Brazilian farmers were torching the Amazon in anticipation of the big gold rush before the economic crissis slammed home:

"…24,932 square kilometers of Amazon forest was damaged between August 2007 and July 2008, an increase of 10,017 square kilometers -- 67 percent -- over the prior year. The figure is in addition to the 11,968 square kilometers of forest that were completely cleared, indicating that at least 36,900 square kilometers of forest were damaged or destroyed during the year..."

"…The surge in activity is attributed to the sharp rise in commodity prices over the past two years. While grain and meat prices have plunged since March, higher prices have provided an impetus for converting land for agriculture and pasture. Accordingly, the burning season of 2007 (July-September) saw record numbers of fires in some parts of the Amazon as farmers, speculators, and ranchers set vast areas ablaze to prepare for the 2008 growing season..."

"…falling grain prices early in the year coincided with a sharp slowing in deforestation. As food and fuel prices peaked through late 2007 and early 2008, it appeared that Amazon deforestation would climb to levels not seen since 2005 — more than 15,000 square kilometers were expected to be lost. The sudden downturn changed all that. When the final numbers came in for 2008, they showed that deforestation only increased a modest 3.8% to 11,968 square kilometers..."

Nice picture of a wing nut. So true about social heirarchies, busininess, politics, websites.

"...If you think public life is not just a larger version of the same thing—if you think it’s some kind of salon where the best facts and arguments win out—well, good luck..."

Also  true. Will Democracy survive complexity? Not as presently organized. Our politicians can't handle this level of complexity, progressive or not. We need to move to a system where the best facts and arguments do win out and we may be typing on the solution right in front of our eyes.

Why do raging internet debates kick off after legislation is passed instead of as a prerequisite for passing it? And no, congressional hearings are not debates. A modern democracy should be making use of the internet as a medium for public debate, welcoming public participation as a part of passing bills, but I digress.

"…Way to use data with a time span starting in 1980, waaaaaaay before the ethanol production ramp up.  60% of production was installed in the last 5 years…."

The FAO releases a new global assessment every 10 years. She studied 600 satellite images compiled by the FAO in 1980, 1990, and 2000. The 2010 assessment wasn't included in the study for obvious reasons. The paper was presented at the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in February.

"…Look at deforestation rates during that time. They’re down …what I’m saying is that since no one has proven that ethanol has caused any land to be converted in the rainforest and this is simply a model predicting those effects, I contend that it is idled ag land brought back into production, not torn down trees…."

It has been proven that ethanol has caused land to be converted (because we grew more corn we grew less soy so they grow more soy) and unlike global warming, the proof does not rely on complex models. Deforestation rates dropped after the record highs 2002-2004 thanks to efforts by environmental groups like Greenpeace.

What is missing is evidence that farmers are trying to grow crops on land that has been stripped of topsoil and nutrients. It is more likely that the lower deforestation rates since 2004 are the result of pasture being shifted to the Cerrado (another carbon sink) and/or a decrease in illegal logging.

"…It's not known how much of new farmland is being used for biofuels, but Gibbs estimates it could be anywhere from a third to two-thirds. Unless biofuels are planted in pastures or degraded lands, she said, "'we're going to be burning rainforest in our gas tanks…'"

Growing crops on degraded land will be expensive. It's a hard sell to get farmers to try to grow crops on bad land. Several studies have also found that letting that land grow back into forest would do more to reduce global warming than growing biofuels there for decades to several centuries depending on biofuel and type of habitat.

"… However, in some cases, allowing the degraded land to be returned to its natural, forested state might be the wisest use of the land, absorbing more carbon and providing ecological services such as flood mitigation, rainwater recycling and habitat for endangered species…"

Look at the destruction of the Amazon as a fire. Pouring biofuel on that fire is not going to help and speaking of fires:

"…The area of rainforest in the process of being deforested — razed but not yet cleared — surged in the Brazilian Amazon during 2008..."

"…24,932 square kilometers of Amazon forest was damaged between August 2007 and July 2008, an increase of 10,017 square kilometers -- 67 percent -- over the prior year. The figure is in addition to the 11,968 square kilometers of forest that were completely cleared, indicating that at least 36,900 square kilometers of forest were damaged or destroyed during the year.

"…The surge in activity is attributed to the sharp rise in commodity prices over the past two years. While grain and meat prices have plunged since March, higher prices have provided an impetus for converting land for agriculture and pasture. Accordingly, the burning season of 2007 (July-September) saw record numbers of fires in some parts of the Amazon as farmers, speculators, and ranchers set vast areas ablaze to prepare for the 2008 growing season

"…U.S. consumption of corn to supply domestic ethanol production created a global corn frenzy which drove up prices and spurred expansion of croplands around the planet. Two examples are Brazil and Laos. Brazil increased production of soy to essentially make up for soy acreage lost to corn in America. In Laos (pictured), returns from corn were so high that Vietnamese traders pressured national park officials to open up protected areas in parts of the country to corn fields. They refused..."

"…falling grain prices early in the year coincided with a sharp slowing in deforestation. As food and fuel prices peaked through late 2007 and early 2008, it appeared that Amazon deforestation would climb to levels not seen since 2005 — more than 15,000 square kilometers were expected to be lost. The sudden downturn changed all that. When the final numbers came in for 2008, they showed that deforestation only increased a modest 3.8% to 11,968 square kilometers..."

"...And when you say “Somebody else will buy it if we don't. Your terrorists will get funded anyway.”  I disagree wholeheartedly.  America is by far the largest consumer of oil...."

I suppose the argument boils down to what a terrorist is and who is funding them. We only get 10% of our oil from Saudi Arabia, where the 9/11 terrorists hailed from. We could buy it elsewhere if we wanted to pay more.

"...Corn and cellulosic ethanol could completely eliminate imports, plus provide the means for others to produce their own fuel...."

No. It took over a quarter of our corn crop to replace about 4% of our gasoline supply and cellulosic is perpetually just five years away from commercial viability. Even if cellulosic actually escapes the lab it will eventually be crushed economically by cane ethanol imports, making us dependent on foreign sources all over again.

"...We could render the Middle East obsolete...".

No. The oil would simply be sold to other countries.

"...We can't just keep importing oil because we think it's inevitable...."

We do agree on that point. What we disagree on is how to do it. I want to do it with efficiency gains. You want to do it by replacing the fuel in your SUV or pickup with biomass scraped off the face of the planet.

We throw 80% of the energy in every gas tank away using today's internal combustion engines. My family reduced oil for transport use by 80% without cost or hardship. We move just as many miles just as fast, save money doing it, and we did it without converting a single acre of the biosphere into fuel. We swapped a 24-mpg Outback for a 48-mpg hybrid and a 15-mpg Cherokee for a Hybrid Electric bike with trailer for around town single occupant trips.

"...And you’re right that biofuels are in their infancy, which is why the efficiency gains in the last five years have been phenomenal, not that anyone gives the industry any credit..."

"…Biofuels have caused alarm because of how quickly production has been growing: Global ethanol production increased by four times and biodiesel by 10 times between 2000 and 2007…"

Sources:

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1220-amazon.html
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/releases2/amazon-soy-moratorium-holds
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/su-bbc021309.php
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/newsblog/2009/02/fill-er-up-with-rainforest.html
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1008-brazil.html

"...Actually, ethano's argument is that they haven't factored in indirect effects for any fuel but ethanol..."

Only about 1-2% of global liquid fuel supply is presently biofuel. Trust me, on a per gallon basis, nothing beats scraping the biosphere into our fuel tanks for pure destructive power on a per gallon basis.

Reality check. There is no way California will find corn ethanol unacceptable:

"...California's Air Resources Board "believes that corn ethanol will play an important role in helping California achieve the goals of the (low carbon fuel standard)," the state's top air quality regulator, Mary Nichols, said in a letter to General Wesley Clark, co-chair of biofuels association, Growth Energy and a former U.S. presidential candidate...."

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2227317720090423

Our stupid politicians are not going to save us. I saw a very interesting headline somewhere that suggested that a ruling against corn ethanol would be a boon for other biofuels and they are right. Corn ethanol is getting in the way of better things and it will never go down without a fight.

The UCS is chipping in:

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/scientists-urge-california-to-0223.html

I recenlty stumbled upon some evidence of land displacement effects in an old Oil Drum post that I adapted:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/Graphics/img29.gif

You can't base political decisions on science when the majority of your citizens don't believe in the theory of evolution.

Monbiot expresses his frustration:

Plastic bag obsession is carrier for environmental ignorance

"It's time to refocus; plastic bags are not the scourge of the planet, their biggest evil is to distract us from more pressing causes"--Monbiot

“We would be the embarrassment of the nation..."

I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. Watch what happens if the EPA accounts for land displacement effects and nitrous oxide release from corn and soy fuels, not that I'd bet my first born the EPA will stand up to the political pressure building to ignore those factors.

Yes, well. Lloyd also took exception in a Huffington Post article last summer to a post I did titled "Cabins are not ‘earth-friendly’." 

Having one that is about the same size as my two story home for four here in Seattle, he thinks they are just fine. Everyone should run out in the woods and build one.

Jon,

Your link is broken. Hopefully the years of contribution to the Gristmill has not gone the way of the library of Alexandria. That was a very good post as I recall. GHG has a billion point sources.

This graph shows why the U.S. contribution to GHG from livestock differs from the global one. Our system does not contribute significantly to new deforestation and we import a very small percentage of the beef consumed here.

"...If you think agricultural emissions don’t matter, ask yourself if you would feel differently if the bill completely exempted the entire industrial processes sector, and certain emissions from coal mining and petroleum...."

This chart breaks down U.S. emissions pretty well. The green squares represent all ag activity responsible for about 8% of GHG in the U.S.

I also agree with what Tom said:

"...Also, if the offset system allows credits for capturing that methane, it may be that the carrot of payments to sequester the methane will work as well as the stick of a tax for emitting...."

Just flaring captured methane without using it for heat or electricity may be worth doing with carbon pricing. Here is a recent local story on this topic:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008857469_sundaybuzz15.html

Laughing gas comes off fields as a result of nitrogen fertilizer breaking down. This can be minimized with technique although measuring it on a field by field basis can't be done. The Crutzen study found this can make corn ethanol up to 50% worse than gasoline as a GHG source, Canola biodiesel up to 70% worse.

"...For example, agriculture does play a prominent role in the bill as a source of potential renewable electricity credits with manure digesters and crop biofuels..."

What crop biofuels do they intend to make electricity with?

True that Gonzo

He should have mentioned funding for family planning education and voluntary contraception.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I second that. This is well worth watching.

Some notes on biofuels:

When asked how he thinks funding for renewable energy should be distributed he said 90% into existing technology that we already know works to reduce GHG, 10% into research for things like algae biofuels "...that go closer to the 9 or 10 percent efficiency instead of the present half of a percent."

Biofuels have a wildly disproportionate [infrastructure] investment compared to its capacity to solve the problem.

He likens algae biofuels (does not even give the time of day to existing biofuels) to fusion as a hoped-for future solution with an unacceptably long lead time.

I don't hold out a lot of hope for a magic biofuel and I also think the power density of biofuels is problematic.

He spent a lot of time trying to diplomatically placate a biofuel enthusiast named Drew in the audience off to his right.

Misc Notes:

He is about to have a child (or at least, his wife is). This will bring him into the fold with those of us already worried sick about our children's futures.

I'm worried about how you would phrase it [green jobs will solve problem]. Lets not call that an energy independence project ... that's about oil. We will have to use energy much more wisely.

He was asked if we have the political will. I would have answered that with a question. Have you known any politician since Carter with enough integrity to call for something as simple as a reduced speed limit (which was mentioned in the talk as a very effective solution)?

Does not think highly of carbon offsets. Mentions http://www.cheatneutral.com

"Business travel actually sucks."

Amen to that.

He flew 120,000 miles in 2007. He owns eleven bicycles. I am relieved and inspired by his example of reducing his own carbon footprint. Maybe Gore and Friedman really should make an effort to do same.

He mentions repeatedly the fact that ideas must "scale." This is key.

He is 6/7 ths vegetarian, but, dairy and eggs use about the same resources as chicken and pork, a little less than beef. We need a new word to replace vegetarianism, which is inaccurate anyway if you include dairy and eggs. Somebody come up with a better all-inclusive word for a low impact diet.

Making stuff last longer is another way of saying we have to slow our economic growth down.

Have to stop deforestation, accounts for 10-20% GHG.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I like Sims. Who doesn't?

But the road to hell is paved with good intentions and he is after all, a politician.

"...increased use of biofuel in buses..."

King County suspended use of biodiesel back in July of 08:

We have also recently suspended the use of biodiesel in large part due to its relatively higher cost compared to diesel fuel.

Source:

http://www.metrokc.gov/kcdot/metrofares/signed_fare_lette ...

Which, according to all of the latest research was a good thing for the Earth, but that's not the reason they suspended it. They did it to save money. With oil approaching record highs, biodiesel was getting expensiver, faster : )

What is not to love a about a fuel that, even with a dollar a gallon subsidy, always costs more than oil, usurps carbon sinks, land, and food?

Seattle is still paying an extra $350,000 a year to blend biodiesel into its fuel. Which, I suppose is no big deal in comparison to the $10,000,000 invested in Imperium Renewables by the city employees' reitrement fund : 0

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Let the competition begin

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Here is the link

to the GM rebuttal:

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/03/05/gm-responds-to-ca ...

According to autobloggreen:

Tax credits starting at $4,168 (there's a nice round number for you) will go to people to buy a vehicle with a battery pack that has at least 4 kWh of capacity. From there the credits ramp up to $7,500 for vehicles with a 16 kWh pack. For those that haven't been paying attention, that just happens to be the size of the pack in the Chevy Volt

Basicly, GM is designing cars that can capitalize on government handouts, which is becoming alarmingly common (think Flex Fuel SUVs designed to burn corn ethanol).

Is it possible that Congress does not know its ass from a hole in the ground?:

Still, is electric storage really the best criterion for judging plug-in hybrids?

For instance, if you make heavier vehicles, then kWh's won't necessarily equate to extensive electric range. Conversely, ultralight vehicles might not need much battery capacity to achieve even more than 40 miles of EV range. Thus, wouldn't EV range, not battery capacity, be a better way to judge plug-ins?

Also, the Chevy Volt only charges it's lithium battery to 80 percent and depletes it to only 30 percent. This is largely to maintain cell integrity and durability of the battery. Thus, one might argue that 50 percent of the battery isn't needed. Hence, 50 percent of the capacity isn't needed. That would push the Volt down to just 8 kWh's and less of a tax credit

In reality, many Volt drivers will have to use gasoline, maybe a lot more gasoline than Congress believes. Some battery experts have already claimed that Volt EV range could easily drop well below 20, even 15, miles with heavy AC use and aggressive driving. If this proves true, is 15 miles of EV range really worth $7500 more than 100 mpg, or more, fuel economy just because of battery capacity?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Ah yes, a hoax wrapped in a hoax

Very nice...

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Putting Hannity and Olberman

on the same show would get the same results. I'd hit the mute button for one and listen to the other. Those who enjoy having their brain stem stroked would listen to Hannity, those who prefer a neocortex massage, Olberman.

The three minute yelling matches between talking heads can hardly be called debate.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Love it

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Biobrent

Which commenter are you addressing? It helps if you address other posters by name, like I just did. I also have no idea what links you are referring to.

There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the blog:

The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?

Here are some posts on the topic of biofuels by the Grist staff for your perusal:

Tom Philpott

Dave Roberts

the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, ... This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use ...

Not so clear. If we converted 700 times more vegetable oil into car fuel in 2008 than in 2000, but did not produce more soy oil, how do you suppose the global food supply filled that hole in the human food chain? Somebody somewhere grew more vegetable oil crops, canola, palm, soy, corn, whatever. Biodiesel made from food crops cannot be scaled. Soybean biodiesel uses twice as much land as corn ethanol.

First, your 78% reduction in CO2 on a life cycle basis for soy based biodiesel comes from that eleven year old study done with the Department of agriculture to promote a use for soy oil. A more recent study explains:

NRELs 1998 analysis of energy inputs to soybean-derived diesel fuel production is sound, but it left out a comprehensive accounting for all the fossil energy costs of agriculture. Those energy costs have now been accounted for by Hill et al. (2006).... Conversion of the world soybean crop to biodiesel in 2005 would satisfy 14% of distillate oil consumption in the US

The above study dropped the 78% to 41%. Also note that unless you can explain how the missing 600 million gallons of vegetable oil that went into our gas tanks got replaced without growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere, we have to assume it was replaced by growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere.

What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 9.1 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel

But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.

Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 6.37 billion pounds....Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million 556 thousand cars off the road last year alone.

But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.

By the end of this year, the Prius fleet will have saved 4.3 billion pounds with pure efficiency gains (375,000 cars off the road)--without using one acre of food oil or usurping a single acre of forest carbon sink or a dollar a gallon from fellow citizen's taxes (assumed 750,000 Priuses getting double the American average of about 24 mpg).

So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".

A biodiesel powered Jetta is a lot dirtier than the gasoline version. If you are really concerned about children's health you would advocate retrofitting modern air pollution devices on school buses which are now feasible thanks to the introduction of ultra low sulfur diesel.

What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric [hybrid] tractor trailers?

I would suggest the opposite. What you are doing is the height of irresponsibility. You have not done even the basic research. It is you who continue to distort the facts to try to promote what has been found by several new peer reviewed research papers to be a fuel far more destructive than even fossil fuels. Brazil and Indonesia are right behind the US and China in GHG production and it is because of deforestation, grassland and peat bog carbon sink destruction from growing demand for agriculture. The food-based biofuels of today exacerbate the problem. They don't scale.

It seems to me that the tide has turned for most informed environmentalists. Growing biofuels on arable cropland was a big mistake from an environmental perspective. George Monbiot, author of Heat is also a huge critic of today's biofuels. The tide began turning with the publication in peer reviewed science journals of evidence that food based biofuels are worse for global warming than the fuels they replace on a full life cycle basis due to a combination of land displacement effects and higher than realized nitrous oxide release (Science, The Journal of Amospheric Chemistry and Physics, and The Journal of Conservation Biology). These papers in turn kicked off an article in Time Magazine and one in the New York Times that made the public aware of them. Where have you been? You're still quoting from an eleven year old USDA/DOE soybean study.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Biobrent

Which commenter are you addressing? It helps if you address other posters by name, like I just did. I also have no idea what links you are referring to.

There is a disclaimer at the bottom of the blog:

The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?

Here are some posts on the topic of biofuels by the Grist staff for your perusal:

Tom Philpott

Dave Roberts

the US biodiesel industry has grown from production of less than a million gallons in 2000 to about 700 million last year. In that same period the soy bean production in the US has been almost flatline, ... This clearly illustrates that 700 million gallons of biodiesel in the US has not caused and additional crop acrage or deforestation or indirect land use ...

Not so clear. If we converted 700 times more vegetable oil into car fuel in 2008 than in 2000, but did not produce more soy oil, how do you suppose the global food supply filled that hole in the human food chain? Somebody somewhere grew more vegetable oil crops, canola, palm, soy, corn, whatever. Biodiesel made from food crops cannot be scaled. Soybean biodiesel uses twice as much land as corn ethanol.

First, your 78% reduction in CO2 on a life cycle basis for soy based biodiesel comes from that eleven year old study done with the Department of agriculture to promote a use for soy oil. A more recent study explains:

NRELs 1998 analysis of energy inputs to soybean-derived diesel fuel production is sound, but it left out a comprehensive accounting for all the fossil energy costs of agriculture. Those energy costs have now been accounted for by Hill et al. (2006).... Conversion of the world soybean crop to biodiesel in 2005 would satisfy 14% of distillate oil consumption in the US

The above study dropped the 78% to 41%. Also note that unless you can explain how the missing 600 million gallons of vegetable oil that went into our gas tanks got replaced without growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere, we have to assume it was replaced by growing more vegetable oil crops of some kind somewhere.

What it has caused is a reduction in life cycle CO2 emissions of about 17.3 9.1 pounds per gallon as compared to diesel fuel

But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.

Multiply that by the 700 million gallons produced last year and it means that we have reduced co2 in the US by about 12.1 6.37 billion pounds....Which is the equivalent of taking over 1 million 556 thousand cars off the road last year alone.

But only if you ignore crop displacement effects, including those within our own borders as conservation reserve carbon sinks were put under the plow.

By the end of this year, the Prius fleet will have saved 4.3 billion pounds with pure efficiency gains (375,000 cars off the road)--without using one acre of food oil or usurping a single acre of forest carbon sink or a dollar a gallon from fellow citizen's taxes (assumed 750,000 Priuses getting double the American average of about 24 mpg).

So now you guys are gonna do backflips to prove my usda and DOE data is wrong and convince your readers that we should all just sit back and leave those 1 million cars on the road spewing diesel pollution and killing kids because you "heard" that "biofuels are bad".

Done, done and done.

What you are doing here is the height of irresponsibility, because you haven't even done the basic research but you continue to distort the facts to try to bring down the only viable, low-carbon alternative to diesel fuel in favor of more petroleum while you whine on blogs and dream up electric [hybrid] tractor trailers?

I would suggest the opposite. What you are doing is the height of irresponsibility. You have not done even the basic research. You continue to distort the facts to try to promote what has been found by several new peer reviewed research papers to be a fuel far more destructive than even fossil fuels. Brazil and Indonesia are right behind the US and China in GHG production and it is because of deforestation, grassland and peat bog carbon sink destruction from growing demand for agriculture. The food-based biofuels of today exacerbate the problem. They don't scale.

It seems to me that the tide has turned for most informed environmentalists. Growing biofuels on arable cropland was a big mistake from an environmental perspective. George Monbiot, author of Heat is also a huge critic of today's biofuels. The tide began turning with the publication in peer reviewed science journals of evidence that food based biofuels are worse for global warming than the fuels they replace on a full life cycle basis due to a combination of land displacement effects and higher than realized nitrous oxide release (Science, The Journal of Amospheric Chemistry and Physics, and The Journal of Conservation Biology). These papers in turn kicked off an article in Time Magazine and one in the New York Times that made the public aware of them

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Your last link really hits the nail, Grey

"...the human brain evolved to respond to threats that have four features -- features that terrorism has and that global warming lacks.

First, global warming lacks a mustache. No, really. We are social mammals whose brains are highly specialized for thinking about others. Understanding what others are up to -- what they know and want, what they are doing and planning -- has been so crucial to the survival of our species that our brains have developed an obsession with all things human. We think about people and their intentions; talk about them; look for and remember them."

The odds of Ken being right are high. Humanity is probably, almost certainly, fucked. By that I mean, a gargantuan degradation in quality of life for most and a population crash is in the offing. And that's not the worst case scenario. A major extinction event that takes out the last remaining hominid species is a possibility as well. But that word "probably" implies a chance.

We can argue endlessly and ignorantly about what those chances are but doing so would be pointless.

Our time would be better spent debating potential solutions.

To get people to stop sending the last of the biosphere into the atmosphere and to stop burning fossil fuels, we have to manipulate brains evolved to survive in the Pleistocene. That is where our attentions should be focused.

Greyfalcon's link explains why you can't get people to fear global warming.

Try as you might, you will never get the masses to accept the truth. Too scary. To get them off their couches we will have to use carrots.

From 30 Rock:

Priest: What brought you here?

Jack: What brought me here?  What brings anyone anywhere?  Why do men build bridges?  Why are there jets? I was hoping to have sex tonight.

Priest: I need back up!  Harvard did not prepare me for this!

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

They should calculate Friedman's footprint

while they're at it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Coincidentally

I read that article just last night. Here's the problem. Jay Inslee and every other politician is calling for continued use of food based biofuels until we get algae and cellulosic on line.

They are using these perpetual fuels of the future to maintain the status quo. We are obligated to critique them as others critique clean coal, which is being used to perpetuate new coal plant construction.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

"...advanced biofuels..."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Picture an affordable thirty gallon battery in

every home. It charges up during off peak and discharges during peak. That alone would cut energy costs. Such a battery would also make residential solar finally take off, which would in turn radically alter our existing power generation system, idling powerplants that have no consumers. Can't charge a consumer for using his own solar panels and battery.

Daydreams. MIT has a well oiled press release machine. It's their version of popular mechanics where 98% of the ideas presented never bear fruit.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

It's like

blaming the ox for eating the corn when it was the farmer who failed to shut the gate.

I think its rich to watch politicians grill bankers when they are the ones who failed to regulate them. Every one of those politicians would have acted the same way if they were running those institutions.

Congress has an abysmal approval rating. They probably get together in the back room after the hearings and congratulate each other for acting all moral and shit.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

This quote seems fitting

"The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself."...Chomsky

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I smell a carbon tax turd analogy coming....

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Here is a commercial

for comparison created by Washington State's King County. I just saw it on TV while channel surfing:

It asks that we take short showers and turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth.

It takes about a thousand gallons of water to make one gallon of ehtanol.

http://gas2.org/2008/10/16/1000-gallons-water-per-1-gallo ...

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Yes!

Finally we are getting good quality, professional ads from the environmental side. Until recently, most environmental ads did more harm than good (they were that bad).

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Take the Demographic Transition Theory

...please.

This baby was cobbled together to explain why humans all over the world began to choose smaller families ...after the fact.

1)Family size will shrink with economic growth,  just ignore America's baby boom during massive economic growth and Iran's radical drop in fertility with no economic growth.

2)Family size will increase in a weak economy but ignore the drop in fertility during America's great depression.

Economists saw fertility declines in places with economic growth and decided that poverty reduction is a necessary condition of fertility decline.

Then Iran proved that education and contraception without economic growth will also get fertility decline.

This theory has been used by the Catholic church and anti-abortionists to stifle women's education and contraception programs in favor of failed poverty reduction ideas. Fertility decline and poverty reduction are interlinked. Both should be promoted simultaneously, each assists the other. Nobody knows exactly how to end poverty but voluntary fertility reduction can be achieved with a minimum of expenditure and goes a long way to relieve poverty, or at least keep it from getting worse.

End of rant.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I envision a tug of war for

biomass with the cellulosic ethanol proponents. You can also expect the price to soar with demand. This application would win over cellulosic if there were a price on carbon.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

If they can pass the costs on to customers

we will see few reductions in emissions.

"...Since companies would pass their costs on to customers,..."

This is likely to turn into another version of the corn ethanol clusterf*ck--one step forward, two back.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Unsubstantiated remark

As most scientists engineers advocates, experts in energy, transportation and automobile development have concluded, that renewable/sustainable hydrogen fuel is the only true long term and intermediate term solution to our energy sustainability.

The engineers and physicists who frequent this site have obviously concluded otherwise and unless you can come up with a link to the poll that backs up what you just said I'm going to assume you made it up.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

christopher

Take a car that gets 48 mpg (as the Prius does), give it a 30 mile range on all electric and here is how you can get 51 mpg or 150 mpg depending on how the car is used:

Drive it 450 miles in one day on one charge and you will get 51 mpg.

Drive it 44 miles in one day on one charge and you will get 150 mpg.

Drive it 31 miles in one day on one charge and you will get 1,488 mpg.

The average American drives their car 12,000 miles per year. That's about 33 miles per day. Some people have a driving regimen (traveling salesmen for example) who might actually get worse mileage in a plug-in. If I owned one of these I would visit a gas station once or twice a year.

So, in conclusion, this article is exactly what we have all come to expect from our lay media. If you want to learn something, read high quality blogs on the internet. The sooner newspapers go bankrupt the better IMHO.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Could happen, DrX

Electric drive trains are easy to maintain or replace. Refurbishing may become a major industry. A lot of jobs to be had, and refurbing is a lot less energy intensive than building new cars. Losing a few car manufacturers might be a good thing. You never know.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Don't mix hydrogen uses up

That confuses the debate. Using hydrogen to store energy for renewable power plants or as a backup for a fuel cell for emergency power at remote locations, or even using hydrogen gas in an ICE to power vehicles inside warehouses are all fine and dandy and the market has found places for them.

We are talking about powering cars. Using precious renewable electrical energy to make hydrogen that must then be pumped to remote fueling stations so cars can access it is just too inefficient and expensive to warrant investment. It wastes too much of that precious renewable energy. Look at Grey's chart, follow some of his links:

Hydrogen for cars might be feasible if fusion ever pans out but short of that it is not even close to being feasible.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That's an interesting perspective, Pompey

Learn something new everyday.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that

It [a Low-Carbon Fuel Standard] would also (unfortunately or not, depending on your perspective) give a huge boost to biofuels [even though the ones being used today are being shown in study after study to be worse for global warming than the fossil fuels they are replacing].

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Commercial fishing reminds me of buffalo hunters

who obliterated the great plains ecosystems once the last of the native Americans who were trying to preserve the herds were themselves killed or herded into domestication.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good points

I discreetly avoid the tuna while in a sushi restaurant. Maybe sushi restaurants should become targets of protests to get tuna off the menu.

A popular restaurant on Capital hill was being protested the other night. I asked one of the participants what they were protesting--Foie_gras.

I rolled my eyes. Hundreds of millions of malnourished children, a major extinction event, the oceans dying, global warming, and these people have as their highest priority the quality of life of domesticated farm animals. Sorry, a bit off topic.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Green spaces

"Green spaces" quickly degenerate into sterile parks if they are not interconnected with adjoining "green spaces" that also interconnect with many others. Biodiversity dies out in small isolated spaces.

Seattle's discovery park has a railroad adjacent to it. This creates a long green belt that extends clear into the forested mountains.  A cougar was found in the park a few years after I moved to Seattle. I thought that was pretty interesting. Two years ago a black bear used this green belt to get a few miles from my house in the heart of Seattle.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Oh, and from your other link,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009 ...

Many scientists and policymakers are advocating increased incentives for preserving tropical forests, especially in the face of demand for clearing forest to grow biofuel crops such as soy. Promoting biofuels without also creating forest-preservation incentives would be "like weatherizing your house and deliberately keeping your windows open," said Peter Frumhoff, chief of the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate program. "It's just not a smart policy."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Glad they pointed out that science has shown

corn ethanol to be worse for global warming than gasoline once you consider all of its impacts. If all you study is the impact on corn farmers, corn ethanol is great!

Low oil prices are hurting ethanol? They were saying high oil prices were hurting them last summer--uneconomical, environmentally devastating.

"...ethanol has taken a lot of excess corn that we had in the state..."

The excess corn myth. Where did all of this "excess" corn go? Was it shot into space or was it sold on the global market?

"...ethanol production has created a lot of jobs..."

Define the term "a lot." I see a total of two people working this farmer's 900 acre corn field. It sure does not create a lot of jobs per square foot.

Switching from 50-50 corn to 65% corn is why soy is grown in the Amazon.

"...What happens in Iowa, should stay in Iowa...so why should our biofuels policy depend on something we have no control over?..."

Cause, global warming is global, that's why farmer Brown.

Feed for animals is food.

"...The farmers are hoping to preserve their way of life [their business models that turn 900 acres of land into a giant fertilized moonscape that then grows corn] and their land [which is just dirt used to hold fossil fuel derived chemicals and genetically modified seeds]...."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Remarkable

Compare that to any one of our talking head shows, in particular, Glenn Beck, the Jerry Springer of talking head shows.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good to see some critique

of Democrats who are selling out future generations for votes.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good points, people

Learn something new every day here.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

This is very heartening

I'm crossing my fingers.

Now, if someone could just explain to Lugar how the price signal sent around the world by our stuffing corn into our cars causes deforestation. This is your classic government push me pull you. Subsidizing deforestation, while trying to stop it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

My advice to science teachers would be

1. Teach your students to be critical thinkers.

2. Teach your students how to learn on their own without the need for a teacher.

A link on this page will send you here:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/ethanol.shtml

Click here to watch the video.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Whoa, 150,000 lbs ...

I wonder what the bulk of those pollutants are? A short list that comes to mind: Fluids leaking  from cars, pet waste, runoff from roofs made of tar shingles, failed septic systems, yard fertilizers including "slug death" and car washing.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Money quote from your link:

"...using cropland to produce biofuels requires planting crops somewhere else to maintain food supplies."

The author calls this a "theory" and an "assumption." How in God's name can you stick 35,000 square miles of crops into gas tanks and not expect someone somewhere not to plant extra crops to make up the difference? Theory? Assumption?

I see Coleman is still out there trying to protect his corn ethanol.

Without those land-use considerations, corn ethanol would be rated as having two-thirds the carbon emissions of gasoline.

I have never seen a study claiming that kind of reduction for corn ethanol.

But with the land-use analysis included, ethanol actually comes out slightly worse than gasoline

It comes out "way worse" than gasoline. Even without carbon sink destruction it can come out 50% worse just from nitrous oxide release.

The biofuel industry argues that there isn't enough known about impacts on land use to use them in calculating greenhouse gas emissions.

If enough isn't known about impacts on land use, then we are taking a huge risk supporting this industry. Impacts could be even worse than we think. That argument bites them in their own ass.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Sherwin Nuland,

Yales medical historian, mentioned the plight of women with breast cancer in his book "How We Die." At the start of the industrial age cities became filthy, coal blackened death traps, cancer rates surged.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Double yay!

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

They are going for the bling

They want to be special, not efficient or cost effective. If the car does not sell, and I don't think it will, they will use it as an excuse as the door hits them on the way out.

I like this design very much and would be happy with a 40 mile range package:

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/7/29/11131/6360/#6

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

It is all about the oceans

They control the planet's climate. Acidification and warming of oceans is suspected for more than one mass extinction event. Our genes suggest that humanity barely escaped extinction not too long ago. There is no way we would escape a major extinction event cause by an ocean ecosystem collapse.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Those are Emerald Tree frogs you hear

in those ponds and puddles, Ted. They breed in the coldest part of the year like many salamanders to avoid reptilian predators that are in hibernation. They are still quite common. My ponds are filled with them right now.

Nobody knows what caused the red legged frog population to crash but you can bet it had something to do with white man's arrival.

I have no problem with people eating things that are properly regulated like deer and rabbits. This isn't an animal rights kind of issue for me.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Ture that.

Electric motors are about 3 times more efficient than internal combustion engines, which use this very dense, very portable liquid fuel but throw about 80% of the energy stored in it away.

I still suspect that solar power may eventually defeat fossil fuels on a cost basis at point of use (hot water and photovoltaic combinations). Not having a gas or electric bill is a very appealing concept to most. Not having to look or pay for parking after battling through traffic is also a very appealing concept to most.

I'm becoming more convinced of this over time based on my own experiences.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I can just see it now

We will open two fronts. One in South America to defend our supply of biofuels and one in Bolivia to secure our supply of lithium for our plug-in cars.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Many more books like this will be written

just as they were written about the population boom and the biodiversity crises. Eventually people will grow weary of them and publishers will pass. Books that describe the carnage but don't offer much in the way of solutions are a start but will only get us so far.

By repeatedly pointing out inconvenient truths people will not suddenly decide to stop building  McMansions, or decks, or taking trips to far away lands. Other ideas are needed.

I would like to see more books about potential solutions, fewer books describing the problem. Note that evolution is still taught in all public schools even though most Americans don't buy it. Getting everyone to agree is not necessary or possible.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Picture sitting in a hot tub

That's what this reminds me of. The heat pad that sits on my lap also acts as a hand warmer. When not typing I lay my hands on top of the pad.

Insulating walls doesn't do much if you don't heat the space. As you know, insulation just slows down how fast the heat escapes. It won't generate heat. The concrete floor is a heat sink and there isn't much I could do to insulate it, other than tear it out and put foam under a new slab. My garage door also opens up into this space and there isn't much to be done with garage doors.

Attempting to insulate this space would be a very expensive, resource intensive project, and then I'd have to heat it.

And I like my unfinished workshop. I like having a bare concrete floor, exposed studs, wires and pipes. The thought of covering all that up pains me. I can lay my hand on anything that needs fixed, water heater, furnace, you name it. I can reroute pipes and wires as the need arises for various and sundry experiments. I've replaced every single wire and pipe in this house over the years (it was built in 1918).

I considered other things like an electric blanket and chemical pads but in the end, the electrically heated motorcycle vest and pads seemed to offer the greatest comfort and convenience.

Pangolin,

Heating a small space is a good idea. A space heater in a single small room with the door closed would take a lot less energy than keeping an entire house at 70 degrees. Enclosing a space in my shop would be a royal pain, and still take a lot more energy to keep me this warm.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Nice

One of the best things about a bike in a big city is that you don't have to look or pay for parking.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Huh, never thought of that ....*

"...all they need to do is wear long johns, a shirt under a sweater, wool socks, and a hat..."

Staying warm when you are doing some physical activity is not a problem. Sitting still for hours on end in a cold place is the problem. Wearing two jackets and a hat didn't do the job for me. Long Johns are too hot when you enter the heated world again and taking them off and on is a major hassle.

Heated vests and pads are another choice, somewhere between heating an entire floor and putting on your arctic survival suit.

Can you imagine the the waste stream and the natural resources being wasted by insulating and heating a basement, workshop, or garage just so you can sit at your computer? It's all relative. You get to pick you level of purity.

*Sarcasm alert

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Nice post , Katharine and I'm with the above

How naive to think that those rigs would really be closed down in 2022, assuming they had not run out of oil before then. Good intentions don't count for jack.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The idea that bureaucracies

will save the planet is deeply flawed. Put a bounty on the data.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Tend to disagree, Ted

...but they [biofuels] do also help with mobile fuels, which are the more-challenging aspect of our larger energy-budget. Stationary demands for energy are relatively easy to meet, and to substitute (i.e., nuclear for coal in electric plants).

I agree that stationary demands are relatively easy to meet. My example would be the burning of cellulose to displace coal or using solar. But the mobile fuel challenge is even easier to meet. Buy a Prius or Honda hybrid and double average gas mileage, which is equivalent to cutting oil imports in half. My family moves just as many miles, but have easily cut oil for transport 80%.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Two more quotes from the Chicago Tribune

A carbon tax not only helps solve the climate change problem, it also can be a source of revenue that could be used to lower other taxes, improve education or solve other social problems.

As Sean's latest post points out, politicians are already salivating over a pot of money to send back to their constituents to buy votes. One problem with that, among many, is that this money will often be spent on things that will make GHG emissions worse. It seems to me that it should all be spent to reduce GHG emissions.

It's not clear how many of us actually want to make our energy use public, and we don't think it should be required. But if people want to get into a kind of competition to conserve more, who could object?

Behavioral economics is a euphemism for evolutionary psychology. Like the word capitalism which was replaced by the term free market, which was replaced with the word market (which to date, has not been shouted down yet) the term evolutionary psychology contains too many hot button images. The word "evolutionary" angers half of Americans and psychology conjures up images of Freud's Oedipus complex penis envy malarkey.

Car ads are a form of "nudging."

That switch idea sounds silly to me. It's called a main breaker but you don't want to turn off everything but the clocks. You don't want to turn off your burglar alarm, furnace, telephones, motion sensor lights, aquarium aerator, refrigerator or whatever. Electrical outlets are used for different things at different times and by different owners. A single switch would have to be programable because you will be plugging different things into different outlets over time.

All we need are power strips that plug into wall outlets that have wi-fi. You would sit down on your PC and pull up each power strip and program each outlet to turn on or off whenever you want or with a simple click on a virtual switch on your PC you can put your house in sleep  mode as  you go out the door, except for the burglar alarms etc.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Wouldn't that be great?

But you can't have millions of buffalo roaming the same plains we are planning to grow switchgrass on for cellulosic ethanol. What we need is a powerful buffalo lobby that could garner subsidies to compete with the oil, tobacco, and ethanol subsidies ...we don't compete in the market anymore, we compete for subsidies ; )

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

From Sciam:

And the economically efficient CAFO system, though certainly not the cleanest production method in terms of CO2-equivalent greenhouse emissions, is far better than most: the FAO data I noted earlier imply that the world average emissions from producing a pound of beef are several times the CAFO amount.

In other words, beef produced in America and most other first world countries is several times less GHG intensive than the world average. That's because we no longer destroy carbon sinks to feed cattle whereas many poorer parts of the world still do. Eating less beef is a good idea but most of the damage is from land use change for grazing and feeding cattle for and by poor people who can now afford to eat more of it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

If I were King, I'd end recreational off-roading

on public lands. The family that "takes their little trail bikes out on established forest roads, and putts around viewing nature and wildlife without tearing things up" would find something else to do. The off-road industry that has sprung up thanks to public land to ride on borders on the ridiculous.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Nowadays we are debating other Dems

as much or more than Republicans on these issues. Some day the Republican party may fade and be replaced by the whatever splinters from the Democratic. Wonder what they will call themselves?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Off-roading is an amusement ride

at nature's expense. Life is a big power struggle between groups of self-serving people and nature always loses in the end.

I recall hiking in to my favorite beaver pond and finding that some "unwashed, rednecked boob" had driven his ORV right through it. This isn't uncommon at all. The only way to prevent it is to close the trails with giant steel gates and big penalties. They are forever hooking chains to my gates and pulling them down so they can off-road through my woods.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Your larger point is good

All discussions of GHG reduction should involve a cost per ton so that we can compare apples to apples.

The debates would be over what those costs really are. For example, you show corn ethanol at $52-per-ton. That price ignores Crutzen's nitrogen oxide study and Searchinger's crop displacement  study, among many others.

If corn ethanol actually does nothing to reduce GHG when you expand the study boundary to include the entire planet, as one should since global warming is global, your costs approach infinity as your denominator approaches zero. Those who grow corn, make ethanol, and install co-heat and power systems in biorefineries as your company does will always have an overwhelming tendency to ignore what needs to be ignored to keep business brisk.

Not to mention other costs not accounted for. What is the cost of the Gulf of Mexico dead zone, higher food prices on the poor, the usurpation of conservation reserve lands, biodiverse carbon sinks, fresh water supplies, and on and on?
 

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Items 1 and 7 can be killed with one stone:

Green jobs for transportation and building.

Not sure this is doable without lobby reform, as Pompey noted.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Gore has it right, I think

"...the politically possible falls well short of what's necessary."

As a career politician, he should know. When you look back on the politics he played, and how many times even he sold out the environment in the name of political gain, he understands as well as anyone. Obama's support of corn ethanol is nothing more than more of the same.

But the game isn't over yet. The public's mindset is changing as it did over civil rights. Although, according to the Onion piece:

Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

...we continue to give the worst jobs to blacks. The political system will be "forced" to give us what we want eventually. We wanted Obama and we got him.

As with civil rights, it's a matter of convincing and educating the public. The ads seen here on Grist pointing out the fact that clean coal does not exist is an example of that, although ads to that effect here is preaching to the choir. Corn ethanol is as bad as coal per BTU. We need some ads to point that out as well along with lots of other things.

For example, near zero energy homes would free up natural gas to displace coal. Solar panels on enough homes would "force" utilities to shut down coal power plants in favor of the natural gas ones which can be stopped and started on short notice as will be needed. They will also be "forced" to develop a smart grid. Politicians, utilities, they will all have to be "forced" by the general public. Unless government can be bought off by the utilities to make grid tied solar panels illegal, that is.

Politicians are the tail, "we the public" are the dog. Let's wag it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The Patriot is a "compact"

You walk onto the lot looking for a smallish black car and drive off in a white Patriot, because according to the salesman, big is small and black is white. It's all a matter of degree don't you know.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Whatever you do, don't bet your first born

on any prediction I make. One problem I see with aftermarket shops, DrX, are bureaucrats tripping everything up with excessive regulations. Innovation can be crushed by bureaucracy. Attempts by government to eliminate risk can eliminate entrepreneurs, which are all about risk.

Bob,

I think he was talking about switching out the whole pack of batteries. But you make a good point. How they managed to integrate a series string of 20 lead acids with a series string of dozens of NiMH batteries is a mystery to me. Keeping the two packs separate would seem the prudent design, as the Prius keeps its 12 volt starter battery separate from the regen pack and Hymotion appears to do between its Lithiums and the NiMH.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The key is still the battery

The graphite foamed lead battery technology has just deployed its first prototypes to power the sleeping quarters in long haul trucks. Let's cross our fingers they work as advertised and are available in battery stores at affordable prices soon!

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

My apologies, ferrarimanf355

Didn't mean to shame anybody. There will always be a place for muscle cars, as with vintage aircraft and warplanes.

The thing about coolness is that everybody wants to emulate what is cool. That's what fads are all about. First the cool kids do it. Once the dorks are all doing it, the fad dies to be replaced by something new by the cool kids and the pattern keeps repeating itself. If we can just find ways to channel trends toward environmentally beneficial things, like smallish, zero energy dwellings, we might have something.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

"Ford hopes that the roomy and sophisticated

Taurus will put some new life into its big car line."

Now that is what I call innovative and exciting...

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Great comment, Whiskerfish

Didn't know that about the hybrid geese or the gulls. I've taken plenty of "jinks" to avoid a bird, or another plane for that matter over the years.

Aircraft maintenance is all important. The FAA keeps a close eye on aircraft maintenance schedules. Those pins are inspected at regular intervals for signs of wear or corrosion. An airline that only claims it is inspecting critical parts (to save money) is playing Russian Roulette. For example, most older airliners in service have cracked parts here and there. The cracks are watched for growth and are replaced before the crack reaches critical length.

Airliners are designed to lose an engine and continue to fly, although not very well and not for very long. The pilot has to stomp opposite rudder until he gets it back on the ground. Whenever you see an twin engined plane heading for landing with one prop not spinning it is probably a pilot taking his FAA exam proving he can land a plane with one engine out.

The 777 was the first two engine airliner certified to fly over open ocean using routes that don't put it within gliding range of an airport should it lose power. To get that certification it had to prove with many hours of trouble free flight that the odds were low enough to allow it. Hitting a goose at thirty thousand feet over the Mid-Atlantic would be a very rare occurrence.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I just heard that the engines are missing

Boeing engines are designed to snap off via three hollow shear pins if design loads are exceeded, as would happen in a water landing or when hitting a truck on the runway. This keeps the wing box intact, which is where all the fuel is stored. They can even come off in flight if you can put enough load on them.

Which reminds me of the day we realized they could snap off during a gear up landing ...we will see how that works out someday. The theory is that the plane will decelerate faster than the free ranging engines.

The Airbus engineers did good ...always wondered if the idea would work in a water landing.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Got a ticket once for riding my bike through

a stop sign. I was going downhill, riding with no hands, and blew through the intersection right in front of a cop. I earned that one.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that, JMG

A great deal of our emissions are the result of people seeking to control other people. A boss lays claim to his or her employees by forcing them to congregate in one place. They are a symbol of his prowess and stature and he will pay extra for overhead to display it, as we all do with houses and cars that are bigger or fancier than needed to get the job done.

Most business travel is a waste of time and money, as are most meetings.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Nice work, Jon

Homes heated with biomass would have to have a way to filter soot. A few billion grass and wood stoves without soot collection devices would make things worse. Soot contributes significantly to global warming. Ideas have to scale.

If every car in America stopped running tomorrow, global CO2 emissions would be decreased by 3.5%, leaving a mere 96.5% to go. We focus on cars a lot because we feel we have at least a small measure of control over what we drive and how much we drive, unlike deforestation, which happens elsewhere and as individuals, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it.

Deforestation is not getting nearly enough attention.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good link, Easterbunny

Some quotes from it:

We'll reform our behavior strikingly to conform with social norms. We'll even make astute cost-benefit judgments if we get simple, clear feedback -- that's why cars come with idiot lights.

Another gadget, the Wattson, which changes colors depending upon how much electricity a house is using, collects data that can be displayed on a Web site. Clive Thompson, a columnist for Wired, has suggested that people start displaying the Wattson data on their Facebook pages, an excellent idea that I'd like to take a little further.

Why not reward devout conservationists by letting them display their virtue?

Besides putting the enthusiasm of greens to practical use, this fashion statement might also inject some realism into the debate about global warming. Once you start keeping track of all the energy you use, you begin to see the difficulties of making drastic reductions -- and the difference between effective actions and ritual displays.

Status has no value if it can't be displayed. How much would it cost to run high quality ads promoting energy efficiency in all its forms and would those ads create new fashion statements and ways to display them? If so, would the impact of a few billion dollars worth of ads dwarf the impact of boondoggles like corn and soy biofuels?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good Lord

"Not sure which green way is best? Ask Umbra Vanessa."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Notable quotable from report:

"Perhaps that is the only way that science and policy can advance together: make stupendous blunders, then come around and look at how to improve from the mistakes. The trouble is, it takes so much time, energy, and cost to overcome the blunders. Surely we can do better."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Money quotes

"Semi-vegetarian..."

"Godless sissy liberals..."

"USDA is not our ally..."

This is a global problem, not one isolated to the United States. Meat consumption is going ballistic everywhere people can afford to buy it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Check out these

penis extenders.

"In this corner, weighing in at 5,683 pounds is the reigning world champion, the Ford-F-150, hailing from Dearborn, Mich. Standing in the opposite corner is the No.1 contender, weighing in at 5,548 pounds from Warren, Mich., the Dodge Ram 1500"

My grandma could drive one of these. They have power everything. Eight out of ten of them will be sold to guys who will use them to commute to their jobs in factories or offices and to haul the occasional bag of beauty bark from the hardware store.

It's marketing. It's image. It's status seeking. Change status symbols. Real men drive high mileage cars ; )

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that Grey

The cost of lead acid batteries is probably as low as they will ever go. The lead version above probably only has a few hundred dollars worth of batteries.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The bottom line is cost

If this kit were mass produced it would cost a quarter to half as much. The $6,700 price tag of the lead version suggests that the installation and electronics account for about $6,000. The rest is the cost of batteries. You can see how a mass produced factory installation would drive the cost (minus the batteries) down to a few thousand dollars.

The lead acids will have far fewer cycle times before they have to be replaced. They will cost a lot more over the life of a car after paying to have them replaced a few times and they will also weigh a lot more, which will hurt mileage compared to the A123 batteries. And once they go dead they will really hurt mileage.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

This may be the start of a much needed

new trend

"Indeed, US builders say their clients increasingly look for quality materials and workmanship rather than sheer size."

You can bet that energy efficiency will be high on the wish list as well.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Blogs are creating a class of super educated

Talking heads can't keep up with them. Will they soon go the way of newspapers? One can only hope.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

You are right, Tasermons Partner

In this case the guy is using percentages to hype the car.

dieseldude,

Glad you got that off your chest and I wasn't aware that this was a press release. Thanks for the info.

I suspect diesel technology is near its peak, just as reciprocating engines reached a peak with aircraft during WWII. Some engines had 48 spark plugs, water injection, turbo chargers, mechanical exhaust power collectors and all had thousands of moving parts all jerking to and fro and reversing direction thousands of times a  minute.

Then along came the turbine engine with one rotating part.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that, Gar

Who has a link to the Slate article?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Conservatives by definition impede progress

Look at them as human speed bumps.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That looks hot!

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

They will be after

our precious bodily fluids next, mark my words.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Digital version beats this one hands down

Very positive trend. A concern for the biosphere is starting to make headway with mainstream religions.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Amen to that, Roz

The sooner we face reality the better. Let the debates begin.On The top green stories of 2008 posted 10 months, 4 weeks ago 6 Responses

Nice find, DrX

I saved that one to my solar fab five.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Butt kissing yes man

By far the best way to be promoted in most large organizations but maybe not so smart when it is done right in front of the public.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Indeed I will, Erik, and I want to thank you

for giving me this opportunity.

I needed you to lift that thin veil for me so I could not be accused of false accusation. You have also provided the lead-in I needed to expand on this thread. I wrote most of this and put it aside when I saw your trap in anticipation of your taking my bait.

You have a long history of circling over my posts and landing when you see an opportunity to peck at a potential wound site, or in this case, at a partially healed one. Scheming and vindictiveness are purely human traits--two of the many ugly sides of our nature.

The OP above is about editor's making things better (when they are not making things worse). It is often a fine line and a job I don't envy.

My post that you link to had kicked off a small feeding frenzy as sometimes happens in the blogoshere. Accusations of xenophobia and racism were mistaken, as was explained in the comments by me and by another commenter. An editor might have made some changes to the post prior to publication to minimize the risk of a frenzy starting but frenzies are not that easy to predict. In any case, it was the Grist editorial ...whatever, that dropped the ball and let the potential for misunderstanding through. One can only speculate in hindsight what, if any changes would have been made had the regular editor been on duty. Even with the initial rough start, the debate continued in the comments with the occasional shark or buzzard smelling blood and dropping in once in a while. Had an editor made a few minor corrections in the start of the piece the frenzy might not have got started.

I remember the time Dave used a Nuremberg analogy and spent a week or so fending off sharks of the conservative talking head variety.

There was also another recent example on the blog where a self-righteous feeding frenzy threatened to light off over a Hussein analogy but got snuffed thanks to a little teamwork from other commenters

Dave most recently got into a little hot water when he called another journalist stupid. No big deal in my book but apparently it was in some books and it kicked off a small feeding frenzy. His editor stood by him, shared the blame and begrudgingly, they both conceded that calling a cub reporter stupid maybe wasn't such a good idea but... The cub reporter's editor also stood by her, come to think of it. I think that is the appropriate response for editor's to take--much better than abandoning a writer to the sharks. If a blog is going to edit posts, it should take at least some of the responsibility when it drops the editing ball.

This isn't quite how it happened in the link you provided. Vinod is not a powerless cub reporter or a pathetic conservative talking head. He's a billionaire and the level of revenge he could extract is not to be taken lightly. Maybe the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog did not provide a wide enough margin of safety and a sacrifice had to be made to the Gods! Either that or David over reacted.

The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?

I know this may come as a shock, but Grist is not what you would call a well-oiled machine. Remarks that might be misconstrued by some readers will slip through because there isn't always a Grist editor on hand willing or able to edit a few remarks that might be misconstrued, or of sharing any responsibility for those remarks when they do.

When this happened to my post, Grist abandoned me to hang, even giving me a few kicks to make sure Khosla knew who's side it was on /: ( Not the best policy IMHO. Not only did the update I was asked to write get stepped on it was insinuated that the entire post was not worthy of being published. A private apology (for the misconstrued remarks) was backed up with a public one and that night a guy with a Grist tee shirt showed up at my door threatening to organically fertilize my lawn--that last part didn't really happen. In hindsight I can see some humor it. Good God almighty. Hard to imagine what might have transpired had someone really made racist comments, called Vinod stupid, or used a Nazi analogy.

The threat of revenge has a significant impact on human social behaviors. We are the only primates capable of seeing far into the future and why would evolutionary selective pressure let that stone remain unturned? How much of this is instinctive, social, or a combination of both doesn't matter much. It's real enough.  People who ignore it do so at their own peril. Hobnobbing with people able to crush you if you piss them off may not be a smart idea.

I see that Vinod's Grist profile has expanded to include more of his many philanthropist activities. Critique stings, even if you're a billionaire.

Life is less a matter of right and wrong than it is a matter of power over others. Choosing to wield that power or not is a measure of one's level of morality. Few of us will ever reach the highest plane of morality because we already think we are on it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Debate?

This was a room filled with people talking past each other. The only way to have real debate is to sit down on the internet and do it with a blog. Each participant would provide links, graphs, stats. Commenters would add links, point out flaws, inaccuracies, and lies.

The whole thing would be public and recorded with the written word for future reference.

We really should be utilizing the Internet better than this. These types of "meetings" seem like anachronisms.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that, David

Elected officials are starting to read their favorite blogs with their morning coffee. Rational comments like this have a chance of making an impact.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I'll pass

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

True that amazin'

Young people can't escape the contradicting "facts" thrown at them by adults who are in many cases less intelligent and no better informed than the kids themselves. They need to learn to think critically and to use deductive reasoning to find the wheat in all the chaff.

I've tried to teach my daughters these skills. When a kid gets on the internet for information (to learn how to care for a chicken or rabbit or whatever) they are inevitably confronted by contradicting advice from "adults."

My daughters have become pretty adept at zeroing in on highest probability advice (the wheat in all of the chaff).

Does the adult poster make sense, contradict himself, or fail to cite strong sources (or any sources for that matter)? Is this adult rude? There are all kinds of between-the-line clues that can help.

Jonas moniker, have you contradicted yourself or have you contradicted the other guy who shares your moniker? This post is about corn ethanol:

You say here:

But I do have the impression that Americans are not yet much involved in biomass. It must be that their attention is kept off of this most important of renewables, because of their mania with stupid liquid biofuels. They're wasting all that biomass and land on the least efficient of all options. Biomass for electricity and heat is five to ten times more efficient than converted into liquid fuels.

And here you tell us:

If we could help these farmers produce biofuels, they could receive more money for their work. And they would become less poor and less hungry.

And here you are (in a post about 25,000 poor African families who were convinced to grow biofuel instead of food and are now staving off starvation with food aid because nobody bought their inedible biofuel crops) calling other posters you disagree with "racists" (you have also been known to call them liars, fascists, and worst of all, dumb dumbs).

Teach children how to find the wheat for the chaff.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Yes sir, this is sharp

and I think Lovley is in over her head again.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Great stuff JMG, spaceshaper

I don't see the end of cars as a step function. I envision a gradual tapering off. The Prius is an example of that taper. It is smaller than an SUV and gets well over double the mileage. I see it as a primitive first effort. Learning curves can be exponential. My hybrid bike whips me around town faster than the Prius can.

Bring on affordable neighborhood electric vehicles, put the trains and trolleys back where they used to be and we will be on our way.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Can I change my vote to Johnson?

How sad that the head of the EPA is a candidate for eco-villain on an environmental website!

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Acts of heroism abound ...sniff

While the storm kept many King County residents at home, staying in wasn't an option for baristas Kerry Rowe and Rachael Delre. Seattleites, they said, need the service they provide 365 days a year.

The two were staffing Gourmet Latte, a drive-through espresso stand on Holman Road Northwest in Crown Hill. They didn't feel they could leave their loyal customers to decaffeinate, and they weren't surprised that business was good.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

bioneer

1. Corn ethanol does not reduce GHG. Environmentally, it is worse than oil.

2. An even better way to stop sending money to oil producing countries is to stop using so much of it via high mileage cars. Filling your SUV with corn ethanol is playing Robin Hood--robbing fellow taxpayers to buy votes for politicians from the farm belt.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Social engineering is the hardest kind

You don't usually get to go back to the drawing board if your prototype fails to perform as hoped. I appreciate your efforts to work the problem now before someone sets something in stone.

"...this is what makes a fully refunded carbon tax attractive to some conservatives -- it doesn't put money in the hands of government bureaucrats, which as we all know are myopic, corrupt, and stupid."

A bureaucracy, be it government or private sector, is a system that does not reward innovation and effort. Sometimes they are a necessary evil because some things cannot be left to a competitive market. As such, you can label a bloated bureaucracy as stupid if a competitive market could take its place. The system (bureaucracy) is stupid, not the people trapped inside of it.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Can't speak for other lurkers but I've thoroughly

enjoyed this thread.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Reality starting to sink in

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Holy crap

You could replace an engine or tranny for less than that! Japanese engineers are human after all.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Why are hair nets always blue?

Nice post. This place is only a couple of blocks from my house.

Is their biodiesel made from recycled grease? If not, somebody should clue them in. Another study released just this summer found biodiesel (on top of all of its other problems) made from soy to be less energy efficient than corn ethanol:

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/BiodieselFr ...

"Production of corn ethanol alone, with the average overall efficiency of 0.25, is more energy efficient than production of biodiesel from soybeans with the overall efficiency of 0.18."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I'll put this on my wish list

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

You don't need a nuclear power plant

to make nuclear bombs. Will a proliferation of nuclear power plants increase the odds of a nuclear exchange? Can those odds be calculated? Is it worth the risk?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Have biked past it a few times

Wonder if they have bison burgers? Ted Turner culls his wild herd once in a while. Meat should be eaten sparingly, appreciated and enjoyed accordingly.

This story is heartening, ...bison's recovery on prairie:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/ ...

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Ken makes some good points

Can we combine the ideas in a manner that will maximize each of their strengths, minimize their weaknesses?

We definitely need to keep the politician's hands out of the cookie jar. Our political system is in no way capable of picking winners for us.

We need to continue these debates until a consensus starts to form and then we need to convey the game plan to our "leaders." And I think a consensus is starting to form.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Jeff's comment above the aforementioned

also makes a good point:

"What a great idea to boost the U.S. economy. Allow GM to sell cars made abroad."

Our safety standards are in part the result of an escalating arms race between bigger and bigger cars hitting each other. At some point we have to relax the armor plate requirements to get lighter cars. Maybe we need to sign waver forms to buy a car that can't survive an impact with an SUV until the word gets spread that SUVs are for  guys with gold chains and wide lapel open shirts.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Keep us informed in the comments

Your second link is incomplete.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Beautiful pots

He can always add more panels if desired now that he has the concrete floor with tubes in it. A lower insulated ceiling would do wonders as well.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The article says that GM sales are down 50%

from last year. It is amazing how much impact a temporary gas price spike had on car purchase behavior. People buying SUVs now are getting fantastic deals and are hoping the price of gas will stay low. They are also assuming they will remain the car of choice for the cool kids. One thing is for sure, the average price of oil has nowhere to go but up.On Sales of popular hybrid vehicles plunged in November posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago 6 Responses

There is always more than meets the eye

in politics. On the other hand, we can't always blame stupid decisions on political wrangling. Sometimes, possibly most of the time, our politicians simply don't know WTF they're doing.

Luckily, they will sometimes respond when that fact is pointed out to them.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Says Johnson out of the side of his mouth

while kissing W's butt.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Jonas

"...you're writing pure propaganda."

I didn't write anything. That's a quote from an article found in Ecoworldly written by Dave Harcourt. If you think it's propaganda, take it up with him.

I for one am not particularly concerned that you have called me a liar, a fascist, and now a racist. I am curious why Gristmill continues to let you get away with ad hominem slurs of posters you disagree with, or in this case, a poster who posted another's article that you disagree with. It reflects poorly on the blog.

You live comfortably in a First World country. You don't grow your own food.

Your American bashing may also need to take a rest. Bush isn't in charge anymore. Obama is and was put there by a significant majority of Americans.

If 25,000 families actually do go hungry because they took your advice and planted biofuel crops instead of food, what would that make you? Pick a word for me.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Revisit this later to tell us how it's working out

I'm game, just a little gun shy.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Somebody translate this for me

"REDD has had a rocky time the last few days here, however, with major U.S. environmental groups petitioning the convention to free it from the shackles of a technical panel. If it is released, the good news is that the approaches of the UNFCCC and the U.S. seem to be converging on some issues"

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

OMG

be sure to check out the Onion videos, especially the USDA press conference.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The best thing about having an editor, Eric

is that you can blame everything on him!

...are you taking credit for the world's awareness that growing crops for fuel is a troubled idea?

No, Eric, but I am taking partial credit for some of the editing in his film. I participated in the protest that met it at the Seattle Film Festival. I'm in this iteration or the movie. Look for me if you go to see it. I'm wearing a bike helmet and holding up one side of a banner.

The film promoters were talking with me outside of the theatre. I took a picture of them taking my picture. They even let me stow my bike in the "Veggie  Van" while I reviewed the movie.

If your former professor thought this was a bad idea 20 years ago, why were you fueling your Jetta with this stuff until a year ago? He must not have made much of an impression on you.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Go New Zealand

"...ultimately sequestering roughly 1 million tons of carbon per year."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

That's a good one.

Repower America is coming up the ad learning curve very nicely.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I'm with Jon

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I agree with JMG, nice post

Government has to fix this runoff problem, end of story. I love oyster stew ...

My daughter drags her chicken coop bedding out front every few months. The neighbors appear with wheelbarrows to haul it to their gardens. The pile is usually gone within hours. Putting a pile of chicken bedding out front of your house in many neighborhoods will get you fined.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

NYC is fun to visit but ...

The OP is about technology that is starting the transition to something much smarter than current car technology. Change can't happen over night. These cars are a good start. They double average mileage in a single iteration.

You can walk around the block on the tops of Priuses when the parents come to pick up their kids from their private schools in my town. These are status sensitive people trying to "outgreen" each other. That is how it will happen if it is going to happen.

The Insight will usher in the next level of competition. One day someone will pull up to school in an 80 mile range all electric car like this and watch the scramble:

It could all happen very rapidly.

You don't need NYC densities to have walkable cities. It's an extreme example with enough negatives to go with its positives to keep many from wanting to live in such a densely populated environment. Jamming that many people into one place has its ramifications. We are not as evolved as the social insects to thrive in a hive.

Our address here in Seattle has a walk score of 89:  http://www.walkscore.com/

I use less fossil fuel than my neighbors who diligently sprint to catch a bus every morning. Our cars get better mileage per person than the bus they ride. I agree with DrX that we need electrified personal transport and dedicated 20 mph rights of way for them but people must want them to go with better mass transport for longer distances. They can't be forced upon the populace. To want them, they need something more than my electric bike but something less than a Prius.

About 50 town house units were built this year just a few blocks from me thanks to government zoning changes that encourage density and the free market meeting consumer demand. So, it's happening, but I sure can't say it is happening fast enough to make a difference. Time will tell.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Ah,

Like the look of that Insight. Wonder what the mileage will be?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I am heartened by JMG's find

The study I referenced was done in part to convince some manufactuer to pursue such a design for hot water heaters. I wonder if the researchers were aware of the stand alone units that can be hooked to a water heater? In any case, this new design will be cheaper and more reliable.

Bob,

Be careful with the fridge. They were designed for a limited temperature range inside a house and won't work right if exposed to temps outside that envelope. Here is a model designed to be put in a garage that will work regardless of outside temperatures.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Thanks to the Prius, the word "hybrid"

The article link talks about two kinds of hot water heaters. The first one is just an ordinary on demand gas heater, with the usual 25% savings over a tank heater. Nothing new there at all.

The other part of the link talks about a heater that is being developed that can save about 50% of your heat. This is nothing but a heat pump sitting on top of a water heater, slicker looking than this stand alone version you can buy today:

from http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Plumbing/hea ...

The following study done two years ago looked at how these systems perform:

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/tir_heatpump.pdf

Performance depends on where you put the heater and where you live. Note that the unit in Seattle got the lowest savings of 40% thanks to cold winter water temperatures and a cold basement.

It gets complicated. If you own a regular tank heater and it sits inside your house insulation envelope, the heat lost from storage tends to lower your winter heating bill giving you no net energy loss. However, during warm weather you do lose the use of that heat. Here in Seattle the tank would help heat your home about 8 or 9 months.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

It comes down to time and energy

We could abandon our keyboards, get out the quill and ink and mail letters to one another, or go further back and scratch our thoughts into wet tablets of clay.

Clothes washing and drying technology isn't all that different from his fictitious John Deer in the barn (he is really just a pop star with a twang singing a brand of music called country).

We can all choose to use older technology--hitch up a team of horses to a steel plow or get a great big pointed stick and poke holes in the ground to plant seeds as is still done by most of humanity today.

If I want to spend my time hanging clothes on a clothesline I can always choose to do so. Couple that with pounding the dirt out of them with rocks, grinding my own cornmeal, collecting my own firewood to stoke my own stove and pretty soon I'd find that I have no time or energy left to bore other people to death with my opinions :-

I'd prefer a dryer that uses electricity that was generated by solar panels and stored on the grid. One that also helps to heat my home or preheats my hot water while it dries my clothes.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Too adorable for words

Still has all of her baby teeth and more articulate in her native tongue than our president was in his. I very much want my grandchildren to live on a planet where lions, tigers, and bears have not joined the long and growing list of creatures that used to be.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Why pick the eagle killer to pardon?

There must be tens of millions of people who have plead guilty, paid fines, and got a period of probation for doing something illegal. What makes this guy so special?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The eagle killer

should be removed from society on the grounds that he is so stupid he's a hazard to all other life forms. W probably empathizes with him.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

John

Your link don't work. Got another one?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Nice slide show, scatter

This is the picture I picked out from the Flickr commons site that didn't make the editing cut (probably because I had the wrong name attached to it):

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

My thoughts exactly, Whiskerfish

After all, in many ways McKibben's Deep Economy is just a popular, breezy reprise of many ideas economists like Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly have been kicking about for, well, decades.

McKibben points out Friedman's past errors in judgment, which is certainly a valid thing to do, but he's a made a few errors of his own.

While others like George Monbiot, Lester Brown, and lowly me, were trying to warn the world about the special-interest-newspaper-story-fueled bubble called biofuels, McKibben was writing forwards for biodiesel books. One such book recently went through a major revision to because it became very outdated with the recent biofuel backlash. I found two different forwards for this book by McKibben:

Biodiesel is one of the most intriguing of those new possibilities...crops of soybeans and rapeseed and maybe even algae, grown by present day farmers, processed into a diesel fuel substitute that works just fine in modern Volkswagens and Mack trucks and school buses--even in the oil-burning furnace down in the basement. It is potentially a truely sweet solution, offering a new market for hard-pressed local farmers even as it begins to help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems. Greg Pahl's book...manages to raise the right questions (and raise them early enough) so that we can perhaps build a structure for this developing industry that serves local farmers and processors instead of simply corporate agribusiness giants.

and

He's also realistic about an important fact by all diesel is not going to solve : in our mental woes by itself. It might replace 10 or 20 percent of our current diesel fuel use. That's good, but it's not a silver bullet against global warming. There are no silver bullets every solution, from new light bulbs, to wind mills, to solar rooftops to higher mileage standards to biodiesel is going to get us a few percentage points of the way to where we need to go. Energy of the future will be far more diffuse, and harder to gather, than the current concentrated pools of oil. It's crucial that we recognize that fact and its key implication--that every ounce of effort put into new fuel supplies must be matched by an equal attention to conservation and learning to live elegantly with less. This is completely possible: Europe, whose efforts on biodiesel Pahl chronicle in comprehensive fashion, manages to use about half as much energy per capita overall -- with no discernible are to living standard (in fact just the opposite is more likely).

This book excited me enormously. I can imagine the day when the school buses on the rural rounds in my county run on the oilseed crops that their passengers can see out the window; when the ferries across Lake Champlain give off that slight French-fry whiff as they ply the waters; when the dairy farmers who are going broke raising milk have something else to grow... Pahl is a visionary, but a visionary with his feet firmly planted in the soil. May his vision flower, and soon!

McKibben and Friedman also share some similarities. Both have access to the New York Times. Both are practicing religionists, one Christian, one Jewish. Both wrote for school newspapers. Both born with silver spoons in their mouths (had parents wealthy enough to send them to private East Coast Ivy league schools--costing $50,000 per year in today's dollars).

It's OK to critique one another. It makes us all better.  

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I also see on that chart that forestry

and agriculture alone combine for 39%. I wonder how much GHG emissions other land use changes (like road building and sprawl and whatever) account for?

That's a great list, Jonas

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Oh my. This would make for some

good bar music. I half expected the second song lyrics to start off with "Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Actually, almost half of CO2 emissions

come from land use changes. We can only blame half of the problem on fossil fuels. We need to keep that firmly in mind.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Thanks for the info, Karen

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Interesting discussion

Max,

You made a good point. I ignored natural gas to keep my example as simple as possible but that simplification also made my example inaccurate.

Sean came to my rescue with the cost comparison. Natural gas may tend to go up in price faster than coal if supply continues to lag demand. As solar takes over more of our electricity generation, the grid will have to be redesigned and part of that may be more load following and peaking power plants using natural gas (which, unlike coal, can be turned on and off quickly). This demand will probably keep gas prices high.

However, your point about renewables eventually winning out over both coal and gas is still valid.

Your earlier point about higher prices to consumers decreasing use is also valid. Higher prices to consumers will drive demand for more efficient homes and appliances. Poor people, as always will be hosed. There should be a sliding scale for energy costs based on tax returns.

The most efficient way to do this is to force energy providers to bear some of the burden of innovation. Taxing the coal coming out of the ground won't force them to innovate, they will just increase the price charged to consumers, putting the entire burden on them. Penalizing power providers at the smokestack will force the less efficient (CO2 wise) producers to explore cheaper ways (CO2 wise) to make power or they will lose business to competitors (assuming we find ways to make utilities compete amongst themselves).

I agree Vakibs,

Asking consumers to live in colder houses and take shorter showers will not work. We have to give them efficient appliances and homes. Changing what is considered cool will help tremendously, as the Prius has done. Smaller, zero energy homes are for the cool kids. Friedman's 11,400 square foot palace is about as cool as powdered wigs and hoop skirts.

I suspect that natural gas can safely be used as a relatively low CO2 bridge for peak power and load following as we transition to solar and wind and increase efficiency.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Sushi is for losers ...

...too clueless to realize that the consumption of wildlife (ocean fish in this case) is tantamount to eating buffalo tongues and passenger pigeon pie at the turn of the century. Spread the meme.

The analogy is when humanity penned and domesticated wild cattle and sheep. Essentially we are starting to turn the wild oceans (think buffalo on the wild plains) into grazing lands with domesticated animals jammed into feedlots awaiting slaughter.

Penned tuna will rapidly evolve into a domesticated farm animal. The only thing that will be roaming the oceans will be the fish equivalent of cows.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Electronics disposal shouldn't be a challenge

Just dug this photo of a TV out of my cell phone, which was, as I recall, sitting at the corner of 22nd Ave NW and NW 60th St:

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Huh, go figure.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Good point, Canis

Sushi is a fashion statement.On International talks to save Atlantic tuna begin in Morocco posted 1 year ago 5 Responses

Grist's version of TV talking head show

That smirk on Dave's face when he utters the words "team player" got me to laughing.

"My prediction is that he will pick people who are "team players" ...he is a brilliant guy ..."

What exactly is a team player? Is it someone who does what his boss tells him to do? There's nothing wrong with that, to a point, and no shortage of people happy to do so to keep their jobs. Who can't do that?

Or is it someone who tells his boss what he wants to hear? What good is that? American corporate and political leadership has been wrecked by the cultivation a