Category Archives: Environment

More To The Story…

Please let me call to your attention to the decision by Citgo to cease its assistance to Citizens Energy, a non-profit program providing heating oil to low-income households in the Northeast.  Citgo is a Texas-based oil subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela SA, a nationalized industry ultimately under the control of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  The limited reasoning provided by Citgo cites “falling oil prices and the world economic crisis” as their rationale for suspending the program.  Citgo’s provision of oil has provided heat to hundreds of thousands of American homes during the cold winter months.  The cessation of this program will leave many in the cold.  There must be more to this story than the information released today, but rather than speculate, think of those that will be left without heat.  If politics affect your opinion on this matter, consider the fact that no other oil-rich nation has beneficently provided oil to the under-privileged.  It was Venezuela that responded to the need.  Today, they have stopped.  We need to find out why and determine a solution, either through Venezuela or another nation or corporation, and restore heat to the homes that will now go cold. 

Please read the press release below and consider contacting President Chavez or any other oil czar of your choice. 

http://www.citizensenergy.com/english/pages/OilHeatProgram

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/12/11/citizens_energy_accepts_25m_of_oil_from_venezuela/

http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/01/citgo_pulls_out.html

Ice Water

Findings released today in the stories below show an alarming acceleration in the melting of sea ice; faster than even predictions made just 4 months ago foresaw.  The full impact of these findings remains to be seen, it is still too early to even determine this categorically as a trend.  But it is clear that the level of arctic ice is decreasing, and predictions that saw arctic seas becoming fluid in the summer of 2080 now becoming possible in 2020.  Imagine the famous ice-bridge of the Northwest Passage disappearing in summertime.  While this may introduce new industries such as tourism and oil excavation into the arctic during summer months, that will bring an even further acceleration of the presence of greenhouse gases which have led to this massive environmental shift.  As the ice disappears from the seasons, the ocean will absorb more of the sun’s heat, resulting in warmer ocean temperatures. 

 

Critics and non-believers may find this information irrelevant and believe that the world will still go on, which it will.  But I am confounded by anyone who still doubts global warming.  Perhaps they find it normal or welcome to have 75 degree days in January in Boston, and can ignore the summer tornadoes in New Hampshire.  Whatever your position, I don’t recommend making heavy investments in coastal real estate in the Northern Hemisphere.

 

 

Like Sands Through The Hourglass…

How is it already August 19th?  I apologize to all, unreservedly, for the long delay between posts.  I cannot believe it is already the near end of August and Fall will soon be here.  Tonight (in Boston) already evinces the coming autumn chill, no fun.  Thank you to all who have made this summer incredible, through Playa del Carmen (Mexico), Los Angeles, San Diego, New York City, Portland (Maine), and all other locations.  I’ve seen so much and had so much fun, all the while excited to witness San Diego is an unparallelled port, New York offers a La Quinta Inn with an unprecedented view of the Empire State Building, and that Dasani water is nothing more than municipal Georgia tap water.  Thank you to the lovely Ilana for making Syracuse shine and telling me of the pollution in Onandaga Lake, I’ll have to look that up and find a story here.  And to her colleague Six who reminded me of how awesome the restaurant business can be.  One story that really struck me over the past 8 weeks was T Boone Pickens’ PickensPlan, be sure to check it out and more to come soon….

http://www.pickensplan.com/?c=Google&a=Pickens-Keywords&k=[t.+boone+pickens]

Don’t Look Now

\don\'t look nowApparently our Administration’s pledge to save polar bears and insatiable thirst for oil are mutually exclusive.  Just a few weeks ago the Bush administration declared polar bears a threatened species due to habitat loss caused by global warming.  Last week, the Bush administration gave legal protection to oil companies searching for oil in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea for any possible, ensuing environmental harm their exploration may cause.   So, if we see a decline in the polar bear population, or of any other species native to this Arctic region, don’t blame the oil companies, it’s not their fault.  If we see an even greater increase in Arctic temperature, don’t blame the oil companies, they’re not liable.  Who is to blame for the current damage, for the need to declare polar bears threatened?  Blame global warming.

“The oil and gas industry in operating under the kind of rules they have operated under for 15 years has not been a threat to the species.  It was the ice melting and the habitat going away that was a threat to the species over everything else.”  –H. Dale Hall, Director, Fish and Wildlife Service.

Startling rationale, Dale.  Or do you prefer to be called H?

This is part of an Administration initiative to limit “frivolous” lawsuits.  If polar bears disappear it will not be the fault of any man made occurrences, it will be the result of environmental occurrence.  Fault can not be assessed, the environment is beyond our control.  This is the kind of protection $2.6 billion buys, that is the amount 7 oil companies, including Shell Oil Co. and ConocoPhillips Co., paid for the lease to explore the Chukchi Sea.  Quite an insurance policy. 

The operation will require drill ships, barges, ice breakers, helicopters, and the creation of hundreds of miles of ice roads along the coastline.  None of that heavy machinery should lead to an increase in greenhouse gases in the area.  Those gases are already there.  None of the animals in the area should be harmed by this innocuous, and necessary, intrusion.  Don’t worry, the bears will be fine.  And those in the Bush administration really want to do everything they can to save them. 

Final question, at what point will the fruits of this labor bring the cost of gas below $4/gallon?

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2008/06/15/oil_companies_get_ok_to_annoy_bears/

 

 

One Thing Leads To Another

An upcoming report in the journal Geophysical Research Letters warns that, as Arctic sea ice melts more rapidly, permafrost as far as 900 miles inland will also experience accelerated melting.  Consequently, various ecosystems throughout Canada, Russia, and Alaska are imperiled.  That may not make for a significant headline in the minds of those who still persist in flouting the reality of global warming, but some of those eco-systems at stake include one that may affect their pocketbook and for some, their constituency.  Alaska is already displaying signs of environmental fracture–the average Arctic overland temperature from August to September 2007 rose by a record of 4 degrees over the average recorded from 1978-2006.  As a result, parts of Alaska have seen the ground give way beneath their feet.  Pockets of soil collapse as the ice they contain melts and, as they do, highways crumble, houses sink into the ground, trees slant to create uneven, “drunken” forests and, lastly, oil rigs buckle and break.  This last consequence should be especially pertinent for those in our current Administration advocating the need for further oil drilling in Alaskan wildlife preserves.  This is part of their proposed solution to our current oil crisis.  Beyond the fact that such an excavation would not yield an increase in oil supply for many years, it may be physically impossible due to the environmental havoc our industrialism has already created.

 

Hopefully, that should prevent the proposed oil exploration from taking place, but that is not enough.  The current situation is so severe that the Geophysical study predicts that this autumn’s Arctic temperatures could rise by as much as 9 degrees Celsius.  That is a staggering figure, 350% greater than the figure hypothesized by other models.  To put the number in perspective, consider that NASA climate scientist James Hansen theorizes that it is a mere 2 degree temperature increase represents a point of no return for our planet.  To drive that point home, read Mark Lynas’ Six Degrees: Our Future On A Hotter Planet, if you don’t have the time to read, you can watch the National Geographic documentary on the same subject.  These works display the devastation global warming has already wrought across the globe: stretches of the Nile that have dried up, glaciers melting in Greenland and Antarctica, and the massive death toll of 2003’s European heat wave.  These events are the results of 2 degree global climate increase, and both works examine the possibilities of a future 6 degree rise in temperature.  I watched the Six Degrees film just a few months ago, and am dumbstruck not only at the reality of 4 degree rise in the Arctic, but at the prediction of an impending nine degree change.  There are those that continue to deny the reality of global warming and, though their numbers are waning, there is no need to debate its existence.  It is time to unite captains of industry and heads of state worldwide to find a solution to save us now, before the discussion of saving our future generations is moot.   

A couple of followup links:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/06/arctic-melting-inland-warming.php

 

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Degrees-Could-Change/dp/B0012Q3T72