Energy and the Illinois State Fair – Dancing inbetween the rain drops

Cathy

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and I went to  the Illinois State Fair

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To see the Butter Cow.

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This year’s fair was really weird weather wise. It rained when Cathy and I normally go on Monday and Tuesday – Senior’s Day and Agriculture Day respectively. So by the time we made it on Friday most everything was gone. Embarrassingly we did not make it to Conservation World where all the cool kids and our friends hang out. We did make it to the Expo Building where home efficiency seemed to be the order of the day:

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We met this nice man from Energy Doctor. A business that offers to tighten your envelop and use other measures as a package to reduce your energy consumption. They started in Iowa but have 5 offices now. Please visit them at:

http://www.energydoctorinc.com/index.html

Then we saw the purdy little girl at the Anderson Windows booth:

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http://www.andersenwindows.com/

And we saw the people from Peoria Siding:

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http://www.peoriasiding.com/pages/siding.php

And  the Four Seasons solar space:

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http://www.fourseasons.com/?source=gaw09cxbrS13&kw=4+seasons&KW_ID=P161761933&creative=2879208154&type=search&keyword=4%20seasons&adid=2879208154&placement=&gclid=CMWmhMOxv5wCFQ7xDAodjGQnnw

OH I mean this Four Seasons:

http://www.fourseasonssunrooms.com/

Having exhausted ourselves we went across the street to Mehan’s food stand and got a corn dog and a lemon shake up. They are celebrating 75 years at the Illinois State Fair…Congratulations

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The Russian Dam Explosion – What is it about the Russians and the Power Business

I had intended to write about the Illinois State Fair today which is always a hoot. But this happened while I was on vacation and I just have to say something. Are the Russians stupid or criminal? I can’t make up my mind. First there was the greatest nuclear accident to date at Chernobyl which has its own Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

But now they give us the worst dam accident in modern times. Understand I am not talking about burst dams here. In the power business their are things that are dangerous like badly constructed coal fired plants and coal mines, then there are things that are considered safe like Hydro power. So the Russkies took a perfectly safe industry and killed (what?) 50 to 80 people off at one time. Was this a dam operated by by by Homer Simpson or something.

http://www.topix.com/world/2009/08/10-die-dozens-missing-in-russian-dam-explosion

Monday Aug 17

10 die, dozens missing in Russian dam explosion

An accident during repair work at Russia’s largest hydroelectric plant on Monday killed at least 10 workers, while as many as 65 others were missing after an engine room was suddenly flooded, officials said.

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But then they can’t even get the number of dead right.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8207816.stm

Death toll rises in Russian dam explosion

Russian officials now say up to 76 people are feared to have died in the explosion at the country’s biggest hydro-electric power station on Monday.

64 people are still missing after the blast destroyed the power station’s main turbine hall.

The owners of the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant in Siberia say it is unlikely any survivors will be found.

Neil Bowdler reports.

READ MORE: Deadly Russia power plant blast

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What the hell man?

Why Rightwing Fundamentalism Is So Environmentally Destructive

Why are Conservatives so stupid. Usually right away I get accused of name calling and class warfare. I usually respond that I am not questioning their intelligence so much as I am questioning their larger view of the world. I point out there is a class war going on and most of us are losing it. In much the same way that the VERY Rich slave holders perpetuated the fighting and hatred of the less wealthy poor whites and blacks, the world destroyers and the mega wealthy must have the lower classes fighting and bickering over “tree huggers” and Cap and Trade. This is what the fundamentalists miss. For lofty ideals that do not exist like “personal freedom” they are watching the only world that we have slip away for the enrichment of the very few.

Further more as I have said for 30 years it is not the “little guy” that is to blame for things like destabilizing the climate and acidifying the oceans. It is in this order, The militaries of the world, the Airline Industry, the Big Smoke Stack users (mainly megawatt coal fired electrical plants), and the Shipping industry. That is it. The little guy can ride his stinky garden tractor, fire up his stinky grill and drive his F150 to work everyday if he wants to. THINK about it for a moment. The aforementioned Earth wreckers want the burdened pushed off on the public. It means they get to keep on polluting because we STOP.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/economy/2007/11/14/the-10-biggest-carbon-dioxide-polluters.html

The 10 Biggest Carbon Dioxide Polluters

By Marianne Lavelle

Posted November 14, 2007

Ten large companies generate more than one third of the 2.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted each year by U.S. electric power

generators, according to figures in a first-of-its-kind database unveiled Wednesday.

American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, and Southern Co. of Atlanta, which run the largest coal power plants in the country, top the list of U.S. companies responsible for greenhouse gas emissions from electricity, according to data compiled by the Center for Global Development, a global economic development think tank in Washington, D.C.

The database, called CARMA or Carbon Monitoring for Action, culls for the first time data both from government regulators around the world and commercial databases to provide an up-to-date look at the state of CO2 from power production—which accounts for one quarter of all carbon emissions. (The database doesn’t look at other large sources, like transportation and manufacturing.) Here are the top sources of greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in the United States:

The 10 Biggest Carbon Dioxide Polluters

COMPANY TONS OF CO2 PER YEAR
1. American Electric Power 174 million
With 5 million customers in 11 states from Ohio to Texas, its biggest carbon emissions come from its Gavin coal plant in Cheshire, Ohio.
2. SOUTHERN 172 million
Has 4.3 million customers in the Southeast and owns the top three carbon-emitting power plants in the country: Scherer, in Juliet, Ga.; Miller in Quinton, Ala.; and Bowen in Cartersville, Ga.
3. (tie) AES CORP. 108 million
Has power plants from New York to California, with the worst emissions from its Petersburg, Ind., plant.
3. (tie) DUKE ENERGY 108 million
Serves 4 million customers in the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Its Gibson plant in Owensville, Ind., is the nation’s fourth-largest carbon emissions source in the power sector.
5. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY 101 million
The nation’s largest public power company serves the 8.7 million residents of the Tennessee Valley. Its Cumberland City, Tenn., plant ranks eighth in the nation in CO2 emissions.
6. NRG ENERGY 82.7 million
A wholesale power producer that operates in deregulated electricity markets throughout the country, its W.A. Parish plant in Thompsons, Texas, is the nation’s No. 5 carbon emissions source.
7. XCEL ENERGY 76.1 million
With 3.3 million customers in the West and Midwest, its largest carbon generator is its Sherburne County plant in Becker, Minn.
8. MIDAMERICAN ENERGY HOLDINGS 70.9 million
A Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway company, MidAmerican serves customers in Iowa, Illinois, and South Dakota, with its largest CO2 emissions from the Jim Bridger plant in Point Of Rocks, Wyo.
9. PROGRESS ENERGY 68.1 million
Based in Raleigh, N.C., its plant in Roxoboro, N.C., is its biggest emissions source.
10. DOMINION RESOURCES 66.6 million
Dominion is based in Virginia, with operations stretching into the Northeast and Midwest. Its biggest carbon emissions source is its Mount Storm, W.Va., plant.

……

Strikingly, three Chinese power companies, South Africa’s giant Eskom, and India’s NTPC all generate more CO2 emissions than any single U.S. firm—underscoring the shared challenge posed by global climate change. The largest, Huaneng Power International of China, has emissions 68 percent higher than American Electric Power’s.

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I am quoting extensively from the article because it makes the point rather well. It is well researched and Lavelle is a good writer. In a startling 2 paragraphs she cuts through all the smoke and the fog to the heart of this story.

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One of the most striking findings in the data, says David Wheeler, a Center for Global Development senior fellow who led the research, is how concentrated the problem is among a relatively few large power generators. He said the top 100 companies worldwide produce 57 percent of CO2 emissions coming from the power sector. The top 30 companies produce 30 percent of the total. “On the one hand, it’s sobering,” he says. “But it might be hopeful. You could actually assemble the CEOs of those firms, and there might be many channels through which they can organize and address this as a group themselves. I think that’ll be critical to a solution.”

Wheeler was a former lead economist in the World Bank’s Development Research Group, where his team used public disclosure as a strategy to generate pressure from lenders and communities for pollution reduction in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Wheeler says his team similarly hopes the CARMA data will be used not only by environmental groups but by institutional and private investors and insurers, to encourage power companies to use less coal and oil and shift to renewable resources

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If you want to check the data here is the CARMA site:

http://carma.org/

About CARMA

Posted by Christopher Frazier on March 25, 2006

Frequently Asked Questions
CARMA’s Partners
All About Icons
Plant-Specific Information
Citation Policy
CARMA Version Tracker

At its core, Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA) is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, emissions-producing sector of the economy.

CARMA is produced and financed by the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC.

The objective of CARMA.org is to equip individuals with the information they need to forge a cleaner, low-carbon future. By providing complete information for both clean and dirty power producers, CARMA hopes to influence the opinions and decisions of consumers, investors, shareholders, managers, workers, activists, and policymakers. CARMA builds on experience with public information disclosure techniques that have proven successful in reducing traditional pollutants.

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Yet yet at least one of the social values issues also comes into play and that is abortion. Now I could go on and on about a woman’s right to control her body and how god does not play an active role in the world so birth is not a “miracle”. But the fact is that the main hatred of abortion by the various world’s religions is based on their desire for world domination. The idea being that once the world is “totally” christian for instance then NIRVANA will arrive. But what this ignores is the Over Population that this has caused. The world population stands at 9 billion people. The Earth has a carrying capacity of about a billion people soooooo at some point there is going to be a huge die off. Probably when my niece Taylor is in her 30s or 40s. I just want to say to my mother and others like her…don’t you realize that you are killing Taylor off?

http://www.overpopulation.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/popaware/article.pl?display_subsection%%%NewsDigest_NewsItem%%1

If we don’t halt population growth with justice and compassion, it will be done for us by nature,
brutally and without pity – and will leave a ravaged world.”

Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry W. Kendall 023934

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Tough Decision – My mom is stupid or burning is stupid

OK so Mom wins but let me very quickly qualify that I love my Mother and I mean that unconditionally. My Mom is a rightwing fundamentalist Christian. So really what I am saying is that I hate the ideology more than my mother. I am not talking about the social agenda either or most of it anyway. I am pro abortion. I think everyone should have one. I am pro civil rights which means I am for samesex sexuality. I think everyone has tried just one. I am for universal health care.

I am more talking about her pro corporate business, pro rich, pro military, deregulation, anti union and anti evolution stances. Mom things that rich people and powerful people are the best. She got this from Eureka College where Ronald Reagan was big man on campus:

http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/07/stories/2009070750300200.htm

Budget pro-rich, says TDP Special Correspondent

‘No solution shown for unemployment and agricultural crisis’

Budget failed to specify how 1.20 crore jobs would be generated’

‘Promoting disinvestment in PSUs amounts to encouraging privatisation’

KADAPA: The Union budget is pro-rich and not oriented towards poverty alleviation and ignored the cause of the middle classes, Telugu Desam Party leaders alleged.

The budget failed to specify how 1.20 crore jobs would be generated, TDP State Secretary V.S. Ameer Babu, TNTUC president S.A. Sattar and party leaders S. Goverdhan Reddy and J. Rayappa Raju said in a statement. They deplored the government’s contention that it would attract foreign direct investment when there was global economic recession and did not specify how it would clear the foreign debt and interest.

The budget did not show any solution to unemployment, agricultural crisis and suicides. There was no mention of unearthing the black money of Rs. 1 lakh crore, they alleged. Inflation grew from 2.8 per cent last year to 6.7 per cent this year. The Bill passed for unorganised workers was confined to paper.

Promoting disinvestment in public sector units amounts to encouraging privatisation, the TDP leaders alleged.

Steps were not taken to curtail the increase in petrol and diesel prices. The budget made no mention of the lakhs of workers who lost jobs in IT industry, they said.

The TDP is opposing the budget, they asserted

‘Highly disappointing’ Tirupati Correspondent adds: Federation of the Farmers’ Association and various other farmers organisations have termed the general budget introduced today as highly disappointing from the farmers point of view.

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Which I think should clash with her Christian values. Lets face it, the rich just want more money at the expense of not just the poor but the environment. As long as they believe that their money can buy them clean water and clean air – even if it has to come in a bottle – well then the heck with the rest of us.

http://a4a.mahost.org/fakes.html

DON’T BE FOOLED!

Only after the last tree has been cut down,
only after the last river has been poisoned,
only after the last fish has been caught,
only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.
–The Cree People


Big Business is terrified of the environmental movement, which remains the single most popular left-wing movement in the US. The dirty secret of Big Business is that it is principally responsible for pollution and environmental degradation around the world. The majority of Americans want a safer, cleaner environment. They know that, and have taken extensive countermeasures to protect themselves from the people at large, including pouring money into bogus environmental groups designed to further industry causes while appearing to be environmentally conscious. They also launch massive PR campaigns to paint themselves green.These anti-environmental initiatives are, in essence, efforts to thwart democracy.It’s important to note that the only green behind these efforts is money, not concern for the environment. These groups are very well-financed, backed, as they are, by corporations and other capitalist interests. What they lack in public support, they make up for in resources and powerful connections.Going over the list, you can see the copious use of buzzwords by the anti-environmental movement, as they strive to create the appearance of a broad mandate and public support. However, these groups are funded and controlled by economic and political elites, with a vested (financial) interest in thwarting and reversing environmental reforms.The following is excerpted from The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, put out by the excellent Odonian Press, Box 32375, Tucson, AZ 85751, and is part of their Real Story series

TACTICS

  • Greenwashing: When a company adopts marketing strategies whereby the company appears to be adopting a more environmentally-conscious stance, when really it’s simply doing its usual routine.
      Examples:
    1. Mobil Chemical added a small amount of starch to the plastic in Hefty trash bags and called them “biodegradable” (however, the bags would not degrade if buried in landfills, but only if left out in the sun; moreover, the bags didn’t degrade, but rather broke up into smaller plastic pieces — not the same thing!) A Mobil Chemical pitch man said, “degradability is just a marketing tool. We’re talking out of both sides of our mouth because we want to sell our bags.”
    2. Coors Brewing sponsors a greenwashing campaign called Pure Water 2000 that funds “grassroots organizations [engaged in] river cleanups, water habitat improvements, water quality monitoring, wetland protection, and pollution prevention.” In 1992, however, Coors pleaded guilty to charges that it had dumped carcinogenic chemicals into a local waterway for 18 years!
  • Astroturf organizing: These are industry-funded organizations meant to function like environment grassroots groups, except that they are heavily financed by industry and seek to manipulate public opinion by distorting facts. They seek to put environmentalists in an unfavorable light by launching personal attacks against them, charging that activists are “anti-family,” “anti-American,” and pitting jobs and the economy against environmental reform. They are termed “astroturf” because they are designed to look like they are genuine grassroots movements.
  • Physical violence: Activists are routinely harassed by the FBI, which considers any progressive movements “terrorist” in nature, justifying surveillance, break-ins, arrests, and worse. Activists find themselves the victims of assaults, sabotage, death threats, and worse.
      Examples:
    1. 1990: Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were nearly killed by a car bomb — incredibly, the authorities arrested them and accused them of transporting a bomb, which was later thrown out for lack of evidence. The actual perpetrators were never apprehended.
    2. 1992: Activist Stephanie McGuire of Florida was assaulted by three men for opposing a Procter & Gamble pulp mill’s practice of dumping toxins into the Fenholloway River (this mill still does this, btw). They beat her, burned her with a lit cigar, and cut her with a straight razor, while saying “now you have something to sue us over.” No one was arrested in this crime.
    3. The Center for Investigative Reporting noted 104 violent attacks on environmentalists from January 1989 to January 1993, averaging one every two weeks.
  • Government involvement: Through official government channels, whether Congress or the courts or the Executive Branch, government has been shown to regularly side with Big Business where environmental issues are concerned. The conservative 104th Congress recently showed this in its efforts to weaken endangered species laws, open up wetlands and parklands for economic exploitation, and lessening clean air, food, and water legislation. They also cut the funding for the EPA to the bone, all of which pleased industry greatly!

SIX TYPES OF ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS

Most industries will rely on a combination of the following to undermine and roll back environmental reforms, lavishly spending money on campaigns to secure their financial gain at our expense!

  • Public relations firms
  • Corporate front groups
  • Think tanks
  • Legal foundations
  • Endowments and charities
  • Wise Use and Share groups

Of these, the misnamed “Wise Use” and “Share” groups need the most explanation. This anti-environmental movement is mostly a western phenomenon where timber, mining, ranching, chemical, and recreation companies banded together to fight the environmental movement. Ron Arnold, the movement’s founder, is a self-described reformed environmentalist, one who has “seen the light”. As he puts it: “We want to be able to exploit the environment for private gain, absolutely.”

Makes you wonder what kind of environmentalist he must have been, with an attitude like that!

“Wise Use” and “Share” (Canadian version of “Wise Use”) act basically as stormtroopers for industry, because, according to Arnold, the “Wise Use” movement can “do things the industry can’t. It can stress the sanctity of the family, the virtue of the close-knit community. And it can turn the public against your enemies.”

Wiseguys are recruited from the ranks of workers at company meetings (typically compulsory meetings, by the way), and through door-to-door canvassers claiming environmentalists are responsible for unemployment.

Here you see a classic tactic of capitalists, turning the working class against itself when they should be fighting their common enemies, the capitalists themselves! News flash, folks — capitalists cause unemployment, environmentalists don’t!

What the wiseguys want was hammered out in their 1988 conference in Reno, Nevada, where they created a 25 point platform cementing their goal to destroy the environmental movement. Below are eight of their “lofty” goals:

  • “immediate development of the petroleum resources of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska”
  • opening “all public lands, including wilderness areas and national parks” to mineral and energy exploitation and to recreational vehicles
  • exempting from the Endangered Species Act any species whose protection would interfere with resource exploitation (buzzword for “capitalist profit”, I’d say)
  • opening 70 million acres of wilderness that is currently protected by the Wilderness Act to commercial exploitation
  • logging 3.4 million acres of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska
  • making enviromentalists pay industry back if they lose cases in court, as well as to pay for lost industry profits (this is the classic “big guy” versus “little guy” tactic, where the industry hopes to scare off potential suits because they know that while they have the money to fight a successful court battle, environmentalists don’t — it’s not unlike a wealthy incumbent’s campaign war chest scaring off would-be challengers)
  • giving anti-environmental groups the right to sue environmentalists on behalf of the industry (this is a real gem, where industry uses these goons as dupes to do their dirty work, while the industry keeps its nose clean — ever the capitalist way!)
  • implementing free-trade agreements (e.g., NAFTA and GATT) that will grant US industry access to natural resources (e.g., raw materials) globally

Looking at these, one wonders where the “Wise Use” comes in! Far from being populists, these wiseguys are snugly in the vest pockets of their capitalist employers. They are what you’d call “ruling class heroes,” I suppose, making the world safe for wealth, power, and privilege — and they even get paid for their effort!

ANTI-ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS

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More on this later but suffice it to say that couching all of the above in a religious certainty and finding proof of that in the Bible is just plain wrong. In fact it is what all the polluters want to happen. Ready made stooges.

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Why Making Drugs Illegal Is Stupid – Oh I still have to do my mom and burning things as stupid too

That was a very public “note to self”, but after being on vacation I had to go back and look at my list of STUPID things before I realized that I wasn’t nearly done yet. I may revise this post some (which I hardly ever do) because I have a lot happening this week, the State Fair, A movie and planning the Poker Scoot just to name a few.

I am in general opposed to limiting anyone’s access to naturally occurring  substances. If it grows in nature and you want to try it fine. So that means that marijuana, mushrooms, cactus, poppies and bread mold (LSD) that you make or grow or find in the wild is OK to use. If however you poison yourself well that sucks and you die. Anybody who tells you any different is a Doctor who wants to control its use so he can make money on it, or a pharmaceutical company who wants to make money off it, or a religious nut or a social worker who wants to control your social life or finally a fascist (small f) who wants to control everything. I believe that there should be market places for the stuff and it should be taxed. I know the capitalists have a heart attack because  “their” workers could be high. To bad so sad big wah wah.

I am also in favor of the liberalizing of the “made drugs” category as well. Altering your reality is your own choice and when government intervenes it simply creates a black market, swells jail populations and serves no useful purpose. If the money that was spent on criminalization was spent on education and prevention we wouldn’t have the problems we have now. In fact a certain percentage of any human population is going to be addictive and useless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade

History

 

 

1921 photograph of Chinese Maritime Officers with 300 lb (140 kg) of smuggled morphine shipped in cylinders of sodium sulfate from Japan.

The trade of drugs has existed for as long as the drugs themselves have existed. However, the trade of drugs was fully legal until the introduction of drug prohibition. The history of the illegal drug trade is thus closely tied to the history of drug prohibition.

In the First Opium War, the United Kingdom forced China to allow British merchants to trade in opium with the general population of China. Although illegal by imperial decree, smoking opium had become common in the 1800s due to increasing importation via British merchants. Trading in opium was (as it is today in the heroin trade) extremely lucrative. As a result of the trade an estimated two million Chinese people became addicted to the drug. The British Crown (via the treaties of Nanking and Tianjin) took vast sums of money from the Chinese government in what they referred to as ‘reparations’ for the wars.

In the United States, a 1791 tax led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

[edit] Foreign intervention

Some governments that criminalize drug trade have a policy of interfering heavily with foreign states. In 1989, the United States intervened in Panama with the goal of disrupting the drug trade coming from Panama. The Indian government has several covert operations in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent to keep a track of various drug dealers. Opium production in Afghanistan is a current impediment in the development of a licit economy for that country.

[edit] Violent resolutions

In the late 1990s in the United States, the FBI estimates that 5% of murders were drug-related.[1] In addition, drug smuggling can lead to harsh penalties, including the death penalty, in certain countries (for example, Singapore).

Many have argued that the arbitrariness of drug prohibition laws from the medical point of view, especially the theory of harm reduction, worsens the problems around these substances.[citation needed]

[edit] Minors and the illegal drug trade

The U.S. government’s most recent 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) reported that nationwide over 800,000 adolescents ages 12–17 sold illegal drugs during the twelve months preceding the survey; such adolescents also admitted to know or be linked to other drug dealers across the nation.[2][not in citation given] The 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that nationwide 25.4% of students had been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug by someone on school property. The prevalence of having been offered, sold, or given an illegal drug on school property ranged from 15.5% to 38.7% across state CDC surveys (median: 26.1%) and from 20.3% to 40.0% across local surveys (median: 29.4%).[3]

Despite over $7 billion spent annually towards arresting[4] and prosecuting nearly 800,000 people across the country for marijuana offenses in 2005 (FBI Uniform Crime Reports), the federally-funded Monitoring the Future Survey reports about 85% of high school seniors find marijuana “easy to obtain.” That figure has remained virtually unchanged since 1975, never dropping below 82.7% in three decades of national surveys.[5]

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Course then you might ban physically enhancing drugs in sports or something crazy like that…Then people might be tested for drugs at  work…oh we already do that.

http://www.ask.com/questions-about/Illegal-Drugs

Answers to Common Questions

Why are some drugs illegal?

 In Khazakstan the only illegal drugs are Cocaine Heroin Snail Slime and Fat mans armpits It is a known fact from our government scienctist Dr Yamack that if you lick a Fat mans armpit you will die from constipation’s.Not Nice!

 

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2009022506…   See entire page »

What are illegal drugs?

Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroine, Acid, Prescriptions that are not prescribed to YOU. There are MANY types of illegal drugs, but the first 5 i listed are probably the most popular. Prescription drugs have become increasingly popular over the las…

 

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2009060216…   See entire page »

Why do people use illegal drugs?

 because the legal ones just arent as good desire is greater than fear!

 

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_people_do_drugs_if_it…   See entire page »

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While I Was Gone Many Energy and Environmental Things Happened

I was so tempted to post them but I swore that for the first time in 2 years I would take a break. Tomorrow I may even post some vacation photos (shock) and we will be going to the State Fair so there will be pictures of that too (awe). Maybe if you are lucky a picture of the Butter Cow. Anyway in a nutshell here are some of the things I missed:

http://www.sj-r.com/homepage/x772302426/Dozens-show-up-for-jobs-at-former-Monterey-coal-mine

Dozens show up for jobs at former Monterey coal mine

By DEB LANDIS

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Posted Aug 14, 2009 @ 08:51 PM

Last update Aug 14, 2009 @ 11:24 PM

WILLIAMSVILLE — Ron Semplowski of Gillespie has been laid off three times in the last four years.

Friday, Semplowski and three members of his extended family who also are unemployed drove an hour to Williamsville for a jobs fair for the Shay No. 1 coal mine that will operate out of the former Monterey coal mine facilities in Macoupin County between Carlinville and Gillespie.More than 50 applicants showed up by 9 a.m., according to the company.

“We drove 65 miles, and the mine is probably two miles from my house,” Semplowski said.  Rodney Rosentreter, who is also from Gillespie, said: “None of us has experience in coal mining, but we have other job experiences.”  Such jobs, said the Semplowski and Rosentreter family members, have included work with automotive, insulation and pork-producing companies.

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http://www.sj-r.com/entertainment/x1528792918/A-E-Notebook-A-new-Lincoln-musical-and-a-documentary-on-coal
Check out ‘Coal Country’ at Brew &View

Liberty Brew & View film series will host a screening of the documentary “Coal Country” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Capital City Bar & Grill, 3149 S. Dirksen Parkway. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.

The film is about modern coal mining and tells the stories of miners, activists who are battling coal companies in Appalachia, coal company officials and others involved in the industry. The film addresses questions related to the nation’s energy needs and the environmental impact of coal mining.

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I have it on good authority that the cinematographer will be there to discuss his work

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http://www.sj-r.com/homepage/x1528792006/Ameren-to-lay-off-80-at-Illinois-power-plants

Ameren to lay off 80 at Illinois power plants

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Posted Aug 12, 2009 @ 03:08 PM

Last update Aug 12, 2009 @ 11:17 PM


More than 80 jobs at Ameren Corp. power plants in Illinois will be eliminated by the spring of next year as the poor economy continues to drive down demand for electricity, the company announced Wednesday.The cuts include 47 jobs at the Meredosia power plant, approximately 60 miles northwest of Springfield. Wednesday’s announcement came three weeks after the company announced it would cut 55 jobs in its Illinois energy marketing operations.Laid-off workers will be offered transfers, if possible, or severance packages and job-search assistance, according to the company.

“While we regret having to take this action, the challenges we face demand a new model for our merchant generation business. We must build a leaner, more streamlined organization that can more effectively compete in today’s difficult economy where we see much lower prices for our power,” said a statement from Chuck Naslund, president and CEO of Ameren Energy Resources Co.

Naslund said the company also has cut about $1 billion worth of construction projects that had been planned from 2010 to 2013.

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http://www.sj-r.com/homepage/x1558733451/Wind-farm-neighbors-to-petition-for-greater-distance

Wind farm neighbors to petition for greater distance

By TIM LANDIS (tim.landis@sj-r.com)

THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER

Posted Aug 11, 2009 @ 11:30 PM


A group of Sangamon County residents plans to file petitions this week asking that developers of a commercial wind farm be required to put greater distance between turbines and non-participating property owners.Approximately 450 signatures have been collected for submission to the county board and a county zoning appeals board, Cathy Bomke of Sangamon County Citizens for Wind Rights said Monday.The petitions ask that the current 1,200-foot setback requirement from the property of non-participating landowners be increased to a mile, although Bomke said the mile figure is open to discussion.

“One mile is where we started based on research on health, safety and property values. It’s not cut in stone. It’s a starting point for us,” Bomke said.

Bomke said a few petitions still must counted, but that the group hopes to file the request as early as Wednesday.

“What we’re asking for is a simple review of the setbacks. We’re not trying to stop anything here,” Bomke said.

American Wind Energy Management Corp. continues signing up property owns and conducting tests for the Meridian Wind Farm, a utility-scale project that in the first phase would have as many as 200 turbines in an area roughly between New Berlin and Pleasant Plains.

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 http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/partner/renewable-energy-world-north-america/news/article/2009/08/renewable-energy-world-conference-expo-exceeded-growth-and-attendance-expectations?cmpid=rss

August 13, 2009

Renewable Energy World Conference & Expo Exceeded Growth and Attendance Expectations;

Continued Strong Growth in 2010 Is Expected

March 30, 2009/Tulsa, OK

More than 4,000 renewable energy professionals from 75 different countries gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada for the sixth annual Renewable Energy World North America conference and expo March 10-12. With more than 225 companies exhibiting, both the exhibit and attendance numbers reflected significant increases over a year ago. Next year’s numbers are again expected to increase. A total of over 5,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors are expected at the Renewable Energy World North America conference and expo in Austin, Texas, February 23-25, 2010.

Renewable Energy World North America is owned and managed by PennWell Corporation and is the largest all-renewable conference and exhibition in the world. Conference sessions covered issues related to wind, solar, biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal and hydrogen technologies, projects and finance.

 

“Renewable Energy World North America has shown exceptional growth in recent years and 2009 was no exception,” said Richard Baker, senior vice president of power for PennWell. “Our association partners, corporate sponsors and growing number of exhibitors are instrumental in making this the premiere all-renewable event in the world. Our host utility, NV Energy, exceeded expectations when it came to their support and involvement.”

 

Exhibitors also reported results that exceeded expectations. “Following our successful launch to the utility industry at DistribuTech, we were excited to keep the momentum going with our debut presence at Renewable Energy World 2009 in Las Vegas,” said Therese Wells, Director of Marketing for Ice Energy. “The visibility and exposure we generated there among key influencers has been invaluable for us as we establish the importance of energy storage as a key enabling technology for the renewable industry. We are excited to be back again in 2010. From DistribuTech to PowerGen to Renewable Energy World, PennWell’s global energy conferences

are a fundamental cornerstone of our event strategy.”

 

“Renewable Energy World and Power-Gen are the premier power industry trade shows in the United States,” said Chris Huntington, Vice President of Business Development for SkyFuel. “For SkyFuel, these are the crucial venues in which to meet the customers, suppliers and developers with whom we hope to create a new paradigm in the power industry; one in which utility scale solar power is no longer a marginal alternative but a mainstream option.”

 

The Keynote Session on March 10 featured Roberto Denis, Senior Vice President of Energy Supply for NV Energy. Following his remarks he was joined on stage by the executive directors of each of the leading renewable industry trade associations for a lively roundtable discussion on the economic stimulus, federal and state policy initiatives and technological breakthroughs. Roundtable participants included Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association; Douglas Durante, Executive Director of the Clean Fuels Development Coalition; Karl Gawell, Executive Director if the Geothermal Energy Association; Linda Church-Ciocci, Executive

Director of the National Hydropower Association; Julia Hamm, Executive Director of the Solar Electric Power Association; and Rhone Resch, President & CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. Edwin F. Feo, Partner in the law firm Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy LLP also took part.

 

Archived video coverage of the event is available by visiting Renewable Energy World.com, the event’s flagship media sponsor.

 

The 2010 event is scheduled for February 23-25 in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit the Renewable Energy World North America web site at www.renewableenergyworld-events.com.

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This is what we have to look forward to:

http://www.conferencealerts.com/energy.htm

August 2009

17 Preparing for a NERC Audit Chicago IL
18 United We Stand / Building A Sustainable Economy – Conference & Trade show Washington DC
18 National Renewable Energy Summit 2009 Kuching Malaysia
21 Beyond the Brain VIII: Self and Death – What Survives? Canterbury United Kingdom
24 High Voltage Transmission Conductors Conference – (?69 kV) Chicago IL
24 Oil and Gas Boot Camp™ Houston Texas
25 Utility Scale CSP–Breaking Barriers and Lowering Cost Denver CO
26 ICESE 2009 – International Conference on Electrical Systems Engineering London Other
26 CESSE 2009 – International Conference on Computer, Electrical, and Systems Science, and Engineering London Other
26 CESSE 2009 – International Conference on Computer, Electrical, and Systems Science, and Engineering Singapore Singapore
26 ICEE 2009 – International Conference on Energy and Environment Singapore Singapore
26 The 3rd International Conference on Fermentation Technology for Value Added Agricultural Products Khon Kaen Thailand
27 Australian Institute of Hotel Engineers Gold Coast Australia
28 International Workshop on Empirical Methods in Energy Economics (EMEE09) Jasper Canada
30 SYNERGY AND TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT in Agricultural Engineering Gödöllõ Hungary
31 The Indian Sugar Summit New Delhi India
31 Sustainable Energy Technology (SET) 2009 Aachen Germany
SET 2009 conference brings together leadingacademics and industrial partners and provides thelatest developments in sustainable technologies inthe energy, built environment, transport, waste &industry to stimulate new collaboration.

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Energy Tough Love Is On Vacation In Indianapolis and then Chicago

So there will be posts only when I have the time. Today’s post concerns the rumor (and that is all it is) that is being spread by the coal and oil companies that Wind Turbines are not green and are not healthy. It finally has made it to Indiana:

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090809/BUSINESS/908090380/1305/ARCHIVE/Blowback++Indiana+s+emerging+wind+farms+whip+up+controversy

Blowback: Indiana’s emerging wind farms whip up controversy

More and more critics say windmills aren’t that green, aren’t a great source of energy — and can be harmful to people’s health

By Jeff Swiatek

Posted: August 9, 2009

The 200- to 300-foot-long blades on industrial windmills look almost whimsical from afar. They appear to turn slowly. People sometimes stop to take pictures. “They look cool,” said Eric Burch, director of policy and outreach for the Indiana Office of Energy Development.

The tips of those giant blades, however, move at speeds approaching 160 mph, creating forces that send low-frequency vibrations through the ground. People three-quarters of a mile away sometimes say they can feel the vibrations in their chests.

Cases of nausea, headaches, insomnia and other ills have become common enough in states with wind farms that they’ve been given a name: “wind turbine syndrome.”

That newfangled illness is just one of a growing list of health effects, inconveniences, risks and cost considerations that have resulted in a backlash against wind farms in other states, even as Indiana is in the midst of a rapid buildout of wind energy.

What’s happening in other states suggests that the warm and fuzzy feeling many Hoosiers have for wind farms could change as the big turbines creep closer to more populated areas near Indianapolis, Lafayette and other cities.

Benton County farmer John Gilbert said several farmland owners he knows refused to lease space for turbines. He can’t quite understand that. He and his family leased ground for four turbines being built by French-owned enXco.

“My thoughts are, they are going to have to look at ’em, so they might as well get paid.”

Wind turbine energy is here. But groups have sprung up nationwide to fight it.

Jon Boone, a retired University of Maryland administrator who helped found the North American Bluebird Society, has become a leading wind-energy critic from his rural Maryland home, where he helped fight a wind farm proposal several years ago. Now he duels with the windmill lobby through his Web site, stopillwind.org.:}

More later..

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Making Drugs Illegal Is Not Just Stupid It Is A Serious Mistake

I like to make a distinction between naturally occurring mind altering substances and man made drugs. Naturally occurring substances should be totally legal and drugs should be regulated. But for the purposes of this discussion, think for a minute how quickly our world would be transformed if we took all of the money we spend on the “war on drugs” and spent it on alternative energy and environmental issues. If we took all of the money spent on:

eradication

criminal and military foreign drug assistance

border patrol

law enforcement

criminal prosecution

department of corrections

state and federal bureaucracies

We would save Billions of $$$ every year to spend on getting off the carbon economy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade

Not to mention the  taxes we could raise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQlk01sxO_E

How many marginalized lives could be restored:

http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/62

How much suffering could be reduced:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/debate/myths/myths8.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Illegal-Drugs-Complete-History-Chemistry/dp/0452285054

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http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/04/30/drugs-elephants-and-american-prisons/

The Great Debate

 

« Previous Post

Next Post »

07:38 April 30th, 2009

Drugs, elephants and American prisons

By: Bernd Debusmann

Tags: General, , , , , , , , ,

Bernd Debusmann - Great Debate–Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own–

Are the 305 million people living in the United States the most evil in the world? Is this the reason why the U.S., with 5 percent of the world’s population, has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners and an incarceration rate five times as high as the rest of the world?

Or is it a matter of a criminal justice system that has gone dramatically wrong, swamping the prison system with drug offenders?

That rhetorical question, asked on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Virginia Senator Jim Webb, fits into what looks like an accelerating shift in public sentiment on the way that a long parade of administrations has been dealing with illegal drugs.

Advocates of drug reform sensed a change in the public mood even before Webb, a Democrat who served as secretary of the Navy under Republican Ronald Reagan, introduced a bill last month to set up a blue-ribbon commission of “the greatest minds” in the country to review the criminal justice system and recommend reforms within 18 months.

No aspect of the system, according to Webb, should escape scrutiny, least of all “the elephant in the bedroom in many discussions … the sharp increase in drug incarceration over the past three decades. In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent.”

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Kathleen Parker Saying Stupid Things About Energy – So far this year I have had to write posts about

George Will and Walter Wolfman Williams because they weighed in on energy issues. George Will is a nonfiction baseball writer and Wolfman claims to be an economist, so neither one by definition knows anything about energy consumption except that they do a lot of it. But when Kathleen Parker weighs in on Cap and Trade the whole world must be …what waiting with baited breathe? I mean:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0720parkerjul20,0,3212727.column

Kathleen Parker

Bio

Kathleen Parker assesses the country’s mental health with a reporter’s gimlet eye combined with a sense of humor.

“My ambitious goal,” she says, “is to try to inject a little sanity into a world gone barking mad.”

She came to column-writing the old-fashioned way, working her way up journalism’s ladder from smaller papers to larger ones.

“I never set out to become a commentator – and do continue to resist the label ‘pundit’ – but I found that keeping my opinion out of my writing was impossible,” says Parker. “One can only stand watching from the sidelines for so long without finally having to say, ‘Um, excuse me, but you people are nuts.'”

Her writings in support of American troops, first-responders and other front-line participants in the war on terror were among the reasons The Week magazine named her as one of the country’s top five columnists in 2004 and 2005.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/biographies/kathleen-parker.html

Kathleen Parker

Kathleen Parker

» Columnist | Parker started her column in 1987 when she was a staff writer for The Orlando Sentinel. Her column was nationally syndicated in 1995 and she joined The Washington Post Writers Group in 2006. Along the way, she has contributed articles to The Weekly Standard, Time, Town & Country, Cosmopolitan and Fortune Small Business, and she serves on USA Today’s Board of Contributors and writes for that newspaper’s op-ed page. She is a regular guest on “The Chris Matthews Show” on NBC. Her book “Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care” was published in 2008 by Random House.

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http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x1911310943/Kathleen-Parker-A-crude-reality-about-clean-energy-security

Kathleen Parker: A crude reality about clean energy, security

Washington Post Writers Group

Posted Aug 02, 2009 @ 11:31 PM


WASHINGTON — What’s in a name? A bit of deception when it comes to the American Clean Energy and Security Act.A more accurate title might be: the American Clean Energy and Less Security Act.To get to the bottom of what’s wrong with the 1,400-page energy bill passed by the House of Representatives, you have to dig deeper than Canada’s tar sands. And what you find there is just as sludgy — and taxing to process.Crudely refined: The greener we are, the less secure we’re likely to be.

Meaning, we either can be green or we can be less dependent on oil from terrorist-sponsoring states. But under the current energy bill, we can’t be both.

Put another way: The more we cap our carbon, the happier the Saudis are. That’s because most Middle Eastern crude is more easily accessible and requires less processing than what we and our friendlier neighbors can produce.

If you don’t know this, it’s because beer summits are more fun than math. Herewith, a short course for word people.

Basically, the energy bill focuses primarily on stationary sources of CO2 emissions (power and manufacturing plants) and would do little to address mobile sources of emissions, i.e. transportation.

Since virtually all U.S. stationary sources use domestic energy — coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, etc. — the energy bill would do almost nothing about reducing oil or gasoline imports. Foreign sources provide about 70 percent of the oil used in refining gasoline and diesel.

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I am not going to report anymore of this drivel than the allowed several paragraphs. If you want your intelligence insulted you can go read the rest of it.  First because she has heard it over and over from the military she believes that WHERE we get our energy from has anything to do with our national security. Because OPEC kicked our economic asses after the oil embargo in 1973-76 the myth has been propagated that our energy sources “hold us hostage”. Well if we had a diverse enough portfolio then that would never be true AND if we had moved away from the carbon economy back then we would not even be having this discussion.

There in lies (pun intended)  her second stupidity that is she fails to mention ANY alternative to Saudi Oil or the carbon economy. She does not take into account that OPEC oil only amounts to about 20% of our total imports. Canada, Venezuela and Nigeria along with Mexico  are our biggest oil partners. Nor does she take into account the alternatives to carbon (batteries) are well underway especially in the transportation sector where gasoline consumption will continue its decline for the foreseeable future until we use NONE at all.

But the biggest hugest irony is that “Cap and Trade” is a time tested Industry suggested method of modifying our emissions. It was used most notably in the 70s to get rid of or mute acid rain. It worked very well and only modestly contributed to the rise in electrical costs. The same can be expected in the carbon market. The fact is that we need to quit burning coal all together or we will burn ourselves out of house and home. She doesn’t even remotely address the issue of our using the atmosphere as an open sewer. Dumb da Dumb dumb…just the facts mam.

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Barack Obama And Stupid – The situation just got out of hand

The public DEMANDS that the police investigate just about everything. The police DEMAND respect. College Professors always DEMAND respect. There was an awful lot of DEMANDING going on in the situation. The thing is I can sympathize with everyone involved. See before there was driving while BLACK, there was driving while HIPPIE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPd4FmlpVxI

Anytime the police saw long hair, they presumed that there was drugs involved. My girlfriend had a nickname for me. She called me PC and it did not stand for politically correct. It stood for Probable Cause.

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

At that time I had a brother who rode around with me a lot. He did not like the police – he called them PIGS. So when I got pulled over and he was along he would start making PIG noises.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU8LBnOJNxk

So I wanted to “kill” them both because the situation was so stupid. I believe that is what Obama meant but did not say, that the situation was STUPID not the people involved because see when you call people stupid they go getting all there back up and stuff. So in that spirit the next several posts will look at things in the environment and energy world that I think are stupid. A list follows:

The phrase Global Warming

Burning things

Cars

Windows

Apples in Illinois in the Winter

Illegal drugs

My mother

Eating meat

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Since I owe Dan Piraro for letting me post his cartoons and I share his concerns, Let us start with the last one first. If we are going to admit that Burning Things is Stupid (more on that later) then we have to admit that there are only several sources of legitimate power. These are geothermal, tidal, wind and solar. Just to keep things simple while this is a lot of power it is still finite. ALL food is solar power. No Sun no food. So when we become rational and we may be in the process of doing that, would we eat meat? The answer is probably not. Here is Dan and the Washington Post’s take on it:

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Prius vs. Prime Rib

If you are a person concerned with what you can do to help mitigate climate change, read this short article from the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/28/AR2009072800390.html:}

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The Washington Post opines:

Gut Check

The Meat of the Problem

By Ezra Klein

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The debate over climate change has reached a rarefied level of policy abstraction in recent months. Carbon tax or cap-and-trade? Upstream or downstream? Should we auction permits? Head-scratching is, at this point, permitted. But at base, these policies aim to do a simple thing, in a simple way: persuade us to undertake fewer activities that are bad for the atmosphere by making those activities more expensive. Driving an SUV would become pricier. So would heating a giant house with coal and buying electricity from an inefficient power plant. But there’s one activity that’s not on the list and should be: eating a hamburger.

If it’s any consolation, I didn’t like writing that sentence any more than you liked reading it. But the evidence is strong. It’s not simply that meat is a contributor to global warming; it’s that it is a huge contributor. Larger, by a significant margin, than the global transportation sector.

According to a 2006 United Nations report, livestock accounts for 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Some of meat’s contribution to climate change is intuitive. It’s more energy efficient to grow grain and feed it to people than it is to grow grain and turn it into feed that we give to calves until they become adults that we then slaughter to feed to people. Some of the contribution is gross. “Manure lagoons,” for instance, is the oddly evocative name for the acres of animal excrement that sit in the sun steaming nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. And some of it would make Bart Simpson chuckle. Cow gas — interestingly, it’s mainly burps, not farts — is a real player.

But the result isn’t funny at all: Two researchers at the University of Chicago estimated that switching to a vegan diet would have a bigger impact than trading in your gas guzzler for a Prius (PDF). A study out of Carnegie Mellon University found that the average American would do less for the planet by switching to a totally local diet than by going vegetarian one day a week. That prompted Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to recommend that people give up meat one day a week to take pressure off the atmosphere. The response was quick and vicious. “How convenient for him,” was the inexplicable reply from a columnist at the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. “He’s a vegetarian.”

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Did you get the half hearted humor – gut check?

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