Well, if some people have their way, you’ll get taxed extra for that bambino.  All in the name of stopping Global Warming.  I’m all for finding ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but this one is probably not going to work out well.  But if you want to have a somewhat disturbing read, continue on to the comments of the above-linked article.  It’s an odd nexus of environmentalism and crass conservativism.

It’s been a remarkably busy day today, what with the holidays coming up, and all. One thing’s for certain: you will never find yourself with a lack of work as a web designer for a consumer product corporation around the holidays!

But I wanted to speak briefly about a particular theme of Republican and Conservative politics that deserves some exploration. This is also in relation to the theme of “Government as a Public Square” that I’ve been meaning to return to and haven’t.

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Everyone sit up and take notice: Ecovation is 58th on Rochester’s Top 100 businesses, and they’re doing it by providing solutions to our climate crisis.  It has never seemed very logical to me that Conservatives of business mind cannot see the value in recycling every single thing they produce in the pursuit of their products.  Well, if the tremendous growth-rate of this company is any indication, the business community is starting to get the net and get green.

But not only does Ecovation provide companies with recycling food wastes into energy, but they’re actually seeking a patent on a unique process to create Ethanol and bring energy independence to communities which otherwise live too far from the agricultural heartlands where the majority of it is produced:

Ecovation strives to save energy || Democrat & Chronicle: Business

Is there anything interesting about your company that’s worth noting?

Ecovation has a patent-pending process for managing the waste byproducts from the production of ethanol. Our process would eliminate the barriers to siting new ethanol facilities in locations that are not proximate to farmers who use the processed wastes as animal feed.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Energy Independence, Rochester, Economy

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Don’t get me wrong.  I want to be energy-efficient, to live in a country not dependent on foreign oil, and a world not covered in the salt water of former glaciers.  But when people talk about Ethanol like it’s going to solve all our problems, it’s just crazy talk.  Basic math does not support it.

The three top runners in the Democratic race are, I think, trying to discuss energy policy in a rational tone.  And discussing alternative fuels as a reality rather than a far-off concept is beneficial.  However, FactCheck.org takes them to task for painting entirely too-rosey pictures of our Ethanol future:

FactCheck.org: Audacious Ethanol Hopes?

Presidential candidates have been soliciting votes in Iowa, one of the nation’s leading ethanol producing states. But how practical are plans for a growing role for E85 — a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline? . . .  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as well as former Sen. John Edwards. We find their statistics to be accurate as far as they go, but we also find they don’t go very far.

A lot of what FactCheck.org says on the subject dovetails nicely with my own research of a year or so ago.  I am led, therefore, to the natural conclusion that FactCheck.org writers are frequent readers of this website.  Yeah, right.

Technorati Tags: Ethanol, E85, Energy Efficiency, Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards

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Wow! Last weekend, I got a flier from a woman walking down Rockingham for the South Wedge Farmer’s Market. I’d meant to post a little sumpin-sumpin on the blog about it, and specifically about their grand opening on the 14th of this month, but it was a nice summer day and you know how that goes. . .

Well, the Rochester blogging community has positively lit up with activity about this new place, which is extremely good news for them. Mustard Street was the first to post, followed closely by Exile on RT. Gosh, does it even seem worth it to add to the chorus?

Of course it does! A place like this needs our support and deserves some recognition. Sure, the public market on Union St. is similar, but this one’s just for the Wedgies! Plus, it’s an opportunity to talk about some of the benefits of shopping at a farmer’s market, so let’s discuss!   » Continue Reading…

The D&C has a great article on the enforcement of the “48-hour rule” for pesticide use.

Anyone using pesticides on their lawns or gardens must provide “at least 48 hours” advance notice to any property owner whose property touches that property being treated.  It’s a good law, and one that seems thus far to have been implemented to great affect in Monroe County and surrounding New York counties since a State law was passed in 2000 permitting counties to make such requirements.

But more work is needed to get pesticides under reasonable control.  Pesticides are dangerous, usually cancer-causing chemicals whose use needs to be regulated in populated areas. More responsible land management schemes should be better-promoted by our government, letting the public know that it’s possible to have attractive, healthy “green lawns,” instead of constantly relying on petrochemicals for a solution to every critter we don’t like:   » Continue Reading…

The Washington Post has an article this morning concerning the Depression-era rural electification program that still operates today.  The thrust of the article is that this program, which is highly popular among it’s beneficiaries and politically inexpedient to remove, will likely cause headaches for Congressional leaders who are trying to curb the nation’s carbon emissions.  This is because the program provides grants for rural areas to build coal-fired plants, which of course only add to the Global Warming problem:

Federal Loans for Coal Plants Clash With Carbon Cuts - washingtonpost.com

A Depression-era program to bring electricity to rural areas is using taxpayer money to provide billions of dollars in low-interest loans to build coal plants even as Congress seeks ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions. That government support is a major force behind the rush to coal plants, which spew carbon dioxide that scientists blame for global warming.

I submit, however, that this would be less of a problem and more of an opportunity if we had anything approaching real leadership in the White House and if that leadership was interested in leading us to a cleaner, greener future.
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Elsewhere in the world (like Europe, that din of iniquity), it appears that people are starting to grant Chimps “Human Rights”:

Slashdot | Should Chimps Have Human Rights?

“A Brazilian court has already issued a writ of habeas corpus in the name of a chimp. And now an Austrian court may well decide that a chimpanzee is a ‘person’ with what up until now have been called human rights.”

Next thing you know, they’re going to let “the gays” vote!

In all seriousness, though.  This has some interesting implications.  My personal view is that all living things have rights, but of course if that’s true, does this eventually mean we will have to pay reparations to the buffalo?  We are recognized as having the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and we rebel against any attempt to manage our lives.  But providing any of those things to folks without opposable thumbs necessarily means managing wildlife.

The thing is, at the risk of sounding like a Conservative, this is one of those “slippery slope,” kind of deals.  Once you acknowledge the rights of primates as a singular thing, you’ll not long after need to recognize the rights of all living things.  That’s good news for crabgrass, but think of the end game!

What would this do, for example, to the definition of murder?  Are we going to have crocodiles serving time on death row?  Well, finally the Conservatives could get the turnover rate they’re looking for. . . .

OK, it’s obvious I need a vacation. . . .

Technorati Tags: Rights, Nature, Chimpanzees

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Damn, but this new, nominally more Conservative SCOTUS is surprising me on a regular basis:

Supreme Court rules greenhouse gases a pollutant - Boston.com

In a defeat for the Bush administration, the US Supreme Court ruled Monday that greenhouse gases are a pollutant and ordered federal environmental officials to re-examine their refusal to limit emissions of the gases from cars and trucks.

Technorati Tags: Environment, Global Warming, SCOTUS

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Well, when Weggies fucks up, I’ll let them know. And when they do good, I’ll let them know, also. I’m an asshole, yes. But I’m fair.

This from NYCO’s Blog:

NYCO’s Blog » Wegmans goes reusable

I was surprised and pleased to discover this morning that Wegmans is now promoting reusable grocery bags. It’s not like you couldn’t have brought your own bags before, but sadly I think people have a lot of petty little reasons for not wanting to bother, ranging from “I’ll forget to bring them with me” to “I don’t want to look weird” to “Is it against store policy?” And it’s probably also just one of those things that people keep pushing to the bottom of their eco-friendly “to do” list.

I commented on this one, but I’ll amplify my thoughts here.

The thing is, much though I do admire those people who have made the commitment to be Earth-Friendly at all costs, I think many people get the impression that you have to live in a commune and next to a compost heap in order to be environmentally friendly. But offering such practical measures as one simple way to have less of an impact on the environment might encourage people to think differently.

I’ve been meaning to write an article on this subject, but I’ve not had a chance. It seems to me that the notion of eco-friendly has gotten all tied up with the idea of a monk-like existence of forbearance. The truth is that little things like energy-efficient light bulbs or reusable garbage bags do have an impact, and once again, technology can provide us the answers to this problem.

I don’t want to say that we should expect to have a technology magic wand waved and all will be put right without sacrifice. But at the same time, life creates waste, and our problem is not so much that most of us are living gluttonous lifestyles but that the tools we’ve been provided are so terribly inefficient. In some cases, that lack of efficiency has been intentional.

Watch Who Killed the Electric Car? if you want an example of what I mean. Conservative shrilling over Al Gore’s house is an example of the vested interests of inefficiency using public fear over “Enviro-Fascism” to it’s utter-most effect.

No one says you can’t live well, the question is: how much to we pay environmentally for our lifestyles? Better question: can we expect that we should be able to pay less?

Technorati Tags: Environment, Wegmans

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