John Kerry and the Environment

Byoliveridley

The fight in the Senate | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist

Kerry, everyone’s favorite democrat summarizes the non-coal/auto democrat’s energy/environmental policy plans int he US senate.

Highlights:

  1. Increase Fuel Economy standards
  2. Increase contribution of renewable sources
  3. No drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)
  4. No liquid coal
  5. NO MORE COAL WITHOUT SEQUESTRATION!!!

This is all very sensible. He does not mention biofuels/corn ethanol, which I guess is because he’s from Mass, not exactly corn central.

He’s a good man, this John Kerry.

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    it could happen soon, imagine your car parked in the sun with a plastic solar coating on the roof. Imagine every building surface generating clean electrical energy. Well, it could happen very soon (if hyperbolic sciencedaily press releases are to be believed, at any rate!).

    ScienceDaily: New Plastic Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Record

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    Screw ethanol, put all your energy into developing solar and wind energy, battery technology and electric vehicles. See how much better an idea that is compared to corn ethanol.

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    An Ode to the Hummer? – Worst Column Ever

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    GM desperately needs an obnoxious, attention-grabbing brand to keep from turning into a dreary shadow of its former self. And America needs the Hummer to remind us of what has always made our automobiles stand out, from the tailfin 1950s to the muscle car 1960s and ’70s: swagger. Americans don’t just drive their cars — they proclaim something about themselves by driving them.It takes a certain kind of man — it’s almost always the owner of a Y chromosome — to take a gander at the Hummer, in all its broad, burly, paramilitary gas-guzzling glory, and see himself behind the wheel, striking fear and loathing in the hearts of ecologically sensitive motorists

    Matthew DeBord – Hummer, How We Need Thee – washingtonpost.com

    Yes, and we men need to beat our women and keep them pregnant all the time to avoid turning us men into dreary shadows of our former self.

    Seriously, this is the Washington Post, the newspaper of record of the capital city of the great United States, and this is not a satire. Way to paint the entire American male population as masculinity obsessed rageholics whose only aim is to strike fear in the heart of others while dressed in military fatigues. This man must possess an unhealthy degree of self-hatred to conclude  that disdain of a poorly designed, horrendously inefficient vehicle is somehow hippie and communist.This man is a disgrace to all mankind.

    This, on the other hand is satire…

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    Yes, when the Onion is better than the Washington Post, you know your country’s going to the dogs.

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    NC House Smoking Bill passes committee

    Byoliveridley

    Updates on the smoking bills I mentioned last week….

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    Dismissing North Carolina’s heritage as a tobacco state, a House committee on Tuesday passed a far-reaching indoor smoking ban.

    The Judiciary Committee passed the ban by a 9-4 vote. The measure would prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces in North Carolina, including bars and restaurants. The rules also would apply to private clubs, except those with nonprofit or tax-exempt status.

    The measure would be complaint-driven — local health departments would act on complaints from the public — and violators would first receive warnings.

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    Some opponents said passing the bill could set the stage for similar bans inside personal vehicles and homes.

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    Yes Paul and Ronnie, not only did you construct a straw man, you blew smoke on it, gave it lung cancer, tortured it with cigarette butts and finally set it on fire. Sheesh, what asses.

    Update

    From Laura Leslie, WUNC (our local NPR affiliate) reporter who maintains a reporter’s blog at WUNC

    Under the current version of the bill, which isn’t available on the web just yet, only NON-profit clubs could allow smoking – like the Elks Lodge, for example.

    So for the standard nightclub or bar, smoking would be banned.

    Hope it helps – and thanks very much for reading!!
    Laura

    So, that’s a lot of progress on the house bill, making it very close to the senate bill.

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    The discussion on global warming in Parliament will end with the statement of environment minister A Raja, possibly on Monday. He is bound to restate the country’s position on climate change in the international arena — that countries must bear “a common but differentiated responsibility” for climate change, a phrase that is the central pin of the Kyoto Protocol.

    De-jargonised, it means, while every country is adding to the problem, there are some that are more responsible than others, and should, therefore, bear the burden and costs of cleaning up more than the smaller culprits

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    The US, between 1950-2003, emitted 10 times more carbon dioxide than India did. Europe emitted 8.5 times more. Yet US and Australia, two of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol (which asks developed countries to reduce their emissions) on the pretext that developing countries like India and China are not undertaking emission cuts.

    Worse still, if one looks at per capita emissions from different countries, which is a more equitable way of calculating emissions if one was to go by the principle that each person has as much right to the atmosphere as another, then India ranks a mere 120 compared to US which ranks 6 and Australia 10 on the culprits’ list. This is taking the emission levels of 2003.

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