WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A growing number of Americans, nearly half the country, think global warming worries are exaggerated, as more people also doubt that scientific warnings of severe environmental fallout will ever occur, according to a new Gallup poll. The new doubts come as President Barack Obama is pressuring the Congress to produce legislation significantly cutting smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for climate change problems.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A growing number of Americans, nearly half the country, think global warming worries are exaggerated, as more people also doubt that scientific warnings of severe environmental fallout will ever occur, according to a new Gallup poll.
The new doubts come as President Barack Obama is pressuring the Congress to produce legislation significantly cutting smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases blamed for climate change problems.
Christine MacDonald, an idealistic young environmentalist, discovered how deeply this cash had transformed these institutions when she started to work for Conservation International in 2006. She told me, "About a week or two after I started, I went to the big planning meeting of all the organization's media teams, and they started talking about this supposedly great new project they were running with BP. But I had read in the newspaper the day before that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had condemned BP for running the most polluting plant in the whole country.... But nobody in that meeting, or anywhere else in the organization, wanted to talk about it. It was a taboo. You weren't supposed to ask if BP was really green. They were 'helping' us, and that was it." She soon began to see--as she explains in her whistleblowing book Green Inc.--how this behavior has pervaded almost all the mainstream green organizations. They take money, and in turn they offer praise, even when the money comes from the companies causing environmental devastation. To take just one example, when it was revealed that many of IKEA's dining room sets were made from trees ripped from endangered forests, the World Wildlife Fund leapt to the company's defense, saying--wrongly--that IKEA "can never guarantee" this won't happen. Is it a coincidence that WWF is a "marketing partner" with IKEA, and takes cash from the company? Likewise, the Sierra Club was approached in 2008 by the makers of Clorox bleach, who said that if the Club endorsed their new range of "green" household cleaners, they would give it a percentage of the sales. The Club's Corporate Accountability Committee said the deal created a blatant conflict of interest--but took it anyway. Executive director Carl Pope defended the move in an e-mail to members, in which he claimed that the organization had carried out a serious analysis of the cleaners to see if they were "truly superior." But it hadn't. The Club's Toxics Committee co-chair, Jessica Frohman, said, "We never approved the product line." Beyond asking a few questions, the committee had done nothing to confirm that the product line was greener than its competitors' or good for the environment in any way. The green groups defend their behavior by saying they are improving the behavior of the corporations. But as these stories show, the pressure often flows the other way: the addiction to corporate cash has changed the green groups at their core. As MacDonald says, "Not only do the largest conservation groups take money from companies deeply implicated in environmental crimes; they have become something like satellite PR offices for the corporations that support them." It has taken two decades for this corrupting relationship to become the norm among the big green organizations. Imagine this happening in any other sphere, and it becomes clear how surreal it is. It is as though Amnesty International's human rights reports came sponsored by a coalition of the Burmese junta, Dick Cheney and Robert Mugabe.
Christine MacDonald, an idealistic young environmentalist, discovered how deeply this cash had transformed these institutions when she started to work for Conservation International in 2006. She told me, "About a week or two after I started, I went to the big planning meeting of all the organization's media teams, and they started talking about this supposedly great new project they were running with BP. But I had read in the newspaper the day before that the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] had condemned BP for running the most polluting plant in the whole country.... But nobody in that meeting, or anywhere else in the organization, wanted to talk about it. It was a taboo. You weren't supposed to ask if BP was really green. They were 'helping' us, and that was it."
She soon began to see--as she explains in her whistleblowing book Green Inc.--how this behavior has pervaded almost all the mainstream green organizations. They take money, and in turn they offer praise, even when the money comes from the companies causing environmental devastation. To take just one example, when it was revealed that many of IKEA's dining room sets were made from trees ripped from endangered forests, the World Wildlife Fund leapt to the company's defense, saying--wrongly--that IKEA "can never guarantee" this won't happen. Is it a coincidence that WWF is a "marketing partner" with IKEA, and takes cash from the company?
Likewise, the Sierra Club was approached in 2008 by the makers of Clorox bleach, who said that if the Club endorsed their new range of "green" household cleaners, they would give it a percentage of the sales. The Club's Corporate Accountability Committee said the deal created a blatant conflict of interest--but took it anyway. Executive director Carl Pope defended the move in an e-mail to members, in which he claimed that the organization had carried out a serious analysis of the cleaners to see if they were "truly superior." But it hadn't. The Club's Toxics Committee co-chair, Jessica Frohman, said, "We never approved the product line." Beyond asking a few questions, the committee had done nothing to confirm that the product line was greener than its competitors' or good for the environment in any way.
The green groups defend their behavior by saying they are improving the behavior of the corporations. But as these stories show, the pressure often flows the other way: the addiction to corporate cash has changed the green groups at their core. As MacDonald says, "Not only do the largest conservation groups take money from companies deeply implicated in environmental crimes; they have become something like satellite PR offices for the corporations that support them."
It has taken two decades for this corrupting relationship to become the norm among the big green organizations. Imagine this happening in any other sphere, and it becomes clear how surreal it is. It is as though Amnesty International's human rights reports came sponsored by a coalition of the Burmese junta, Dick Cheney and Robert Mugabe.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan watered down legislation to fight climate change Thursday after weeks of wrangling within the government over plans for an emissions trading system that has met stiff resistance from industry. The proposed climate bill, set to be enacted in parliament by mid-June, left room for the trading scheme to set caps on emissions per unit of production, which would allow rises in emissions when output grows.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan watered down legislation to fight climate change Thursday after weeks of wrangling within the government over plans for an emissions trading system that has met stiff resistance from industry.
The proposed climate bill, set to be enacted in parliament by mid-June, left room for the trading scheme to set caps on emissions per unit of production, which would allow rises in emissions when output grows.
A Midlands businessman was jailed for three years today after admitting making a fortune by fraudulently passing off battery farm eggs as free range or organic.Around 100m mislabelled eggs sold by Keith Owen ended up on the shelves of supermarkets including Sainsbury's and Tesco. That the fraud was able to carry on for two years while he made a £3m profit raises questions for the food industry about the provenance of goods.Owen, 44, from Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, ran Heart of England Eggs Unlimited, which supplied eggs to major packing companies that in turn supplied them to supermarkets and smaller retailers.
A Midlands businessman was jailed for three years today after admitting making a fortune by fraudulently passing off battery farm eggs as free range or organic.
Around 100m mislabelled eggs sold by Keith Owen ended up on the shelves of supermarkets including Sainsbury's and Tesco. That the fraud was able to carry on for two years while he made a £3m profit raises questions for the food industry about the provenance of goods.
Owen, 44, from Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, ran Heart of England Eggs Unlimited, which supplied eggs to major packing companies that in turn supplied them to supermarkets and smaller retailers.
For months now, Sen. Jim Bunning's had a hold on the confirmation of pesticide/biotech lobbyist Islam A. Siddiqui as America's Chief Agricultural Negotiator. Now we know why. This is hilarious, only it isn't really. According to Congressional Quarterly, Bunning wants the U.S. Trade Rep Ron Kirk to stand up for tobacco. Yes, that's right. Canada has banned candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes (note that is candy-flavored real cigarettes, not candy cigarettes) as they are seen to encourage young people to smoke. Bunning's upset because Canada's ban also applies to "regular cigarettes blended with flavoring ingredients to mask the harsh taste of burley tobacco." And which state is the largest producer of burley tobacco? Kentucky! The home state of Sen. Bunning.
According to Congressional Quarterly, Bunning wants the U.S. Trade Rep Ron Kirk to stand up for tobacco. Yes, that's right. Canada has banned candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes (note that is candy-flavored real cigarettes, not candy cigarettes) as they are seen to encourage young people to smoke. Bunning's upset because Canada's ban also applies to "regular cigarettes blended with flavoring ingredients to mask the harsh taste of burley tobacco." And which state is the largest producer of burley tobacco? Kentucky! The home state of Sen. Bunning.
Researchers say they've solved the mystery of why some chickens hatch out half-male and half-female.About one in every 10,000 chickens is gynandromorphous, to use the technical term. In medieval times, they might have been burned at the stake, as witches' familiars. But now these chickens are shedding important new light on how birds, and perhaps reptiles, develop.
Researchers say they've solved the mystery of why some chickens hatch out half-male and half-female.
About one in every 10,000 chickens is gynandromorphous, to use the technical term.
In medieval times, they might have been burned at the stake, as witches' familiars.
But now these chickens are shedding important new light on how birds, and perhaps reptiles, develop.
As opposed to being roasted in an oven and eaten?
They're developing technology that grinds wood, cornstalks and other plant waste into a powder finer than baking flour that -- when blown into the air -- can be set aflame. The flame produces heat without smoke or smell. The heat can be used to warm water or buildings or to make electricity. Still in its infancy, the technology already has the interest of the World Bank, which sees its potential to improve the lives of millions in developing nations. The idea of burning powder is so simple, McKnight could hardly believe no one else had thought of it first. Kim McKnight, a mechanical engineer who lives in Ithaca, came to his father in late 2006 with what he thought was a breakthrough in fuel systems that run on corn and wood pellets. "Well, if pellets are big breakthrough, what would happen if you made it into a powder?" James McKnight asked his son. Under the right conditions, powder can be explosive. A search of the patent literature turned up nothing along those lines. So they bought some wood powder, commonly used as a filler in plastics, and an off-the-homestore-shelf paint sprayer."The powder would burn like a flame," McKnight said. "Eureka!" The powder has some advantages over petroleum-based fuels. It's renewable -- that is, it grows back after it's cut down. The flame can be instantly turned off by cutting off the flow of powder (try doing that with a burning log or wood pellets). The powder also doesn't pose a fire hazard if it's spilled: The wood particles have to be suspended in the air to burn. The energy produced costs the equivalent of $1.40 per gallon of heating oil, according to McKnight. The current price for heating oil is about $2.50 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And unlike biofuels such as corn ethanol, the powdered fuel can be made from plant material that would otherwise remain on the forest floor or farmer's field -- not from plants that can feed people or animals. Summerhill filed U.S. patent applications in 2007. Since then, the McKnights have been tinkering with their low-tech setup, using parts bought from farm catalogs and the Home Depot and even a windshield wiper motor. The burners can be made as small as 50,000 British thermal units -- enough for a residential water heater -- to millions of Btus, enough to heat commercial greenhouses or grain-drying operations on a farm. The research phase is done, McKnight says. Summerhill has figured out how to make the powder and build the burners.
They're developing technology that grinds wood, cornstalks and other plant waste into a powder finer than baking flour that -- when blown into the air -- can be set aflame. The flame produces heat without smoke or smell.
The heat can be used to warm water or buildings or to make electricity. Still in its infancy, the technology already has the interest of the World Bank, which sees its potential to improve the lives of millions in developing nations.
The idea of burning powder is so simple, McKnight could hardly believe no one else had thought of it first.
Kim McKnight, a mechanical engineer who lives in Ithaca, came to his father in late 2006 with what he thought was a breakthrough in fuel systems that run on corn and wood pellets.
"Well, if pellets are big breakthrough, what would happen if you made it into a powder?" James McKnight asked his son. Under the right conditions, powder can be explosive. A search of the patent literature turned up nothing along those lines.
So they bought some wood powder, commonly used as a filler in plastics, and an off-the-homestore-shelf paint sprayer."The powder would burn like a flame," McKnight said. "Eureka!"
The powder has some advantages over petroleum-based fuels. It's renewable -- that is, it grows back after it's cut down. The flame can be instantly turned off by cutting off the flow of powder (try doing that with a burning log or wood pellets). The powder also doesn't pose a fire hazard if it's spilled: The wood particles have to be suspended in the air to burn.
The energy produced costs the equivalent of $1.40 per gallon of heating oil, according to McKnight. The current price for heating oil is about $2.50 a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And unlike biofuels such as corn ethanol, the powdered fuel can be made from plant material that would otherwise remain on the forest floor or farmer's field -- not from plants that can feed people or animals.
Summerhill filed U.S. patent applications in 2007.
Since then, the McKnights have been tinkering with their low-tech setup, using parts bought from farm catalogs and the Home Depot and even a windshield wiper motor. The burners can be made as small as 50,000 British thermal units -- enough for a residential water heater -- to millions of Btus, enough to heat commercial greenhouses or grain-drying operations on a farm.
The research phase is done, McKnight says. Summerhill has figured out how to make the powder and build the burners.
looks good... ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
