Environment Memo

Floating debris, around 20 million tons of it, from the Japan Tsunami is heading for California over the next couple of years.

Well, Earth ain’t no virgin, anyway. Submission time is over, and I didn’t get the memo on Sir Richard Branson’s earth challenge and reward of US$25 million for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’ satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially [...]

I know, it’s futile to try to get word to people like Bill Gates, but I can dream. Gates is working hard to get work done on geoengineering, such as building an 18-mile-long hose, tethered by balloons, that would spray tiny particles into the stratosphere to block the sun’s rays. or

It seems that Two ice shelves that existed before Canada was settled by Europeans diminished significantly this summer, one nearly disappearing altogether, Canadian scientists say in new research.

Led by a Nobel Prize winner, AP reports that a group in Japan aims to collect 10 million signatures and submit them to the government next March demanding of the government, among other things the cancellation of construction plans for new nuclear power plants and the planned termination of existing nuclear power plants, including the [...]

Obama’s $447 billion plan is a huge gamble. Public works programs and such are traditional methods of jump-starting an economy. The trouble is, there are tremendous resource constraints: there are just not enough materials to go around, on a global basis. We’ve cut way back on resource utilization, of necessity, and it may be best [...]

Dave Foreman has been around a while, and he has a new book, entitled “Manswarm and the Killing of Wildlife.” Foreman gets into problems of population growth, including immigration. Interesting stuff.

Auto records make it so: The number of vehicles in operation worldwide surpassed the 1 billion-unit mark in 2010 for the first time ever.

I missed the revelation last year that A helium shortage means that helium balloons should cost about $100 each. I believe there is a substitute for helium in party balloons. They call it air.

Pledging has an important history. For example, those ascribing to the Sullivan Principles pledged to not invest in South Africa during the days of apartheid. Bear with me. Now, Americans for Tax Reform have their “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” which gets a lot of press these days because most Republican candidates have signed it. Here’s an [...]

Climate Progress has the story, also pointing out how Perry’s main contributor is the oil and gas industry.

A factory costing $1.2 billion to build in Dalian, China  is going to be relocated, after protests by tens of thousands of students, white-collar workers and other residents of the affluent coastal city

Wow, we see in the NYTimes, with respect to the DOE’s efforts to examine health effects of hydrofracking: “It would be good to see the subcommittee make recognition of the strong state regulatory system,” said Erik Milito, upstream director at the American Petroleum Institute.

This talk about building libertarian countries at sea has me wondering about law enforcement. They might not need armies, but they’ll likely need police. Years back, a friend of mine suggested we see the movie, Barquero, which was not one of the best movies I’ve seen. Basically, things go to hell in a handbasket when [...]

So they want to create floating libertarian countries in international waters They’ve been looking at configurations, it seems. Ship, barge or semi-submersible? No self-respecting libertarian, with billions to donate, would go for something as prosaic as a barge, would they? Give me Verne’s Nautilus, dammit!  But that’s just me. Still in all, nitty gritty factors [...]