About: A Guest Commentator

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It’s all about the pipelines

May 16, 2008 |

 

Okay…so it’s discovered that one of the largest remaining untapped resources, of the most lucrative commodities on the planet, lies beneath an area on earth which is landlocked by surrounding countries who don’t like you.

But in order to get that commodity out to market - so that you can profit from harvesting it - you need a major highway or two to the nearest seaport where you can load it on big boats and ship it off to world markets.

Problem is: those aforementioned surrounding countries. Those highways will have to traverse their land and they’re not going to just let you do it.

What’s a Western capitalist to do! «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion | No Comments

 

A plea for Planet Earth

May 3, 2008 |

 

On April 14, 2008, James Hansen of NASA Goddard Institute and Columbia University Earth Institute wrote the following letter to Governor Jim Gibbons (Nevada) as a “Plea for Leadership” in the battle against global warming, a battle to save Planet Earth. We thought this “plea,” this request for stewardship, was worth repeating. For the complete document (including “Fossil Fuel Facts” referenced within) and supportive documentation on this issue, please check out http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080414_GovernorGibbons.pdf

Dear Governor Gibbons,

I hope that I may communicate with you as a fellow parent and grandparent about a matter that will have great effects upon the lives of our loved ones. I refer to climate change, specifically global warming in response to human-made carbon dioxide (CO2) and other pollutants.

Governor Gibbons, the scientific advances in just the past few years, paradoxically, carry both bad news and good news. We have already passed the threshold of atmospheric CO2 levels that we can allow to exist over the long-term. Mother Nature, as a friend of mine has noted, is wagging her finger at us, saying “Now you have gone too far!” Consequences of ignoring this admonishment would be dire. The Earth is nearing climate “tipping points” with potentially irreversible effects, including extermination of countless species, ice sheet disintegration and sea-level rise, and mass dislocation of populations. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Issues, Opinion | 1 Comment »

 

Before the Kafka Law of Military Commissions

April 18, 2008 |

 

Today, another hearing ended in turmoil when a 47-year-old Sudanese man, Ibrahim al-Qosi, refused representation and declared he would boycott the military commission, before which he is charged with conspiracy and providing material support to terrorism. Al-Qosi told the judge, Air Force Col. Nancy Paul, that he has been waiting for this day for four years, that he does not recognize the lawfulness of the military commission, and that he “leaves the field for you to play as you wish.”

Today, the fragile and flawed system of military commissions produced a new episode in its Kafkaesque system of “justice” series. As in the famous Franz Kafka piece “Before the Law,” Al-Qosi has waited “to gain entry into the law” only to discover that this unjust system was created for him (and the others declared “unlawful alien enemy combatants” by the Bush administration). In the Kafka story, the man who waits at the door until he is about to die asks the doorkeeper why, even though everyone seeks the law, no one else has come in all the years. To this question the doorkeeper replies: “No one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.” «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | No Comments

 

Ted Talks: Karen Armstrong - Charter for Compassion

April 15, 2008 |

 

As she accepts her 2008 TED Prize, author and scholar Karen Armstrong talks about how the Abrahamic religions — Islam, Judaism, Christianity — have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion. But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion — to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Spirituality | No Comments

 

Simple measures could make big difference in gas consumption

April 14, 2008 |

 

Gasoline prices have hit a record high, which has prompted a public outcry for the government to “do something.” Federal and state officials can do much to reduce gasoline consumption, and in turn, the price of gas, by implementing existing regulations and enforcing laws already on the books.

The key to success is to work with, rather than against, motorists. With this in mind, there are several opportunities to reduce gasoline consumption, without resorting to rationing schemes or heavy-handed price controls:

• Synchronize Traffic Signals - In 2003, the City of San Jose, California started to coordinate its traffic light system. By altering the timing on just a third of the city’s stoplights, traffic delays were reduced 33 percent and average travel time was reduced 16 percent. The city also estimated that this project significantly reduced fuel usage - saving approximately 471,000 gallons of gasoline each year.

«Read the rest of this article»

Sections: News | No Comments

 

Ethanol: great politics, ineffective energy

April 5, 2008 |

 

Corn Ethanol is becoming the Iraq war of energy policy. A policy based on lies, that initially won supporters political advantage, is highly destructive to the US, and ultimately destructive to its supporters when the costly truth becomes widely known.

In 2007, 115 US plants produced 7 billion gallons of Corn Ethanol - the energy equivalent of 132 million barrels of oil using about 15% of corn production. While this sounds large, it is tiny in the context of the US economy. This is equal to only 1.6% of the energy from from oil in 2007 used in the US. But the situation is worse than this because it takes 1 unit of fossil fuel to produce 1.3 units of corn ethanol. The net energy produced was only 0.5% of the energy from from oil - while consuming 15% of the US corn crop!

Vast sums of taxpayer and consumer dollars are funding an ineffective solution to the real problems of global warming and energy independence. While the country does not sufficiently fund what can be real solutions. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Opinion, Politics | 3 Comments

 

Lost in Limbo

March 12, 2008 |

 

How the Threat of Eminent Domain Harms Property Owners

An irony of urban redevelopment is that the purported goal of economic development is usually hampered by government’s insistence on retaining the power of eminent domain for a project. Forest City, a developer infamous for its Atlantic Yards dispute in New York, is involved in just such a situation in Fresno, Calif. Fresno decided in 2005 that the area south of Chukchansi Park, home of the city’s minor league baseball team, should be “revitalized.” The next year, the city hired mega-developer Forest City to begin the downtown redevelopment; unfortunately, the very plan designed to revitalize Fresno’s downtown is draining the area of not only its current tax base but hampering other future investments in that area.

Forest City’s plan for the 85-acre South Stadium area, which calls for a new shopping district and 700 new homes, has threatened more than 40 properties with eminent domain for private gain. ¹ «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Issues | No Comments

 

FISA isn’t the worst of it

February 25, 2008 |

 



The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is just the latest salvo in an attempt to install a surveillance society in America. Don’t let anger at the Bush administration and Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) over the NSA blind you to a much larger problem. We need a comprehensive national policy on data collection and its use in both the public & private sectors. Privacy rights and the associated laws must be clarified and strengthened, taking into account the complexities of modern technologies. The wall between government and private industry must also be restored.

Theoretically, U.S. laws and policies restrict the government’s use of dossiers on individual citizens who are not under criminal investigation. President Carter’s Executive order 12036 prohibited domestic surveillance. There are no such laws preventing private companies from doing so, as long as they ensure that specific protected pieces of data (your social security number, for example) aren’t lost or stolen or otherwise compromised. And some people in the intelligence community have been trying to get their hands on that commercial data for years. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Business, Technology | No Comments

 

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