More About Getting Away From Coal

     CNN posted an article listing again the reasons why we should be moving away from coal fired energy plants. Even if you don't believe global warming is a crisis, rising asthma rates and mercury pollution are. Also, coal (and all fossil fuels) will not be around forever, so the sooner we stop using it, the better off we will be.

Other Highlights from the article:
-To build a coal-fired power plant that doesn't emit pollution is so expensive that it's cheaper to do clean energy
-Michael Bloomberg's Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed $50 million over four years to the Beyond Coal campaign
-It is technologically and economically realistic to eliminate coal's contribution to the electric sector by 2030


Original Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/29/bloomberg.brune.coal/index.html?hpt=us_t2

Environmental Protection Spending Bill

     "[it's] not so much a spending bill as a wish list for special interests." -Virginia Rep. Jim Moran, ranking member of the Appropriations Committee

     The official name of the bill is: The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, FY 2012. Essentially, it is a bill that will dictate spending for various environmental programs in America. Sadly, things don't look too good for the environment in this one.

Here is a list of concerns:

*Prohibiting EPA from reducing greenhouse gases that lead to global warming;
*Prohibiting the use of federal funds to list and recover endangered species;
*Eviscerating spending for our national lands, which could lead to the closure of national wildlife refuges, and the shutdown of efforts to help our lands address the worst effects of climate change;
*Uranium mining within the Grand Canyon;
*Deep, debilitating cuts in the Forest Legacy and Land and Water Conservation Funds programs, which allow state, local and federal governments to work together on conservation needs, all the more important in the face of global climate change;
*Eliminating water pollution laws for logging roads on national forests and allowing for expanded off-road vehicle use on national forests in California;
*Exempting Big Oil's massive offshore drilling operations from Clean Air Act requirements designed to protect our health and our environment.

To sign a petition against this bill that will be sent to your local representative you can go here:

https://secure.wilderness.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=OnScreenThanks&id=2351

For some more info on the bill, there is a good article here:

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/energy-intelligence/2011/07/26/house-warms-up-for-debt-vote-with-interior-environment-bill

Video games, Guns, and Norway.

     Jim Sterling of Destructoid wrote an excellent article pointing out the obvious flaws in thinking that a video game could possibly have helped train a terrorist to do what was done in Norway. At this point it is getting tiresome to have to repeat the same basic logic over and over, but when a killer specifically cites a game like Modern Warfare 2 as part of his "training", it just fans the flames all over again.

     Ugh.

     I won't bother to repeat anything Jim already said, but I will specifically point out that I have never played a game that taught me how to load and arm a gun, what kind of ammunition to use, how heavy it was, and how much recoil it had. If you believe a video game could be used as firearms training, the same could be said for pointing and clicking a mouse to navigate this webpage. 

     

Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal

     Don't Ask, Don't Tell is at last being repealed. CNN had a nice video (above) about the history of the policy, which was started under President Clinton as a compromise to let gays and lesbians serve in the military. Repealing the policy is obviously a step forward, because any kind of law that treats a group of people differently is simply unfair and unjust.
     The main support of Don't Ask, Don't Tell comes from apparently homophobic troops that say they would be uncomfortable with gays openly serving, and would potentially leave the armed forces because of it. At least one survey showed about a third of the troops held this view, which lead to worries that repealing the policy would weaken the armed forces.
     First of all, a third of the armed forces leaving over this seems very unrealistic and secondly, even if they did, repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell is still the right thing to do. Our troops are meant to defend freedom, and if our own troops aren't free to serve as who they are, what is the point?

     Lastly, I'd like to offer a personal anecdote for current soldiers or potential soldiers that may be worried about this. In High School, I was on the wrestling team (Greco-Roman), and more than one guy told me they wouldn't want to wrestle because it was too gay. I CAN ASSURE YOU the last thing you are thinking about while struggling to pin your opponent is how gay it is. I should hope this would be the same for troops. A uniformed solider is a professional, and they have a job to do. In a line of work as stressful as that, sexuality should be the last thing on a solider's mind, gay and straight alike.

Original Article:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/21/military.dadt/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

The Price of Bread

     

     An article I found (link) had some interesting things to say about a loaf of bread and what the rising price of it could mean.
     Summary:
     -The price of bread is directly related to the price of wheat, and the price of the fossil fuels it takes to plant and harvest that wheat.
     -The price of bread goes up when there is a shortage of wheat, and many shortages have been caused recently by climate change. It also goes up with the rising cost of oil, but you already knew that.
     -When bread gets more expensive, there is unrest in the counties that need to import wheat. (Egypt and other Arab Spring countries)
     -So far, it looks like the people that could be trying to help this are just getting more rich off it . (Corporations Glencore and Cargill)

     Anyway, if something isn't done to increase and stabilize our global food production, unrest will continue to spread. If left unchecked, it could easily make it to many modern and industrialized countries as well.

Original Article:
http://www.truth-out.org/reading-world-loaf-bread/1311087594

Heat Waves and Global Warming

Artwork from: http://sgrblog.blogspot.com/

     So, it is summertime in America, and that means it's hot. There is currently a pretty rough heatwave covering much of the Midwest, which means it's extra hot. Records will be broken, people will sweat, and eventually it will move on. The important thing to keep in mind is that high temperatures don't necessarily happen because of global warming. (But sometimes they do.)

     The concept of Global Warming is actually better described as Climate Change, because as the globe gets warmer, some places actually get cooler, or wetter, or drier etc... What this means is that individual high temperatures or heatwave events really don't mean anything. The important thing to look at is if they happen more often, and with higher intensity. Unfortunately, this does seem to be the case in several parts of the world.

     So is Global Warming to blame for the current heat wave? Possibly, but the point is to keep an eye on the bigger picture. Global Warming is global, after all.

News about current heatwave:

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2011/07/18/unrelenting-heat-wave-hits-central-us/

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/2011-heat-superlatives_2011-07-15

Bipartisan fighting over Debt ceiling.

Debt Ceiling Fight a Case of Bipartisan Absurdity

     That video is actually a few months old (May 13th, 2011) but all the information in it is still quite valid. Long story short, Democrats are fighting Republicans and Republicans are fighting Democrats and all the while, nothing is really getting solved.
     Here is a list of other "fighty" headlines from around the web:
     With Debt Talks Stalled, Democrats Try to Divide and Conquer the GOP
     The Man Who Drew GOP's Line In The Sand
     The "Young Gun" in the Debt Standoff
     This is just the most recent example of how inefficient our government can be, and how politicians spend more time working against each other than working for us. So I would just like you to think about this in 2012, and hope you shy away from voting democrat or republican. This absurdity needs to end.

A highlight on fracking.

   
     It seems that fracking is something that not too many people know about yet, so here is some information. To sum up, it is a process that pumps water and hazardous chemicals into the ground at high pressure to fracture the rock and release oil and gas to be used for energy. This tends to directly pollute ground water, and also the air when the chemicals are then brought up and evaporated off.

     Here is a link to a documentary about it, with simple information to get a better understanding:
     http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking#frackingprocess

     And this is a link with even more in depth information:
     http://www.earthworksaction.org/FracingDetails.cfm

Gay history bill proposed in California.

    There is a bill being sent to Californian governor Jerry Brown that would require public schools in California to include time for studies of gay and lesbian contributions to society.

     I feel like this is another well-intentioned idea that just ends up being a form of segregation. I've said before that things like black history month and gay pride parades just highlight the fact that these people are different. The idea of giving them special sections in a history course is potentially even worse. I'm not exactly sure what kind of contributions various gay people have made, but I feel like they would fall into one of two categories:
     1. The contribution was of minimal significance, and the person is now "earning" a spot in a history lesson simply because they are gay.
     2. The contribution was significant, and overshadows the fact that the person is gay. (In other words, they should be remembered for their contribution, not for their sexuality)

     History is history, and important people and the important events they took part in should be the focus. Whether or not they were black, white, gay, man, woman, etc. can be interesting, but should not have anything to do with why we remember them.*

*of course I am well aware that often times historical events revolve around social issues that deal with sexuality/gender/races, in which case it makes perfect sense to note such things.

     EDIT: I have realized that I wasn't considering the fact that social studies is not the same as history. Being required to include gay's in social studies lessons is absolutely a step forward. Perhaps this should be called a gay social studies bill instead.

Original Article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/05/california-gay-history-bill_n_890846.html

Tell your grocer you want to eat these problematic fish!

   
     So eating seafood is pretty good for us, but many of the standard fish we eat are being over fished. To complicate things further, there are a few species of fish that are causing trouble as invaders. So the simple solution is to start eating the invaders!
     According to an advocacy group named Food & Water Watch, Asian Carp and Lionfish are top on the list of pesky troublemakers. The problem is, you can't really find these guys at your local market. Ashley Hawkins of Whole Foods had this to say about why these fish aren't stocked in the store: "We simply haven't investigated, as there has been no urging from customers to do so."
   
     Well, that seems like an easy fix. Here are some links where you can urge your favorite market to carry these fish:

Whole Foods
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/company/service.php
Big Y
https://www.bigy.com/contact/index.php

Stop&Shop
http://www.stopandshop.com/customer_service/contact/index.htm

     The idea is simple, eat less fish that are being strained enough as it is, and eat more fish that are causing problems as invasive species anyway.

Original Article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/07/137674792/in-a-fish-eat-fish-world-order-asian-carp-and-lionfish-to-save-the-rest

Yellow Stone Oil Spill

     .....this is just going to keep happening, and I'm going to run out of ways to say that oil is bad. 

     Anyway, a pipe leaked a bunch of oil into the Yellowstone River, near Billings, Montana. Estimates of how much oil has leaked are either around 1,000 barrels or 42,000 barrels. They're obviously not too sure. The good news is the pipe is apparently capped off so no more oil is leaking out, but determining the cause of the break, and assembling a clean up has been hampered by the flood stage waters of the river.

     So there it is, another oil leak, another reason to move away from oil. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/02/yellowstone-oil-spill-pro_n_889363.html

Gender Neutral Pre-School in Sweden

     At Egalia, a gender neutral pre-school in Sweden (ages 1-6) the students are referred to as "friends" instead of pronouns like "him" and "her." To avoid using these masculine and feminine pronouns, the gender less word "hen" is used. (Keep in mind that this is in Swedish, not English.) It is interesting to note that the word "hen"  seems to be a newly created word that isn't officially in the Swedish language yet.
     The goal is to raise the children in a neutral setting to allow them to become whatever they want to be.


     Does anyone else feel like this is more of an experiment than actual progress? Gender roles are a natural part of human behavior, as a result of millennia of evolution. If some people don't want to follow them that's perfectly fine, but treating them like a problem that needs to be solved hardly makes sense.


     A teacher at the school, Jenny Johnnson, had this to say: "Society expects girls to be girlie, nice and pretty and boys to be manly, rough and outgoing, Egalia gives them a fantastic opportunity to be whoever they want to be."


     I fully believe you can still be whoever you want to be without ignoring the truth about your biological gender. I also worry that children raised like this will be even more confused about their bodies than normal teens when puberty comes around. 


     Again, I can't shake the feeling that this is more of an experiment than a progressive idea. An interesting experiment for sure, but not one with ideals I can agree with. 


Original article:
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/26/no-boys-and-girls-at-gender-neutral-preschool-in-sweden/?iref=obinsite
More of my thoughts on equality:
http://commonlyrational.blogspot.com/2011/05/small-essay-on-equal-rights.html