The American Petroleum Institute “API” is going to make a major push in the last weeks of August to destroy pending climate change legislation in the House and Senate. API is one of those really nasty industry lobbying groups dedicate to lying their asses off to protect the profits of their members. They have enough money to convince people that global warming is a myth, that the rise in CO2 levels over the last 30 years is a fluke, and that there is nothing at all to fear from the nice men in the executive suites counting their bonus money. We have heard their bullshit before, and whether the liars are Exxon, Enron or API, they do not give a crap about you or your family, and will say anything so they can keep drilling baby drilling.
API produces some slick shit – they have a whole section, free of course, dedicated to providing classroom lesson plans and information to spin their industry into some kind of fictional good citizen. It’s the same tricks you see on the worst kind of corporate propaganda commercials. Happy happy music, smiling kids, talk about growing our economy, creating jobs, and a bright and happy future! Gee, get me some lemonade!
The latest from these rat fuckers is this piece leaked and then posted at the Talking Points Memo Document Collection. It outlines API’s plan to begin astroturfing the country for the next 2 weeks. It is not just a call to arms, they will get you there: “API will provide upfront resources to ensure that logistical issues to not become a problem.” Busing operatives in is nothing new for industry groups. The insurance industry has had enormous success these last few weeks busing in gun toting lunatics to try and intimidate & scare decent Americans into believing that the Federal Government is coming to kill your grandparents. And a lot of people are buying it, as recent polls show. So API is going to do the same thing with the Waxman/Markey bill, as the document states “we must move aggressively in preparation for the post labor day debate on energy, climate and taxes”.
If you believe that our future is truly threatened by global climate change, now is the time to act. If the best you can do is sit on your ass and watch MSNBC, maybe listen to some Air American, then we are going to loose this fight. How often will corporations and their industry groups step on your neck before you realize that you can stand up and kick them in the nuts – if you have the balls.
Chris Prelitz delivered the Earth Day keynote address to the Orange County USGBC & AIA. This excerpt challenges builders to think beyond the confines of LEED or Green Points and consider the larger question of what the hell Sustainable means in your own neighborhood.
I like this video as it shows a quick overview of the construction process involved in making commercial photovoltaic cells. It’s a Belgian company, the video is well made, and props to them for working on a commercially viable solution to global climate change.
I am prepping my house for sale, and it had a pretty badly cracked sidewalk and driveway. Its a pretty common problem, with a straight forward solution: bust out the old concrete and pour new. And it is great that a problem so common has a sustainable solution: fly ash concrete. Fly Ash is a waste product that comes from coal fired power plants. Now coal fired power plants are bad, and the sooner we get rid of them the better, but we do not have the infrastructure in place to stop burning the stuff, and we wont for some time. Around 100-110 million tons of Fly Ash are produced annually, often dumped here or there, with not much attention paid to it until things like this happen.
But millions of tons of fly ash can be used in concrete. The ash replaces Portland Cement, and cement production releases millions of tons of CO2 into the air every year – you have to heat limestone up to 1300 degrees to turn it into cement, and that fire creates the CO2. Concrete is the most common man made construction material used in the planet – 100s of millions of cubic yards are used each year. Every time someone does something as simple as a driveway or sidewalk repair, they can help out the environment by using some fly ash. My own little job used 4.5 cubic yards of concrete, with 15% of the cement replaced by fly ash from Bode Concrete of San Francisco’s sidewalk mix. My man Sal “Rocky” DeGuarda did the job for me, I recommend him for jobs in San Francisco.
You have to ask for it, and your contractors will get it for you. People want to be responsible, because we all want a better world for our kids.
As sea levels rise, coastal flooding will increase. Projections are for a 1.4 meter rise over the next 100 years, and that could be on the low end. Different local municipalities have proposed different strategies for dealing with this inevitable fact. In our own backyard rising tides will flood sections of the Sunset, Marina, & Financial districts, much of the Eastern Waterfront, as well as towns and cities throughout the bay area.
I am grateful for these smart people and the thought they are putting into this problem; but I believe it is all on the wrong track. Holding back the oceans has been tried, and while it has worked in some cases, as cities like Venice attest to, when it fails, as it did to New Orleans, the devastation can be irreparable. This is a problem that has to be addressed before it occurs; anything after the fact is like giving a condemned prisoner a last meal. The Raydike system is particularly interesting, as it proposes a system of light beams installed right away around the bay to show people where damns and other structures would need to be built to keep the waters out. The idea of rising seas is a total bore for most folks, a 1.4 meter rise in the bay just does not seem to be a big deal, even though it is in fact a cataclysmic proposition. Raydike could help inspire people to do something about the problem now, instead of dumping it on our children.
If we do not address our contributions to global warming now, we will eventually need something like the BayArc Tidal Barrier or the Folding Water levee system. I acknowledge the engineering thinking behind these systems, but if we get to the point where these must be built, we are really fucked. Action has to be taken immediately, in every household, to reduce energy consumption, reduce emissions, and live sustainably, or our future will be giant barriers spread out across the bay. Is that what you want?
This is Sidebar 1. You can edit the content that appears here by visiting your Widgets panel and modifying the current widgets in Sidebar 1. Or, if you want to be a true ninja, you can add your own content to this sidebar by using the appropriate hooks.
Default Widget
This is Sidebar 2. You can edit the content that appears here by visiting your Widgets panel and modifying the current widgets in Sidebar 2. Or, if you want to be a true ninja, you can add your own content to this sidebar by using the appropriate hooks.
