"I believe that we must be good stewards of our environment and support many paths to reducing our emission of greenhouse gases, such as more nuclear power and alternative sources of clean energy. As part of our overall effort, I also support a cap and trade system, which has worked well for reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions. However, I do not agree with those who want all allowances to be auctioned off because I believe that will create too great a burden on businesses. The alternative to cap and trade is a carbon tax, which I don't support."
AAEA is an environmental organization founded in 1985 that is dedicated to protecting the environment, enhancing human, animal and plant ecologies, promoting the efficient use of natural resources, increasing African American participation in the environmental movement and promoting ownership of energy infrastructure and resources. We resolve environmental problems through the application of practical environmental solutions.
বুধবার, অক্টোবর ৩১, ২০০৭
Mike Huckabee's Letter To The Editor
মঙ্গলবার, অক্টোবর ৩০, ২০০৭
Harlem Compared to Prince George's County
Harlem has two sewage treatment plants and PG is near DC's. Harlem's smog is worse than PG's smog. Harlem has a subway but PG does not. Harlem has the Apollo Theatre and PG has Andrews Air Force Base (where Air Force One is parked). Harlem has a MLK Ave and so does PG. Harlem has a Malcolm X Boulevard but PG does not (one close by in DC). Anybody have anything else?
সোমবার, অক্টোবর ২৯, ২০০৭
Environmental Justice on Wall Street: Subprime Mitigation?
শুক্রবার, অক্টোবর ২৬, ২০০৭
Live Earth Carbon Assessment & Footprint Report
Senator James Inhofe Makes Global Warming Speech
What few Americans realize is that the impact of these policies would not be evenly distributed. The Congressional Budget Office recently looked at the approach taken by most global warming proposals in Congress - known as cap and trade - that would place a cap on carbon emissions, allocate how much everyone could emit, and then let them trade those emissions. Let me quote from the CBO report: "Regardless of how the allowances were distributed, most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would." Think about that. Even relatively modest bills would put enormous burdens on the poor. The poor already face energy costs much higher as a percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4 percent of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19 percent of their budget on energy. Why would we adopt policies which disproportionately force the poor and working class to shoulder the heaviest burdens through even higher energy costs?
বৃহস্পতিবার, অক্টোবর ২৫, ২০০৭
Condi Stares Down Anti War Nut Case
Now our president was respectful when he met Secretary Rice at the Climate Summit.
Car Gas Economy, Hybrids, All-Electric and Ethanol
President Bush Visits Southern California Wildfire Area
বুধবার, অক্টোবর ২৪, ২০০৭
Schwarzenegger Sues Bush Over Climate Change
In April the U.S. Supreme Court, in a suit filed by California and other states against the EPA, ruled that carbon dioxide can be regulated by EPA." The current California suit was filed in a Washington, D.C. federal court. Imagine that: State Attorney General Jerry Brown and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger teaming to fight President Bush. EPA is reviewing more than 100,000 written responses and thousands of pages of documents it received during the public comment period and publicly states that it will act on the request by the end of the year.
The 2002 state law (Assembly Bill 1493) requires new vehicles sold in California to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The restrictions take effect with the 2009 models and increase to a 30 percent reduction from current levels by 2016. Car makers have sued to overturn the law, stating that the only way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to increase automobile fuel economy standards, which is regulated exclusively by the federal government through the Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. the model for statutes passed later in 11 other states. AB 1493 is the model for statutes passed later in 11 other Northeastern states. (More)
মঙ্গলবার, অক্টোবর ২৩, ২০০৭
Anderson Cooper Hosts "Planet in Peril" on CNN
The documentary, called "Planet in Peril" is airing at the same time as the catastrophic wildfires in Southern California. We guess Anderson taped some studio footage for the documentary and then flew out to cover the fires. Southern California is in real peril right now because a million of people have been evacuated and about 2,000 homes lost.
This is CNN's first high def production. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins Anderson as a correspondent for the documentary. We would like to produce one of these documentaries. We would do it just a little bit differently from this traditional format.
Oh oh. At the end of the endangered species and polluted China segments, Cooper's blood test for various heavy metals showed that he has an elevated level (above 95th percentile) of Phthalates (compound in make-up & other cosmetics). And this description of the compound from Wiki: They are chiefly used to turn polyvinyl chloride from a hard plastic into a flexible plastic. Yikes. Coop. Go natural. Although it was played down on the show, we bet performers everywhere will now look more carefully into the makeup they are using. We know Coop will.
California Wildfires Blaze Huge Path of Destruction
Hooray: EPA To Add Comment Feature To Blog
And here is EPA's answer:
সোমবার, অক্টোবর ২২, ২০০৭
PRESIDENT'S CORNER: Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Gasoline
So carbon dioxide will be used from the coal plant to make a vehicle fuel while an adjacent nuclear plant will produce hydrogen for fuel cell production and oxygen for the coal plant firebox. The oxygen from the electrolysis will be used in the coal firebox to reduce the volume of emission gases by 80 percent, which represents nitrogen in the air. Excess carbon dioxide and CO2 from maintenance down times will be piped for sequestration. There will be little to no CO2 emitted from the coal plant because the gas will be used to make vehicle fuel. There will be CO2 released from vehicle use but these emissions would occur anyway from vehicle use. We are still studying the energy penalties for these processes and the economics. If you have any input we would appreciate it. In the Fischer-Tropsch model pictured above the coal would be replaced with carbon dioxide. (Source: Ken Schultz)
AAEA Outreach Meeting In EPA Office of the Administrator
Two Blacks Featured in Anti Nuke Video
Ben Harper and Keb' Mo' join with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash to make a half decent tune with a bad message. Now we like these cool cats and kitten, just not their message. Ben, Keb, give us a call. Let's talk about this. We'll explain the great benefits of nuclear power as a smog and global warming mitigator. And we have players that can cut a funkier tune too. Another interesting note: Ben Harper is married to Laura Dern. See video below:
শনিবার, অক্টোবর ২০, ২০০৭
Superior Scientist Says Blacks Inferior In The Head
But don't the vast majority of environmental and evolutionary indicators actually show that Whites are intellectually superior? Don't Darwin's "Origin of Species: by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" and survival of the fittest point to superiority in species as a positive attribute? A quality to be desired? A useful survival mechanism? Of course, Hitler took this concept to its ultimate human destination. Adolf was an ardent environmentalist too. He telegraphed his intentions in Mein Kampf and hailed the superiority of the German people among all humans (See also Nation & Race). And the Nazi scientists were second to none. Regardless, this notion of superiority is extremely important to some people. (Wash Post)
শুক্রবার, অক্টোবর ১৯, ২০০৭
Israeli Jets Destroy Partially Constructed Syrian Nuclear Plant
Nuclear reactors can be used for both peaceful and non-peaceful purposes. There are two paths to building a nuclear weapon, 1) A reactor's spent fuel can be reprocessed to extract plutonium, 2) enriching uranium in centrifuges. The Syrians were pursuing the former and Iran is being accused of pursuing the latter. Israel conducted a similar raid in 1981 when it destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq shortly before it was to have begun operating. Syria is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which gives it the right to construct nuclear plants to produce electricity.
This incident, along with the saber rattling about an Iranian centrifuge/reactor shows the importance of establishing an international program (GNEP) to manage nuclear fuel without the prospect of building nuclear weapons. Unless the rogue nations can somehow construct such a facility in complete secrecy (think Manhattan Project), they will always be destroyed by a stakeholder country.
Evangelicals and Global Warming
"What do evangelical Christians see as the top issues that our nation must get right in the coming decade? If you listened to the media you would be inclined to believe it was creating more government programs, which are supposed to help the poor, expand government education or to adopt radical policies to fight global warming. But if you actually listen to evangelicals you will find a much different answer. That is what George Barna did in his most recent survey of Americans. While Americans as a whole identified the overall care and resources devoted to children as the number one issue, which is laudable, the number one issue for evangelicals was improving the health of Christian churches followed by upgrading the state of marriage and families, and improving the spiritual condition of the U.S. Last on their list is the environment. So much for the global warming hype. Despite what the media may want to project upon evangelicals, they understand that if we, as a nation, get the spiritual issues right and build strong marriages and families - most of the other problems will be solved in the process."
AAEA has to respectfully disagree with Mr. Perkins about the role of government in addressing climate change. Although we do agree that an inappropriate program could be ineffective in mitigating climate change and global warming, an appropriate program could be very successful. Such a program would have to have the market as the prime mover and the government as more of a referee. A command and control program will probably fail. The Acid Rain Program is a good example of how government can operate a successful environmental program. Industry, environmentalists, government agencies and just about everybody else agrees that the ARP was successful. Thus, it is a good model for a global warming and climate mitigation program. Such a cap and trade system will tap into private sector ingenuity while avoiding the litigious landmines of a command and control program.
Another Blow To Cape Wind Project in Massachusetts
বৃহস্পতিবার, অক্টোবর ১৮, ২০০৭
Iran's Unacceptable Threats To Israel & Climate Change Mitigation
বুধবার, অক্টোবর ১৭, ২০০৭
Alan Keyes, Global Warming and Nuclear Power
"I share the conviction of many that the earth is the Lord's and that we as God's stewards must care for its well being. However, translating this weighty obligation into good public policy is no simple task. We should avoid the temptation of assuming, without further ado, that if it is our duty to care about something, we must necessarily put that something under government control."Keyes goes on to say, "Even if global warming turns out to be a real problem, the Kyoto Protocol would be the wrong solution." He continues, "On the specific issue of global warming, I am impressed by a variety of empirical evidence that suggests we have little or nothing to fear...I conclude that the climate system is probably much less "sensitive" to "greenhouse forcing" than the climate models assume."
We could find no position from Alan Keyes on nuclear power, but we will assume that he is pronuclear, mostly because it is a pure solution to global warming without the need for direct government management. Thus, although he is a global warming skeptic, he is good on the issue because (we assume) he supports nuclear power. Nuclear power, combined with plug-in fuel cell hybrid vehicles, are the best short term solutions to mitigating global warming and climate change.
Green Jobs Act of 2007 Part Of Larger Energy Bill
The Senate and House have approved the Green Jobs Act of 2007 (H.R. 2847), which authorizes $125 million annually for greening the nation's workforce by providing job training for 35,000 people every year. The legislation was introduced by Congresswoman Hilda Solis (D-CA), right, and John Tierney (D-MA) in the House and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY), left, in the Senate. The Energy Bill is languishing in Congress and President Bush has threatened to veto the bill if passed in its current form because of some bad provisions in the larger bill. AAEA supports the overall bill and the Green Jobs Act but also opposes the same provisions opposed by the Bush Administration, including 1) language that would allow antitrust lawsuits to be filed against OPEC-member nations, 2) Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require all American utility companies to generate 15% of their energy from renewable sources by the year 2020, 3) repeal roughly $16 billion in tax breaks for the oil industry enacted in 2005.
A coalition called Green For All has been instrumental in pushing the legislation. The coalition says it is committed to securing one billion dollars by 2012 to create “green pathways out of poverty” for 250,000 people in the United States, by greatly expanding federal government and private sector commitments to “green-collar” jobs.
মঙ্গলবার, অক্টোবর ১৬, ২০০৭
Martin Luther King, III To Testify At Global Warming Hearing
Mr. Mike Williams, Board Member, National Tribal Environmental Council
Mr. Amjad Abdulla, Assistant Director General, Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water, Government of the Republic of Maldives
Dr. Eileen Gauna, Professor, University of New Mexico
WHERE: 1100 Longworth House Office Building, Washington, DC
Blog Action Day (Oct 15, 2007)
Donald Temple To Receive Bar Association Award
শনিবার, অক্টোবর ১৩, ২০০৭
Poplar Point Coalition Inaugural Meeting
There was an invocation by Rev George Holmes and welcome by Dr. C. Matthew Hudson, Jr. Councilmember Marion Barry (Ward 8) gave a presentation on the background of the planned development at Poplar Point and Councilmember Yvette Alexamder (Ward 7) shared remarks with the attendees. Former Mayor Barry also fielded questions from the attendees and the press.
AAEA produced a report in 2000 that lists pollution sources at Poplar Point and throughout Washington, DC. This report, at the link below, can be helpful in analyzing environmental conditions around the site:
শুক্রবার, অক্টোবর ১২, ২০০৭
Al Gore Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
বৃহস্পতিবার, অক্টোবর ১১, ২০০৭
AAEA Parent Promoting Carbon Dioxide Offsets
বুধবার, অক্টোবর ১০, ২০০৭
AAEA Parent Promoting Carbon Dioxide Offsets
GOP Presidential Race Environment: White Men Only
মঙ্গলবার, অক্টোবর ০৯, ২০০৭
E. Stanley O'Neal Will Provide Money For Energy Projects
সোমবার, অক্টোবর ০৮, ২০০৭
Obama Addresses Greenhouse Gas Emissions
1) Using $150 billion from the sale of allowances to stimulate climate-friendly energy and economic development, including developing the next generation of biofuels and fuel delivery infrastructure.
2) Accelerating commercial production of plug-in hybrid vehicles.
5) Making government, businesses and homes 50 percent more energy efficient by 2030.