Month: April 2009

Insurers: Econoboxes deadly

From today’s New York Times article, “Study Says Small-Car Buyers Sacrifice Safety for Economy“:

Consumers who buy minicars to economize on fuel are making a big tradeoff when it comes to safety in collisions, according to an insurance group that slammed three minimodels into midsize ones in tests…

… The [Insurance Institute for Highway Safety] concludes that while driving smaller and lighter cars saves fuel, “downsizing and down-weighting is also associated with an increase in deaths on the highway,” said Adrian Lund, the institute’s president.

“It’s a big effect — it’s not small,” he said in a telephone interview.

Click here for the IIHS report.

No stop signs. No speed limits. Econoboxes will put you on the highway to green hell.

C-SPAN: Forget Obama; It’s time for Green Hell!

C-SPAN broke away from covering President Obama today to cover Steve Milloy’s presentation of his new book Green Hell at the Heritage Foundation.

Watch for the polar bear activist that tried to disrupt the Q&A portion of Milloy’s talk.

Click here for C-SPAN’s breakaway from Obama and the entire video of Milloy’s presentation.

Milloy presents Green Hell in DC event today!

Steve Milloy will present his new book Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them at the Heritage Foundation’s Lehrman Auditorium (214 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Washington, DC. 20002) at 12:00pm April 13, 2009.

Click here for the detailed announcement.

Bamboo-zled: The veneer of a ‘green’ laptop

This ABC News video, “Combatting ‘Vampire Energy’” spotlights the alleged eco-friendliness of Asus’ new laptops made with bamboo. While soaking in the the video’s empty-headedness is worth the 5 minute-watch, the relevant portion begins at 3:55 — just in case you’ve already reached the saturation point on green vacuity and want to fast forward to the laptop part.

About the laptops, ABC’s Andrea Smith reports:

… What’s great about it is that it’s not plastic, so that, No. 1, it looks really cool. You’ll look like you’re totally eco-friendly and very chic… The No. 2 thing is that when you’re done with this and you need to recycle it, there is no plastic here to clog the landfill… It’s bamboo and it’s a self-regenerating plant and there’s lots of it.

So let’s consider the Asus bamboo laptop, Ms. Smith’s report, and, importantly, reality:

  • There is still plenty of plastic used in the laptop. Only the case is bamboo. And what about the bamboo’s shiny urethane finish?  Despite the name, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have generally been viewed by the greens as  environmentally-incorrect.
  • Bamboo doesn’t recycle so much as it decomposes — giving off greenhouse gases. The plastic in laptops can be and is often recycled for other uses. The plastic is actually a better “carbon sink” than the bamboo.
  • Recycling doesn’t matter anyway — almost all laptops are thrown in the trash. Fortunately, there is no shortage of landfill space. In fact, the U.S. has more landfill capacity than ever before.
  • Most bamboo comes from Vietnam and China. Not only are greenhouse gases emitted while farming bamboo, but transporting the bamboo or bamboo finished products to the U.S. involves even more greenhouse gas emissions.
  • The Asus bamboo laptop costs $732.81 more than the comparable Asus plastic laptop on Amazon.com.
  • Bamboo is not necessarily eco-friendly. Growing bamboo on a mass-scale requires lots of water, energy and fertilizer inputs. Without fertilizer, continual harvesting of bamboo will deplete the soil in a short-time.

The bottom line on Asus bamboo laptop?

You may look cool, chic and eco-friendly, as ABC’s Andrea Smith says, but the reality is you’re being fooled and ripped-off, while doing nothing for the environment.

Presidential pizza order: Extra carbon footprint

The Sun (UK) reported to day that,

BARACK Obama liked a restaurant’s pizzas so much he has flown the chef 850 miles to make some at the White House.

Assuming the chef took a commercial flight, the air travel from the air travel alone produced 645 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions!

To underscore Obama’s do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do ethic, let’s recall his famous avowal from the 2008 campaign:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

Don’t forget how our Hypocrite-in-Chief  kept the Oval Office warm enough in the winter to grow orchids.

Obama steers carmakers down wrong road

The Washington Post reported today that,

President Obama yesterday announced plans to buy 17,600 American-made, fuel-efficient cars and hybrids for the government fleet, the White House’s latest gambit to steer aid to the nation’s beleaguered automakers.

A few thoughts:

  • In 2007, U.S. car makers sold more than 16 million cars.
  • In 2009, cars sales are project to be less than 9 million.
  • Obama’s purchase of 17,600 cars is obviously a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of sales increase that is needed.
  • Cars sales will pick up when the economy recovers, provided that carmakers are making cars that Americans want and that are profitable — that is, SUVs and light trucks.
  • But Obama wants the Big Three to make and sell econoboxes that Americans don’t want.
  • Not only are econoboxes small, dangerous and incapable of pulling/carrying large loads/groups of people, Obama plans to tax drivers by the mile they drive — thereby erasing any economic benefit from fuel efficiency.

Bottom line: Obama’s plan is a stick in the eyes of carmakers, workers or consumers.

Russian Revolution: Move over Reds and Whites; Make room for the Greens?

Dmitry Besanovich credits his upset victory over the Vladimir Putin-backed candidate in the mayoral race in the Russian town of Mozhaisk to his green platform, according to a report in today’s Washington Post:

He attributed his victory to his promise to protect the natural ecology of this rural municipality, which he calls the “lungs of Moscow” because nearly half its territory is covered with forests. He campaigned on pledges to block construction along rivers and a major reservoir, clean up a polluting pig farm and promote agriculture and tourism instead of industry.

Here’s a description of Mohaisk from RussianJournal.com:

A resident advertises his cow for sale in the local newspaper. The only cafe in the village, still decorated in Soviet style, offers a three-course meal for $1.50. Only one out of every 600 people here has a computer.

According to a resident, people in the city live “without too much enjoyment; however, with some cautious hopes.”

Mozhaisk, only 100 km west of Russia’s capital and the oldest city in the Moscow Oblast, has simply been left in the dust, with only its crumbling ancient churches signifying that here once existed a dynamic town.

Before Perestroika, most of Mozhaisk’s residents were employed in agriculture. However, a lack of funds in the last decade has turned the fields fallow. The only source of jobs is in the local printing house and concrete factory, and a juice factory in Borodino. As the factories employ mainly men, unemployment is especially high among women…

The dark side of the ‘village’ feel is the lack of modern infrastructure and services. There is only one hotel in the city, which leaves a lot to be desired, and only one cafe. Despite the seeming hardships, many Muscovites rent houses in Mozhaisk to spend their summer vacations.

If you are traveling by car, beware of bad roads. According to local journalist Alexei Safronov, the city’s new administration, headed by Vlasimir Nasonov, has said improving road conditions is one of his top priorities. Some new asphalt has already been laid…

It apparently has not dawned on the citizens of Mozhaisk that they need economic development. If they don’t want to be mired in rural poverty under their new mayor, they may have to rely on Putin making Besanovich an offer he can’t refuse.

Wealthy to poor: Here’s your cardboard cooker

A cardboard box with foil and a plastic cover, positioned as a “solar-power cooker” (see YouTube video below) won the $75,000 first prize in the Hewlett-Packard-sponsored Financial Times Climate Change Challenge. The contest goal was “to find and publicize the most innovative and scalable solution to the effects of climate change.”

The apparent idea behind the so-called “Kyoto Box” is to reduce the burning of wood for cooking. The plan of inventor Jon Bohmer is to have Kyoto Boxes distributed to poor Africans courtesy of corporations that would earn carbon credits for distributing the boxes. Each box would earn Bohmer an estimated $26-40 annually.

Some thoughts:

  • How do you cook when the sun goes down? Or are Africans supposed to be tucked away in their beds by then wrapped in that other 21st century western “technology” offered by the greens — i.e., mosquito netting?
  • Why doesn’t HP sponsor a contest to figure out development projects that would enable poor Africans to obtain the money they need to obtain electricity, water & sewer, etc.?
  • Isn’t the Kyoto Box, at best, like putting a band-aid on a cancer lesion?
  • Isn’t it interesting how the purpose of the contest is to avert climate change rather than to help poor Africans lead a better life? if you’re a poor African, do you really care about atmospheric carbon dioxide and mean global temperatures 100 years from now?
  • How much climate change could possibly be caused by poor Africans cooking on wood fires in the first place?
  • Doesn’t it seem like the only true beneficiaries are Bohmer (who will profit obscenely by assembling some cardboard, plastic and foil) and the corporations who can earn carbon credits (while continuing to emit greenhouse gases) and score PR points.

Though many plan to profit by exploiting poor Africans, here’s the real math behind Bohmer’s cardboard cooker:

Kyoto Box = Moral bankruptcy + Intellectual bankruptcy

US Airlines: CO2 regulation not necessary

The Air Transport Association, the trade association for U.S. airline industry, told Carbon Control News this week that it didn’t “think that an emissions trading scheme is necessary.”

Instead of CO2 controls, the ATA said, policymakers should seek to modernize the government-run air traffic control system — which by some estimates could reduce airline fuel usage by around 10 percent — before penalizing the industry in the form of mandatory CO2 controls, according to Carbon Control News.

Obama climate plan: Blot out the sun

President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren has suggested that we consider blotting out sunlight to reduce global warming, according to an Associated Press report.

Holdren would shoot particles into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays back into space– I sure hope plants and people don’t need those rays for say, photosynthesis or vitamin D production, respectively. And what would be the other unintended consequences?

Holdren, of course, is a people-hating population control fanatic, anyway, so perhaps he’s hoping to killing two birds (or half the population) with one stone.

Oh… and what about all those solar power projects Obama keeps talking about? Don’t they need as much sunlight as they can get?

So many questions, so few brain cells for Holdren to work with.

Climate bill greases way for green lawsuits

The recently introduced Waxman-Markey climate bill would make it easy for individuals to sue greenhouse gas emitters, including enabling plaintiffs to seek financial compensation, according to a report in Carbon Control News.

Click here to read the specific provisions of the Waxman-Markey climate bill that will allow the greens to harness the power of trial lawyers to make our lives miserable.

Click here to buy Steve Milloy’s new book Green Hell and learn how to fight back!