Category: Green Hell

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.

President Obama’s science advisor suggested yesterday that we consider blotting out the sun as a strategy to address global warming.

Below is a YouTube video explaining geoengineering with all the seriousness it deserves.

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!

Orange County Register editorial writer Mark Landsbaum writes at the Orange Punch blog:

We just received Steve Milloy’s new book, Green Hell, and it’s great…

Have you picked up your copy of Green Hell from Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore?

As we continue to dig out of the mess caused by liar loans and other subprime hijinks, the New York Times reports that “green banks” are springing up.

How will green banks decide to lend money? In the case of the start-up e3bank,

Instead of following the industry standard — basing loans on a borrower’s ability to pay and the up-front costs of the building — e3bank officers will be authorized to modify debt-to-income and loan-to-value proposals. Financial products would be tailored to account for the up-front costs of more expensive green projects but also factor in cost savings from lower energy consumption that would be netted over the course of the loan.

Looks like there won’t be any rest for the weary FDIC.

The New York Times reports that the greens oppose government programs that encourage drivers to trade in older cars with higher emissions for newer cars with lower emissions (a.k.a. cash-for-clunkers) because:

For starters, some environmentalists have worried that these programs could distract attention (and funds) from investments in public transport. And other critics say these programs could push people to drive more than they might have done otherwise.

The Vine blog at The New Republic suggested that such programs could end up generating more emissions from increased car manufacturing — and some critics have raised concerns that a “cash for clunkers” program in the United States would allow tax deductions for very heavy passenger vehicles that are made in America – like the Hummer and the Ford Expedition.

In one of his most recent articles, George Monbiot, an environmental campaigner, academic, and columnist for The Guardian in Britain, suggested that such programs have little to do with carbon-dioxide reduction, and amount to little more than “hand-outs for the car firms, resprayed green to fool the incautious buyer.”

Steve Milloy’s new book, Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, spotlights what the greens are doing to achieve a car-less society.

As pointed out by George Will in his most recent column,

In February, Toyota sold 13,600 Tundra and Tacoma pickups and 7,232 Priuses. It sells the Prius at a loss, which it can afford to do because it makes pots of money selling pickups.

Read Steve Milloy’s Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them to find out how long it took the Big Three automakers to figure out that trucks and cheap gas were their keys to survival.

Bloomberg reports that,

The EU is struggling to show that a cap-and-trade system can reduce the heat-trapping gases that most scientists blame for climate change. Even though the recession is cutting Europe’s industrial production, carbon emissions still exceed allowances handed for free to polluters in 2008. President Barack Obama is also pushing a cap-and-trade program to slash U.S. emissions by 80 percent from 2005 levels by 2050.

Today’s Ecologist carries a Paul Miles article musing about the environmental impact of travel. It’s an interesting voyage through the mind of green-think.

On space travel, Miles writes that its value lies in inspiring the wealthy to greater green actions:

Will high-spending amateur astronauts come back down to Earth ‘transformed’, inspired to save our fragile planet? Maybe a CEO will cancel a logging concession. Another will invest millions in carbon capture technology. A celebrity might donate all her wealth to environmental causes. If so, might not the benefits of space tourism outweigh the environmental costs? Or would it be better for the planet if these high-flying space cadets spent their $200,000 ticket money here on Earth? That can pay for a lot of good works.

On tourism, generally, Miles writes:

Tourism wreaks environmental and social havoc. Even in destinations where ecotourism is championed, damage ensues. A recent study by the University of California and the Wilderness Society showed that coyotes and bobcats were severely disturbed by the presence of ecotourists in their habitat. Elsewhere, in the name of tourism, fragile ecosystems are blatantly destroyed, invasive species deliberately introduced, scarce water supplies diverted to golf courses, beach access for local people curtailed, migrant workers treated as slaves, employees paid less than minimum wages and residents forcibly relocated to make way for tourism development. It is not too surprising when companies more concerned with luxury than social responsibility make mistakes, but when, for example, Wilderness Safaris, a company with a hitherto good record on social and environmental matters, goes ahead with a safari camp – complete with swimming pool – in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve, when nearby Basarwa (bushmen) are denied access to water, it seriously challenges the hypothesis that tourism is a force for good. ‘The [Botswana] government has the gall to tell the bushmen to make the 400km round-trip to collect water from outside the reserve when tourists will be showering and sipping their drinks nearby,’ says Stephen Corry, director of Survival International, which campaigned against the safari camp, due to open in December 2008. ‘Many tourists will stay away when they know the background.’

Finally, Miles suggests that tourism be replaced by exploring ourselves:

Perhaps underlying the whole debate is the biggest question of all: why do we travel? To ‘gain perspective on our place and size in the world,’ as Professor Bor says? Alain de Botton, author of The Art of Travel, thinks not. ‘The finest journeys are those that can be taken within our own minds, without leaving the house, indeed without straying far from the bedroom,’ he says. He quotes philosopher Blaise Pascal: ‘All of man’s unhappiness stems from his inability to stay alone in his room’. That was no doubt easier to do with the view of rural 17th-century France from his window, rather than grey, urban, overcrowded 21st-century Britain. But maybe examining the familiar anew broadens our horizons as much as visiting foreign climes. De Botton has led holiday tours of the M1 and Heathrow. It’s not quite the same as a fortnight on a quiet isle, but perhaps, before we plan our visit to outer space – or even the Outer Hebrides – we need to ask if what we’re really seeking is simply our inner selves.