August 2008

Mid-August 2008 News

  • Sen. Jim Demint was in Charleston during August trying to enlist support for off-shore drilling, something he appears to believe can lead to "energy independence."
  • Is the war between Russia and Georgia yet another resource war?  Author Michael Klare argues that it is in an article at the Foreign Policy in Focus website.
  • Ocean "dead zones," in which sea life is severely depleted or wiped out due to low oxygen levels, now number around 400 around the world and they are doubling their area about every 10 years according to a NYT article.  One has even appeared off the SC coast.
  • John Holdren, Director of the Woods Hole Oceanagraphic Institute, had an interesting opinion piece on "Convincing the Climate Change Skeptics" in The Boston Globe. A number of critics of manmade climate change respond in Andy Revkin's post about the column at DotEarth.
  • Economic slowing may be hindering progress on the climate change front, but oil at around $110/barrel is still a stimulus for development of renewable energy sources according to a Reuters article.
  • Problems - especially of GHG emissions and pollution from toxic chemicals - abound for production of fuel from oil shale in the American west according to an article for McClatchy Newspapers.
  • Here's a short article (with informative links) about the Green goals of the Democratic Party Platform from the Grist website.
  • In Colorado, the state's major utility has abandoned its opposition to mandatory quotas for energy from renewables and has even agreed to boost to 20% the portion of its energy it gets from renewables.
  • An article in The Independent describes how England is gearing up to fight the swarms of jelly fish invading her coastal waters.  Here in McClellanville, shrimpers are not going out because jelly balls are too numerous.
  • The next round of UN sponsored climate talks are Aug. 22-29 and that's when the fishing must begin and the bait cutting come to an end.  If a global climate action plan is to be negotiated in December 2009 then a draft proposal must be ready in six months, according to a Reuters article.
  • The NYT has an interesting article about how production is falling at the largest oil companies because they cannot find new places to drill.  "Resource nationalism," wherein oil-rich countries spurn the expertise of the big companies in favor of their own state run oil companies, is contributing to the production decline.
  • According to NASA's Earth Observatory website, a devastating drought has developed in the high plains of  Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
  • The SC Department of Natural Resources has a comprehensive article about shrimp at their website.  It is also available as a PDF file.
  • The San Francisco Chronicle website had an extensive article on sustainable eating and the slow food movement.
  • For those of you interested in getting a close look at the denialist side of the argument about global warming, have a look as and the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council go at it with the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heartland Institute over the question "Is Global Warming a Crisis?" at the Opposing Views website
  • And, to close out this post, U.S. News & World Report has an interesting article on how high gasoline prices may decrease the rate of urban sprawl as home buyers look to live closer to urban centers.

August 12, 2008