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Choice of Words

We all make these choices constantly, but the terms and context of the way people describe certain things always bares some unpacking.

Example: Canada’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, in Washington, D.C., trying to drum up support for the Keystone XL pipeline and criticizing NASA’s James Hansen for the dramatic terms he uses to frame opposition to the project –

In Oliver’s view, however, the scientist has had no business to keep speaking out as he has. “He was the one who said four years ago that if we go ahead with development of the oil sands it’s game over for the planet,” Oliver told the audience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “Well, this is exaggerated rhetoric. It’s frankly nonsense. I don’t know why he said it but he should be ashamed of having said it.”

It’s not clear why Oliver was so vehement. The minister launched his attack on Hansen just 48 hours after a report from the Environmental Protection Agency essentially reaffirmed the climate scientist’s concerns about the development of the tar sands.

Emphasis mine, and the words before the quote are the Guardian‘s, but this whole idea about whose business it is to do what is, um… interesting. People opposed to the further opening of yet another carbon spigot, one that could also accidentally poison the aquifer beneath the world’s breadbasket, have no business using vehement rhetoric to emphasize their opposition. But fossil oil interests are perfectly within their rights when they assure the public that this project will create jobs, is environmentally sound and will decrease gas prices.

All of these claims are demonstrably false. What’s really revealing and worth looking into is why the First Nations are opposed to the pipeline – after all, it would be much easier for TransCanada, and closer to China, if they just went west with tar sands crude to Vancouver.

As much as we are surrounded by euphemism and Orwellian doublespeak, people still reveal just what they mean by the words they use.

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Water wars

Between Tennessee and Georgia:

On Monday, senators from the Peach State approved a resolution that suggests shifting a miniscule section of its border with Tennessee, starting at the tristate corner, to include a portion of Nickajack’s shoreline. The move would entitle Georgia to draw water from the Tennessee River, which snakes through both Tennessee and Alabama but leaves their drought-ridden neighbor missing out on its valuable resource by a matter of feet.

This is very much about watering lawns and washing driveways but also, too, mostly all about the absolute lack of regional planning that has fueled the ‘growth’ all around Atlanta. A senseless culture of waste that now falls back on a legal option that isn’t at all likely to provide relief.

But much more to the point, this is preview of similar disputes coming soon to a country near you as a result of climate change.

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A weird kind of phoenix analogy

You hear U.S. Republicans mention the so-called Solyndra boondoggle all the time. They’re not really interested in solar energy or that company in particular, and the story is just a cudgel to try and hit the Obama administration for bad decision-making. It’s quite disingenuous, of course, and government guarantees for the company would be a good opportunity to digress on energy industry subsidies in general. But Republicans have long lost the utility for substantive debate.

But this Technology Review article suggests that a quite a few more solar energy companies need to die so that the industry can rise:

If Suntech fails and shuts down its factories, that might not be a bad thing. Some industry experts say that hundreds of solar companies need to fail to help bring solar panel supply back in line with demand. That would slow the fall in prices and, as demand recovers, allow companies to justify buying new equipment and introducing the innovations that will ultimately be needed for solar power to compete with fossil fuels.

But there’s a good chance that Suntech, and many other companies in China, will be bailed out by local governments, which would delay the much-needed reduction in production capacity. Worldwide, solar companies have the capacity to manufacture between 60 and 70 gigawatts of solar panels a year, but demand in 2013 is only expected to be about 30 gigawatts.

The worldwide glut of solar panels—which has lasted nearly two years—is partly the result of big government-backed investments in solar panel factories in China, where two-thirds of solar panel production capacity is located. The surplus has been good news for consumers and solar panel installers because it’s helped drive a precipitous drop in solar panel prices. They’ve dropped 60 percent since the beginning of 2011, according to GTM Research. Solar panels sold for $4 per watt eight years ago. Now it’s common to buy solar panels at 78 cents per watt, says Jenny Chase, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

There is all kinds of disfunction about late-stage capitalism, and among them is that supply and demand aren’t allowed to work as they should; people, d/b/a corporations, scream about free markets but want protection and bailouts for bad-decision making; there’s moral hazard for the poor but not for the rich and never for big banks or hedge funds; and of course ‘competition’ is actually defined as monopoly in everything from cable TV and wireless broadband to chips, beer, soda pop and office supplies.

You can see how the mighty solar industry might work if left to find its market equilibrium. Although it can’t compete with the built-in advantages enjoyed by the poor little fossil pollution industry, which is under attack from those mean ole externalities and hence, needs our support.

But there’s some poetry to a solar industry rising from flames, if you’re still interested in poetry and solar energy. And I think you are.

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Broken Cameras, 5

I’m largely ambivalent about the Academy Awards, but I do like when a powerful documentary has an opportunity for wider exposure because of its nomination. 5 Broken Cameras is one of those films where you ask how did they make that? – and not in the goofy CGI way. I hope it wins.

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Trashed it

Jeremy Irons, talking about the new feature-length documentary on trash he produced:

San Francisco has actually reached 80% diversion or Zero Waste this year. New York, which creates 1.5% of total global waste, currently recycles only 15% of it. State and federal government should provide legislation which designs a waste management policy right across the country. In the UK there is a similar situation in that, depending where you live, the waste management policies and goals differ greatly. I believe that most people would like to cooperate in reducing waste, but to encourage them the national policy should be clear, well advertised and consistent. Even within Greater London there is a huge discrepancy between council policies. I believe a national waste management initiative should be designed and implemented by government. Not to burn it or bury it, but to design and encourage its reduction and recycling. This time of rising unemployment seems ideally suited to the creation of a new and forward-thinking industry that could be profitable and create new jobs. If we became world leaders in recycling technology, then that expertise could be exported around the world.

I like the concept of zero waste, and/but it’s going to take a while to get it into the zeitgeist-y lexicon all the kids are slinging these days.

And it’s hard to believe we’re still talking about incineration – I was canvassing for MassPIRG on that issue in 1988.

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No Metaphor here, Move along!

Unique bird and reptile species of the Galapagos Islands vs. 180 million rats:

A helicopter is to begin dropping nearly 22 tons of specially designed poison bait on an island Thursday, launching the second phase of a campaign to clear out by 2020 non-native rodents from the archipelago that helped inspire Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The invasive Norway and black rats, introduced by whalers and buccaneers beginning in the 17th century, feed on the eggs and hatchlings of the islands’ native species, which include giant tortoises, lava lizards, snakes, hawks and iguanas. Rats also have depleted plants on which native species feed.

The rats have critically endangered bird species on the 19-island cluster 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from Ecuador’s coast.

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What Goes On ( and on)

The BP settlement reminds me of one of my favorite found lines:

The companies admitted no wrongdoing.

It doesn’t appear to be part of this deal:

BP Plc will pay a $4 billion penalty and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster that caused the worst offshore oil spill in the country’s history, the company said on Thursday.

The company will also pay $525 million to settle securities claims with U.S. regulators. In aggregate BP said it will pay $4.5 billion over six years for the various resolutions.

BP’s penalties for the April, 2010, explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico in which 11 workers died, and subsequent leak from the Macondo oil well, will far exceed the previous record for largest criminal penalty in U.S. history.

As Atrios said, it’s the largest criminal penalty in the history of the U.S., but it’s not the death penalty.

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Acqua alta

Unusually-high-water-leve-010This pains me. And it should you. This isn’t the point of the article, though it is its subtext.

We are used to thinking of Venice as a city in peril, a glorious relic of human creativity that is about to go under any day now – and suddenly the end looks closer. But there is another point of view. Venice is no longer alone in its peril. In the past few weeks we have even seen New York in peril. As climate change makes extreme weather more frequent, Venice looks less like a victim of the sea and more like an old survivor that can teach the rest of the world how to live with water.

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Take the High Line

Highline

General admonition from High Line, as viewed just before dinner this past Saturday, one I think we can all take to heart. I wouldn’t suggest going up there for at least a couple of days.

Author’s photo.