As we have explored in this here blog oh faithful reader, it seems like there are few aspects of life that the green revolution doesn't touch.



There's your house, your car, your job so why not, your food?



There are a couple green things to consider while chomping away at the table, and I mean more than the broccoli you're pretending to enjoy.



One of the most important aspects of what we eat is the consideration of whether we'll be able to eat it tomorrow.



In other words, sustainability.



As we learned once (and then forgot) in the years of the dust bowl, there are sustainable and unsustainable farming practices.



We are entering a food crunch brought about the perfect storm of several aspects.



The first, as with everything in the American economy, has to do with fuel.



Higher fuel costs are making it more expensive to move food great distances, making locally grown produce suddenly more attractive not only for its diminished carbon footprint, but also for its diminished impact on your wallet.



For several years, some places, like Maysie's Farm Conservation Center in Ludwig's Corner have espoused a sustainable practice called Community Supported Agriculture, as I mentioned in my May 6 blog entry.



The idea is that you buy into a local farmer's crop ahead of time and when the crop comes in, you collect your share.



Another old idea that's new again is to have a backyard garden and actually (gasp!) grow some food of your own.



Of course some people, (me for instance) have a brown thumb and can only seem to grow weeds. For those, and those who haven't the time or the inclination but do have the desire, there are people like Trevor Paque.



As this article in The New York Times outlines, Paque is a new kind of farmer, the kind who comes to your house to tend your garden for you.



According to the article, "even couples planning a wedding at the Plaza Hotel in New York City can jump on the local food train. For as little as $72 a person, they can offer guests a '100-mile menu' of food from the caterer’s farm and neighboring fields in upstate New York."
"Locally grown food, even fully cooked meals, can be delivered to your door. A share in a cow raised in a nearby field can be brought to you, ready for the freezer — a phenomenon dubbed cow pooling. There is pork pooling as well. At Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont, the demand for a half or whole rare-breed pig is so great that people will not be seeing pork until the late fall," the Times reports.



Then there's the issue of ethanol.



As well-meaning, but misguided officials try to push ethanol as an alternative to Middle East oil, they fail to recognize that growing food crops for fuel, creates a food shortage and further drives up the cost for food.



By next year, biofuels are expected to consume 30 percent of the corn crop.



Grain shortages are also being caused by the improving economic fortunes of billions of Chinese citizens who, newly wealthy by comparison, want to eat more meat.



Cornell University estimates that the U.S. could feed 800 million people with the grain eaten by livestock. Each year an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for human consumption.



For every kilogram of high-quality animal protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kilograms of plant protein.



As a result, consumers and food suppliers are turning increasingly to fish for their protein.



Of course, we've treated the oceans like our farmland by which I mean we've nearly fished it into extinction, giving rise to another new industry, aqua-culture.



In the past, these operations, often experimental at first, have been criticized for clustering fish too closely together, fostering disease and causing problems at their locations, which are often too close to shore.



And so, sustainable agriculture has also spread to the seas.



As this article in The Washington Post shows, "Supermarkets are introducing new standards for the farmed fish and shrimp that make up roughly half of U.S. seafood consumption, riding a wave of consumer demand for environmentally friendly products. "



Whole Foods, Wegman's and even Wal-Mart are all getting in the act, consulting with the organizations which once criticized overly consumptive and practices to certify suppliers as farming fish in a way that doesn't harm the environment, damage sensitive eco-systems or over-use antibiotics.



However, although the nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council provides certification for suppliers of wild-caught seafood -- the labels are used in stores from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart -- there is no widely accepted standard for sustainable farming practices.



Don't be surprised to seen see labels on your flounder and tilapia.

Finally, Philadelphia is in the top 5 of something, and no, it's not a listing of cities with the rudest sports fans.

It's walkability, a word which in Pottstown, all too often carries bizarre connotations of conspiracy.

And how do we know? A Web site of course.

Although I agree with an article I read recently in the Atlantic that the Internet is changing the way we read, and thus how we think (that's a story for another day and not necessarily a happy one), it's hard to argue that the Internet is good for something.

And one of them is nifty sites like this.

Called "Walkscore," the site is the brainchild of a Seattle software company called Front Seat.

The simple (if you're a computer wizard) program takes an address you plug in and then uses mapping software to figure out how far away necessary amenities like the grocery store, schools, restaurants (and bars), parks and libraries are to that address.

Like most people, I immediately plugged in my address and discovered I live at a 66 out of 100.

Of course, some of the information is out of date.

For example, it cites St. Aloysius as the nearest school, but does not take note of Lincoln Elementary School at all, which is a five minute walk we make every morning when school is in session.

It also lists Dunkin' Donuts as the nearest coffee shop, when everyone knows that Churchill's on High Street has both superior coffee and baked goods in a whole different (and more delicious) galaxy than anything the "time to make the donuts" people can concoct.

And some don't exist. It lists Brainwaves for Kids as the nearest book store, a business which, sadly, is no longer with us (In fact Pottstown has been needing a good book store every since I moved here) and something called Movieland Express as the nearest theater. That sounds more like a video store to me and nothing that's still around.

But some are right on the money. The library is .72 miles and Memorial Park, a favorite summer hang-out of my son and I, is only .32 miles.

We humans, Americans in particular it seems, like to rank ourselves against ourselves and there's no denying that "walkability" was one of the primary reasons my wife and I chose Pottstown (price and resplendently classic architecture being the others. Did I mention price?)

Unlike Ed Ritti, who identified himself to me at a recent school board meeting as one of my nine regular readers (a shout out to the Rittis is warranted here) and who told the school board "my wife and I could have bought anywhere," Pottstown pricing is what allowed us to afford a house at all. The fact that its walkable, charming and old were happy coincidences.

But I digress.

You have no doubt by now already used the hyperlink I provided (see how techno-savvy I've become folks?) to check your own score and probably discovered that despite the somewhat spotty nature of the map program's information, that just about every place in Pottstown is pretty walkable (with the exception of Rosdeale, which the site gives a score of 48 and calls "car dependent. Not sure I agree with that, or that Rosedale residents would either.)

But place like the corner of Beech and Evans streets, where upscale lofts are planned for the former Fecera's furniture warehouse, gets a whopping score of 75 out of 100, edging out Philadelphia's overall score of 74, putting it at number five in the nation.

Oh by the way, I'm sure you're wondering, who is number one?

Well, the top five are, in order, San Francisco (86), New York (83), Boston (79), Chicago (76) and Philadelphia, (74) according to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The losers, by the way, are all those places built or, more recently re-built, by planning geniuses who are more concerned about accommodating cars than people.

They are: Jacksonville, Fla. (36), Nashville (39), Charlotte (39), Indianapolis (42) and Oklahoma City (43).

All of which begs the question, why walk, and what's your point here oh Thin Green blogger?

Well patient reader, first of all, there's the obvious. Walking means you're not using a car, which means you're not polluting the air, which means we need less gas, which means we're less dependent on volatile places like the Middle East, which means life is beautiful and flowers will bloom spontaneously in the streets.

Those flowers will also grow in places they're meant to grow, like fields and forests, which will remain like that if we can stop bulldozing them to make room for more sub-divisions where a car is required to get the mail at the bottom of a half-mile-long driveway and bring folks back to the towns where walkability has the above and below benefits.

Then there's the benefit to you. Walking is, obviously, exercise. And we need more of it as a nation. I know I do.

Walking to do things like go to the pharmacy or grab a box of cereal means not only that you're getting things done and burning calories at the same time, helping muscle tone, burning fat, helping you live longer and bringing you closer to spiritual fulfillment, it also means you can get stuff done while you exercise instead of having exercise suck up an empty hour out of your day on a treadmill watching The View without any sound.

But this program isn't perfect. (What is beside the Rob Reiner masterpiece, "The Princess Bride?")

The site's operators are the first to urge you to "use the Web 3.0 application called going outside and investigating the world for yourself." I'm sure they meant after you finish reading this blog.

There are other factors like:

"Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?

"Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?

"Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you're carrying groceries. (Can? CAN!!!! Tell that to the people on Master or Mervine streets.)

"Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking."

I love that last observation. Man these folks are smart!

So far, according to the article, users have looked up rankings for more than 2 million addresses on the site, which began last July.

Locally, Royersford comes out with a score of 62, which the site calls "somewhat walkable," while Boyertown gets a 68 and Pottstown's overall score is 75, or "very walkable."
Douglassville comes in at a paltry 43, or "car dependent," similar to Limerick's 46 and East Coventry's amazingly low score of 2.

Phoenixville, by the way, was the reigning champion with a whopping good score of 88 out of 100.

Which brings up a good point.

Having things close together so walking is practical is, of course, important. But Phoenixville is no more closely built than Pottstown.

The difference here is there is more stuff to do in Phoenixville, particularly it's downtown, thereby driving down the necessity of driving places to do things. Economic revitalization has made it more attractive simply by providing more stores and more services within walking distance.

If this constantly-talked-about-but-never-built train between Philly and Reading ever gets legs, the place might get a score of 100. According to the site, a score between 90 and 100 means you can live your life without a car at all.

Don't gasp in shock. It's not a new idea. After all, we didn't have cars in the Middle Ages.

But these days we give it a fancy name called Transit Oriented Design, the idea being if you built cool, efficient housing near a train station, people can get where they need to go on the train, or a bus (or on one of Pottstown's free bicycles) and ditch the car completely.

Imagine, no car payments, no insurance, no PennDOT lines and, these days of most importance, no coughing up a kidney whenever you want to fill the tank.

It used to be the driving force behind what was called the Schuylkill Valley Metro and is now less ambitiously called the R-6 extension, was traffic on Route 422. Maybe now that it's the price of gas, things will move a little faster.

In the meantime, Pottstown should get off it's duff and focus on economic revitalization. Not only will it up our walkability score, it has the added advantage of making this a nicer place to live.

Recently, I'll admit, I have been blogging about environmental matters that affect the planet, the world, the nation, but could not be said to directly affect Pottstown and its environs.

But as any good tree-hugger knows, the mantra of environmentalism is to "think globally and act locally."

(Personally, I've always been fond of a little ego-centric modification, "think golbally, report locally."

Anyway, I think during the past dozen posts or so, we've covered the "think globally" part, so I wanted to alert all nine of my regular readers to an opportunity to act locally.

To paraphrase Paul Revere, one is by land and one is by sea.
The first is an annual event, when they can muster enough volunteers.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to trash after its thrown into the Schuylkill River, the answer is, it usually ends up washed up along the shoreline.

And then, if the circumstances are right, the folks from the Greater Pottstown Watershed Alliance climb into their canoes and clean it up.

That will happen next Saturday, Aug. 2, when a group of volunteers — anyone reading this article is invited — will meet at the boat ramp in North Coventry, just downstream of the South Hanover Street bridge, to start grabbing all the trash and tires they can fit into their boats.

All boats that can navigate to there are welcome to join the fun.

As organizer Bill Cannon notes, “we always run out of space in the boats before we run out of trash.”

Meet at the boat ramp at 8 a.m. and the group plans to move downstream to the boat ramp at Tow Path Park in East Coventry and be finished by 1 p.m.

If you can’t participate on the water, you can help by shuttling paddlers back to the North Coventry ramp or by helping empty the boats at Tow Path when the clean up is complete.

If you're more of a land-lubber, you can choose a different activity the same day, the regular maintenance work on the portion of the Schuylkill River Trail known as the Thun Trail.

That same Saturday, starting around 9 a.m., the Schuylkill River Greenway Association Trailkeepers and the Berks County Bicycle Club will work on tree and brush cutting, litter pickup and the installation of a bollard, and the paintaing of said bollard.

(A "bollard," in case you're wondering, is a fancy planning professional word for metal post.)

Volnteers can meet at the trail head at Morlatton Village, located on the eastern end of Old Philadelphia Pike in Amity. You can show up at any time to help out

If it rains, the work will occur Aug. 9. If you want to know if its raining hard enough to postpone, call Greg Marshall at 610-780-3195.

I won't preach here about how important this kind of work is, because those who know already do it, and those who don't are less likely to start.

I can say as someone who has ridden on the trail towards Birdsboro, that I appreciate it.

That trail, by the way, just got a whole lot longer.

A small section of trail in Birdsboro, from Route 82 to Armorcast Road, will be officially opened Friday by the Schuylkill River Heritage Area, which oversees the trail and which welcomes Michael DeBerardinis, Pennsylvania's secretary of Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, as their special guest.

The ribbon cutting takes place at 11:30 a.m. if you're in to that sort of thing.

The .68-mile section finalizes the link between Pottstown and Reading, part of which runs on Old Schuylkill Road to Route 724 for the section between Gibraltar and Birdsboro.

The rest of the trail, however, is off-road on old sections of abandoned railroad lines, making it not only through some lovely landscapes, including many views of the river, but also wonderfully flat for those tree-huggers, such as myself, who have hugged as many lagers as they have tree trunks.

You knew it had to happen.

You knew it was too good to be true.

You know those nifty flat screens giving you crystal sharp images of Chase Utley stealing second?

You know the handy, slim flat computer screen you're using to read this fine example of blogging; the one that replaced that giant, clunky, space stealing behemoth of a screen that looked like a deformed white watermelon?

Well guess what.

It's killing the planet.

At least that's what this July 8 article in the Los Angeles Times is telling us.

But first, a digression.

A few months ago I brought my 9-year-old to the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant for a private tour kindly provided by chief operator Brent Wagner.

(Come on, who's a better dad than me? You're jealous right?)

While he was showing my nose-holding son how we try to clean up what we flush down so we can put clean water back into the Schuylkill, Brent, who is a pretty smart guy, said something profound.

He was talking about how sewage sludge is made and what its composed of (now you're seeing where a 9-year-old boy who gets hysterical at the very mention of the word "poop" might find this interesting).

I don't remember the words exactly, but in essence he said whenever we try to fix an environmental problem we've caused, we tend to cause another one.

In Brent's case, he was talking about how in our laudable efforts to prevent raw sewage from flowing into the Schuylkill, which also happens to be a drinking water source for millions of people, Pottstown included, we had solved that problem only to create another -- sewage sludge.

And so, while it might seem like a big leap, what's true about what we flush is also true about what we watch on the flat screen.

The story, according to the LA Times, goes like this: A company right here in PA -- Air Products of Allentown -- came up with a solution to an existing environmental problem.

Remember back when the Kyoto Protocols were negotiated? (Ah the good old days, when we were going to actually DO something about global warming.)

Back then, in the stone age before flat screens: "computer chip manufacturers used perfluorocarbons to clean the vacuum chambers where integrated circuits were made. But about two-thirds of the PFCs escaped into the atmosphere, contributing to the greenhouse effect."

So Air Products, which appropriately won a Climate Protection Award in 2001 from the EPA for its efforts, found a substitute, nitrogen triflouride.

At the time, only a tiny amount was used for this purpose, which made it an acceptable trade-off. Because it turns out NF3, as it's called, has 17,000 times the global warming effect as the much-maligned carbon dioxide.

And with the explosion in flat screens, comes a corresponding explosion in NF3 production. Air Products, the nation's largest producer, recently announced expansion plans in the U.S. and Korea.

According to a company spokesman, world production of NF3 is likely to reach 8,000 tons by 2010. That's the equivalent of 130 metric tons of carbon dioxide, more than would be produced by five, major 3,600 mega-watt coal-fired power plants.

To make matters worse, this chemical is not even among the greenhouse gases identified at Kyoto and, as a result, not only does it remain unregulated, we don't even measure it in the atmosphere yet -- which in typical American fashion, has not kept us from manufacturing it like we were printing money.

Which brings us back to Brent Wagner, whose observation that whenever we try to solve one problem we create another, proves prophetically true again and again.

However there is another constant which calls for comment.

That is the American chemical industry which operates under a rubric that works for their bottom line, but does little to safeguard our health.

Within the past few years, the European Union adopted chemical regulations based on something as simple and common-sense sounding as "the precautionary principle."

It's an easy idea. Before you can release something into the environment, or use it in a product available to the general public, it must be proven safe.

But in America, we operate under a different principle. Use what you want until its proven dangerous.

Then, corporate America uses "science for sale" to create doubt about what is dangerous, prolonging indefinitely any regulation that might save lives, but could depress profits.

So if we follow the usual pattern, it will take years, probably decades to make any sort of regulation to control the release of NF3.

Industry and independent estimates of how much NF3 is released ranges between 2 and 3 percent, but since it has a life of 550 years in the atmosphere, the release will be cumulative at the same time we're increasing its release.

Because guess what? Those estimates may be severe underestimates.

Michael T. Prather is a University of California scientist who co-authored a recent paper on the chemical and is a leading author of the influential reports of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

According to the LA Times, he cited a study showing that even "under ideal conditions," more than 3% may be emitted. And, he added, "a slippery gas" such as NF3 could easily leak out undetected during manufacture, transport, application or disposal."We don't know if 1% is getting out or 20% is getting out. . . . But once you let the genie out of the bottle, you can't get it back in."

But not to worry. As we continue to degrade the air we breath and make our planet less habitable by the day, we'll be able to see it with crystal clear clarity on our flat screen TV.

Enjoy the view -- while it lasts.

Blogger's Note: Sorry for the delay folks, nasty Trojan virus (no, nothing to do with the Pottstown mascot) in my home laptop made The Thin Green Line very thin reading over the past couple of days. But enough about me.

How about that George W. Bush administration huh?

Remember way back when in 2000 when he said on the campaign trail that he would regulate carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, and then 12 seconds after being sworn in changed his mind?

Well, in case you haven't noticed, things haven't changed much in the ensuing eight years.

Remember when "Clear Skies" was unveiled with as much fanfare and pomp as it lacked in content and effectiveness?

Well, see previous answer.

The most aggressive aspect of that made for television initiative, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, was thrown out Friday by a federal appeals court in Washington D.C.

According to this article in The Washington Post, "the rule represented the Bush administration's most aggressive action to clean the air over the next two decades. The EPA estimated that the rule would help prevent 17,000 premature deaths and reduce levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by as much as 70 percent by 2025. An unusual alliance of power companies and environmental groups supported the measure. "

An unholy alliance of other interests including, (????!!) North Carolina, challenged it in court.

"Our air isn't getting any healthier as we battle new clean air regulations in the courts and Congress continues to stall in passing strong clean air legislation," Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate clean air and nuclear safety subcommittee, said in one of those hard-hitting prepared statements senators love so much.

The primary beneficiaries of the rule would have been those of us who breath air in the eastern and mid-western states.

But there's a silver lining in a court decision would have prevented 17,000 premature deaths because as this article in the San Francisco Chronicle points out, despite the ever-rising cost of keeping a person alive, over the past dozen years, the federal government has been steadily decreasing the value of a human life.

Seriously! I'm not making this up.

"The value of a 'statistical life' is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May — a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago," the Associated Press reported.

Now if you were going to guess how this could occur when nothing about living is getting any less expensive, you have to think like a bureaucrat, specifically, particularly one opposed to regulations. Sound like any vice president you know?

Given reports about all the deep down regulation changes that have been overseen by Darth
Cheney's office in the last seven years, the answer becomes obvious.

This is how AP described it: "When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

I mean I know the little people don't mean much to Dick and his big oil pals at Halliburton, but to actually memorialize it officially in government statistics, it's breath taking. If only we could have applied that kind of thoroughness to war planning.

But I digress. Back to devaluing our lives.

"Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted," wrote the AP.

And, in the category regulations that won't be adopted, let us view with alarmed amusement, this particular piece of wisdom from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA spent months and money to put together a 588-page examination of the issues of greehouse gas, which found that "such gases could cause disastrous flooding and drought and affect food and water supplies," according to this article in the Los Angeles Times.

Then, in its Orwellian wisdom, the EPA refused to adopt its own staff's findings.

Why?

The ever-impartial White House provides the answer. Those regulations, which the Supreme Court had ordered last year by the way, "would impose crippling costs on the economy," according to The White House.

And how might we determine that the costs outweigh the benefits? One way might be to drive down the statistical value of human life. Irony of ironies, this has the added benefit of driving down the actual value of our lives, no statistics required It's two ironies for the price of one. Too bad we're paying the price.

And just to add a sprinkling of insult to the irony icing, one staffer who worked on the report said the administration has added a new outrage to its practice of ignoring experts who say things they don't want to hear.

It seems agency staffers did not have a chance to respond to other agencies' criticism of the report. "How do you respond to comments you've never even seen?" he asked the Times.

The bureaucratic result of the EPA's decision to seek public comment on rules it has no intention of adopting is that the public comment period will end squarely in the term of the next president.

Set and match.

Add the fact that Bush returned from the G8 summit with no binding commitment to cut emissions with the revelation that Cheney's office "had worked to alter sworn congressional testimony provided by a federal official in January to play down global warming and head off regulation of greenhouse gases," as the Times reported, and you might start to get the idea that this administration is (SPOILER ALERT!) not so serious about confronting global warming, and might, just might, be actively and quietly undermining efforts by others.

SURPRISE!

I know, I know, with all they've done so far to protect us, who could have guessed?

But that's just the kind of plot twist we've come to expect from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Is it 2009 yet?

So every once and a while I get mad.

Don't take away my liberal membership card here, but there are aspects of the free market with which I agree, primarily that an organization whose primary purpose is to make money is going to make decisions based on what makes it the most money.

So when I read this Reuters analysis in Forbes Magazine, which essentially states that exports of refined American petroleum products have soared in the same year that gasoline is topping $4 a gallon, I got mad.

Now don't get me wrong, they have a right to sell their product wherever it will get the highest price.

Consider this paragraph from the Reuters piece: "Also, while U.S. gasoline demand is down due to high prices and a weak American economy, there is 'strong economic growth outside the United States' where fuel is often subsidized and demand is high," said John Cook, director of Energy Information Administration's Petroleum Division.

He's right; go crazy; this is a global economy right?

Here's the rub though, these same oil and gas companies -- joined by the Bush administration, our friends at Fox News and a goodly portion of The Mercury's Sound Off callers -- are arguing that if only the tree-huggers hadn't prevented our friends in Big Oil from dilling on our coastlines and in Alaska, gas would still be $2 a gallon.

"We can help alleviate shortages by drilling for oil and gas in our own country," President Bush told reporters this week, according to the Reuters story. "We have got the opportunity to find more crude oil here at home."

But a one-year increase of 33 percent in exports of refined petroleum products says otherwise. Apparently, even if we were to put our coastal and natural resources at risk for what is, at best, a year's worth of supply for our insatiable appetite for oil, one-third or it might be shipped overseas if the price was right.

"While the administration argues that more supplies would help to bring down prices, U.S exports of diesel fuel in April averaged 387,000 barrels per day, up almost seven-fold from 59,000 barrels a day in the same month a year earlier," Reuters reported.

"U.S. gasoline shipments in April averaged 202,000 barrels a day, the most for the month since 1945, when America was sending fuel overseas to ease supply shortages in other countries during World War II. Gasoline exports in April 2007 were almost half at 116,000 barrels per day."

Hey we're no capitalists though, so no problem.

Go ahead and make the money you were founded to make, Big Oil, that's what you're there to do.

But do us a favor please, don't ask the American taxpayers to take the risk. Because as Exxon's recent Supreme Court triumph demonstrates, the one that lowered their penalty for the Valdez oil spill, if things go bad, and a bad spill occurs off Florida's coast, or in Alaska, we know who will be paying the bill.

These same companies already have leases to drill for oil on public land in the U.S. that they are not acting on, so if our own resources are the key to success, why aren't we drilling there?

Answer, they want it all and a crisis atmosphere makes it more likely we will give it to them for free.

Instead of drilling where they already have leases and producing oil more quickly, Big oil/the White House (there's really little difference is there?) keep pushing for permission to lift the flimsy protections put in place to protect fragile areas that belong to us all and will take decades to recover, if at all, when the inevitable accident occurs.

Where we should be putting our public resources people, is into alternatives to oil. Even Chevron is doing it, as this New York Times article shows, investing in technology that would allow us to convert algae into oil.

The relevant paragraphs are as follows:

"If the price of production can be reduced, the advantages of algae include the fact that it grows much faster and in less space than conventional energy crops. An acre of corn can produce about 20 gallons of oil per year, Dr. (Roger) Ruan (of the University of Minnesota) said, compared with a possible 15,000 gallons of oil per acre of algae.

"An algae farm could be located almost anywhere. It would not require converting cropland from food production to energy production. It could use sea water and could consume pollutants from sewage and power plants."

Talk about a tricfecta! What's the hold up?

This is pretty basic folks. I can only say it so many times.

We're behind on this. Oil is the steam technology of our generation. It entangles us in wars and disputes that are none of our business. It's emissions are destroying our atmosphere.

Hey if Chevron or Exxon want to be the king of the next energy source, I could give a sh*t, more power to them. They're already an energy company and know more about distribution and pricing than I ever will.

But it's time to move on, and even the almighty market is heading that way. Let's give the coasts, the polar bears, the elk, the birds and the rest a rest. We have alternatives. Let's show our patriotism by showing by American can do when we put our minds to it.

And we do that by putting our tax dollars where they will work for us, not for companies who are, by their very nature, compelled to send that energy overseas if that's what the market demands.

Anything else is just infuriating and counterproductive. Haven't we had enough of that?

NOTE: One encouraging sign this week, the Dept. of the Interior lifted it's ill-conceived ban on new applications for solar power plants located on public lands, which I blogged about July 3.

Could it be we're starting to see the light? (no pun intended).

A quick update, oh readers of the blog, on the never-ending quest to make compact fluorescent bulbs safer.

As regular readers will recall, these energy-sipping bulbs have an Achilles Heel, the small portion of mercury in vapor form.

A neurotxin, a cracked bulb may not a Superfund site make, but having mercury vapor sailing around your home is not something we want to inflict on our already body overburdened children.

Enter Brown University professor (trumpets sound) and student Natalie C. Johnson.

In this article in The New York Times, it was reported they may have discovered a material that can capture the mercury vapor from a broken tube.

After experimenting with tiny particles of sulfur, copper, nickel, they discovered that selenium -- "nanoselenium" to be exact -- found particles of a certain size "were capable of binding with almost all of the mercury from a lamp," according to the Times.

So keeps your eyes peeled for lamps wrapped in cloth infused with nanoselenium. In the meantime, recycle those bulbs. Home Depot now takes them for free.

Freshly back from what is fast becoming my family's annual summer visit to New Jersey's Long Beach Island, I am struck by the memories it evokes in me, in my mother, and makes me wonder what memories of these trips will stay with my son.

My father's parents had a summer house there (Brant Beach, all misspellings aside, the obvious choice) and when I was growing up, we usually spent two weeks in August at the house on Farragut Avenue.

Now in her 70s, my mother seems to have more memories of her time there as a teenager with my dad than of the family vacations that loom so large in my memory. Perhaps their strict schedule blends them together into one long summer.

Significant among her memories is a time when the northern portions of the island, places like Harvey Cedars and Loveladies, remained largely devoid of development.

This is, not surprisingly, no longer the case.

In fact because these areas were built up later in the timeline, they are not filled with the modest capes and bungalows that inhabit wider portions of the island like Ship Bottom and Surf City.

Instead, they are populated with extremes of modern architecture, each trying to make a structural statement on its own individual postage stamp, with little regard for the equally unique masterpiece next door.

The crowding together of so many attempts at individuality on what was once bracken, marsh and beach grass makes for an interesting metaphor for what we're doing to our seashores.

In short, we're building them into oblivion, erecting mansions on the shifting sands of barrier islands, what geologists call high-speed real estate.

But first, a disclaimer.

Yes, we rent what my wife charmingly calls "an upside down house."

With the kitchen, living room and perhaps a master bedroom on the top floor, along with elaborate decking arrangements that reach to the roof, the extra flight of stairs up which groceries must be hauled is offset by a near-constant breeze and, if you're willing to add a zero or two to the already outrageous rent, a glimpse of watery blue on a clear day.

Add central air conditioning, a requirement for those of us who carry an extra year-round layer of insulating seal blubber, and it's a veritable paradise on earth.

Who wouldn't want one, if only for a week?

And therein lies the problem.

Everyone wants one and, frankly, there are a lot more everyones.

More than half the country's population lives along the nation's coasts, the northeast alone averaging 767 people per square mile. In Florida, a 600 percent population increase in the last 50 years has seen the population grow from 1.9 million to 15 million, all in some of the most ecologically fragile habitat in the country.

In fact, 46 percent of the entire U.S. population lives in coastal regions where the eco-system is the most fragile and taking a drive down Long Beach Boulevard, it's easy to see the evidence.

So this year, we pried the two cousins' fingers from their beloved boogie boards and spent an afternoon at a place called the Long Beach Island Federation of the Arts and Sciences.

There, a "Barnegat Bay Day" event promised a presentation using live diamondback terrapins, something Eli, my science-loving nephew, was bound to enjoy.

And he did.

As did we all. The turtles were as charming as amphibians can be, and we learned about their dwindling population and the dangers they face which are, of course, man-made.

At such events, it is not uncommon for a variety of like-minded organizations to hand out literature, and this was no different.

I must admit though, that I was impressed with a large pamphlet the federation handed out called "The Island Blue Pages."

It was filled with useful information about human impact on this fragile barrier island and suggestions about how to mitigate that impact.

But no amount of substituting native plants for wimpy, water hungry lawns can keep the non-stop development from doing things like destroying the habitat of the diamondback terrapin to make room for more breezy upside down houses. The math is against them.

For probably the most startling image amid the graphics on crab eating habits and eel grass habitat was the population chart.

Charted for all of Ocean County, which includes the towns on the other side of the bay as well as those on the 18-mile island, which is less than two city blocks wide at some points, was a graph that showed population largely constant and well below 100,000 souls from 1850 to 1950.

Then, in the next 50 years America added another 500,000 residents. As such, 30 percent of Barnegat Bay's watershed has been developed, a critical tipping point at which the eco-system passes a point of no return and can no longer support the life that has lived there for millennia.

Used for its shock value, the figure is meant to spur efforts to act now to save the bay and certainly we should try, but it makes me wonder if it isn't already too late, if we haven't already turned the place upside down.

With little room left on that sliver of sand, I don't wonder if we haven't already doomed the diamondback and his neighbors in exchange for more places for more people to enjoy a week standing on top of a house built on top of what they came to admire.

For as more and more people strive to provide their children with summer memories like mine, myself guiltily among them, we are perhaps ensuring that those memories will be alarmingly different, and contain little appearance of the island's natural state at all.

Hope came from the Pacific last Friday when the state of Hawaii, according to an Associated Press report, became the first in the nation to require solar water heaters in new homes.

My bi-partisan heart (yes, I do have one) swelled even more when I read further that the governor who signed the bill, Linda Lingle, is a Republican.

Moments later, that hope evaporated and i had a bi-partisan heart attack as I continued to read The New York Times.

This article reported that the U.S. Dept. of the Interior; known for failing to collect money owed the taxpayers by oil and gas companies drilling on public lands; known for ignoring public opinion and trying to increase the number of snow mobiles allowed in Yellowstone National Park; known for ignoring previous "roadless" rules and bowing to timber companies to allow roads into pristine forests; this department had suddenly got religion.

And for what?

Why to protect the environment of course.

And to do that, the administration put a two-year freeze on all solar energy project applications on public lands.

The reason given is a concern for the impact pipelines and infrastructure would have on native fauna, like the desert tortoise.

If I were the suspicious type (and I am), I might conclude that about the only time this administration, which, no doubt by sheer coincidence, happens to be run by two former oil executives and whose Secretary of State has an oil tanker named after her, cares most about protecting the environment when it also protects the interests of the oil and gas industry.

They have good reason to be afraid for their entrenched wealthy friends.

According to the Times, many of the 119 million acres of taxpayer-owned land in sunny places like Arizona, Nevada and southern California are ideal for solar power.

Since 2005, more than 130 solar power proposals have been filed with the government, most of which call for erecting such facilities on public land to help cut costs.

Unlike the companies that pump and produce oil and natural gas, and which seem to suck all the air out of the government subsidy room, many of these solar power companies are start-ups -- you know, the kind of small, entrepreneurial businesses President Bush also cites as the kind needed to buck-up our flagging economy.

Where the existing proposals to be built, they could cover more than 1 million acres and have the potential to power more than 20 million homes, according to the Times.

Certainly, no tree-hugger worth his salt is going to suggest that one million acres of public property be developed without a thorough review, but freezing all new applications just sends panic through a young industry which might ultimately save our bacon.

Just ask our local Congressman, Jim Gerlach, R-6th Dist.

On Friday, Gerlach delivered the House Republican Conference Weekly Radio Address, according to a timely press release, the subject of which was "the need for Congress to start working together on a National Energy Initiative."

According to the release, Gerlach said: “Decades of relying on foreign oil from the Middle East and unstable regimes across the globe, while refusing to produce more of our own resources, have resulted in the average price of gas soaring past the $4 per-gallon mark.”

Putting a two-year freeze on all new solar power plant applications on public lands doesn't sound like an effort to "produce more of our own resources."

Most of the solar plants in the U.S. use "concentrating" technology by which the sun's rays are concentrated with mirrors to heat a synthetic mixture of oil and water to make steam to power turbines.

But photovoltaic plants, which directly convert sunlight into electricity are up and coming. According to the Times, Photovoltaic solar projects grew by 48 percent in 2007 compared with 2006.

So if you want to get away from $4 gas, as Mr. Gerlach suggests, why not "think outside the pump."

Instead of trying to open up off-shore drilling while refusing the make oil and gas companies drill on the public land where they already have leases (another partisan split in Congress; see if you can guess which party is on which side), why not promote something that could replace it completely?

The nation's first hydrogen pump station just opened in Los Angeles and electric cars are looming on the market place.
Having already had a functional electric car that it pulled from the market in a brilliant display of entrepreneurial foresight, (See "Who Killed the Electric Car?") Detroit is now rushing to catch up to the Japanese in creating what it had already created, a viable electric car.

My personal fantasy is to pull my all-electric car into my driveway and plug it into my personal solar-power generator and laugh all the way past the Exxon station.

While we're fiddling around on our knees to the oil companies, other countries like German and Britain are reading the writing on the atmosphere and getting ahead of us. (See my posts on 6/26 and 6/19)

If you think none of this is the government's business, consider that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Thursday that he will lead his country to increase its renewable energy use 10-fold by 2020.

For an investment of $200 billion (the equivalent of what we pay for a long afternoon in Iraq) he envisions the U.K. cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly 20 percent and oil dependency by 7 percent, and creating some 260,000 green-collar jobs.

Notably lacking in sunny days, Britain will instead make the most of its particular resources, its windy coastline, and use wind power to meet those goals according to this story by Bloomberg News Service.

So just as I tried to come to terms with the idea that the Bush administration had once again crushed hope into dust, I read this article in Scientific American.

It appears that some of the big businesses the administration thinks it has to protect have a longer view than the next quarter's returns.

Three companies that got rich envisioning the future, IBM, Intel and Hewlett Packard, have all made major investments in solar energy, the magazine reported.

First out of the box was IBM, which has "plans to make solar panels covered with a thin film of chemical compounds. The idea is that the film, when applied to different surfaces such as glass or brick, can produce solar energy more efficiently than conventional silicon wafer–based solar cells—which are made of materials similar to those used to fabricate computer chips. (That's right—a company built on chips based on silicon is trying to get the world to move away from using it in solar cells)" the magazine reported.

(And here you thought I was the only purveyor of journalistic sarcasm).

"Also last week, Intel spun off a new solar tech company called SpectraWatt, which was born with $50 million in investment capital from Intel, Cogentrix Energy LLC, PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund and Solon AG," according to Scientific American.
And the trifecta: "Meanwhile, HP earlier this month began licensing technology to Xtreme Energetics, Inc., in Livermore, Calif., designed to help that start-up company deliver rooftop solar energy systems that produce twice as much energy as conventional solar panels at half the cost."

Hmmm, twice as much energy at half the cost.

That's almost reason to hope....

You've all heard about green weddings right?

The wedding gown is spun from local sheep;s wool; the gazpacho from a local tomato farm; the champagne flutes from bio-degradable cellulose, etc.

Certainly, despite the smirk I can't help wearing, this is admirable.

Americans, as a rule, live beyond their resource footprint and any couple willing to dedicate themselves to lessening that inequity in their first day together are to be commended.

And now, according to this recent story in The New York Times, they don't have to stop after they drive away in their Prius with cans (soon to be recycled) tied to the back.

Now your honeymoon can be green too!

And it's not just granola-crunching, Teva-wearing, vegan tree huggers doing it either.

In fact EVERYBODY's doing it! Who knew?

My eyes popped a bit when I read the following sentence in the Times story: "An online survey conducted by Brides magazine in 2007 showed that 60 percent of the respondents believed that the environment was an important factor in planning their wedding."

And here I thought it was color theme, or the caterer. Well that's what it was in that Steve Martin movie. So sue me!

This-whole-"let's-not-be-known-as-the-generation-that-finally-ravaged-the-planet-beyond-redemption"-thing must be catching on.

According to the story, places all over the country are cashing in on the (what I hope will be a permanent) trend.

Some, like a hotel in Spain, run entirely on solar power and have couples stay in locally-made yurts. Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Go ahead and click on the link I provided and read it for yourself. I'll wait. Seriously, go ahead, I'm not going anywhere. Time is different here in cyberspace.

...

NOW do you believe me?

Anyway, for those of you who believed me the first time and don't have time to go linking (is this a verb yet? If not, then I claim it as my invention!) all over the Internet, the article also tackles the issue of all that carbon it takes to fly to your honeymoon destination.

And it offers two solutions, the old carbon offset routine (which I continue to have doubts about) or something simpler, stay close.

According to the article, you can just have a good old time down on the farm, Blackberry Farm in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee to be exact.

It's a privately run organic farm that just added a barn to accommodate wedding parties. Can't you just smell the romance?

Who knows where this will all go, but its hard to argue with people trying to do the right thing in the midst of the psychological and scheduling maelstrom that is sometimes called planning a wedding and honeymoon.

But where ever it goes, here's hoping it goes green.