The $3.8 Million Fill-Up

It takes about 7,000 tons of bunker-fuel to fill the tanks of a 5,000-container cargo ship for a trip from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Over the last year and half, the cost of that fuel has jumped 87% to $552 a ton, according to the World Shipping Council, boosting the cost of a fill-up to [...]

Ark of the Liberties

Ted Widmer, Director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, has written a new book to be released on July 4th. (As an aside, the Library is a wonderful place with an amazing map collection…if you’re in Providence and wish a tour, let me know.) Entitled ” Ark of the Liberties: America and [...]

The Science and Economics of Sustainability

John Holdren, Director of the Woods Hole Research Center, made this presentation at the Katoomba Meetings earlier this month. ” The Science and Economics of Sustainability: Managing the Competing Uses of Land, Water, and Forests Under a Changing Climate” offers an abundance of sobering information on the state of the global environment and makes suggestions on [...]

230 Million…and counting

This morning on National Public Radio I heard a report on worldwide major surgeries…and concern for errors (I guess you might say ‘errors and omissions’ – they forget to do things). There are 230 million major surgeries worldwide each year – one in twenty five people have a ‘major’ operation.
The report went on to say [...]

The Economic and Market Value of Coasts and Estuaries

From Linwood Pendleton’s Foreword:
We encourage you to use this book as a primer, a reference, and a launching point for your own efforts to understand the potential economic benefits of coastal restoration where you live and work. The book is the seed of a living project to provide restoration professionals with the economic information and [...]

Concerns with Carbon Markets

I have ongoing concerns with carbon markets. Alex Steffen, in a recent WIRED article, says it well…
We don’t need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of ecological limits – not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical [...]

Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and Forest Offsets

The Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences has created recommendations for forest offsets for RGGI.
They are very interesting! Think “scale’ as a major factor. From their Introduction:
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is a cap-and-trade system designed to limit the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from electricity generation in 10 northeastern states starting in 2009. Power [...]

Fanny Packs, Baseball Caps, and the Democratic Convention

From an AP Press Release on the Democratic effort to ‘green’ their convention:
The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.
Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: “That just doesn’t exist.”
Ditto for [...]

Update from John Phipps on corn and beans

Notes from John Phipps’ Blog on his observations on corn and bean crops:

We finished (or at least stopped) Friday night. I decided against spotting in corn wetholes – too much damage, too little gain.
We replanted about 130 acres of 800 of soybeans. Around here, no-till for beans was a difficult mission this year. The replanting [...]

New EPA Report Available on Ecosystems and Climate Change

From the US EPA Press Release:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a report that can help reduce the potential impact of climate change on estuaries, forests, wetlands, coral reefs, and other sensitive ecosystems. The report, entitled Preliminary Review of Adaptation Options for Climate-Sensitive Ecosystems and Resources, identifies strategies to protect the environment as these [...]