Out of Control

Reason Foundation's Skaidra Smith-Heisters asks paper or plastic? And the environmentally-friendly answer may surprise you:

"One hundred million new plastic grocery bags require the total energy equivalent of approximately 8300 barrels of oil for extraction of the raw materials, through manufacturing, transport, use and curbside collection of the bags. Of that, 30 percent is oil and 23 percent is natural gas actually used in the bag-the rest is fuel used along the way. That sounds like a lot until you consider that the same number of paper grocery bags use five times that much total energy. A paper grocery bag isn't just made out of trees. Manufacturing 100 million paper bags with one-third post-consumer recycled content requires petroleum energy inputs equivalent to approximately 15,100 barrels of oil plus additional inputs from other energy sources including hydroelectric power, nuclear energy and wood waste.

Making sound environmental choices is hard, especially when the product is 'free,' like bags at most grocery stores. When the cashier rings up a purchase and bags it in a paper bag, the consumer doesn't see that it took at least a gallon of water to produce that bag (more than 20 times the amount used to make a plastic bag), that it weighed 10 times more on the delivery truck and took up seven times as much space as a plastic bag in transit to the store, and will ultimately result in between tens and hundreds of times more greenhouse gas emissions than a plastic bag."

Reason's Environment Research and Commentary

Last week's Los Angeles Times "Dust-up" on California water issues concluded with an underwhelming undebate in which Lester Snow (Department of Water Resources) and Mindy McIntyre (Planning and Conservation League) agreed to agree that Gov. Schwarzenegger's new water conservation mandate is a great plan for the state. The governor is calling for a 20 percent reduction in per-capita urban water use by 2020. This new goal is being promoted in part by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian's (D-Burbank) AB 2153, the so-called " Water Efficiency and Security Act."

Snow and McIntyre fail to mention two of the biggest gorillas in California water politics, agricultural water rights and water subsidies. Snow notes, "Urban water users consume 8.7 million acre-feet per year, and under this plan, Californians would save enough water to serve more than 2 million families a year"--but he leaves out the fact that irrigated agriculture uses three times that amount, or roughly 80 percent of the state's developed water supply each year. McIntyre, for her part, promotes the idea that the governor's administration should make sure the water conservation mandates are " the AB 32 of water." What's misleading about comparing water use reduction targets to the bold greenhouse gas reduction targets in AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is that water is a resource with assigned (if occasionally precarious) appropriations rights. We don't need to create new markets to promote water use efficiency in California, we just need to improve the markets we already have. To do that, agricultural water use has to be part of the discussion.

MSNBC has an exciting interactive feature today (well, interactive, anyway) that provides a walk through of the debate over plastic bag bans.

The feature starts with a survey which asks which type of bags you normally choose at a grocery store, what factor is most important in your decision, and which bag you think is more environmentally friendly. With roughly 54,000 people weighing in at this time, the answers are, overwhelmingly: plastic, reusability, and paper, respectively. 25 percent have the right answer to the question of which bag is environmentally superior--neither--and the 38 percent plurality who say they choose the bag that they are most likely to reuse are also on the right track, environmentally speaking.

This result is encouraging, because it shows that most people are making the "right" decision based purely on their personal incentives. Bag bans and related schemes, ironically, limit the optimization of the natural resource use represented in the "paper or plastic?" dilemma.

In an audio clip provided for the MSNBC feature, American Forest and Paper Association CEO, Donna Harman, gets it about right:

Our industry really supports the marketplace being the ultimate decider of whether customers choose paper versus plastic, because, given appropriate information, consumers will make the right choice for the environment.

With oil hitting $110 a barrel and gas prices creeping towards $4 a gallon, the federal government continues to prohibit U.S. farmers from growing hemp, which could be used to efficiently produce biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol.

Hemp is also a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly substitute for polyester, cotton, fiberglass and concrete, according to a new Reason Foundation study that examines hemp's potential uses and the ways other countries are benefitting from it. Industrial hemp production is banned in the U.S. as an archaic consequence of the war on drugs.

"There are numerous environmental advantages to hemp," said Skaidra Smith-Heisters, a policy analyst at Reason Foundation and author of the report. "Hemp often requires less energy to manufacture into products. It is less toxic to process. And it is easier to recycle and more biodegradable than most competing crops and products. Unfortunately, we won't realize the full economic and environmental benefits of hemp until the crop is legal in the United States."

Full Study (.pdf)
Summary of Study (.pdf)
Press Release

Probably not, but Case Western University law professor's Jonathan Adler makes an excellent case for why they should be considered a key climate adaptation strategy.

This article argues that climate change, and its projected effects on water use and supply, calls for a fundamental reexamination of water institutions. In particular, this article suggests that market-based institutions are well suited to address the additional pressures on water supplies due to climate change. Many aspects of water markets, including their flexibility, decentralized nature, and ability to create and harness economic incentives, make them particularly well suited to address the uncertain water forecast. A gradual shift toward water marketing and market pricing will improve the management of water supplies, ensure more efficient allocation of available water supplies and encourage cost-effective conservation measures.

An application to urban planning can be found on my Planetize blog post here:

This advertisement from "Californians for Safe, Clean Drinking Water" has been gnawing at my peace of mind since I saw it earlier today, though initially I dismissed it as just your average PAC promotional nonsense. The ad appears to be aimed at creating opposition to a ballot bond initiative which would include plans for a peripheral canal, though the ad itself doesn't use the term "peripheral canal." Instead, the ad narrative says that the Governor is trying to "give away our water" to "a few wealthy Southern California corporations" who "want it all for themselves." Those greedy, thirsty corporations are at it again!

According to ACWA, the Association of California Water Agencies, "Californians for Safe, Clean Drinking Water" was formed to aid efforts led by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata to defeat a proposed (now apparently defunct) California Chamber of Commerce-backed water bond for this year's ballot.

Never mind the fact that water is already sent from the Delta to points south. A peripheral canal, if built, is only an engineering fix to the current method of sending water south (which involves sucking it backwards, upstream, through the southern Delta with giant pumps, causing significant detriment to the environment). Also note the contrast with Perata's advertising in favor of the Proposition 1E levee bond in 2006, which characterized the Delta as "the backbone of the state’s water supply, the lifeblood of our economy" and warned "If this system fails, 25 million of us could lose our water supply." The same themes were hyped in the ad ACWA was running on television last fall--no mention of those mysterious over-thirsty corporations. The image of the two girls at the drinking fountain tops the whole thing off really, because they don't appear to be drinking the water at all, but rather sticking their tongues out and playing with it--which, one surmises, is what northern Californians would do with all their extra water if exports south were halted.

The major questions--how much water to store, where to store water, how much water to export south out of the Delta, how to export it, and who will pay for it all--should be addressed separately. Unfortunately, if this is a sample of what's to come, it looks like this campaign will be one of confusion rather than clarification.

Last fall, the California Bureau of State Audits released a critique of the Department of Water Resources’ administration of flood protection bond monies, including $57 million approved in 2000 for flood corridor projects from Prop 13, and an additional $330 million in the pipe from Propositions 84 and 1E (the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006 and the Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006, respectively).

Among the findings of the state audit: even though DWR had developed a scoring tool to appraise the relative value of different projects considered for funding, they didn’t use it when actually awarding funds; even though regulations require that a hydrologic study demonstrating the flood protection value of each project is submitted with each proposal, the department approved funding without hydrologic studies; the department granted funds to projects even when the proposals did not provide evidence of affected property owners’ willingness to sell their property; the department did not establish a framework for overseeing the progress of funded projects, though they were required to; did not obtain complete progress reports, and did not regularly visit project sites to monitor progress—but made “progress payments” to grantees nevertheless.

A coalition of folks has organized to oppose Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan for a cap and trade program to address greenhouse gas emissions on "environmental justice" grounds.

They utterly reject the scale at which climate change occurs, objecting in principle that "Under a trading scheme, 11 power plants to be built around Los Angeles could offset emissions by extracting methane from coal seams in Utah or planting trees in Manitoba." So they don't care if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, they care where they are reduced. Maybe because the organizers are pollution fighting groups and they consider greenhouse gas emissions to be a pollutant, so feel compelled to fight their emission in low income areas. See, CO2 emission must be hurting those people living near power plants. You could not ask for a better example of how scientifically illiterate some of these environmental activist groups can be.

Ordinarily environmental impact reports (EIRs) are sad affairs, with neighbors bitterly fighting neighbors and visions of the future pitted against memories of the past—but if the City of Oakland is forced to complete an EIR on their proposed ban on non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, I’d anticipate the results as eagerly as a playoff between two favorite teams.

Oakland was one of many cities that took note after San Francisco banned non-biodegradable plastic bags last year (that ban went into effect in November). The “Coalition to Support Plastic Bag Recycling,” represented in court by Downey Brand LCC, has since sued on the grounds that the City of Oakland failed to take into account the environmental impacts of the ban, as required by public agencies under the California Environmental Quality Act.

A Bay Area News Group report boils the case down to whether or not the ban on plastic bags will increase use of paper bags:

"It's not speculation," said Michael Mills, an attorney for the coalition. "Everyone knows that paper-bag use is going to increase, but no one knows by how much. That's the exact reason, your honor, to do the EIR.” […] "There's no evidence that more paper bags will be used," said Kevin Siegel, the attorney who represented the city in court. "There are only arguments that more paper bags will be used."

The Coalition also cites the cost of biodegradable (plant-based) plastic bags contaminating the recycling stream for conventional petroleum-based bags.

For their part, the city alleges that the EPA report supporting the environmental superiority of plastic bags, commonly referenced in this debate, has recently been pulled from the EPA website. (Their supposition that the EPA report was withdrawn “presumably because it is unreliable, unsubstantiated, and/or not credible” is plausible; as I noted last year, EPA’s recommendation in the fluorescent vs. incandescent light bulb debate was unreliable, unsubstantiated, and/or not credible, and that report seems to have disappeared from their website--though it is still available elsewhere.)

Alameda County Superior Judge Frank Roesch is expected to rule on the case in the next couple of weeks. If the city is required to do an EIR on their bag ban, they should be compelled to do a full life-cycle analysis of all the options--taking into account the energy requirements and pollution created in the manufacture of conventional plastic, paper, and other grocery bags (an analysis that makes paper look decidedly bad), the different utility of each bag, consumer behaviors in reusing and recycling each type of bag, and the end-cycle impacts of litter on wildlife (the calculation that favors paper bags). Ban impacts on resource use are complicated and widespread. One example: there are hundreds of thousands of dogs in the Bay Area (the metro area is rumored to have one of the highest number of dogs per capita in the nation) and—at least until we successfully make the transition to heating our homes with dog waste—the majority of pet owners reuse a substantial number of plastic bags… you don’t have to do the math, but you should get the idea.

New York, Los Angeles, and numerous other municipalities nationwide that have considered plastic bag regulations since San Francisco’s landmark ordinance have for the most part backed away from all-out bans and opted for more voluntary strategies, as they should. In the policy toolbox, a product ban is as blunt and unwieldy a tool as you can pick.

(Update) Comments on the comments:

The merit of an environmental review of the plastic bag ban shouldn't be judged purely on the motives of the industry group bringing the suit. (On the same token, I'll take the comment by "Bag Monster Buster" seriously even though it appears that the post was only intended to sell the product that that individual has a personal interest in.)

Compact reusable bags such as the one being peddled in that post are typically made of non-recyclable petroleum-based polypropylene, and are not without environmental impacts of their own. Since Oakland's ban is likely to increase use of paper bags, and increase purchases of plastic bags (as our math-savvy dog owner has indicated below) AND increase purchases of polypropylene reusable bags, I'd say all of that belongs in the EIR. While they're at it, how about calculating the extra gas burned by people making extra trips to pick up the "green" shopping bags they've left at home?

Another note: though companies like ChicoBag claim that they recycle their bags after they're no longer wanted for shopping, this is stretching the truth. Paper and conventional plastic grocery bags are well-suited for closed-loop recycling--meaning a used bag can be processed back into a new bag. What they do at ChicoBag is more aptly termed "downcycling"--re-purposing the material for a lesser use, such as stuffing or insulation.

The point of all this is that, from an environmental perspective, there is a time and a place for use of each of these types of bags, and a ban on one type *necessarily* means that consumers are forced to use resources less efficiently in certain circumstances.

A debate on municipal recycling pros and cons (and an interesting case of Smith vs. Smith) from a recent article in the Orlando Weekly by Deanna Sheffield raises an interesting point (or three):

After decades of warning about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, and stressing the importance of the three R’s – reducing, reusing and recycling – the EPA is far less interested in the economics of recycling than the perceived effect it will have on the environment.

“Recycling is still needed,” the EPA’s [Roxanne] Smith says. “Waste reduction practices and recycling reduce the demand for resources, specifically raw material and energy, conserving resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, resources are saved and greenhouse gas emissions avoided when recycled materials are used in place of virgin materials.”

Smith says it takes almost twice the process energy to manufacture newspaper from new fiber as opposed to recycled materials (though, as Wiseman notes, recycling newsprint creates more pollution than using virgin pulp). She also emphasizes that the benefit of recycling is clearly reflected in the commodity value of recycled materials.

“For example, paper is in such high demand overseas that it has become the single largest volume commodity exported through Los Angeles ports,” Smith says. “Currently, the supply of recycled paper cannot keep pace with the demand from both domestic and foreign paper mills, driving commodity prices to near-record highs.”

But she acknowledges that recycling programs aren’t going to win any awards from an economic feasibility standpoint.

“Recycling costs money, but so does waste disposal,” Smith says, noting that communities should be able to assess how each option will play out “through a full appraisal of the environmental and economic benefits and costs of recycling, as compared to the one-way consumption of resources from disposing of used products and packaging in landfills and incinerators.”

Dumping garbage into a landfill is not only cheaper, but often it just makes more sense when all the factors are taken into consideration, says Smith-Heisters of the Reason Foundation.

“When and where recycling makes sense, you’ll often find collection centers open voluntarily,” she says. “For local government leaders and people interested in boosting recycling and waste diversion rates, curbside recycling is probably the last option they should consider.”

If China really wants waste paper from Los Angeles that badly, maybe everyone in Hollywood should consider a change of careers!

Or, maybe there's another explanation. The major market in recycling/reuse out of California ports isn't waste paper, it is shipping containers. It is economical to send waste paper, obsolete electronics, and other recyclable materials overseas because most of the containers coming into Long Beach, LA and Oakland would be heading back empty otherwise. It also helps that the materials head for recycling centers where daily wages tend to be less than U.S. hourly wages and occupational safety and environmental standards are all significantly lower--but hitch-hiking the across the ocean in empty cargo containers is key.

With this added context, the U.S. export of recyclable materials only bolsters Sheffield's conclusion, that "Curbside recycling doesn’t pay for itself on a county, state or national level. It is inefficient, and its very existence is predicated on cheap energy." Supporters of recycling subsidies, like Roxanne Smith of the Environmental Protection Agency, often do so on the premise that these subsidies are needed to balance against environmental subsidies, such as free greenhouse gas emissions in the energy-intensive virgin paper pulping industry. When greenhouse gas emissions are priced, as they most likely will be in the near future, it will be interesting to revisit the balance sheet for recycling subsidies. Still, that ignores another ugly imbalance in the world of recycling subsidies. The expressed purpose of these subsides is to act as a sort of "great equalizer" between materials like corrugated cardboard and aluminum, for which market demand in many cases actually exists, and materials that we as taxpayers have to pay to get rid of--at every step of the way--until we ultimately buy them back. That's a terrible price to pay for materials that likely aren't just economic losers, but environmental losers, too.

Full article here.

If there is any doubt that global warming alarmism is turning into self-parody, the study reported below courtesy JunkScience.com should put it to rest. If it had been released on April 1, most would have dismissed it as an April Fools joke. But, no, these guys, both Michigan State University profs are dead serious. But the methodological flaw in this study is this: It did not take into account the environmental damage of staying in a hellacious relationship. Surely, the heart-ache, indigestion and consequent increase in flatulence could not be good for global climate!

Divorce, Global Warming-Style

JunkScience.com, December 3, 3007

Will lawyers soon be working out green divorces? They may need to since divorce causes global warming, according to a new study published Dec. 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Michigan State University researchers Eunice Yu and Jianguo Liu report that divorce results in more households that use more water, energy and land resources and that generate more solid and liquid waste, including more greenhouse gases. The study was edited by Paul "Population Bomb" Ehrlich who, in 1967, predicted that the world was running out of food and that hundreds of millions would die of starvation as a result in the 1970s and 1980s.

Remarriage helps reduce environmental damage. "The results suggest that mitigating the impacts of resource-inefficient lifestyles such as divorce helps to achieve global environmental sustainability," the study concludes.

"The personal life is over," is what a Bolshevik apparatchik told Boris Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago. Soon we'll all be living for the Left's twisted idea of what's good for Comrade Earth -- that is, until someone comes up with a no-carbon divorce.

Dave Monson and Wayne Hauge, two farmers who sought to add industrial hemp into their crop rotation alongside wheat, barley, canola, soybeans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas in northern North Dakota are out several thousand dollars in filing fees this season, a sad harvest after a year of petitioning the federal government to recognize their state-issued licenses to grow the crop. Their federal suit against the DEA was dismissed Wednesday, but United States District Court Judge, Hon. Daniel L. Hovland, was fair (if not encouraging) in his remarks:

Industrial hemp may not be the terrible menace the DEA makes it out to be, but industrial hemp is still considered to be a Schedule I controlled substance under the current state of the law in this circuit and throughout the country. Marijuana and industrial hemp are members of the Cannabis sativa L. plant species for which the Controlled Substances Act presently makes no distinction. The Court recognizes that at some stage in the process the plant may contain such low levels of THC that it would be impractical to use as a recreational street drug. However, perceived problems relating to detection and enforcement seem to remain as does the current ban imposed by Congress and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The policy arguments raised by the plaintiffs are best suited for Congress rather than a federal courtroom in North Dakota.

Just one look at what appears to be sleet falling from the sky out in front of the Bismarck, N.D., federal building would be enough to win my sympathy for these farmers.

Once again, I've had the audacity to suggest that cars are not evil incarnate, especially considering what they replaced. My most recent blog post on Planetizen.com draws on an excellent article in the transportation journal Access, that suggests that horses were terrible for the environment and cars were, at least incrementally, better all the way around. The post and response from various professional planners (some of whom make sane and lucid comments) can be found here.

In closing, I'll quote from one of the responses:

I agree that there was a tremendous environmental benefit to motor vehicles replacing horses in cities - but there was not a great benefit to the tremendous increase in mobility that the automobile brought, as Mr. Staley seems to think.

In what has the makings of an annual event, yesterday Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed legislation which would have allowed some farmers and researchers in California to grow industrial hemp. The Governor's veto message for AB 684, the California Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2007, contained no statements that he had not made verbatim in his veto of last year's Act, AB 1147. He still cited not wanting to give farmers a "false sense of security" as his top reason for vetoing the bill, which was sponsored this year by Assembly Members Leno, DeVore, Adams, Beall, Berg, Huffman, and Saldana, and Senator McClintock, and supported by such groups as the California Certified Organic Farmers, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, Imperial County Farm Bureau, Merced County Farm Bureau, and the Yolo County Board of Supervisors. Unfortunately, a "false sense of security" isn't the only sense the Governor seems intent on eliminating.

One notable difference was that this year's veto message did not include a statement that the Governor made last year:

In the future, I would encourage the Legislature to work with state and federal law enforcement agencies to craft a measure that would reduce the burden on law enforcement agencies and would comply with federal law in order to avoid the unnecessary prosecution of unwitting individuals in this state.

That statement may have been what gave lawmakers the idea that their revised bill, which was scaled down to a tightly regulated five-year pilot program in just four counties, might win the Governor's support. Yesterday's veto directly contradicts the Department of Justice analysis of AB 684, which concluded that the fiscal effect of the bill would be "minor and absorbable" and would not create a "hemp defense" for marijuana growers. According to the California Narcotic Officers' Association, which led opposition to the bill, their officers would still have trouble telling the difference between hemp and marijuana--it's disappointing that the Governor didn't offer to help clarify the practical distinctions.

It's pretty tough to separate drivers from their cars, but China's going to try:

China will initiate its first-ever nationwide "no car day" this weekend in an effort to promote environmental health and alleviate increasingly gridlocked urban roads, state press said Monday.

Residents in 108 cities will be urged to take public transport, ride bikes or walk on the nation's first "no car day" on Saturday, the China Daily reported.

"The move is an attempt to raise residents' awareness on energy saving and environmental protection because the country's cities are plagued by traffic congestion and pollution," the paper said.

It did not say why the Ministry of Construction, the sponsor of the activity, chose a Saturday to hold the event.

Government officials and state-run enterprise employees in some cities would be encouraged not to drive, while other urban centres would ban government-owned cars from taking to the roads altogether, it added.

A week-long campaign to publicise the government's goal of getting 50 percent of the nation's urban residents to use public transport instead of private cars would also be initiated, it said.

Article here.

Mexico City has a long history of yanking keys from drivers. Officials figured that would have to cut pollution and boost transit ridership. They underestimated their constituents.

RELATED: Paris vs. SUV

With California Republicans conceding in their attempt to block the state budget over greenhouse gas emissions strategies (guess I was a couple weeks off on my prediction for that) and San Bernardino County settling in the suit brought against it by Attorney General Jerry Brown over the same, it looks like the bulk of local land use authority has now been transfered to the state. California state lawmakers already have substantial control over local planning for affordable housing, water resources, coastal development, and other general plan elements--control over land use with respect to greenhouse gas emissions should cover just about everything else.

At least the settlement between Brown and San Bernardino was honest about one thing. The agreement mandates that the county inventory "all known, or reasonably discoverable, sources of Greenhouse Gases that currently exist in the County," but then goes on to state (four times, actually) that "The Parties recognize and agree that definitive data sources do not exist for creating this inventory." It is a good thing the county saved the expense of having to defend itself in a drawn-out lawsuit, since funding greenhouse gas guestimates from non-existent data sets can get pricey.

Evidently, in this new arrangement, Jerry Brown will be the new planning commissioner for San Bernardino County and the local planning commission will take over the job of the California Air Resources Board.

For a bit of Friday silliness, check out BusinessWeek Online’s story of how Web designers are joining the eco-correctness fad by designing sites to use dark colors, which they believe prevents global warming because black supposedly requires less power than white to display on a computer monitor.

This started earlier this year when Google, whose home page is largely bright white, came in for a scolding for this reckless contribution to global warming.

The online buzz over “going dark” began in earnest last January after Mark Ontkush, a self-described “green computing evangelist,” wrote a blog post concerning environmentally friendly Web design. Ontkush claimed that if a popular site such as Google switched its home page background color from white to black, it could save hundreds of megawatt hours a year. He based his claim on the fact that certain types of monitors use less energy to display black than white screens. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, cathode-ray-tube (CRT) monitors and even some flat-panel screens use less energy to display black or dark backgrounds.

BusinessWeek reports Ontkush’s blog triggered the creation of a bunch of search sites using black backgrounds. But with knock-off names such as Blackle and DarkGoogle, many others believed that the whole eco-web site thing was an elaborate April Fool’s joke.

No so. And in today’s highly charged debate about climate change, a major corporation, especially one like Google that strives for liberal cred, can’t take such accusations lying down. And, upon closer examination, as is prone to happen with many so-called “green” claims about energy consumption, much is exaggerated, if not wrong.

Google's green energy czar [?!] Bill Weihl wrote that the flat-panel computer screens most common in the U.S. don't save energy displaying black backgrounds. Weihl referred to a test run by an Australian electronics graduate student comparing the power consumption of Blackle and Google on 27 different monitors. On average, CRT monitors saved 10.8 watts per hour using Blackle.

However, liquid-crystal display (LCD) monitors largely used the same or, in several cases, several watts more energy to display the black background. The results were published Aug. 8 on Australian tech news site Techlogg. "We applaud the spirit of the idea, but our own analysis as well as that of others shows that making the Google home page black will not reduce energy consumption," wrote Weihl.

We know that a glass of wine in the evening can be good for your health, and even good for your pocketbook. Now Reuters is reminding us that drinking wine is good for the environment, too. That cheap stuff with the plastic stoppers won't do, though. Last year WWF, "the global conservation organization," published a report, catchingly titled Cork Screwed?, on the environmental benefits of the cork industry--which supports some of the "highest levels of biodiversity among forest habitats, including globally endangered species such as the Iberian Lynx, the Iberian Imperial Eagle and the Barbary Deer."

This week brings news of the first attempt within the cork industry to quantify some of their sustainable laurels. At the top of their list is carbon dioxide sequestration. To get the full picture, however, you'd have to compare the greenhouse gas savings to the quantity of greenhouse gases released in the wine fermentation process, among other sources. (So, for the time being, we can stick with the Iberian lynx as our reason to buy quality wine.)

Curious drama in the California capitol this week, as Republican state senators have refused to approve the proposed budget (already six and a half weeks late)--not because they don't like the budget, but because they don't like Attorney General Jerry Brown's current position that CEQA (California's environmental review process) must now take into consideration the contribution to global warming of all new local plans and developments. While the impasse seems unlikely to last very much longer, it is worth noting. Republican hold-outs are saying they won't approve the budget until global warming impacts are exempted from CEQA review. Also at issue are proposed changes to the method of awarding state transportation funds (e.g. SB 375) that would essentially reward regional plans that decrease vehicle miles traveled (the idea evidently being: the less mobility, the less greenhouse gas emissions). The tactics being employed here are questionable, but the characterization by opponents of the move by state Republicans is even more absurd. Consider:

Republicans in the California Senate continue their outrageous demand for major rollbacks to California's bedrock environmental law as the price of their support for the state budget.

--Bill Allayaud, State Director, Sierra Club California

Republican members of the State Senate (Mr. Maldonado now excepted) are refusing to vote for the budget unless CEQA is gutted, with respect to global warming.

--Gary Patton, Executive Director, Planning and Conservation League

Doing their small part to quench the nationwide thirst for information on the virtues of bottled water versus tap water, today NBC announced expert taste-testers' evaluation of water in 12 affiliate cities. The best: Salt Lake City, followed by Boston and Columbia, SC. New York City water was deemed too good to compete in the test.

What coverage of this soft news stunt didn't highlight was that, interestingly enough, one tap water sample was pronounced by the taste-experts to be suitable only for washing a car, while another was considered not even good enough to shower in. The origins of the three failing tap waters were not revealed.

Although the Columbia tap water was reported to have a "hint of peach," none of the tap waters tested were mandarin orange flavor, no doubt to Geoff Segal's considerable disappointment.

Salt Lake City tap water is also not winning over local firefighters, who earlier this week criticized Mayor Rocky Anderson's direction to city staff (issued last fall) to cut bottled water purchases from their budgets.

It is worth noting that tap water from the 12 cities had to be bottled and shipped for NBC's test. Water connoisseurs outside of South Carolina will have to wait for the precious stuff to show up on the supermarket shelf.

The city [of Santa Cruz] has created the position of global warming coordinator at up to $80,000 a year to help prevent climate change, guide Santa Cruz in transportation and land-use decisions and get the community involved in the effort.

Interested applicants better hustle--the city plans to have the position filled by the end of August.

More here.

Santa Cruz was also at the vanguard on medical marijuana:

A year and a half ago, when council members in the beachfront community decided to create the nation's first municipal department to distribute medicinal marijuana, SNL had a field day. "The new agency will be called the Santa Cruz Department of Kevin's Van," SNL's Amy Poehler quipped on "Weekend Update."

Article here.

Sunday, when Boeing unveiled their 787 Dreamliner, BBC News had this to report:

While even environmentalists welcome the attempts to make planes greener, they don't think the 787 is going to do much to reduce the impact of aviation on climate change.

They believe that fuel-efficient planes are simply going to allow airlines to carry the same number of passengers, more cheaply. And that allows them to cut ticket prices - which in turn will encourage more of us to fly.

The new design uses carbon fiber composite instead of aluminum construction, so it is lighter, allows for better cabin air pressure and quality, bigger windows, and improved fuel efficiency. According to Boeing, the result is a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the standard midsize jets, using just one gallon of fuel per seat per 100 miles of travel. At that rate, some trips currently made by car would certainly be faster, cheaper and more fuel-efficiently made by plane.

And environmentalists are grumbling? Who are these environmentalists? (Presumably, they also favor capping fuel economy standards so that we aren't tempted to drive increasingly fuel-efficient cars?)

The BBC news report implies that the National Environmental Trust was the source of the Boeing 787 pessimism, but I didn't find anything on their website to that effect. I was also relieved, a bit, by an internet search that mostly turned up statements from environmentalists praising the new design. (More than one half-facetiously mentioned it would be a great way to get to the next Live Earth concert.) A contrary voice was the Coventry (UK) Green Party, who complain that the Dreamliner isn't a "green victory" because, among other reasons, the factory used to build it is the largest building in the world.

Luddites, please, hitch your wagon elsewhere. Strange reports from the BBC aside, environmentalists everywhere should celebrate technologies that simultaneously improve mobility and environmental performance.

News of the bald eagle’s removal from the endangered species list on Reuters and elsewhere today:

It is a man-on-the-moon moment for wildlife….It's an incredible success story for our country, the eagle and the Endangered Species Act.

–Doug Inkley, senior scientist, National Wildlife Federation

Success story, yes. Man-on-the-moon moment, maybe—if by that you mean a national spectacle with little evidence to corroborate the “official” version of the facts.

Two major misconceptions evident in much of today’s coverage of the bald eagle’s recovery include, first, the reality that the bald eagle was endangered in name only. The population was threatened in the southern end of its range by the use of DDT as an agricultural insecticide after World War II, ending in 1972 when DDT was banned. Most eagles lived where DDT was not used heavily, and as a result have maintained healthy numbers to this day. Second, the bald eagle is being delisted in name only. Most of the provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), including stringent land-use controls, will be carried over into revised legislation that constitutes a “mini-ESA” for eagles.

If you want your coverage of the bald eagle’s recovery to be a little less moonwalk, a little more grounded on Earth, check out Reason’s just-released publications, The Bald Eagle, DDT, and the Endangered Species Act and The Bald Eagle's Worst Enemy—How Federal Law Pits Landowners Against Eagles.

Read on for highlights of Reason’s publications on the delisting of the eagle.

Jeff Poor at the Business & Media Institute is calling the latest ban out of San Francisco “extreme” and characterizes it as “following the radically liberal traditions” of the city. Oh no! What is it this time??

Ban-happy San Francisco is usually great fodder for debate, but moments like these illustrate how too often that debate is just a stale trade of knee jerk reactions. In this case, critics are complaining that the City of San Francisco has cut bottled water out of their budget beginning July 1. After this “extreme” move, city employees will be forced to drink tap water originating from snowmelt in Yosemite National Park (or bring their own, probably lesser-quality, water to work), which costs 1000 times less per gallon than bottled water, saving the city an estimated $500,000 per year. If only all fiscal conservatives were that “radically liberal” we’d be in great shape!

In his post today, Poor criticizes both NBC and CNN’s coverage of the new mandate for not including anyone from the bottled water industry to speak against the ban, and says that the move “raises safety concerns” about the security of the water supply in the event of an earthquake. Let me get this straight: unbiased news coverage means making sure industry reps get their fair chance to speak every time a local government tries to cut a little pork? And city employees drinking bottled water at work staves off earthquakes how?

At least the San Francisco Chronicle was quick to point out that, as Geoff Segal noted here at the time:

In 2005, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ordered city agencies to stop buying bottled water for employees after the media reported that the city had spent nearly $90,000 on it. At the same time, the city water agency was financing a $1 million ad campaign praising the virtues of what came out of the tap.

Christian Probasco has written an article called “California Looms” for New West about California nanny statism and other legislative tomfoolery. Probasco fears that the legislative excesses of California may work their way to other states in the western region (and elsewhere). As he notes in his column,

California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now.

It is, I fear, a legitimate concern. As my colleague Skaidra Smith-Heisters is quoted as saying the article, “What is perhaps different about California is that politicians and voters are not shy about approving radical laws. They enjoy the sense that California is the first state to try new things.”

Among some of the nanny bills being considered in California:

• AB 722—Would “phase out” the sale of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs (despite the fact that harmful levels of mercury from fluorescent bulbs can add up in landfills, contaminating the soil and making their way into the food supply). This bill has been amended so that now, instead of banning bulbs outright, it would have the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission set a minimum energy efficiency for bulbs. A nice P.R. move (banning things seems so harsh, but who can be against energy efficiency?) that would, in practice, still essentially ban incandescent bulbs.
• SB 7—Would ban smoking in a vehicle—moving or stationary—in which there is a minor.
• AB 86/AB 90/AB 97/SB 490—Would restrict the use of trans fats in restaurants and school cafeterias.
• SB 120/SB 180—Would require caloric, trans fat, saturated fat, and sodium content information to be printed on restaurant menus.
• AB 1634—Would require dog and cat owners to spay or neuter their animals by four months of age.

On their own, such nanny measures may seem innocuous, but small erosions of liberties can lead to large losses of freedom in the long run. As I said to Mr. Probasco in the article:

“In the grand scheme of things, it might seem like a minor inconvenience to buy a different kind of light bulb (and to have to start recycling instead of throwing them away) or to stop smoking in your own car if kids are present or include certain nutritional information on restaurant menus, but such minor violations of liberty add up over time. Before long, you look back and realize that you have given up a lot of your freedoms merely by acquiescing to others’ beliefs on how you should live your life.”

Philosopher and economist David Hume said, "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." If we want to continue to enjoy the blessings of a free society, it would be wise for us—in California or anywhere else—to heed his warning.

It looks like an all-out ban on incandescent light bulbs is off the table in California for the time being. AB 722, which would have banned sale of traditional light bulbs in the state by 2012, has been amended to require, instead, that the bulbs achieve a 50 lumens per watt efficiency (equivalent to the lower range of compact florescent bulbs) beginning in 2010 for 100-watt bulbs, phasing in through 2016 for 40-watt bulbs. Though not perfect, it is a substantially more elegant policy than the earlier proposal. According to the Assembly analysis of the proposed bill, "almost 2 percent" of the state's entire electricity consumption goes to power incandescent lights.

GE, don't fail me now!

Earlier posts on the topic here and here and here.

Also, for our general edification, a photo of AB 722 author, Assemblymember Lloyd Levine, proving (??) that the quality of light produced by florescent bulbs is nothing to be afraid of.

I'm not one to bash ideals like zero emissions or zero waste--if the price was right, who wouldn't want a net zero energy home? It's when that key piece of information--price--is left out of the equation that enthusiasm for holistic systems thinking and energy efficiency innovations crosses over into scary "cult of zero" territory. For example, a statement like this:

"You can have more efficient cars and houses, but until we get to a point where people don't have to drive to do anything, from buying a loaf of bread to going to work, we won't be truly addressing climate change."

--Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, Chair, California Energy Commission, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle

The Chronicle elaborates: "Speaking at a climate change conference in Santa Barbara in March, Pfannenstiel declared that the state needed a cultural revolution when it came to land-use planning." Pfannenstiel is an educated economist, so we can give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that these quotes are taken out of context. Policy that badly out of context is another issue...

The California Industrial Hemp Farming Act, AB 684, was approved in the State Assembly yesterday on a 41–29 vote. Nearly identical legislation, AB 1147, was vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year, evidently in order to appease law enforcement concerns that hemp would be used as a screen for marijuana. That legislation was approved in the Assembly by a slightly wider margin, 44–29. In his veto statement last year, Gov. Schwarzenegger said, “I am very concerned that this bill would give legitimate growers a false sense of security and a belief that production of ‘industrial hemp’ is somehow a legal activity under federal law.”

In fact, production of industrial hemp is “somehow” a legal activity under federal law, albeit one subject to a DEA permit, as Gov. Schwarzenegger went on to say in his veto message: “Any person in the United States that wishes to grow cannabis plants for any purpose, including industrial purposes, must first obtain permission and register with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).” The Governor’s conclusion: “As a result, it would be improper to approve a measure that directly conflicts with current federal statutes and court decisions. This only serves to cause confusion and reduce public confidence in our government system.”

Is Gov. Schwarzenegger’s fear for the peace of mind of California farmers and businesses warranted? The Assembly analysis reports that California businesses already import tens of thousands of acres’ worth of hemp fiber, seed and oil every year. Presumably, these folks are not confused about the law—it is evident every time they calculate their bottom line. A Zogby poll commissioned this February by hemp industry group Vote Hemp, found that 71 percent (+/- 3.5 percent) of Californians support changing the state laws to allow farmers to grow hemp. And as far as public confidence and our sense of security with respect to Cannabis sativa goes, 74 percent (+/- 4.5) of registered voters in California support the state’s medical marijuana laws, which run contrary to the same federal drug statutes as hemp, according to a 2004 Field Poll.

More here.

So many people have proposed so many ways of dealing with global warming (btw, Sheryl Crow now says her toilet paper plan was a joke). Our Bob Poole just tossed a little perspective into the debate.

From his most recent Surface Transportation Innovations newsletter (which will be archived here soon):

Whatever you may think about the extent to which human activity is generating greenhouse gases that are warming the earth, the political reality is that curbs on carbon emissions are coming. The question before us in transportation is how to deal with this challenge in the most cost-effective ways.

One of the worst things we could do is to single out transportation as the villain of the piece, focusing controls disproportionately on this sector that is so vital to economic activity. That’s the perspective of ridiculous books like last year’s Lives per Gallon, which attributes most of the world’s evils to the use of petroleum products as transportation fuel. Petroleum fuels are still critically important, since we don’t yet have anything with the same energy density, a crucial component for a vehicle that must carry its energy source around with it (especially aircraft, where weight-minimization is essential). Petroleum accounts for 42% of total US energy usage, and two-thirds of that is used for transportation. Thus, we use 28% of our energy on transportation.

Electricity is one of the other major uses of energy, with the largest sources being coal and natural gas, not oil. So any sensible policy for reducing carbon emissions has to look carefully at all energy use, not just transportation. Coal is by far the largest source of carbon emissions, and there are ready substitutes for coal as power plant fuel. An article on coal mining, in the Wall Street Journal this week, noted the worldwide problem of uncontrolled fires in coal mines. According to the article, “ . . . more than 100 million tons of coal are consumed by fires annually in China, contributing as much to worldwide carbon dioxide emissions as all the cars and light trucks in the U.S.” If that number is valid, it may well be more cost-effective to go after that problem (sheer waste) before taking draconian measures to curtail vehicle fuel use.

Last year the CA legislature passed AB 32, which sets goals for cutting CA greenhouse gas emissions and directs the Air Resources Board to promulgate regulations to that end. But rather than wait for that process, environmental activist groups are suing rght and left to force government agencies to cut greenhouse emissions. The latest example is in San Bernadino County, where activist groups have been joined by Jerry Brown in suing the county because their proposed general plan does not "do enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Such suits in advance of the law are ridiculous. An editorial in the Riverside Press Enterprise explains it. Thanks to Steve Frank for spotting this.

Today's Wall Street Journal praises Sen. Barbara Boxer for her bright idea of making the federal government more energy efficient by such innovations as turning off the lights and computers at night. Its estimated that the feds consume about a third more energy per square foot than the average buliding...this inefficiency costs us at least a $1 billion a year.

The WSJ correctly suggests a better idea though, "the best way to make the federal government more energy efficient would be to undertake a government-wide policy of . . . lights out, permanently. Save the environment; kill a federal program."

Finally an environmental program I can embrace.

As the deadline for bills to be introduced in the California legislature came and went last week, many noted a promising frontrunner for the wackiest bill of the year: the How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act (AB722). The bill, which would ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs in the state beginning in 2012, was brought to us by Assemblymember Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), who last year sponsored the legislative crackdown on plastic grocery bags.

This legislation and similar “if you can’t beat them, ban them” proposals announced recently in New Jersey, Ontario and Australia are intended to boost sales of compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).

Tomorrow, the state committee charged with advising the California Air Resources Board on design for a “market-based compliance program” to implement California’s Global Warming Solutions Act will hear comments from author and socially-responsible-tech-entrepreneur Peter Barnes. In his 2001 book, Who Owns the Sky?, Barnes staked out a bold position in the debate on how to allocate atmospheric property rights by advocating that dividends be paid out of a carbon cap-and-trade system to a public trust, similar to oil dividends paid out of the Alaska Permanent Fund. His answer to the question of initial entitlement is that the atmosphere’s carbon storage capacity should be a common asset controlled through a “Sky Trust”—as opposed to a state-owned asset or an asset to be given away to corporate users.

The gist of Barnes’ planned remarks, posted on EcosystemMarketplace.com:

The economic value of the atmosphere is a form of common wealth—no corporation created it, and it belongs to everyone. This common wealth can and should be used for the benefit of all.

There are several ways this can be done. The first and most obvious way is for the state to auction carbon emission permits, rather than give them free to historic polluters….

A second way the economic value of the atmosphere can be used for the common good is to distribute 'carbon shares' to the citizens of California, as has been proposed by the Climate Protection Campaign of Sonoma County. Each 'carbon share' would be equal to the total number of permits issued divided by the number of eligible California citizens. Citizens would sell their shares to banks or brokerage firms, who in turn would sell them to emitters. In this way, a carbon market would develop without a state auction, and all Californians would equally share the windfall that arises from carbon capping. The committee should carefully consider this elegant option.

Recognition of the painfully inelegant allocation of carbon emission entitlements in the European carbon trading model thus far is important, but there is also a huge cringe factor for me in Barnes’ usual assertion that the economic value of the atmosphere is a “gift from our common creator.” Where’s the discussion of all the private assets (well-managed forests and agricultural land, etc.) that are producing uncompensated positive externalities in the form of carbon sinks even as we speak?

Arnold Kling wrote on TCS Daily "'Just-in-Case': How to Think About Uncertainty and Global Warming/"

Obviously, we have nothing to worry about if the models are too pessimistic. If it turns out that over the next decade global temperatures edge down, or rise more slowly than the models predict, then we will be relieved.

The troublesome possibility is that the models are not pessimistic enough. In fact, Weitzman would argue, and I concur, that the case for doing something today about global warming rests on the fear of the scenario of accelerated near-term climate change -- increases in temperature at a rate that is on the high end of the range being forecast by climate models.

WorldatWork:

A growing number of American workers are reporting that their employers allows them to work remotely at least one day per month, according to a recent survey by WorldatWork.

The survey found that 12.4 million workers reported that their employer allowed them to work remotely at least one day per month in 2006, up from 9.9 million in 2005 and 7.6 million in 2004. WorldatWork estimates that about 8 percent of American workers have an employer that allows them to telecommute at least one day per month.

The organization says the increase is likely the result of a combination of factors, including the proliferation of high speed/broadband and other wireless access (which has made it both less expensive and more productive to work remotely) and the willingness of more employers to embrace flexibility.

More here.

Related: Telecommuting no big deal anymore

Related: Wait’ll all those MySpacers become managers

Network World’s Bob Brown interviews Tom Mulhall, co-owner of The Terra Cotta Inn, a clothing optional resort and spa in Palm Springs, CA.

Any advice to those looking to give naked telework a whirl?

Get a laptop with good screen resolution. Since Palm Springs is very sunny, we have seen guests with a towel over there head and laptop to cut down glare. Otherwise you will be forced to work in the shade. Also don't use a laptop at the edge of the pool while you are in the water. Laptops, a few cocktails and pool water do not mix as we have seen a few times.

Do you know of people who have sought out telecommuting jobs to satisfy their desire to work naked?

Yes, we have some guests mainly in the high-tech field that purposely freelance so that they can live nude at home. They just dislike wearing clothes, and freelancing out of their homes is the best thing that has ever happened to them. I would say, however, that most of our guests do not consider themselves nudists. They are regular people who just enjoy nude sunbathing on their vacations.

Related: How many of them are there?

Back in the clothed world of telecommuting, the online classroom is becoming mainstream:

[There are] 1 million kindergarten through high school student enrollments in virtual schooling across the nation, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a nonprofit organization for administrators, teachers and others involved in online schooling.

Enrollment, counted as the total number of seats in all online classes, not the number of students, has grown more than 20 times in seven years, and the group expects the numbers to continue to jump 30% annually.

Article here.

Related: Telecollege gets a boost

It can be tough to sort out all the pros and cons of owning a hybrid car. There’s the gas mileage advantage, but that’s often overstated.

Even though the savings may not be as grand as advertised, you'll still save money at the pump. But since you pay more at the dealership you’ll have factor in your driving habits and do a bit of number-crunching to figure out if your four-wheeled eco-statement will save you dough in the long-run. And there are plenty of other factors to consider. For example, what about maintenance costs and resale value?

A new study looks at the whole hybrid:

A study released today by auto industry analysts at IntelliChoice shows that all of the 22 hybrid models currently sold in the U.S. will save owners money thanks to lower total cost of ownership, compared with competing vehicles.

That news is significant vindication for manufacturers and consumers of hybrid gas-electrics that have often endured questions from critics and consumers alike about the long-term economy of the technology-packed cars.
…

The IntelliChoice survey focused on seven criteria, including depreciation, fuel costs, finance costs, insurance, repairs, maintenance, and applicable state fees. After the Prius, the group found the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Toyota Highlander 2WD, and the Lexus RX 400h (2WD and AWD) were the most cost-efficient over a five-year or 70,000-mile period. Those models are all made by the two leading hybrid manufacturers, Honda and Toyota.

Business Week article here.

Slide show of hybrid rankings here.

Related: What politicians drive

There's an interesting piece in the LA Times today on Wal Mart's move to incorporate environmental and energy-efficiency initiatives into its business model. Certainly, they are poised to be a corporate pioneer in this field, which is a huge positive for those of us that appreciate private sector environmental innovation. But I get a real kick out of the cognitive dissonance an article like this must produce among the "Wal Mart is evil" crowd, particularly when Wal Mart gets props from none other than the Sierra Club and CERES.

Wind turbines, rows of tall windows, a 200-foot-long dimpled-metal wall and shiny rooftop solar panels are just hints of what's to come.

Here, next to a busy freeway in suburban Denver, is tomorrow's Wal-Mart today. And it's getting a lot of attention.

For the last year, this experimental Wal-Mart Supercenter has been testing ways to be more environmentally sensitive in everything it does.

What works here won't stay in Aurora. The world's largest retailer wants ideas it can use in all of its more than 6,600 stores around the globe.

. . . .

Wal-Mart's sustainability efforts, unlike some of its other initiatives, also have won the company something more elusive: approval from critics and others not predisposed to Wal-Mart fandom.

A recent New York gala dinner hosted by movie producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein honored Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr. for "his commitment to environmental sustainability." Co-hosts included talk-show star Charlie Rose, NBC Universal CEO Bob Wright, MTV creator Robert Pittman and investment banker Steven Rattner.

. . . .

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, declined to work with Wal-Mart on environmental matters because the company wouldn't agree also to talk about labor, healthcare and other issues.

Nonetheless, Pope said that after examining Wal-Mart's initiatives, he was convinced the company was making a sincere and significant commitment, even if he was skeptical that some goals could be reached.

"None of this is 'greenstanding,' " said Pope, who also serves on Wal-Mart Watch's board. "Their metrics are impressive; they're not modest.

"They deserve the chance to show that their business model is compatible with high standards, not just low prices."

I see stuff like this as more evidence that managers should rethink their in-the-desk-from-9-to-5 mentality:

Psychology researchers performed a study with 16 subjects, each restricted to 5 hours of sleep at night. The subjects were split into 4 groups — no nap, 30-s nap, 90-s nap, and 10-min nap. Subjects that took naps for 90 seconds or less were not found to perform any better on alertness and cognitive tasks. However, subjects that took a 10 minute nap significantly improve performance in multiple post-nap tests. This seems to suggest that only stage 2 sleep helps you recuperate from lack of nocturnal sleep.

Study here; via Tasty Research.

I think one of the reasons telecommuters often work longer and more productively than office workers is because they’re better able to fit in recuperative activities. Even just creating a more comfortable environment—working outdoors from a reclining chair as I recall one design engineer doing, going tie-less (or even less)—helps workers’ brains stay fresh.

Related: Telecommuters Prove More Productive (with comments from yours truly)

Or put differently, climate change happens...

Some apparently think so. Don't miss Brendan O'Neill's excellent piece on calls to silence dissent in the global warming debate. Here's a sample:

Behind the talk of facts and figures we can glimpse the reality: an authoritarian campaign that has no interest whatsoever in engaging us in debate but rather thinks up ‘shrewd’ ways to change the way we behave. From the description of facts as ‘so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken’ to the lumping together of climate change deniers with Holocaust deniers – and even Holocaust practitioners – we can see a creeping clampdown on any genuine, open debate about climate change, science and society. This represents a dangerous denigration of free speech. When George W Bush said after 9/11 ‘You’re either with us or against us’, he was widely criticised. Yet greens, think-tanks, reputable institutions and government ministers are using precisely the same tactic, drawing a line between good and proper people who accept the facts about climate change and those moral lepers who do not; between those who submit to having their common sense nurtured by the powers-that-be and those who dare to doubt or debate.

If anything, the greens’ black-and-white divide is worse than Bush’s. At least his was based on some kind of values, allowing us the opportunity to say yes or no to them; the greens’ divide is based on ‘facts’, which means that those who decide that they are ‘against’ rather than ‘with’ can be labelled liars, deniers or crackpots like moon-landing conspiracy theorists or anti-Semitic historians.

(hat tip: Instapundit)

As voters in California consider two water infrastructure and park bonds on the November ballot, Prop. 1E and Prop. 84, a state Department of Finance audit finds that “only a small fraction of the $10 billion from four environmental bonds voters passed between 2000 and 2002” was misappropriated by a software glitch (Dept. of Water Resources), spent on Red Carpet Club membership (Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy), or used to pay for yoga classes (state Coastal Conservancy). In some muckraking no doubt inspired by the anti-yoga lobby, the Contra Costa Times reports:

The state Coastal Conservancy spent $38,000 in bond funds for questionable purposes, including $29,000 for lobbying in Washington, $5,000 for employee transit subsidies and $3,500 for employee yoga and weight-loss programs in the fiscal year ending June 2005, according to an audit report in March. The conservancy agreed to reimburse the bond funds.

The head of the state Coastal Conservancy, Samuel Schuchat, said his agency's spending on improper items amounted to a small fraction of 1 percent of the $431 million the agency has spent.

Schuchat told auditors that if other funds were unavailable, it would be justifiable to use bond money for employee benefits, including yoga, weight-loss programs and transit. But he backed off that stance in an interview.

"We will not spend bond money for yoga classes," he said. "People will make mistakes and the auditors will hopefully find them so we can fix them. ... That's why you do audits."

So I guess the lesson is, as long as the fraction of environmental bond money spent on yoga classes is less than 1 percent, everything’s good. With Props. 1E and 84 adding up to about $9.5 billion, we’ve got $90,000,000 to spend on yoga classes!

Last week an attorney representing taxpayer interests sent a request to Attorney General Lockyer asking for the recovery of funds allegedly misappropriated by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. Conveniently, California law also allows bond funds to be used to reimburse legal expenses.

There are probably quite a few enviros and transit-backers who wish we’d stop asking people to drive less, stop talking about tinkering with the gas tax, and just yank keys away from drivers.

Mexico City tried that, sort of. In 1989 officials introduced a program that bans all vehicles from driving one workday per week based on the last digit of the vehicle's license plate.

Certainly that kind of “get tough” policy would cut emissions and boost transit ridership … Or maybe not.

Matthew Kahn points to a study by University of Michigan’s Lucas W. Davis: The Effect of Driving Restrictions on Air Quality in Mexico City.

From the abstract:

Across pollutants and specifications there is no evidence that the program has improved air quality. The policy has caused a relative increase in air pollution during weekends and hours of the day when the restrictions are not in place, but there is no evidence of an absolute improvement in air quality during any hour of the day or any day of the week. Furthermore, while it was hoped that the program would cause drivers to substitute to low-emissions forms of transportation, there is no evidence of increased ridership of the Mexico City subway or public bus system. Instead, evidence from the market for used taxis suggests that the program induced substitution to taxis.

More here.

Related: More unintended consequences here

Another sign that telecommuting is moving from emerging innovation to commonplace practice:

Most companies now offer workers the option to work from home, satellite offices and other locations, according to a survey conducted by Philadelphia-based Yoh Services, a provider of talent and outsourcing services. The survey also found that most Human Resources (HR) managers expect the use of telecommuting to increase over the next two years.

"We learned that companies need to build a product that says, 'if you come and work for us here's what you're going to have: a casual work environment, a flexible schedule' -- whatever that may be," said Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing for Yoh. "Companies are realizing that in order to attract the best people to come work for their companies they need to create an environment that's conducive to do that."

Yoh surveyed 198 HR managers at the Society for Human Resource Management 2006 Conference and Exposition in June about their company's telecommuting policies. The results of the survey were just released this week.

According to the survey, 81 percent of hiring managers now have policies that allow employees to work remotely. In addition, 67 percent of hiring managers believe the number of employees who work remotely will grow by 2008.

Respondents to Computerword’s most recent annual Best Places to Work in IT survey cited telecommuting as an important facet of their jobs, with 36 percent calling it “extremely important.”

More here.

Related: The Telecommuting Trend

Anousheh Ansari is the first female Muslim in space, the first Iranian to reach Earth orbit, and perhaps the first civilian telecommuter in the ISS:

she has been trying to keep on top of her office work while she has been aboard, and has been receiving status reports from her staff at Prodea Systems, the telecommunications company she co-founded.

Article here.

Related: Directing a film from a hospital bed; attending college from home

…partially, on at least one topic. Reuters reports that Gore advocated a tax shift to replace all payroll taxes, including those for Social Security and unemployment compensation, with a tax on carbon dioxide emissions in a speech at New York University School of Law on Monday.

Of course, the idea of a revenue-neutral swap of taxes on labor for taxes on environmental “bads” isn’t Gore’s. Folks that are familiar with Arthur Pigou’s work on economics in the 1920s—and indeed, folks that are familiar with economics at all—were doubtless gratified to hear Gore characterize payroll taxes as “penalizing employment.”

The green tax shift has been underway in Europe for more than a decade now, but the claims of US green tax advocates that these reforms would create a “double dividend” or win-win by both reducing pollution (the first dividend) and increasing economic efficiency by replacing other more distortionary taxes (the second dividend) are regarded skeptically by most experts today (a sampling here and here and here and here). Even less appealing is the idea of lumping environmental taxes onto the distortionary tax structure we already have.

So, if Gore wants to make economists happy for the second time this week, he’ll announce support for eliminating payroll taxes first, as a good-will gesture.

(Side note—Gore’s new book is to be titled The Assault on Reason. We’ll be on the lookout for said assault this spring.)

Many in the blogosphere are howling about this article from The Australian, which I linked to yesterday. At issue is what to make of a leak from an IPCC report.

From Real Climate:

The principle error in the latest 'exclusive' is that the writer confuses a tightening of the estimate of climate sensitivity to 2xCO2 (as discussed here) with projections of climate change in 2100. These projections obviously depend on the uncertainties in the scenarios of future technology, economic progress and population (etc.) plus uncertainties in feedbacks related to the carbon or methane cycles. Unfortunately these have not been reduced since the last assessment report (and in some cases have actually increased).

More here.

So says Paul Zimmet, chairman of the WHO’s International Congress on Obesity.

More here.

Flashback: US Surgeon General compares obesity to terror threat

And speaking of global warming:

A draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained exclusively by The Weekend Australian, offers a more certain projection of climate change than the body's forecasts five years ago.

For the first time, scientists are confident enough to project a 3C rise on the average global daily temperature by the end of this century if no action is taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Draft Fourth Assessment Report says the temperature increase could be contained to 2C by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are held at current levels.

In 2001, the scientists predicted temperature rises of between 1.4C and 5.8C on current levels by 2100, but better science has led them to adjust this to a narrower band of between 2C and 4.5C.

The new projections put paid to some of the more alarmist scenarios raised by previous modelling, which have suggested that sea levels could rise by almost 1m over the same period.

The report projects a rise in sea levels by century's end of between 14cm and 43cm, with further rises expected in following centuries caused by melting polar ice.

The new projections forecast damage by global warming, such as stronger cyclones, modest sea-level rises and further shrinking of the arctic sea ice.

More here.

As we mark the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's devastating landfall today, it is fitting that we look at the progress that has been made in rebuilding the region--and the lack of progress. As Harry Mount explains in a recent article for the UK's Daily Telegraph, there have been stark differences in the rebuilding effort between the public and private sectors:

[W]hile private business has flourished, public works have failed miserably. Schools are only just opening. University departments have been closed for good. Courtrooms don't have enough judges to deal with the renaissance of America's murder capital.

Mount continues:

This mismatch between private and public has nothing to do with shortage of public money; after Katrina, President Bush promised £58 billion ($110 billion) in federal aid for the victims. New Orleans and its crooked ways are partly to blame. Only this weekend, a pair of Bobcat excavators worth £50,000 ($95,000) were stolen from the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city, where they were being used to build a memorial to the victims of Katrina.

But the chief culprit is a federal government clogged with bureaucracy and indecision, incapable of spending money even when it's got tons of the stuff.

The American government can just about arrange an orgy in a brothel -- fraudulent applications for Katrina aid were spent on champagne and prostitutes -- but it is hopeless when it comes to large-scale federal construction projects.

This paralyzing bureaucracy is not limited to Katrina recovery efforts, either. As Mount notes, the same maladies have impaired rebuilding efforts at the World Trade Center site as well.

In the five years since September 11, one building, 7 World Trade Centre, the third and least-known skyscraper to collapse that day, is the only one to have been rebuilt.

At 7 WTC, the site's leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, worked unencumbered by the attentions of government. As a result, the £350 million ($665 million), 52-storey tower went up this May without a hitch.

A couple of hundred yards from 7 WTC, Ground Zero is still a great big empty concrete tub.

Mr Silverstein owns the lease to the Ground Zero pit and the rights to rebuild all the space lost within it. But, while 7 World Trade Centre is outside the pit and entirely under his control, construction inside the pit is run by government, principally George Pataki, the outgoing governor of New York State.

We should take these lessons to heart when we consider options for rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, the World Trade Center site, and future disaster areas. It is not government planning, but market forces, that allow for the quickest, most appropriate, and most economical recovery of disaster areas. People and businesses will seek opportunities to invest their resources and offer their services where they are most needed--if only government will get out of the way and let them do it.

Often when scientists try to explain the value of biodiversity to the general public, they resort to hypotheticals like, “What if a rainforest plant contained the cure to cancer?” One that we might be hearing more of: “What if alligator blood was the cure for HIV?”

Tests at the Georgetown University Medical Center have reportedly found:

Alligator blood serum killed all 16 strains of bacteria exposed to it, while human blood serum killed only six. Among the eradicated bacteria were E. coli and strains that cause dysentery, salmonella, and strep and staph infections. Alligator blood also killed the herpes simplex virus and a strain of HIV.

That’s good news for people and for alligators alike.

While it appears that the alligator’s 230 million-year-old immune system is as formidable as its bite, the animals are more akin to the coalminers’ canary when it comes to chemical sensitivity. Reproductive abnormalities in alligators were an early indication of the endocrine-disrupting properties of some pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals which leak into the alligators’ environment.

But alligators do have another thing going for them. In 1967 when the American alligator was listed as an endangered species, the Fish and Wildlife Service made the unusual decision to allow people to own and farm the species. Legal alligator farming succeeded where decades of hunting restrictions failed, and as a result the population is one of the very few species ever to be delisted under the Endangered Species Act.

The potential utility of alligator-based drugs will likely earn alligators a position on another short list: the list of animals, including the fruit fly, Norwegian rat and the mosquito that transmits malaria, whose genes are